CaravanPress

Magic night’s road

Published

on July 19, 2010

. 0 Comments

There is a small country road that is called “Taikayön tie” in Southern Finland. There’s no official English translation for the name. Direct translation would be something like “Magic night’s road”. The road goes from Urjala to Huittinen and through Punkalaidun. So there are these three small towns, which have made the road a route for travelers. A total length for the route is around 50 km and there are two branches to select near Urjala. One branch called “Väinö Linna route” shows the beautiful landscapes that are part of a Linna’s novel “Under the North Star”. The other branch goes through Nuutajärvi, which is known as a glass making district.

I took a plunge and drove the route during a mid-summer night. I wanted to see if there’s any magic behind the name and what it might be. I chose the southern branch near Urjala, because I wanted to see the glass village that has been built around an old factory. There’s been glass making over 200 years in this factory. The famous Oiva Toikka’s birds are made here. So I started to drive the road and I was prepared to solve the mystery. After first few kilometers I arrived Nuutajärvi. It was a mid-night, so the glass village was not open. I decided to come back here some other day to see the glass making and to browse all the designer boutiques.

I headed back to the road. The night was warm and bright. The sun never sets during the mid-summer in Finland. I saw plenty of white-tailed deers and deers nearby the road. They were having a late night snack. I decided to drive carefully to avoid crashing into them. Driving slowly also allowed me to experience the landscape better.

Faint smoke clouds were rising from many farms. Bonfires to celebrate the mid-summer night were extinguished, since it was so late. I arrived Punkalaidun and I stopped by to see “Koiramäki”, which is Yli-Kirra peasant museum. Yli-Kirra is an old country house dating back to 19th century. The museum was well preserved and I decided to come back to see it when it is open.

I drove back to the road and headed towards Huittinen. The small twisty road was in a good condition and thus a joy to drive with a motorhome. Cows and horses were outside enjoying the nightless night feeling in many farms. I got to see one large bonfire at the very end of the route. It was close to the road and part of an activity of a local dance hall. It was light up only a few minutes before I arrived, so the flames were huge and I could even feel the heat!

I did experience some magic feeling while driving through the route. Perhaps it was more due to the bright and cozy mid-summer night than the road itself. All the sights were closed, so I could not experience those. The atmosphere of the small towns and country road made the journey enchanting. The beauty of the magic night’s road is the whole picture. There are sights, restaurants, bed & breakfast, and beautiful landscapes that form a complete package for a traveler. The magic night’s road provides tranquility that let’s you forget all the rush related day to day life. I decided to return to this road and experience all the sights in a day time.

Magic night’s road web site (only in Finnish)

Kärcher review updated

Published

Tommi

on June 28, 2010

in News

. 0 Comments

I have received few questions about the spray nozzle operation. I have updated the review with a video clip that shows the larger spray nozzle in action. The smaller nozzle is a bit different with a simplified open structure. It does not have a separate suction duct like the large nozzle has. The operation is, however, similar to the larger spray nozzle. Kärcher has enough horse power to vacuum the sprayed detergent away even so the smaller nozzle has an open structure.

English accents

Published

Tommi

on June 23, 2010

in News

. 0 Comments

English is a world wide language and perhaps the most useful skill for any traveler. There are many accents that are influenced by a speaker’s native language and origin. Some times it is hard to understand each other even if you have a common language with locals. It helps to understand various accents if you can somehow imagine why they sound like that. Nokia conversations has published some amusing video clips about English, Alabama US, Australian, Italian, French ja Russian accents. Here’s an example on Italian accent.

Nokia N900 review

Published

Tommi

on June 15, 2010

in Accessories and Technology

. 1 Comment

N900 is the first Nokia’s mobile phone that runs on Linux. The Maemo 5 software platform has evolved from previous Internet Tablet products to fulfill all mobile phone needs. N900 comes equipped with a lot of applications and features. This review focuses on usability while on the road and some characteristics that differentiate the N900 from Symbian based mobile phones.

User Interface

The UI uses 4 desktops. One desktop is visible at a time and it is changed by sweeping the display with a finger to the left or right. All desktops can show application shortcuts and widgets. I have picked up the most used applications and contacts to the desktop with some additional widgets. Calendar widget provides a quick look to upcoming meetings and events. Weather widget shows a 4 day forecast without opening up a web browser. E-mail and Facebook widgets keep me in sync with all my contacts.

Touching the upper left corner brings in the application menu. It allows you to access also the device settings. Contact list and a numeric keypad are available via shortcuts on a desktop and also via menu.

