Mar 27, 2009

Tesla Motorsports Releases the "Model S" Electric Sedan


Their servers are being hit hard this morning from the flood of users visiting their site, so please be patient. It will be well worth the wait!

Source: http://www.teslamotors.com/media/press_room.php?id=1284

Model S sedan has anticipated base price of $49,900, up to 300-mile range and 45-minute QuickCharge capability

March 26, 2009

HAWTHORNE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE) —Tesla Motors is now taking orders for the Model S, an all electric family sedan that carries seven people and travels 300 miles per charge.

The Model S, which carries its charger onboard, can be recharged from any 120V, 240V or 480V outlet, with the latter taking only 45 minutes. By recharging their car while they stop for a meal, drivers can go from LA to New York in approximately the same time as a gasoline car. Moreover, the floor-mounted battery pack is designed to be changed out in less time than it takes to fill a gas tank, allowing for the possibility of battery-pack swap stations.

The floor-mounted powertrain also results in unparalleled cargo room and versatility, as the volume under the front hood becomes a second trunk. Combining that with a four-bar linkage hatchback rear trunk and flat folding rear seats, the Model S can accommodate a 50-inch television, mountain bike *and* surfboard simultaneously. This packaging efficiency gives the Model S more trunk space than any other sedan on the market and more than most SUVs.

“Model S doesn’t compromise on performance, efficiency or utility -- it’s truly the only car you need,” said Tesla CEO, Chairman and Product Architect Elon Musk. “Tesla is relentlessly driving down the cost of electric vehicle technology, and this is just the first of many mainstream cars we’re developing.”

Tesla expects to start Model S production in late 2011. The company believes it is close to receiving $350 million in federal loans to build the Model S assembly plant in California from the Dept of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program.

Building on Proven Technology

Tesla is the only production automaker already selling highway-capable EVs in North America or Europe. With 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds, the Roadster outperforms almost all sports cars in its class yet is six times as energy efficient as gas guzzlers and delivers 244 miles per charge. Tesla has delivered nearly 300 Roadsters, and nearly 1,000 more customers are on the wait list.

Teslas do not require routine oil changes, and they have far fewer moving (and breakable) parts than internal combustion engine vehicles. They qualify for federal and state tax credits, rebates, sales tax exemptions, free parking, commuter-lane passes and other perks. Model S costs roughly $5 to drive 230 miles – a bargain even if gasoline were $1 per gallon.
The anticipated base price of the Model S is $49,900 after a federal tax credit of $7,500. The company has not released options pricing. Three battery pack choices will offer a range of 160, 230 or 300 miles per charge.

“Model S costs half as much as a Roadster, and it’s a better value than much cheaper cars,” Musk said. “The ownership cost of Model S, if you were to lease and then account for the much lower cost of electricity vs. gasoline at a likely future cost of $4 per gallon, is similar to a gasoline car with a sticker price of about $35,000. I’m positive this car will be the preferred choice of savvy consumers.”

The standard Model S does 0-60 mph in under six seconds and will have an electronically limited top speed of 130 mph, with sport versions expected to achieve 0-60 mph acceleration well below five seconds. A single-speed gearbox delivers effortless acceleration and responsive handling. A 17-inch touchscreen with in-car 3G connectivity allows passengers to listen to Pandora Radio or consult Google Maps, or check their state of charge remotely from their iPhone or laptop.

Tesla is taking reservations online and at showrooms in California. Tesla will open a store in Chicago this spring and plans to open stores in London, New York, Miami, Seattle, Washington DC and Munich later this year.

About Tesla Motors

San Carlos, Calif.-based Tesla Motors Inc. designs and manufactures electric vehicles with exceptional design, performance and efficiency, while conforming to all North American and European safety, environmental and durability standards. The Roadster, which has a 0-to-60 mph acceleration of 3.9 seconds and a base price of $101,500 after a federal tax credit, is the only highway-capable production EV for sale in North America and Europe. Tesla expects to begin producing the Model S sedan in late 2011. Details and photos are available at www.teslamotors.com.

CONTACT:

Rachel Konrad
Tesla Motors, Inc.
+1 (650) 701-2664
rachel@teslamotors.com
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Mar 25, 2009

How to: Reply to Message & Signature on Top for Mozilla Thunderbird Users


For Mozilla Thunderbird users, when you reply to a message, do you want your message and signature to show on top of your message rather than the bottom of your message? Here's how:


  1. Go to Tools -> Account Settings
  2. Click on "Composition & Addressing"
  3. "Automatically quote the original message when replying" should be checked
  4. Select Then, "start my reply above the quote"
  5. Select and place my signature "below my reply (above the quote)
Enjoy!

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Mar 24, 2009

How to: Enable Advanced File Sharing in Windows XP

To enable File Sharing in Windows XP, like you would see in Windows 2000 or Vista:

  1. Go to My Computer
  2. Tools
  3. Folder Options
  4. View
  5. Scroll down to the bottom and uncheck "Use simple file sharing"
  6. Press OK
Now you can have more control over your shared folders and files.

