The Racing Geek

I am a big fan of the Nokia N800 and use it quite frequently as a video player and RSS reader when I am on the go. The addition of a slide-out keyboard for the Nokia N810 made it a very desirable device and I was very excited when the folks at WOM World lent me a test device to play with for a few weeks. As luck would have it, I got the device just before a short trip to Atlanta and so I decided to give the N810 a real work out to see if it could replace my laptop. So for the first time in years I left my laptop at home for a trip and exclusively used the N810 (paired with my 3G N95) for all my computing needs.

For those of you who are not familiar with the N810 it is basically an updated N800 with a built-in, slide-out keyboard. The other major differences were a fixed front facing camera (as opposed to the rotating one on the N800), built-in GPS, 2GB internal storage and a single miniSD slot (instead of the 2 regular SD slots). The buttons on the front have all been moved either into the slide or the top of the device making it look and more importantly feel a lot smaller than the N800 even though they have the same size screen.

In general the N810 performed very much like my N800 - the screen is very clear and the battery life is pretty good. The audio is decent enough and it is able to play most video format right out of the box. The GPS chip had adequate recption though I did have issues pre-downloading maptile data - it took multiple hours to download the eastern US (~700 MB) and in the end it failed sometime during the process. The built in browser was pretty decent and I was able to visit all of my usual websites and do all my email with no issues. It came very close to being a laptop except for two deal breakers which were unfortunately both associated with the new slide-out keyboard:

First off the keyboard is really hard to use. It requires a little too much pressure to register a key press and even worse it does not give adequate feedback when a key is pressed. This is especially difficult in central keys like R, T, G, etc… I found that I would have to press the key and then immediately look at the screen to see if the press had registered. Plus since you are only typing with your thumbs it means that touch typing is not an option and you will have to keep looking from the keyboard to the screen. However I am willing to give Nokia the benefit of the doubt on this one - it is possible that the device I got was bit defective due to heavy use (it had been used by other people in the WOM program) though I would still hope that a device like this should be able to go through heavy usage without issues.

The second and much more serious problem is the interaction between the the keyboard and the touchscreen. The screen is small enough that its really not practical to tap on web links with your fingers. This means that most navigation is done using the stylus which is similar to the N800 and works pretty well here as well. Similarly the keyboard works quite well (assuming your keyboard works better than mine) when you need to enter text. The real issue is when you have to do something that involves both navigation and text - it is extremely difficult to type on the keyboard while still holding the stylus in your fingers. The ideal position for typing on the device is to have both index fingers on the top edge of the device with both middle finger supporting the device from below - this leaves your thumbs free to type. However this position also means that the gap between your index and middle fingers is too large too easily grip the extremely thin stylus. You can try and wedge it against the side of the device itself but that puts pressure on your fingers which will start hurting pretty soon. You could try putting the stylus down down/away every time you type but that will become extremely tiresome. And finally the change in hand grip from one-handed(to point) to two handed(to type) every few minutes is quite annoying too. While the keyboard and stylus are good at their individual tasks they are just not designed to be used together which means that the N810 is actually harder to use that my original N800 with its stylus operated soft keyboard.

The touch screen is a nice interface for web browsing but as more and more information moves into the cloud, a tablet-class device must have adequate (and relatively seamless) text entry mechanisms as well. What Nokia really needs is a secondary (or in this case tertiary) input method such the blackberry scroll-wheels and trackballs that allow the users to use a mouse-like functionality without changing their grip on the device. The touch screen will continue to serve as the browsing interface but users will also be able to go into the text entry mode which allows them to enter text and move around the page without having to change their grip on the device. If Nokia is able to get this right the N810 will truly become a laptop replacement for short trips and vacations. However in its current state I would recommend that you go for the N800 instead - it is both cheaper and the soft keyboard is much easier to use.

I was recently at the WOM World get-together in SF when we started discussing the some of the ways that Nokia should market the N-series devices, specifically the N95 vs iPhone issue. One of the things we all agreed on was that the camera on the N95 is a huge differentiator that Nokia really hasn’t been pushing as much as it should. People are so used to seeing crappy photos from devices like the Razr and the iPhone that they dont expect phones to have good cameras. I, on the other hand, have been using various variants of the N95 for well over a year and the camera is so good that I can honestly say that I will never buy a point-and-shoot camera again. People who see the shots are blown away by the quality of the images and often wont believe that they are from a cameraphone. Additionally the fact that I can use ZoneTag to upload, tag and geotag photos directly from the phone means that I upload way more photos from my phone than I ever did with my point-and-shoot camera.