The UI is clean and easy to use. Icons are large enough to operate with fingers. The N900 is equipped with a stylus if precise operation is needed. I have used the stylus mainly to navigate through small links on a Facebook. The touchscreen is based on resistive technology, which is not as sensitive as the capacitive one in iPhone. Only one finger is used to operate the N900, since resistive technology does not support multi-touch feature. I have not felt that this is a limitation, since the N900 UI has been designed for resistive technology.

The N900 supports multi-tasking, which means that several applications can be open at a same time. Multi-tasking works very well and switching between applications is done via the application menu icon. Touching the upper left corner shows up miniaturized versions of all open applications. There’s plenty of memory on the device and it has never run out during my heavy testing of various features. Multiple applications can really run simultaneously. There’s approximately 27 GB of free memory available and it can be expanded with a microSD memory card.

Phone functionality

The N900 is a four band phone that operates on 3G networks. Calling and sending and receiving short messages are naturally supported. One surprise is that multimedia messages are not support. So you cannot send those modern post cards to your friends while traveling with this device. It also means that you cannot receive them either. The best way to share photos is to use then Internet photo sharing sites or send them as e-mail attachments.

Web browsing

Web browsing is one of the strongest features on N900. The browser displays most of the web sites brilliantly and supports also Flash. All the Flash based menus, animations, and videos run smoothly. The web experience is quite close the same as with laptops. The main difference is the screen size, although the N900 has a high resolution 840 x 480 pixel display.

Web sites can be zoomed in by double tapping or rotating finger clockwise on the screen. Another double tap or rotating finger counter clockwise zooms out. Sometimes the double tap does not work properly and it seems to depend on the web site how well it zooms in and out.

Mobile version of Firefox browser is freely available for the N900. The Firefox can synchronize bookmarks with a PC browser version. Tabs, settings, and bookmarks are stored on both sides of the screen. They can be revealed by sweeping the display sideways with a finger.

The N900 provides the best web browsing experience on the mobile phone market today.

Maps

Maps is pre-installed in the application menu. This is not the same Maps application that is provided with Symbian phones. The N900 Maps uses the built-in GPS receiver and shows a location on a map with a red dot. It calculates routes for pedestrians and cars. The route is shown highlighted on a map or it can be viewed also in list format. A big disappointment is that turn-by-turn navigation is not supported. The N900 is useless as a car navigation device, which is a shame. The large and sharp display would have been good for that purpose.

Moving the map with a touch feels natural. Zooming in and out is easy with a slider. The maps can be shown in basic form, with aerial photos, or with terrain information. Aerial view is cool and quite contrary the terrain setting does not usually bring in any new visible information available. 2D and 3D view modes are available. Landmarks can be shown also as a 3D objects. Other settings are night color scheme and selecting metric or imperial system.

I have not used the Maps much due to the lack of turn-by-turn navigation. I have searched some pedestrian routes while walking around a holiday destination. I have also evaluated some driving routes with it.

Camera

The N900 has a 5 megapixel camera and a double LED flash. Auto-focus is triggered by pressing a shutter button half way down. The image quality is on par with other Nokia’s 5 megapixel phone models. Photos from Nokia N95 8 GB device seem to have a bit better color separation and sharpness. I have not done any detailed testing between these two devices. This is purely based on my findings after taking thousands of photos with both mobiles. Camera sensor, optics and image processing algorithms have an impact to the overall image quality.

The camera supports the following modes: automatic, macro, portrait, night, landscape, and action. The shutter response is slow after pressing the release button and the delay varies between situations. It may take couple of seconds before the auto-focus locks in. Faster operation is available with landscape mode. The auto-focus is permanently locked into infinity, which shortens the delay from pressing the button and when the image has been captured. Other adjustable settings are white balance, ISO sensitivity, exposure compensation, and image resolution. The camera can use geo-tags, which means it can record GPS coordinates into image data EXIF fields if enabled.

Video recording has two modes: automatic and night. Screen format can be chosen to be 4:3 or 16:9. A familiar fact about light is true in video recording and still image capturing. When there is plenty of light on a sunny day the colors come out crisp, contrast is good, details are preserved and there’s no significant amount of noise. Interior shots have less light, which results poor color re-production and increased noise level in dark parts of the frame.

E-mail

E-mail application is quite capable of handling all day-to-day tasks that are needed. It supports several e-mail accounts and it can send and receive attachments. Pdf attachments are opened up with the Acrobat reader. Both the real keyboard and virtual keyboard can be used to type in mails. Both of them are quite good. The keys on a real keyboard are really small, but still I have got very few typos.

Incoming mails can be monitored with a desktop widget. The N900 opens up Internet connection automatically to check if there are any incoming mails. The check period can be adjusted via settings. When Internet connection is open all the desktop widgets also update their status. All this happens in the background without any visible signs to the user. It is also possible to limit the Internet connection only to WLAN networks. I have a fixed price data plan, so I have extensively utilized also 3G for Internet connection.

