An update on my new ride

So, it just got back from its detail at the dealer (the detail guy wasn't there the day I bought it) and here you go. The ride is fantastic, and overall I am quite impressed with the vehicle. I would not have picked a Kia as my next vehicle, but in comes this little badboy to save the day.

Annoyances: Thin, thin, thin doors. I am convinced that I left the windows down each time I start it and can easily hear the engine exhaust. However, it's pretty quiet on the road (haven't been on the highway yet) and you don't know how loud the horn is until you honk it with the remote; noise forward of the bulkhead is very quiet.

Cheap inner moon roof cover. When you close the doors, you can hear it kind of "bounce" within its track. But, if you keep that slid back you don't hear anything.

Bright white gauges. The numbers are very, very white. This is the first vehicle where I have to dim the gauges. That stated, I love the red everywhere else and it's all very easy to see.

Tire bounce. I love the look of the 18" wheels, but since this is the "+" it came with these 16" alloys that I kind of dig. Also, after driving a WRX that I used to autocross with 17" wheels, I wasn't looking forward to the harshness of such a low profile tire when going on occasional dirt roads. That stated, I hate the undamped oscillation I get when pulling in over the curb in the background. The suspension is fantastic, and I recognize this "slop" as being soft sidewalls. Once I change out the tires (or maybe go to 17" wheels and tires) I plan on selecting something to control this a bit better.

Hitch? I have no idea where a receiver would mount up under the vehicle, but I hope someone has this handled.

That's all stuff you can get over, especially with my favorite items:

Solid feel. Yes, even with thin doors the vehicle still has a nice, tight feel to it. I like it.

Tight handling. While I wouldn't take this out on my next autocross, I definitely appreciate the design and thought that went into road feel on this thing. It's the first car in a long, long time that I wanted to just go for a drive in.

Stereo. I used to work for Kenwood a long time ago, and was really big into aftermarket car stereos. Now, I just don't want to bother with it but at the same time I want it to have a lot of features and sound good. I highly recommend the audio upgrade package, as you get a ton of bang for the buck. I am still tuning it in, but the USB functionality alone is better than many headunits I've seen and used. It supports large drives (I'm using 8GB right now) and will resume from the same spot in the track when you change sources or start the vehicle. Also, the voice control for dialing out is phenomenal, and the stereo will sync with the phone at each start to make sure its contact list is up to date. I do wish there was an option to defeat the "synchronize completed" that she says a couple minutes after starting the vehicle. The interface is fantastic, as are the steering wheel controls.

Drivetrain. The engine is a touch harsh, but I am waiting to see if it smooths out over time. Compared to the 2008 Fit I have, this thing is fairly quick and doesn't need to shift all the time (I have the automatic; bad knees). In fact, the Fit has a 5 speed automatic which should be desirable, but with the low horsepower and rev-happy motor, it needs to drop to 4th or 3rd a lot on our highways around here. This feels like it might just unlock the torque converter occasionally and be done with it.Seats. They're pretty good, but I haven't driven more than half an hour continuously yet. I might go to Tucson this weekend and see what's up. :-)

Fun. Yep, I like to show this off. I didn't really care about showing off other cars I've had (even my WRX), but this one is a lot of fun. I'd get another one.

New car to replace the Subaru Impreza 2.5RS

Say hello to my little friend! More to come on this 2010 Kia Soul I picked up last Saturday.

A couple of good deals in town

Yesterday, I found the APC 10Wh USB Power Pack for $20 (normally $50) at Staples.  I didn't find it on their website, but the local store had it where you get wireless accessories (basically, a big shrine to Palm stuff; you'd love it ;-)). 

http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=UPB10

Today, I got a Logitech Driving Force GT wheel at Best Buy for $99 (normally $150).  It wasn't marked at that price, but it came up at the register with the correct name but much improved price.  I found it on the website after I bought it.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8781213&st=logitech+driving+force&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1205246213512

Updating Dash firmware

Quick note, but a freshly flashed T-Mobile Dash has around 47MB free, while my G1 has 74MB free.  Hmmm...

Taskbar with Thumbnail Preview Faltering in Windows 7

As I use Windows 7, I grow to love it even more.  However, I've run into a few issues like UPnP/DLNA failures with Nero MediaHome, lack of HomeGroup functionality (even if it claims to be working), and now the intermittent loss of active thumbnails from the taskbar.  I think the first two might be addressed by some switch-based testing (taking the router, and therefore the UPnP gateway out of it), but the last one is probably most annoying as I've grown accustomed to seeing what an app is doing from the taskbar, rather than switching to it.  Any ideas?  Logging off and back on seems to address it, but tweaking the performance settings (what Windows will render, like drop shadows and animations) doesn't change the issue.