So anyway, I had a quick look at some of the photos I’ve taken over the last year and have pulled out a few of the really outstanding shots to demonstrate the quality of the N95 camera - hope you like them.

One of the first really great shots I took with the phone was this shot of the wreck of the Peter Iredale of the coast of Oregon. I took a bunch of photos of the wreck but I particularly like the contrasting colours in this picture. You can also see that the photo has been automatically geotagged using ZoneTag which allowed me to do 2-click upload the photo while on vacation while also suggesting the tags “shipwreck” and “beach”.

In case you have any doubts about the print quality of the images you should check out this photo of mine that was used in a full page advertisement in SportsCar magazine. The photo was taken with an N95 classic after I spun out at the track.

One of the things that people forget is that not only does the N95 take great photos but it also shoots 640×480 video at a full 30 fps. The above video was taken at a BMW club autocross using an N95 8GB (N95-2) on my homebrew track video setup. As you can see the picture is clear and skip free. The loud rustling sound is the wind noise from the air entering the cabin once you go above a certain speed. Also check out this trackday video that I made at Reno-Fernley Raceway using the same camera setup.

The two photos above are part of a set that I took from the front row of an Iron Maiden concert in San Antonio using my N95 classic. The concert environment with its combination low light, moving subjects, backlighting and audience jostling is pretty hostile to cameras and makes it super challenging to take clear photographs.

The biggest issue for me was the time it takes for the N95 camera to both switch on and also focus on its subject. I would often click the button to capture an interesting moment but the moment would be well past by the time the camera actually took its shot. I took about 150 photos on that day and roughly 40 were worth putting on Flickr with another 40-50 worth saving. Not a very good ratio but since people were having worse ratios with high-ish end cameras I certainly cant complain. Also being a cameraphone means that there are zero questions asked when you take it into the venue

The last thing I want to share is some video that I shot from another Iron Maiden Concert (this time in Concord). This was from an N95 8GB NAM and as you can see the video is pretty damn good despite the tough camera conditions. The sound is once again the biggest issue - it just cant handle the loud noise and ends up clipping most of the audio.

All in all I can say that the N95 has a truly spectacular camera (for a phone) and it can easily be a replacement for a point-and-shoot camera. Plus if Nokia can fix the sound/clipping problems on the phone they should seriously market the N95 as a full-on camcorder replacement as well. The addition of easy uploads to Flickr and YouTube (the current Flickr share SUCKS!!!) would make this the perfect point-and-shoot photo and video capture device.

I’ve recently had the pleasure of using a N95 8GM NAM (N95-4) that was provided to me by Nokia as part of the WOM World program. I actually have both the original N95 and an N95 8GB (N95-2) but both of them are euro 3G which meant that I was stuck at EDGE speeds on US AT&T network. I’ve had a couple of weeks to play with the device and the big differentiator was of course the blazing fast internet speeds (see the speed test results below). Uploading ZoneTag photos and seeing Zurfer images was so fast that I would just continue using the 3G network even when I had an available WiFi access point.

Since I have an unlimited data plan on my phone, I obviously had to see if I could share my 3G connection with my other devices, namely an N800 Internet Tablet and my MacBook Pro (Tiger). This however was not such a simple process - it appears that the 3G versions have made small changes to their connection protocols which have rendered my existing connection sharing steps useless. The even more annoying part was that the steps in setting up the connection would all work just fine but when you actually tried to use the connection it just wouldn’t work I tried a bunch of internet searching and after considerable trial and error I was able to get connection sharing to work. So in order to spare the next poor fool the trouble I’m writing up this tutorial on how to share the 3G connection from an N95 8GB NAM with first an N800 Maemo and then with a MacBook Pro running Tiger. As always there are no warranties or guarantees - use at your own risk.

Connection sharing between a 3G Nokia phone and the N800 OS2008 Internet Tablet

The following steps should tell you how to share the 3G connection from your Nokia to your N800 Maemo tablet. They have been tested to work between my N95 8GB NAM (with US AT&T service) and my N800 OS2008 though they should theoretically work for different Nokia phones and various tablets including the N810

Pair the N800 with your Phone

1. Switch on the N800 and go to Menu -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Phone
2. You should now see a dropdown menu listing the “Selected Phone”. Click the “New” button.
3. The tablet will take a few seconds to do a bluetooth scan before listing all available devices. Select your phone from the list and click “Ok”
4. The pairing screen will display a code. Hit Ok and then enter that code into your phone when prompted to do so. Accept the connection request from the tablet.
5. The Tablet will now display the “Operator Setup” screen. Hit next to continue
6. Select USA as your country and hit next.
7. Select AT&T Internet as your mobile operator and hit next
8. Tap “Finish” to save your settings

