HIDs

My low beam HID (xenon light) died on my GTI :(, so, I read about it and found some nice articles:

1. Very detailed on fabrication and differences between real and counterfeit:
http://priuschat.com/threads/not-all-hid-bulbs-are-created-equal.101472/

2. Explains how to replace them in the GTI:
http://golfmkv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14545&highlight=HID+Headlight
http://www.golfmkv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158496

The key to success is to place the bulb first on the lamp. Do not try with the holder. No way you can align everything. First practice with the broken bulb. The bulb has the return wire, which goes on bottom (see groove in the lamp) and two notches, a square one (on top) and a round one (to the side). If you place the bulb in the lamp correctly, it'll stay there as long as you don't touch it/shake it. Then, carefully, you bring the plastic holder, with the contact in the bottom, a bit offset to the side. Notice that the holder has two grooves internally, at 180 degrees of each other. These match with the two pivots from the bulb. So, if everything is aligned, the holder will go in, all the way to the lamp, matching grooves with pivots and then you rotate it like 10 degrees and will do "click". Again, practice all this with the old bulb. It is easy and no strength required. The main trouble is the narrow spots to work with. Basically I couldn't avoid my bulb to touch the sides of the lamp as I was placing it, but seems ok...

3. Some people will recommend taking the headlight out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ryUllFJoVg

4. On fake HID (HID-like) lights:
http://reviews.ebay.com/quot-Xenon-quot-and-quot-HID-quot-and-quot-Plasma-quot-bulbs-the-truth?ugid=10000000001832221


My car uses D2S. In Autozone I can get Sylvania (PN39223) for $100, 3200 lumens, 4k (temp/color).
but in xenondepot.com I can get a Philips (original OEM) for $70!! So, it's a no brainer:
http://www.kbcarstuff.com/Philips-4300k-D2S-Bulb-p/pb-d2s-4k.htm
Update (2/9/20): The link above is dead. So bought them from Amazon for $45 (nice, they've gone down...). Also I had forgotten to write down the reference of the Philips, so, just pulled my just burnt bulb (driver side) and it says: Philips Germany, D2S, 35W, 85122, E1, 03V, DOT 323A04

I didn't give a try to the ebay types, but may have worked out (not sure).

UPDATE (6/16/2013): My driver side (the other side from the above fix) died today... Just for the record...

UPDATE (2/05/2020): My driver side suddenly changed color to purplish. Still lights up but I am thinking that it may die anytime... We will see...

PS.: By the way, turning off the DRL (day running lights) seems to be only possible through Wagcom. Stupid :(

PS2.: More stupid even. Because DRLs are always on, the inner headlights are useless. Very nice write up here: http://www.golfmkv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66060

Installing Matlab (exclusive for my company)

This works with my company, so, may not work with yours...

1. Go to: http://flames.design.**.com/ReleaseMessages/mathworks/relmsg_mathworks_R2011b.html, where ** should be replaced by the name of my company.
2. Follow those instructions.
3. To add a toolbox follow also those instructions. It is missing that you will have to re-run the installer again if you did it at a different time. Going through control panel does not work:
4. You have to do like if you were going to install a brand new matlab but choose "custom". 
5. If the zip files of the toolboxes are on the same directory as the installer, it will detect those and list them here. 
6. Select them and install... 
7. It may give you an error that the installation may not be all right, in the end, but ignore it.
8. Run Matlab and you should see those packages after typing "ver"
9. You should be able to run also now the functions on those toolboxes.
10. To change where you want it to start by default use, for instance: userpath('C:\MATLAB\work')

Enjoy! :)

Install CCS on Eclipse

------ Update -------

[See at the end of this update for my previous post]

So, everything look like it was working, but I did get some kind of java weird error. Maybe I should have installed 3.7.2 but anyhow, didn't get it to work so, got tired of this and installed CCS with its own Eclipse. I looked then at what that distribution had and it looks like it is more complete than the one that you just get by getting Eclipse and CDT.

The CCS on its own is:

The Eclipse+CDT+CCS is:

The extra packages are Target Management, Mylyn, EGit and one more (can't remember). I didn't see any difference between installing Eclipse SDK (170MB) or Eclipse Binary distribution (52MB). The first icon on the left comes from CDT, the 4th from Eclipse and the rest from CCS. I wonder if installing a different version of Eclipse would have changed this, but got sick of all these tests and now I am running Qt in Eclipse Juno, and CCS with its own distribution of Eclipse 3.8, apart.

