Photos taken in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic 2006

Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic

This was the first stop when we visit Czech Republic in 2006. We almost lost when we arrived, and we ended up asking for help to find where our hotel was. Later on we found German is sometimes more useful than English in this little spa city. My guess was there are a lot German Tourist, and its historical relationship with Germans since early 20th century.

Photos shot in Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic 2006

Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

This is the first batch of re-post-processed photos I shot in Europe. Cesky Krumlov is a lovely town. We stayed there for a few days in 2006, and it's been so far the greatest travelling experience we had in Europe. My wife kept saying to me that we should re-visit it and stay a bit longer.

Enable mounting of remote CD/DVDs on any Mac

My old Mac Mini couldn't read certain DVD format, so I decided to try to remotely mount the CD from another computer. MacBook Air has the remote disc integrated, however for other Mac machine, there's a trick to turn it on.

I shared the DVD on my windows 7 computer, which has Apple "DVD or CD Sharing Update" installed.
Download Link

If your Mac has Leopard or above system installed, you should have "DVD or CD Sharing Update" integrated. Otherwise, install it on your mac as well.
Download Link

On both system, go to System Preferences, and enable 'DVD or CD Sharing.

Then, on the Mac that uses the remote disc, go to a Terminal window and enter:

$ defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool true
$ defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser ODSSupported -bool true

Reboot this machine, and when the reboot is finished, you'll see the remote CD/DVD under Devices in the Finder's sidebar. Thereafter, you can remotely mount a CD/DVD from another machine.

A German built a fully functional Sukhoi Su-27 Jet.

You know we all sometimes fix things by our own hands. I also occasionally do some work to my car. But a German, Harald Huf, made his own Sukhoi Su-27 jet.

This isn't a still model, but a fully functioning RC jet. I can't call it crazy. Because being only crazy won't let you finish a project like this. I am not only amazed by his skills but also the support from his family.

Here is a link to the project website

Glad to see my blog transfer to Blogger went smoothly

I used to host my blogs on my own website. However, I got tired of maintaining all the updates, plugins, and so on. That even made me stopped blogging for a while.

Like what happened to my self-hosted photo gallery (moved to Flickr), I decide to transfer my blogs to Blogger. If you ask why not WordPress? I have to say it's just a decision.

Only one problem in this process is Blogger can officially only import its own backups, while my old blog server uses WordPress. After some reading and testing, I chose a open source tool Blog2Blog, which works like a charm. Very glad to get the whole migration done smoothly.

Replacing the rear mid-range speaker of my 325i.

About a few weeks ago, I notice the imbalanced audio sound in my car. My early thoughts was the loose contact, but it turns out that both mid-range base in the back were broken.

Considering that letting broken speakers connected could damage my amp, I decided to replace them asap. On the other side, the performance of  BMW stock mid-range speakers is really basic, I can also take the chance to do a bit upgrade.

Unfortunately, the speakers have weird size and mounting structure. It thus become hard to find a perfectly replacement. Even there are several aftermarkt or OEM products, they are over-priced to my opinion. WTF???

After some investigatons, I decide to modify some mid level products from branded manufactors and let them to fit in my car. Finally the one I went for is Pioneer TS-A1673R, a 3-way speakers.

Here is a compare picture

(left: stock BMW speaker with paper cone, foam edge and plastic frame, righ: Pioneer speaker with  injection-molded polypropylene woofer, rubber surround, and PET dome tweeter)



Here is some pictures showing the modification

:









Results:

 It's a bit pain when I try to mount the modded speakers, as it became a bit "fat". So I have to trim down the frame a little bit. But they eventually fit in the back of the car, and I can still use the original speaker cover :)The sound is indeed improved and after the work I stayed in the car for 20 mins just listening CDs. Very happy about the cost and the quality :)   

Time to share my car wheel project with you :)

Hello my friends,

As some of you have known that I have been doing my “wheel business” for a while. It took indeed long time on finding rims, collecting tires, selling tires, and so on… I think it’s been 6 or 8 weeks.

Finally it’s all settled, and I think it’s nice to share this experience with you guys. Of course you can use it as a DIY guide if you want J

BUT, I STRONGLY suggest NOT TO DO THIS, unless you have no friends to hang out with during weekends, or really want a challenging “work out” physically and mentally.

Alright, here we go.

1)      The original wheels with dirt and a lot curb rashes :(



2)      Clean the dirt



3)      Slightly sand the surface around curb rashes



4)      Use paint thinner to remove the grease and a bit old clear paint

5) Use some filler to fill the curb damages. I used epoxy putty, my god this thing stinks and hard to handle, better use something else :(



6) Remove the extra putty before sanding



7) Sand the fixed surface until it becomes smooth



8) Phew…



9) Ready to sand the whole surface down. I tried wire brush to do a coarse sanding. But later I found it’s not a good idea, as your arms got tired it’s hard to control and I got some deep scratches :(



10) Start…



11) Fine sanding and edge sanding with sand paper, MANUALLY… :(



12) Finally it’s ready for coating.



13) Tape and mask the area you don’t want to paint



14) First of first, twice filler primer



15) Twice color coating…. Still going ….



16) Twice clear coating… phew… coating finished here.



17) Another pic with flash on



18) It’s ready to get them mounted. I decided to do caliper painting and differential oil change along with it. But I dropped the differential oil change later, as I think there’s a leak and I have to get it checked first



19) Un-mount the wheels and spray some break cleaner to remove the dirt and grease on the caliper



20) Do a further clean and sand the surface a bit. ( compare to wheel sanding, this is just a piece of cake :) ) Mask the break disc, as I don’t want to paint the disk



21) Ready to paint :)



22) Detail painting with brushes.



23) Another pic



24) The caliper paint is so so so thin, I had to paint each caliper three times. This becomes time consuming but it gave you better result. Here it is.



25)  With old wheels



26)   With “new” wheels and caliper



27)  Different angle



28) Close look



29) Make sure you have all the protection on during the work :)



Hope you enjoy this :)