Setting up the connection on the Tablet

1. You will now have gone back to the “Phone” window on the tablet with the name of your phone selected in the dropdown. Hit the “Ok” button to save your phone.
2. Open the “Connectivity” icon in the Control Panel and click the “Connections” button
3. Click the New button to open the “Connection Setup wizard” and click “Next” to continue.
4. Enter the connection name and set the connection type to “Packet Data”. Hit next to continue.
5. Change the Access Point Name to be “wap.cingular”. If you do not do this it WILL NOT work. If you are using a carrier other than AT & T you should set it to be the access point name you use on your phone. You can get it on the phone by going to Menue -> Tools -> Settings -> Connection -> Access points. Click on the access point you use on the phone and use the text you find under “Acess point name”. Do not use the connection name since that can be different from the access point name.
6. The dialup number is *99# while the username and password are blank. Hit “Next” to continue.
7. Tap “Finish” to save the settings

Using the Connection from your N800 tablet

1. To open the connection on your tablet click on the connection icon (between the volume and battery icons) in the top right of the screen
2. Click “Select Connection” to see a list of connections and available WiFi access points.
3. Select the connection you just created and click “Connect”
4. The phone will prompt you about accepting a connection from the tablet - hit “yes” and the tablet will connect to the phone and display a message saying “Connect to XXXXX”
5. You are now connected over 3G.
6. You can disconnect the connection at any time by clicking the connection icon and hitting “Disconnect”
7. You can avoid the connection prompt by going to Menu -> Tools -> Bluetooth page on your phone. Click right on the D-pad which will show a list of accepted connections. Find your N800 on the list, click on options and “Set as authorized”. This will allow connections without requiring your permission every time.

Connection sharing between a 3G Nokia phone and Mac OS X

The following steps should tell you how to share the 3G connection from your Nokia to your OS X machine. They have been tested to work between my N95 8GB (with US AT&T service) and my MacBook Pro running Tiger though they should theoretically work for different Nokia phones and various versions of OS X (requires Mac OS X 10.4.9 and higher for iSync) .

Install the iSync Plugin
You MUST go through this process first - I have found that without this the connection may not successfully complete.

1. The first step is to download the Nokia iSync plugin for the N95 which is available here. It is important to download the exact version needed for your phone - I have found that the N95 plugin does NOT work with the N95 8GB.
2. Once you have downloaded the dmg file double click it to open the image and then double click on the installation package.
3. Follow the steps in the wizard to install the package.

Pair Mac with Phone

1. Make sure bluetooth is turned on and set to discoverable (visibility shown to all) on your phone.
2. Go to “System Preferences” and click on “Bluetooth”.
3. Click the “Set Up New Device” button and then hit “continue” on the wizard that pops up.
4. Select the device type to be “Mobile Phone” and click continue.
5. The Mac will then take a minute or so to scan for any mobile phones within Bluetooth range and give you a list. Select your phone from the list and click “continue”
6. The next step is for the computer to gather information about your phone. This will take another minute or so, just wait till the process is complete and click “continue”
7. The mac will now display an eight digit numerical code and prompt you to enter it on your device. Your phone will be displaying a prompt to enter the passkey on the phone - enter it and hit ok (on the phone). The phone will then display a message asking if it should accept an incoming connection from your computer - click “yes”.
8. The next step is to setup the services you want you computer to access on your phone. For sharing your connection you need to check the box saying “Access the internet with your phone’s data connection” and set the radio button below it to be “Use a direct, higher speed connection…”. Now hit continue.
9. The next screen will setup connection strings for your phone. Leave the username and password blank and set the GPRS CID string to “*99#” (without quotes). Select “Nokia Infrared” as the Modem script and hit “Continue”.
10. Your mac and phone are now setup to share their connection - hit the “Quit” button.

Using the connection

1. Go to the “Network” tab in system preferences and set the Show dropdown to “Network Status”
2. Select the “Bluetooth” option and click the “Connect” button.
3. This will have opened “Internet Connect” with all the right configurations. Click the “Connect” button
4. Your phone will prompt you to accept a connection from your laptop - say “Yes”.
5. In a few seconds your connection status will say “Connected” and you will be free to surf the net at 3G speeds. In fact a good portion of this blog post was written on my Mac over 3G

Possible issues

1. It can get quite annoying to have your phone keep prompting you to allow the conection. You can get around this by going to Menu -> Tools -> Bluetooth page on your phone. Click right on the D-pad which will show a list of accepted connections. Find your computer on the list, click on options and “Set as authorized”. This will allow your laptop to make connections without requiring your permission every time.
2. Occasionally I have had issues disconnecting the 3G connection. Sometimes the status keeps saying “disconnecting” while other times it says its ready to connect but throws error messages to verify your connection settings. I’ve found that a reboot of the computer and the phone usually fixes it.

