I wanted to organize my hard drive better, like having 2 partitions, instead of one, and use the second partition for storing podcasts and music only. The first partition was supposed to be only “system” partition.

To my surprise, I couldn’t re-install Windows XP. The XP installation hangs at “34 minutes left to finish the installation” point.

After few hours of frustration, it turned out the ...

I was looking around for a better hosting company, because I used up the space that readyhosting.com provided with their plan. The new host is GoDaddy.com and I am very happy that I am going to get 50MB!! of space. The funny thing is that I will be paying less than I was paying readyhosting.com.

I am positive this much space will be more than enough to put some pictures of the new case and probably the inside layot. I know I've been talking about this new design for a while, but there was simply no room to put new pictures. Now I have no excuse.

I hope that DNS servers will update the information about my new host/IP within 48 hours. Please be patient and forgiving if you encounter some problems while browsing my website. The normal propagation is usually done in 48 hours. The irony in this thing is that you will probably read this AFTER exp ...

I found a good deal for an USB GPS receiver and I decided that it is time to retire the old RS-232 GPS mouse. There were few reasons to do this.

- The new GPS has SiRF III engine, which means more and better correlations;
- The RS-232 GPS mouse required an external power, which I was getting from one of the PS/2 ports. In order to get power and be able to connect my keyboard and mouse to the Car PC, I used a PS/2 splitter, which was always making problems if I had to re-connect the mouse or the keyboard. Now I can have them always connected and have the GPS running, without the need to re-install the "new hardware" that Windows XP finds;

I am considering to move my website to another hosting company, because my current one doesn't allow enough space for pictures. I found that

I haven't posted updates for more than a year. Not that nothing happened, but I was lazy, I guess.

This page looks very much like a blog, so I'm thinking - may be I should move everything somewhere on a blog server or something.

So, what is new with my project? Many things:
- I finished the new case and now I have much better looking and much easier to assemble case;
- Changed the front panel. Instead of plastic, it is now made of 3mm brushed aluminum - much nicer look;
- I bought a picoPSU-120 ituner.com an ...

Well, what's new? A lot of things:

- new LCD 4:3 8";
- new DVD drive - Panasonic, slot load DVD/CD-RW;
- new DC-DC converter from iTuner;
- new layout inside the case;
- new case!

The layout and the new case are still in development, but are almost done. I'll post some new pictures as soon as I am ready to show something nice.

Oh yeah! The software has changed too. Removed some buttons, added 'today' info. I am working now on the DVD-player and fixing some bugs in the CD-player.

I need some Visual C++ developers to help me out! Please send me an e-mail, if you feel like you want to help me finish this applicaiton.

I wanted to try the new 8" LCD from Lilliput. The reason for this is that the 8" model is 4:3, not a widescreen. This makes the application look much better and I think the maps are looking better too. The touchscreen is better and more reliable than the 7" model.

The bigger LCD is of better quality, I think. There is only one problem - it is really big. The screen itself is higher (of course) and as much as twice ticker than the 7" widescreen LCD. I have to think of another way to attach this LCD to my dashboard, because it is too heavy for my current cell phone holder.

I thought my EPIA 5000 died, but it turned out the problem was in the power supply connector. One of the cables of the ATX connector was not soldered very well and this caused the board to work on and off. I guess there is a good power protection on the board, because it didn't burn, but works as new.

I ordered a new board before I found the real problem, but having one more EPIA around is not bad at all. I'd be able now to test my software before I download it on the car PC.

I want to thank all people that sent me emails asking to become beta testers of my software. I really appreciate your will to help me out with this task. I will make a link on my page, where you can download the latest release for beta-testing, as soon as I have something that I think is good to be called a release candidate. Thanks again guys.

My EPIA 5000 died. Or it looks like dead. It powers up and shuts down (I can see the fan of the PSU running and stopping), but the screen remains black. In a very scary way black.

Maybe it is time to re-design everything around a new mini-ITX motherboard.

There were no pictures of the front panel of the unit. Go to Pictures/Case to see more.

Metal angle brackets are glued to the plastic panel.