Sunday, November 06, 2005

New 2006 Explorer Limited


CIMG0351
Originally uploaded by reboot95.


I did it, I really did it I have bought a new car. It is a 2006 Ford Explorer Limited. A really good looking and performing vehicle in my opinion.



The Good

  • The V8 really does have more power than you think.

  • The Gas mileage is as good as my V6 98 Eddie Bauer Explorer

  • It has a great ride for an SUV

  • Still set up high

  • Nice Styling

  • DVD based GPS navigation with first in class Street names announced for turns

  • Roomy

  • Heated Steats


  • A whole set of electronic stability, traction control features




Some misses


  • Door handle in a strange place, but it is there because of new side impact beams

  • A bit pricey

  • Still not great gas mileage

  • I've heard it does not have any skid plates

  • Speed electronically limited to around 100 mph

  • My 98 has a few features that this one does not.

  • They moved the place you put gas in to the right side, I keep pulling up on wrong side.





So what is the final verdict this is a good successor to my existing Explorer. I feel like I've taken a step up and am over all happy. None of the other SUV's I looked at had the right mix to make me plop down my money. The V8 at first does not really feel like it is that much stronger than the V6 in my 98, but when you have the right combination of speed and gear selection it will throw you back in the seat with some authority and you think yeah this engine did come out of a Mustang. The engine is a 4.6 Liter 3 valve per cylinder variable timed V8. The 6 Speed automatic is a bit slow and misses some punch at certain speeds. But once you get it right you go yeah it does have nearly 300 HP! The DVD Based GPS navigation system is pretty cool it has a bright readable screen only direct sunlit with the moon roof open makes it hard to see. It has voice prompts and will give you street names for turns this is supposed to be another first in class. It is very comfortable and the ride is a lot better than the 98. I'm looking forward to the first snow to see how the electronic controls systems help out with less than optimal traction. I've had it out in a hard rain and there was really no issue with traction or handling. Over all it had enough features to convince me to spend the money



Click on the picture at the top of the post to see the flicker gallery.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

GeoSpinning

GeoSpinning it's a long road to nowhere.
Okay this probably is not a new thing but it was new to us and turned out to be fun.

Requirements:
GPS
Laptop
Mapping software
Optional, car power for laptop.

Set your mapping software to only use secondary roads.
Pick a point on the map that you have not been to.
Then let the computer pick a route for you.
Final step follow the route.

Did it this Saturday we ended up seeing Turkey, Buffalos and a really big storm. Turned out to be a nice day all in all.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

In an effort to reduce confusion

Just so there will be no confusion on it's origins Microsoft has once again renamed its upcoming Windows release.

It will hence forth be known as OS X Tiger.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

First Bike ride this summer

Made my first bike ride this summer. You know you just forget how much that darn seat can hurt. So now I'm walking around really really slow and going ow a lot. But it will pass I know that. Well it did last year didn't it. Few things happened that were note worth.

First flat tire. Lucky it was not my tire but Amy's tire went flat. Dave did a pretty good job of fixing it up had it repaired and we were on our way again with out any trouble. Used the Co2 pump I have, you just put the little air cylinder in there push the button and you are well on your way to having the tire aired up. Have to say I wold recommend one but you should buy a pack of cylinders. I would say it would take two or three to air a tire up. But the flat tire turned into a non event.

We did have another really really odd experience. As we were pedaling along we saw to guys coming at us and I was thinking you know they should wear shirts not everyone wants to see some guy with out a shirt. Then I sort of was thinking man those are tight shorts and they are a funny color. Hey wait a minute something just does not look right but what is it I can't really put my finger on it. There is something really odd about those two. So as I turned around to see what it was, did you guess it they were biking nude. That is just really really wrong hey people bring their kids out here. Put some clothes on idiots.. Guess they lost a bet. But how stupid.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Friday, April 22, 2005

130,000

Just turned over 130,000 miles on my Explorer this morning wow I've been here and back again in it.. I've been pretty happy with mine. It has performed well never gotten stuck and only need two major repairs. But man 16 to 18 miles to the gallon is not so good when gas is $2.18 gee whiz.

Now do I just keep it till it drops or should I start looking a new car/suv. I also really like an SUV even with the gas mileage. But I'm not sure I want to keep paying so much for gas. I've set in a new Explorer and I'm not sure I like it as much as mine. I've looked a the VW Toureg and like it but gosh it costs a lot I mean a lot. Like $56,000 that is to much money.

