January 2008 Archives

Finally got a replacement TomTom 720, here is what you do if you corrupt the software on it. This is very easy to do with the TomTom software. So, before you do anything, you should first connect the TomTom and copy the entire contents of the "Internal Drive" folder to your computer hard disk somewhere. The nice thing is that the entire operating system is just a FAT file system so you can edit it wiht any Mac or PC by plugging it into a USB port. That is very smart.

But if you corrupt it which can happen since the TomTom download software doesn't have error checking in it, you have to follow these instructions to essentially wipe both the download image on your PC and also the operating system on the device

It sounds as if the update has corrupted the application, so you need to rebuild the 23MB or so of operating system at the top level of the 2GB flash in your TomTom.

Connect the device to the PC. Close TomTom Home application. Now open My Computer. The Tomtom will be recognised as a mass storage device with the name INTERNAL by default.

Go to that drive, explore it and delete all the files that are not in folders. Note you don't need to delete any folders as these are just data.

On a Windows machine, you go to the Tom Tom Home v2.0 directory in c:\program files. . Delete the Preferences/Folder preferences/Downloads/ folder. Exit TomToHome and then open it again ( this will create a new downloads folder)

On a Macintosh, go to your home directory and look for Documents/TomTom/Home/Downloads. Delete this directory and remove it from the trash, then create a new Downloads directory.

Log-in again and click on download your updates

In Home reinstall the application update and this will be rebuild the operating system on the device .

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Hey I actually googled my dad's name and found his patents. He worked on data communications. Kindof cool to have patents. Kind of a cool site wikipatents.com

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Well just about everyone is going to be headed up there the february break, so here is a compendium of notes:

1. Unless you have a Nexus card, don't just go to Blaine and pray. Consider taking one of the alternative like the Aldergrove-Lynden crossing which is about 10 miles further inland on WA-539/Canada-13 or if you are really conservative, take the Sumas-Abbotsford which is even farther in at WA-9/BC-11. These are less crowded
2. In terms of eats, check out Earls, we've been to the one in Chilliwack, but there are lots on the way to Whistler along Trans Canada Highway 1. For instance in Surrey at 10160 152 Street, Surrey, British Columbia or Burnaby just off exit 27 at 3850 Lougheed Highway, Burnaby.

Now is the time to make reservations for dinner since it will be so crowded, some top choices from Whistleralacarte.com or as Scuba Mom mentions, most of these restaurants deliver. There is also a big grocery store in Village North.

1. Trattoria Di Umberto has fine northern italian food and you can reserve online or at 604-932-5858
2. Teppan Village has the great throwing of food Japanese thing. Lots of fun. Unit 304 of 4293 MOuntain Square at 604-932-2223
3. Quattros. Also italian but a little more expensive

There are a bunch of places that are fine if you like meat and fish and don't like pasta like Araxi but not so good if someone in your party only likes food that isn't meat or fish.
Now if you are mid week and want something fun and simple then there is:

1. Earl's again at Whistler
2. Old Spaghetti Factory. They don't take reservations
3. Mongolie Grill. Which is a mongolian grill, it is fun and casual.
4. Shushi Village is that is all you want. The Combination A platter is the best choice.
5. Avalanche Pizza is probably the best place for a 'shroom 'za
6. Southside Diner. Apparently, decent mac and cheese. In Creekside.
7. La Brasserie Des Artistes. Virtual Tourist says the best place for breakfast

The mountain of course is itself huge, but Skinet has a good summary of how to optimize times on busy days. The main idea is to get up early to be at the gondola at 830AM, have an early lunch at 1130 and then get off the mountain early. They also have some great recommendations for where to eat on the mountain as it is so huge and cold that you'll need to stop a lot!

