I just got back from Utah from my yearly pilgrimage to the motherland of Colorado. My trip was full of beautiful blue skies, wonderful times with family, Christmas presents, and lots and lots of driving.

The drive to Utah is usually a 7 hour ordeal. Hop on highway 6 right out of Springville down to I-70 and straight over to Denver. My brother and I left on our journey Saturday afternoon expecting no delays. The weather looked good and it looked like a clear shot over.

About an hour and a half into the trip I got a call from my hometown friend John who now lives in Montana. John was flying to Denver and had a layover in Salt Lake City. He explained that during his layover, Delta had canceled the remaining leg of his trip and that he was now stranded. Delta could not even get him on a flight to Denver until Thursday. Yes, that's right - Thursday (that's today). That would be 6 days in the airport. They would not comp him a hotel room, and they would not even refund his ticket fully. He ended up with a partial refund and a cheery "screw you" from Delta.

Conveniently enough, we had made a late start to Denver, and that's where John needed to go too, so I offered to pick him up - there's no way I'm going to leave a brotha stranded in Salt Lake City for 6 days. Being 1.5 hours into our trip, it was double that to get back to where we started - 3 hours to go back to the same place. another hour up to SLC Airport and and hour back would be 5 hours, and then another 1.5 hours back to where we were when John called was a total of 6.5 hours. This effectively doubled the trip.

Fortunately for me, I was able to call in a favor to McSteve who was kind enough to run up to the airport and grab John while I headed back to Provo. This saved a couple hours and saved my mood. I owe you one, McSteve.

We decided to leave the next day in the morning and made it over in time for Christmas Eve. John was so thankful that he paid for all the gas on the way over and even a few snacks. Rock on.

This is the part where I talked about Christmas, the snow storm in Denver, what I did, etc. I'm just going to skip it and talk about the drive home.

Dan and I got up at about noon to drive home today. While heading up I-70 out of Denver we saw a sign that said "I-70 closed at Georgetown." This was sad news as I was eager to get home today. We kept driving hoping something would clear up by the time we made it to Georgetown.

It didn't.

Several miles from Georgetown I-70 became a parking lot. We sat in it for a while an ultimately took an on-ramp (Yes, an on-ramp) to the frontage road. This got us all the way into Georgetown without many problems, but it was a madhouse. Wrecked cars everywhere, people filled up all the gas stations and restaurants while they were waiting out the storm.

We hung out a bit, grabbed some Subway and talked to some other stranded travelers. The visitors center there had televisions showing different areas of the highway in real time, and I-70 beyond where we were was covered in about a foot of snow. The fire marshall told everyone to head back to Denver.

I wasn't about to head back. I would stay in Georgetown all day long and sleep in my car all night if I had to. I already had to drive back to Provo at the beginning of this trip - no more backtracking.

We headed back down I-70 a ways until we found a road that went up into the mountains (highway 40). It was really snowy, but traffic was at least moving. We spent the next 3 hours driving up highway 40 and eventually rallying it on some dirt road for about an hour until we finally came back to I-70 on the other side of the storm. My car pwn3d the mountain. Success!

Since all the other cars were still sitting on the other side of the mountains, I-70 and highway 6 were completely void of cars. The roads were dry and it was smooth sailing the rest of the way home. I now sit safely in my bed, while hundreds of travelers lay freezing in their cars on I-70. Last I checked the pass was still closed.

Suckers.

Here is a final map of our route. View it full size (click on it) to see how awesome it was.

A friend of mine at work (Jordan) modded his 486 IBM Thinkpad into a tru-blue through and through Macbook Pro. I call it the IBM ThinkMac. It runs Windows 95, has 16 Megs of memory, and is capable of emulating a Nintendo almost flawlessly.

There she is. The outside case was painted with something that gives it a look very much like an aluminum Macbook Pro or Powerbook. And yes, that's a parallel port on a Mac - the first ever!