Other applications

Foreca weather widget is pre-installed and it has proved to be very handy. It shows 4 day weather forecast on a desktop. Touching the widget opens up a 9 day forecast. It is easy to select a city for the forecast once the widget is open.

Mauku is a Twitter client, which is still in Beta phase, but it operates quite well. Tweets can be read and written, but unfortunately Mauku does not provide a desktop widget.

Facebook widget shows latest status updates from your friends. Touching the widget opens up a Facebook site on a web browser.

Summary

Nokia N900 is a brilliant mobile phone for travels with few caveats. Internet experience is strong and it is always with in easy reach. When a lot of power and features are packed into a small volume there’s not much room for use time. The battery has enough capacity for one and a half days. So the N900 needs to be recharged every night. Charging connector is a micro-USB socket, which makes charger a hard to find for a loan. It is better to carry your own charger always with you or at least an adapter that makes most Nokia chargers up to the task.

If you are looking for a basic handset for calls and short messages then the N900 is not a good choice. You would not enjoy any of the N900 benefits. Use time and the missing turn-by-turn navigation are the biggest disappointments. Otherwise the N900 can be recommended to all heavy users of Internet and social media.

Recommended

Europe starts driving on E10 petrol

Published

Tommi

on June 11, 2010

in News and Technology

. 0 Comments

The new E10 petrol has 10% of ethanol. The ethanol percentage of the current 95 and 98 octane petrols is 5. The aim is that the E10 will be the primary petrol grade and all the 95 octane petrol will be E10. The reason for increasing the ethanol percentage is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Transition period will be a problematic especially for car travelers. European countries have not agreed any common schedule when the transition from the current 95 octane to the new E10 will happen. Most of the new cars can use the E10 without any modifications. So unfortunately the E10 will not be suitable for all the cars. This concerns mostly about older cars, but there might be also some newer vehicles that cannot use the E10. It is good to check if your car runs on E10 before heading to a journey by consulting the car manufacturer. The 98 octane petrol does not change so that it can be used if the E10 is not suitable. The 98 octane is thus called as a protection grade. Finland makes the transition to E10 on January 2011 if the national legislation will be finished on time.

The E10 does not affect the power output of an engine. It does slightly increase a fuel consumption, because ethanol has a lower energy density than petrol.

Victoria and David Beckham like motorhome holidays

Published

Tommi

on June 2, 2010

in News

. 0 Comments

Victoria and David Beckham like to rent a motorhome and drive to peaceful destinations to escape their hectic daily live. This rumour was reported by Iltalehti, which is one of the largest daily newspapers in Finland. Security guards follow the celebrity couple also on motorhome holidays. The rumour does not tell if the guards have their own motorhome or not. All the rumour details cannot be true, since the original article claims that Beckham’s motorhome has jacuzzi and private movie theatre and the rent is 50 Euros per day.

Karcher SE 4002 review

Published

Tommi

on May 26, 2010

in Accessories

. 0 Comments

Karcher SE 4002 is a wet and dry vacuum cleaner with integrated spray extraction function. Karcher has been under testing for several weeks and it has been used to clean up hard floors, carpets, seats, and other textiles.

Karcher SE 4002 with large spray nozzle

Introduction

Karcher uses the spray of detergent to clean up surfaces. There is a detachable water tank for the detergent. The spray is controlled with a trigger button that is integrated into the hose handle. Two nozzles for the spray cleaning are included in the sales box. The smaller one is good for motorhome or caravan seats and the larger one is suitable for floor and carpets. There is also standard floor nozzle and a crevice tool in the sales box. Karcher can be used also as a regular wet or dry vacuum cleaner without the spray functionality.

The water tank volume is 4 litres and the dirt tank is 18 litres. The paper bag filters for dry vacuuming are large. Karcher weights 7.5 kg and the motor is built into the top part of the device. The center of gravity is still low enough, so that the vacuum cleaner does not fall over easily. Typical electric intake is rated as 1200 W and the air flow rate is 70 litres per second.

Usability

Karcher has dedicated buttons to turn on the water pump and the vacuum. The spray of detergent is easy to control with the integrated trigger button. The 4 litre water tank volume may sound limited, but actually it is more than enough to clean up a large caravan or a motorhome. The water tank is detachable, so it is easy to fill up. The water adds up to the total weight of the vacuum cleaner. A solid handle on top makes it easy to lift up the device despite the weight. Karcher rolls smoothly with the six wheels found under the bottom.

