Anyone who has gotten the red screen on their dashboards has surely had a moment of panic and then annoyance upon discovering the lack of a “scary situation”.  My C350 had a horrendous time of flashing this light and despite almost 10 visits to the dealership (3 overnights) and a separate mechanic we did not solve the problem.  How did I solve the problem – I used my eyes… I noticed that the tires looked low at the door tire pressure specifications (the same ones the dealer and it seems every car mechanic uses for reference), and had the tires inflated 5 PSI higher.  Once I did that no problems for months…

So,  being curious I began to wonder what the solution was and found out after the TPMS started going all red screen on me.  The answer is simple:  Tire Pressure for the C-350 (and I assume other MB) should be done based on the GAS CAP levels, which ironically enough were right on par with my guesstimate.

So fear not, open the gas cap and pump those tires full of the right amount of air.  The Red Light of Death will be banished, until the seasons change severely and proper tire pressure maintenance kicks in again.  There are a dearth of online posts related to this problem, and it is good to know there is a rationale fix.

BTW – I did have my control board and one sensor replaced over the 2 years, but that never solved the problem.

Happy Motoring,

James

The other day a family member mentioned they were trying to fix a photo.  Basically the photo was of a beautiful landscape but there was a huge telephone pole in the middle + 5 dark telephone lines going across the sky, trees, and ocean.  After many attempts I was left with artifacts that only appeared on printing.  I did however find a final solution using the Clone Stamp Tool and the Smudge tool.

I used the tutorial at this site, and after about 5 hours I was done and the printouts look great!  I am not a photoshop guru, but can handle a mouse and follow directions – that is all that is needed for this little effort.

Happy Photoshoping,
James

Headed to see Charles Prince of Oracle and talk about the opportunities in Cloud computing, and found this great coffee shop. I am crazy about coffee and love perfect foam. This place is excellent. Parking is terrible; Atlanta downtown is pretty dodgy with bums and such – but it is worth it.

Best part – everyone is brainstorming and creating – great vibe for thinking through exciting ideas!

If you are in the area check it out.

Octane Coffee Bar & Lounge
www.octanecoffee.com

1009 Marietta St NW
Atlanta, GA 30318
(404) 815-9886
Get directions

UPDATE:  As all my readers can see… the company that manages the Capital Grille has stepped up and replied to my disappointing experience.  I called the gentlemen back and we had a great conversation.  I detailed all the problems and he was very open to hearing the criticism and making it right.  It says a lot about an organization that 1.  Keeps an eye out for such slips in service, and 2.  Taking the time to salvage a customer.  I intend to return in a month or so to try it again – without clients, and will post my new experience.

As everyone who reads my writings knows, I travel a lot.  I eat out about 80% of my meal with clients and so have a good sense of what is terrific and not.  To give context last week I had the fortune to eat at Chops here in Atlanta, and it was great.  Service was spot on – lots of attention without feeling the table conversations being interrupted.  We were in a fairly busy part of the restaurant, but NEVER were bumped or disturbed.  In addition, the meal was perfect – timing; meat temperatures; and the bill was correct.

Needless to say Capital did not meet these tests.  The service was spotty… napkins were taken away appropriately to match the type of pants being worn by the guests, but didn’t show up for 20 minutes!  We had to flag down a waiter to get our waiter so we could order wine and the meal.  When the food finally started showing up the problems continued.  The food was not presented to all guests at once, but rather several minutes passed “because I don’t have enough hands” – never heard that before.  The steaks were not all the correct temperature, and when the bill finally came they had added someone elses’ bar tabs – almost $60 bonus.

Bottom line:  It will be a long time before I; my clients; my company; my family; and friends go to The Capital Grille in Atlanta.  Chops is a superior experience.

Happy eatting to all!  (Why no post on Chops?  Simple; this class of restaurant is supposed to be great – if they are not then it should be known to all)

James

I have bought and sold 5 cars over the last few years (for myself and friends / family), and have always posted it in the local newspaper.  I have also used CraigsList.  The end results are as follows:

Atlanta Journal Constitution (Atlanta Paper):  Cost me approximately $50 per vehicle (5×50) or $250 and produced ZERO purchases.  I received on average 3 calls per ad from the AJC posting (which is terrible).

CraigsList: Cost me NOTHING for all 5 postings and produced FIVE purchases.  I received on average 12 calls / emails of qualified persons with nearly 4 test drives each.