This Apple logo was hand cut into the back of the LCD. Looks pretty good and even has a clear plastic piece fit into it.

Here is the computer open. This is also the first Mac to have one of those little trackball nub things.

Yes, the Apple logo glows white from the LCD's backlight.

Ah yes, it's that time of year again. The holidays are upon us and in full swing. The one time of year that everyone looks forward to most.

Wait, I don't know anyone who looks forward to Christmas. If I do know anybody with such a disposition, they have not made it clear to me. Who invented Christmas anyway? Jesus wasn't even born in December, so we do Him a constant dis-service every single year by forgetting his birthday, then celebrating it 8 months late.

Imagine a friend of yours coming up to you and saying; "Hey buddy, sorry I forgot about your birthday in January, but it's October now and we are finally going to throw you a party!" Not only are you "over it" by now, but they add insult to injury by not even giving YOU any presents. They only give each other presents to celebrate your birthday.

Presents. I say presents are for children. Adults know what they want and they usually go out and buy it. I wish the gift I could give every year was to tell everyone they don't have to buy me a gift, and in return I won't buy them one either. See there? In exchange for my $20, instead of buying you something you might kinda want but probably really don't, you can spend your own $20 on something you really want. It seems win/win to me.

Once you hit 18, your on your own. You're an adult, you can fight in a war, you can move out, and you can vote. Certainly you can make up your mind better than anyone else about what you should give yourself for Christmas.

And the timing!

Who came up with December? December is when you have to square off all your debts from the past year! Everyone comes knocking on your door asking you to settle up. So not only do you have to pay out the rear to settle your debts, but you have to buy a bunch of stuff for people that they don't even want - and don't dare buying cheap gifts! You can buy crappy gifts, but please, no cheap gifts.

Okay, okay - Christmas isn't all bad. Normally I would enjoy the opportunity to take some time off work, travel home for time with the family and friends. But then there's Thanksgiving. We just got together last month - why get together again? It hasn't even been a full month and I have to pony up for travel expenses, take time off work, and this time buy crap for everyone.

So you're saying I'm a scrooge, and maybe I am. But presents at Christmas are overkill every time. Pick a name out of a hat - that's a good solution! Buy one really kick ass gift for someone rather than 10 marginal to crappy gifts that will be forgotten by the next month. There's no need to give gifts to show your love - people you love should know already.

The timing of two holidays make sense. Easter and thanksgiving. Easter is, well, lined up with Jesus' really real birthday somewhat but is also some pagan holiday having to do with fertility. Okay - spring, Jesus, fertility - got it. Thanksgiving is the end of the harvest - when there's lots of food. Lots of food, feast, got it.

Christmas on the other hand, is ... well, nothing really. It's cold and miserable, a bad time to travel, not timed well financially, and doesn't even correlate to anything worth commemorating that I'm aware of. The obvious choice would be to move it to April, and consolidate Easter and Christmas. The easter bunny becomes Santa's helper and replaces the elves (where did they come from anyway?).

This brings a problem with tax season, though, which would have to be moved. We also still have thanksgiving hanging out there in November. So either taxes or Jesus' birthday have to move. Since even Jesus had to pay taxes, and He's not used to getting the party on the right day anyway, I say we move Eastermas later and Thanksgiving earlier. Sometime when it's still warm out, and sometime before school starts.

July. There's a good month. Traveling is a pleasure - it's a great time to take off of work, you can consolidate and take some extra time off to go to the beach. It's not a huge pain to drive around and buy presents for people. Easter egg hunt in the morning, a reasonable number of presents in the afternoon, and a feast in the evening. One day and you can go off and do whatever it is that you would rather be doing. Far enough away from taxes and the end of the year debt collectors.

Call me a scrooge if you want, but I bet a lot more people agree with me then they let on. I hear a lot more complaining about the holidays then hopeful anticipation. Also, remember that Scrooge had a monocle and a tower full of money that he swam in - so the guy couldn't be all wrong.

