Merry Christmas

Hi all,

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas. Hope you all have a great time and enjoy a bit of a break.

Ian!

New Tyres

Last week I went to get the rego check on my car and was knocked back because the state of my tyres. I wasn't surprised about this at all. My old tyres were Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3, and they had been on the car for a little over 2 years and about 45,000 kms. Also in this time they had done a number of track days at Wakefield Park, Goulburn. The track days don't really do your tyres any favours. I have considered getting a 2nd set of rims and some track tyres so I'm not chewing up my good road tyres, but I'm not sure that I could justify the extra cost and storage space (in my parents garage), for something that I would only use maybe 2-3 times a year.

Anyway, I now have a set of Dunlop Direzza DZ101 tyres on the car. In the week and a bit that I have been driving on these tyres, I have decided that I am pretty impressed with them. They offer very good grip in both wet and dry. I found that a little provoking on a wet road and they didn't break traction. They don't seem very noisy either. The only problem i did find was a vibration in the car when travelling at 110 km/h. I am taking the car back to the tyre place to get the wheel re-balanced tomorrow to sort this problem out. Hopefully all will be good after that :-)

Why is it always Friday night....

....when I get stuck in the office trying to get things done and everything seams to go wrong. Grrrr! I want to go home.

Crowded House

(Wow! 2 posts in one night!)

On Thursday night I went to see Crowded House in concert at the Enmore Theatre. It was a brilliant concert. They sounded great and played some great music. There were a lot of new songs that I hadn't heard before, but if sounds like they might be bringing out a new album in the near future, and this was a taste of what is to come. Of course, they played a good chunk of their old classics too, which, as always, was fantastic. I'm looking forward to the new album when it comes out.

Monitor Update 2

Continuing from my previous post, I have now found the time to replace the video card in my computer to see if this was the cause of my monitor issues. Previously, I had written about building a building a new system. There were no details of this new system, because I was raving about my new monitor and speakers, but it included a GeForce 9500GT video card. So I took the new video card out of the new computer and put it in the "main" computer. This has resolved the issues I was having and I can now watch full screen videos again.

Monitor Update

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been having problems viewing full screen video on my new 24 inch Samsung LCD monitor. From a little bit of testing that I have been doing, I believe that the problem lies with the video card. It is a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS, that shouldn't have any problems displaying the full screen video. I will need to find some time so I can swap out the video card and see if this is the case. I'll keep you all updated.... becuase there are just some many of you reading this :-P

New Computer Bits

The other weekend I went out and bought some new computer bits. I built up a new system but also got some new speakers and a new monitor for my existing computer. I got all the bits from IT Estate at North Rocks. I find that IT Estate is easy to get to and have good prices.

I'm very impressed with my new speakers. They are Logitech X-240 2.1 Speaker system. Setup was easy and the sound is great, and for $49, they are awesome value. It is great have some nice sound coming from the PC after living with a set of el-cheapo "PC" speakers that were probably worth $5.

I initially purchased a 24 inch BenQ LCD monitor. It was a nice monitor, but I found it had a dead pixel. I took it back for an exchange as per the BenQ pixel policy, but the monitor I bought was the last one they had in stock, so rather than waiting, I got a refund and purchased a Samsung 2493HM instead. It is also a 24 inch LCD that does 1080P HD. It take analogue, DVI, and HDMI inputs. The stand is tilt, height, swivel and pivot adjustable, which is one o my favourite features :-) It means I can lift the screen and turn it 90 degrees from landscape to a portrait orientation. This will will make reading long documents or web pages very easy. The screen is huge compared to my 17 inch LG LCD, and it looks fantastic! The image quality is amazing.

The screen is surrounded in a shiney black case, which looks sweeeet! However, Samsung have opted for the clean look for this monitor and have done away with buttons. Instead the "buttons" are replaced by touch sensitive sections on the bottom right of the monitor. To operate, just touch the labeled sections on the front of the case. While this makes for a very clean look on the front of the monitor, it also makes it rather hard to operate. If you don't touch the right spot, it won't register the touch. The lablels are not backlit and the text is very hard to read against the black case. This is overcome by the MagicTune software that comes with the monitor allowing for the adjustments to be made with the software instead of the "buttons" on the monitor.

I have found some problems with this monitor too. When watching full screen videos, I find that the screen will go blank and the monitor power light will flash, like it has gone into power savin mode. Other times, the display will go blue - white - grey - black - and then to a kind of test pattern screen with different coloured boxes, and then keep changing constantly. I haven't yet found a resolution to the problem, but it never happened on the old monitor. I have updated the video card drivers, but this hasn't helped. It is rather annoying, but I have a few things I will try to determine where the problem lies before I go back to Samsung to see what they say. I hope I can get it resolved quickly, because the picture great and it is awesome for watching videos on (when it actually works). I'll keep you updated on the progress of this problem.

James Morrison

On the weekend I got the opportunity to do some techie work (sound and lighting) for a small James Morrison concert. I've never really listened to much jazz music before, but I was thoroughly impressed by James and his band. The music was great, the atmosphere was awesome, and James was very funny and entertaining both between songs and during songs. I enjoyed the concert immensely and would recommend anyone to go and see a James Morrison concert given the chance. I know I'll go back and see him again if I can!

The Car

My car is a Mazda MX5. It is a late 2001 model (also known as an NB8B in the MX5 community) and is Brilliant Black in colour. It has a 1.8 litre, 4 cylinder engine, and on the dyno it produced 78.4 rwkw. I was impressed :-) as it is completely stock. The MX5 is a lightweight convertible sports car renowned for it fantastic handling capabilities (and its good looks).
While my MX5 is stock engine wise (at the moment), I have added a few minor modifications inside and out:

• Clear side indicators (from MX5 Parts in the UK)
  
• Clear side reflectors (from MX5 Parts in the UK)
• Voodoo Magnum Spun Gearknob (from Thompson Automotive in the US)
  
• Satin door handle surrounds (from MX5 Parts in the UK)

I enjoy driving my MX5. It is great to be able to put the roof down on a nice sunny day (don't forget the sunscreen!) or even on a nice, warm night and cruise around with the wind in your hair.... *dreams of driving around with the roof down* :-)

Anyway, here are a couple of pics. I might put some more up later.

First post

Well, here I am. Welcome to My Random Ramblings. I have no idea what I'm doing here, but I thought I'd start a blog and put some random thoughts out into cyber-space. I will be surprised if anyone is listening though.... we'll see.