Day One Early risers can track laps on the day's best snow before lift lines get clogged. Blackcomb is easier to navigate, so start there and get at it early. The ticket window under Whistler Village Gondola opens at 7 a.m., one hour before all other ticket outlets. Get in line for Blackcomb's Excalibur gondola between 8:15 and 8:45. Take the Accelerator chair, then cut over to Solar Coaster Express. Check the lightboard and ski warm-up laps on whatever has been groomed in the Solar zone. Then fan out to Seventh Heaven, Crystal Chair and the Glacier Express. For a taste of the high alpine, intermediates should try Seventh Heaven's Cloud Nine. Advanced skiers with powder skills will be awed by a wide-open cruise down the middle of Blackcomb Glacier. Experts will have their dance card booked with Couloir Extreme, Secret Chute, Pakalolo and the four big, steep bowls (Garnet, Diamond, Ruby and Sapphire) accessed via Spanky's Ladder. Lunch on Blackcomb is best eaten early (before 11:30) or late (after 1:15). Crystal Hut is the most charming. Or, make a reservation for white linen dining at Christine's in the Rendezvous (604-938-7437). Throughout the day, keep your eyes on the lightboards, and go wherever it's least crowded, making sure to avoid Seventh Heaven completely when lines are long.

Day Two Again, ski early and rest later-you won't regret it.Today, it's Whistler Mountain. Take the Whistler Village gondola to the Roundhouse. Skate over to the lightboard to look at the daily grooming map. Take your first several runs off the Garbanzo, Emerald or Big Red chairs on whatever is freshly groomed. Intermediates who want to cruise should continue to explore the vast offerings in between the Roundhouse and Olympic Station. More adventurous skiers should head to Harmony (for intermediates and experts) or The Peak (experts only) to access Whistler's six high-alpine bowls. For lunch, ski to the Creekside base area via Franz's or take the new Peak to Creek runs and have lunch at Dusty's or Zen Sushi. After lunch, head up the Creekside Gondola, then the Big Red Chair. If the afternoon is bright, experts should head back into the high alpine. If the weather is bad, stay midmountain and ski the trees.

Day Three If it's a Monday, sleep late and don't worry about beating the crowds. Head back to Whistler and play in the bowls. West Bowl is a good bet for powder. Harmony's Horseshoes are for those who like to show off. Symphony Bowl is readily manageable by intermediates. Take your lunch and cocoa breaks at the Roundhouse Lodge or the Chic Pea.

As stocks fall around the world, I'm using the Apple OS X default widget from Yahoo. Main issue is you can't sort the entries and it doesn't allow you to look at overseas markets. Fortunately, Maba adapted a version that uses Yahoo's international feed and Qing Wang has a dedicated Chinese Stock market widget.

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Outbackphoto has a good review of phototools on top of the standard Photoshop. I just tried Photomatix and have to say it is easy and amazing. Just get a tripod, take five bracket exposure, then you generate an HDR and map it. Comes out easily. What does it do? Well, it makes really amazing color photos. Right now JPEGs are typically 8-bit images (that's a little misnomer, actually, that means each of the red, green and blue colors are 8 bit, so 24 bits in all). If you are a pro then you know a camera can normally take about 12-bits worth of brightness levels, so if you take a bunch of different exposures, you can get really amazing images. You want them to be pretty different, say -2, 0 and then +2EV to get the whole range, Photomatix then combines them into a 32-bit image (really 32-bit x 3 colors) and then you have to compress that down since no monitor, printer or set of eyes (on a human at least) can see so many colors.

The results are just awesome. Taking a lancscape, you go from seeing a bright sun, to seeing the sun and then amazing detail in the photos, instead of just washed out black. BTW, if you like it you can get 15% off by referring to Digital Outback Photo and entering DOPphotomatix when you order

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Brett says, the Western Mountaineering bags are really the best for light and warm. The Highlite is an amazing one pound in weight yet works down to 35F is a good example. Or for two pounds, you get the Alpinlite Super which is two pounds and good to 20F.

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Well, if your wallet does get stolen, it used to be folks worried about the money in it. Now the game is different, it's about identify theft. So here's the check list:

1. Cancel your credit cards. In the US, every credit card issuer has a cancel number. Do it right away. But in any case, your liability is legally limited to $50. The hassle is that you have to prove you didn't make the transactions. Also, sent a certified letter to each of your card issuers so you have proof you notified them.
2. Call the police. They won't do anything, but record the case number so you can prove that you did everything that you could when your wallet is lost or stolen.
3. If you have a check or something like that, then you are in bigger trouble. Close the bank account as soon as you can.
4. If your drivers license was there, then they can start to build an new identity and open up credit card accounts and so forth. So, you have to call Equifax, Experian and TransUnion and setup a 90 day credit watch where they will see if this happens. Legally, if you notify one, they have to notify all three, but I would get on the site and notify them all.
5. Get a new drivers license. In certain states, you can change your drivers license number
6. File an FTC online complaint if you think the thieves have used your numbers. Again, this won't do anything, but forms a record that you tried everything you could do.
7. For $10 in Washington State, you can freeze your creidt report. This means that no one can access your credit history and thus not open things in your name.