My boss and I have a never-ending debate about PC vs. Mac. He's a bit outnumbered in our office, but it got me thinking about all the reasons I switched after so many years o using Windows. These kind of debates never usually go anywhere but it's fun nonetheless to evangelize something I have come to enjoy so much.

These are all the reasons I listed about a year ago as to why I would never buy a Mac, and why I changed my mind. Most of these are basic Mac vs. Win qualms. My debates with my boss have moved on to far more advanced reasoning tactics like which operating system uses more pure 1's and 0's and how many scandinavian dwarves does it take to screw in a lightbulb when they have a Mac vs. a PC (Mac: 327, PC: 312 - a clear win for the PC).

1. Availability of Software

If you switch to Mac you're cutting yourself off from a huge library of available software, right? Yes, that's right. No longer will all those viruses and spyware programs run on your new shiny Mac. Right there you can cut out tens of thousands of software packages you may already be running every day on your Windoze machine.

Seriously though, think of the programs you use. Unless you're a serious gamer, you'll be hard pressed to find something that doesn't have a Mac version or equivalent. I spend most of my time in firefox, thunderbird, ecto, adium, and a few other apps. I thought I would miss a whole host of little odds and ends I loved on my Windows machine. Well, I never miss them - and I realize more and more that the odds and ends I collected (and yes, I do have a vast collection of awesome Windows software) were programs to get Windows to do what I want. With OS X, I already get everything I need. No hunting around the net for a utility to do XYZ.

2. They're so expensive.

This is one that keeps persisting. Anyone who knows anything about notebooks should know by now that this simply isn't true. Go price out a Dell and a Macbook Pro with the same specs. First of all, you won't get everything on the Dell like the backlit keyboard, the eyesight, the motion sensor that improves your hard drive's life, or decent battery life. You won't get the magsafe connector, the slim form factor, the light weight, the excellent sleep mode, or the two-finger mouse pad, either. Even so, all spec'd up the Macbook pro comes out a few hundred less than the comparable Dell.

Just because you can buy a PC laptop for $400 doesn't mean it is comparable to a Mac. Some PC laptops are $2000 and there is a reason why. You get what you pay for.

3. One button Mouse? Get with the times!

I love context menus, I do. I used them all the time. Context menus are a feature of OS X. But how do you use them? There's only one button on the mouse!

Classically, you had to hit ctrl-click to bring up the context menu. This is a bit annoying, sure. But the latest Macbooks and Macbook Pros all have a super-spiffy trackpad that can detect multiple finger presses at once. Need to click, tap the pad or the button. Need to right click? Tap the pad with two fingers, or hold two fingers on the pad and click the button. It's much easier on your fingers than a two button mouse, quicker to perform, and accomplishes the same thing. As with all things Mac, it looks good while you're doing it but happens to work too.

4. What's with the Mickey Mouse operating system?

That is a quote from myself. I used to think OS X was a mickey mouse operating system. One button-mice, fancy window effects, bubbly scroll bars. Seriously - this thing is for kids.

The truth is OS X doesn't have to be complex. You can do everything you need to very easily. And if you can't, well under the hood is a full BSD operating system complete with shell access. It's hard to describe, but after using OS X for a few weeks you never want to go back. The only thing I can compare it to is driving a nice car vs. a crappy one. They both get you where you want to go, and they both do it in a similar manner really, but at the end of the day you want to drive home in the nicer one.

Apple made a smart move by allowing people to boot Windows on their newest computers. Buyers, including me, rationalize - okay, if I don't like it I can always run Windows. There is a reason to this strategy and it works. People are moving over in droves because they're being shown the light. They try out OS X and realize that using your computer doesn't have to be a hassle. These Apple guys really have it figured out!

And if you should choose to run Windows, even after trying out OS X, be prepared to own the fastest Windows laptop on the market (at the time of it's release anyway).

