James's Blogs

The World's Best Diet

2014-07-01T07:00:00.002-07:00

While watching the television last night I saw a program advertised about the world's best diet. It sounded interesting so put it on.

The program was called "The World's Best Diet". It was about the top 50 diets from around the world. When I say diet I mean the food eaten day to day rather than a fad 3 month lost weight diet!
Jimmy Doherty and Kate Quilton travel around the world looking at different countries, and tribes or groups, and what they eat. Starting at the worst, number 50, working their way to the best diet, number 1.

It was interesting to see what different countries and cultures eat but there was an interesting point made. It didn't seem to matter if your diet was lots of fruit and veg or mainly fish, the point made was about processed foods. All the healthy diets had almost no processed food (commercially prepared food) and the closer to their raw form the better.

Here is a link to the program on channel 4 website: The World's Best Diet

Smart Lunar 35 Bike Light

2013-10-31T07:37:00.002-07:00

I ride to work most days and up until the clocks changed I didn't really need a very bright light.

I used to ride to London, via an over ground train, in to the office everyday. So I was using a CatEye OptiCube HL- EL300 and it was fine.
It didn't need to light up the road too much because of street lights, it just needed to make me be seen and, although it was a bit battered and scratched, it did it's job very well.

Since then I have changed jobs and didn't ride to work any more until recently. I moved office which was closer to home, which prompted me to cycle to work again.

All was fine until the clocks changed over at the weekend, meaning my cycle home was now in the dark.
The journey was going well until I got to a stretch of road that was unlit.
The CateEye OptiCube HL-EL300 was not up to the job on this stretch of unlit road. I could barely see the road in front of me and if it wasn't for the headlights of the cars going past I'd have probably crashed in to the curb!
It was time to get a new light, so I cracked open my laptop and searched the internet.

While searching for a new bicycle light I found that there are two types of light, those with a built in rechargeable battery and those that require batteries. I can see why it's nice to have a built-in rechargeable battery but after a limited number of recharge cycles the battery will eventually die. This means you will eventually have to purchase a new light. Rather than have this happen I wanted a bike light that needed batteries. The only down side to this option is that there are a limited number of high powered cycle lights that use batteries.

Searching around on the internet, and reading reviews, I came across a bicycle light from Smart; Smart Lunar 35. It requires two AA, LR-06, batteries and has three different modes; steady low power beam, steady high power beam, and flashing high power beam.
The stated running times are:

12 hours in low power mode.
5 hours in high power mode.
18 hours in flashing mode.

It comes with a mounting bracket that doesn't require any rubber padding and just a screw driver to fit.

Also included are two alkaline AA, LR-06, batteries.

When I first received the light I was wondering how it would compare to my old CatEye, would it be brighter? The short answer is yes, yes it was!
It was a lot brighter than my old CatEye OptiCube and was focused in to one point. With the light off you can see that it is just one LED bulb with a reflector behind, which focuses the light in to a point.

I waited until it was dark and tried it out on my bicycle, what a difference it made! This light, lights up the ground very well. The light is focus in to a point about a foot, or so, wide but this is large enough to see everything you need to see.

I would recommend this bicycle light for use on lit and unlit roads but if your after car head light brightness then I think your only option is a rechargeable bicycle light.

Breastfeeding Low Milk Supply - Fact or Myth?

2013-10-25T02:17:00.003-07:00

While it's true I am a man and as such I don't have first hand experience of breastfeeding. However my wife successfully breastfeed our first child for 9 months and is currently breastfeeding our second, who is now just over a month old.

Our first child wanted to feed all the time anything between 30 minutes, at worst, to 3 hours at best. This continued to for the first 8 weeks or so and was hard for my wife. After those first few weeks it became a fair bit easier as he would feed more regularly around every 2 hours.

What made it difficult was the cluster feeding and using the breastfeeding to settle when nothing else would work. I don't think we ever thought there wasn't enough milk just that it was hard going. For this I am very proud of my wife. It seems that women get to this stage and feel like they don't have enough milk and go on to the bottle, were in fact it's pretty normal if a hard work. But, for us, after those first few weeks it got much easier.

