BSP 350z Suspension Parts and Exhaust for Sale

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 04:59:54 GMT

Alright the time has come to part with the parts. I took some time this evening to take photographs of what I have and what I am trying to sell. Right now I am trying to sell everything locally so prices don’t include any shipping. If I don’t have any interest locally I’m willing to ship the coilovers/springs/shocks but only as a package.

Sway bars and the exhaust are way too much of a hassle to try to ship, so those are local only. (Local in the San Francisco Bay Area, if you’re somewhere else in California and want to drive here, feel free).

Cash Only, no checks. Paypal acceptable for a hold, but cash must be delivered in full before handover of the parts. All parts located in Half Moon Bay, contact me at z – at – christoc.com for more info.

All parts are sold as is, with no warranty, and unknown mileage. I can tell you I put about 10k on each of them (except the control arms and the Cobb bar), but am not sure what they had prior to me.

Shit Cyclists Say the video

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:00:15 GMT

Waking up late this morning, missing the opportunity to ride due to weather, I logged into Facebook and came across this great video that was posted today.

Being new into bicycling I can honestly say that I don't say much of these things yet, but I yearn for the day

This video was put together by PeopleForBikes.org be sure to check out their website.

Adding a hyperlink to an Image (IMG) with jQuery

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:38:33 GMT

While spending a bit of time this weekend working on a new color scheme for ChrisHammond.com I came across the need to be able to add a hyperlink to an image (html IMG tag) using jquery. Why would I want to do that? Well, to be honest I didn’t want to go in and modify the “skin” on my DotNetNuke site, but I did want to create a link on the “HeaderGraphic” image in the skin. Originally that image didn’t link anywhere, now, as I am working on fundraising for the The LIVESTRONG Challenge Davis even on June 24, 2012, I wanted to link that graphic to my “Philanthropy” page.

Doing this in jQuery is rather easy to do assuming you have a way to target the element, in this case I can target the .HeaderGraphic class (part of the MultiFunction skin for DotNetNuke).

Here is the sample code for adding a hyperlink to an image using jQuery.

In order to safely embed this into a DotNetNuke page I’ve added it into the Header setting in the Module Settings for one of the modules at the bottom. That particular module is configured to Display On All pages using the module settings.

If you found this code to be help, I ask that you please donate to my cause on the Philanthropy page. Donate what you feel is appropriate.

Cannondale Quick CX 1 with mountain bike tires

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:16:27 GMT

Last year I purchased a 2011 Cannondale Quick CX 1 to start riding on my quest to hit 500 miles for the year. I was able to do that fairly easily on the bike, it is a great machine.

As I am getting more into riding though I wanted to do longer distance road riding, and continue to use the Quick CX 1, but on a different basis than I did in 2011. I intended to take that bike, with the OEM wheels, and put a set of mountain bike tires on it and use it as a semi mountain bike trail bike.

My awesome brother sent me a set of 29x2.1” mountain bike tires, and I picked up some tubes at REI a few weeks ago. This evening I tried to put the tires on the rim, the first thing I ran into was thinking that there was no way the tire would mount to the rim, it looked huge with the likely hood of it fitting being very small.

Well I was wrong about that, the tire and tube went together well and everything fit on the rim nicely. That is when it went downhill though. I put the wheel on the bike and immediately noticed it wouldn’t rotate, I figured I had the quick release off and the disc brake was rubbing. Upon further inspection though, after resetting the quick release I noticed that the tire was actually rubbing on the top of the fork. Here’s a picture of the original tire and fork, taken after removing the MTB tire and tube.

So I guess the answer to the question, if the question is “Will a 29x2.1” tire fit on a 2011 Cannondale Quick CX 1?” is NO. Unfortunately it will not.

I’m still going to try to find something that will work on the bike though, I would like to use it off road more, though I don’t think I’m ready to invest in a full on mountain bike anytime soon as I still see putting in a lot more road miles this year.

Part 7: CommunityServer to DotNetNuke handling URLs

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:59:27 GMT

So this is Part 7 of my CommunityServer to DotNetNuke blog series, unfortunately it is well over 7 months late, but better late than never I say. This will be a quick blog post talking about “URLs” and how you can handle the old CommunityServer URLs and redirect them to the proper DotNetNuke URLs. Why would you do this? SEO, bookmarks and existing links. You want people that try to access the CS urls to be redirected properly to the appropriate DotNetNuke URL, be it for a forum post, blog post, or other. This post isn’t going to cover all the specifics, as there are too many possible variations based on the configuration of your specific website, but hopefully it will provide you an overview of how I handled things in my conversion, and get you on the way to handling them in your conversion.

Video Workflow for GoPro HD Hero2 Time Lapse photos

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:47:53 GMT

I’ve been one to do a lot of time lapse videos, I’ve actually been doing them since 2006, I think this was my first one, it is at least the oldest one I could find on YouTube. Over the years I have used a number of different cameras, different software and as you can see from my YouTube Channel different subjects (predominantly cars, though lots of them).

Undoing the modifications to the 350z, suspension and exhaust

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:00:07 GMT

So what did you do this weekend? Did you spend two days under your car? I basically did, well more like 1 day, but it was broken up over an afternoon/evening and then the following morning after I ran to get a new “nut” that I needed to finish things up.

Why was I under the 350z? Well, removing the fun parts of course. I planned to remove the front and rear Hotchkis sway bars, along with the TrueChoice Phase 4 Konis (front) and the off the shelf Koni Sports (rear) along with springs/perches. Though in order to deal with the rear sway bar I also ended up pulling the Injen Super SES exhaust system off the car as well and put the OEM exhaust back on.

Read the whole blog post for the time lapse video

Is bicycle riding video is boring?

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:32:18 GMT

One of the things that I’ve been trying to do while riding is figure out how to record my rides, for a couple of reasons. 1) To create cool creative videos. 2) To document events, who knows what can happen on the road, having video proof could help out some day. I think I can safely say that #2 is a far better, easier to attain, idea, than #1. And when you come up with a reason that justifies #2, you likely have something worth using for #1.

Planning a ride with SF2G

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:47:51 GMT

As I get more and more into cycling I am looking for more and more things to get my cycling. I live in Half Moon Bay, and while my wife is started to ride as well, it is hard for us to get out for long rides because we have a 15 month old baby (15 months today!, happy 15 months Jacqueline). While we get out occasionally with the baby in tow, we typically each ride solo.

Undoing the BSP 350z

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 05:04:51 GMT

This morning I began the process of converting the 350z back to stock, or close to stock. Mike Lane over on the east coast requested the control arms/custom bushings that I have on the car, so he sent me his original OEM set. A couple of months ago I actually tried to remove the arms on my car so I could lube them up and try to get rid of some of the excess noise in the car, but I wasn’t able to. One of the nuts on the upper strut mount was stuck and no matter what I tried I wasn’t able to get the nut removed.

I picked up some tools from the local Ace Hardware in Half Moon Bay to get that pesky nut off, and this morning when I got started, things didn’t go well. I managed to  break an extension I was trying to use, then I managed to break the bolt extractor as well! I was not a happy camper, though I decided to try one more thing, a better quality extension and turning it by hand. After that nut was removed replacing the control arms was nice and easy.

So the first parts of the car are back to stock, I’m shipping out Mike’s new control arms early next week, and hopefully they will see some autocross action soon!

Setting goals for 2012

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:30:01 GMT

For 2011 I personally set 3 goals, you can read about them fully on my post from 1/1/2011. Basically they were to lose 30 lbs (goal weight of 255, I’m a big guy), inline skate 100 miles (I do like me some skating, I’m a freak I know this) and ride a bike 500 miles. At the beginning of 2011 the bike I had was a 2004 Diamondback XTS Moto, not exactly something you could see yourself riding 500 miles on (at least not me). So in June I picked up a Cannondale Quick CX 1 and began my journey.

Early morning bicycle ride, Lesson: Always check Sunrise times

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:34:45 GMT

I set my alarm this morning for 6am, with plans to get in a 45 minute ride before I took a shower and came in to work. I went to bed around 11pm last night, read for a while, and tossed and turned until about 2am, I guess those cookies and milk at 9:30pm weren’t such a good idea as the sugars kept me up.

6am came and my alarm went off, at first I turned it off and decided I would sleep in. Then I lay there thinking “Get up you lazy ass, go ride” so I did. I got up, and peered out the blinds to see what the sun was starting to do.

It was dark outside, very dark, with no hint of sunshine.

#Baby365 year of Baby Photos 2011

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 07:27:11 GMT

If you are looking for tips at taking 365 photos in a year, check out the list at the end of the article. As many of you know, or should, I planned to do a couple of things in 2011 in terms of blogging and photo taking.

1. Blog every day
2. Post a photo of myself taken every day #Flickr365
3. Post a photo of Jacqueline taken every day #Baby365

Well, I only completed one of those things (#Baby365), but I must admit I am glad about which one I did complete and the ones I didn’t!

Every day in 2011 Natalie or myself took a photo of Jacqueline, and while we didn’t always get them posted to flickr the same day, I think we did get that done on at least 355 of those days. You might think, oh that isn't hard, taking a photo, so what. Well I tel you what, it wasn't easy. Try doing ANYTHING out of the ordinary for 365 straight days, it takes some effort.

#Baby365 Photos

You can see the full collection of the #Baby365 photos in the Flickr Set found here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/chammond/sets/72157625597966645/).

All along I had plans of doing something more with the photos, and while I am not completed with everything, I have two things you can see online now.

#Baby365 Videos

The first is you can see a compilation video of the 365 photos set to music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kHmTe2hNMM

Then of course there is the faster cropped version, which I personally prefer. I think it shows an interesting view of Jacqueline growing up over the past year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFnhpweyzoE

She has grown up a lot over the past year, too fast if you ask myself or Natalie, but that is how parenthood goes.

2012 #Toddler366

Stay tuned for #Toddler365 #Toddler366 here for 2012 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/chammond/sets/72157628676234297/)

Some tips if you are thinking of doing any #Baby365, #Toddler365 or #Anything365.

These are just a few things I can think of off the top of my head that should help you with your project. I will try to update the list if I think of anything else.

1. Set a reminder on your phone/computer to remind you EVERY day to do something, possibly two reminders
2. Don't clear the reminder until it is done, there is no snooze here, leave it on
3. Use a good camera, we have a number of days that were taken with Natalie's phone and they leave a lot to be desired
4. Be diligent about tagging and uploading photos into a Set on Flickr. If you name them, tag them, etc, it makes them easier to find/organize later
5. Check out Downloadr from http://janten.com/downloadr/ at the end of the year to download and organize the photos if you want to create a video like I did. You might think you can pull all the photos from your original collection, but that can be a bear depending on how you organize things. Also if you don't have all the photos in your collection (I use Lightroom) but you do have all the photos on Flickr, Downloadr helps immensly.
6. Try to take a full face photo every time, we didn't for 2011 and I think things could have turned out a lot better if we had tried to do that.
7. Make sure your camera keeps EXIF data and you have it enabled in Flickr, it makes sorting things a lot easier (sorting your set of photos on flickr, sorting your photos to create a video, etc)

For Sale (4) 18x10" +38 Enkei RPF1 w/ 710s

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:36:14 GMT

Asking $1600 local (delivery extra, I have small vehicles so transport is a pain). Currently located in Half Moon Bay, California, just south of San Francisco. It looks like 2012 will be a no go for me (no budget to get the car where it needs to be) so I am going to part ways with my beautiful 18x10" +38 Enkei RPF1s. The wheels currently have 18" 305 Kumho 710s mounted, plenty of tread left, though not competitive nationally, great for local/regional events.

GoPro HD Hero2 Firmware V.58

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 09:05:35 GMT

I see that the GoPro HD Hero2 came out with a new Firmware update on 12/15/2011. I’ve been waiting for a firmware update to enable the 3d functionality on the new cameras since I received them back in November.

I installed the Firmware update using CineForm Studio (see the steps to upgrade the firmware (as of 12/16/2011) below.

The best I can tell, this V.58 firmware update does not enable the 3D functionality on the Hero2. I spent some time playing around with it, and was unable to get the two cameras to properly sync up when connected with the sync cable. First I could only get one to boot up, but I was eventually able to get both booted after removing the sync cable and inserting it again.

I would love to try to record Christmas this year in 3d, though I doubt we’ll see another firmware update again before the end of the year. I think V.58 was released to fix some exposure issues on time lapse caused by a previous update, but I don’t know that for sure.

Hopefully in the future GoPro will take the time to post a Changelog for their Firmware updates.

Steps to upgrade GoPro HD Hero2 Firmware (follow at your own risk)

1. Have CineForm Studio installed on your computer
2. Turn off, un plug, have a full charge and SD card in the camera, have CineForm Studio off
3. Turn on your HD Hero2
4. Plug the camera into your computer via USB
5. Open CineForm Studio
6. Wait for the update available message to appear (if there is one)
7. Click update

Please follow the directions carefully, and check http://gopro.com/support/hd-hero2-firmware-update/ for further instructions.

I am not responsible if you damage your camera (I’ve done it before to my own camera)

Movember 2011 Results for Team DotNetNuke

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 05:58:10 GMT

Well another Movember has come and gone, we are now 2+ weeks into December, and I am finally getting the time to get this blog post together. It has been a busy 6 weeks with DotNetNuke World, holidays here in the United States, and planning for 2012 here within the DotNetNuke Corporation.

Movember 2011 nearing a close

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:21:46 GMT

A quick blog post as we near the final day of Movember 2011.

