There were loads of options available for buying these two cars as they were in great demand. But choosing one was taking some time as I had to be totally convinced to invest around £4000 for a car that I had to use for a long time after buying it. The Vauxhall insignia seemed to be a better choice out of the two as it is more powerful than the Vauxhall Corsa mini and if I was to buy a used car then it would not be bad to spend a little bit more to get a sedan that I have always wanted in my garage.

On the other hand the Vauxhall Corsa was a small and easy to drive car and the 1.4 liter option is a pleasure to drive as well. This car is not about show off but is a practical car that has all the basic features and a good mileage to add on. As it is small thus handling the car in traffic is easier as compared to the Insignia. Finally I decided on the Corsa mini as it is smaller and convenient.

While looking out for info I found the site Perrys.co.uk very useful for getting all the info on the Vauxhall Corsa. They being a Vauxhall dealer have displayed everything needed to look at for buying a Vauxhall Corsa, thus browsing this website will surely help.

Yeah, we’ve had just about all the Atom we can handle, and it looks like Intel’s just about ready to help us back away from the difficult choice of sexy form factors for low prices and sexy form for exorbitant prices. Intel is working on Montevina Plus, which will push Penryn laptop chip technology past the 3GHz mark, while subsequently sending ULV chips into the mainstream, showing up in laptops ranging from $599 to $1,000, instead of the $1,500+ premiums they currently usually command — great news for ultraportable lovers that actually want to get a few things accomplished on the road. Intel also sees 2009 as the year of the nettop, at least in emerging markets, and will naturally be pushing Nehalem all over the place — with the way chip roadmaps are planned, the economic downturn naturally won’t be messing with any planned rollouts for the time being.

PS3’s controller is too light! Xbox 360 ripped off PS2! The Wiimote makes you look like an idiot when you wave it around! Which controller is the best? Which is the dumbest?!

You cannot be banned for anything you say in this thread. But otherwise, rational arguments or pure flamebait, fire away.

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[Wikimaniacs]

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The first is fully covered with keyboard keys-with the hood keys showing a pixelated Homer Simpson-, the second with floppy disks and Compact Flash cards, and the third one with Lego pieces. Fugly or purty?

I say purty. Head to Dark Roasted Blend for their catalog of weirdly-covered cars. [Paula Wirth, Photophonic, KirsFricke, ddhac via Dark Roasted Blend]

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The Pack Chair is a concept (with five working prototypes in development) by designer François Azambourg. Stored rolled like a tiny sleeping bag, the chair inflates instantly when needed.

But instead of just filling with air, the Pack Chair has a cloth body that inflates with liquid polyurethane. Presumably that polyurethane is not something you can just squeeze out later, so the chair most probably becomes a permanent fixture in your home after its deployment.

Still, if it’s strong enough to withstand the force of my pork-fed Midwestern frame, it sure looks more comfortable than a folding chair. [Design Boom via Craziest Gadgets]

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Research in Motion (RIM)’s Blackberry Enterprise Server 5.0, known as Argon, will launch in the second quarter of 2009 and will include more user-friendly functions, like the ability to view attachments in calendar entries.

Some of the improvements will include:

• Retrieve corporate documents behind firewalls
• Add, read, rename and delete folders on the handset and have those changes be applied to the desktop email client
• Create rules within the inbox to filter email and have those changes be applied to the desktop
• View attachments in calendar entries and meeting requests
• Download and store emails and email attachments onto microSD cards

Over-the-air updates will also be easier for administrators and users in this new version of BES.

[Boy Genius Report and Computerworld]

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Blockbuster is set to test out offering video games in addition to movies via its Total Access rental by mail system. It’s a move Netflix probably won’t counter.

Blockbuster is testing offering games now, and planning to offer it to customers in the second half of this year. Netflix has made no noise on the subject, and judging by the fact that it promotes Gamefly in envelope ads, probably doesn’t have immediate plans to jump on board.

There’s no word on the pricing of a movies-and-games package at Blockbuster, but they did mention half-priced game rentals in-store, so that could be nice. [Hacking Netflix]

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Until we get organic cyborg beetles at the pet store, we’ll have to use these RC helicopters that look like real roaches.

Here’s an idea: get a dozen and control them all using the same channel. In a four star restaurant. 30 minutes of charge equals 5 minutes of sheer dining terror and a few months of painful health inspection investigations. If you’re terrible and into that kind of thing. [Gizmine]

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It’s not quite Hulu, but CBS just dropped a ton of their old favorites into a decent flash web player, serving them up for free with a couple short ad clips. Plus, Melrose Place!

The flash player kind of sucks, but apparently the site works internationally, which isn’t always the case for these types of services (maybe not – commenters aren’t having any luck outside the states). So all of you expatriates missing that unique brain sensation only golden-era USA TV can provide, you are in luck sadly still fucked. Looking at a lot of these, I can feel being dug up from deep in my cortexes the exact feeling of being at home sick in elementary school in 1991.

