From the Ashes

I recently failed my smog test in my 1995 Civic EX.  I have 175k miles on the car and my catalytic converter needs replacing.  I didnt want to spend $1000′s of dollars making all the necessary repairs so I spoke with my neighbor who messes with cars.  He suggested to try the following:

1. The most important thing to do before going to get smogged, is to get your engine and exhaust system hot.  Drive around for 30 minutes in 4th gear to flush out extra particles.
2. Replace your spark plugs.  If a plug isn’t firing properly your going to have much more than just exhaust coming out.
3. Replace your air filter.
4. Run though one tank of gas with fuel system cleaner.
5. Fill up the tank with premium gas before going to get smogged.

Some other things to try are:

1. Replace the fuel filter to ensure that only gas is getting combusted.
2. Get an oil change.

For me, doing steps 1-5 helped me pass my smog test.  I only passed by one point, but that gets me through another 2 years before having to address this again.

I was getting 0x8503001c while trying to sync my att tilt running windows mobile 6.1 to Windows XP sp3. I finally determined that the problem was in contacts and that all the contacts where I was using the notes field were bad. I recreated those contacts manually without the notes and everything synced fine.

I don’t remember this book growing up… Children’s Book

Looks like someone has compiled a nice list of Playstation 3 games with side-by-side comparisons of each games technical features. It is sorted by resolution and release date for quick and easy access. There are also some links to buying or renting games. They also mention this is a work in progress so I hope theres more to come!

See the PS3 Game Comparison Table at ps3bio.com.

The other day I aimlessly wandered into my neighborhood Best Buy and out of the corner of my eye I found a recycle box. This is amazing. No more hunting through the phone book looking for recycle centers that charge me to recycle. Nope. Best Buy stores offer a very convenient method for recycling these toxic technology products. You can recycle old cell phones, inkjet cartridges and rechargeable batteries. Thank you Best Buy.

For more information please visit The Best Buy Recycling program