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Someone was asking me about sleeping bags. Good reviews are at Outdoor and they have some good synthetic bags including Mountain Hardware UltraLamina 32 for $175 and a three season synthetic bag from North Face called Cat's Meow.

Then there are some bags that are ultra lightweight. For instance, the REI Kilo Flash +40 at $179 is a 750 fill bag that weighs 1.2 pounds if you can believe it.

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Most folks will probably have missed it, but for me, Time Capsule is really a god send. Its a Wifi access point plus it has 500GB or 1TB storage for Time Machine and as just plain network attached storage. With my stack of three NASes plus an old Linksys access point, I can at least get rid of one box. It's also not too expensive $300 for a 500GB drive or $500 for 1GB. With AirPort Extreme at $180 (that's over priced) or $50 for a Linksys box that crashes a lot plus $300 for a 500GB Buffalo, this looks like a nice solution.

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The state of the world for iPhone firmware is very confusing. The things to understand is that there are three parameters, the version of your firmware (1.0.3, 1.1.1, 1.1.2 and the new 1.1.3) and different versions of the firmware that run the GSM baseband chipset (4.01.xx and 4.02.13_G) and different boot loaders (BOOT03.09_M3S2 and BOOT04.06_M3S2). So here is the current as of January 13th state of affairs:

• Firmware 1.1.3 is just out and you shouldn't upgrade to it. It bricks your iphone. Just announced and is a pretty big release. It lets you send SMS message to multiple people (not a big deal, there are third party updates to the text program that do this), Goog Maps can now show your location by cell tower triangulation, you can drag and drop icones to your home screen, the home screen shows paginiation and you can add web bookmarks to your home screen. Overall, this isn't a huge release.
• Out of the box phones with 4.02.13_G and 1.1.2 and BOOT04.06_M3S2 can not be unlocked yet, so you are also stuck. This is because new iPhone all UK iphones have a new boot loader called BOOT04.06_M3S2 and they have not tested with bootloaders other than BOOT03.09_M3S2
• If you have an out of the box iPhone with 1.1.1, then you are in good shape. Going from Firmware 1.1.1 locked to 1.1.2 jailbroken and unlocked. Pantsland.com has a good guide. Basically, what you do is to first take your 1.1.1 system and get it back to locked. You do this by first virginizing your 1.1.1 system, this gets your iPhone baseband out of unlock, that is so that the 1.1.2 upgrade doesn't brick your phone. Then you upgrade to 1.1.2 and now you have a virgin 1.1.2 with a new 4.02.13_G baseband but with the old bootloader BOOT03.09_M3S2. You then downgrade the firmware to 1.1.1
• Going from Unlocked and jailbroken 1.1.1 baseband 4.01.xx to unlocked and jailbroken 1.1.2 according to Limitededitioniphone.com first run Oktoprep from the installer. Dock your iphone and update to 1.1.2 and don't restore. Now run the jailbreak 1.1.2 from Conceited Software. Run the installer adding the source "http://limitedditioniphone.com/lei.xml" and download anySim 1.2.1u, reboot the phone and put it into Airplane mode and run anySIM 1.2.1u, install iWorld
• Going from 1.0.2, you need to jailbreak that phone, then virginize, then install 1.1.1 and unlock it, oktoprep it, install 1.1.2 and run jailbreak 1.1.2

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By the way, according to ParisLemon you don't have to wait. You can actually get a 64GB solid state drive for any computer.

Ryan Block cracked a PC with a solid state drive and stuffed the drive into a Macbook Pro. It is too bad that the Samsung 4gb-sata-ii-ssd-drive-hands-on/ Solid State Drives aren't available to end users yet. I'd take one and put it into every Macbook I have. They were smart and package it exactly like a 2.5" and 1.8" regular hard drive.

What's more, the 128GB drives are coming. At that level, they really will rival hard disks for storage.