This is courtesy of the "Solarize" filter in SnapPhoto (a camera application for Android). Oh, and it's a photo of the Mii avatar my wife was setting up. Check out the sweet reel-to-reel beneath it.

Using HomeGroup in Windows 7

Anybody have issues with getting this to run?  After a few hours of fiddling, I got two systems to "join," but they never shared anything.  I am still trying though, but it doesn't look promising considering the issues others have had with no answer on what to do.

Problem installing Office 2007 (or updates) on Windows 7?

It took me a while of trying different ways to install Office 2007 SP1 (or other patches through Windows Update) to no avail.  Then, I got this prompt right when I was going to forcefully remove Office from my install:

Solve a problem with Windows 7 beta

An issue with the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) client in Windows 7 beta is causing Explorer and some MSI-based installers to stop working properly.

To solve this problem, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button , click All Programs, and then click Accessories.

2. Right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. In the User Account Control window, verify that Program name is Windows Command Processor, and then click Yes.

3. In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type or paste the following text at the prompt:

   reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions /va /f

4. Press Enter to install the solution.

5. If The operation completed successfully displays, close the Administrator: Command Prompt window to complete this procedure. If "ERROR: Access is denied" displays, repeat this procedure from the top, making sure you clicked Run as administrator in step two.

Problems with ATIO Disk Benchmark?

If you're getting the following:

"cannot open file benchtst.$$$"

You're probably running Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, or Windows 7.  You probably have UAC running normally as well (good for you!).  To get around it, right click on the application binary (or your shortcut to it) and select "Run as Administrator."  This will give you the permissions you need to create the initial file for the benchmark to run.

Dark Side of the OS

Nice rendering? I thought so. So, I thought I'd throw it up here. Mostly, this is just so I can follow through on my resolution to be more aggressive on my posting. I have more stuff to throw up here, like my fun with Vista on my Dell Mini 9 (netbook) and Vista x64 on my Inspiron 530 quad core.

I did get some toys recently, including an interesting watch and a couple Logitech MX Revolution mice from Best Buy on sale. I got a couple Mosquito 4x4 micro-copters from Radio Shack, and I might throw up some interesting stuff on those too. Or not.

Another good reason for a netbook

Interestingly, many geeks like "slow" computers as much as they like the newest ones. One part of this is finding out just what will run on the slow one. In my case, I have been putting all sorts of things on my Dell Mini 9, and the newest thing has been OpenArena (open source version of Quake 3 Arena with Team Arena functionality) and my favorite game: Forsaken. I used to play this all the time when it came out in '98, and it works quite well on my Mini 9 with 2GB of RAM and Vista Ultimate. Also, I have an emulator on it thanks to my cubemate, and we play co-op Contra over a Bluetooth PAN (Personal Area Network) at work (he has a Mini 9, too). Colin Mcrae 2005 isn't that smooth on it, so there are limits to what the unit can do. However, nVidia plan on creating their own platform using the Intel Atom with a low power 2D/3D accelerator to replace the Intel graphics adapter that's part of Intel's Atom chipset. It might not run Crysis all that well, but the netbook platform uses a small display (1024x600 in my case) so most games will run great at that resolution with just a bit more power in the graphics department.

Score! Welcome my new G1!

LOL! I guess I should have posted this a while back, but the current Blogger app makes the drafts a little easier to see. ;-)

So yeah, the pre-order arrived, and I've had a bunch of Android devices (and some Windows Phone 7.x-8.x) since then. Using a Galaxy Note 2 and Nexus 7 (2013) right now.

Joined the Chrysler Customer Advisory Board

So, I got the invite to join.  The first useful thing I did?  Come up with a slogan for a new bumper sticker!  That's right America, I am guiding a large auto maker into a profitable new age with...a slogan.  But, I think it's a good one:

Chrysler - Bridging our heritage with your future.

Pretty cool, eh?  I come up with this stuff all the time.

An Ode, to a Phone...