I saw this article which prompted my to write this blog today. I basically says that women do have enough milk, or rather have the capacity of producing enough milk. The cluster feeding is the babies way of getting the milk supply of the mother to what it requires. So you could say there isn't enough milk but the baby is telling the mum it wants more and she then produces more.

Good luck with the breastfeeding, remember you can do it!

DIY: How to Clean Your Car's Air Conditioning System in 10 Minutes

2013-06-06T10:58:00.001-07:00

As the weather has just started to warm up, finally, I've started to use my car's air conditioning. But started to notice that it was smelling a bit when I turned it on in the morning after it had been on the day before. You know the smell, musty, old socks kind of smell, not nice!
So rather than going to the local car maintenance shop and spending £12+ on some air conditioning cleaner that doesn't work. That's right I tried one last year and it smelt nice and orangey in the car but that musty smell came back with a day or two. I decided to try something else much cheaper, £3 in fact from my local supermarket!

Having search YouTube I came across a video that someone had made about using a household aerosol disinfectant. The chap on the video was American and was using a brand called Lysol, but we don't have that in the UK. So on a trip to the local supermarket I found this; Dettol Disinfectant Spray.

How Clean the Air Conditioning System
First of all you need to find out where either your recirculate air duct is, inside the car. It's where air is recirculated in the car rather than pulling in fresh air from outside. It's usually in the passengers side foot well. If you put the recirculate on and turn the car fan up full you should be able to feel around and feel where the air is going.
Alternatively, like I did, you can locate the out side air intake for the fan. It's usually underneath the plastic shroud beneath the front windscreen wipers. On my Seat Ibiza it is just a case of unclipping the plastic and pulling it away and out. Yours may have some screws or require the windscreen wipers to be removed. On my car this revealed the pollen filter. I'd say remove this because anything you spray my well just be soaked up by the pollen filter! I simply took this out, by prising it out of the clips, which exposed the intake duct (you could see the fan inside!).
If you can see the fan and put your hands near, be careful the fan moves very fast and could hurt you!

Now you need to do the following:

Start the car and turn on the air conditioning.
Open all the windows in the car as this will get quite smelly and could be dangerous if inhaled!
Turn the air conditioning down to it's lowest setting, cold as it will go!
Turn the fan speed to it's maximum.
Shake the disinfectant can and aim the spray in to the air intake, whether it is the recirculate or the outside intake.
Spray around half the can in to the duct. I did this in busts of a few seconds at a time so that not too much liquid would build up near the fan.
Leave the fan on full and air conditioning on for around 10 minutes.

That's it! If you took the outside air intake route then you will need to assemble this.

You may want to leave the car windows open for a few hours after performing this as it will be a fairly strong smell inside the car.

SAFETY
Be careful with Aerosols they can be dangerous.
Please note any warnings on the aerosol can.

Favourite Peugeot 306 Diesel/Hdi Starting and Running

2013-03-05T02:54:00.000-08:00

After many hours of searching around, and watching videos on the famous www.youtube.com, here are some of my favourite 306 diesel videos.

The first one is this. Seems like the injectors are a bit shot but shows quite a bit of smoke:

The second is this, which is a follow on from the first one:

The third video is, talk about cold -22!

Forth video I found is this, a bit of a slow starter but much smoke!

Fifth is this, another smoky revving one:

Sixth video:

Seventy video, which is HD starting a 306

Eighth video is this flaming exhaust 306 Hdi:

Ninth video is a 0 to 60, well you have to show that the old Hdi has a bit of power in it!

Finally the tenth video of the classic 1.9 diesel engine running:

And lastly this one, which isn't a 306 but I wanted to put on here as I do secretly, and oddly, like watching it.

My Two Peugeot 306 Diesel and Hdi

2013-03-05T02:01:00.000-08:00

I have owned two diesel Peugeot 306's over the past 8 years! And you can't help but love them!

The first one I owned was a 1998 1.9 diesel, non turbo, model. She was a pretty simple car with manual windows and no air con but did have power steering.

I'd never owned a 306 before and from the moment I started it and drove it, I loved it!!
It is difficult to say why I loved driving her so much but I think it had something to do with the sound of it, on tick over, that I found relaxing - especially in traffic.

