links for 2007-06-01

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  DIY:happy » How to Install a Remote Control/Tracking System (MFC) in Your Ride
  
  
  (tags: diy electronics gps hacks howto Make car remote)
  
  

links for 2007-05-29

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  California’s “Solo-Carpool” Hybrid Exemption is a Really Dumb Idea | The Truth About Cars
  
  
  (tags: Hybrid Carpool california)
  
  

Related plugin for LifeType

I have written a plugin for LifeType that generates a list of articles that are related to a given plugin.  This currently only uses the keywords from the title, so the list of related articles is not that great.  The next change that I am planning on making is to extract the relevant keywords out of the body of the post.

links for 2007-05-27

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  A test of 3 portable navigation devices
  
  
  (tags: navigation portable device GPS)
  
  

HP Photosmart C3180 Airport Express Update

In this post, I linked to a workaround to get the HP Photosmart C3180 to work with Airport Express. The reason that this workaround was need, was because the driver wasn't compatible with remote printing. 

Out of curiosity, I decided to download the lastest software for the HP Photosmart C3100 series, and tried to configure remote printing again.  Once the new version was installed, printing through the Airport Express worked perfectly.  In fact, even high quality photos look good printed this way.

New Navigation Mode

Yesterday, it cost $50 to fill up our van with gas.  This got me thinking that I should be using our navigation system to help reduce our gas usage.  The navigation unit will give the most direct route to the destination, so this should reduce mileage.

The only problem with this solution is that the route doesn't take into account whether the route is the most efficient for our car.  For example, the most direct route may be on city streets, while our car may not get the best mileage on those roads.

XM Satellite reception

While driving around today, I noticed that reception on our XM radio was pretty spotty.  I just saw this post that mentions that one of XM's satellites is not working correctly, and their repeaters having problems.

Update: It looks like the problem has been solved. Here is an email I received from XM:

XM Radio Resumes Normal Levels of Service
XM Satellite Radio has resumed normal levels of service for customers who experienced outages or significantly degraded service starting yesterday.
The problem occurred during the loading of software to a critical component of the satellite broadcast system, which resulted in a temporary loss of signal from one of the company’s satellites.
After you turn on your XM radio, please allow five to ten minutes to reacquire the XM signal.
XM apologizes for any inconvenience this has caused.