One thing I love about OS X is installing software. In Windows you have to unzip the file, click on the installer, go through the install process choosing your install folder, and then you finally have it installed. It appears in your task bar, your start menu, and on your desktop. Traces of the program hit your registry, your application data directory, and the install directory. Worse when you uninstall you're never really sure the software is gone.

In OS X, you simply drag the program (yes, it's one file - or at least appears to be to the user) to the applications directory or wherever you want to keep it. You can run it all you want, and when you're done with it you drag it to the trash. No registry. No hassle.

Multitasking is also a chore in XP. You're fine with 3 or 4 programs running - but once you hit 8 or more it's a real mess to switch between windows. You may be good at it, but you know nothing about multitasking until you use OS X and understand it's paradigm. Expose is amazing, and tools like spotlight (or quicksilver) make finding exactly what you need when you need it a breeze. The dock can come too, as a replacement for Windows "task" bar.

I also appreciate the choices offered with a Mac. When you're ready to buy a PC you have to spend weeks researching brands, different options, form factor, etc. etc. etc. This can be annoying - believe me I was there a few months ago before I got my Macbook Pro.

Now, some people like choices. I like choices too. But nobody wants a choice between a crap machine and a awesome one. Everyone wants an awesome machine. Where they differentiate is in things like screen size and cost. Apple has these options covered. They offer the best machines, and a few form factors - that's all you need. I don't need a choice between bad, crap, worse, medium, okay, and decent. I just want awesome with a few details, and that's what Apple is selling.

That's all the reasons I can think of right now. But let's be honest, I'll go wherever the best operating system is. I was reluctant to switch to XP, but it was the best at the time so I used it. I tried various linux and BSD distros but always came back to XP. The only thing I've tried that has swayed me away (and easily at that) is OS X.

Vista may prove to upset OS X's spot at the top of the OS food-chain, but I doubt it. Microsoft themselves admits they're shipping before it's ready. Users are already reporting being baffled at the interface. Apple has consistently claimed to make the best stuff, while Microsoft has only ever offered something that kinda-sorta worked enough for them to sell volume licenses. It's not about being the best, it's about getting your crap onto the most computers and getting people to pay you for it.

Still, there will come a time when I give Vista a good honest try. It will be hard because OS X has never pushed me away like XP did, but I will do it. If it proves to be a better operating system I will switch.

The old views mentioned in this article are fading away. People are realizing you can cut the tech support cord from your parents by simply getting them a Mac. You don't need to remember to defragment your drive. You don't need to reinstall Windows every 6 months. People are realizing that someone has finally made a viable option to Windows and that it's better, faster, cheaper (OS X costs $100 as opposed to whatever incarnation of Windows you decide to buy), and more powerful.

Edit: I almost forgot to evangelize my most favoritest feature ever. Sleep! My Macbook Pro is instant on and off with superior sleep mode. The battery lasts long enough to keep my computer running for weeks with no charge. Try that on a PC!

I came to work today to find this post-it stuck to my monitor. Then Jon came by and touched my arm. Now I'm a bit nervous.

2:56 is in about 20 minutes. I have to say I had a good life. Full of tons of babes and parties.

When I recently bought a new phone and had to return it, I returned to a corporate Cingular store to make the transaction. After waiting for about 45 minutes with nobody talking to me or acknowledging my presence, I left and decided to come back later. I came back an hour or two later to try again. This time I was taken care of promptly.

I was trying to figure out which phone would be best for me and the person who "helped" me was anything but helpful. I didn't want to deal with it so I simply returned the phone and left. I took my business to a 3rd party cingular store owned by Spring Communications. I got them to give me the same deal as the Cingular store, so I was happy.

Until this morning.

I received a call at exactly 10am from someone over at Spring. He was trying to sell me a data plan that costs twice as much as the one I already have ($40 as opposed to the more realistic $20). I politely declined. He then started explaining how the plan I was on wouldn't work on my phone and I wouldn't be able to receive email. Apparently these things have all been in my imagination for the past few weeks because everything works fine. I declined again.

