Garmin discontinuing map updates for older models
I'm genuinely surprised this didn't happen sooner.
Garmin says that a whole bunch of models will no longer receive map updates as of July 2023. Basically put, the map updates will stop for most models made before 2013.
While true it states this will only apply to Australian and New Zealand models, it would not surprise me at all if North American models will be included in the no-more-updated-maps shortly after that.
Does anybody still use a Garmin GPS that's over 10 years old?
While I personally have a collection of old Garmin GPSes, my daily driver is the Garmin DriveSmart 66, a current model at the time I write this.
Older Garmin models I'd consider using as daily drivers would be the nuvi 2599LMTHD and nuvi 56LMT.
The absolute oldest I'd use would be the nuvi 2597LMT, a 2013 model. Using anything older than that is where I really notice the age of a older Garmin GPS. Slow searching, slow map drawing, slow route calculation and so on.
The whole "lifetime maps" thing
This is the part where people get mad.
Take the nuvi 50LM, originally released in 2011, and one of the best models Garmin ever made. It's really basic and has no smartphone connectivity and no traffic support, but is ultra-legible and is an incredible basic GPS navigator.
The "LM" in nuvi 50LM means "Lifetime Maps". Lifetime in this instance does not mean forever. It means the useful lifetime of the device...
...and that's where we enter this gray area.
What amount of time qualifies as the useful lifetime of a device? That's never been answered. Is that Garmin's fault? Not really. At the time they introduced Lifetime Maps, it's probably true nobody at Garmin ever thought anybody would still be using the same nuvi 10 years later. There was even documentation written that said if you didn't update your device at least once every 2 years, no more free map updates.
But, here we are in '23, and some people actually do use a 10+ year old Garmin GPS and regularly update whenever a new map is released.
There were two errors Garmin made. Use of the word lifetime, and not documenting any end-of-support dates (or at least none I could see).
Per use of the word lifetime, all I can say there is Garmin should have never used that word, but they did and the damage is done there. They're going to get flak for ending support on 10+ year old "lifetime" products and that's just the way it is.
The July '23 date is the first I've seen where Garmin finally announced end-of-support for a particular line of automotive GPS products. So yes, Garmin has finally documented a date, and it's good in the way they did it. A date was announced several months in the future that gives the user ample time to back up their favorites and switch over to a newer model.
But again, people are still going to get mad because they think lifetime means forever.
As the old saying goes, nothing is forever.
A dirt cheap data recovery solution
I didn't even think this thing would work, but it did.
2023 has been the year where I've finally decided to get off old media completely. This started with pulling data off DVDs and transferring that to flash (as in USB sticks and SSDs). It ended with getting data off a few old hard disk drives I had, but required buying a thing to do it due to my own stupidity.
A few months back I ran across an old power brick while I was cleaning out some things. I checked the connector and it didn't look like it belonged to anything, so I threw it out. Later on, I go to pull data off those old HDDs and realized oops, that was the power brick that went to the only IDE style drive enclosure I had. Yep, stupid.
Now I needed another IDE connector, so I scanned around and found one (actually, it was one of one of several available), and bought it for real cheap since I knew I'd only use this a handful of times and then never again.
Did it work? At first, it didn't. I had 3 HDDs I needed to access. The first one didn't work, the second didn't work and the third did. It just happened that the third didn't have a jumper on it, so I took the jumper off the other two drives and then they worked. (Evidently, connecting a HDD with a jumper having the drive set "master" or "cable select" is something this doesn't like for whatever reason.)
As dirt cheap as this thing is, it was smartly designed. I had both 2.5" mobile HDDs and a 3.5" HDD to deal with. One side of the IDE connector the kit came with is for 2.5" drives that can be self-powered with USB alone. The other side is for 3.5" drives and requires the drive to be externally powered, hence the reason for the power brick you see in the photo at top.