She was pretty cheap and easy to maintain mainly because she was a diesel pretty much mechanical rather than electronic. That means that in the 6 years I owned her, and with nearly 140,000 miles (225,000 km) on the clock, she didn't break down once!
The only reason I sold her was because I needed a car with 5 doors rather than the 3 it had. So I opted for another 306! This time a 2001 306 2.0 Hdi! Here she is being started up from cold:

I have owned her for 2 years now, although it's mainly my wife that drives her at the moment, and haven't had any major problems so far.
When I got her I changed the timing belt and gave her a good service. The timing belt wasn't too difficult, it took a few hours to do because it is a bit fiddly and at one point my stupidity thinking I had lost a screw but in fact I hadn't!
I did need to change the crack shaft pulley, a few months back, because it was making a terrible noise - more so when revving the engine. It was a close call because when I removed the belt I found it had a 6 inch split down it! So was lucky it didn't rip completely and rap around the pulleys.

Hopefully we will get quite a few more years of work out of her, she's currently up to 104,000 miles (about 167,000 km).

Weight Loss, Diet, Health and Excerise

2013-02-26T05:09:00.003-08:00

Every time I turn on the television I seem to be told that I am overweight or eating too much sugary/fatty, 'bad', food. I should be eating 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, not to much red meat, don't drink too much, blah, blah...

I don't disagree with all that the media say about eating but I am getting a little tired of it being rammed down my throat!

As a kid I wasn't the smallest, bit over weight with a bit of a belly, actually! But when I got to 18 and started a part time job in my local supermarket, I started to loss the weight. Since then I've pretty much, apart from a bit of fluctuation around the 1 stone mark, stayed the same weight.

Because I was chunky as a kid I've been quite aware of my weight over the years, which means I've always wanted to try and be thin.

To keep my weight in reign I've always tried to do do a fair bit of exercise. I have been a member of 4 gyms in about 12 years. I went through a period of two years when I cycled every day to and from work, while I worked in London. About 10 years ago I took up jogging and over the years, while going to the gym, took part in two 10 mile runs, two half marathons and two 10 km runs.

During that time my weight has pretty much stayed the same. The reason for this is, is because as I do more exercise I eat more food! Pretty simple really.

Drinking alcohol hasn't changed much either, although while training for the runs I did notice the effect of alcohol the next day! If I'd had just a pint or two I would feel it the next day if it was a longer run, say 1 hour plus.

So what is my suggestion for keeping the weight off?

Don't worry about cutting everything out of your diet for good. If you eat a lot of a 'bad' food, say chocolate, then go cold turkey for a week or two so that you don't crave it so much or rely on it. For example it's easy to eat a bit of chocolate after dinner in front of the television. Soon you develop a habit of eating chocolate and your body expects it. Cutting that out for a week or two stops the habit.
Don't go on a diet! Going on a diet is quite short sighted, in a way. You end up focusing on your goal weight, which means you loss the weight, and is great, but doesn't help for the time after that. What happens after you reach your goal is you will start to slip in to your old habits, thinking I'm thin now I can eat that and I'll be fine. It builds up and before long you undo all the great work.
Rather than a diet look at what you eat as long term, something that you want to keep up for the foreseeable future. That doesn't mean boring food all the time either or missing out on 'bad' food. If you eat a piece of cake on one day, that's fine, just don't do it every day.
Try eating less but a little slower, you will realise that you don't feel hungry and you don't need as much.
Try to fit in some exercise, that doesn't mean you have to shell out lots of money by joining a gym. No try walking for 30 mins most days, briskly. Or find something you like doing, first time you do it, it may be hard but if you keep it up you will grown stronger and will be able to manage to go further. Take jogging - first time I went to a gym I could only manage 2 minutes on the treadmill before feeling like I was dying and my heart was about to come out of my chest! But after building it up I've run 13 over 13 miles in half marathons!

Go on give it a try!

My Seat Ibiza 1.4 Mpi, cool/s, Year 2000 (1999 - 2002)

2013-02-13T04:23:00.001-08:00

I was just thinking about my Seat Ibiza and thought I’d blog about it!

Here is a video of me starting the beast!

I brought my Seat Ibiza back in April 2012 as a replacement to my Toyota Corolla, 1997 Sportif - which had failed it’s MOT.

