What would you do when your speedometer decided to quit on you? In my case, it didn’t really quit but took a longer than usual nap. The speedometer has been having intermittent problems where at times it would take sometimes for it to get activated. A sign of an aging car.. For my friend, Apak Cikidong, his solution was to replace it with a new one. For me, I am just waiting for it to completely fail before replacing it. At the moment, once in a while, I just need to bear driving without knowing my speed for a few kilometers before the meter wakes up. Since most of my driving is done in town, with or without the speed does not really make any difference..

But, when you are driving on a highway, you must know your speed. You would not want to go too fast and too slow either. Last Friday, before our Maxis WBB got fried, we drove to Melaka. It was one of those days where the speedometer got lazy. I thought, like the other days, it would wake up after some distance. This time I was wrong. All the way, mid point between Shah Alam and Nilai, the meter remained comatose..

Out of no choice, I connected my Android HTC Wildfire to the Android Market and looked for a speedometer apps. (DO NOT do this while driving, like what I did!) Found a few apps and after reading the reviews I have decided to go for SpeedView by Code Sector. This apps saved the day!

SpeedView is an advanced speedometer application that uses the phone’s built-in GPS system to show your current, maximum and average speed, as well as direction, total distance and time traveled. Suitable for running, car driving, biking or hiking. The good thing is that it will run entirely on GPS signal and therefore, you can switch off your data connection and save some battery and data quota / charges.

The features include High accuracy since it is on GPS, Linear compass, HUD mode (not sure how to get this one working yet), Speed graph (nice to see), Display units (mph, km/h and knots), Speed warning, GPX track export (haven’t figured out this one yet), Background mode and a few more..

And guess what? The display is really cool with ability to zoom in and out and the colors can be customized to your liking..

So, the next time when my speedometer slips into a coma or even dies, I can turn on SpeedView and drive on.

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We decided to sleep in Melaka before the trip to Dumai. Well, the trip was originally planned to be today but then since I just found my car key, we missed the ferry… Anyway, instead of having to wake up very early and drive to Melaka tomorrow, the better thing to do is to just go to Melaka now and get a hotel and take our own sweet time tomorrow morning.

After surfing for a budget hotel, yup, budget tak cukup so sebelum budget lain lari, kena la cari budget hotel kan kan kan…, Diah found RS Park Hotel. I called up the hotel and one Miss Hanim told us that the hotel is just at the back of Mahkota Parade. Sounds easy enough to find… Tetapi…

Pasha took a long nap after lunch and we only left Shah Alam after 5 pm. By the time we got there, it was already 8 something at night. I am not a fast driver and I like to make a few stops here and there hence the 3 hour drive… 90kmh tu dah kira laju dah tu…. We went to the back of Mahkota Parade and look for RS Park. Tak nampak pun? We could not find it and that one Miss Hanim did not pick up my call and out of over confidence, we did not copy its address and by this time…..

Pasha: “Papa…”

Papa: “Ya Pasha.”

Pasha: “Ni udah mayam…” (it’s already night)

Papa: “Ok…”

He repeated the above for about 20 times with a 10 second break before he went “Papa…” again. Imagine that while you were frantically trying to locate a building in the middle of an unfamiliar territory…

Tried to locate using Gamin GPS… That place was not even in the list… Cap ayam ke tempat tuh?

Tired, disoriented and unable to focus in between “Ni udah mayam…”, we found a little hotel called The Motel. At RM68, we settled in for the night…

In the morning we saw the hotel and it was not really behind Mahkota Parade… It was just across the street from where we stayed… Cis…. Banyakla dia punya belakang Parade…

With Google Maps at my disposal, I have no need for a global positioning system (GPS) device. I was thinking dreaming about getting myself a GPS enabled cellphone but since I discovered what Google Maps can do, I can just forget about GPS. GPS may have its own advantages over Google Maps but what Google Maps have what I need and therefore, that is good enough for me.

Using Google Maps for the first time: I had the opportunity to use it for the first time when I had to visit a client in Batu Pahat, Johor last Wednesday. They have shifted to a new office that was quite a distance away from the old place. I am not at all familiar with Batu Pahat and therefore, it would be an opportunity to put Google Maps to the test.

It is simple to use. I have already saved my home location and all I need to do is get the direction to my client’s place by by entering his new street address. Once that is done, I was given a map and a detail instruction to follow. My client had advised me to take the Ayer Hitam exit since that would make my finding the new place easier and due to that, I just need to drag the exit suggested from Yong Peng to Ayer Hitam and Google Maps plotted the new directions for me to follow. It was as simple as that.

On top of that, I was given the estimated mileage to the location as well as the estimated time that the trip would take. With that I was able to provide my ETA to my clients and it was quite accurate. Based on the ETA given, the average speed calculated was about 70 km/h. That must be the combination of highways and normal road used. Anyway, I managed to find my clients new place easily with the help of Google Maps.

Google Maps vs GPS: During lunch, I told my client that I found my way using Google Maps. He has a GPS enabled Blackberry cellphone and I have Google Maps loaded to my cellphone and we decided to run some test for the fun of it. The first task was to locate his house. Google Maps managed to locate that within seconds while his GPS system returned an “address not found” message. Round one goes to Google Maps.

The second test was to do the “Where I am” task. Google Maps showed my location within seconds while even after a few minutes, the GPS was still searching for a satellite. Google Maps scored again.

In conclusion, Google Maps is a good alternative to GPS and all I need was an internet enabled cellphone for it to work.

To use Google Maps on your computer, go to http://maps.google.com/.

To use Google Maps on your cellphone, go to m.google.com/maps on your cellphone or go to http://www.google.com/mobile/default/maps.html on your computer.