So the Geneva motorshow has shown some spectacular cars from hot hatches like the Honda Civic Tyre R to the supercar looks of the Maserati to challenge the Jag F-Type.

                                                                   Maserati Concept

However all of this has been negatively impacted , in my opinion, by the constent back and forth of manufactureres on who has the fastest Nurburgring Time...

Is anyone else sick of this constant need for manufactueres to wave their male members in a display of machoism in relation to "Ring" times?

While I agree the Nurburgring is a fine place to test drive a car with some of the most technical and challenging corners of any course and the potential for the weather to be different depending on the location on the track due to its 20832m length. However there is no ruling body in relation to the lap times at the Nurburgring, no official timing method and even debate about where the start and finish line is!! This along with the factors such as weather, track temperature, tyres, driver.... the list goes on; has a major effect on the validiy of the times.

If the above wasnt enought there have been many stories of manufacturers "tuning" their cars specifically for the "Ring" so as to get the best possible time, a particular journalist isn't allowed driver their cars after speaking out about it ;) This type of testing is not indecative of the final production car a customer can get. Its easy to make a car quick around a specific circuit but making it work around a variety of tracks, while also being usable on public roads is far more important and applicable to the end consumer.

So to end this ramble.... I am hoping that manufactures and the motoring community move away from this "Ring" time mentality and look at trying to find the best car in all situations. Plus if your gonna picka  track to get the best time around how about we pick Spa Francorchamps :)

Unlimited data but dial up speeds.... "Yes Please"!

For a while now I have been a customer with Three Ireland, on the All You Can Eat data plan @ €20.33 per month for sim only. As part of this I have 300 units for texts/calls and unlimited usage of data on my mobile.

One would thing that a plan with free all you can eat data would have a respectable level of performance to allow users to make use of the uncapped data!? Well one would think incorrectly... for the past number of months I have had the following ongoing issues with my HSPA+ (3G) internet connection with Three:

1. Download speeds that are <60kB/s in most areas of Dublin city
2. Constant disconnects from the 3G network 
3. DNS issues that cause intermittent internet connectivity issues
4. Inability to use my data plan for tethering to my laptop due to the above

The response from Three has been lack luster to say the least, whereby I have been told by tech support that they have made changes to my network profile. I have not been informed of what changes and these "updates" have only slightly increased the download speeds to ~1.5Mb/s (in certain areas), but the DNS issues and connectivity loss still remain.

Now a person could say that it is a phone issue (Galaxy Note 2) or the location that I am using the phone in and I wouldn't disagree with them if they did. So to eliminate this as the issue I placed a Vodafone Bill Pay sim in my phone to do a test against the Three sim. The results were shocking to say the least:

1. Vodafone provided  Download: 7.8Mb/s and Upload: 1.4Mb/s
2. Three provided        Download: 68kB/s   and  Upload: 2.1Mb/s

I am alos not sure how Three are providing a 4G network when their 3G network is clearly lacking. My presumption is that the Three Ireland data network is oversubscribed and that it cant deal with the number of users and contention on each of the towers is becoming an issue. There is no way to improve this at the consumer level without investing further in infrastructure and this might be one of the reasons that Three is looking to purchase 02. However as this has been blocked by the Telecoms Regulator at present I am not optimistic that the Three service is going to improve any time soon.

Thus I am now currently thinking of changing my provider to solve this issue as paying for a service I am not being provided is rather retarded, especially in a situation where using the "up to 7Mb/s" or the like is clearly not a valid reason from the results shown above!

I would be interested to hear back from people on their experience of the different mobile providers in Ireland and especially with the Three Ireland network.

I am back....

Well its been a very long time since my last post! This is due to work and a general lack of time up until now. However I have started to reasses my use of time and blogging has come back on the list of things to do :)

So with that out of the way this blog is going to be a electic mix of everything from Technology, Gaming, Cars, Science to even the odd Political POV. I do hope you will enjoy these ramblings and please let me know if you want me to cover anything in particular.

So keep an eye out for my first new post coming tomorrow...!!!

Aldiko Reader for Playbook

I purchased a Blackberry Playbook roughly 3 weeks ago and have enjoyed the experience. My intention is to write a review for the product in the coming days however I noticed that a number of people have asked on line about getting better ereader support for the device. Currently it only ships with Kobo Reader which does not allow importing of books bought from other stores and the ereaders on the App Market are either lack functionality or incur a cost.

Coming from an Android smartphone I was less than impressed that I would need to pay for an ereader app to read my collection of ebooks. So I searched the internet for solutions to the problem and came across the ability for the Developer Beta OS2.0 for the Playbook to install Android apps. This update will be made available to all owners in February.  I decide to “upgrade” to OS2.0 and install Aldiko below is the “How to”, along with getting Aldiko to recognise the books saved on the device.

Start:

First we need to get that Playbook updated to OS2.0 which can be done by going to the following RIM website and registering for the update to be pushed over the air to your device:

https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/android/beta/bbtablet20/register/

Once the registration has been done it takes from a few minutes to a few hours before the update will become available. Once you get the notification install as you would any other update. The Playbook will restart and you are ready to install some android apps but there is one more hurdle before we do that. The .apk files that android uses cannot be installed as is to the Playbook they must be converted to .bar files. Luckily for us this has been done for a number of apps already and so the process for converting will be held over for a later date. Below is a link to a spreadsheet containing a number of apps that have already been tested and converted (and some that have not!):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgxpYlYAxOVMdEJRZkZaa0ZrQzVEQjVMVmNFNGV1Z0E&hl=en_US#gid=0

Download the relevant Aldiko .bar file, along with any others you might be interested in Angry Birds anyone! The process for installing them is the same. Now we prepare the Playbook for installation:

First we need to download and install the appropriate Java Development Kit or JDK below

·         Download:  32bit;

·         Download:  64bit.