He then started talking about how I would not be able to receive the rebate for $100 I was offered unless I got on the right plan. Whether or not the rebate will be denied is in question, but I am well within the fine print on the rebate form (I checked again to make sure). If I am denied it will be their fault for misrepresenting the offer, not mine.

I declined again.

He kept pushing. I told him that I don't care about the rebate. I'd rather save $100 over the next 5 months with the cheaper data plan than get the rebate that would take that long to arrive anyway.

He kept pushing, explaining why my logic was flawed. Finally I had had enough so I declined again, then gave him a detailed technical explanation of the difference between the two plans (which is not much, actually - and cingular doesn't even set people up to receive the benefits of the more expensive plan - they are left to figure it out themselves). I explained to him about external IP addresses, NAT addresses, circuit switched data, and how I could still use all the services I needed to. I also told him that he was misrepresenting the rebate and that he should check the fine print again, and he was trying to sell me something I didn't need. I declined once again.

He told me I was wrong and hung up, just like that. Don't people say goodbye anymore?

I'm a little disappointed Spring would send some guy after me to try to up-sell me on something I don't need. I'm more disappointed that the guy didn't give up after the first several times I declined his nonsensical offer. I am more disappointed that he was apparently angry with ME after wasting MY TIME for no reason. I am disappointed that someone from Cingular called and didn't know anything about what they were talking about, and that me (a customer) knew more both about the rebate offer and about how their data plans work.

Would it be that hard for Cingular to do a little training on these things? Rather than sending people out saying "tell customers they need this just because they do" maybe they could learn what it is they're talking about. Furthermore, maybe they could be trained to give up after the customer declines a few times. Maybe they can train their employees not to hang up on people.

I checked my plan a little later just to make sure he didn't change it out of spite. I'm considering returning the phone to Spring and going back to the corporate store. I don't need goons calling and hounding me out of their own ignorance.

Nice one Spring.

Dean Hunt (deanhunt.com), some no-name just getting started in the world of SEO, recently posted a letter that he claims to have received from an on-line business owner. In the letter, the business owner says that Dean's site is ranking better on some term (we're not told) that is important to his business, and asks Dean to remove himself from the rankings on that term.

Dean wrote the man back and told him to stuff it, basically. The man wrote back again and this time threatened legal action if he does not remove himself from the google rankings.

I call BS.

First of all, anyone remotely smart enough to be checking their ranking on "terms" knows that this isn't how the game is played. The supposed business owner claims that retail sites are more important than blogs and so he should be ranked higher on this term. Either this is fake, or the business owner is the dumbest person on the face of the planet.

Every person who has spent more than 2 minutes on the web knows this isn't how it works. Google ranks on relevancy, period. It doesn't matter if you're retail, a blog, or any other kind of site. If google deems you relevant, you get better rankings. I would expect anyone doing Internet retail to know this already.

Now, there is also the issue of the smoking gun. Here is a post on Dean's blog about how he is about to mount a big viral campaign. Hmm... could this suspicious letter be part of that viral campaign? If so, it has been a huge success - getting him over 40,000 hits and tons of inbound links.

If this isn't his viral campaign, I'd like to see what is! The first rule of a viral marketing campaign is that you don't talk about your viral marketing campaign.

The story was submitted to slashdot by, you guessed it, an anonymous user. Oh gee, could it have been Dean himself? I wonder.

Dean didn't grace us with the details on who this business owner is, or what the term is that is supposedly in dispute. Could he have done this so that he wouldn't miss any of the inbound links? He wants people linking to him, and not the business owner (which doesn't actually exist).

Also, Dean claims to have nothing on his site about the term in question. This makes it doubtful that this scenario could even be true, and if it were - surely Dean would not be a difficult person to outrank with a little effort.

There are other things that tip this off as a definite fake - like for example the business owner says he is sending something by post, but doesn't have Dean's physical address (and the domain was registered by proxy so it's not in the whois). I wouldn't be surprised if the whole site was a fake.

