WOOHOO, as the proud owner of the 2nd generation Irobot vacuum, I’ve won a lot of time and a clean floor for a year or two already.
But now, Irobot has come up with the 3rd generation, totally revamped vacuum robot!

iRobot® Roomba® Vacuum Cleaning Robots

Maintain cleaner floors every day!

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Like me, some car-owners may have a built-in factory stereo system. What if your car is two to three years old, and your system can’t play mp3s? What options are there to fix this?

The easiest way is to get a mp3 CD-changer, but that costs a lot. Another option is to get a line-in for the system, but it also depends on the car brand, model and year. Not every model has this option and if it does, it will also cost a lot.

Replacing the whole system is also not the best option. You will need to find an aftermarket stereo kit for your dashboard. And why replace it if your factory stereo is doing well?

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The long awaited firmware-upgrade finally came this morning, I’ve arrived late at work because I wanted to test it, especially because it says to speeds up the transfer to 4GB memory sticks (which weren’t even working at all!)

With a quick test it seems that the 2GB-limit on SD-cards is still standing, however it seems that this firmware fixed the 2GB limit for memorysticks. I did a quicktest on my 4GB stick which was filled up to 3GB with programs already. I threw an lrf-file in it and the reader could find it. In the previous firmware, the reader would just crash.

I’m now transferring 3,5GB worth of lrf’s to the stick and see if it truely works.

Here’s the official release

This update (dated 7/31/2007) will do the following:

Improvements over system software version 1.0.02.01300

* Resolves an issue where, under certain conditions, the battery meter may not correctly indicate the proper charge level
* Resolves an issue where the reader may not successfully return from sleep mode

Improvements over the original system software

* Longer Battery life during audio playback (NOTE: Actual battery life may vary based on usage pattern, product settings, battery and environmental conditions.)
* Faster transfer speeds when using 4GB or larger Memory Stick® media
* Improved handling of white bands on the audio playback screen
* Addresses security vulnerabilities
* Enhances system stability

The key issues addressed are the battery charge indicator fix and system stability (although I’m not sure that we’ve really seen any instability issues… this device has been pretty rock solid for most of us).

See the Sony download page for more instructions and details. The upgrade should take only a few minutes to complete.

If it operates like the previous upgrade, you will probably be prompted for it when you dock your Reader with the desktop Connect software.

*update

Unfortunately… 4GB sticks still not working. Only first 2GB are accessable, beyond that are simply ignored.

Like: I put 2GB through the Connect-software. It will simply stop after 2GB.
If I put in another book through a standalone reader, the new book will be ignored.

If I put in >2GB of files through a standalone reader, the reader will detect up to 2GB of files, but when it tries to open of them, it will crash.

Also.. the “speedup for sticks” is probably merely the fact that it will format the files later. You can see the bok-menu, but the “total pages” and other info are filled up later. As a memory stick seems to be some kind of serial format, this can be done…. it’s still merely a trick. Actual loading of a large book is still the same…