My New Machine Is Here

My new machine is here. Very briefly as planned its a Via EPIA ITX board with a 800mhz processor and 128Mb RAM. Full details can be found under the hardware area here. Next I was away this weekend which gave me a change to try my GPS software out. I was disappointed with Navigator because when I kept trying to set a route to York some where on Ilkly Moore it told me I was too far off course even though I had not moved. Later sussed it in Harrogate and it was no problem after that so it must have been a bug. Autoroute on the other hand was spot on and gave me an excellent chance to try the new GPS refresh fix in the downloads area... now if Microsoft could make the product talk.... And as we are talking about downloads - here's the news you I emailed you lot on the news letter last week. Thanks to Lee Copping for this one. If you would like your own custom logo on your bios boot screen and you have a Via board - go to the downloads area where you will find a tool to do just that. I have not had chance to try it my self and I do urge caution because if it goes wrong its not my fault. It may work on other boards so have a look - its up to you.

New Hardware Section

I have started a new sub section in the hardware area is basically will discuss different types of hardware that can be used or that I would like to use. the First item I have review is using a Compact Flash Card as a replacement for the common hard drive. The best bit about this is that there is no moving parts. Click here and have a look but don't forget if you have any thing you would like to add, comment on or review let me know and you may see it up here.

Hot Off The Press

Hot Off The Press ( 22:30 ) - I have got my new ITX PC on the way- The hart of the CarPC - Carputer - Details to follow soon inc how to put your own image on the BIOS to customise it even further. In the mean time have a look at this very novel way of interfacing with your PC - Strange ! And for those Media Engine users out there... a list of features in Version 2 has been released - some of this are currently been planned and some are done. The full thread can be found here.

• Automatic updating / self generating ADO Jet music database with background processing. (Browse by artist / genre / playlist / file system layout / etc..)


• New ID3 generation system.


• Mix movies and music in same directory


• Built in "ftp style" playlist creator. (In the works)


• Built in DVD ROM player.


• Support for most movie formats, plus the ability to add new ones on the fly if you want.


• Ability to support any music format (So long as Winamp plays it).


• Play VCDs (In the works)


• Play Movies / music audio off CD Rom.


• New Version of Winamp (2.9 vs. 2.8).


• Better Visualization support (In the works).


• Drop shadowed lists for better visibility on low resolution monitors


• Unlimited external apps (In the works)


• Modularized internal code.


• Better / different error handling.


• More skin customizations.


• Known "bugs" fixed (Overlapping text, album art bug etc..)

Finally I have got the Digitalww 7002s review done

Finally I have got the Digitalww 7002s review done. Click here to see it.

Photos of the Digitalww 7002s

Hi all, been really busy at work so I haven't been able to get the time to update the site. The good news is that I should get lots of wonga to pay for this project because of it. Right - I have got photos of the Digitalww 7002s screen and will be doing the review soon, the interface has had an update as you can see and the site is getting plenty of hits. Thank all that have emailed me - I love hearing from others that are interested in the same technology and more. Have a look at http://www.eastevolution.co.uk/ - the show of fast custom cars and more is happening at Norwich (UK) over the 10th and 11th of May 2003 - chatting to the organisers it should be good. Lastly I have had a thought about auto-starting my GPS in Autoroute etc - I am going to use a bit of software called Scriptit which emulates some one on the keyboard. I'll let you know how I get and and if successful I will make the scripts available for everybody else. Lastly if any one is interested GPSystems are now selling the Royaltek GPS units just like mine. You can get the USB or RS232 versions with or with out software, click here for more info.

Mitokondria's 'Interface'

You will now find Mitokondria's 'Interface' in the downloads area. It has the Vauxhall back ground ( as pictured on the 02/04/03 entry ). Please visit the Media Engine site first for the main shell then follow the instructions with in the downloaded zip file from this site. - Thanks to Mitokondria for letting me do this after all his hard work. This should keep you going until my own custom interface is finished.