Note: The correct one needs to be used for the version of Windows installed on your computer otherwise installer will fail.

Next we need to download the DDPB software that will install the .bar files to the playbook for us:

·         Download: DDPB Installer 1.0.7.msi  (slightly older version which works better imo).

Right so now to turn on dev mode in Playbook, swipe down from the top bezel to get system options. From her go to Security and turn Dev mode on and lastly enter a password of your choice :

Now plug your Playbook into your PC and start up DDPB software and the below screen should pop up:

Dont worry the IP and Password as easy to find, just go to the icon of the man in the previous picture (Playbook Status bar next to Wifi/Battery) and the Password if the one you set for Development Mode.

Next click on “Add” and navigate to the folder where you saved the .bar files from previously. Select one or all of them and then “Check All”. Press the Install button and wait for DDPB to load them to your playbook.

Now it should be done you have Aldiko installed to your Playbook!

One last step is to move you ebooks to the right folder on the Playbook.

·         Open BlackBerry Desktop Software and select files tab on the left hand column:

·         Next Navigate to Misc/Android and once inside this directory create a folder called “eBooks” with a subfolder called”imports”. These are case sensitive as far as I can remember. Now copy you ePub books along with cover art if applicable (or other format) into the imports folder;

·         Once transfer is finished disconnect Playbook from  PC;

·         Lastly go to the Aldiko app in the app drawer and start it up;

·         Once it has loaded and you can see the bookshelf just pull down from the top to get the options menu;

·         Select import and wait;

·         Now all your books should be on the shelf.

I do hope that this helps anyone who had issues with importing books and those that were looking for an alternative ebook reader. And remember once the Playbook is setup to install apps it mearly takes minutes to install them from here on out. So enjoy and stay tuned for a Playbook review and hopefully a guide to getting turn by turn navigation working on the Playbook (currently I have a temporary work around that doesn’t work all the time!).

Meister R's: A review for a Deuce

Hey guys,

Got my Mesiter R Coilovers roughly 1 month ago and have done about 2k kms in them so far on a combination of city, motorway and uneven ( ie.cratered) Irish rural roads. The following is my experience thus far.

Meister R Customer Service

I was in contact with Jerrick at Meister R after reading a number of positive reviews from Irish and Uk owners. Many of whome had them on Mini Coopers and such but not on an MR2. So I decided to give Meister R a go. From the start the service was great with all my emails being answered quickly and comprehensively.  Once I placed an order the Coilovers were delivered in days rather than weeksJ.

Coilover Units 

The first thing I noticed about the coilovers was the quality of the product delivered. From the nice box (I like packaging) to the well padded units within. The coilovers have a very reassuring weighty feel, not one that means built out of big chunks of cheap metal, but well engineered and should stand up to the rigors of the Irish roads.

The units come with adjustable dampening and rebound which is easily changed by adjusted the dials on the top of each strut which allows for fine tuning on the track and road.  It takes mere minutes to change the settings and tweak them.

Fitting the units was very straight forward, everything slotted in to place perfectly, and fitting was performed by a friend. The fitting would have been nice and easy were it not for my car and after many hours of trying to get the old struts out due to seized nuts/bolts and anything else that likes to be a pain to remove they were on.  Big props to Anto for the work done I seen the struggle and can only say if it were me I’d have ended up rage quitting on that job  :-p Below are the culprits for many an hour of pain, Bilstein stock struts with Apexi springs which will be going into storage in the lovely box the coilovers came in!

The car is currently raised higher than it was before the coilovers went on due to the poxy 18” alloys (46 offset) so they were touching the coilovers when at the original height. Spacers have been ordered so once they are on re-adjustment will be made. 

Driving

Currently have the dampers set to 6 all round from softest setting of which there are 32 in total. (I think that’s the stock setting) but will be playing with different settings this weekend when I have the spacers on. So far however I have to say the coilovers have given me much more confidence in the handling of the car. I have never had a oh crap moment since I bought the car but the front is much more planted than with the old setup of stock struts and apexi springs. Were before I was getting understeer on certain corners, the car now just turns in and drives on through.

The  ride on the roads of west cork is very good with the car not being trown off by bumps even mid corner and have had family members compliment the ride saying that it is as good as the previous setup if not better at absorbing the bumps. I think when you have your mother say that it speaks massively of the quality of the ride received from the Meister R’s. 

I am still getting to know the driving characteristics of my MR2 and have a track training day planned for January so expect many updates to this thread over the coming weeks/months.

Initial Impressions

I have to compliment again the service I received from Jerrick it was very comprehensive and had a personal touch. The coilovers thus far have held up well to the abuse the uneven roads of Ireland have given them and (hopefully) this weekend there will be a sluth of new photos to show this when the spacers are being put on.

The price of the units was fantastic and the shipping very quick. I think that value for money is one of the strong points of the Meister R’s but while not sacrificing in the quality department! The review may be lacking in technical detail due to my less than stellar knowledge of car suspension setups. But what I do know is when a car feels right and handles well and the Meister R’s add buckets of extra confidence and driving ability to both the car and the driver.

Lastly some shots of the car that has the good fortune of being endowed with said coilovers.