Xoom

Uncategorised,

I have wanted a tablet and the Motorola Xoom‘s price fell down to £250 at Carphone Warehouse which seemed fair enough.  It is 6 months old, has already been superseded by the Xoom2 but is slick and has just had an update to the latest and greatest version of android (Ice Cream Sandwich or ICS)in the USA.

So I bought one and had a play. I like it.  But I wanted ICS.  It seems to be an easy tablet to muck around with – Motorola even make unlocking it a doddle, all you have to do is agree that you are invalidating the warranty (it seems that this is easily reversible).  I followed the simple instructions at xoomforums and hey presto, my tablet thinks it is American and started updating.  An hour later and it was running ICS.  All good fun but to be honest I can’t see much difference between ICS and the previous version.  I wanted to play with face recognition but that appears not to be part of the package.  Not enough grunt in the processor?

Otherwise I am very happy with the little tablet.  It is slick, easy to use and very portable despite being about twice the weight of the more modern tablets.  I bought a nice little case and reviewed it on amazon.  I am making an effort to review things because I find them so useful myself.

It makes a handy recipe holder too.

1998 Lotus Elise S1: boot/engine cover hinge tightening

Uncategorised
Remove the roof!
I have been driven crazy by the boot/engine cover hinge on my car.  It is wobbly and loose.  The garage said it was an expensive “remove rear clamshell” job and I was too stupid to google whether this was true.  As it turns out it looked like it could be done relatively easily.  Even I managed it, here are the steps which I copied and pasted from this thread.
Read the instructions carefully (not usual for me but I really did not want to have a bad time and thought actually reading them might help).

Remove the rear windscreen.

Separate the engine cover from the hinge AFTER marking where it has to go back (this is very important!).  Note that I put a pan there to catch the bolts since I was paranoid about losing something down inside, since it is a total pain getting them out with the undertray in place.

Put the hinge spacer things in a safe place, the pencil was used to mark where the hinge should have been.

Note the lines showing where the hinge was.

I undid all four bolts in the gutter here, but did not remove the aerial lead.  The small gap made by sliding the lid forward was enough for me.

I prized up the clamshell and vblocked it with a piece of wood.  Note the hinge with a missing bolt.  It was completely loose!

The naughty bolt and the right implement to put it back (the first time I used it after buying it 12 years ago as part of  a set where I needed something else in the kit).

Putting the bolt back.  F tight (not finger tight).  Sadly I think I cross threaded it but I am not 100% sure so left it.
You then put it all back together.  Marking the hinge location was very useful, but I still think that I put it back 2-3 mm out of alignment so may revisit it.

I also fixed the window winder since the handle was too tight and E. was complaining.

I am utterly delighted to have fixed it, I just hope that the bolt holds and is not cross threaded!

Teens, headphones and hearing loss.

General

Using MP3 Players at High Volume Puts Teens at Risk for Early Hearing Loss, Say Researchers

ScienceDaily (Dec. 28, 2011) — Today’s ubiquitous MP3 players permit users to listen to crystal-clear tunes at high volume for hours on end — a marked improvement on the days of the Walkman. But according to Tel Aviv University research, these advances have also turned personal listening devices into a serious health hazard, with teenagers as the most at-risk group.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111228134852.htm

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