So, I ordered the T-Mobile G1 a few days ago. Yes, for $179 I will look just like a lot of those nerds who got the Sears Tele-Games console (yeah, my mother and step-father did just that, and this was later released as the Atari 2600) when it first came out. Sure, there are other options out there, but this is clearly the choice the über-geek of today will want. Why do most want it? Well, it's new, it's (kinda) shiny, and it's different. Oh, and it's based on Linux, runs almost everything in Java, and is on a network that has historically been pretty open in the US; just recently they sent me a code to unlock my T-Mobile Dash for other SIM cards/carriers.

But, this is my blog, so why do I want it. Here's where it gets a bit, well, esoteric. I do love gadgets, and I like the newest things. However, I don't like buying the "same thing" more than once. A case in point would be my iPod. I had a 3rd gen iPod that I got for $499. It was very cool, had 40GB of storage, and would allow me to connect it to any Windows system to use it as a hard drive. I bought this when some people from Apple came out to my place of work to show me how OS X 10.2/.3 (beta) would work with Active Directory. Well, it didn't, but that's another story. I did, however, become infatuated with this little device. They didn't have the 3rd gen, but they had 1st and 2nd gen units, and I was amazed by the simple brilliance of its interface, along with the fluid function of the whole thing. So, I bought my own and used it.

Now, that unit had miserable battery life, and would frequently crash when it was in my jersey pocket during a ride, but I didn't hold that against it. Later, I bought an iPod interface for my Alpine stereo, and some other stuff. After a bit of time, I found that I was going to have to fly more often, so I got the iPod with Video (5G). Here is where things started to sour between me and Apple's consumer electronics mentallity.

I already didn't have much fun with Apple as a company, due to the most of the people I had to "work" with in getting their software to function in mega-scale, hardened, Windows environments. Over time, I saw this same refusal to understand their shortcomings, or even bother with simple patching. They would rather make the user (no matter what size that user might be in scale) wait for patches on their schedule, and many times those updates were simply called the new version of whatever it was you had to begin with. So, with the iPod 5G, there were several things they tweaked, but rather put all of them on the hardware that could use it via a software update, they gave us some of the things, and released a "5.5G" with everything. This also extended to their Directory management application, and rather than just fix it once and for all, it's been dragging along over the course of several OS changes. All the while, there is no admission of "fault" or "failure," rather a thin glossy veneer over the problems and big shining lights on whatever gimmick was being "added."

Oh well.

This process, as witnessed by many millions of customers, is what leads to/feeds the insance treadmill of product cycling that we do. What's that? Need a few tweaks here and there? Just replace the whole device. I have preferred the Microsoft and Open Source mentallity of "if it can run it, let it go." In my case, I had a 1.6GHz Northwood class Intel CPU that was overclocked to 2.4GHz and ran that for a while. Then, I eventually just got a 2.4GHz with a new motherboard. I ran at this speed for around 6 years. No multi-processor, multi-core, or even hyperthreading support. Just a single CPU. The last video card I bought was an ATi Radeon 2800 (I think), and that was in April of 2003. However, this system ran XP and later Vista just fine. In Apple's world, they would just rather you dump whatever you had and replace it every year or two. You know, to keep them employed. Or something.

Not me.

Here's where the phone part comes in. I kind of liked the iPhone at first, but I didn't care for the touch-only interface. I've had my T-Mobile Dash (as mentioned earlier) for two years now, I it's had one ROM upgrade from Windows Mobile 5 to Windows Mobile 6. It works pretty well, but it just isn't fast enough to run everything I like. Also, while I like the OS, it's clear that it is still carrying a lot of baggage from the PocketPC days (I had two of those from 2001-2003) and not quite as quick as it should be. However, it will still at least try to do just about anything that the hardware will allow. Want to overclock? Go for it, although it might not be stable. Bluetooth support? We do nearly everthing, including support Voice Command for application commands over BT. Web browsers? There are at least 5 different ones. Java? Yep, several JVMs are out there, depending on the ROM you get. After that, you can run any of over 100,000 or more applications (some might be touch only, which could suck depending on your device). Oh, and don't like the look of the QWERTY keyboard? No problem, there are probably 50 different handsets that sell Windows Mobile, and they have a variety of hardware configurations. After this, you still get support from Microsoft.

Apple? Well, you get their OS, with their hardware, on whatever network it might be chained to. Want applications? Well, if it's a flashlight app you need, you're in luck. Otherwise, you are only allowed to get applications from iTunes? Don't like iTunes? Oh dear... Any deviation, and Big Brother Steve Jobs will not love you anymore. So, drink the Kool Aid and stick with the iTunes ecosystem.

