The Racing Geek

My prize for the second fastest time of the day at the opening GGLC Autocross of the season.

I ran a 53.139 and was only beaten by a race-prepped Evo running slicks. The prizes did not include the instructors times though I was actually faster than all but 3 (Jason and Alex on RA1s and Rob on slicks) of them as well. My goal for the season is to beat Alex with the added incentive that I will be upgraded to instructor if I do - seeing that I already beat his time in the morning session yesterday I am pretty confident I can do it again. I just feel sorry for my future students

Thanks to norcalturbo for this photo of me from the morning session.

Hit 36,000 miles yesterday.

I’ve been a big fan of the VLC media player on the Mac and have been using it exclusively as my media player. However at some point VLS player suddenly got very funky and suddenly stopped playing all video content. If you tried opening any video file it would open a blank video window and play the files audio for a few seconds before crashing. I tried delting the app and getting the latest version on the website but that really didnt seem to help. After a bunch of web searches and looking on several different forums I seem to have stumbled on a working answer.

1) Quit the application if it is running
2) Delete the VLC folder in /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences
3) org.videolan.vlc.plist in /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences
4) org.videolan.vlc.plist in /DRIVENAME/Library/Preferences

Restart VLC and it should play videos with no problems

[tags]VLC, Mac, OS X, crash, fix[/tags]

Jalopnik just posted this incredible screenshot of a Ferrari F40 from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

Compare that with this photo I took at Canepa Design using my 5MP Nokia N95.

Not only does the GT5 shot have much better colours, the details (check out the wheels) are truly spectacular. With the recent Blue Ray win I think I might just have to buy a PS3 after all

Head over to Jalopnik for more GT5 info.

Chris Harris review the new Supercharged Lotus Elise - me wants to upgrade

Harris is one of the best automotive reporters out there - he strikes an excellent balance between the humour of Jeremy Clarkson and the driving ability of Tiff Needell. If you liked that review I highly recommend the Chris on Camera series where he reviews a different car every week.

I just used the Iron Maiden Fanclubs internet pre-sale to score some tickets to two shows from the Somewhere Back in Time tour. I will be in the pit at San Antonio (May 21) and in the Orchestra seats at Irvine (May 31). If all goes well I will also be getting pit tickets for the May 28th show at Concord. While these should be Maiden concerts #3, 4 and 5 for me, this will be the first time I will get to experience the pit at a Maiden show.

Up the Irons!!!

One of the most popular entries on my blog is my video chat tutorial for the N800. Unfortunately Nokia has since ceased its support for their Nokia Internet Call application on the N95 and as a result there was no way for N800 users to video chat with a desktop user. After several months of fiddling around and tying out several different options I am glad to say that I have finally figured out the process and managed to make N800 to PC video calls using the Gizmo project. The video quality is not as good as it used to be with the Internet Call application, but as you can see below, unlike IC, it actually works so that does makes it a winner. The audio quality is exceptional and there is hardly any lag. Scroll down to see my full video chat tutorial.

N800 OS2008 Video call tutorial

So now for the second time, I present a step-by-step tutorial on how to setup video chat between the N800 (OS2008) and a desktop PC. Unfortunately since only the windows versions of the Gizmo5 client currently supports video, Mac and Linux users will have to be content with audio chat (which follows the same steps).

Update the OS
Download the software update utility from Nokia and update the tablet to OS2008. The official instructions for entering the “Install mode” on the update are incorrect. The Internet Tablet Software Update Wizard will tell you to enter the update mode by boot the device while holding the “swap” key down - this will show the USB icon on the top right corner for 2-3 seconds after which the tablet will quit the install mode and continue boting. What you should actually do is hold the “Home” key (the one with a house icon) down during bootup which will put it into the sustained install mode that is needed for the software update wizard to do its magic.

OS2008 is more stable than the one the N800 ships with plus it makes it easier to install the Gizmo client. Dont forget to back up any existing data before the update.

Setup the WiFi
To make an internet video call you first need the internet, if you haven’t set it up during your first boot just follow these steps.

1. Open the “Control Panel” from Start Button (the button on the left that has two window icons on it) -> Tools -> Control Panel
2. Open the Connectivity application and click the “Connections” button
3. Click “New” to open the connection setup wizard and then tap “Next” to continue
4. Name the connection, set the connection type to “WLAN” and tap next
5. You will get dialog asking “Scan for available WLAN networks?”. Tap Yes
6. You will now be presented with a list of available networks. Just select the one you want to connect to and tap next. You will be prompted to enter the network WEP key if the network is protected.
7. Tap “Finish” to save you new internet settings

Installing Gizmo5
If you look at the communications menu of the N800 you will see an entry for the Gizmo project. If you click on this option the tablet should prompt you to download and install the Gizmo client on the tablet. However when I tried to do the install this way it appears that I got an unstable version of the client which seemed to crash if I try to video chat. Instead I suggest you go to the Gizmo5 page and click on the link to download Gizmo for the N800. It will ask you if you want to install the application, just say keep saying yes and the install should be trouble free.

Setting up the application
Once you have installed the application you can start it by going under the “Extras” section of the Application menu (only if you installed from the web - if you installed it from the communication menu then you must start it from there). The application will take a a few seconds to start up and once loaded will ask you to either login or create a new account. Registration is pretty simple and only takes a few minutes. Once that is done you can enter the login information into the client and it will log you into the Gizmo service.

On the remote PC
The remote PC user should go to Gizmo5 page and click on the download now button. The page should automatically prompt the user to save the installation file. Once installed, the remote user should start the application and create an account for him/herself. As always if you want to have video chat the remote PC should have a webcam, mike and speakers

Add a new contact (on the N800)
In order to chat with the remote user you will first have to add him/her as a Gizmo contact. Start by clicking on the menu option on the top left corner of the screen (to the left of the Gizmo5 window title). Select Contacts > Add Contact. Set the contact type as Gizmo5 and enter the remote users Gizmo5 ID. Clicking the “Add” button will send a contact request to the remote user and once approved you will be able to see the remote user on your contact list.

