I’m a huge Formula 1 fan so any extra coverage is a huge plus in my book. The Official Formula 1 website just launched a new video section. They have quick (2-3 minute) recaps of all the 2008 races. Thanks for the tip UXMag.

Words can’t do this one justice, one of you guys or girls may be gutsy enough to ride this thing. Me? I’m cowering in the corner.

[Via: Gizmodo]

Cartype.com is a look at cars from an interesting perspective, the fonts used in naming and marketing them. Here’s a cool hood emblem used on the S15 Silvia:

[Via: ILoveTypography]
 

It was a bad weekend for Forumla1 driver Heikki Kovalainen and LeMans Series driver Stephane Ortelli. 

Early Sunday morning Kovalainen’s McLaren Mercedes had a sudden loss of tire pressure sending him careening off the track head-on into a tire wall at over 150MPH. He was embedded in the tire wall for about 10 minutes. Live coverage of the race on SPEED did not show emergency crews freeing Kovalainen’s car leaving most fans assuming it was a deadly accident. Heikki waved to fans while being stretchered off the track and is reported to have suffered no injuries. 

Video of the crash is below [Via: F1Fanatic]:

Later Sunday afternoon Ortelli lost control of his ORECA Courage LC70-Judd in what I’m sure will be replayed forever in those “Worst Wrecks” DVDs and late night TV shows. All said and done Ortelli has a broken ankle. I won’t even try to explain this one, check the video [Via AutoBlog]:

Not to be outdone the fine folks at NASCAR decided to have every single car on the track crash…

… and Dario Franchitti broke his ankle.

We just did an overhaul of our live chat program. It’s powered by the fine people at SmartMax.

We don’t have set live chat support hours, but we do try to man the operator console whenever we’re at our computers. You can start a chat either through the Administration interface in the top right corner or on rpmware.com in the top navigation.

If you’re interested in live chat for your website please contact us and we’ll get you a quote to add this feature.

We’re looking forward to talking with you!

I’ve a big fan of the SmugMug photo sharing site and things just got a whole lot cooler over there. They just released absolutely, hands down the best online flash video player available. Don’t believe me? Check out the quality of this video.

Hats off to Don and the rest of the Smugmuggers!

<< Warning, geeky post >>

I’ll admit, I have a sweet spot for the Mac. Blasphemy! Coming from a guy who makes his money running a .NET applictation on DELL servers and the Windows OS? Yep, but the Mac is so pretty, and it seems to just work a little better than Vista. We have a Macbook Pro in the house and I’m always stealing it when work doesn’t involve windows-only programs.

The problem, for me at least, is switching to a Mac would end up costing about $3,000; $3,000 I’d much rather spend on something other than a computer. Is it worth it? Probably not. Will I do it eventually anyway? Definitely.

Why so expensive?

1. I run dual 24″ monitors to feed my “keep as many windows open at the same time as possible” addiction. For instance right now I am running Visual Studio, iTunes, Photoshop, SQL Server Management Studio, Google Talk, a command prompt, Firefox, and Safari. It’s a bit ridiculous, but it’s what I’m used to. The only Mac in the lineup that could power both these monitors is the Mac Pro ($2500). Ouch!
2. I still need Windows to work. I’d have to invest in VMWare fusion ($80) to run Windows inside the Mac OS and would also need a license of Windows ($200 or so).
3. All my current programs. I’d have to get Mac licenses for all my current programs. The only one I’m really worried about is Adobe Create Suite (Photoshop, etc.). At $1400 that’s not something you want to buy more than once.

Well these issues may all be solved now, PsyStar is offering a new computer, the “Open Computer” which apparently will run any OS under the sun. The best part, a pretty nice one is $399.

The downside, it’s against Apple EULA (End User License Agreement) to run Leopard (Mac OS) on anything other than Apple hardware. As soon as the lawyers over at Apple catch wind of this they’re going to sue to paints off PsyStar. As soon as the geeks over at Apple catch wind of this they’re going to update Leopard to prevent it from running on non-Apple hardware.

My advice, if you want one get it now and don’t count on it running Leopard forever. Via CrunchGear, Gizmodo, Engadget.

I know we have a handful of clients in my hometown of Detroit Michigan, so any of you there (or close) should really plan to be on the Detroit Riverfront May 31st and June 1st.

The Red Bull Air Race race will be staged along the Detroit River, which is one of the world’s most trafficked international shipping lanes. Downtown Detroit between the General Motor’s Renaissance Center and Bell Isle Park along the newly renovated Detroit RiverFront is where Detroit race fans can catch a piece of the action on May 31st and June 1st. The race will be the third stop in a 10-stop world series tour, and the 2nd (and last) race in the U.S.A.

You can catch the action from the Detroit side or Windsor side (aka Clean Detroit) and tickets start at $15. No excuses for missing one of the most exciting things to hit Detroit since the Gran Prix left, oh wait, that came back, right?

More info and tickets available on the Red Bull Air Race Homepage.

The guys over at Small Business Trends (generally a great read) are designing a new logo for one of their sites, sellingtosmallbusinesses.com.

They decided to use HP’s Logoworks and have been documenting the process every step of the way. If you’re in the market for a new logo you should give it a quick read. The process isn’t for everyone but it’s certainly a quick, easy and inexpensive way to produce a logo.

My favorite so far is revision 8:

You can vote on your favorite and be entered to win a free logo package from Logoworks.

I just read about an interesting new service called UserVoice. Basically it is an online voting system for feature requests, bug fixes, suggestions, product line requests, etc.

The uses for us are obvious; however, it could be harnessed by your shop in interesting ways as well.

• What products do you want to see on special?
• Which cars should we focus on?
• What technical articles are you most interested in?

Find out what the customer wants and give it to them. Sounds simple, yet it’s much harder to actually accomplish.

Well I’m taking my own advice. I setup rpmware.uservoice.com and am opening the floodgates for your suggestions, criticisms, comments, requests, anything you want to throw out there.

Before you get started I have a few requests:

1. Be specific. “Add more product lines” is not a good suggestion; “add Bully Dog Performance”
   is a good suggestion.
2. Before you post make sure your post doesn’t already exist. If it does vote or comment on the first post.
3. No tech support or customer service. We’re happy to provide both by email, IM and phone. We want to respond as quickly as possible to those requests and I’m not sure we’ll be checking UserVoice as often as we check our phones, IMs and emails.