New car!

As you’ll know already if you follow me on Twitter, I bought a new car this week. After a mess-up by the garage and a bit of hassle, I picked it up on Thursday. The car is a Vauxhall Astra 5-Door 1.7 CDTI. If you know me too well, you’ll know this is the exact model car I learned to drive in.

After a year and a half driving an eight year old, 1.25ltr, 3-Door Fiesta, the Astra is a huge upgrade… as well as feeling like a huge car. Everything’s just so much more polished, and a lot more modern. I’m going on my first long-distance run in it tomorrow, to Macclesfield, to see Em. Hoping to see what kind of mileage I get from a full tank of diesel, and give the engine a bit of a power test!

Car leasing?

I got the dreaded call with the results of my car’s MOT today. Unfortunately, it was not good news. My car failed, quite a lot:

• The two front tires are just below the legal limit
• Advisory that the two rear tires are nearing the legal limit
• The front-left wheel is damaged/bent
• Advisory that one of the rear tires has a nail in it
• The left hand rear brake pipe (whatever that is) is corroded
• and, most worryingly, the windscreen wash is EMPTY.

I’m going to get it repaired, of course… I have little choice… but I was wondering, does anyone have any experience with car leasing? Is it cost efficient? Are there always mileage limits?

I do about 20-25,000 miles a year, and would like to rent either something like the new Fiesta, or an Astra Hatchback. If I can do that for the same, or close to the same price I’m paying for my car loan (£144 a month), then I’m almost certainly going to do so.

Still a geek? Yep!

I’ve just watched the keynote from Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference. That’s really all I need to say to confirm the title, but alas, there is more…

I’m completely taken by the new MacBook Pro, to the point that I’ve just priced the one I want:

• 15″ Screen
• Graphics cards: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB
• 4GB DDR3 RAM
• 128GB Solid State Hard Drive

Now I just need to find the £1,739 to pay for it! I think for now I’ll have to be happy with buying Snow Leopard for this 13″ white MacBook.

I’m also hugely impressed with the iPhone 3GS, I’m wondering if existing customers will be able to upgrade cheaply? If so, I’ll probably get that too. The TomTom for iPhone application due out this summer is an almost guaranteed buy for me, too, as I’ll be able to get rid of my current Garmin Nüvi. I should note that the Garmin is brilliant, but one device that does all things? Yes please.

Why is it that every year I want everything announced?

My latest attempt at a blog…

Welcome to dancryer.com, long time web home of web developer Dan Cryer. There have been a number of blogs on this site over the years, all of which have been taken down eventually due to lack of activity. Here’s my latest attempt!

With this blog, I’m not going to promise to post regularly, I’m just going to post when I have something to say. If you find any of the articles on the site interesting, please let me know, and I’ll aim to write more like it!