iNomis

I’m selling my 2007 MINI Cooper S.

I had some recent warranty work done to fix my malfunctioning steering wheel lock and sometime rough idle on cold mornings. Steering wheel locks are a known problem with MINI and BMW. In fact the locks have been removed from production in recent model year MINIs. The cold weather issue was addressed by changing out the high pressure fuel pump. Also a know problem. I notice an oil leak under the car everyday since I got my car back. It seems to becoming from the passenger side on the back of the engine above the oil pan level. Some report a common problem of the timing chain tensioner seeming in this area. The common timing chain tension problem was addressed last year about this time. While I’m getting the oil leak fixed I’m going to ask for my warped hood scoop to be fixed. While cleaning the car to sell I noticed part of my radio antenna is crumbling, so that gets fixed also. Lot’s of issues some major, some minor.

All of them coupled with the common carbon buildup on the backside of valves of these turbo engines make me worry. What will happen next? The 4 year warranty is ending this month. Sometimes you can see that even the best things can end bad. Better to enjoy the memories and suffer the possible regret than suffer the major pain of a major problem out of warranty.

These are great cars if you want to be involved in the turbo charged scene. I don’t think the engine is going to self-destruct. I do think you need to add a oil catch can and keep on top of the condition of the engine. Too much work for me, for this car. I have my Factory Five Cobra for that. I wanted this car to be simple, small, reliable and fun. I suppose no car I would want to drive everyday is simple anymore. I hope my next car is more reliable and just as fun.

admin MINI Cooper

We had a ‘consultation’ with our countertop fabricators today, Signature Stone in Williamsburg VA.

admin Uncategorized

A confirmation like this from Steve throws some water on the late delivery camp.

admin Apple TV Apple, Apple TV

Apple’s new 2010 Apple TV could do more than most seem to be thinking. No reason not to add my thoughts. They just charged my credit card and I should have one in a week or so.

The new Apple TV, as annouced, is a simple device that streams your iTunes library, Netflicks, Apple Store rentals and few other things not worth mentioning here. It’s digital output only, HDMI and optical audio. WiFi or wired networking. Priced $99. I’ll use the iTunes library streaming and Netflix right away with my new Onkyo RC260 5 HDMI input receiver. (Drat it just went down another $20!)

Apple TV could become much more capable.

Not really explained but confirmed information is that it’s running mostly the same iOS as iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. So it likely has 8-16 GB of flash memory and 256MB of RAM. No touch pad screen, buttons, accelerometers, etc. So let’s assume you can write apps for it in the future and those apps can operate as on other iOS devices minus the Apple TV limitations of a limited bundled input device. But, we also know that other iOS devices can interact with each other, so any iOS device is an input device/controller for the Apple TV. There are demos of Touch’s controlling iPads to play games etc. So let’s agree you can get the same apps on a big screen as long as you have an iOS input device.

Imagine A New Kind of Game
Download an app to your Touch. Send it to your Apple TV. Put your Touch in the games controller mode to start the game on your Apple TV. Use the Touch’s screen and accelerometers to control the action on your TV screen. Play with friends on the existing iOS Game Center. Neato!

Imagine A New Kind of TV
An app will show you everthing you can watch similar to your current cable box. Some shows are available at certain times just like your cable box channels. Other shows can be watched anytime like on-demand cable channels. The scope of offerings encompasses all of what you get today on your current system. You can also tell the app to make sure you can watch something later. Let’s call that recording.

How could an app do that? An existing or new company, could set itself up just like cable/satellite providers do today. Get all the feeds going to a central spot for end user delivery. It could create a large data center, to stream the channel of choice to your Apple TV. It could save one copy of any program anyone wished to see later, to send it to anyone later. Sure there are some technical issues I have no idea about. Hey, Apple has a new big data center in North Carolina and just signed a license deal with a TV channel guide company. They just streamed the last Apple keynote as a test of their abilities and it was probably not related in any way to their future plans, right?

So your cable box is gone. I want to point out that anyone that talks about the Apple TV controlling your existing cable box or getting programing from the cable feed like current DVRs are missing it. It’s all about the Internet. The tuner is somewhere else. The DVR is somewhere else. But you control them. You should be able to “save” everything to watch later since they really only need to keep a single copy. So lets call this an Infinte DVR. Will existing cable companies and TV content providers be able to get their piece of the action out of this or even allow it? I have no idea and apparently there are limits on what is currently legal . I see where those willing to win the game could go along. This is the future. Maybe Apple is will have to do it the harder way as others have done (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_DVR) perhaps with a resonable 100 GB of storage or pay per GB at some level.

Imagine a New Kind of App
What else could Apple TV do? How would presentaions look on the office HDTV? Weekly schedule? Could you show your AppleTV screen to another person on the Internet or hook up a camera or something? Oh, wait, did we talk about the USB port on the Apple TV? The one where a video docking station can be plugged in? So you have your iPhone or Touch docked and charging while at home and you get a call while your watching your Apple TV… It’s Steve Jobs saying “Welcome to my Hobby!”.

admin Apple TV Apple, Apple TV

Just want to put in my 2cents that my Apple TV order has not changed it’s status and does not indicate any delay. The way I see the latest “news” on the Apple TV is that they are not charging for expedited shipping on a product ordered 4 weeks out. All companies should do the same. It’s been very interesting to see how this latest message from Apple to customers has been played out in the “media”. Sensationalized headlines rule and the content is wildly speculated to support the headline. Macworld has a reasonable take. Wired’s story was picked up Reuter’s. Many stories take a similar matter of fact leap of reality.

admin Apple TV Apple, Apple TV