Category Archives: Costa Rica

Costa Rica! My most often traveled vacation spot. I usually stick along the (north) Pacific coast, usually in Montezuma.

Galileo is a great FREE mapping app to have on your iPhone or iPad.

I love this program and it just did a major update so thought it was due for an update on the review I did before, but when I looked I realized I never reviewed this amazing app before, so here we go…

galileo-app.pngFirst of all this program should be thought of as a digital map, the GPS in your iPhone/iPad will find your location and keep the map centered but it doesn’t have directions (just like a paper map doesn’t have directions). What’s really nice about this program you can download maps and they stay on the device so if you’re somewhere with without data (say somewhere on a hike in Costa Rica) you still have your maps with you. Or if you’re traveling internationally and don’t have a data plan you’ve got the maps already, the same goes if you have a plan with a small amount of data, you don’t need to use up all the data.

galileo-maps-IMG_9096.PNGGalileo also has several ways to get maps onto your iPad or iPhone, but the newest way is the fastest and easiest. You just go in to the program, click download maps and pick your states, countries or providences and it downloads them and they are on your device. These downloads are relatively small, Michigan is about 30MB while Costa Rica was about 9MB, but have remarkable zoom levels and are very fast. I wasn’t sure how often they were going to be updating these maps, but when I went to get the screen shot, I see they’ve already updated several of the maps I’ve downloaded (that’s why the screen is downloading that map, it’s an update).

This program is free and the vector downloadable maps are free but the program has many other in app purchases (which I’ll talk about).

I use this a lot when I’m out hiking and biking and traveling. I know where I’m traveling, a question I used to ask all the time is “Where am I?” and people wanted to know where I was going but I’m just walking around taking in the sights and I want to know where I am (I quite often got confusing looks). I want to know where I am and zoom around quickly and not worry about how fast my data is or if I’m roaming somewhere. I get a pretty good signal in Michigan but if I’m in some state/national parks there isn’t always coverage.

belle-isle-IMG_9095.PNG
Maps show how fast you’re going, the scale of the map and (optionally) your longitude and latitude.

I like to sightsee / wander around and see what I can find, when I travel I try not to be in a hurry. I went up north to visit my Uncle Jim and Aunt Karen once and when I arrived around 5PM they said “What time did you leave?” and I said “Noon”, which got the reply “You made pretty good time” and then I had to clarify with “Noon, yesterday“! I like to stop and do things, I’d been to different places and going biking and rollerblading and taking pictures and been all over before I got there. It was fun and I saw things that I’d not have seen if I’d had a specific plan.

In Costa Rica, most roads don’t have names and it’s confusing to get around, looking at the map and seeing the icon where you are is incredibly helpful (you need an iPhone or an iPad with the GPS for this to show you where you are).

So my suggestion is download Galileo and grab a few maps of places you frequent so that you’ve always got a nice map in your pocket.

The rest of these features starts to get a little confusing, if the above doesn’t interest you and you don’t care about maps, you should stop reading. If you’d like to be able to download other types of maps and know more, then read on!

This is one of those apps with many 5-star reviews and many 1-star reviews. Although, if you read the 1-star reviews most of them complain about things that if they had read the description they’d know that’s not what the program is supposed to do.

The other thing you can do is choose other map sources: biking, hiking, tourist and it’ll download them, but it remembers the maps until you delete them, so if you want some specific maps you just need to download them and zoom in at different levels and they’ll save and be there for you later (you can set the time limit). Other maps cache this data but purges it when it feels it doesn’t need it any more, you don’t have control over how long the data stays around. That said, I still like pre-downloading them myself (see last item of this review) and installing on the device is my favorite way to go. This next map is a sample of a map that isn’t so much like the “normal” Apple or Google maps.

cabo-blanco-2-IMG_9097.PNG

Example of a different type of map with altitude/terrain markings.
Good to know if you follow that path you’re going up/down paths over 200 feet in height.