My Seat Ibiza is a 1.4 Mpi, 8 valve, cool/s model, which means it has climate control - or Autoclima as Seat seem to call it. During the summer it works a treat, after a re-gas that is! I’d never experienced the air conditioning in a VW/Seat car before, really nice and cold!!
When it comes to winter, thought, it’s a whole other ball game! If the temperature goes below 2.5 deg C, that’s Ext temperature sensor, the AC doesn’t come on. The AC icon on the central display doesn’t show even after you press the manual override AC button.
There is also another sensor below the windscreen wipers, under the plastic cover, that also stops the AC from coming on. This turns off the AC if the temperature falls below -1 deg C and turns it on again if it goes above 7 deg C. So if the temperature outside falls below -1 deg C then goes up to 3 deg C, the AC doesn’t come on. The icon on the central display shows up but the AC doesn’t kick in. If you drive around for a while, and after being parked up for some time, the sensor seems to warm up and the AC will come on.
This is a bit of a pain during the winter months when it gets cold. Even after driving around for an hour the AC will not come on because the Ext temperature is, say, 2 deg C.

Engine
What can I say about the engine in this car?
Well for starters it sounds a lot like a Diesel! When I had the air conditioning re-gassed the bloke who did the re-gas mentioned that he thought it was a diesel! That is until he saw the 1.4 Mpi on the engine and realised it was petrol. What a complement!?
So, what’s it like to drive when you put your foot down?
Well, it’s pretty slow! This is down to the hair dryer that lives under the bonnet. It is a 1.4 injected, 8 valve petrol engine and produces 60 PS of power, which is about 59 bhp or 44 Kw. 0 to 62 mph (0 - 100kmh) takes 14.6 seconds, which seems like a long time when you try it!
The fuel economy isn’t that great either, at the moment it is running at around 40 mpg - combined driving. Which I think for a 1.4 engine is quite poor especially as I drive it like an old man, staying at around 60 mph on the motorway! If I compare it to car I used to have a Renault Clio, RenaultSport, 172, which was a 2 litre engine with VVT. That used to average 37 mpg, combined driving, and I was doing 70 mph (perhaps maybe more... ;o)) on the motorways.

All in though I do like driving my Ibiza! :o)

Nandos 1/4 Chicken - Rip Off

2013-01-28T07:37:00.003-08:00

Today my wife and I decided we would treat ourselves to lunch out and decided on Nando's!

OK not the most extravagant meal out but a meal out all the same. Don't tend to get to go out much these days as we have a toddler!

Having driven in to town and parked up we walked to the restaurant battling the slightly drizzly and very blustery, cold winter weather. Despite the weather forecast for cloud and sunshine!
We opened the door and were greeted by a lovely warm blast of air and some gentle Portuguese background music.
The waitress picked up two menus and the obligatory chicken centrepiece, that holds the salt and pepper, and showed us to our seat - near the window.
I opened the menu and had a good look through it. Up and down the pages through the different versions of chicken, chicken burger, regular and posh side dishes before deciding on what to have. 1/4 of a chicken, chips and rice, twice!

My wife walked off to "powder" her nose and by the time she got back our food had arrived! No that doesn't mean she was a long time but in fact the food came surprisingly quickly!
All looked good on first inspection but then I noticed it, like a thump in the arm from someone nudging you out of the way as they walk past. My 1/4 of chicken was the thigh and leg and my wife has the breast and wing.
Now I don't know about you but when I order two 1/4's of a chicken I expect them to have the same amount of chicken in both portions! But no, my leg and thigh were far smaller than the breast 1/4!
So what did I do?
As you have probably guessed by writing this blog and by the fact I'm British, nothing! When the waitress come round to ask if everything was OK, of course my response was, "Yes everything is lovely thank you!". What I really wanted to say was, "No everything is not OK. My wife seems to have a chicken on her plate and I have a drum stick!". But I didn't.

So what's the moral here?
Well one is, make sure you ask for the 1/4 chicken that contains the breast otherwise expect to have very little chicken!
The other is; don't eat it and send it back!

You live and learn, not sure I'll be so keen to visit Nando's again any time soon, even if I do have a loyalty card now!!