Hey Dean - nice one.

If you don't know, grouphug is a site where people can post anonymous confessions (I've mentioned before). Some are sad, shocking, disturbing, plain wrong, and downright dreadful. Others are funny, entertaining, and witty. Most of all, reading grouphug makes you glad that you're not any of these people. You learn quickly that people are very sad.

Anyway, I read this confession on there earlier:

i hate the fact my girlfriend beats me in every single area of my life
[sic]

I have to say, that is one lucky dude. The only thing I want in life right now is to date up. This guy somehow lucked out and found a girl who was way better than him and still puts up with him enough to date his sorry butt. Sign me up.

I remember my bank/insurance company (yes, they are the same) offering me something about renter's insurance. I researched it a little on their website and decided to get a policy. This is something that was recommended by people who own high end phones as an alternative to the $6/mo phone insurance that Cingular offers (and, in fact, they wouldn't even cover my last phone because it was too expensive and prone to breakage).

So I called up my insurance company and took out a $5000 personal property plan with a $4000 computer-specific option. So if any of my computers are stolen, damaged, or even if they get a virus, they will be covered up to $4000 with $0 deductible. If any of my other stuff gets stolen or broken (camera, cell phone, etc.) it is covered up to $5000 with a $250 deductible.

How much does all this cost? Surprisingly little, actually. It's a little over $100 a year. Remember the $6 phone insurance plan? For about twice as much money per month you can have all your computers and other personal property covered. That's a pretty good deal in my book - but of course we'll have to wait and see how easy it is to make a claim when and if the time comes.

It is nice to know that my carputer is covered from theft. Despite all my security measures, it is still nice to have insurance to fall back on.

Okay friends - I need your help.

I have lost my hat. You know the one - the big mohawk knit one? It's been missing since last spring - and I'm pretty sure I left it at someone's house. Hopefully a friend's house. Hopefully a friend who reads my blog.

I want nothing more than the safe return of my hat. If you know anything about it's whereabouts, please contact me immediately. A reward of one jr. bacon cheeseburger is offered for it's safe return or tips leading to it's whereabouts.

Here is the hat in question:

WELCOME DIGG USERS: This is the last of 5 articles about the carputer. It has all the good stuff like pictures of the final install. If you want more background and information, videos of the front end in action, pictures of my car ripped apart, etc. about the installation, check out the first four articles: 1, 2, 3, 4 If you would like the music from the clip that plays in the video, it's free and you can get it at thepowerless.com
Here are some final pictures of the carputer and a video for your viewing pleasure.

Here is the main interface. It's called AMP. It looks just like front row but it does way more.

This is the mini, mounted in the pass-through for easy access. It's quite solid, too, so don't ask questions about it falling out, getting loose, dislodging itself, or exploding unexplainably.

Dean requested some Project notes, so here is some general information.

This is a work in progress. The basic elements are in place but I am adding more features to the setup as time goes on.

ITEMS USED IN THE CARPUTER:

7" Lilliput 629GL-10NP Touch Screen - ~$250
Subaru WRX Bolt in Kit (Custom Screen Housing) - ~$130
Carnetix CNX-P1900 DC-DC Power Regulator - ~$100
MacPac Power Cable Kit - ~$25
Kenwood 300 Watt 4-Channel amp - ~$??
Refurb 1.66Ghz/512/60GB Intel Mac Mini - $530
Long VGA Cable - ~$20
USB Extender Cable - ~$20
Subaru Wiring Harness - ~$20
Miscellaneous Wiring, Switches, Fuse Box, Fuse, Female Cigarette Adapter, Mounting equipment, etc. - ~$200
GPS Tracking Equipment - ~$50 (+$5 Monthly)
Phone: Undecided

SOFTWARES:
AMP Version 1.0 (frontend available in the mp3car.com forums)
Bluephone Elite (Bluetooth cellphone calling and answering, etc.)
Mac OS X
DisplayConfigX (To get OS X to properly work at the Lilliput's native resolution of 800x480)

I will be installing parallels once I have more RAM so that I can run Data-logging software in windows and Linux for Wireless tools.