Thank to all of you who have taken the time to grow your fine Mo's (mustaches) for the past 30 days. Also thank you to those of you who started your mo's but caved to the weight that carrying a Mo brings, your efforts are still appreciated!

Bike riding in Half Moon Bay, the Video

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:50:34 GMT

The weekend before Thanksgiving I decided to strap one of my new GoPro HD Hero2 cameras on to my bicycle helmet and take it with me for a ride. I ended up with 1.5 hours of video, rather than let you watch the entire boring (wind filled) ride, I took some of the clips and put them together into a short video.

Meeting a goal, 500 Miles in 2011

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 06:35:24 GMT

I have attempted to set new years resolutions in the past, but I typically failed at them, and most times I failed quite early on. For this year I set 3 goals, 1 of them I am pretty confident I won’t hit, more on that later, but two of them I had/have every intention of hitting.

Riding with a GoPro and losing your Garmin Forerunner 305

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 06:12:42 GMT

Last Wednesday I went for a ride at lunch time with a coworker of mine. I decided to take the GoPro Camera along with me for the ride, though not attached to the bike itself, or to me, I attached it to a 3 foot pole, that I mounted to the front of the bike. If you’re thinking “boy, that sounds like it won’t work” you are correct. It didn’t work out very well, the pole wasn’t near stable enough for the camera, so it made for a very wobbly video of the ride. I still think it is interesting though, so I editing, sped up, slowed down, and uploaded it to YouTube. You can see it here.

Mounting a video camera behind your car

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 04:46:54 GMT

Today was the first event in the San Francisco Region’s slush series. I decided to head out and try to dust some of the rust off, and last night decided to build a camera mount for the car. After seeing the GoPro HD Hero2 launch video, I decided it was time to try to start getting more interesting video.

Earlier this week I attempted to do something interesting with video on my bicycle for www.bicycletips.com but the video turned out pretty bad.

For the 350z I wanted to try to get the camera up and behind the car. Not just on top of the car, but a couple feet back and above the car. So I got the building, really I didn’t build much, just assembled some parts that I had, and that I picked up from the local Ace Hardware store here in Half Moon Bay.

Calling all DotNetNuke Partners Grow That Mo!

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:24:45 GMT

Do you work for one of our many DotNetNuke Partners? Are you already thinking about participating in Movember? Have I got a challenge for you.

Form a team for your company, you can do so via Movember.com, and then join the DotNetNuke Network! The partner that raises the most money for Movember

Movember 2011 Get those Mustaches ready

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:41:18 GMT

Dear DotNetNuke Community,

Movember is coming up, and I am getting the DotNetNuke Team going again this year. For those of you who weren’t with the company last year Movember is this. You start with a clean shaven face on November 1^st, and grow a mustache (not a beard, not a goatee) for the ENTIRE month, to raise awareness (and money) for cancers that effect men, primarily prostate cancer.

My foray into (clipless) clipped pedals

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 06:39:36 GMT

First things first, I had no idea why they are called clipless pedals, and I still doubt the reasoning I read. I am actually going to call them CLIP pedals, because that is what they really are. More on that later. So, I went to a pedal other than a standard platform, and boy am I glad I did! A couple of weeks ago I ordered a pair of shoes with the intention of getting some pedals to go along with them, Friday the pedals arrived. Saturday the wife and I (and baby) went to the pumpkin festival here in Half Moon Bay, taking the baby and trailer for the two mile drive to avoid sitting in traffic for which likely would have taken 30+ minutes. I didn’t want to try the new pedals for this trip, so I waited until Sunday to install the pedals.

Using jQuery in your content to add some flare to your DotNetNuke website

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 04:59:29 GMT

With all of the changes to DotNetNuke 6, a lot can be lost in the fact that you actually maintain the content of your website, and while the maintenance UI has changed, the content that you present is still up to you. A CMS can only do so much for displaying you content, if you want to do some fancy things, branch out of your standard HTML.

I recently wanted to do a couple of things for my car website (yes, I’m a car guy, so it is easy to use the website for examples).

1. I wanted to have a random image loaded in the top portion of the pages of the website, changing, or randomly loading, on each page load (not rotating live on the page).
2. I wanted to display a list of recent photos on the home page, and when you click on one of them I wanted them to open up in a light box.

I could have done this in any number of ways, but I chose to implement some simple jQuery for each, below I will show you how.

First things first, the website uses my free DotNetNuke skin, MultiFunction, available via Codeplex. I have some example documentation on how to customize the CSS for the skin to make your site unique, feel free to check out the Documentation page for those examples.