I came across this in my news reader. It only looked marginally interesting at first. Insurance, yuck. But the numbers are interesting. The only fox body in the top 10 is the 1989.

Digging deeper into the article we find an Excel file with more details. In the date range, 2001 to 2011, we see that the 1993 Mustang ranks 14th with 1,484 stolen and 1992 ranks 20th with an unspecified number. Zero, perhaps, but definitely less that 293 – the last value given as the 18th spot. The classics aren’t even on the map.

Perhaps the best news is that overall thefts of all Mustangs, regardless of model year, are down. 4,347 in 2011. This is compared to 18,325 in 1993 and a peak of 23,893 in 1975. Still, drive safe, and keep that insurance premium paid up.

Link: Property Casualty 360 – The Ford Mustang: Theft of an American Icon

Tomorrow marks two full weeks without cable TV. This is a status report of how it is going.

Prime Time Viewing

With the holidays here there are not a lot of new episodes of the shows that we like to watch. And, with time off from work, we have more time to watch TV later into the night. Last year at this time we really got into Dexter on Netflix. This year, there are still plenty of good serial shows from the last few years of cable and broadcast TV that we never saw. So, I think we will be looking into those to fill the gap. I am pretty excited about this because our old cable TV standby at night was to watch HGTV. That became kind of a rut.

Last night we looked for a show that we watched a few episodes of on Netflix sometime earlier this year – Pushing Daisies. Unfortunately, it is no longer available there. But, having the Mac Mini attached to the TV finally realized its value. Season 1 of Pushing Daisies is available online on TheWB.com. The only apparent drawbacks to this were two. First, the commercials pretty much alternated between the same two from HP. At each ‘commercial break’ there were two commercials. Often the two were the same commercial repeated twice. They could have at least played one of each commercial. I don’t know if advertisers realize it but by making your commercials repeat annoyingly might go against any benefit from having people view them at all.

The second, and most problematic drawback was that the first episode that we watched twice ended abruptly and the player went to the next episode before the one we were watching completed. This seems to be a bug in the player.

ESPN

The Monday night game this week 16 of NFL football was the Falcons vs. the Saints. Neither one is my team so, technically, I would have been OK if I had missed it. But, I was looking forward to watching Drew Brees attempt to break Dan Marino”s passing record. I was aware of the availability of streams for watching this that are not so ‘on the up and up’. My wife actually enticed me to find one suggesting that I should be savvy enough. I took it as a challenge. In about 15 minutes I was able to find a way to view it. The quality was viewable but poor. The picture was less than Standard Definition but a solid enough stream that it was up for the entire game. It was difficult to follow the action on passing plays but, heck, it was good enough to count as having watched this important game.

Kids Shows

I caught my son trying to change the TV to the channel that used to be the Cartoon Network while it was on the antenna. At 7, he still doesn’t quite understand what not having cable means. The kids still enjoy Netflix content but were missing their Scooby Doo. A couple weeks ago, I had purchased a couple of episodes; one from iTunes and one from Amazon Video on Demand (VOD) to see how they worked. I settled on Amazon VOD as the choice going forward. Even though I like to have the content I buy locally on my computer instead of in the cloud, since DRM is used for both I saw little advantage for the iTunes way of downloading it. It just makes my iTunes library larger and impacts backup sizes.

So, today we purchased a season of Scooby Doo. It’s the classic one that I grew up watching in the 1970′s. It was $16.99 for 16 episodes. My plan is to buy one season of something for them each month.

We have considered dropping cable at times over the last couple of years especially after we established a Netflix account last year at this time. The 11 days we spent without cable due to the October 2011 snow storm was pretty much enough to convince us that we could live without it.

Well, we finally did it! I dropped off the cable equipment at the Comcast office this morning. But, it wasn’t before putting some measures in place to insure that we have content to keep our kids and us happy.