It was lovely that this cheap kit came with everything needed to power up an IDE drive and get to the data on it. The only downside is there was no instruction manual whatsoever. Just a box of cables and a power brick. It would have been nice if there was at least a one-page card that gave instructions, but nope, I didn't even get that. I suppose that's what you can expect for as cheap as I bought it for.
It was also lovely that I didn't have to mess around with any software drivers. Once I figured out that all the drives needed to be jumper-less, it was as simple as plug-in-and-go and the drive showed up on the computer.
Was I able to recover anything?
Yes, but only from 1 of the 3 drives just because only 1 actually had recoverable stuff on it. After plugging it in, it initially showed as a formatted blank. I ran Recuva and it found a whole bunch of stuff that I was able to recover.
In the end, the recovered data I was able to archive made buying the cheap IDE kit worth it.
That sound
One last thing to say for now just because I think it's funny. Of the 3 drives, one was a really old 6GB 2.5" HDD from some laptop I had years ago. When that thing spun up, it made a drive noise I've not heard in a long time. I can't really describe it in words. It's a noise where if you remember how loud HDDs used to be back in the '90s and '00s, you instantly recognize that sound.
That sound isn't pleasant but at the same time nothing to make you run for ear plugs. It's just a sound that nearly all PC and laptop drives used to make that you never hear anymore.
Think of it as the same as hearing a dial-up modem handshake connection noise, or the noises a floppy disk drive makes when the diskette is being used, or even a telephone dial tone. That sort of thing. You hear that sound, and in your mind you're instantly transported years ago back to when you used to hear noises like that regularly.
Blu-ray vs. everything else for data storage
It is interesting that this isn't cheaper.
I recently just did a massive data transfer where I finally moved all the data I had backed up from DVD to flash media. SSD, specifically. Why not Blu-ray? In both the short and long term, it's just not a good option.
Any Blu-ray burner drive (internal or external) will at the time I write this in January '23 runs you 65 bucks minimum.
For blank media, you have two options. Regular and M-DISC. The M-DISC format is specifically for archival purposes and will outlive you regardless of what age you are. I'm not kidding.
When you do the math, regular BD-R costs about 88 cents per disc that can hold 25GB each. That sounds nice at first until you realize it takes 40 discs to reach 1TB of storage.
Okay, you say, I'll get 50GB Blu-ray discs. Now the price just doubled, and it still takes 20 discs to get 1TB of storage.
If I go with SanDisk 512GB USB 3.0 stick instead, that's a one-time $40 cost, and all of the 512GB is available immediately on one stick.
If I get a 3.5" HDD enclosure (about $30) and a 5400RPM 4TB HDD (about $65), the cost is $95 - but - I'm getting a full 4TB all up front, all at once. Yes, it requires a powered enclosure, but still, we're talking 4TB here. I could even go 8TB 5400RPM HDD if I wanted.
Blu-ray would be better if...
...the drives and media were cheaper. But they're not. And there's no good reason why they're not.
A Blu-ray burner drive at this point should be 30 bucks, but it's more than double that.
A 50-pack of BD-R DL discs (the 50GB kind) should also be 30 bucks, but it's well more than double that. And bear in mind I'm talking about regular Blu-ray and not the highfalutin M-DISC stuff.
The real kicker...
...is there is no guarantee there will be any new Blu-ray drives available even in as little as 10 years from now.
With HDDs and flash media sticks, I'm fairly certain there will still be USB A style ports around in the future. If not, there will at least be adapters available.
With Blu-ray however, yes the drive will connect via USB most likely. But if there are no new drives to, you know, spin the disc to read the data, that's a problem. If you decided to use Blu-ray today, the best long term solution is to buy an external drive, test it once to make sure it works, then put it in storage and hope it works 10 years later... which is not a good solution at all.
If Blu-ray were cheap, then sure, you could buy backup optical drives and it wouldn't be much of an issue. But again, it's not cheap.