Basic Setup:

The Mac Mini, Amp, and Power supply are located in the trunk. The power supply requires a power wire and a remote wire from the front of the car. I wired the power direct from the battery with a 15A fuse near the battery. I ran the remote line from the wiring harness I connected to my stock Subaru wiring.

I also ran four sets of speaker cable from the trunk to the dash to hook into the stock speaker wiring. A VGA Cable and USB Extender cable were also run directly to the dash for the screen and touch screen control. This is all the wiring that was required to go through the car.

Connecting the Mac to the power supply was easy, and I was able to splice into the mac's power button with the MacPac Cable kit that I got very easily. I used two velcro straps to secure the mini to my pass-through door. The mini's built-in sound output is used with a splitter and two 3.5mm to RCA cables that go directly into the amp.

Ground for both the amp and the power supply is at the same point in the trunk. This is important for noise issues. The wiring from dash to trunk was done by tucking it in under the driver's side of the center console to the "hump" in the back passenger seat where it had to be run under the carpet. From there it was wired under the back seat directly into the center of the trunk.

The power supply also provided power and remote power to the amp.

Here is a wiring diagram that I did early on and may or may not reflect what I actually ended up doing/needing.

I think that's about it. Questions?

I have three basic requirements for a phone:

• Support for Cingular's 3G data network
• Good bluetooth capabilities
• Candybar (as opposed to flip phone or slider)

Beyond that, I would appreciate a QWERTY keyboard and some PDA functionality, but I've decided it's not necessary. Only the above really matter when it comes down to it.

The blackjack from Cingular that I bought was so close, but I had to return it due to crappy bluetooth support. I can't use it for data on my mac without plugging it in, and I can't use it with advanced headset profiles required to receive phone calls through the computer in my car.

Cingular only offers a handful of 3G phones. They have 2 smartphones - the blackjack and a big HTC one, and a spattering of Samsung and LH flip phones. The Blackjack sold me on Samsung - it's really Microsoft's fault that the bluetooth sucks because it's their limited bluetooth stack. All the other Samsung phones have great bluetooth, so I'm sure the blackjack would have it if it could. 3G is important for using the Internet in my car computer.

The blackberry pearl looks perfect, except for it's lack of 3G support.

No matter which phone I look at, the best I can find it 2 out of 3 features. I decided to try one of the Samsung flip phones, sacrificing form factor for functionality. I have been playing with it all night.

I actually kinda like the new Samsung (called the Sync - which isn't a very good name). Samsung's operating system is pretty snappy and reminds me a lot of using a nokia - everything just works and works quickly. The bluetooth is great. There is a whole menu that shows what bluetooth services are available and even gives an explanation of what they do and how they work. The bluetooth implementation supports everything I need. I was able to wirelessly tether to receive Internet in my car, and I was able to answer the phone via my computer - perfect!

Except for one thing. I can only get about 300kbps through the Sync. With the blackjack, I was getting more like 900kbps. Such low data rates, although fast, don't really qualify as meeting my 3G criteria. I searched around on the intrawebs and found some people who did report getting much higher rates with the Sync, so I will need to test it more tomorrow - maybe the network was just wacky tonight or something.

The problem is, I know Cingular will have a phone I actually want within 4 months or so. The pearl will have another version that supports 3G, no doubt, and other phones lines will be updated to support the newer data network as well. I could just wait - but I'd have to keep using my Treo until then, which is also not an option.

So what to do, what to do. I could hop from 30 day trial to 30 day trial until Cingular releases something I want, or I could just bite the bullet and take back the blackjack without the good bluetooth. I just wish there was a better option. :(

The carputer is complete. And by complete I mean it's in and it's working. All of my software enhancements will be taking place over the next little while, but for now I can listen to music, watch movies, war drive, etc. with the existing setup. It's all clean and good to go.

