It’s a fabulous little keyboard which I can tuck away when not needed. It has all the functionality that you need, although some of it has to be accessed via a function key but it’s all there. My only minor annoyance with it has been that there is no Caps Lock indicator on it which has caught me out a couple of times, but apart from that it’s great!

The Zalman HD160 shown above is my first foray into HTPC’s and it has been relatively simple. It takes a standard sized ATX motherboard which fits snugly into place around all of the other components. The motherboard sits raised, so there is room to slide cables underneath, or tuck them around the back and side of the hard disk holder to keep them out of the way.

Installing drives is relatively simple albeit a bit more time consuming than it could be due to the number of screws involved. It’s not really any different to a standard PC and I had Windows 7 64bit up and running in no time.

The VFD
The VFD is really there for show. It has no practical use and unless you sit 3ft away from the HD160, then you aren’t going to be able to see what is on there. I still wanted it to be working properly though (even if I couldn’t see it) instead of it constantly saying “Welcome to HTPC”, it’s default message.

The setup application on the CD provided didn’t quite install everything, and I had to manually run the VFD driver setup to get it working. I subsequently install iMon which works much better and has ironed out all of the problems I had.

The Remote
When I first started using the remote control provided with the Zalmand HD160, it was turning on my Xbox! This was a bit of a shock, and I eventually found that you need to disable all remote types on the Xbox itself and it will no longer happen.

Noise Level
The noise level of the case is very good. The two fans provided are nice and quiet, and even with a stock Intel CPU cooler, and an nVidia 8800 GTS with stock cooler, they can barely be heard.

Overall I’m very pleased with my first HTPC. It’s a nice simple case without the fancy VFDs that now come on the more recent versions such as the Zalman HD160xt Plus.

The game looked a little prettier, but all in all the game was pretty much the same, but then how much more different can it get with the same instruments? I’m looking forward to giving the keyboard a go, but the new guitar looks rather intimidating!

As it was a beta there were some niggles, like the voice tracker being a bit jerky and some of the menus needed work with them being far too fiddly from a usability point of view – but on the whole, it’s looking good!

Rockband 3 is out for pre-order from play.com and Amazon,

There are various tools around now to help you cheat at Scrabble. Obviously this may be frowned upon by the competition, but you have to win!

To cheat at scrabble, you can use the Scrabble Cheat-o-matic which will instantly provide you with a list of words based on the letters that you provide it.

If you’re seeing “Could not load solr core (‘yourcore’): The JSON request failed or timed out” when trying to load a solr core in Solr Explorer, I found that the documentation for Solr Explorer wasn’t quite correct. The config I was using was as follows:


<solr-core name="blackbox">
<server baseUrl="http://localhost:8983/solr">
<select-uri>/select</select-uri>
<luke-uri>/luke</luke-uri>
</server>
<search>
<default-query>*:*</default-query>
</search>


The select-uri and luke-uri are what it defaults to if you don’t include them. I found I had to add the path to the core in order to correct the error:


<solr-core name="meon">
<server baseUrl="http://localhost:8983/solr">
<select-uri>/<strong>blackbox/</strong>select</select-uri>
<luke-uri>/<strong>blackbox/admin/</strong>luke</luke-uri>
</server>
<search>
<default-query>*:*</default-query>
</search>


You should then be able to select the solr core and get in without seeing the “Could not load solr core (‘yourcore’): The JSON request failed or timed out” error any longer.

I was lucky enough to take part in a Land Rover Experience day recently, where I got to see and try out some of the off-road capabilities first hand. First of all I took my own car on a basic off-road drive around some fields and through a wood. Nothing too difficult but fun nonetheless for the first time in my own car.

After this I went out in a Freelander 2 and a Discovery in order to compare the capabilities of the two. Freelander first – the Land Rover Experience driver explained when to use the different off-road modes on the car and then proceeded to demonstrate the Hill Descent Control (HDC). This was hugely impressive to see in action. The car takes control of braking and giving as much control to the driver as possible, always trying to ensure that they have the ability to steer the car. Letting the car go down a 40 degree drop, the brakes kick in, and it was good to hear all the noises that it’s meant to make as it would otherwise have been quite alarming the first time used!

Next we went on to driving across a muddy terrain, the Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) fighting to keep the car straight whilst we kept enough momentum to keep going – again, very impressive at keeping the car going straight.

On to a climb up a 40 degree mud rut hill. The Freelander, with 3 of us on board, went straight up without a problem, although the Experience driver did say that it was struggling up the same hill with 5 in the car. I found this perfectly acceptable – if you were going to be regularly driving up something like that fully loaded, then you should’ve bought a Discovery!

The Discovery was noticeably different, mainly due to the extra ride height. You could drive slightly faster across the terrain and going up and down the inclines it could be driven more aggressively, it also had much more flexibility with the different modes available. It is a different vehicle, but the Freelander 2 was more than capable for what most people would use it for. One thing is for sure, once you try it off-road, you’ll want to go again!

Took the Freelander on a run down to the West Country (St Ives, Cornwall to be precise). First long run since picking it up just under 4 weeks ago.

Fully loaded with 3 of us in the car, I averaged 33.8 mpg on the way down, a bit lower than I had hoped for, but most of the journey was spent an a high speed and on the cruise control (which always lowers the average fuel consumption anyway). It was just so easy and comfortable to drive, and due to the ride height I got to see parts of the countryside I’ve not seen before on the journey!

On the route back, only 2 of us but still fully loaded, I averaged 37.8 mpg – much more what I was expecting. Same driving style, same speeds and route and same amount of traffic – very strange! My conclusion is that coming back from Cornwall is obviously more down hill than the way there!

No niggles with the car, no rattles have developed – still very pleased!

Why would I do this – I know what is best?
Do you really? Everyone thinks they are a web expert these days, and there are absolutely some people who live for usability on websites, but every site is different. Customers will react based on the branding, layout, whether they’ve just been paid, what they are looking for – the list goes on. MVT allows you to test different variations and use the one which people on your site use the most.

OK, so how do I get started?
Google Website Optimizer is one of the easiest ways to get started. The experiment wizard gives you instructions on how to install the javascript required, and you then create variations which Google will serve and track the success rate of the original, and the various combinations.

This is all great, but can you give me an example?
That I can. The biggest success I’ve seen to date, is changing a simple button to say “View” instead of “Book”. This increased the numbers of clicks on that button by just under 50% – something which I was amazed at – but the figures say it all!

Key points for MVT

• Don’t start with too many variations, especially on low traffic pages
• A negative result isn’t bad – it shows you’re currently using the better combination – but try another different one
• MVT is constant – don’t stop with the first success story, try and improve on it further
• Allows you to base decisions on fact instead of assumption, and remove problems like design by committee

I’ll touch on this again at a later date and come up with some examples of how I’ve been using it.

So I collected my shiny new Land Rover Freelander 2 GD TD4 e this weekend, my first adventure into Land Rover. Driving it away from the dealership felt very strange, having previously been sitting in a much lower car for the previous 10 years.

Immediately it felt comfortable and very simple to drive, and feels like you’re actually driving around in a Range Rover. Visibility all around from within the car is very good, as expected when you’re sat so high up, and there is very minimal body roll on the car when cornering – in fact it feels like you’re driving a normal car.

I didn’t go for any extras on my Freelander 2, but it’s well stocked with full automatic climate control, rear parking sensors, 17″ alloy wheels and various other niceties which are all I want or need for everyday use.

I haven’t quite got used to the start-stop technology which comes as standard on the manual version of the Freelander 2, and am toying with the idea of turning it off. How does it work? When you pull up to traffic lights for example, and take the car out of gear – as soon as you lift the clutch the car cuts out – very very weird the first few times! As soon as you need to go again, simply put your foot down, and your Land Rover Freelander 2 will come back to life, quicker than you can get it into gear.

UPDATE 1: click here
UPDATE 2 – Freelander 2 off-road: click here

In short – yes, it’s great fun to play, however there are a lot (and I mean a lot) of niggly little bugs in it which spoil the fantastic gameplay. Things which annoy me the most:

• Certain unlocks not showing in the kit menu – eg. medic kit and ammo kit not being selectable (although they are there in game to be used thankfully).
• “Spotting” people is a nightmare and very inconsistent. You can be looking at someone perfectly and it won’t register, yet you can spam the button nowhere in particular and spot people!
• The server browser is one of the poorest I’ve ever used. This isn’t a new thing, many games have them, yet this lacks the most basic of features.

All of these things are quite trivial really in the overall game. Compared to Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142, this game has the balance of infantry to vehicles almost perfect apart from there being a lack of anti-air support. The audio is fantastic and it looks like this could finally be the follow on to Battlefield 2, which has been a long time coming.