Posted By RichC on October 29, 2006
The repair to my daughter’s VW Jetta TDI tallied at about $700, acceptable considering the initial body shop estimate was $1530. (see prior post) We were able to avoid a clear coat repair paint job by picking up a closely matching door at the highly recommended Brim Import Auto. (15363 County Road 140 East, Kenton, Ohio — Phone: 800.221.3874) Although some felt the old door could have been repaired and repainted, we opted to put a new door on the hinges.
Considering that there was impact damaged the structural beam inside the door, and that my daughter will be driving this car, I’m much more comfortable with a new door. Perhaps someday we’ll take care of the other dings and chips and give this great little car some new paint?
Photo taken with Palm Treo 700p smartphone
Category: Automotive, Volkswagen |
No Comments »
Tags:
Posted By RichC on October 28, 2006
I suspect that most of you are like me and have created a hotmail, yahoo or gmail account or two just to have an email address to sign up for websites requiring an email for access. Unfortunately the full accounts require a login to webmail (Yahoo’s new service being pretty slow), pop mail set-up and cleaning up. Dodgeit.com offers a better solution that is a super-simple, effective and FREE receive-only email
service. It’s ideal for signing in to your favorite newspaper site or whatever … in fact is even works a little bit like bugmenot.com which share login codes to many websites. Give them both a try if you haven’t seen them before.
Category: Uncategorized |
6 Comments »
Tags:
Posted By RichC on October 27, 2006
David Eckstein, the St. Louis Cardinals shortstop, was presented the new Corvette Z06 as the most valuable player, but the win was
most definitely a team effort. Jeff Weaver pitched an outstanding game 5 and propelled his team past the early favored Detroit Tigers. It took only five games to win this years World Series, one that was tarnished with errors from the year long stellar Tiger pitching staff. An unbelievable 8 errors were racked up by Detroits’ pitchers in only 5 games. Congratulations go out to players and fans of the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals.
Category: Uncategorized |
No Comments »
Tags:
Posted By RichC on October 27, 2006
Although I’m not a “gamer,” I can see applications for this kind of 360 degree view doing more than just computer game playing junkies. MSNBC published an article in its Tech/Science section showcasing Toshiba Corporations “dome-shaped headgear” that shows images in 260 synced with the motion of the wearer’s head. According to the article, the six pound bubblehead is still experimental, the helmet uses infrared sensors that detect which way the head is moving. A projector on the back then displays the proper image on the screen in front of the user. Check out the article here.
Category: Uncategorized |
No Comments »
Tags:
Posted By RichC on October 27, 2006
While watching the end of game 4 of the World Series (9th inning), I noticed that there is a new Volkswagen sales campaign call V-DubsRock. The marketing approach is reminiscent of the “buy a car, get a bike” gimmick, but this time it is an FirstAct electric guitar. Nevertheless since the commercial has high-speed motion and cut aways, I wanted to try a new encoding setup with smaller video size but higher quality H.264 Quicktime. Let me know how it looks. (smaller for bandwidth constraints)
Category: Automotive, Misc, Video-TV, Volkswagen |
4 Comments »
Tags: ads, commercial, guitar, video, volkswagen
Posted By RichC on October 26, 2006
While watching the Detroit Tigers struggling to even up in the World Series against the Cardinals, I uploaded a commercial talking about retirement. I’m not endorsing Ameriprise (don’t know enough about them) but appreciated the active retirement: building boats and sailing them. Yes, I enjoy dreaming.
🙂
Category: Uncategorized |
No Comments »
Tags:
Posted By RichC on October 26, 2006
I picked up a used TiVo on a last minute whim yesterday; we returned our cable companies DVR back in August and I’ve actually been thinking about it. I’ve heard positive comments about the TiVo interface, ease of use, network-ability and the neat ‘dogbone’ remote, but never had the opportunity to tinker with one. Since this older 80 hour Series 2 box isn’t the latest and greatest I was able to pick up the hardware for $35.00 plus shipping.
I’ve yet to activate service (pricey, but discounted longer terms) and found myself wishing I had one of those ‘lifetime’ subscriptions. (big bucks on Ebay) It will be nice to be able to pause, rewind and record a programs without resorting to our old VCR again — no … I didn’t really pull out the old VCR … but yes I miss the cable companies DVR. If there are any Tivo ‘bumps’ I should avoid before subscribing let me know by posting a comment; I welcome any advice. (one option I’m considering is buying another WITH a ‘lifetime’ subscription on the box and just adding this existing TiVo as a second for $6.95? Can I do that?)
Category: Uncategorized |
4 Comments »
Tags:
Posted By RichC on October 25, 2006
Quick phone to blog post as I fill up my daughter’s repaired VW Jetta TDI with B20 at the exit 151 Sunoco. (damage to door) The new pumps at 6027 Route 95 Mount Gilead Ohio (for those with GPS) show E85 (octane 105) at $1.96, B2 at $1.59, B5 at $1.61 and B20 at $1.63. It is great to have this station so ideally located to I-71 in the center of Ohio.
EDIT: On my return trip I filled my car up too!
Photo with Palm Treo 700p … click for larger photo
Category: Automotive, Biodiesel |
2 Comments »
Tags:
Posted By RichC on October 25, 2006
For Palm smartphone enthusiasts, here’s a 20 minute video interview from the October 12th Digital Life Conference on the new Palm Treo 680. It is a question and answer session with Phil McClendon, the Treo 680 product manager, courtesy of TreoCentral. Some of the features are demonstrated and a quick comparison is made both the older Treo 650 and recently introduced 700p (past 6 months). McClendon mentioned (short mp3 audio) that the primary difference between the 680 and the 700p is the price point (lower) and the camera (.3 megapixel) as well as the bandwidth of the GSM/GPRS/EDGE network as compared to EVDO data speeds. The new product also offers a couple color choices, improved software interface as well as new contact manager integrated phone application and the obvious missing antenna. The attractive new form-factor of the Treo 680 will make a nice upgrade for Treo 650 users not concerned with camera or bandwidth as well as a perfect Palm OS based entry point smartphone. For anyone trying to keep all the Treos to date straight, here is a great chart from a blog post over at Treonauts. Thanks again to Treocentral for taking and posting this interview.
GOOGLE VIDEO REMOVED
Category: Cellphone |
No Comments »
Tags: palm, treocentral
Posted By RichC on October 24, 2006
The outstanding cross platform browser by the Mozilla organization is available today. It has spent a significant amount of time being tested in beta and is now ready for prime time. Download it today … you won’t be disappointed.
EDIT: Did I mention Firefox 2 has a built in spell checker for all those misssspelled misspelled online posts? Now I just need to slow down enough to look at the dotted red underlined words!
Category: Uncategorized |
No Comments »
Tags:
