More information from Audi on where they will build the R8, with pictures.

Autoblog have a lineup of pictures of the R8 being put together on the new, 28,000,000 euro production line they have built at Neckarsulm. The Neckarsulm plant also celebtrates it’s 100th year of production.

Pop along to the AutoBlog article for some more pictures.

If you read this blog on a semi regular basis you will know I use Media Center and Vista. Well I have upgraded my MCE2005 to Vista RC1, and using Transcode 360 I bumped into a performance issue.

Transcoding would take nearly twice as long as the video's play time was. This caused an issue because you had to wait for the transcode to finish before you could watch it.

The problem seemed to be that Vista was using the Virtualisation technologies to 'improve' performance.

This did not work, however I found a solution. If you download the latest Windows build of Mplayer/Mencoder and use that instead of the one shipped with Transcode360 (copy here including a load of codecs)

Unrar the file and pop the contents into the Transcode360\Wrappers\MEncoderTranscoder folder on your hard disk.

This works much better as this build tells Vista not to use the Virtualisation and improves performance no end because of it.

EDIT – Just so you know, some of the features that work in RC1 are broken in RC2. If you need to stream on RC2 it must be via WMV8/9 and not MPG2 (the default). This is because Microsoft broke the streaming MPG2 support after RC1. There is a bug in RC1 as well ehen the MC PC does not update the file size of the MPG2 file to the decoder in realtime. This is why you have to wait for the decoding to finish before watching.

Yup the Audi R8, the supercar I am dying to see in the flesh, has got an official launch date and price.

The Lambo derived supercar will go on sale for about £70,000 (104,000 euros) but will only be available initially with the 430BHP FSI-V8.

Later in the car’s life (2008) there will be the Lambo derived V10 with around 500BHP, and rumor has it a soft top variant will be around sometime in 2009.

Hell, it’s a good looking car, and as it’s an Audi it will go, and sound fantastic, plus it won’t fall apart like some Italian supercar’s.

Thanks to RoadAndTrack for the rendering of the soft top.

Well mostly anyhow. I’m not going to go through the spec’s of the Alfa showcar, the 8C Competizione because AutoBlog has done that already.

However I will say it has to be one of the prettiest cars to come out since the Aston DB9 (or V8 Vantage, although that was not traditionally pretty). Talking of which, it has a faint hint of the Aston’s at the rear end.

Anyhow, here’s some pictures, more over at AutoBlog. But I will say it’s the sort of thing a Petrol heads wet dreams are made of.

Lotus have announced the Exige-S.

The new car has the same 2Ltr Toyota lump under the bonnet, however the kick is that there is now a Root Supercharger bolted on the top.

The SC will give the new car 230Bhp, and 0-60 of 4.1 seconds and top out around 150mph. You can tell the difference from the obvious bonnet scooping for the extra air to the intercooler.

Price is around £30,000 and there is a waiting list for them already.

Cheers to AutoBlog for the heads up.

Skoda have shown pictures of their 5th car’s direction at Paris this week.

The Joyster is a 3 door, 4 seater hatch, and is probably in the same vane as the Seat Alhambra mini MPV.

Some of the design elements have come across from the roomster, things like the wrap around window because of the blacked out A Pillars.

The car’s interior has been designed to be family centric, with entertainment and media from a central console, and also easily arangeable and changeable interiors.

Let’s hope this comes across to the real car when and if it get’s launched.

I've noticed, like Chris Pirillo has that Vista has some issues when it comes to font usage.

We are however in luck as Chris has made a registry patch to solve the issue.

Vista certainly looks better afterwards.

Cheers to Dan for the heads up.

I've decided, now that I have switched over to using Vista as my day-to-day desktop of choice that I would detail some of the reasons for the move over from XP, and why there is still a small XP partition on my laptop.

This post will be about some of the gotchas, and niceties that will swing the decision to use the latest and greatest either way. Later on I'll put together some info about the new tools, and toys in the OS that need a little more description of there own.

Not only is the latest releases of Vista are quite snappy, and look nice. It is also a lot more compatible with older applications.

