Power, and Display are two I am constantly grappling with . . .
the thing often seems to have a mind of it's own . . .

What navigation software? and do you use ship power (I hope) or
internal battery only?

Using ship power, set the Power (untick) 'Turn off device..... x
minutes'

If battery only, you should untick this as well in flight, but realize
it will drain right down if you forget to turn it off.

Careful with the unit between flights, pressing ANY button powers it
up, and if you have unticked the 'power off' setting you drain the
battery.

On external battery you can set backlight to full on and not to turn
off.


Also: What is the best way to handle reminders during navigation
program use? The reminders that pop-up are bad news whilst flying
(or driving).


Turn off display of reminders as you have discovered. You can keep or
turn off a sound warning. The icons appear as a reminder so it assumes
you will check manually later using the calendar (#2?) button.

but why are you scheduling things for a flying day anyway?? -)

Other .. get an SD card (512MB SD cards are low cost now, in Canada
anyway) or CF card and put all your flight files, profiles,
waypoiints, tasks, on it. One day you may lose all your data and have
to reset the device to 'empty of user data' to recover. On my SD card
I have everything, including Mobile SeeYou executables so I could
borrow any pda and go flying.

Buy a spare unit one day.

If you use your logger GPS, consider a CF GPS as backup. You mentioned
driving so I am guessing you have a GPS for it now.

Have a spare cable set around. Unless you have a local supply.

Check that your 5V power converter is high efficiency and will not
drain down your ship battery. Consider a separate battery just for PDA
power. Or at least separate from your other nav units. Terrible to
lose everything at once.

Backup to the SD card before and after any major software change. This
lets you restore a unit when it has to be hard reset and you do not
have your desktop or laptop with you.

Take backup to the desktop regularly, maybe Friday nights before a
flying weekend.

Winter is coming here, I envy you!! Have fun!

Bob