The large nozzle needs to be in a correct angle against a floor when spray cleaning. This is true especially for the hard floors. If the plastic strip in the front edge of a nozzle does not touch the floor then some of the detergent is not vacuumed away and the floor gets wet. Usually this is not a problem, but worth to pay some extra attention when vacuuming in tight spaces. There is no risk of a real damage, since the spray volume is small. Just some extra drying time.

Karcher's small spray nozzle

The shape of the Karcher is a thin cylinder. Thin enough to fit inside motorhomes. There are no sharp edges that could scratch a motorhome interior. All the nozzles and tubes and other accessories are of a good quality. Attaching them together is easy. There are lock rings that make sure the parts stay together.

The paper filter bag can be used only when dry vacuuming. It must be removed for spray cleaning and wet vacuuming. The bag needs to be removed carefully, since there’s no closing mechanism that would prevent the dust spreading around. It is better to throw away the dirt water right away after spray cleaning and then rinse the tank with a water. I have slightly misplaced the top cover to let the tank dry. Karcher has stayed clean and it has not generated any smell with this simple maintenance. The paper filter bag can be re-installed only after the tank is completely dry.

Clean results

Karcher makes plenty of noise, but it is also powerful. Dry cleaning results are superior to a conventional average vacuum cleaner. Spray cleaning leaves floor and carpet surfaces a bit damp. Carpet surface will get dry in about an hour or so depending on the circumstances. Carpets can be spray cleaned in place without removing them.

Spray cleaning carpets, seats, and textiles gives better results than dry vacuuming. For extra dirty surface I have used a two step approach. First I have just sprayed the detergent on to the surface and let it soak in a couple of minutes. Then I have spray cleaned the surface with vacuuming. This has given deeper clean results if there has been tough stains. Spray cleaning prevents the dust getting into the air. This has proved to be a welcome feature for my allergic nose.

This video clip shows wet vacuuming with a large spray nozzle.

Karcher sells their own detergent, which comes in a tablet form. The price for 16 tablets has been around 15 Euros, which equals a bit under 1 Euro per cleaning. I have tried also other detergents and found out that they work well if they meet two conditions: 1. the detergent should not foam, 2. the detergent should be suitable for the textile that you are working on.

Summary

Karcher is too large to carry on while traveling. More compact equipments are enough at that time. The best way to use Karcher is to get rid of dirt and dust after a long journey. Karcher can be applied to the floor, carpets, seats, and sofas to make your caravan or motorhome super clean. That’s where the SE 4002 really shines. The retail price is around 265 Euros in Finland, which is affordable considering the functionality and quality.

Recommended

Versailles, Paris

Published

Tommi

on May 11, 2010

in Places to visit

. 0 Comments

Versailles

The Palace of Versailles is located around 17 kilometers (10 miles) to the southwest from Paris. Ludvig XIV had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world. Originally it was just a royal hunting lodge. The Palace has beautiful gardens with many fountains, statues and colourful flowerbeds. I missed the flowers and fountains were not functional, since it was so early spring during my visit. The Palace has hundreds of rooms and the garden area is vast. It’s good to reserve a full day to see Versailles and a good pair of shoes. Visiting Versailles means a lot of walking.

The rooms of the Palace are full of paintings and other artwork. Halls itself are gorgeous with decorations from the floor to the roof. The Hall of Mirrors is a sparkling place with numerous large shining chandeliers. It has been renovated on 2007 and it’s in a really good shape. The Hall of Mirrors used to provide a setting for many ceremonies. The Treaty of Versailles that ended the World War I was signed in this hall. Grand appartements show how royals decorated their rooms at the time. There are a collection of seven rooms, each dedicated to one of the known planets.

Versailles

Versailles is definately worth visiting. The Palace and gardens are spectacular no matter if you like history or art. The Palace is in easy to reach by a car or a motorhome. Parking area is close to the entrance. If you are in Paris you can take a RER C train to Rive Gauche station. Rive Gauche is an end point and there’s approximately 1 kilometer walking distance from the station to the Palace entrance.

Product reviews coming up

Published

Tommi

on May 2, 2010

in News

. 0 Comments

I have been running some product tests, which will be published in the near future. I have used Nokia N900 since it was launched. Kärcher 4002 is a vacuum cleaner that can be used for dry and wet vacuuming. Also some sights will be featured.

Where to go?

Published

Tommi

on April 23, 2010

in News

. 0 Comments

Spring time is here and you have a travel fever, but you don’t know where to go? I picked up a list of places to go from our archives. There’s more articles coming to this category soon. In the mean time check out these great places if any of them is near you. They are all definitely worth a visit.

CaravanPress

Magic night’s road

Kärcher review updated

English accents