Things that work nicely on Vista are :-

• Microsoft Office 2007 B2TR (not the Beta2)
• Internet Explorer 7 is better than the beta in XP
• The SideBar is a great idea, and works well
• The new Start Menu is a genuine treat to use, definitely a step on from XP
• Media Center is a great application, made better on Vista (more on that at a later date however)
• Transcode360 now works fine in Vista RC1
• The new IP stack is certainly quicker and makes more use of the hardware
• Ready Boost is a cracking idea
• Terminal Services Client is updated, and works nicer, as clipboard file copies are back
• Snipping Tool
• Better security in the operating system

Things that Don't work :-

• Microsoft ISA Firewall Client, 2006 will not install, 2004 installs but does not fully function (HTTP traffic will not go through the client)
• ActiveSync does not work, however check out the previous post for how to enable WMDC
• Sidebar gadgets can 'run away' with the CPU at times
• Vista is a memory hog, demands on hardware are a lot greater
• Ready Boost will not work with my 4Gb SanDisk Cruzer (and many other 4Gb devices), but does work with a 1Gb one
• My Intel chipset in my laptop will not support the Aero Glass effects
• Checkpoint have not got a version of their firewall client out yet
• The new security can be a bit annoying at times, especially when you are an IT Professional and most of the tools/applications you run need administration privilege
• The HDD resize built into Disk Manager is not quite powerful enough
• Adobe products all require the shortcut changing to run as administrator in the shortcut properties under advanced

So there are some of the things that have swayed me to keep both operating systems on my HDD. However since RC1, and now with 5728 I am using the Vista part of the hard disk as my primary OS.

It just looks, works and feels more intuitive. Definitely a step on from the XP interface.

I will say though that until you get used to the new interface, and where things are in the control panel layout, it can be difficult to find or use basic stuff, like Add Remove programs is now called Programs and Features. But they make perfect sense when you are used to them.

I say run Vista, and give it a chance, you will grow to love it.

Update – Microsoft have released this (for RC1 but works in RTM, I'm sure a new version will be out for Launch).

Dan pointed me in the direction of this blog.

I've done as suggested, and it works a charm on my laptop, syncing to my HTC Universal (please note however, this is an UNSUPPORTED way to get the WMDC installed. The current WMDC is for private/internal Microsoft testing only, and get's updated regularly. So there is a risk in using it.)

• Make sure your Mobile device is unplugged
• What you have to do is this, Fire up regedit and pop along to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft 
• Right Click the Microsoft key, then select New – Key
• Create a new key called WHOS
• Close Regedit down, now connect your device and let it connect. You know it's connected when the storage is visible in the My Computer explorer.
• Now Goto Windows Update, make sure it says it will update Windows and Other Applications (see image right)
• Click the Check for updates in the top left corner.
• It should detect a new driver update called 'Microsoft Corporation driver update for Microsoft Windows Mobile Remote Adapter'
• Let Windows Update install the new driver.
• Plug in your Windows Mobile device, and hey presto you can now sync with Outlook or the Windows Mail/Contacts
• I'm not really sure why Microsoft have 'left this out' of the current builds of Vista. Although I suppose they have not, you have to download the update from Windows Update.

I've tried this with both Windows Mobile 5, and Windows Mobile 2003. The experience is not bad at all, very much improved on ActiveSync.

The system works with Office 2007 B2TR fine for syncing contacts etc. Also I quite like the way it shows you new items like pictures, video and music etc.

The application install experience is a little hit and miss at the moment. Some installers check for the ActiveSync process running, obviously it's not there so they fail.

However most applications install and work fine. After you've got it all running, and you want to find your way back to the application, then it's in the control panel, or if you have the green Sync Center icon in the taskbar then double click that and you will get the Sync Center up. This has all of your synchronisations in it for files, folders and now mobile devices.

Oh on a side note, the images are all taken using one of my favorite bit's of Vista, Vista Sniping Tool is brilliant. If you want to run it, just click start, then type snipper into the search.

The reg file needed looks like this (open notepad and paste the contents below in Italic into it then save as wmdc.reg)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WHOS]

For those still struggling to get this installed, try downloading this msi installer and running it AFTER setting the registry. I would sudgest you then reboot the machine and do a windows update to check for a new version (as this one may be out of date).

Windows Vista comes with a load of new features to play with. Some of those are great, some annoying.

Here are a bunch of the shortcut key's that are available in Vista, I'm putting them up mainly for me, so I ca remember them, but you may find them usefull as well

Windows Key + G – tabs between gadgets (new)
Windows Key + D – shows desktop (same as XP)
Windows Key + E – Windows Explorer (same as XP)
Windows Key +  R – Run (same as XP, but works even if run s not on start menu)
Windows Key + T – Tabs between applications on the Task Bar
Windows Key + U – Ease of Access Center (new)
Windows Key + F – Search (same as XP, but uses new search)
Windows Key + L – Lock (same as XP)
Windows Key + X – brings up Windows Mobility Center (new)
Windows Key + M – minimizes all applications (same as Windows+D put keeps gadgets)

Have fun with Vista, oh and there is a post RC1 release out. Release 5728 has got some fixes in it (hopefully new Mass Storage Drivers fr the 4Gb SanDisk Cruzer so I can use ReadyBoost with it).

The 5728 build is apparently in the 'Gold' line of builds (like all 57xx builds are) so pop over to Microsoft to grab it.