Insert Clever Title Here

OK… now I am left to one strange car noise to fix before my big Xmas driving holiday….

I’d like to go to the mechanic with at least something useful…. so does anyone have ideas what this is.

(you are listening for the deep vibration sound)

The Car is a 2000 Forester GX with 145k on the clock.

Details of the noise are…

1- the car needs to be warmed up for it to occur really noticeably.
2 - The Car needs to be doing at least 50kph or so.
3 - it seems to be only when the car is under acceleration.
4 - Seems to come up from underneath the passenger area.

The car has just had a service and the noise is still there, but given when it occurs I am not suprised they missed it.  So it is going in on Thursday to try and find out what the cause is.

Please leave comments.

Tags: Annoyances, General // Add Comment »

O.k… well I have been having some drama’s with my beloved car (Subaru Forester 2000 GX) over the last year. Yes my beloved Subaru has been giving me a drama. But most of the drama has not been with the car itself but with who to trust to get it fixed.

Firstly last year we had a clutch issue which meant that it needed to be replaced. Sigh, and a shit load of money later it was fixed.   But once it was fixed it took 2 more services and 1 slightly cranky letter to get it sorted. And yes on Friday the issue was correctly resolved by the people that did the original install.

I will rewind a bit now and name the two companies involved. Firstly I have been taking my car to Ultratune for over 5 years now and have not had any issues until this clutch problem arose. The problem was a chirp when you depressed the clutch pedal. Now, I know a lot about a lot of things… to the point that it annoys most of my friends when I drop information into most conversations. However the one thing I know very little about is cars. Yes, that is one of those boys things that I never got.

Anyway back on track… we took it back to Ultratune twice to try and get the issue fixed, and both times it would seem to be o.k for a while and then the noise would come back. So in frustration we took the car on its next service to Subaru and paid for the service with them and asked them to look at the clutch.

This they did, charging me $150 for looking at the clutch noise and told me that I needed a new clutch and fly wheel, and it was going to cost me around the $1500 mark. Oh FUCK I thought at which point I wrote to Ultratune. Now hat tip to them they were very apologetic on the phone and said bring it back in and we will have a look at it.

Now this is where it gets confusing to me. They fixed it… (and for FREE).. turns out it was the springs on the Thrust bearing thingy. Now this is the problem… Subaru were quite happy to bag Ultratune and would have been quite happy to fix my clutch. But see now they had made a diagnosis that was wrong. One that would have seen them replace the clutch and fly wheel. One that would have seen them fix everything and as a result would have most probably fixed the source of the noise. Of course for a fuck load more money that I would have had to paid, being none the wiser to the original problem.

So the question of trust is who. Do I trust Subaru who got it very wrong or do I trust Ultratune who only got it a little bit wrong, and managed to fix it.

I’ve got to go back for something else before I big driving trip at Xmas and it will be to Ultratune.

Tags: Annoyances, General // Add Comment »

Macro on the Sun

Originally uploaded by wolfcat_aus

Two reasons for this blog post… 1.. seriously this is one of my better photos for a while. It is a photo that I am happy with both on a technical and an aesthetic value as well.

This is a photo taken on a phone. I do think people need to stop and think about that for a while. We all rush to get the latest tech all the time. I remember the first digital camera I purchased in 1997 (yes I am an early adopter) it had a resolution of 320×240 (and yes I was a poor early adopter) . Now my phone (yes my trusty Nokia n95) has a 5mg camera with an amazing lens that captures photos like this. The other thing to notice is that this photo is geotagged. My phone has my GPS as well. First time I got to play with a hand held GPS was a Magellen Unit back in 2001. Now I am lost (not figuratively) with out one. I used the GPS on my phone to find this particular object that I have photographed here.

So I do think we all need to stop and think what really interesting times we live in.  Now I am reflecting on less than 10 years of tech in the above paragraphs…. consider what we are going to have in another 10!.

And the second point, is the subject.

Artist Chris Lansell has created a 1.1billion scale model of the sun. Not only that but now has been now laid out from St Kilda to Port Melbourne in the same scale the rest of the solar system. From the model of the sun to Mercury is 58 metres, then other 100 or so to Venus, then Earth. Saturn in scale is nearly 2 kilometres away from the St Kilda marina. Poor old Pluto is 5.9km. (all controversies about it status aside :-))

for more info on the project go here. http://www.melbournesolarsystem.com.au/ .

But for getting a sense of scale of our place on the planet you should go and visit the St Kilda foreshore.

Tags: General, Photos, gps, n95, nokia // 1 Comment »

Nokia have expanded their QR Code Generator to now give you the ability to create Business card barcodes.  More than just a URL, it will embed all the standard business card info.

(See the funny red square of to the side… that is what I am talking about)

Watch the video to see how to do it

more here… Nokia Beta Labs

and now there is a downloadable version of the QR code reader as well…. http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/scan.htm if you don’t already have it..

In case you are wondering if you do… Nokia N82, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB, E66, E71, E90 or 6220 Classic should all have it preinstalled.. but you can get the Nokia version for the Nokia N78, 6210 Navigator, N96by clicking on this installer file  Nokia_Barcode_Reader_S60_32.sis

Plus you can find readers for other phones here… http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/scan.htm

Tags: Mobile, n78, n95, nokia // 1 Comment »

So last night was the first ever episode of Top Gear Australia brought to you by the kind folks at SBS (http://www.sbs.com.au/topgearaustralia/) and it was a show that had some very big boots to fill.

Now before I start I must say I am a HUGE fan of the UK version of the show.  As it is I don’t watch it on SBS as they are to far behind and have adds….

So it was with much I admit trepidation that I watch the first episode of Top Gear Australia last night.

So the above show real shows all the slick stuff from the show… but not the show itself.   I guess I’ll spit out my conclusion first which is… “I will watch a few more eps”.  But now the reasoning…

The show is o.k but only o.k.  I never expected it to be great… re watch the first eps of the new format top gear and they are in fact a lot more stilted and forced than what we had last night.  That is the rub.  We are used to a format from a bunch of guys that have done 10 seasons (first season didn’t have Captain Slow) together.

They do seem to have some chemistry on screen and I think the producers have done o.k.  But it felt forced and there are major issues with timing.  Firstly the whole show felt rushed.  Not just a little, but a lot rushed.  The soft-roader challange had no real conclusion and it should have.  At the end of the day Top Gear does still review cars and they could have said Forester was better than X-Trail or the Toyota.

Overcoming Australia’s perceived lamelessness is another issue.  The “track” that was used for the Hot Laps was crap actually…  I didn’t see an overview of it and there are where not aerial shots of it to put it into perspective either.

Of all the presenters I think Charlie Cox was actually the weakest and Warren Brown was the strongest.  Charlie is meant to be the lynch pin that holds the group together and he failed in that. Plus him saying there is an add break now is beyond annoying.  The show is not broadcast live, so drop the pretence the audience is not that stupid.

But the show has potential.  They do need to find their own voice whilst upholding the production values of the orginal.  It could have been a lot worse and it wasn’t.

Tags: General // 3 Comments »