Bloggy

Unfortunately I haven’t made any blog updates in awhile. I’ve been very busy between work and school (and I will likely spend this weekend working on a 20 page project that I’ve written 0 pages for ;). That doesn’t mean I have nothing to report though…

First off, I have renamed kdesvn-build to kdesrc-build to reflect the fact that it builds from Git-based software repositories. In conjunction I released kdesrc-build 1.12 which has various minor improvements, including a few Git improvements.

I’ve complained about my car breaking down. It’s fixed, although I will be selling it now (my wife and I were debating the merits of getting an improved car for awhile before, this incident sealed the decision).

Just today I’ve committed a new feature to JuK, the sadly neglected KDE Software Compilation music manager. Now you can use the scroll wheel in the track announcement popup to quickly switch tracks without having to use the Next/Prev buttons. It’s probably already in every other media player with a playlist, but it’s at least in JuK now. Note that this is a 4.6 new feature, not 4.5.

I’ve also been “reviewing” a patch to further remove Qt3 support code from JuK, which I will try to clean up and get comitted this release cycle. The big thing I still need to do is to finally convert from K3ListView to a real Model/View architecture to finally be rid of Qt3Support. Help is always appreciated btw =D

Burkhard Lück, the documentation super-hero, has been improving JuK documentation for me, but I still need to make some changes that he’s requested to bring the docs closer to 2008-era (let alone 2010) :(

That’s another good “intro to KDE Platform” kind of job by the way, it’s how I got introducing into coding for JuK myself. ;)

Posted by mpyne under KDE & kdesvn-build & Programming | 4 Comments »

So… the engine on my Chevrolet Aveo abruptly stopped working today. Always a nice experience!

After getting it towed to a local mechanic who asked what happened, I related how the engine pretty much just stopped, all power-assist features went away, but the electrical gear still worked fine. I also told him that I was thinking it was probably a belt that broke or something.

• The good news: I was right! :( — Specifically, it was the timing belt.
• The bad news: The engine on the 2004 Aveo seems designed to self-destruct in this particular failure mode. Initial best-case estimates for damages are in the range of $1500.
• The worse news: This is a known problem for 2004 Aveos (my model year). For instance, try Google searching for aveo timing belt and be absolutely amazed at all the 2004-specific hits that pop up.

My car was at about 53,000 miles, the timing belt was supposed to be replaced at 60,000 miles (and had been inspected sat at around the 30,000 mile point). I even bothered having regular maintenance performed. Apparently Chevrolet knew about problems with the timing belts, as indicated by a Technical Service Bulletin 06-06-01-021 (the summary of which can be found at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration 2004 Aveo TSB listings). I don’t have access to the full text but apparently GM would pay for the belt to be replaced (sans labor) before 55,000 miles, but that offer has since been rescinded.

So I called Chevrolet customer service, who essentially told me to go pay for the car to be towed to an authorized dealer, pay for an official inspection of the damage, and then they would decide whether they would show any responsibility for the damage caused. I’m OK with paying to have the car towed, and even to have them perform their inspection, but not without some measure of what I can expect to get in return besides “we might pay for part of the repairs”. Especially when the non-dealer shop is refusing to mention “best-case” prices below $1500! I don’t even want to think of what the “authorized dealer” would charge to fix their own shoddy parts sourcing. For that matter, I wonder how it is that GMAC Financing and seemingly every other GM-related subsidiary never had problems sending me junk mail, but receiving fairly serious technical bulletins describing engine-totaling casualties was left out of the mailing loop.

So this is my warning to you, if you have a Chevrolet Aveo, get that timing belt replaced probably every 40,000 miles or so (30,000 might not be bad either) until you can feasibly get rid of the car. One of my friends always made fun of me for buying a Chevy, and now I see exactly how right he is… Sayonara, General Motors.

Posted by mpyne under Personal | 5 Comments »