Sunday, April 26, 2015

Garmin products are terrible

I have to write a bog about a terrible brand I think consumers should know about. Well considering I named it in the title I think you might guess correctly... Garmin. 
I first gave garmin a chance a long time ago to buy my first ever satellite navigation system, at the time there wasn't much to choose from on the high street, the other choice was Tomtom. I went for the garmin because it was a lot cheaper. It didn't take me long to realise how shit it was. The maps were completely outdated and it asked me numerous times to drive off a friggin bridge and though a field. Everything about it was SHIT, battery life crap, couldn't take a memory card. It also has a weird twist stick on the front that was just the worst thing in the world to use. You had to twist the stick until you got to the letter you required, bearing in mind writing an address would take you a long time, then the worst part of it was it nearly always said "unknown address, please enter correct address", it was the correct address you stupid bastard. After about 5 attempts and a half an hour later I would enter the village, when it didn't know the feckin village name I'd try the town, only sometimes it would know the town. How fucking stupid do garmin sound? And they were the good bits... Seriously the worst part of it was the update software. Because all of the maps were shit I wanted to take advantage of the first 3 months you have the option of updating your maps for free. OMG WITHA CAPITAL FUCK YOU TO GARMIN, the update process was the worst encounter with an update I've ever had to endure, except for updating the garmin 405 running watch which I'll get to in a bit. It was a case of registration which wasn't straight forward with having to add the model no and a code then sync it with the device which actually didn't happen after 2 hours of trying I gave up. I then threw the sat nav at someone for free, they have never spoke to me since and have had a nervous breakdown and lost his business and family... All because of garmin.

I then went sat nav free for nearly 2 whole years, but duty called and I was back in the market for a good one. There was lots to choose from at this stage but like a complete idiot I bought a new Garmin sat nav, can't remember the model no but it was a touch screen and the shop assistant said they have come a long way since the crap I bought. When I set it up yes there was better features and it was slightly easier to use but it still couldn't find a lot of address and its so annoying the way if you start typing in an address if the rest of the address doesn't show up the it won't be able to find the place, it's stupid you end up being brought to the nearest area it knows but that could be a different estate up the road from where you want to go. Also the sync options were shit too on the PC, again you need to be a software engineer for the CIA to understand it all. Overall it wasn't much better than the 1st one I got and it seems Garmins products are all laden with issues and connectivity problems.

Also important to note is that when I purchased the 2 above sat navs, Tomtoms sat navs had lifetime free map updates and they were meant to be much, much better at absolutely everything.

Finally like a crazy ass idiot and a glutton for punishment I bought another Garmin, a running watch the Garmin 405. This was another piece of shit that I bought because my brother recommended it. I'll quickly write the good points and the bad points

Good: 
looks ok
Cheap enough
Accurate enough

Bad
Battery life shit
Takes ages to get GPS signal
Stupid outside of screen surround is touch screen and goes nuts in the wet, like rain etc
Touch screen is impossible to use while running, or even staying still
Setting up garmin connect is a nightmare
No Bluetooth in the watch

I will never, ever buy another Garmin product again, even if they changed their logo to have a little triangle on the top, what's that all about. 

I went and treated myself with a new running watch, a Tomtom and it's BRILLIANT, if it wasn't for all my Garmin problems I'd find some issues with the Tomtom but for the moment I'm just enjoying syncing easily, getting ultra quick GPS connection and it looks and feels like a quality product. Garmin you need to look at what Tomtom are doing and just copy them, or else just close down, yeah I prefer the latter option.


Saturday, April 18, 2015

Same sex marriage referendum in Ireland very propagandist



In a few weeks Ireland will be voting whether same sex marriage should be allowed and set up in the constitution as an acceptable married couple who will have the exact same rights as heterosexual married couples.

First of all I want to ask how and why this has even made it as far as a vote. At this present moment Ireland is in the worst economic recession ever in the history of the state, far worse than the 80s with huge issues on our doorstep. Our health service is gone to shambles with more people on hospital waiting beds needing emergency operations than ever before. We have corrupt bankers and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians who should have been sent to jail over the whole bailing out the banks fiasco. We have more homeless people on the street and people getting evicted from their family home by the same banks the people have bailed out. These hard working people are being thrown out of their houses and still have to pay the entire loan to the banks with no intervening from our corrupt government. We have mass emigration of our best and most educated students leaving the country to go find jobs. Unemployment rate, despite what our corrupt government say is at an all time high. We have political policing of the politicians fighting against austerity and jailing of any anti-government protestors while the banks and politicians have destroyed the country.

Now I'll ask the question again, how and why the same sex referendum has gotten any momentum with what's currently going on in our country. Also note the wording of the title of the referendum: the "Equality referendum", how patronising and propagandist is that? Making it sound like if you vote against it you are voting against equality, wow that's like having a vote on genetically modified food to be legally sold on our shop shelves and calling the referendum "The Health Referendum", it's so wrong.

About 2 years ago we had a referendum called "The Children Referendum", another completely propagandist title. What sort of democracy do we live in when we have titles like these? The children's referendum just gave the state more power when it comes to taking people's children, even homeschooling could allow the state to take your children because the referendum was passes with a unanimous yes vote.

Anyway back to the same sex marriage referendum. It should not have gotten any leeway on political scale such as this. It's wrong because a man and a woman should only get married. It's call true family values, for people to think there is no difference between a man and a woman and a man and man getting married once they love each other is gravely mistaken. It's a mistake this government has made to launch this so quickly with no regard for people who wish to vote no. It's an insult to the true families of this country. It just proves how much of a backward country Ireland has become. We have lost our sovereignty and now we have lost our true family values.

Summary
Vote yes to allow same sex married couples to adopt children
Vote yes to allow the government to block the legislation which currently allows children know the real names of their biological parents if they were adopted.

Vote no for a better Ireland.