In The Night Garden

2012-11-16T02:38:00.000-08:00

The first time I saw In the Night Garden I didn't rate it very much, who would as an adult. But then I listened to the theme music and it got me. I'm ashamed to admit it but I do find it quite relaxing:

In the Night Garden Characters

Makka Pakka

I think he's my favourite, mainly because he has an insane song and the fact he goes around washing the other characters faces!
Here is Makka Pakka's song:
Makka Pakka,
Akka Wakka,
Mikka Makka moo.

Makka Pakka,
Appa yakka,
Ikka akka, ooo.

Hum dum,
Agga pang,
Ing, ang, ooo.

Makka Pakka,
Akka wakka,
Mikka Makka moo.

Iggle Piggle

Here is Iggle Piggles song:
Yes - my name is Igglepiggle,
Igglepiggle, wiggle, niggle, diggle!
Yes - my name is Igglepiggle,
Igglepiggle, niggle, wiggle, woo!

Upsy Daisy

Here is Upsy Daisy's song:
Upsy Daisy here I come,
I'm the only Upsy one!
I'm the only Daisy too,
Ipsy, Upsy, Daisy Doo.

Tombilboos

Here is the Tombliboo's song:
Ombliboo Tombliboo
Knock on the door,
Ombliboo Tombliboo
Sit on the floor,
Ombliboo Tombliboo
Here is my nose,
Ombliboo Tombliboo
That's how it goes!

Pontipines

Here is the Pontipine's song:
The Pontipines are friends of mine,
Although they're only small,
And even when there's ten of them,
They're hardly there at all!
One Pontipine
Two Pontipines
Three Pontipines
Four Pontipines
Five Pontipines
Six Pontipines
Seven Pontipines
Eight Pontipines
Nine Pontipines
Ten Pontipines

IBM Lotus Notes Awful

2012-11-15T07:07:00.000-08:00

Lotus Notes release 8.5.x has to be the worst IDE I have ever used!

Let's start with opening Lotus Notes. It takes forever when you use the 'Standard' version, basic isn't so bad but then you don't get all the new features included and looks like release 8. It's not like I have a slow laptop I've got 4Gb of Ram and a Intel Core(TM) Duo CPU T9300, that's 2 cores at 2.5Ghz!

As a programmer I used the Designer part of Lotus Notes and this, I'm afraid, is pretty much the same.
Opening the designer can take a long time, opening any design element can also take a long time.
Then there is the applications perspective, that lists all recent databases you've worked on. If the server is not available and you want to remove that database from the list expect to wait! I don't know what for, it's not like I'm trying to open it I just want to remove it from the list.

Other parts of designer that are poor

The type ahead in Lotus Script is flaky, working only when it feels like it. Then there is the fact that it only works in Script Libraries or Agents.
Sometimes while you are typing away at your code the cursor jumps one space backwards, so you end up with the first character in front of the cursor position.
Pasting code in Lotus Script automatically puts the cursor at the end of the line. Not very useful when you want to type some more after the pasted code, which happens to be in the middle of the existing code!

Release 8.5.x looks great and the type ahead is better than nothing. However, look at Microsoft and Visual Studio, that is a absolute joy to use. The intellisense works perfectly every time, if it doesn't then you have made a mistake in your code somewhere. That's how good it is!

I heard a quote from someone once, "Good software goes to IBM to die". In my opinion that is very true. Since IBM took over with Lotus Notes it's gotten worse! Not to mention companies are dropping it in favour of Mirosoft Exchange.
It's such a shame, because you get so much included in Lotus Notes, it's not just an e-mail program. Ok it's not as good as a relational database but it is a heck of a lot better than Excel! You know who you are people out there who are Excel 'whiz kids', Excel was never designed to work that way!!

Autolamps Cobalt II Blue Headlight Bulbs

2012-10-31T03:40:00.001-07:00

Driving along one evening with my lights on I noticed that one of my headlights wasn't working. So I had a look and as you'd expect the bulb had blown!

I searched around in the shed and found an old H7 bulb that I could use. I plugged it in and all was good! However, I thought that the lights were a little dull and compared to the other cars on the road, a bit yellow.
"Hmmm", I thought, "it's time to search the internet for some new headlight bulbs!". So I fired up the laptop and started Googling! Ebay, Amazon, Halfords (or as I like to call them Halfrauds), all had bulbs but the bright ones that weren't supposed to be yellow, but a nice white colour, were pretty expensive - circa £30 for a pair!

