Archive for April 23rd, 2012

In for first service…

April 23rd, 2012 / / 3 comments

So a half hour ago I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of a taxi, holding my helmet and gazing out the rear window as my motorcycle grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

Dropped off at the dealer

I can have her back tomorrow, this is more dependant on the weather than anything else right now, 3 hours work according to the book, and they’ll climb all over her. 1042km on the clock now, with this service out of the way I can zip around like a maniac for the whole season.

Still don’t like her spending time away from home, though, not one bit.

Parking, straight in or back in?

April 19th, 2012 / / 6 comments

Settle a bet for me.

When parking your car do you pull straight in or do you back into the spot?

Yes or no, why do you do that?

…..for bonus points – if you ride do you park the same way with your bike?

DVR Sunglasses – Version II

April 18th, 2012 / / One comment

Almost identical to the first pair I tried out, this pair seems to have different colored LED flashes, but functions in all other respects like the first pair.

I’m going to trim the buttons less aggressively this time, so I don’t have to mangle the internals with a pocket knife.

Camera Sunglasses

Will see if these glasses suffer from the same “ghost file” issue that the other pair did, and if there is any difference in field of vision or image quality.

(This is the second of three pairs I’ll be testing – the first was free, this pair cost $20CDN, and the final pair costs $60)

Edited to add: Am seeing exactly the same reliability issues with this pair as the first. Recorded my ride into work and back, the recording TO work was fine, the recording FROM work turned into a ghost file and the camera froze requiring a hard reset.

I’m not sure what is causing the problem, but these glasses can really NOT be relied upon. Additionally I can still NOT set the date/time on these things! So an inexpensive novelty, rather than a useful tool.

Another ride…

April 17th, 2012 / / 2 comments

Ok, so it was a smidge chilly today, but it seemed perfect for taking a ride up to Kitchener, so off I went.

Another rustic setting

Still working on getting the stupid grin off my face. Almost 1,000 km on the bike at this point, going to have to schedule it’s first service any time now.

Breaking her in…

April 12th, 2012 / / 2 comments

I’ve been spending as much time as possible riding around on the bike, and have taken to exploring the local roadways on the periphery of the city proper.

Somewhere out there

It was a little cool’ish today, but a nice two hour zip around town saw me passing 700km on the new bike. That first service is looming.

DVR Sunglasses – Ride Test

April 8th, 2012 / / 3 comments

With the buttons removed from the sunglasses the recording generally lasts as long as the ride (subject to TF card and battery restrictions naturally). The down side is of course that I now have to carry a paperclip or knife to activate the recording button.

(These are so inexpensive they are nearly disposable – ebay auctions starting at $19.) There are more expensive models that are more asthetically pleasing, but for this application the fugly unit that I have is entirely adequate.

Camera Sunglasses

I’ll explore some options for bike mounted cameras where the field of vision doesn’t induce motion sickness.

I’m liking these things so far, but think it would be neat to have a fixed camera and the sunglass camera video edited together in a PIP sorta show (hell, not even sure I can do that, but it’ll be fun finding out).


A night ride

Edited to Add: Ok, these $18 sunglass cameras have one serious issue. Unlike it’s dashcam counterparts which record activity in specific “blocks” (1, 5 or 10 minutes) the sunglasses keep recording until you tell them to stop. This is fine if you stop the recording prior to them running out of space, but should they run out of space WHILE recording the entire process seems to crash. The unit does not respond to the buttons (I have to wait for the battery to die to access storage via USB) and the entire SD card is filled with a ghost file with no actual content (a 0kb AVI file that occupies the entire disk).

I have ordered an “improved” (and consequently more expensive version) along with a replacement, and more testing will follow.

Riding technology – Bluetooth Helmet

April 8th, 2012 / / 2 comments

Yesterday I ordered a Bluetooth Equipped Helmet. This helmet also has the flip-up face (which I’m not convinced is a good thing, but we’ll try it out) and has bluetooth controls on the outside of the helmet.

This acquisition is an effort to deal with my cell phone. I generally can’t hear it while riding, and am unable to answer it even if I can hear it. I’d be lying if I said I was heartbroken about either of these issues, but truthfully if Jillys school calls I don’t want to miss the call (or worse, be completely unaware of the call).

I figured I could stick a bluetooth in my ear while riding, but they are not really designed for that (requiring you press a button on either the phone – in a pocket – or the bluetooth itself – in my helmet – to accept the call). It does make me aware of the call, but at the cost of some small discomfort and inevitably I forget it’s there when I take off my helmet and the thing rockets amazing distances.

I’ll post impressions once the thing arrives.

Dashcam Failure #2

April 7th, 2012 / / 2 comments

I’m a fan of the concept of a dashcam in my personal vehicle, they’re cheap, and frankly I’ve seen enough nonsense occur just in front of me that having a recording in case something goes sideways just makes sense. The cost, at about $30CDN is hard to argue with as well.

Dashcam Version 1 and 2

I have not had a lot of luck with these units so far.

  1. Successfully recorded one trip and then ceased functioning at all (dead unit – power button would light up, but that’s it). Got my money refunded on this one.
  2. This unit (appearing to be the same model as the first, but with different colored illuminated buttons) died in a similar fashion after running for more than a month (although that unit would consistently lose the date – I assumed battery/charging issue – but the unit died before the replacement battery arrived). I’ve emailed the supplier of the second unit, but am not optimistic that they’ll be much help. I’m out $32 on this one at this point.

I have now ordered a different model from a different supplier and am hopeful that I’ll have more luck with a different “type” of unit.

More updates as the experiment continues.

My garage, my playground…

April 6th, 2012 / / One comment

When we bought the house the garage was clearly used for storage only. The garage door opener was thrashed (it appeared previous occupants had, on occasion, pushed the door open by force – in the process stripping the plastic gears in the door opener) and required almost immediate replacement, and as there is NO man door into the garage, the garage door opener is kinda important.

I’ve since rerun the wiring out to the garage (electrical, cat5, RG6 and alarm runs) and the garage now has cable TV, a hardwired telephone and is integrated into the alarm system for our home (smoke detector and burglary protection) – not bad, eh?

my garage

I also installed an RFID reader / Keypad so we could gain entry without using the two remotes included with the new garage door opener (in practical terms this means I can ride the bike out of the garage and close the door behind me without having to dismount etc).

Yesterday I reprogrammed our alarm system the remote keyfobs (attached to our keys) and a key on the keypads inside the house will open/close the garage door. A truly neat little feature using the programmable outputs of our DSC alarm system.

Its not quite home automation, but it’s handy as hell.

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