You're just better off with flash media or HDDs for big storage.
I might be a believer in HSH guitars now
I bought one. And I might keep it.
A new guitar in the barn is the Ibanez GRX70QA. I did try this guitar out before, but the reason I didn't buy it is because the color it was in was terrible.
I went to try out some guitars recently, and by chance the one decent color of the GRX70QA was there, transparent black sunburst. After playing it, it was an easy decision to make the purchase, especially considering how low in price the guitar is.
This guitar has the most usable HSH setup you can get
When you combine single-coil and humbucker pickups in a guitar, there are two problems you immediately deal with. The first problem is that a humbucker works better with a 500k volume pot while a single-coil works better with 250k. The second problem is that the humbucker overpowers the single, hence why the humbucker on most HSS guitars is REALLY LOUD and then the volume drops off a cliff when switching to singles.
Ibanez's take on this was to use an all-passive setup (meaning no active pickups and no battery) and wire it as a 5-way.
There is still volume drop with the "quack" positions 2 and 4 and the single-only 3 position - but the end result is 4 out of 5 positions that work well with the 500k volume pot. Only the middle 3 position blares a bit but it's still usable.
The 2 and 4 "quack" settings actually work because having extra treble from the 500k pot is a good thing... unless that's not a good sound to your ears. But there's an easy fix for that. More on that in a moment.
This is a "half Stratocaster" guitar
What Ibanez did with this HSH is what makes the most sense. They made the guitar get Les Paul and "half Stratocaster" tones. You get the front and back humbucker sounds, two Strat-like "quack" sounds, and a mostly-usable middle pickup sound. All of this is dirt simple to operate. One master volume, one master tone, one pickup selector. On an all-passive low cost HSH guitar, this is as good as it gets.
This differs from HH guitars where the humbuckers can be split. On that type of pickup setup, what you get is Les Paul and Telecaster-ish tones. What gives a Strat its quack is in fact that middle pickup. Without that middle pickup, Telecaster-ish is what you get when you coil split the humbuckers.
Yes, it is possible to wire up an HSH setup to do both Strat and Tele style tones, but the wiring on this Ibanez is just "half Strat". I could rewire/reconfigure it for Strat+Tele tones but probably won't.
Fun fact: Getting an affordable HSH guitar without a Floyd-Rose system isn't exactly easy
The choices for readily available and affordable HSH guitars you can order right now that DO NOT have a Floyd system on it are few.
Ibanez's GRX70QA is the most affordable and easiest to acquire, no question. If you want HSH, want it now, want it cheap and don't want a Floyd, you get the Ibanez. Any upper tier model after that from Ibanez with HSH and no Floyd busts over a grand, such as the Ibanez AZ47P1QM.
PRS does make two no-Floyd HSH guitars that I know of. The Modern Eagle V and the 509. Both are each expensive and not exactly affordable.
Charvel does make an HSH no-Floyd, the Pro-Mod DK24 HSH. Not cheap, but not ridiculously expensive either.
Godin makes two HSH no-Floyd guitars that I know of. There's the xtSA, which is ridiculously complicated as it is not only a guitar but a synth controller. Then there's the much better (and cheaper) Radium, which is priced similar to the Charvel. I do like the look of the Radium a lot. A few finish options show the wood grain of the Radium in a very nice way. And while true I generally can't stand "coffee table" looking guitars, Godin did theirs 100% correct with the Radium model. They not only make the most classy looking HSH for sale, it's also the only HSH I know of with no vibrato at all, meaning yes, it's a hardtail.
Ernie Ball Music Man has one HSH no-Floyd model, the Silhouette HSH. Too expensive for me. And you have to like the styling of it, which I don't.
Lastly, Fender does have a sub-$1,000 HSH no-Floyd guitar, the Player Stratocaster HSH made in Mexico. If you know the Player Stratocaster, you already know this guitar, just with HSH instead of SSS or HSS.