Starting the chat
Open the camera on the N800. This will launch the Internet Call application, just close it and go back to the Gizmo app. If you are not in the “Phonebook” screen that displays your contacts just click on the phonebook tab near the top of the screen. Click on the contacts name and wait (hold the stylus touching the contact name). A drop down menu will open with a set of calling options. Select the “Call with Gizmo” option. This will send the remote user a call request which once accepted will open a video chat between the N800 and the remote PC.

Caveats
Once you have installed the latest Gizmo5 clients on both the N800 and PC things should go reasonably smoothly but there are some things to watch out for.

1. The N800 client is a bit buggy and sometimes will not connect to the service. Restarting the app usually gets it working.
2. Outgoing audio calls from the N800 to a Mac often crash the N800 client and leave the Mac client with an open call. You will have to manually cut the call on the mac client and try again. I recommend calling from the Mac to the N800 since that seems to be more stable.
3. Video is not too great and doesnt handle large movements very well. IMHO the excellent audio quality more that makes up for the crappy video.

Other than these issues the Gizmo5 client works pretty well on the N800. The fact that it is currently the only available video chat solution on the N800 means that it the best one out there as well :). I hope this tutorial helps and if anyone finds any issues or corrections please comment on the post and I will update the entry as needed.

A few people have asked me what it was like to drive Thunderhill at night and I figured the best way to explain would be to show you what its like. This is a quick lap with no traffic from the 24 Hours of Lemons race in December. Its pretty hard to see the course so I have labeled the corners to give you a better idea of the course.

Driving in the dark from rnair on Vimeo.

As you can see, the visibility is not the greatest which makes driving quite an interesting experience. While the lights do give you some idea of where the apex is, the real problem is in finding your track out point. Turns 1, 2 and 4 were especially difficult since the optimum racing line has a very wide track out point where you run over the outside kerbing on the exit. This is all well and good in the sunshine since you know exactly where you are going and you know that its safe. In the dark however, you simply cannot see the track out point when you turn in and you basically have to hope that the exit is clean and that no one has dumped mud or oil on the kerb. The other problem is that its really quite hard to see the track surface and/or its boundaries, especially when people drag mud onto the track. In many cases, the white line marking the track is completely obscured and you just have to guess at what your turn-in point is and hope that you wont put a wheel off on the inside. Some of this might be improved by using better lights: we used the stock E30 headlights and tried spreading the beam sideways to try and light up the apex but since it is a road car the amount of adjustment allowed was just too limited. The next time we will use more powerful, fully adjustable dune buggy lights instead. My solution to the visibility issues was to take it slow and always leave myself a margin for error, it may not have resulted in ultimate lap times but it meant that I always had enough “in hand” to be able to adapt to the any unexpected changes in the racing surface. Our goal was to just stay out of trouble and rack up the laps at a steady pace - since we were in 6th place after 10 hours I guess it did work :).

The next video is an example of what happens in low visibility, the cars are just entering turn two after someone had an agricultural moment and dragged a massive amount of mud right onto the racing line. None of us can see the mud on the line and come into the corner at race speed only to lose all grip mid corner. One car spins out completely while dPunks and I have some interesting sideways moments. While I got through it ok, it did give me quite a scare and I ended up taking turn 2 quite slow for the next 3-4 laps. Endurance racers who race at 10/10ths all night must be either incredibly brave or incredibly dumb

Muddy moment from rnair on Vimeo.

The next video is of a couple of laps in traffic. As you can see it is actually easiers to drive in traffic since there are a lot more headlights lighting up the track :-). Also the headlights make it impossible for someone to sneak up on you which means that you always have a good idea of the cars around you and what they are going to do. This leads to much better manners on the track and less problems off the track. Compared to the October race at Altamont the traffic here was incredibly well behaved and there was hardly any contact.

Driving in the dark (in traffic) from rnair on Vimeo.

This final video is a highlights package attempting to show some of the interesting from my 4 hour stint in the dark, I apologize for the crappy editing. All the video in this post was recorded using the PDR100 Racer kit from our sponsors at ChaseCam - I highly recommend it for your own racing/track video.

Thunderhill Lemons highlights 2007 from rnair on Vimeo.

We just finished the first days racing and we are currently in 6th place just 13 laps behind the leader. Wish us luck for tomorrow.

The cumulative result of all the contact in the Lemons race in Altamont was that the front end of our car was in pretty bad shape. As you can see from the above picture, the left front corner is a couple of inches too high as well as an inch or two inboard of its regular position. Now a real race team would either replace the frame or send the car to a bodyshop for some frame repair. Unfortunately both those options would have put us well past the $500 limit for the race. This is where Robs forklift comes into the picture

We started out by cutting the metal bar that served as our impromptu bumper after the hearse took out our original bumper during the race.

Step 2 was to lower the left edge of the frame. For this we wedged the left frame mounting point of the bumper under a truck and then used the forklift to raise the rest of the car. It took a couple of attempts, and some interesting moments with the forklift on two wheels, but we eventually got the front end into a level position.

Frame Repair, Lemons style from rnair on Vimeo.

Step 3 was to attach chains each of the bumper mount points and use the forklift to widen the front end.

Body repair 2 from rnair on Vimeo.

As you can see we ended up moving the right edge over a bit so the final step was to push the right edge back in.

Body repair 3 from rnair on Vimeo.

In the end we were able to fix our front end for $0 and keep with in both the rules and the spirit of the 24 Hours of Lemons