OEM Website Training Available From AVI

Automotive Video Inc (AVI) is offering a video course on how to use OEM service websites. This is what being digitally literate in the automotive service industry is all about, knowing how to find and use online resources. This training is presented by Bill Haas, Vice President of Education and Training for ASA (Automotive Service Association).

You can get additional information and pricing on this video course at this link and an introduction to the course is provided below.

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My 15 Minutes of Geek Fame!

In 1968 Andy Warhol made this now famous statement: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Well, I think I got my 15 minutes today (closer to 5 minutes), at least as far as geek fame goes.

I am pushing hard to get my upcoming book edited and decided to call into the “Leo Laporte: The Tech Guy” radio show. This is a call-in type show about digital technology that is broadcast live on Saturdays and Sundays from 2-5pm EDT. The host, Leo Laporte, is broadcasting out of his studio in Petaluma, CA and the show is syndicated with the Premier Radio Network into over 60 major USA markets. The show is also available one week later as a MP3 download and an additional audience listens to the show that way.

I pitched the idea to Leo about having his audience help with the book edit. Leo looked at my site on the air and really praised what I was doing. An audio clip of my time on the show is available below. This is a big deal for a geek.

To understand how big of a deal this is, look at the page view statistics graph for the Digital Literacy Project web site on March 22, 2009. The page views went from about 75-100 a day to 1975 views on the day of the show (the big spike to the right). Wow! At least I got a chance to test my server. It didn’t crash, which is a good thing.

Now I have to see what the final results will be. Will I end up getting some serious help with the edit? So far I have a lot of traffic, and a few offers to help. My gut feeling is this exposure on Leo’s show will pay off in many ways for a long time.

Download the audio file (MP3 Format)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

iPhone Displaying Automotive Performance Info

Brian from Palmer Performance has ported his automotive OBD-II software package to an Apple iPhone. Check out this incredible integration.

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How to Build a Car Computer, Step-by-Step

Curious about what it takes to build a computer designed for automotive use? Well, the folks over at MP3car.com show you how it is done from start to finish. Pretty neat, I’ll have to add building a carputer to my “bucket list”.

Note: when building PCs, it is best to use a grounding wrist band to protect electronic
components from an  electrostatic discharge (ESD).

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Fanless Compact Computers – Good Choice for Carputing?

Check out this fanless PC built on a small form factor from Stealth Computers. Let’s see, small, rugged, fanless, 12 volts…. seems like good platform for in car computing to me!

Stealth Computers offers a lot of specialized and small form factor computers, but this one really seems to be a good choice for automotive applications.

The fanless feature is nice because you don’t have to worry about the cooling fan pulling in those dust bunnies that tend to breed under the seat and other nooks and crannies of a car.

The extruded aluminum chassis and the shock mounted 2 1/2″ hard drive is no doubt a rugged package. If you want it even more shock resistant you can get a solid state drive and have no moving parts!

I have not used or reviewed this PC but it looks promising to me. Here is a link so you can read more about the LPC-450FS unit and I have included some of the specs below:

• 12 VDC Operation, ideal for mobile/field
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
• 3D Graphics with 16×9 Capability
• Built-in Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0,
• 1394a Firewire, Audio, Serial and Video Ports
• Low Profile Rugged Aluminum Chassis 6.1″(W) x 10.0″(D) x 2.17″(H)
• Slim Slot Loading Optical Drives
• Solid State Hard Drives (SSD) optional
• Windows Vista & XP Pro Compatible,
• Intel Celeron M440, 1.86GHz Processor
• 1MB Cache, 533MHz FSB
• 80 Gig HDD SATA (2.5″)
• DVD/CD-RW Drive
• 1GB RAM SO-DIMM
• On-board Video & Audio
• Standard Price: $1095

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