After a bit more searching I suddenly remembered the Auto Express website, who tend to test out things for cars, like bulbs. So I headed over to their website and looked for a review of headlight bulbs.
After a short search I found that they had a top three of bulbs Auto Express:
1st place: Philips X-tremeVision,
2nd place: Philips VisionPlus,
3rd place: Autolamps Cobalt II.

The first two were pretty pricey, but probably would have been worth the money. But I thought the Autolamp Cobalt II bulbs looked good and they were pretty reasonably priced to at £12.95 (including 2 side light bulbs as well).

I headed over to the web site that sold the Cobalt II bulbs, www.phoenixautobulbs.co.uk. I was a little weary of the site at the start because I'd never heard of them before. After some thought I decided that they must be OK if they are mentioned on the Auto Express website. So I ordered two pairs of them, you know just in case a bulb blows in the future and the price has gone up. It cost £25.90 and the P&P was free! It says on their website that their standard delivery is free and will take a few days to arrive. So I was very surprised when on Saturday morning the post man delivered a package with my light bulbs in!!

Like a child at Christmas opening their presents, I ripped through the jiffy bag and pulled out the two pairs of bulbs. Then headed straight out the front door on a mission to change my bulbs! Never mind it was 12pm and bright day light! I plugged them in and tested them out... but I couldn't see much difference. "O no", I thought, what a waste of money. Perhaps I'll wait and see what they are like in the dark.

After an agonising wait of a few hours I tried them in the dark! Can't say they looked much different while in the car. However, when I got out of the car and looked at them, they did look a lot whiter than the old bulbs I had before. Not such a waste of money then after all! Yay!!

Now, a couple of days later I'm topping up the water on my wife's car, as she mentioned a light had come on in the car! While topping up the water I decided to compare my headlights to her's...
What a difference, I thought I was back in France during the 80s when French cars had yellow headlights!

So I'd recommend the Autolamp Cobalt II bulbs, not only were they relatively cheap, they had exceptionally fast delivery and they work a treat.

MobFox Rubbish

2012-10-19T01:04:00.002-07:00

I feel I must blog my experience with MobFox after a disappointing experience.

I've got a few apps on the Android market, which is now called Google play, that are free to download and use. In order to receive some money for the time and effort I put in to creating them I have ads displayed within them.

Admob are the people I was using and up until a few days ago all was well. Then I noticed that the eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) had dropped significantly and thus I wasn't making much money (not that I was making a lot before).

So after searching google, perhaps I should say googling, I found MobFox. Apparently it has good eCPM! I thought great so I signed up. Opening up my development environment I changed the code for one of my apps to use MobFox. It seemed fine and was displaying a test banner. Excellent, so I submitted my site to MobFox to review so that I could get proper ads, not test ones.
24 hours go by and I receive an email to say my submission was rejected. That's odd, I thought, because it was fine on Admob and I filled in all the relevant fields as best I could.
They had a link to FAQ about reasons why my app may have been rejected. But looking through them I couldn't see why. I'd filled in the URL correctly, found the closest Main Channel and it didn't contain any adult material, etc. So I sent MobFox an email asking why it rejected my app, so that I could correct it and get it all up and running.
Another few days pass, no response from MobFox! Now this might not sound too bad but I'm loosing money because my app is displaying Test banners to people rather than live ones. Basically I'm loosing money.

Fantastic! All in all I wish I'd not bothered trying out MobFox. It turned out there was a problem with Admob that caused the low eCPM. So now I've updated the app and put it back to Admob.
The problem I now have is deleting/cancelling my account with MobFox! As you may suspect there is no obvious way of cancelling/deleting my account with them. Search their website with no answers, so I've sent another email... who knows if it will get a response?!

My summary is this. If you want to put ads in your Android apps I'd recomment AdMob.com. It's a google company and it takes no time at all to set up. There are no approval times to wait for you create your account, add the code to your app, add your app to their site and away you go! Simple.

Hope that helps someone out there...

