Been a while since an update…
Right – it"s been a while since I updated this… and a lot"s happened!!!
1. Holiday
Beginning of August, and I was off to Majorca for two weeks in the sun!! Well I"m back now. Looking forward to Jamiaca next year…
2) Custom PC Magazine
After a couple of emails back and forth between Custom PC magazine, in London back in June/July time they invited me down to their offices to demonstrate the Car PC for an article they were planning. Nice drive down to London and it was nice to meet Alex and Josh, and their photographer and chatted for a while in a cafe in Central london and even got my breakfast bought for me 
Though I did manage to get myself a fine for forgetting to pay the congesion charge.. Darn it, will have to write some software to automatically pay it when I drive though London next time (or just remember 
)
Anyway, here"s what you need to look for in the shops…
NOTE: Just read it and it said that I said the Cigarette lighter socket is the best place to ground on the Car, and not to ground against the Chassis – I don"t rememebr saying that, because it"s not true! Just to correct any erratta there….
3) New Arrivals to the Family
Lisa my Fioncee was off ill after we got back from Holiday, so to cheer her up I got her a little present (or two). We"d planned to get a cat after we moved into our new house, and seeing as I"ve lived here since last December I thought it was about time… And to make sure the kittens are never lonely… There"s two!
4) Been busy with work
Uuugh.. No pictures of this luckily. I"m in the middle of a £4 million network upgrade at work, and for me, one of the senior systems administrators, it means a LOT of work migrating servers – and to top that off there"s a million and one other projects that I"m involved up to my neck in. Which is why I was glad to get away…
5) Organised and went to the First national UK Car PC meet
James Warner (of Digital-car.co.uk) and I started organising this at the Beginning of June, and the meet finally happened on the 25/26th September!
Original threads regarding it are here at MP3Car and here at Digital Car and the next one"s planned at the moment around Jan 2005.
More pictures are on my photo website, but here"s a couple for you to see here..
It was a great day all round, and everyone enjoyed themselves.
5) Coded
And in any spare time, mainly coded on various OBD/ECU stuff I"m getting working. I"m getting intially the various trip counter fucntions, such as range, instant / average MPG working then moving onto the gauges. I"ve also seen a suggestion for a winamp plugin that uses ECU data to change the vis around depending on how you drive, so I"ll be doing that afterwards – all this in the aim once it"s working well with MediaCar, to integrate into my own application which is still in slow development while I get experience with the various functions I require.
and finally…
6) Finally got the go ahead to do the next version of the install..
The next version of the install is two fold – stealth car PC and integrated screen. The first was already planned but put on hold, else Custom PC magazine wouldn"t have had anything to see. The latter however required me to persuade the missus (my car but it"s not worth pissing her off!) that cutting up the new car"s dashboard was a good idea. She saw James and CdrSkulls dash work at the Car PC meet and has agreed to let me do mine.. Focus owners, stay tuned
