From November 2004 to August 2005, Russ Caslis ran a series of articles on constructing the ultimate case mod: a motorcycle. The finished product, we have to say, was well worth the wait. Here's a package of these articles taking us through his journey.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, as Microsoft today is out with the 2006 edition of its popular Streets & Trips software, offered with an optional USB GPS receiver ($129 with, $39 without, $10 software rebate sometimes available). The product, along with other MS consumer titles, is updated annually, just ahead of the holiday shopping season.

This year's new features include:

Voice-Prompted Directions work with the GPS Locator to provide an easy-to-use, hands-free option that delivers turn-by-turn directional information to the desired destination.

Driving Guidance Pane prominently displays text-prompted turn-by-turn directions, enlarged arrows indicating where to turn, and distance measurement by miles and yards as drivers get closer to the destination.

Night Map Style enhances views of maps and directions for easy reading when consumers are traveling at night or on dark roadways.

Locate Me technology helps lost travelers who don't have their GPS Locator on hand determine where they are by utilizing Wi-Fi hot spots to estimate their location to help them get back on track or find nearby points of interest. Consumers can also go online to cross-reference MSN Virtual Earth for greater trip-planning accuracy through additional maps and aerial imagery.

This product competes with similar GPS/software offerings from DeLorme and others and uses your laptop computer to provide necessary processing horsepower. Comparable stand-alone talking turn-by-turn GPS devices sell for close to $1,000. The problem with the laptop-based offerings is illustrated in the image of the happy couple driving, seemingly at high speed, through the countryside. The image was grabbed from Microsoft's animated promotional piece for Streets & Trips 2006. (Right--click on the image to see it full-size).

Daddy is observing the safe practice of driving with one hand while chatting on his cell phone in the other. He appears to be driving fast on either a one-lane road or right down the center stripe of a two-lane. But, what caught my eye is the laptop Mom is using to guide their trip--the one with the nuclear-powered screen. Forgetting that the computer looks like a Mac, the screen is bright enough to read in daylight from what looks like 15 feet away. I wish I had such a computer!

No, laptop PC's don't make the perfect driving companion, although Streets & Trips will be happy to navigate for you by just calling out turns as you need to make them. The voice prompts work quite well, actually.

What this product really is about, however, is Microsoft's continuing drive to put a Windows PC into every car and this software, which has been improving each year for half-a-decade now, is a great product to sell with those computers. That's the long-term market I think Microsoft is looking for. If you're interested, I recently did a Gearlog Radio program with Peter Wengert of Microsoft's Automotive Business Unit that talks about some of this, though not this product.

As for the GPS device itself, which is about 1.5-inches square, I know it looks like one of the devices they implanted in people's heads in those B-movies about mind control experiments. But, I swear it's really just a GPS receiver. (MS assures me that mind control won't become part of the operating system until the WinFS file system finally ships, in about 2020).

This is a recommended product, though you'd rather have a standalone unit from Magellan or Garmin if you can afford one. By itself, the software is excellent and is what I use to generate maps at my desk.

The Gigabyte card is a PCI Express card using the ATI Radeon X800 XL GPU. Like the ASUS card, the RX80L256V uses a heat pipe and passive radiator combo to keep the card cool. However, it uses an approach more common to fanless graphics cards in that the radiator is mounted on the back side of the card. This makes the cooling system wholly dependent on internal airflow within the case. It's less gimmicky than the ASUS card's "transformer" approach, but also more flexible. At about $250 this Radeon X800 XL-equipped, fanless card offers startlingly good performance, a good software bundle, and quiet operation. But be sure your internal chassis airflow can handle the extra cooling.

Read the full review on ExtremeTech.

Some products are useful, other you have to "get." The Das Keyboard ($79.95 direct) is one of the latter. At first glance, it is just a standard QWERTY keyboard, but there is something missing: none of the keys are labeled. This is supposed to help you learn how to type faster, but I think it is really to show off the fact that you already know how to touch type. 

The company says it also adjusted the forced required to register the individual keys, so some require more force than others, but the difference was so slight it was hard to feel the difference. At least to a keyboard-banger like me.

The Das Keyboard is a geek gut-check--ease-of-use is for newbies! I can type pretty fast, but I have always watched the keyboard while doing it. Those of you who are more hardcore, can find out more about the keyboard here.