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The Apple ultraportable, Macbook Air finally was announced. Its about what folks expected, 3 pounds, 5 hour battery, 13" screen and full size keyboard. I've used the Sony ultraportable for years before finally giving up on them due to reliability problems and have to say I do think the tradeoff is worth it. The big thing is to get a big screen that is bright. The Sony family has a very bright, but small 11" diagonal. Now I use a 15" and it is hard to go back. The 13" is a pretty good tradeoff. The main thing is that while it doesn't seem like it, going from five pounds to three pounds is a big deal. Three pounds you can throw in your bag, a five pound one is amazingly more than just two pounds, it just feel less, well portable.

So what are the tradeoff? The battery isn't removable. Instead, to get new one, you have to return it to Apple. For me, that's no big deal. Once you get to five hours or so, I don't have extra batteries and haven't had them for a long time. The other thing is the lack of an optical drive. While that was once a big deal, with big hard drives, I normally put Mac Office and everything else on the hard drive. Now the drive on this one is tiny because it is flash, but Office is now just 500MB. The other old use of opticals was to watch movies, but I've pretty much completely converted to watching .AVI and other things (dare I saw Bit Torrent?), so that's not a problem or rip a DVD for a backup. Final thing is lack of an Ethernet port. That's only an issue where there isn't Wifi and where I am right now they are pretty much everywhere. it does lack a PCMCIA or other port, but I haven't used these in a long time either. The ubiquitious USB seems to have replaced PCMCIA. Only one USB port does hurt, so there will be a big market in 4:1 USB hubs I think, but that is how I use my MacBook Pro today, my docking station is in effect the USB hub. One thing you should probably put in your kit bag if you have this baby is a portable Wifi access point. I have one from Linksys that turns any wired port into wireless.

By the way it comes with a 60GB hard drive or 64GB of flash. The other cool feature is doing multitouch like the iPod touch. That is a pretty cool feature. The thing is definitely expensive with the 1.6GHz, 2GB, 80GB hard drive going for $1800 and the 64GB solid state drive going for a cool $3100.

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Hey we got the Sony Enerloop batteries and they are indeed amazing, they act more like regular alkalines and don't lose their charge. At just $9-10 for four, they are really amazingly efficient and since they don't discharge, they really can replace 500 AAs at a time, so they save money and the environment. I don't know who make them, but Thomas Distributing has just about every big battery name with their version of low discharge. Get a bunch today :-)

I got the AAs, but they are now available in AA, AAA, C and Ds

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Finally got this Fenix L1D-CE from Amazon seller. I have to say it is amazing. It is expensive at $50, but man, is it bright. Nothing like it and it runs for hours on a single AA. Anyone who needs something for emergencies should get it. It is amazing because it uses a Cree XR-E high efficiency LED which is twice as efficient as the previous Luxeon LEDs. I'm amazed!

It will run for 25 hours at the low setting and 2 hours at maximum. If you get the two AA battery, L2D-CE, then you get 88 lumens out of it which is amazing. With L1D-CE, you get 44 lumens which is still plenty bright. I'd say get the L1D-CE for portable use and if you are throwing it in your car, get the L2D-CE

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When crossing from the US and Canada, you don't need to have a passport, but you do need an Enhanced Driver License which is a new identification form. Kind of nice for dummies like me who are always scared that losing a passport means that you are really stuck, so why not get both. Its a little primitive, but basically you call one of the special offices and make an appointment after January 22 and bring your proof of citizenship (like a passport), then they upgrade you.

The locatoins aren't super convenient. There is West Seattle at (206) 764-4001 at 8830 25th Ave SW and Bothell at 425 489-1718

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Well, these addresses keep changing, but wikipedia has a pretty good list of SMS gateways. The main ones connected directly so for the big US carriers they are:

There are then a bunch of a carrier independent gateways that work and are fun to try

Finally, some folks allow you to send an SMS and turn it into email, T-mobile is the only one in the US, you text to short code 500 and the format is emailaddress / subject / text

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If you love spirographs when you were a kid, you'll love this program. Geometry Sketchpad is a program that let's kids understand mathematical relationships. The site has an evaluation copy that you can try. There seem to be quite a few online resources to learn hwo to use it. You get to pay for some of it, but mathforum.org has lots of free information. Another good site is at utk.edu and mathforum.org has a bunch of discussions.