Android, along with the HTC G1, stand for something else. The first thing to stick out is the plethora of input options. Well, you get the capacitive (like the iPhone) touch screen. But, you also get a keyboard. And a track ball. And, an accelerometer. A compass. Bluetooth. Oh, and some hardkeys at the base. This unit has just about every type of input you can get. Communication? Well, you get the normal GSM GPRS/EDGE stuff, along with T-Mobile's brand of 3G (AWS). After that, you get WiFi and Bluetooth. Oh, and a lovely "enhanced" mini-USB connector at the bottom. You also get microSDHC for storage. What's more, nearly all of this crap is basic, standard stuff. So, in my case, I've sworn off devices that don't use USB/mini-USB connectors so I have a ton of cables and chargers for these things, and I even have a headset modified to use the mini-USB connector for audio (they didn't include a 3.5mm headset jack on there, but I'm OK with that).

The software is also a fairly standard, yet modular setup. For instance, while it's based on Linux, it runs all of the upper-level applications in Java. I like Java a lot, but I usually hate how poorly the stuff you see is coded, or how awful the JVM/JRE the apps have to run in are designed and implemented. Also, when a Google developer provided a coding example, he did it with Eclipse, which is a great open, and free, IDE. Most of this stuff follows Google's traditional model of form follows function, where things are streamlined. This provides for an initial experience that isn't awe-inspiring to most people, but brilliant to geeks who know what they are looking for. For example:

• The notificiation area is brilliant. Basically, you can do whatever you want, and when a new email, text, voice mail, IM, or whatever comes up, you can read about it at the top of the screen and then just "drag" that down and see all the notifications that you've missed. You can also interact with them at their level (if it's a text, you can directly reply, or call/send and email) without bouncing around to various applications on the handset.
• Multi "desktop" concept. You can setup two different views, with a home page using basic widgets, and two other spaces that have shortcuts or whatever else you like.
• The concept of "intents." Basically, this allows the core apps, along with 3rd party apps, to "publish" functionality and allow other applications to tie into them. So, if wanted to play a huge game of tag, you could write an app that uses Google Maps for wide-scale navigation, then drops to Street View or using the camera, provides "targets" that are drawn relative to your position (using the GPS and compass hardware, along with the accelerometer for handset position). During this, you can send texts back and forth without leaving the application.

Of course, it isn't without its flaws. The Bluetooth API didn't get finished in time, along with some planned GoogleTalk API that may or may not come out in the near future. This means it will probably be missing BT sync/tethering, BT PAN, BT file/contact transfer, and maybe even BT stereo and AVRCP profiles. This sucks for me. It does, however, allow for some basic functionality like running multiple apps at the same time and over-the-air OS updates (rumored, but make sense) that the iPhone can't even be bothered with doing.

What I am really hoping for, however, is to keep a phone for 2 years and not feel like I am missing out so much to other handsets that are running the same OS. This has been happening with my Windows Mobile device, as it's just so slow. However, the upshot is that Windows Mobile does work on many things, and while it's a bit bloated (clearly) it does support a lot of hardware. Better yet, when new hardware is introduced (HTC and Samsung have different accelerometers) you can code support for it using their SDK. On top of this, a person wrote a unifying class to allow developers coding for accelerometer support to use one chunk of code to interface with differing hardware implementations. Windows Mobile allows for this, while Apple would rather you leave the most of the hardware out of it and code against Safari, its browser.

I expect Android to go even further than this, considering the open nature of the OS along with the Open Handset Alliance (hell, "open" is in its name!) should allow for better hardware integration along with backporting support of newer applications to older hardware. Couple this with more regular OS and SDK updates, using free/cheap tools that work well, and you have a huge platform begging to take over and expand. Let's just hope that it works out. For me, at least.

A Garmin TCX to KML converter that works!

http://www.oe-files.de/oefiles/gmaps/tcx_to_kml_html

This works pretty well via the website, and I will try using the stylesheet template on my own for batch processing. Nicely done so far, but I might try to get more metrics to come up in Google Earth.

Vista 64 bit (x64) on the Dell Inspiron 530

So, I had to replace my regular system due to a power supply failure. In many cases, you would simply pitch the PSU in favor of a new, and preferably working one. Since the PSU in question was in a system consisting of an Intel 2.4GHz Northwood, this was a bigger problem. The CPU is so old (got it in 2003, I think, and it was "old" then) it doesn't even support hyper-threading, let alone the multi-core setups we have now. Getting a PSU that supports the older motherboard connections (including the secondary CPU power rails) and a ton of IDE power connections (I have no SATA items) wasn't something I wanted to deal with. Anything that would support that stuff would be cheap (I like getting nicer units, and those have gone to current power topology) and probably something I wouldn't feel confident in. Besides, who wants to put $50-$100 into a system that old?