Here are some pictures from the construction.

Dave and I got together Thursday evening to begin the major work for the carputer.
His room mate had parked in front of the garage and left for Colorado, so we could
not get into his heated garage. We began work indoors, and eventually drove to a
friend's house in Lehi to work on the car itself. We pulled an all-nighter which
ultimately ended in a setback when I blew out the LCD screen.

That's my mac mini I have opened up there, I am splicing into the power button
cable so that my car can mimic a button press when it is turned on and off. The
existing power button still works too.

This is the power supply I am using. This thing is actually really cool - it regulates
power to the mac, simulates button presses, monitors my car's battery, and does a
load of other stuff that makes it a perfect solution. When I turn on my car, after about
a 6 second delay it turns my mac on. When the car is off, it provides about ~500m
amps to keep the computer in sleep mode. That way I don't have to wait for it to
boot each time. The power the mac draws on sleep mode could run off my car
battery for several weeks, but if battery drops below 10V, the power supply will
cut power altogether.

Here Dave is securing the screen's PCB in place. This was the original one that I
fried. I have a working one now.

Dave was a huge help with the wiring. Below his left knee there is the most difficult
spot to run cable. It was a huge pain running it through that carpet (especially the
VGA cable). Dave used his shoelace and tied it to the bigger cables to pull them
through. After some frustration, it was all done.

Here is the completed wiring under the back seat. The gold cables are speaker,
the red and black cables are power and USB, and the big black one at the bottom
is VGA. They feed directly into the trunk.

Wiring up everything in back. There's the amp and PSU.

Jake got into town on Saturday and helped me out with the wiring in the trunk. At
first things weren't working and after some head scratching we discovered that
the grounding point I had used was bad and was only providing our circuit with about
5V instead of the required 12V. We found a better ground point and everything
started working.

A bit of testing with the screen while it is sitting in the dash.

Here's Jake.

Today I finished the project, cleaned everything up, and got everything somewhat situated in my trunk. I still need to mount the amp properly, but the power supply and mini are both mounted as they will be permanently. I will take pictures of the final product tomorrow for the blog.

Update on the LCD screen:

I called MP3 car and told them what happened. I asked if they would consider hooking me up with some free overnight shipping out of the kindness of their hearts. I got on my knees and begged for pity.

The guy I talked to, Matthew, was actually really cool. He went and did some research on the screen I was using and called me back. He found one they had with a dead pixel. He said I could use the PCB board (the part I fried), and use my old LCD screen to get around the dead pixel. The best part: he's sending me the new LCD screen for free. I sprung for overnight shipping (with Saturday delivery) - so it looks like the carputer might be complete this weekend after all!

Mega shoutouts to MP3car.com - if you're considering doing a car computer install, I highly recommend them as they've really impressed me with their customer service. They also had nearly everything I needed in once place (Besides the mac and some cables). I got the rest of the stuff at Sewell Direct.

So Dave and I got together to work on the Carputer tonight. Things were going well, we got almost all of the cable run and were ready to start hooking things up. I wired up a hidden female cigarette lighter port to to power the touch screen.

Before plugging the touch screen in, I wanted to test it to make sure I got the polarity hooked up right. Finding no cigarette lighter accessories handy to test with, I decided to just go ahead an plug in the monitor. Surely Lilliput would have sprung for the 2 cent diode that protects against reversed currents. I mean, this thing is for a car after all, right?

They didn't spring for any such diode.

A quiet pop, and the smell of burning electronics. Delicious.

So the PCB for the screen is fried. Remember kids, when you get impatient you get sloppy. At least I only burnt out the second most expensive piece of equipment in my carputer setup. But it's not so much the cost that bothers me as the fact that I'm going to have to WAIT for another screen to show up. :( :( :( <---3 frowny faces = sad panda.