Other uses?

To find Mexican Restaurants
haha spent the week eating Mexican in AZ
To find fast food while driving highways
To find a chain store
To find a Ford dealer in Canada

Geocaching.

amusing myself at the speech recognition (magellan 4250)

Many people use their GPS to to play music (MP3 or wav) files, read digital books and to view photos.

As a hammer.

And sometimes as a wheel chock.

to listen to Hy Lit.

As a second wife to nag me about my driving

I have a Map 60CSx to record tracks when I hike off-road and I also keep a log of the odometer reading, moving time, stopped time, and mileage stats. It's fun to download the tracks on my topo maps and look at where I've been on the PC! There's a lot of forest here in NW Pennsylvania.

three times a week. Look here for a short "how to".

http://home.comcast.net/~ghayman3/garmin.gps/index.html

Page 7 and page POI-5

Michael

Mine displays the speed limit of the road-- and shows the traveling speed. Also good to check the speedo accuracy.

Never, ever use it as hammer. You run the risk of severe damage. You can not grasp the GPSr firmly enough to avoid slippage. You could severely damage your thumb. However, in addition to a wheel chock, it can be used as a paperweight, a bookmark, a flashlight and a straight edge.

I love knowing what time I will get there, but I think Garmin can make it better, by having the right display to alternate every few seconds!

That way users do not have to spend time pushing the display to see the other information, Distance to Destination, and Time to destination. Maybe they can show a screen to let you mark the items you want displayed as it cycles through them!

I've used mine to help produce an interesting WEB site which many enjoy.

Gary

http://bit.ly/garmin_gps_tricks

If you haven't visited the 'INFO Section' of the site, please give it a LOOK/SEE.

Just want to say thanks for taking the time to create your GPS website. It's awesome! Tons of good, no... GREAT information.

Ran across another use while looking to make my boat compass indicate "true north" to match maps.

Compensating a compass is much easier than previously mentioned, particularly if you have a good GPS. If your GPS has Differential or WAAS enhancement, even better. I just re-compensated both of my compasses, and it's simple.

My new Ritchie Navigator compass came with easy instructions from Ritchie. If it's a good compass, like the Ritchie, it will have two compensating screws, one for North-South and one for East-West.

Basically, Ritchie tells you to first pick out an approximate North course, using a light house, marker, etc, and get directly south of it about a mile or two. Exact N-S 0 degree accuracy is not necessary. Then head straight for this marker at about 20 MPH, letting the GPS (set on Magnetic reading) settle in for a reading. After a few minutes you will be able to determine how far off, in either direction, your compass is. Then stop the boat, and adjust the compass this amount. Then speed up again, the two readings should be the same.
If not, try again. Then, do the same thing using an EAST heading, and using the OTHER adjusting screw. When done, your compass will be extremely accurate. You can check all of your work by selecting one of your waypoints, navigate to it, and both the GPS and compass reading should be the same.

You can even check to see if your compass is properly aligned on your boat. If everything (GPS and compass) corresponds heading north, but not South, your compass is not straight in the boat.

Ritchie says you can also do this without having GPS, but you have to use a chart to confirm the true course you are heading, and use the current variation.

Paying someone to do this is a waste of money these days.

I've used my track logs to update/correct local streets in the Open Street Map project. http://www.openstreetmap.org/

Find a nearby gas station in an unfimiliar area.

THANKS GARY!!

I also use my GPS to track where I used my tank of gas.

makes a great secondary odometer for tracking mileage

my son also learned that it records your high speed!

Bet he knows how to reset it by now

My family has used ours to see how fast we can run as it records your max speed! Kinda clumbersome to carry while running though, but it was really fun and my son played with it for quite awhile. He exercised without knowing it and had fun!

GPS helps find 18th-century violin left in NY taxi.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ODD_LOST_VIOLIN?SI...

Find my car when parked in very large public parking lots.

I use the arrival time feature a lot.

Echoing a few things;

Flashlight
Finding my car in a large parking lot
Knowing when I'll arrive at my destination

And a few new things;

Meteorite hunting
Finding trailheads
Recording locations where photographs were made
Avoiding speeding tickets...

Chances are, your GPS is the most accurate clock you've got.

(and yes, there is a difference between GPS time and UTC)

How about a listing of garage sales.
Get them off Craigs List. Check locations on Google Maps. If close enough, send them to my Nuvi 255W as favorites.
Open up the favorite list and there they are in proper order listing according to mileage distance from your current location. Go for the goodies!!
guy

Listen to music and audible book on long trips.

I like the traffic feature, even though it can be off at times. It has saved me time and aggravation from sitting in severe traffic.

I use mine as a mp3 player. I have an amp and external speakers on my bike. And in the truck, instead of changing channels every 100 miles or so, I just play my mp3's through my radio. It also came in handy when my speedometer cable broke.

Speedometer and arrival time. At times wondering why the GPS picked this route. The 2010.2 update has changed some of my routes to places where I travel. Still get there, but I don't like some of the routes it picks out (pushes interstates big time now at a much longer distance). I put in via points to overcome it.

Still love my GPS though. Don't leave home without it.

I use them when doing a brake job to keep the car from rolling, and some not so old that are thin enough to use as door stops

WOW, I feel so in the dark and sooo not creative! I have had my GPS for 2 years, and just found out about POI's today, and never thought of HALF of these things to use my GPS for... it just sits on the dash until I take a trip someplace I've never been before!

There are many other uses for the GPS. I create routes for dispatching the following:

* Errands
* Sales Calls
* Service Calls
* Property Tours
* Auction Sites

parked in a big Parking lot.

I used mine to recalibrate my dash speedo that was off by 4MPH TOO SLOW. So I was going faster than I was reading. Took some creative finagling, but reset the (old analog) pointer to match high speeds correctly.

I use it to inject small-talk into long (and not so long) drives while my wife and kids fall asleep!

I use mine to save fishing spots. See how fast the boat is going. Try to figure how far I can go before running out of fuel.

I created a file with turbo's Extra POI Editor for friends & family. My folks liked it so much they had me do a file of their address book. Now they don't need to carry (and loose) their address book while traveling.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/08/danger-room-in-afgha...

It's nice to have the gps warn of upcoming red light and speed camera traps.

Thanks for sharing...

If driving on a road for the first time with curves, I like it when I see them in advance on my GPS screen.

who speaks many languages and has multiple personalities and knows his/her way around....

I wish Extra POI Editor worked with Magellan.