Just downloaded it, I love the idea of sandboxing and the new JS engine which seem to set it apart from "current gen" browsers. When/if Adblock comes out for it I'd probably use it full time. It IS bloody quick!

On topic: Seriously, just keep it as a clean standard car. If you feel the need to do stuff, get into detailing. I would much rather look at a nice standard, "mint" Proton Wira than one that's got Halfords Value (sorry, I mean Ripspeed) wheels on it and stupid blinding HID bulbs.

Btw: Changing the head unit for a decent CD player is fine imo, as is changing the speakers as long as the speakers are behind the standard grilles and the head unit is tasteful.

Sorry, but these scooter things are a stupidly bad idea period.

They serve no purpose other than showing off to your 14 year old girlfriend in Tescos car park and pissing off car drivers as we're forced to pass your 30mph strangled sheep on a twisty road.

I mean nothing personal there, just a general rant about scooters and their stereotypical riders.

Nah, my Eee doesn't run LFS well enough. It's a 701 but I don't think any of them have faster processors anyway. Best bet would be some kind of Dell with a Core 2 Duo, 1GB RAM and at least an Intel X1300.

Wow, 350Z that's incredible!

Maggot- looks like a 599, very nice. Gives me faith that side-on car drawings can look as good as perspective ones.

I think that CAD machines still rely more on Quadro cards than Geforce ones as far as nVidia is concerned, I'm afraid I can't tell you what the differences are though.

It's DirectX not DivX btw, DivX is a video codec.

Thanks guys, heel-toe is a bitch to get right so don't think there's enough time to nail it before my test. I'll try letting the clutch out slower and play with varying amounts of throttle.

Here's the McLaren F1 video:

http://video.google.com/videos ... 0w%2Fspin&sitesearch=

There's a video of him collecting the car on GV as well which is quite cool.

Hi guys, I thought I'd come and share a question that's bothering me. I'm halfway through my IAM Advanced Driving course and there's something I'm stuck on...

How the hell do I make downshifting smoother?

Let's say I'm approaching a corner on a 60mph twisty road and I've slowed down to 40 in 4th ready to take it. I always used to stay in 4th on this bend BUT now I want to take this corner in 3rd because I'll have better control over putting the power down. The thing is, when I downshift from 4th to 3rd you can still feel it even though I blip the throttle. Is there a way to do this smoothly eg do I need more/less revs when blipping etc etc..?

It would be great if anyone could share their wisdom, thanks

Hamilton didnt see two cars parked in front of him? What a stupid mistake. Again.

Unless he saw Raikonnen pass him and figured putting them both out of the race would be easier than passing on the track and wouldn't change much in terms of points.

hrtburnout: I think my computer is sad today.

(also, love the manatee pic!)

Everyone plays ET on and off, it just plays sooo well even by today's standards.

http://images.ciao.com/iuk/ima ... l/133/product-5113133.jpg

The original iCam and my first digital camera, back when 352x288 was enough for anyone If anyone wants to know what the pictures looked like, I think Tesco still sells cameras with the same below-VGA image sensor.

For anyone who was reading, I just bought this Dell:

XPS 1530
1.83ghz Core 2 Duo
3GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
8600m GT 256MB dedicated
160GB HD
Fingerprint reader, 2MP webcam, slot-load DVD

£609 in total but thanks to a 15% off coupon deal they're doing, I only had to pay £526

Last edited by TiJay, Thu, 5 Jun 2008 21:10.

Thanks again, it's good to see what I can get for my money.

I think what I'll do is consider both the Acer and the Dell, I just have to decide whether the "cool bits" on the Dell are worth the extra £50 or so.

Thanks

I thought that was quite a good price- right now the Dell is even cheaper at £589 but by the time I get paid, the offer won't be on. Battery life isn't really an issue because it'll spend 99% of its life plugged in as I have my Eee 701 for use in cafes etc.

How will this compare to the Dell? This has more RAM, a slightly faster CPU but a lower-end graphics card:

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/6 ... uct.html?searchtype=genre

I'd probably get this:

http://www.speeding.co.uk/acat ... ireless_Video_Camera.html

or one of those cheap SD videocamera things.

OK, it's that time of year again! I'm looking for the best laptop I can get for around £600. It needs to be able to do 3D Studio, Photoshop, video editing and play FSX at an enjoyable level.

I've specced out a Dell XPS 1530 @ £620ish with:

Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz
2048MB RAM
GeForce 8600GT
Cool stuff like webcam, thumbprint reader and slot-load DVD drive

What I'd like is opinions on these specs and if anyone could recommend other good laptops around this price point, that'd be great. Thanks in advance guys

Last edited by TiJay, Mon, 2 Jun 2008 16:06.

1280x720 is 720p HD, 1366x768 is a non-standard res used for most 720p HDTVs as screens of this resolution are now common and cheap to produce.

Why not be happy with 720p HD instead of wanting those few extra pixels? :S

If VLC and KLite wont play it, you may have a corrupted file?

Just worked out my fuel economy over one tank of fuel- 34mpg from a 1.25 Fiesta Zetec. I should probably work on this efficient driving thing...

IMO, compromise slightly and do both. You can get/build a PC with decent enough specs and a smaller (37"?) LCD (don't get a plasma!!) HDTV for the price of a full-on "gamer's PC" and a 42" plasma.

Quote :

Why would it be any more dangerous than driving in gear? , aslong as the engine is running it's just the same.

No engine braking I guess? Also, wouldn't the car just gradually slow down?

This topic is interesting, but... Call me stupid, isn't coasting in gear/cruising in neutral inherently dangerous?

Quote :

But never coast to save fuel; vehicle control must not be compromised.

^ Above from advanced-driving.co.uk

Last edited by TiJay, Fri, 23 May 2008 12:22.

http://www.chaossoftware.com/ do some good calendar/time management software. Don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for but even if you don't use it in a business, it's useful as a personal todo list/organiser.