Top movies

 There is something about a good movie which projects good feelings and motivates upon oneself. One crazy movie is Lock stock and to smoking barrels. It has a rough attitude and foul language which is most entertaining. The same goes for Snatch and Boondocks saints, see figure 1.

Figure 1. Lock stock and two smoking barrels, Snatch, Boondocks saints 

 A brutal violent movie is Kick Ass from 2010, see figure 2. It is a normal high school movie at first but takes a hard left turn in the middle and gets brutally good with scenes I´ve never scene before. You gotta love this little girl who kicks ass with everyone she meets.

Figure 2. Kick Ass

Cornelis

The story of Cornelis is interesting but not so surprising. His life contains unhealthy amount of both music, cigarettes, beers and the wonderful company of a beautiful woman. A special scene in the move is when Cornelis meets to him a good musician he also tells that he him self plays and sings some times. After this he gets the opportunity to play one of his own songs and everyone loves it.

Figure 1. Cornelis, http://www.sf.se/filmer/film/16002698/?1

If you are interested in the life of Cornelis you should see this story about him. Its a Swedish heritage to know who he was and how he lived. 

Dell Studio XPS 7100

Dell has a new generation of XPS computers called Studio XPS. I have the opportunity of using one example of this XPS called Studio XPS 7100, see figure 1. It has six cores with a clock rate at 2.7 GHz, 1 Gb ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics card and 6 Gb DDR3 memory. 

Figure 1. Dell XPS 7100, 10 500 kr hos Dell.se

 This computer easily runs through benchmark tests from futuremark,  one example is 3DMark06. With default settings this computer scores 15 000. Compare this with a good quality computer which scores above 17 000. One reason is the low performance from this graphic card. Normaly the HD 5770 is asumed to be a low cost graphic card. If a similar computer with a more expensive graphic card is bought from Dustinhome.se or komplett.se a higher performance computer is configured at the same price. 

Conclusion

Build your own computer.

HP Elitebook

HP Elitebook is a laptop with high configuration and quite expensive if you buy this laptop today. The Elitebook comes with Windows 7 installed, Intel Core i7 Mobile 2.66 GHz, 8 Gb ram and Nvidia NVS 5100M graphics card. To be able to compare this computer with other computers i have used 3dmark06 which can be downloaded at www.futuremark.com. The benchmark runs on 1280x1024 and the result is presented in figure 1.

Figure 1. Score from 3dmark06, HP Elitbook Intel Core i7 Mobile 2.66 GHz

 The score from 3DMark06 is low for this Elitebook compared with a stationary computer for half the price which can score over 17 000 in 3DMark06. Why Elitebook scores so low is due to its graphics card but also the low effect of the mobile processor. A ordinary processor at the same clock rate as a moble processor has almost twice the performance at a lower cost. So the conclusion one can make is to not by a laptop for performance, instead by this for mobility. Use stationary when performance is needed.

Internetsharing

 I´m a currently a happy owner of a HTC Wildfire with a subscription from Telenor, see figure 1. The instant access of internet is important in my lifestyle. But there is one unsolved problem with the internetsharing application already installed in Wildfire. A Wildfire started for the first time as no problem to deliver instant access of internet to your computer with the HTCdriver.exe properly installed, no need in Linux. Set the usb setting to internetsharing, internetdelning.

Figure 1. Picture of HTC Wildfire from HTC homepage. http://www.htc.com/se/product/wildfire/overview.html

 The problem starts after a short amount of usage, 1-2 weeks, where internetsharing no longer works. One way to solve this problem, does not always work, is to factory reset Wildfire and try again. This solution is not bulletproof and definitely time consuming, nothing you have time to do when internet is lost. When no better solution has been found the obvious way is to call the support at HTC. The answer from them is that this problem is known but no solution is given to solve the loss of internet. HTC has no problem, as far as they know, with Legend and Desire and internetsharing. The best (slow) solution is to make a new agreement with Telenor to upgrade the subscription to a better choice of phone. By continuously handing in Wildfire for repair a new phone should be required. Let´s see if Telenor comes to the same conclusion. The idea of handing in the phone 3 times gives the time span of 81 days. ( 3(20 day)+3(1+2 weeks) ) As for now a Sony Ericsson works just fine.

Virtual Systems

 As a research assistant at Högskolan i Skövde I´m working in a group called Virtual Systems. This group will in a short amount of time discuss the future of dashboards in cars as Saab and Volvo. During this period a dashboard will be built in a small room as a simple platform to discuss and add features that is absent from dashboards today. The group is challenged to come up with ideas that insures the safety of the driver and its passenger. Therefore is features as "eye tracker" a good tool to ensure that the driver is aware of important things in the drivers environment. One example of this is if a car approaches from behind in high velocity and you have not looked in the rear view mirror to know of this new situation the "eye tracker" can tell you that a car is approaching. 

 One important thing about dashboards is the weight. If the weight can be reduced a reduced fuel consumption is obvious. If the dashboard is made more simple with adaptive touchscreens a number of existing parts of a dashboard can be reduced. It is from this point of view it gets really interesting for me working with in this project. The setup with multiple touchscreens is simple but expensive. A setup can look like this, see figure (1).

Figure 1. Sketch from Pro Engineer of an early setup of the dashboard and the touch screens .

 For a working platform the key is flexibility and strength, therefore is aluminum a good start. The platform contains parts as car seats from Saab 93, windscreen from Saab 95, touchscreens and  a steering wheel. A  attachment needs to be made to attach a car seat to the aluminum frame, see figure (2-3).

Figure 1. Sketch of an attachments for a car seat (3D)

Figure 2. Sketch of an attachments for a car seat viewed from the side