Just a quick post of my results from the rolling road down at MiniMaster.
With the tune-up done and a modification made to the Metro air housing improving air flow into the engine an extra 9 BHP was obtained. The Mini now performs much better and is a lot more responsive. I can’t recommend enough a day at a rolling road for anyone that purchases or already owns a classic Mini.
After a breif moment of insanity this past week I promptly erased my external hard drive because I wanted to start another Time Machine backup from scratch. Now there was nothing wrong with me doing that of course. What was a problem however was the fact I had my only copy of Pixar’s Cars and the entire first season of Star Trek: Enterprise on that very drive.
So after realizing just what I’d done I contacted Apple. Of course I’d already anticipated their response. So after receiving the confirmation that they cannot replace my lost files I’d bought on the iTunes Store I’m now faced with the decision of do I buy them all again. While I do still want all that content again my lesson of making sure I backup has come at a high cost so I guess I’ll just need to start saving up.
So please let my mistake be a lesson to you all. When iTunes tells you to backup your content, do it.
Due to a growing catalogue of faults that are costing ever more to repair my 2002 MINI Cooper has had to go. I had to find myself a car that would be both easier and cheaper to maintain, that way I can do some of the maintenance work myself instead of relying on garages. Of course being a MINI owner I wasn’t about to go out and buy just any other car, it had to be something with the same handling capabilities and also a car that I could make my own. So what better than another Mini. And here she is…
A 1989 Mini City E in white with a black roof. That’s not all either since this Mini has undergone some modifications before it came to be in my care. A stage 1 kit has been fitted featuring a Mini Sport exhaust and a carburettor from a Rover Metro. There is also a modified Metro air box under the bonnet fitted with a K&N filter. Next to the interior; the carpeting and dash are in red and a Cooper steering wheel and seats have been fitted.
So what does that leave me to do then since so much has already been done? Well the whole car has just undergone a tune-up on a rolling road today giving it a boost in the low power band in top gear as well as cleaning up the exhaust emissions and improving the timing. I’ve also just bought a seat adjustment bracket to allow me to move the drivers side seat back a couple of inches. Once that’s done then I’ll need to see if the steering wheel needs to be lowered and the gear stick bent down towards the back to make it closer to hand. I did change the air freshener that was in the back window, it used to be a gold metal look and now it’s carbon fibre since that fits in with the black better.
She needs a fair amount of work still, a good few panels need replaced along with a new door. I’ll try and keep you all up-to-date on what’s happening as and when I make further changes.
Keep motoring. 
It gives me great pleasure to announce that MarkReidPhoto.com is now live. MarkReidPhoto.com is the home of all my photography work and the place where you can find out how to purchase my stock. In time it will expand into a site of its own showcasing my work. For now though it redirects to the best place to by my work.
I hope you will take the opportunity to check it out and I will let you know when the standalone site is launched.
After owning the MacBook Air for a few days now I’ve noticed a few intricacies with Time Machine and its backup process. Clearly when your Mac is not connected to the drive you have selected to be your Time Machine backup then no backup is occurring but what about when you connect the drive again? Well turns out that Time Machine still won’t automatically backup your data then either, however clicking the Time Machine icon in either the menu bar or dock and telling it to backup now will institute an immediate backup. So what’s missing for automatic backups? The power cord is the answer. Your portable Mac needs to be both connected to the mains power and the drive your using to backup for automatic backups to occur.
I hope that will save some of you from any hair pulling experiences, especially those ones where you find your data is gone and realise that Time Machine hasn’t been backing it up.
Well it’s here and it’s great. Talk about a paradigm shift though. It’s certainly taken a little getting used to not having a DVD drive on call 24/7 and not having that extra USB port that I can just plug my Time Machine backup drive into while updating my iPhone. That being said it’s not really any different to me from having the MacBook Pro I used to have. Everything I’m running still seems snappy enough. The Air does boot a little slower than any other Mac I’ve used but that’s clearly down to the slower speed hard drive.
The only downside I seem to have found to the Air is that the front edge is a little sharp. It’s just the way I’m resting my wrist when I use the trackpad that seems to make it feel this way as it’s not physically any sharper than a MacBook is. When I’m typing I don’t notice it in the slightest. I really like the new keyboard or more MacBook like keyboard the Air has. I would have liked the option to change what the standard buttons do so the expose button would reveal the desktop instead of all application windows, but that can always be done in software at some point.
One thing that having the Air has made me want more is movies on the UK iTunes Store. Mostly because I’d like to get Ratatouille
At last, a long awaited MINI topic post for all of you MINI fans out there. Alas this one is to be a tale of woe and misfortune, a story of a series of unfortunate events that have befallen the beloved Coop.
Coop, a 2002 MINI Cooper, has led a somewhat colourful life to date featuring many a trip to the dealer, and this time was no exception. Over the past week Coop had been experiencing some rather loud exhaust noise and with an MOT test due it was time to have it checked out. Upon further investigation it turned out that Coop’s down-pipe, just before the catalytic converter, was broken. In fact at this point in time it’s now bad enough to where I can’t drive until it’s been repaired. Now it’s not exactly that Coop can’t be driven, it’s more the fact that without a valid MOT certificate it’s illegal to drive. The MOT certificate is valid for a year and as fortune would have it my current one expired last Saturday.
So how much do you suppose it’ll cost to repair the down-pipe? How about anywhere between £800 and £1000? Well the £800 is assuming the O2 sensor is working correctly and intact otherwise it’ll be the full £1000. 
So this Thursday Coop is heading back into the dealer to have a new down-pipe fitted and have an MOT test done. Assuming there are no other problems picked up it’ll be back on the road and motoring on.
Some of you may remember that I posted my predictions for what I thought would be announced by Apple at this years Macworld Expo. If so, then you’ll also remember that I said I would return to those preditions to see where I was right and wrong. As of yet I haven’t got around to it and just to make things a little easier on me I’ve decided to cover that in the comments on that post. So if your interested then that’s where you’ll find how well my predictions did or didn’t turn out.
So if you’ve been checking out my portfolio recently you’ll have noticed a distinct lack of new photos. Well there’s a good reason for that. You see I’m waiting on a new MacBook Air to show up after selling my PowerBook G4 just before Christmas. Consequently I’ve no real access to a computer at the moment to check out the photos I’ve taken and upload any of them. I have however been taking some photos now and then so at least when the MacBook Air arrives I’ll be able to upload some new stock.
Since I’m spending the vast majority of my web browsing time on the
iPhone these days, bookmarks have become invaluable.
Before I had an iPhone I used to type all but those really long URLs
into Safari. Now though I’ve had a change of heart. You see, everytime
you type a URL into Safari, a list of already visited and bookmarked
URLs shows up. This almost autocompletion is a real time saver.
Particullarly when your on the go and really need to check out the
latest MINI news over at MotoringFile.