Well - bit of a mile stone today

Well - bit of a mile stone today. This site has been up for one full calendar month. To celebrate this I spent one and a half hours taking some descent photos of my screen - how to set it up and how it looked with the new improved interface... and like a silly person I accidentally deleted every one of them from the camera before I had chance to download them. I'll try and get it done next weekend. On the good side - I have had confirmation that my car will be in in the next three weeks or so... not all bad news then. Now those of you that might be new here may be thinking that not much is happening. Well the problems is that I am waiting of Opus to start selling there DC to DC PSU for ITX systems - once its out I can buy the hardware and go from there. In the mean time most of the working is on the software / custom interface which to be honest is the hardest part of it all.

Update - Just checked on Opus and its delayed again until "Mid May for sure". The full conversation can be found here.

I have been concentrating on promoting and making the site a little more usable

There is not much to report at the moment as I have been concentrating on promoting and making the site a little more usable. If you look just above you will find two little helpful tools. The first one is the Bablefish translator as I have noticed we are getting a lot of foreign visitors. Its nice to know this site is useful to all. As far as stats go the site is growing daily. It has had close to 3000 confirmed visits ( not hits - thats up around 72,000 + ) in basic terms the traffic to this site seems to be doubling each week. As it is expanding I thought I would make it easer for people to be made aware of any real changes or updates so the is now a mail list function at the top of the screen. Lastly thanks to all my regular visitors - I hope this site is some use to you and if you have any suggestions or comments I would love to here from you.

Very quick one today

Very quick one today. If you click here you will find a very early screen shot of what the new interface will look like. Beware its good and it will look even better when finished - well thats I am told any way.

Well what can I say

Well what can I say. Events in the Middle East have took a turn for the worst. All I can say is that I hope it all turns out that every one is better off. Any way I have done my review of Navigator and is there for your review. You will find it located under the 'Software' section. Until the next time look after your selves.

Got the screen working today correctly

Got the screen working today correctly. I ended up having to create a custom driver with Powerstrip to get the screen size right ( Click here to download for your self ). When I did get it up and running I tried out the current version of the custom interface and sat nav software and it does work very well. I will put as I said a full review up at some time this week so you can get an idea of what it is going to look like when finished. Lastly I have asked a friend who is a graphic designer by trade for a bit of help in designing the front of the interface as I am not that good, up until now he would not let me have a look ( a true artist ! ) - but today I had my first brief glace..... WOW. When it is finished it will be available for others through this site and the main Media Engine site and you be able to put your own logo in place of the Vauxhall one ( if you really want to ) - keep checking back because when its ready I think you will be impressed - and of course Tony Rea will be getting a copy for his own Vectra project. Incidentally Tony is starting a new project in addition to the car pc - click here to have a look.

My screen arrived today

My screen arrived today ( 5 Days from the States ! Not Bad ) - took me a while to get the dratted laptop to work but that was a config setting - dratted XP. Any way my first thoughts are not bad and when I tried it with the interface I thought - ( clean version ) WOW. Its getting late now but I promise I will do a full review with pictures some time this week - check back then.

Its done - I have ordered the new screen.

Its done - I have ordered the new screen. I will review it when I get it. Also I will put some more pictures up of Navigator then as well.

I have had an email back from Opus today

I have had an email back from Opus today. Cut a long story short the ITX PSU has been delayed how ever they are still hoping for it to be out this April... I'll keep you all informed. Lastly I have put some images of the PC version of Destinator V1 up on the 'Software' page mainly because they are so hard to find, these are curtsy of Phill.45 over at MP3car.com.

DC to DC car ITX power supply

I was surfing MP3car.com and I found a thread about a DC to DC car ITX power supply. Opus - who are very well know for producing ATX PSUs are planning ( by all accounts to release the ITX version some time in March 2003). I have sent an email to them asking if this is the case as I would be willing to wait a few weeks and pay a little extra to get exactly what I want. The price I have seen about for this is around $150 + delivery. Here are some of the main points of the unit.

• Ignition / On / OFF input


• Shutdown control


• Delayed shutdown timer : 20 min, 40 min or 1hr. Jumper configurable


• Low battery shutdown to protect battery from deep discharge


• Input Voltage: 7 to 18V DC or 18 to 30VDC


• Power control input: Ignition / ON / OFF in-put terminal


• Total output power : 90W max. continues load


• +5V @ 6A, +3.3V @ 6A, +12V @ 2.5A, +5V Stby @ 3A, -12V @ 0.2A

Lastly I have created a guest book and a pass-it-on utility. If you have been here before or are new then please feel free to sign the guest book and enter any comments you want - I will read them. Also its a bit of publicity for your own site as you can also put the URL in there - and yes people do look at them because this was where I got a lot of information from for my self. The pass-it-on utility allows you to email anybody in the world a quick message and a link to this site. I again have used these tools in the past just to remember a site when I am on the move so I thought I would post it here as well. More to come soon.

If all goes well ( barring major disasters )

If all goes well ( barring major disasters ) I will be ordering my new screen this coming Monday. When I get it I will of course post pictures up for you all to see it. Also I have got an old car kit. The plan is to use the speaker from it so I can still use my normal car radio etc and still have my GPS running. The plan is to have a cut over switch so I can cut the speaker off when using it through the car stereo. Lastly I have found a company called Gnet who have a Audio interface which connects directly to the CD interface of some OEM stereos. I am going to drop them an email once I know which one I will have in my car but if I can get one it should have better sound then an FM modulator.

Its all coming together... Just bought my self the FM radio for my CarPC - The D-Link DRU-R100 USB FM Radio. I did look on EBay but they were fairly expensive so I nipped down the road ( 60 Mile round trip ! ) to Scan in Bolton (UK). They have them for round £8 which is not bad. This works very well with my Interface and with a bit of planning I should be able to get a decent aerial feed in to it in the car. I have not decided yet whether I will take this off the main aerial and amplify it or put a separate one in. The only problem with that I can see is interference... we'll see.