Posts Tagged ‘Free’
The price of Veyron ownership
February 13th, 2010 | 
Author: A routine service, for instance, costs £12,866 or the price of a middling Polo, whereas an annual service for a Ferrari Enzo is £1680, which seems like a bargain by contrast.
Bugatti Veyron vs Bugatti EB110
Buying new rubber for the Veyron will produce similarly heart-freezing bills, a set of four tyres costing £23,500, in part because they have to be capable of 253mph, more than 100mph faster than Concorde’s landing speed.
Worse news still is that at every fourth tyre change the Veyron’s rims must be stress tested for cracks – a sensible precaution in a car this fast – and replaced if they are found wanting at a cost of £7050 per corner.
For all these reasons, it’s not surprising to learn that one owner has taken to having his Veyron trailered to his favourite roads and following it there by executive jet, an arrangement that works out cheaper than driving the Bugatti several hundred miles to reach the dream Tarmac.
All of which is guaranteed to keep the Veyron out of reach of 99.9 per cent-plus of all car buyers, even if it should depreciate colossally. And, despite these maintenance costs, even that looks unlikely.
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4WD v FWD – a surprising result in my snow test
The problem with four-wheel drive is it lulls you into a false sense of security, as the mate of mine who’s just binned his Honda CR-V will attest. Modern four-wheel drive systems are so good at finding traction where there is none, you only realise just how lethal the conditions are when you have to make even a slight turn and continue straight on, or need to stop. By contrast, with front wheel drive you always know where you are grip-wise and will never miss that moment when your journey becomes a fool’s errand.
Watch our winter tyre test video
Of course four-wheel drive can be a life-saver as all those who have been rescued by off-roaders in the last few weeks know well. But these cars will tend to be Land Rovers and the like which have not only four driven wheels but, just as importantly, tyres designed to cope with these conditions. But modern soft-roaders come with road tyres whose treads clog at the first sign of snow, leaving you little better than four driven slicks.
The point is this: if conditions are too bad to provide safe passage for modern front drive cars with sophisticated electronics, perhaps they should be considered too bad to drive on at all, unless you have the right specialist equipment.
Going out in terrible weather because you have four-wheel drive is not safe: not going out in the first place because you haven’t got four-wheel drive is safe. This is why I like the choice provided by the Peugeot/Mitsubishi arrangement so much: I drive in front drive, relying on ESP and traction control to provide due warning of slippery conditions, leaving the selection of four-wheel drive as a last resort.
But if I had to choose between the two, I’d stick with front-wheel drive.
Infiniti isn’t Lexus
Even though the cars are good, Infiniti already seems to have copped all manner of flak. Observations like, it’ll never take off; BMW won’t notice or care; they’re just Datsuns in disguise and it’s going to be like Lexus all over again.
Why all the hostility?
OK, let’s take the last one first. Lest we forget, Lexus was created originally for North America where over the years it’s been hugely successful and influential (yes, even Mercedes and BMW had to sit up and take notice). Europe has been a much harder slog and 20 years on, Lexus is still mostly about refinement, comfort, quality and luxury, and now eco-friendly hybrids, of course.
Driver appeal and sportiness have never been high on the agenda – until the IS-F came along, that is. And it’s here that the two Japanese brands part company.
Infiniti most definitely is about driver appeal and sportiness, just the kind of things readers of this site and mag are wired in to. Nissan has some demon engineers who turn out good stuff like the 370Z, Skyline and GT-R and when you drive the latest Infinitis, you can feel this DNA coming through.
Yes, I know, all that on its own is not enough. Until Infiniti comes up with some new clean diesels and gets C02 down to a certain level, it’ll be a blip on the radar screens. Guess what, Nissan knows that already which is why diesel power and a new rear-drive hybrid are working their way through the system as we speak. The party starts on that next year, but – yes – really should have been there from the start…
Nissan is also clued into the badge snobbery bit, which is why it’s not making any rash promises about world domination and blowing BMW away tomorrow. It look Audi, after all, the best part of 20 years to make it into the same premium car park as BMW and Mercedes.
Nissan is sensibly starting out slow and steady and, yes, much ultimately depends on how much Carlos Ghosn invests, when the diesels and hybrids come and what the dealer experience is like.
Anyway, Infiniti is not going to be like Lexus. The cars and culture are different, with Infiniti appealing far more to the (free-thinking) petrolheads among us. An attitude like that is eminently worthy of support, I’d say.
Change your IP address by changing the MAC address
Step By Step Procedure is given below:
1.Open a command window in your computer which is havin a windows operating system.
Start>run>cmd
2.Find your mac(Physical address) addresss and computers ip(ip4) address by typing “ipconfig/all” in your command window.
3.You have to download a free program called macmakeup from the following link given below
DOWNLOAD
NA:If you are using vista or windows right click on the application and run the program as administrator.
4.Select the network adapter from the list and click to generate random mac id.And select the specific manufacturer from the drop down menu and one you have generated the mac,click on the change button.
5.Again take the command window and type the commands given below.
“ipconfig/release”
“ipconfig/renew”
“ipconfig/all”
6.Find the ip address of default gateway by typing “ipconfig/all” in command window.
7.Open up a webbrowser and go to default gateway address.You have to give router password for entering this section.If you dont know the router password,find it from www.routerpasswords.com
8.You want to change the router mac address to “Use computer MAC address”
in the settings of router.Reboot the router.
9.Now your ip is changed.Visit www.myipaddress.com for checking the ip.
Still ip is not changed????Feel free to conatact me by commenting.I will get back you soon.
SetUP a free Internet radio station.
There is no additional setup is required for starting the radio.The media player giant winamp is the service provider.They named the service as shoutcast.
You can download tha SHOUTcast radio DSP plugin and SHOUTcast DNAS application freely from www.shoutcast.com
Requirements:
1.Computer which is installed with shoutcast application.
2.Internet connection or any other IP based network connection.
Procedure for setting up a SHOUTcast internet radio is given below as video tutorial.
HAPPY BROADCASTING!!!!!!