Here’s the complete list of shows, for which almost all have complete seasons:

Beauty and the Beast
Beverly Hills 90210
Dynasty
Family Ties
Have Gun – Will Travel
Hawaii Five-0
The Love Boat
MacGyver
Melrose Place
Perry Mason
Star Trek: The Original Series
The Twilight Zone
Twin Peaks

Enjoy. [CBS Classics - thanks, Trina and Tony!]

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Lots of things are wigging me out about the burned up CCTV building. Are fireworks that dangerous? What will happen with all that debris? And WHY are they censoring news of it over here?

The building that caught fire was the Rem Koolhaas designed companion to the CCTV angular marvel. Named the Television Cultural Center, it was supposed to be a more lighthearted companion to its hulking sister. Besides a 300 room luxury hotel (The Mandarin Oriental), it would have also held restaurants and spas, recording studios and a 1,500-seat theater.

The design was equally as fascinating as the CCTV headquarters (nicknamed Big Underpants or Big Hemorrhoids by the Chinese public). The Office of Metropolitan Architecture, Koolhaas’ firm, drew inspiration from giant termite mounds.

The first four floors protruded from the building’s facade like randomly-arranged boxes and the entire building was to be wrapped in a unique titanium zinc alloy. OMA had chosen the material, ironically, because it would “endure time better than other metal buildings.”

Right now the official story is that the Mandarin Oriental, which was located at the top, caught fire from the myriad of fireworks set off to mark the Lantern Festival. Beijing usually bans the fireworks from its downtown area, but eases restrictions during the Spring Festival period (we really, really love our fireworks). But did you see how that building burned? Has anyone ever seen a skyscraper light up like that without… you know, being hit by a jet?

But what weirds me out the most is the government response. This notice went out to news websites, BBS and blogs telling moderators to stop reporting on the CCTV fire. That means posting no more pictures, videos and only using the officially-sponsored Xinhua report.

Why? Some say it’s because the CCP doesn’t want anybody to know about it until they’ve determined the cause of the fire – having millions assume that Beijing was under terrorist attack would be damaging to the country’s harmony. But wouldn’t a “The CCTV building caught fire last night. Cause is unknown, but terrorism is unlikely” blurb solve that?

I know I’m living in a country that doesn’t find anything wrong with censorship. And sometimes, considering the scarily huge masses of people they have to deal with, I can understand why. Nonetheless, my jaw’s really on the floor right now. I never thought that something this newsworthy, and this hard to hide, would get the silent treatment. I eagerly await what they government say when they finally hold a press conference on it.

The pictures are from Flickr user fuzheado. Here’s another amazing gallery of the TVCC building by Ai De Ke.

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The latest ad in Microsoft’s retaliatory $300 million “I’m a PC” campaign is all sorts of cute. This spot, set to air during the Grammy’s, is a departure from some of their other practices.

Now, how will the unstoppable force that is Apple and Hodgman bury this tiny tot? We await Apple’s next retaliatory-retaliatory ad spot.

[LiveSide — Thanks, Lorenc!]

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Auto-tuning, the practice of digitally “repairing” off-key vocal tracks, is more visibly prominent than ever. But it’s even more ubiquitous than people realize, and some musicians and fans aren’t happy about it.

Auto-tune really only entered public consciousness with the release of that one Cher song that’s somehow still playing in malls more than a decade later. And lately, some rappers, most notably T-Pain and most distressingly Kanye West, have taken up the robotic vocal torch. Even stark minimalist Bon Iver used the software, made by Antares Audio Technologies, on his most recent EP. But Time’s recent article explains that auto-tune is used on just about every major-label pop album these days, from Britney Spears to Faith Hill. It’s now assumed that auto-tuning will be applied to almost any recording that doesn’t specifically refuse it.

Some, including legendary producer Rick Rubin and possible love of my life Neko Case, aren’t fans of the near-required use of auto-tuning. Rubin notes that many classic recordings were only achieved after repeated attempts, and that emotion and passion can be lost with the use of the software. Case, in typical brash honesty, declared, “That shit sounds like shit!” regarding auto-tuned singers, and compared it to the artificiality of diet soda.

We often forget that it’s the imperfection of vocals that can make them the most powerful. There’s nothing wrong with glossy bubblegum like T-Pain, but to use auto-tuning indiscriminately can absolutely kill honest emotion.

On the other hand, it’s hard not to like T-Pain; his unabashed lack of singing ability doesn’t make him a lesser pop artist, and his pledge to create an iPhone app that would allow anybody to auto-tune themselves into a crooning robot actually sounds like a great idea. Britney, you can fix your warble all you want, but leave the serious music alone, okay? [Time]

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Who says Canada sucks for gadgets? Oh, wait. Well, Ottawa’s Winterlude festival includes this huge icy BlackBerry (Curve 8900?), showing hometown hero RIM’s contribution to the gadget world. Way to represent, eh? [thanks, Ryan!]

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