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Alex is always finding some great sites like Freerice.com where you answer questions and then donations for the poor happen. Fun and addicting too.

Hey this is a fun game, identify the places in the world at Travelpod.com

We just had one of our computer's firefox slammed. Somehow a script has taken over and now when you type a legitimate URL, it gets hijacked by onestepsearch.net. Sigh, even with running antivirus and antispyware, it doesn't matter. You really need to install adblock and noscript and turn on cookie checking int he new internet. Also, this might be a time when a total uninstall of firefox can help since clearly there are some parameters hacked around in the firefox configuration file.

Ghacks points out that to get to the configurations, you can do it within firefox by typing about:config and you get a zillion parameters.

Other folks are suggesting, looking in Control Panel/Add/Remove Programs and removing Onestepsearch accorfding to wiki.answers.com and it also slams the default search engine in Firefox. You can change that by fixing the keyword.URL parameter in about:config back to it according to Firefox Help: Tips & Tricks

By default, if you enter a search term in the address field and press Enter, a Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" search is performed, and you're taken to the first result of that search directly. If you prefer to see the standard search result list instead, use about:config to change the value of the preference keyword.URL to http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=. Of course, you could also change to a completely different search engine by changing the string to something else. The default search string is: "http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&q=".

Yikes, mail to Comcast was just rejected because it looks like I've been sending spam. It is the IP address that is blocked, so it could either be my servers or from the shared server that I used. You have to send a removal request to www.comcastsupport.com/rbl.

In the mean time, its time to tighten down at least all the email addresses and web addressed I control. That means closing down accounts and having them forward to a small number of live ones...Sigh, the perils of modern life. Hopefully this comcast list doesn't propagate too fast.

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With the new Mac Os X 10.5's backup plus ever more photos I've been scanning, I seem to keep needing more hard drives. So what is the latest from Storage Review in terms of getting more. Well, the big news is that all of the big vendors, Hitachi, Seagate, Western Digital and Samsung now have terabyte drives and the costs are amazingly low, about $0.25-$0.30 per GB, so that means a terabyte is now about $250-300 (well, really a trillion bytes rather than a terabyte if you are stickler). I have some old Vantec Nexstar 3 enclosures that only support 750GB, but these drives are also much cheaper. So, what to get...the current face off tells all which is in summary or as 888 summarizes:

Looks like today's HDD production and marketing is starting to move into new (in fact old but already almost forgotten) directions - every manufacturer has found its own special way with their 1TB drives:

• Hitachi 7K1000 = for performance fans (home gaming, processing and benchmarking users), but it is noisy, for about $205 in 750GB version. (Pricegrabber)
• Seagate = for server needs (high-load multi-user servers) at $230 for 750GB (Zipzoomfly Pricegrabber)
• WD Caviar GP WD10EACS = for "quiet&cool" lovers (home multimedia and consumer electronics users, but also for low-load storage like NASes ), but doesn't have a 750GB version at $260 for 1GB (Pricegrabber)
• Samsung SpinPoint F1 = for budget lovers... hehe thanks to Samsung we have so nice HDD prices today!

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Hey this is actually a great idea. There are bumper stickers all over town saying, I'm carbon neutral. Basically you buy packages for things like wind farms to have a zero footprint for all your driving, flying and your home. A great idea from Terrapass.com. It is way more efficient in truth to offset a Lincoln Navigator than to spend $35K to buy a new car although you are still burning oil, but at least you are helping the environment. As an example a 2007 Lincoln Aviator that gets 13 mpg in the city (ha!) uses 968 gallons per year, so for $80 a year, you can take out 20,000 pounds of carbon emissions to offset the 18,938 pounds you produce every year. Business Week even covered the trend. BTW, if you have to be in a big car for safety, check out Risk of Dying in One Car vs. Another for the real facts on how safe big cars can be.

The most depressing thing is that is also calculates how much you burn when you fly. If youa re doing say 150,000 miles per year like me, you are using 3,018 gallons of fuel and generating 59,041 pounds of CO2. Yikes. That costs about $215 a year to offset. So think about it...