Enter Dell, or rather www.roosster.com, and their cool deals. After a week of fiddling around with various coupons, I got the following:

1. Intel Core2 processor Q9300 (2.50Ghz,1333FSB) w/Quad Core Technology and 6MB cache
2. 4GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz
3. Dell USB Keyboard
4. Dell Optical USB Mouse
5. Video ready option w/o monitor
6. Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
7. 500GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive(7200RPM)
8. Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Readerincluded in Dell Bluetooth Package
9. Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 Home Premium Edition, English
10. Mouse included with Keyboard purchase
11. Integrated NIC card
12. No modem requested for Dell Dimension
13. 16X DVD+/-RW Drive
14. Roxio Creator 10 Dell Edition
15. Integrated Audio
16. No Speaker Requested
17. Dell 19-in-1 Media Reader withBluetooth 2.0

Now, while I got Vista Home Premium, I already have licenses for Vista Ultimate and I wanted to put on the 64-bit version. This is desire is what caused me a few problems. It seems that the chipset may be crippled and limited to 4GB of RAM (a lot of RAM, but I wanted 8GB at some point) and seems to have setup this system for 32-bit OS only. Once I formatted it and installed Vista Ultimate x64, my life got a lot more complicated. The Dell website doesn't "officially" support 64-bit software and drivers for this system, even though the CPU (all 4 cores) do. Once I installed the OS, I needed the following:

1. NIC driver (that's the most fun, since you usually can't get anything else until that's up)
2. Chipset driver
3. Video driver (even though it's embedded)
4. Bluetooth module driver

I am going to throw up the links to get stuff started in case I need it again, and for those unfortunate others that are trying to do the same thing I did. So you know, the system is AMAZING with Vista x64 on it, and I run VMware Workstation 6 and virtualize Windows Server 2008, XP, and a Linux VM right now. It's great with 1080p video that I've downloaded (some movie preview), but I plan on getting PCI-e adapter with HDMI (and HDCP) support for my Samsung 4671 in the next few months.

NIC driver
Site http://outerheaven.c-reality.com/archives/96-Dell-Inspiron-530-Windows-Vista-64-bit-Driver-Pack.html
Binary location 1 http://cheapfilehost.com/file.php?file=f1e2ede8cae99a45c4cfd6248e567b5d
Binary location 2 http://www.filedropper.com/inspiron530vistax64driverpack

Chipset Driver
On CD, or get from Dell using 32-bit (x86), since it will also create a 64-bit directory

Video Driver
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=N&ProductID=2102&DwnldID=15843&strOSs=162&OSFullName=Windows%20Vista*%20Ultimate,%2064-bit%20version&lang=eng

Bluetooth Module Driver
On CD, or get from Dell using 32-bit (x86), since it will also create a 64-bit directory

Suprise! JD Power loves the Honda Fit

Or rather, the people that were interviewed do.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/autos/0806/gallery.2008_jdpower_apeal/2.html

Yay me.

Top 11 Most Pointless Celebrity Products

This was given to me at the beginning of class today, and now I pass it on to all (both) of you, my adoring fans:

http://www.cracked.com/article_15835_hulk-hogan-pasta-shaq-fu-11-most-pointless-celebrity-products.html

Working around TCP/IP limits in Vista

I ran into an issue tonight where I had a torrent going, and even with the limited connectivity of it I started having problems streaming a movie to my XBOX 360.  Once I checked the logs, I saw a 4226 error regarding a limit to TCP/IP connections.  What's strange is that I don't recall having such an issue with WinXP Pro SP2, and I was downloading a lot more stuff.  I've found this, but haven't tried it yet.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/04/09/windows-vista-tcpipsys-connection-limit-patch-for-event-id-4226/

Like Top Gear?

Well, it's back this Sunday.  Which means it's back all over the world, this Sunday, via Torrent (www.finalgear.com).  However, if you feel like flexing your driving might, check out this game.

http://www.topgear.com/content/timetoburn/sections/games/

I saw it earlier, but didn't get around to posting it until the Top Gear newsletter hit my mailbox this morning.