Blogs

 Every year I make up a somewhat ludicrous Xmas list for my friends and family. I don't really expect to get any of these, but it would sure make my day if i did! This year, I decided to post it on my new blog and let world know what a materialistic tool I am.  

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 Smart owners around the world have been debating on the capacity of the fuel tank. The manual says it has 8 gallons (one bar for each gallon). However, people (myself included) have put more in than that in various fillups. Some argued that the true capacity was 9gal, some 10.  For two years the debate went on in places like the Smart Car of America Forums. Tonight, it has finally been solved thanks to Larry ("LittoDevil") and his Screamin' Cow (both pictured--the latter of which I've once had the pleasure of driving). More after the jump.

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If you've been following my twitter lately, you might know I've been having a rough weekend trying to get Win7 to work on my ASUS EeePC 1002HA. The problem started when I upgraded and I found that when I powered the machine on, the screen would be blank unless I hit shift+F1 to put it into sleep mode and wake it up again. I tried upgrading the drivers from the ASUS download site, and that ended up getting me into a myriad of problems. However, I have finally gotten it all sorted out, and everything works like a charm. My observations on installing Win7 properly on this machine after the jump. Hopefully you read this BEFORE you start :)

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 I saw a great article on the smart fortwo today in Winding Road Magazine. It compares it with the Honda Fit, which most automotive journalists will favor in two seconds flat. After all, the fit can seat more people, has a more powerful engine, has more cargo capacity, and apparently has a higher quality interior. When comparing the car to a smart in practical terms, the Fit is an obvious winner.  However, in this article, the Smart wins.  Why? They look at the smart for what it is--not a practical, 4 seater car, but as a low-cost urban sports car.   READ MORE>

Following is a blog entry I wrote for the blog of my wife's business, Street Smart Brazil. It was written while enjoying a bottle of Devassa Loura on a hot day in Recife Brazil. Enjoy! READ MORE>

 As I write this, my completely-full 160GB IDE hard drive is making a very unhealthy sound, and I'm trying to make sure I don't get too many browser windows open lest my single-core processor gets bogged down.  Yep, it is time for a new desktop.  This one has served very well over the last 4+ years, but its time to go to Dell.com and . . . what, what?   READ MORE>

In America we had Cash for Clunkers, officially called CARS to bolster the auto industry and get older, inefficient cars off the road.  I think that Germany might have a much more exciting program, and it also happens to be a program on TV. Alarm Fur Cobra 11 is a series in which two cops chase bad guys and usually end up causing massive pileups on the Autobahn. READ MORE>

 I've been using the Marinelli theme for my site, as well as my wife's for a while now, and I've found it to be a very attractive, and useable theme.  However, there are a couple of kinks that one might want to sort out that took me a while to find answers for.  Here they are so you don't have to.   READ MORE>

 Today is a sad day for me.  I found out that the last VW plant to make the Mark 1 Golf, almost unchanged since 1974, has closed its operation, according to AutoBlogGreen.  Yes, they still made them in South Africa until then. The more recently made models were called the CITI Golf, and featured an updated interior and a few other things, but it is mostly as the original.  I'm very partial to that car, as it was my first one (pictured). READ MORE>

 The other day I had to set up Apache, PHP, and MYSQL on my Windows XP machine to host a test a Drupal site I am helping develop.  The http folder was in a different folder because it was in a Git repository (more on that experience in a later post). Needless to say, I went to the places outlined in Drupal's installation requrements page, and I had a very difficult time getting Apache and PHP to link. It was so much easier in Linux. I tried until I gave up and found a much easier solution.  READ MORE>