Finally they calculate your home heating and energy bills based on your monthly utility bill. A typical home takes out 60,000 pounds of CO2 per year and costs $300 a year to take care of (I don't know why the cost per pound is so different for these different programs by the way). It is 50% cheaper to do it via the Aviator program.

As a funny aside, the pricing of these offsets really is interesting, basically for a base 8000 pounds of CO2, you get 200 pound of reduction per dollar. If you have a big SUV, you actually get a price break and you get 250 pounds per dollars if you buy 20,000 pounds. is that intuitive? Finally, if you buy 40,000 pounds as a 100,000 mile airline traveler, you get 266 pounds per dollar, so it pays to buy in bulk :-) On the other hand, you don't get a cool bumper sticker :-) just luggage tags for that $150 air traveler package.

As an aside, this site started in 2004 out of a University of Pennsylvania class where they started to market carbon credits. Amazing how inventive people can be!

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We've had rechargeable batteries for a long time. I mainly use them to run my bicycle flashers, but with the advent of LED flashers, I don't use them much. The big use we have is for various kids toys and also walkie talkies where AAs and AAAs are in high demand. After five years many of these don't seem to hold much charge and some of the new ones I've bought haven't delivered on the replaces 500 Alkalines. In fact, the gigantic D batteries I bought lasted just six months and won't recharge, so you can pay too little.

Steve's digicams has a great review. Says anything two years old should get replaced with the new 2500mAh or 2700mAh. Also there are two new kinds of NiMH batteries, the Sanyo Eneloop and Uniross Hybrio. These are ready to use out of the package but most importantly can hold their charge for months. The conventional NiMH lose about 1% a day and it feels like they go flat in a month to me :-) The Uniross is a 2100mAh and says it will retain 85% of their charge in a year and last 500 recharges. The eneloop retains 85% after a year as well and is a nominal 2000mAH (sounds like the same battery to me). It is $14 for 4 cells. Stefan loves the Eneloop by the way. Thomas also has the Accupower Acculoop that also appears with identical specs at $5 for 2.

He uses Thomas-distributing.com which I've found to be a great source. They currently have a sale for the Sanyo Eneloop at $9 per 4 pack by the way. They have the Uniross Hybrio at $11 each as well.

Also instead of some fancy charger, you can now get USB-based chargers so you can charge them just about anywhere either as do it yourself or as a product. In fact Sanyo Eneloop USB Charger does the trick.

Consumersearch.com has a good reviews, although they explain their sources. Basically what they said is that you should get 2700mAh ones. Recommended ar the Energizer 2500 HiMH which are $14 for a 4-pack and last a long time. I'm getting away from the off-brand rechargeables, so that's a good option. The Duracell 2650 NiMH are just $10 per 4-pack so are pretty good. "Rechargeable-Battery-Review.com" says the Maha Powerex 2700 HiMH are good. I've had a bunch of Maha's and they seem OK.

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Almost no one I know travels with these things, but I've used my jumper cables and also flashlight. The main thing to do as About.com and "Minneapolis.About.com": http://minneapolis.about.com/cs/transportation/qt/wintercarkit.htm says is to get:

1. Emergency hazard triangle. Personally I don't like flares as things are flammable obviously and they have a shelf life. Easy to get at any auto store.
2. LED Flashlight. We have the regular ones that don't last that long. The new LED ones are truly a miracle. Up to 1,000 hours on a few AAAs. The main issue is remember that you need fresh batteries and have to check. Pricegrabber has a huge selection as does the REI. Flashlightreviews.com is a whole site dedicated to just flashlights reviews and top picks :-) For instance the Fenix L1T is birght has has a great run time with 1 AA battery and is 1 watt and costs $47 but is being discontinued. For really bright, the new Cree 7090 LED like the Fenix L1D-CE is twice as bright at an amazing 90 lumens. Fenix seems to be one of those wonderful specialty manufacturers in Shenzhen you'll only find on the Internet with an online store. For the techno nerd, the key is the LED used. The L1D-CE uses a Cree LED that are much better than the Nichia or the Luxeon
3. Jumper Cables. 8 feet long. They are the thing I've used the most.
4. First Aid Kit. You just need a basic one, but reviews are not that common. Mountainzone.com recommends you get something from one of these folks: Atwater Carey (800/359-1646), Adventure Medical Kits ,(800/324-3517) or Outdoor Research ,(888-4-ORGEAR). Campmor has pretty much the whole list of Adventure Medical Kits. REI also has the Adventure Medical Kit. Probably the traveler at $30 is the right size for cars. Also you might consider ther Essentials Personal Survival which is for carrying while skiing and suppose you get trapped out there.
5. Space blanket. You don't have to worry about dying of thirst, but dying of cold is no fun either. These blankets are small and amazing and toss a few beany ski hats in too, they really conserve heat. Most of these are just too thin and rip too easily. Sierradescents.com likes the Space All-Weather Blanket because it is more durable and could be a ground cloth or a tarp. Cabelas has a similar one for $12 that is calle dthe Sportsman's Space Blankets as does Campmor
6. Food. Actually, you won't die for 40 days without food, so your main worries in the cold are well, the cold and you need water too, but there is snow out there :-)
7. Tire inflater. Nice to have run flat tires, but otherwise, you need a can of this magic stuff to get going after you change your tire, unless you are one of those people who actually checks the inflation of your spare and have a $20 tire inflator at home (which I really should get!). But you need something in a can for rapid inflation. And get a tire pressure gage too while you are at it :-)
8. Shovel. A lightweight one for avalanche is great
9. A bag of kitty litter for traction (hey that's light and a good suggestion from Minnesota)
10. An empty coffee can, candles and matches to melting snow
11. General toolkit with screwdriver, wrenches and vice grips or maybe just a leatherman or equivalent.
12. Survival kit. Amazingly there is a site called equipped.org that reviews survival kits and a very personal view of the checklist. For instance he likes the Leatherman supertool. Multitool.org also loves it but the Wave seems to be the standard regular duty tool and Equipped.org also liked it. While you can get the Wave at Campmor for $70, Walmart has it for $65 including shipping which is a great deal.

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Well the market for steering wheels and joysticks for the PC has pretty much collapsed. Most folks are using consoles for games like this. I tried to resurrect an old Microsoft Wheel and Joystick, but they use the old analog input with the DB-15 plug. It costs $25 to get a DB-15 Game Port to USB adapter, so really not worth it. But google:"game port to usb adapter" has some listing like from USB-Port

If you choose to junk it and still want to play flight simulators and racing simulators, the choices are pretty few and pretty expensive. Logitech probably makes the most reasonable versions. Like the Logitech MOMO Racing Wheel which is old but has gotten good reviews. Costs about $90 according to pricegrabber. It is force feedback so it pushes back when you are steering which is pretty cool.

For joysticks, it is much the same. Not too much innovation. Again, the Logitech Force 3D Pro seems like a decent midrange priced product.

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I got the MDX stuck in the snow. I didn't think it could really happen with a big burly SUV, but that's learning. It was a little bit of a strange situation. Snowing heavily and I tried to park in a spot that had 2" of snow. Got stuck because there was ice under the snow. The biggest benefit is that when 2 wheel drive need to have chains, if you have a 4 wheel drive with snow tires (that is they have to be labeled M&S for mud and snow), you only have to carry chains for one pair of wheels according to WAC 204-24-050 . They normally don't have SUVs put them on, but it is a good idea to have them. AcuraMDX.org has a great thread on these. First point is that you should get good snow tires (check, the Dunlop M2's are great and tirerack.com has them). Then, you should get chains and here is the advice summary:

1. Get them on all four wheels if you can. That gives you equal traction. The MDX manual says that if you have two, then put them on the front. The thread says put them on the back, so go figure. If you can afford it it sounds like two pair is the answer
2. Because the clearance on the MDX is low, you have to use more specialized chains. Security Chain has them. The MDX needs something called SAE Class "S" chains which are low profile. The best ones look like the Z-Chain Stock #ZL671 which are expensive at $130 or so each, but worth it apparently since they won't mar the rims. You can get teh Super Z LT ZT729 which are cheaper but they have a rubber fasteners that can mar your rims. They are big though and flat at 20"×20"×2" so you need something strange to store them. Folks who have them include Howards, Vulcantire.com, West Fleet, Napa Autoparts, GI Joes if they hae it in stock has them for $125. Right now Vulcan has the ZT729 at $80, but no ZL671s

For the MDX with 235/65-17 tires

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