Bottom line:  I don’t know if the buyers have moved away from the Classified listings or the platform of Craigslist is that much better – whatever the reason, I will no longer waste my time with the newspaper classifieds.

Also – I have bought 3 other items off of CraigsList with no hassles for items that were not even listed on classifieds.

Thank you CraigsList,

James

Caught the Braves game Friday night with the wife, and had awesome seats!  Check out the camera angle to the homebase.  Row 11 from the field!

Braves won over the Nationals, there was some fool who ran on the field, tackled a security guy, and was promptly handcuffed by a police officer (the security rent-guard was down for almost 10 minutes after the hit).   There was also awesome fireworks afterwards.  Definitely recommend staying if they have them again – comparable to most 4th of July events, but you are sitting back in your seats finishing up your peanuts.

Best,

James

Guy moderated / posted this discussion for the Churchill Club. Energetic and informative for all those interested in starting a venture. It is definitely the successful side of the risky venture world, but still inspiring.

Happy Ventures,

James

Rarely has there been time to play with toys, but there are a few that I have my eyes on.

First off – I LOVE NYC. In this case I love REGAL CINEMAS. They have introduced a “Regal Guest Response System” where you may click a button and summon a company bouncer. Perfect for parents who don’t realize being a parent means taking care of the child – a rated R movie at 10pm does not qualify, or those annoying individuals who bring burritos into the establishment.

Second – Microsoft introduced something called Surface. Really cool technology, and I am glad it is in production. I do not buy their timeline on how it was developed, because I recall seeing demonstrations by non-Microsoft persons with this same tech. As I said, happy it is out and welcome the shift.

Google Developer’s Day just “completed” and announced Gears!  Offline access to your wonderful online applications.   It is an open source API, so this means ALL web applications can be made available offline with a bit of programming magic.  Be aware this is still in beta, but probably pretty rock solid as other Google launched applications.  (Gmail, Reader, etc…)  Here is a nice review

Finally – I started this post off with toys, and none better than Blizzard’s long awaited STARCRAFT II. Looks like it is finally time to upgrade to some rocking hardware (vista won’t make me upgrade, but Blizzard gets my vote)!

Ciao,

James

So, I have been a videophile for a longtime and greatly desire to have my digital media made available to my television. I have tried connecting my PC and my Mac to the televisions, and despite the functional usage it is not elegant nor likely to last given the extreme manual effort (and the incredible overkill of using a $$$ multi-gigabyte and multi-processor machine) to do what a $50 dvd player from WaloMart.

Apple iTV is close to being the perfect solution except for two concerns – 720p is a bit weak in quality for my movie playing enjoyment, and what about my non-itunes media? The hard drive size is a bit small too – considering a single movie can be several gigs in size.

Crafty folks have gotten iTV to boot on a MacBook:

It seems that some brilliant folks have determined a way to upgrade the hard, and the ability to run divx files. So, is there any hope for upgrading the HD output to 1080? I will keep my eyes out, and this may be the straw that broke my self-control (2 out of 3 addressed – play any files, upgraded hard drive and only lacking on the HD output).

If anyone has any new upgrades or mods, please add them below. I will update this post as I find new information.

• Credits to MacOS x86 Blog guys for these great links and constant quality posts

• Upgrade Apple iTV Harddrive
• Support XVID and add SSH (Updated 3/28/07)
• Support added for Torrent download queues (grab your shows automatically)

One thing that would be incredible and maybe really enhance the experience would be to place the appletv os on a mac mini.  Greater drive size, more horsepower, better graphics card (?), better expandability… albeit more expensive.

James

Yesterday, Sunday, Jill and I completed our second half-marathon.  The race was the ING Inaugural Georgia Marathon-Half-Marthon here in Atlanta GA.  Overall they did a great job, except for the lack of structure at the start.  The start was huge blob of runners (marathoners and half-marathoners and walkers merged into one huge block) that spanned over 5 city blocks.   The problem was we were stuck in the back of the pack, and there were a huge number of walkers.  Jill and I spent the first 3 miles weaving around this group, and finally around mile 4 hit a really quick pace.

Our time finished at 2 hours and 3 minutes which averages around 9:23.  This was faster than our goal, but does not do justice to our race, because we were cruising at a great clip.  Moving forward we will be switching to cycling with some running during the week.

James