Does Squier have any offerings? Surprisingly, no. I thought they had at least one, but they don't.
Is HSH superior to other pickup configurations?
It's not superior, but rather just different in what it offers.
As said above, HSH, at least in the way Ibanez does it, gives you two Strat quack tones, two Les Paul like regular humbucker tones and a middle single-coil tone that I guess can best be described as "semi-boosted middle" because of the 500k volume pot.
HH with split coils gives you Les Paul like regular humbucker tones, and Telecaster-ish single-coil tones, usually with too much treble output.
HSS without split coil humbucker gives you Les Paul humbucker tone on the bridge side, a somewhat muffled bridge+middle Strat quack tone, Strat middle tone, Strat mid+neck tone and Strat neck tone. However, because the volume pot is almost always 500k on HSS guitars, only the humbucker and humbucker+middle settings sound decent. After that, the volume drops off a cliff and turns into a over-trebled clacky mess.
The secret sauce of the Ibanez GRX70QA is...
...the fact it has a 500k linear taper volume pot.
Les Pauls traditionally use 500k linear taper volume pots. Strats traditionally use a 250k audio taper volume pot.
The 500k linear pot allows you to edge off treble response very easily just by turning the volume down to 7 or 8. You get to keep almost all out of the output while at the same time edge off the treble response without losing tonal character.
With the 250k audio taper, treble isn't edged off until turned down to 5 or lower. A lot of output is lost to the point of the sound being almost unusable. Yes, the tone controls are there to reduce treble without losing output, but that might not (and usually wouldn't) be a sound you like.
On the GRX70QA, the two quack positions and middle position do have a little too much treble present - but - that's fixed instantly by turning the volume pot down just a little.
It's like I said, the way Ibanez wired the guitar does make the most sense for its HSH configuration. When you know that a 500k linear volume pot can edge off treble easily with just a very small turn, now you've got a guitar where you can use all 5 positions instead of just a couple.
Formatting a USB stick to work in all smartphones
It's funny what particular filesystem is the standard, and it's over 15 years old.
I currently bounce between Windows, Linux and Android (technically Linux with a modified kernel), and sometimes I need to move files between the devices I use. There are three ways to do that. Either a) use the internet, b) use my local network, or c) use a USB stick.
Internet works but it's slow because I have to upload to the cloud first then download on the other computer I want to copy files to. Using a local network is faster but the amount of setup required to get Windows, Linux and Android all talking to each other is difficult and not worth the bother...
...which leaves the USB stick. It is the fastest way to get large files from computer A to computer B, if it's a filesystem they can all read.
That system is exFAT.
exFAT is old and has no journaling. It's a filesystem that was introduced by Microsoft in 2006 and is specifically designed for use on USB sticks and memory cards. The biggest advantage of exFAT over the older FAT32 is that you can copy files greater than 4GB in size. The theoretical maximum file size that can be copied to an exFAT filesystem is 128 petabytes.
I found out how important exFAT actually is when I started doing some research on the Linux filesystem ext4.
Supposedly, Android phones can read a USB stick formatted to ext4. Yes, I know ext4 is a journaling filesystem and it can potentially "beat up" a USB stick, but I wanted to try it anyway, so I did. My Android phone would not read the stick. Not happening.
I then formatted the stick using the phone itself. The filesystem it chose? exFAT.
Then I searched around to see if it's possible to "format" a USB stick to exFAT in Linux. The answer is yes, but tools need to be downloaded. In Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu, the tools to download from Synaptic Package Manager are exfat-fuse and exfatprogs, which gives you mkfs.exfat, and from there you can format a stick or a card to use the exFAT filesystem from the command line or partition manager of choice.
exFAT is the best thing to use on a USB stick that Windows, Linux and Android can read with no fuss. It's an awful filesystem for an OS (I honestly don't even know if it's possible to run an OS on exFAT), but just fine for its intended use on USB sticks and memory cards.