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Mar 18, 2009

Organization Chart Software?



While working on a project for work, I needed to make a navigation chart for a User Interface. I tried Visio, ConceptDraw, Dia, and Kivio, but all left me with a feeling that there must be something better out there. For instance, Visio user interface seems so crude when compared to ConceptDraw, but ConceptDraw doesn't have alignment options for your map (only text alignment). Dia and Kivio were too simple for my usage, and I would rather use Visio or ConceptDraw.

Lastly, if I had a Mac, I would probably settle with Omnigraffle when comparing all of these software packages. The user interface looks great with many features I wish Visio and ConceptDraw had. At one point, I was thinking of purchasing OSX to use in Vmware just so I could use Omnigraffle, but then my boss walked by and I came back to reality. I ended up using Visio, still unsatisfied, but hey, I got the job done.

Omnigraffle for Mac: http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/
Kivio: http://www.koffice.org/kivio/
Visio: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/default.aspx
ConceptDraw: http://www.conceptdraw.com/
Dia: http://projects.gnome.org/dia/

Online:
http://www.cogmap.com/

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Mar 17, 2009

How to: Hide the navbar in Blogger

How to hide the navbar in your Blogger Blog:

  1. Go to your Layout
  2. Edit HTML
  3. Copy & Paste the following code after "head"
  4. Enjoy

#navbar-iframe {
height:0px;
visibility:hidden;
display:none
}
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Fix: Bluetooth Disconnect at Startup for Ubuntu

Bluetooth connectivity problems at startup: Fixes bluetooth disconnecting at login for Ubuntu
> gksu gedit /etc/default/bluetooth> gksu gedit /etc/init.d/rc
HID2HCI_ENABLED=0
HID2HCI_UNDO=1
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Startup tweaks for Ubuntu and Dual/Quad Core CPUs

Less wait time for boot menu at startup
> gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
"timeout 1"
For Dual CPU Ubuntu machines: Faster startup sends boot process to two CPUs
> gksu gedit /etc/init.d/rc
CONCERRENCY=shell
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Mar 16, 2009

How to: Install Ubuntu 8.10 to a USB Stick

Yes, there's a LiveUSB stick install included in Ubuntu 8.10, but that's NOT what we want to accomplish here. What we do want is a full blown USB Ubuntu installation, and it turns out the solution to this is pretty simple:

Just install Ubuntu straight to the USB stick as you would for a hard drive installation! As long as your computer BIOS can boot off a USB stick, then you should be okay.

My installation went on a 4GB stick leaving me with about 1.2GB of free space.

  1. Boot off a Ubuntu LiveCD
  2. Choose the location of your USB stick to install (I chose guided, use entire disk)
  3. Wait until it's finished installing
  4. Reboot and remove CD
  5. ENJOY!

To limit writes to your USB stick, you can follow the guide here: Click

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SSD Tweaks for less I/O from eeeUser

The following post was copied from: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ubuntu:eeexubuntu:customization

Even less disk IO

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=5984.

On machines with a swap partition add the following to:
> sudo mousepad /etc/rc.local

Put these two lines just before the “exit 0” statement at the end:
sysctl -w vm.swappiness=1           # Strongly discourage the swapping of application data to disk
sysctl -w vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50 # Don't shrink the inode cache so aggressively.
This reduces the likelihood of the actual applications, or directory listings, from being paged out. Disk page cache is not nearly as important as random access SSD reads are faster than on HD. As a by-product the above will improve the responsiveness for interactive use (which is the primary use of the EEE), although reducing the overall performance of the system.

Or you can avoid changing the script and edit /etc/sysctl.conf instead. Change the last line to be

vm.swappiness=1

then add the line

vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

Add noatime to your fstab

By default Linux ext2/3 keeps a tab on access times for every file on the system. This leads to more writes than we need. Add “noatime” to the options for the / mount as shown below.

> sudo mousepad /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
#
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda1
UUID=10d03d2a-7732-4f6f-924f-541b39dd9559 / ext2 defaults,noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
#/dev/sdb1 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0
You will need to reboot or run …

sudo mount -o remount /

On newer kernels, “relatime” provides much the same advantages while maintaining higher compatibility (some mail clients rely on atime).
Use ramdisk for temp files

RAM-based temporary file systems

This saves SSD disk space and reduces the number of writes to the SSD, which will maximise its lifetime and provide a very small improvement to system performance.

Edit /etc/fstab again

> sudo mousepad /etc/fstab

and add these lines to the end
# enable RAM-based temporary file systems
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs noatime 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs noatime 0 0
This means that anything stored in /var/tmp or /tmp won't survive a reboot. If you're debugging a problem where you need to preserve those files e.g after a crash, then you can temporarily comment out those lines.

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