Other (paid features):
Bookmarks – You can leave bookmarks/pins at locations for easy finding later, incredibly useful for marking places that have no other frame of reference. If hiking, you can mark and interesting spot. If someone lives in the middle of nowhere and you want to find it again, leave a pin at that spot.

Breadcrumbs – It will record a trail of where you’ve been. You can look at this later or export the data for other uses later.

Generate off-line maps – Downloading other off-line maps (this is great and it why I got the app in the first place) you can get maps from different sources and build them (on your desktop computer with Mobile Atlas Creator) and put them on the device for later. I downloaded great maps with heights of the hills/mountains for where I hike in Costa Rica, I don’t need to use international data roaming for this since I built them once and they stay on the device.

FYI, the screenshots and map captures are clickable to much larger versions.

Why I canceled my new iPad 3 order

This is why I canceled my new Verizon iPad 4G LTE order…

It’s really not as drastic as it seems, I still have my order in for an AT&T iPad 3, I only canceled my Verizon order. When they were first announced I wasn’t sure which one would be better to get to use globally either Verizon or AT&T; you’d think those companies would have information published so you’d choose them(?). So, as a result of no information, I ordered both, with plans to cancel or return one…

It seems that AT&T has faster LTE, but it’s very limited deployment at this time (and the Detroit area isn’t included, yet); AT&T appears faster, maybe if everyone was using it, it would slow down(?). On the other hand Verizon LTE is in my area.

But my question was/is, what’s going to be more useful globally for LTE; the 3G GSM seems to be universal world-wide, I’m not sure about the HSPA+ (4G-ish) standards around the world. This is me talking, so realize when I say globally, I mean Costa Rica. Costa Rica cell service has just gone from a monopoly to three (or 4?) carriers in the last few months; rumors/plans for LTE in Costa Rica are around but no specifics that I can find.

LTE is “Long Term Evolution” what some people consider 4G, but there really isn’t a good definition and I’ve read there are 30+ different incompatible implementations of LTE around the world. The
iPhone 4s has HSPA (or is it HSPA+) which AT&T labels as 4G (FYI, before the software upgrade last week, it would have shown up on your phone as 3G). And technically 4G is even faster than LTE can provide, so it’s hard to tell. Sometimes LTE is called 3GPP.

So the more I researched this the more I realized I wasn’t going to get a good answer. The iPad 3 is almost identical to each other, the Verizon has CDMA frequencies but is lacking one of the LTE frequencies that AT&T has. This had me leaning towards AT&T already (and their GSM 3G service on the iPhone works great in Costa Rica) but then I started looking around. In the United States we’ve got the AT&T model and Verizon model of the iPad but when I looked at Canada, France and Japan it appeared that the model they had available was identical to the AT&T model (and Costa Rica isn’t on the list for release yet). So that kind of made my decision, I opted for the AT&T and canceled my Verizon order. This worked out for me in that it was actually too late to cancel the AT&T model on-line, I would have had to refused delivery (which would have been tricky since they probably would have been delivering both at the same time) or I’d have to return it later.

I haven’t seen anything yet to make me decide that I should have gotten the Verizon one yet but I think Apple has the two week return policy (with no restocking fee) even if you buy it on-line. So if anyone hears anything different, please let me know!

Apple’s specs for the Wi-Fi + 4G for AT&T model:
4G LTE (700, 2100 MHz);
UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz);
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

A semi-big Verizon benefit is that they are going to allow tethering to share it’s Internet connection with your laptop (or other iPads) at no extra charge (other than the data you use) while AT&T is not going to do this. But I’m not sure how that will actually work globally so I’m not sure if it will matter to me.

Speaking of cellular data in Costa Rica, I generally get better speeds than I get in Michigan for the GSM 3G service. Actually, the more remote in Costa Rica I am (as long as there is cell service) the faster my data seems to be. I think that’s just because there are less people using it. If you’re looking at traveling with your AT&T phone, they’ve really dropped the pricing on their international data plans and they pro-rate them them pretty good (in the customer’s favor, IMHO).