Update 19/11/2012:
After an entire month without hearing anything from MobFox, this morning I got 3 emails. Two to say that my apps have been accepted and I should now receive live ads. The other to say sorry for the long silence and all my apps are activated! I cannot believe that they think leaving it 1 month for a reply is acceptable.
I urge you all out there to be very wary of this company!

Seat Ibiza 1999 - 2002 Key Fob Programming

2012-09-27T05:48:00.002-07:00

This programming Guide is for my Seat Ibiza 2000 X-reg but it should work if your key is a:
Siemens 433.92 mhz
5WK4 790/97/98
(These details are on the side of the key fob - which is actually the horseshoe of the key)
Another thing to note is that this key was used on different Seat models including; Alhambra, not to mention other VAG cars like VW. It was also used by Ford in the Galaxy! Best thing to do is search for the details above to find the correct key, then replace the badge.

This is what my key looks like:

Key Programming Steps

Put the key in the ignition and turn it on so that the ignition is on. Don't start the car!
Wait for 4-5 seconds and turn the ignition off and take the key out.
With the key in your hand press and hold the lock button.
While the lock button is being held down press the unlock button 3 times.
Now let go of the lock button.
The car should lock and unlock itself, and the lights on the remote fob should flash a few times.

It can sometimes take a few attempts to work.

Here is a video I made of this:

In my case when I brought the car, second hand, I tried the above technique loads of times but it didn't work. I also tried changing the batteries in the key fob. That also didn't work. The problem, in the end, turned out to be that the fob itself was broken!
The light would flash when I pressed the lock or unlock button and even during the above programming steps, which made me think it was fine.
However, I decided to try a Timpsons near me that could cut keys and program most key fobs. They checked my fob on some kind of signal checker/radio checker and told me it was broken.
I did ask about a replacement but they wanted quite a bit of money, can't remember how much, although they were cheaper than the dealer who wanted £72.60 + VAT just for the fob!
In the end though I decided to go on eBay and found a whole 2nd hand key + fob for less than £20! When it arrived I removed the fob, binned the key, and attached it to my key then followed the steps above... and now it works fine!

Hope this helps someone!

Cars Mechanics and Garages - Farncombe Service Station

2012-09-27T01:42:00.001-07:00

I've been driving for 16 years now, yikes, and at least once a year I need to take my car to a garage for, at least, it's MOT.

Most garages I've visited have been mediocre and if they were memorable it was for the wrong reasons.
Like Kwik Fit, I remember taking my car there once to get a new rear tyre as it was pretty bald! I went in and asked if they could change the rear tyre to which there response was I'll take a look. So off he went pad in hand to look at all the tyres on the car. After a few minutes he returns and says, "you need 3 new tyres". I was a bit taken aback I had only gone in to get the rear one done as the others looked fine. Apparently the front tyres also needed changing as they had worn on the inside. Now, knowing these people I thought to myself, I don't believe you. So with a bit of attitude I said I don't think so, I'll go somewhere else.
So off down the road I went to Merityre. They took a look and said just the rear needed doing at the moment and that front tyres, although warn, still had a few thousand miles left in them. So I got them to change the tyre for me.

When it comes to MOT's I've always had my cars fail on at least one thing, almost always a wiper blade or a bulb!
A couple of years ago my car was due it's MOT so rather than stick with the usual garage I thought I'd check out a one I found on http://www.goodgaragescheme.co.uk. The garage I found was Farncombe Service Station, which was pretty close to where I worked so I thought I'd give it a try.
I'm so glad I did. My car passed first time without anything needing doing! First time ever, I think!
Since then I've been back quite a few times. Each time I go I come out smiling because their customer service is fantastic and they do only the work that is actually needed.
It's not like other places I've been where they don't care about you or their job and are just trying to get you off the phone or fleece you for lot's of money. Nope they are welcoming, friendly and helpful. They are old school customer service, polite and courteous. That's all I want from a company!
All these big name chain shops could learn a thing or two from Farncombe Service Station!
I'm always disappointed and deflated when I go to shops like Halfords, Tesco, Sainsbury, PC World, WHSmith (especially when they ask if I want a bar of chocolate every time I pay at the counter!), Mothercare...

It's no wonder people are taking to online shopping!