If I had a two car garage I might just get a newer car to drive to work that got good gas mileage and keep the Explorer or get a new SUV. Oh well decisions.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Friday, March 04, 2005

Rio Audio : Rio Carbon 5GB Player

Rio Audio : Rio Carbon 5GB Player

It is here!!

Okay nice features. You plug it in and it shows up as a hard
drive. Start dragging mp3's to it and you are good to go. This
is a requirement for any mp3 players I get again. My MPIO FL100
is okay but that one feature really kept me from really liking
it. And many of the other players in the space have to use a
proprietary app. to put music on them, the Creative Zen, the
Ipod family, and the Dell DJ's. So drag and drop the Rio Carbon
has!!.. Oh Yea..

Also 5 Gig is a lot. I've got it nearly full now and I have 4.4
days worth of music on it.. I like that. And it doubles as a 5
Gig portable hard drive. And with USB 2.0 it can accept
transfers faster than I can pull the songs off my file server.
When the MP3's are local it is really fast.

Battery life seems to be pretty good. I've been trying for a
couple of days to get it discharged so I can give it a full
charge. Since I had it plugged into to various computers
uploading 4.4 days worth of songs I've already given it a fair
charge since it charges over usb. But I also have this nice
little plug in that you hook the usb cable up to for charging as
well.

I can make playlists in winamp and save them on the player and
boom they work. I've not been able to figure out how to make
playlists on my Mac OS X IBook yet. The best I can come up with
is to use VLC drag the files to it save the playlist (comes out
as .m3u) and then edit the playlist to pull out the directory
entries that I don't need, you know the /volume/carbon stuff.
Need to write a script for that.

Not to many misses. Would have like to pay a little less for it.
Can't make playlists on my Mac, well if you know how let me
know. And the silly case they sent with it. It protects it
nicely but it covers up the controls and the read out. Duh...
Some one was napping there. Anyway give it a thumbs up. And a
better than IPod rating, because I can drag and drop songs to it

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Rave-MP SPORT Flash based digital audio player 128MB and 256MB, sleek pocket size

This player looks like a great player from a specs stand point and price. What with being able to expand it with a SD/Media card, FM radio and voice recorder. Then it has the old Microsoft Playsforsure logo on it.. Well let me tell you looks can be deceiving. The firmware sucked on this. Had some real major problems. It continually locked up and you would have to pull the power on it.. Also some of the features it was supposed to have did not work. I mean they really just did not work. So back to Amazon with it.. I've order a Rio Carbon. It has gotten some good reviews we will just have to see. Will post again when I get it.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Trying w.blogger

Just started using w.blogger. In fact this post is with w.blogger. Hope there is no spy ware in here. But thought I would give it a try and just see how it works. Sort of like the idea of being able to do posts offline and then put them up later. Thinking about doing that for vacation mainly. Well back to TV.

Friday, January 21, 2005

E-books

Check out Baen publishing. They have a large number of pretty good FREE e-books on their site. They are mostly Sci-Fi and Fantasy action adventure novels but if you are into that, they are one of the leading publishers. I would recommend Keith Lumar, David Drake, John Ringo, Mercedes Lackley just to name a few. Just be warned they are a lot of books that are the first of a series so if you like them you will probably end up buying some books from them too. So it is a good marketing technique.

I have to say that I would prefer to read E-books now. As long as you are not a speed reader, reading on a 3X5 screen is really pretty easy. You can carry around 60 or 70 books on a device half the size of a paper back.

I recommend using a cheaper general use PDA for this instead of a dedicated book reader. I'm finding the Pocket PC Windows to be a pretty good bet. I have not look at a later generation palm so I really can't tell

Any how fire up the browser get over to Baen down load some books put them on your favorite PDA and enjoy.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Aximsite - Axim Freezing or Sticking

Aximsite - Axim Freezing or Sticking

Thought I would throw this in for all you Axim users out there (you can see a picture of mine in an earlier post).

I had this problem with my Axim. Spent a few months with on off reset wiggle poke and stuff. Finally decided to fix this problem so I went and backed up all the data with the old back up facility. Went and walked around and stuff. Then came back and did a hard reset. I originally thought that it might be driver problem or something. Well I got stuck in the align your screen forever function. Okay time for google.

And I came up on this link I've included. And sure enough there was a worn spot on the mylar ribbon cable. Followed the instruction in the link an YEA!! it was fixed... So if you are having problems with your Axim not clicking where you poke the stylus check out this link. It is not as hard to do as it looks.