Happy Mother’s Day to all!!! Especially my Mom!

Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom! My Mom still worries about me and does all that other Mom stuff that she’s supposed to do and I love her for it!

mom-costa-rica-IMG-8107.jpgAs you can see, I did get my Mom to Costa Rica this year! She’s at the top of a overlook in Montezuma. We must have drove and parked nearby because I know I didn’t make her walk up that steep hill to get there (we had walked enough as it was!).

We had problems with flights at both ends of the trip (and a piece of my luggage was lost, I’m so thankful it wasn’t one of hers!).

And to all you other Mom’s out there, just do your best and don’t worry too (so) much. As kids we’re pretty durable and can weather much more than you think we can; and I’m talking both physically, mentally and emotionally. So just be a Mom and love us, model appropriate behavior and odds are that we’ll (mostly) turn out okay!

I’ve got to go! It’s time to get over to Mom’s and make our yearly Bahama Breeze pilgrimage!

My not so secret view of the Montezuma Coast

So a few months ago I mentioned a great view of the coast near Montezuma. I even showed the little path that led the way to it. Well now the little path looks like this:

no-so-secret-IMG_2130.JPG

It was just a tiny path that looked like this smaller image, but now it’s clearly a driveway. secret-path-IMG_1698.jpg

I heard the land sold for $500,000! If this has anything to do with my earlier post, someone owes me a finder’s fee or a commission!!!

My point is, if you haven’t gone up to see this view yet, hike on up there before it’s a house and you can’t get out there to see the views.

Don’t be Crabby

You couldn’t walk 10 feet with out running into one of these guys tonight.

montezuma-crab-at-night.png

This is one of the bright colored crabs crawling around on the beach. You can see him pass a few smaller sand crabs…

Watch on YouTube in HD.

It’s a little out of focus the first few seconds, but then it gets better. The other odd flashes are bugs flying into the light on the camera (which is my iPhone 4).

If you know the correct name for this crab or the little sand crabs, please leave a comment!

This was a Big Iguana at Montezuma Falls!!

This has got to be the biggest Iguana I’ve seen (up close) in Costa Rica in all my trips.

montezuma-iguana.png

I thought I got him in a couple of good videos, but this is the only one where he really came out.

Click to play the Montezuma Iguana in HD.

A problem is that I’m zoomed in so far, it’s hard to see the scale. Maybe in some of the photos I haven’t looked at yet…

Jumping in the Lower Falls Animation

So I had to show my Mom how to operate my digital SLR for this one. It came out pretty good. This is at the lower falls in Montezuma, Costa Rica.

480-1-AnimationGIF.gif

I thought the colors stayed pretty good for converting this to an animated GIF, if you click the image for a larger version it looks pretty good too. I used GIFQuickMaker, which I got from the MacApp store.

Yeah, I know I’ve shown you high-def video of a similar thing not so long ago (but I’m in Montezuma again, so I’m doing it again), but I’m playing with the photos and animation software so you get it again.

Fire Dancing in Montezuma 2011

I’ve got several clips of fire dancing for you! I’m in Montezuma and they did it tonight at a recycling festival. I haven’t seen it for a while, so I was pretty excited about it! I think the second one came out better since it’s tall so it’s a better zoomed in shot.

Play it in HD
.

The following one was shot tall and I think the lighting came out much better, but maybe it’s my imagination (or maybe I shot that part at the beginning when the flamers were higher?)

When you hit play, the movie will enlarge and fill the vertical box.
Or you can play it in HD via YouTube.

Since I shot it sideways (in 720p) I was happy to see YouTube put it up in 1080p (even though it’s not that wide) and then later on I see they upgraded it to 4k!

After I move down here the first thing I’m going to do is learn how to do this! I mean it’s the first thing I do after I learn Spanish…

They’re both in HD so your best bet is to enlarge them and play them full screen.