Its been almost a month and I’ve finally sat down to write a recap of Lemons SF 2008. We entered our trusty #56 Formula BMW E30 with the only changes being the addition of an LSD ($65 from the Pick-n-Pull) and putting in some stiffer springs ($200). We also put in a new (junkyard new that is) left rear hub ($150) to replace the one that led to our crashing out at Thunderhill. All in all we put in 2-3 days of work and we had the car back up and running for well under the $500 limit.

We originally planned to have a Max Mosely mannequin bent over the trunk (pants down of course) but we ran out of time and as you can see the car looked pretty much exactly the way it did at the end of Thunderhill (apart from the aforementioned left rear hub).

Since there was no practice day this time we all just showed up on Saturday and got ready to race. Rob took the first stint and was making excellent progress through the field. It was about an hour into the race when we looked at the scoreboard and realised just how excellent the progress was - WE WERE IN THE LEAD!!!

Photo by jyri1

We were trading back and forth for the lead with car #65 (a green MR2) with our buddies at Team Red Bear just half a lap behind us. Coincidentally all three teams were pitted next to each other making it the fastest section of the pits. The original plan was for each driver to drive stints of 2-2.5 hours so we we immediately knew that something was wrong when Rob pulled into the pits at about the 1.45 mark. It turns out that the heat from the exhaust had literally melted the engine mount which is never a good thing. Luckily we had a spare and we were able to replace it and send Jyri out for the second stint.

At this point we had fallen out of the top ten but we were only about 20 laps down on #64 who was leading. Jyri kept up a steady pace and about 1.30 hours into his stint we had made up a few of the spots when tragedy struck Lemons and driver Court Summerfield died on track. The rest of the days racing was immediately cancelled and we wet to the hotel wondering about the future of Lemons. After battling with it overnight and talking to Courts family, Jay decided to continue on with the race in Court’ memory. The Lemons organizers have organized a memorial fund in Court’ name and I encourage readers to donate what they can. The next morning the organizers made this statement:

A California Highway Patrol investigation was undertaken at the track. The CHP informed us that there was no mechanical failure or unsafe track conditions and that no other cars were involved. The CHP also informed us that, based on physical evidence and witness statements, it appears that the driver was not conscious prior to impact.

The race was now down to 6.5 hours and we had 3 driver who hadn’t turned the wheel yet. Gabe got to take the start and despite a couple of scary moments kept up decent pace. About 2 hours into his stint he came into the pits for the scheduled driver change when we noticed a crack in the oil pan. At some point the oil pan had struck something on the track and developed a crack that was furiously leaking oil. This was heroic fix time and like last time Rob came up with another winner. He used a dril to drill a small hole in the center of the crack and then used a screw to attach a Gatorade bottle tap filled with red silicone. Amazingly enough this bottletop fix not only lasted over 4 hours at race speed but also took a couple of heavy wall impacts without coming loose.

At this point we were some 60 laps down and had fallen all the way to 37th place. It was time to get back on track and put in steady laps. While that sounded great in theory it was further complicated by our shifter mounts breaking. This meant that the entire drive train would move under braking and resulted in our car popping out of second gear under anything resembling heavy braking. Since there was no time to fix that we just had to drive around the problem and drove the entire lap in 3rd instead. This meant that we were very slow coming out of corners but once we got into the working range of the engine we would take off. This must have confused a lot of our competitors who would come alongside by the midway through the banked turns only to be left behind when the car hit its stride It also made the car much more of a momentum car - I found that I could take the esses quite a bit faster than the other cars out there but would usually have to brake to avoid hitting the car in front only for the other car to out accelerate me coming out of the turn.

Guy and I put in some steady laps and which pulled us back into the top 25 before handing off to Rob for the final stint. He putting in some excellent times when someone put him into the wall just 2 laps from the end.

Photo by Murilee Martin

In the end the car went through a lot and kept on running. We finally ended up 20 and some 50 odd laps behind the winner. The 2 laps we lost in the end were crucial since we were just 2 laps behind Red Bear who finished 18th. All in all it was a fun event though the tragedy did bring home the dangers of racing. Formula BMW will definitely be back for Thunderhill.

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

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!!!