There are only four weeks left until Christmas and if you haven’t begun your shopping yet, it’s time to start. Don’t panic. We’re here to help. Every Wednesday between now and December 25, we’ll give you a few ideas for those you love who need a sense of direction — pilots, boaters, runners, cyclists, golfers, hikers, drivers, geocachers, cell phone users, and hunters, just to name a few. This week we’re focusing on those who love to be on the water.

If you’re looking for the ultimate gift to outfit the helm, give the gift of touchscreen and put put a GPSMAP 5215 under the tree. Any boater would love the true “big picture” navigation offered on the huge 15″ screen of this network plotter. This touchscreen MFD is sleek, super-bright and easy to use – the perfect gift for the boater who wants functionality at their fingertips. If space at the helm is an issue, the new GPSMAP 546 is a compact chartplotter, that packs a lot of punch.    

If the boater in your life already has a full electronics suite at the helm, we recommend the GPSMAP 640- a full-featured marine chartplotter and an on-the-road navigator that comes ready to go with preloaded BlueChart g2 data and City Navigator NT road maps for North America. This amphibian navigator is powerful and portable, and with 5.2-inch touchscreen display, your boater will always know the way whether they’re on land or at sea.

If it’s stocking stuffers you’re after, give your boater the gift of planning with our latest marine trip-planning software – HomePort. This PC application lets boaters plan and organize routes from the convenience of their computer and gives them the ability to view map details such as underwater hazards and hidden obstacles – a gift that even the most experienced navigator will appreciate!

For more information about Garmin’s marine product line, check out the Garmin Marine minisite, or you can always visit our Chicago Store, or marine dealer for closer look.

A lot of people ask me for freebies. Here you go: Go get your Garmin. Update the software right now. You’re at a computer – unless you’re reading this on your phone, in which case I’ll try to keep it short – so you don’t have any excuses. Even if you just bought your Garmin yesterday, had it for years or will be opening it a month from
now, our engineers may have been working on new software while it sat
on a shelf, in your house or under the tree. Updating your software through my.Garmin.com is free, it’s fast, it’s easy and it makes your Garmin even better than before without costing a dime. And with as much as our engineers are able to pack into a software update, it should really be called a product upgrade. 

Take, for example, this week’s news about Custom Maps. Simply by updating the software on your Garmin Oregon, Dakota or Colorado and following a few simple steps, you can now transform existing paper and digital maps into downloadable content to overlay onto your device. Visit garmin.com/CustomMaps to learn more about this process that maximizes the potential of your product. To get an idea of the other aspects that can be added or improved upon through software updates, check out the newest post at GPSFix.com. While it focuses on Custom Maps, the entry also rattles off the other new benefits of the latest software updates. And it’s not just outdoor handhelds that show how great products can be made even better. My fellow bloggers Carl and Peg have shown how recent software updates can improve the Approach G5 golf GPS or the Forerunner family of fitness watches. And many of these improvements are based on customer feedback, so whether you’re talking to clerks at a retail store, my colleagues at a trade show or me during a race (that’s how I passed a couple miles of the Chicago Marathon last month), your feedback is being heard. But enough from me, you’re supposed to be updating your software. You can thank me later.

Race week is under way and Chicago is buzzing with excitement. All runners are welcome to visit the Garmin booth at the McCormick Place Expo or the Chicago Storefor competitive pricing on the latest Garmin fitness watches including the Forerunner 310XT and 405 series. Already at a lower price point, Garmin is offering an additional 10% discount on the devices. 

Throughout the weekend, product experts will be on-hand to help you prepare for race day on Sunday. Stop by the store with any questions and update your watch with the latest software. 

Finally, once you upload your race to Garmin Connect, share your results on twitter for a chance to be featured in the Chicago Store blog. Just follow your results with #GarminCM09results. 

Congratulations to all race participants!

By now, you may have already seen the nüvifone G60 commercials – either online or on TV. And if you haven’t, we’re providing them below – along with some behind-the-scenes photos taken during production. 

During a two-week filming period in August, a crew of Garmin associates as well as an assortment of actors, extras and film crew members crisscrossed the Midwest. Filming began in Chicago and ended in Alliance, Nebraska – home of Carhenge. The crew filmed five separate scenes to highlight several of nüvifone’s key features.  From the five scenes, three scenes were chosen for each of the three separate commercials.  

After the scenes were filmed, it was time to edit the footage and add digital effects. Local artists composed and recorded a custom music piece for the spots. Once everything was finalized, the spots were shipped out to the networks. You’ll see the commercials on most major networks and we’ve also added them below in case you’ve missed them. If you’d like to learn more about nüvifone, visit our product page for details.  

In celebration of Garmin’s 20-year anniversary in 2009, we’re bringing you stories from across the globe of Garmin devices in action. Today’s story goes down in the history books and we’re proud to say Garmin was there when these seafaring men set their record.

Sailing legends Sir Robin Knox Johnson and Sir Peter Blake used a Garmin GPS 75 for their round-the-world voyage in a catamaran in 1994. The team won the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest circumnavigation in a time of 74 days, 22 hours, 18 minutes and 22 seconds. This was their second attempt at the prize after their 1992 voyage was aborted when their catamaran Enza struck an object, tearing a hole in the hull. The GPS 75 used in their successful voyage was later donated to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, where it is currently on display.

To learn more about Garmin’s history, including interviews from our cofounders and other associates around the world, view our video and a collection of other stories.

With a long holiday weekend ahead of us, we’re sure that golfers will be hitting the links in great numbers. And one golfer who will be getting great numbers — and accurate measurements — is Jerry Spencer. Jerry sent us this email after falling in love with his new Garmin Approach G5 golf-specific GPS, which now has more than 10,000 courses available as a free download. He also owns a nuvi 255W that recently helped him navigate in New York, and he uses a Forerunner while he’s cycling. Here are Jerry’s first impressions of his Approach, in his own words.

I just purchased an Approach G5 and love it after one round. It helps in so many ways, esp. when I hit the ball off the fairway right or left. It gave me the exact measurement. What an improvement for me!

I was deciding between another product and my G5 – man did I make a good decision. The competitor’s product is not water- or shockproof – good job Garmin.

Thanks, Jerry. Be sure to check out our online video learning center for tips on how to get the most out of your new Approach, and we hope you get in a few rounds this weekend!