--------------------------

This is the "supposed" way to make it work. Did it but didn't work:
http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Installing_CCS_over_Eclipse

Below there is a bunch of links with the same problem, but finally found the answer here:
http://e2e.ti.com/support/development_tools/code_composer_studio/f/81/p/207977/736711.aspx#736711

Basic solution, is an issue with Eclipse and CDT versions. So, get them here:
1. Download Eclipse Platform 3.8 (platform runtime binary) and unzip in, say, c:\Eclipse:
http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.8-201206081200/
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.8-201206081200/eclipse-platform-3.8-win32.zip

2. Download CDT 8.1 here. Then use help-->install new software and point to the zip file:
http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/downloads.php
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/tools/cdt/releases/juno/r/cdt-master-8.1.0.zip

After that follow the instructions of the original link:
http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Installing_CCS_over_Eclipse

Once working, run Eclipse and you should get a splash screen with the license selection. You are ready to go!

======== Other links that didn't take me to the answer, just for future reference ============

A support inquiry telling them that they don't need to install Eclipse before CCS (CCS install already includes it):

http://e2e.ti.com/support/development_tools/code_composer_studio/f/81/t/191627.aspx
but what the heck, if you already had Eclipse...!

This guy has exactly the same problem/symptoms. Solves it by reinstalling stuff, but not exactly found out why:
http://e2e.ti.com/support/development_tools/code_composer_studio/f/81/t/177512.aspx

And yet one more guy:
http://e2e.ti.com/support/development_tools/code_composer_studio/f/81/t/164116.aspx
I add a post here...

By the way, the log error for CCS install is in program files x86 --> installhammer

Paste pictures in blogger

After having trouble with cut and paste kind of action, I found this link with useful hints:
http://tips.blogdoctor.me/2007/10/tips-on-pictures-in-blogger.html

Using QT with Eclipse - Hello world

I had found couple of articles on this, but they were not a fit and much more complicated than it really is (so, don't follow them if you are in my situation - Windows/Eclipse). The first looks like it was for Linux:
http://koehllab.genomecenter.ucdavis.edu/documentation/how-to/how-to-use-eclipse-with-qt/

The second was for the Qt Creator environment (full Qt SDK installation, not like me, with Eclipse):
http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/gettingstartedqt.html

Truth is that things are actually very straightforward. If you create a project following the Wizard, you'll get a Qt hello_world window without typing a line of code. The 2nd link is useful to understand how things are actually working (open the different pieces of code and compare them to see what the wizard did for you automatically). Also, trying to use a C++ project straight from Qt and add the libraries manually is probably a big pain, based on this post:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7775398/eclipse-qt-and-c-project-is-it-possible

Anyhow, so, how to do it? Basically, once Qt/Eclipse is installed (see my previous post on that) you should see on the top right of Eclipse a perspective for Qt:



Selecting the Qt C++ perspective and then File --> New we see:




If you don't press/select Qt C++, and you click in File --> New, you should at least see "Project..." option:



 And clicking it, you should get the option to create a Qt project.

 Either way, you can then just pick Qt Gui Project and follow the steps:

1. The project name can have spaces in there.
2. On the next dialog, try either one (QWidget, QMainWindow, ...). 
3. No need to select any additional Qt modules (Core and Gui are enough)
4. Click finish

Then go to project --> build project

After that, simply click the run (green "play" arrow) and the following window will show up (see note 1):

I selected MinGW gdb, click ok and wait for the application window to show up. Should be immediate. In this case:

That should be it! If you want to quickly play around, check the Project Explorer View, on the left of Eclipse.



If you double click in qt_another_test.ui you can see the shape of the window of your application. Clicking in the Qt C++ Widget Box tap, besides the Project Explorer view, you can add buttons, slide bars, etc... Click on the .cpp, .pro or .h to see the code. Now you can begin to make sense of the explanations on the tutorial listed above...
http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/gettingstartedqt.html

Good luck!

(1) If a message box shows up saying: "The selection can not be launched or there are not recent launches" right click on the project and select "Clean Project"