The old way (with the cord)

We were paying $82 per month for cable TV which amounts to $984 annually. We had a pretty standard package with the addition of HD programming and an HD DVR. No premium channels. Like most, we only watched a fraction of the channels we had access to. And, a lot of it was time-shifted. The kids usually watched recorded shows from the DVR, Netflix or the free shows from Comcast’s On Demand. My wife and I watched the networks usually through recorded shows on the DVR, some cable news and HGTV.

We have three TVs used for most of our TV watching. One in the family room, one in the living room and one in the bedroom.

The family room is where we had the HD DVR and where the kids do most of there TV watching. We already had a Playstation 3 there which was occasionally used for games but got good steady use for access to Netflix, playing DVDs and also to view video from our networked media server, an HP MediaVault 2120. The video on there has been acquired through various sources including content extracted from our DVR. It covers both kids and non-kids programming, tv shows and movies.

The second TV in the Living Room is mainly only used for NFL football using an existing HDTV antenna. It did have cable but not HD cable which I refused to watch because I find it hard to watch football without HD.

The TV in the bedroom is rarely watched. It is mostly used for watching the early morning news when getting ready for the day.

The new way (without the cord)

We had several viewing goals for our overall TV entertainment:

1. Keep the kids happy with their favorite shows (Scooby Doo, Johnny Test, Sponge Bob, etc.). The general profile for their viewing is to watch the same shows and movies over and over
2. Live sports – specifically NFL football
3. The ability to record live TV for later viewing and/or viewing network shows on our own schedule

Item 1.) was covered partly through our Netflix subscription but we added Amazon Instant Video which we get through a new Amazon Prime account and, although the kids content choices are slim, it also provides the ability to purchase movies and TV shows in the future. Amazon seems to be a good avenue for this even though we have become much more into iTunes as we have added more i-devices. When the kids get bored with Netflix we have the option of buying TV shows by the season for them.

To get Amazon Instant Video on the TV we added a Roku LT to the family room. Although, it is slightly redundant to the PS3 in terms of access to Netflix, we have found that it is much more usable for our 7 year old. We also added an HDTV antenna to the living room TV to get network over-the-air (OTA) programming.

Item 2.) is handled through the existing HDTV antenna in the living room.  This leaves out Monday Night Football which can only be watched via ESPN which is not possible without cable. We already could not see Thursday night games since our Comcast did not carry the NFL Network so no change there. So, the big loss here is MNF.

Item 3.) is addressed through the addition of a Home Theater PC (HTPC). My choice was a Mac Mini. I considered other solutions including building my own but the price point for other solutions all ended up in the $500-$600 range where the Mac Mini is. The Mini is currently attached to the living room TV which now will be used more regularly for standard TV watching. An Elgato EyeTV attached to the Mac Mini allows us to watch and record live TV and to schedule recordings. We can also view virtually any web content including standard Hulu. This allows us to avoid the monthly fee for Hulu Plus.

To make the Mac Mini more easy to use, a free software program Plex is used for a more friendly non-computer like interface. It integrates Netflix, Hulu and much of the web content available through web sites like ABC, NBC, HGTV and others. The Mac Mini also runs iTunes which gives us access to that content as well as another outlet for purchasing/renting TV and movies.

Our annual costs are for Netflix and Amazon Prime ($7.99*12 + $79.99 = $175.87). If I hadn’t become so addicted to 2 day shipping we probably could drop the Amazon Prime since we will probably use Amazon Instant Video mostly for purchase and rentals and not the free stuff. We were already paying for Netflix even with cable so it is somewhat unfair to count it now as a new non-cable annual expense.

To keep our costs at 50% of the old cable costs, even with the Netflix and Amazon Prime, we could still afford to spend $25/month on purchased and/or rented content.

And, then there’s the initial outlay for the new devices:

Mac Mini. $564.99
Apple wireless keyboard. $58.00 (black friday deal)
Apple Magic Trackpad. $58.00 (black friday deal)
Roku LT. $49.99
Elgato Eye TV. $55.24
Terk HDTVA antenna. $39.98
Wineguard FL-5000 antenna. $24.98
2 @ HDMI cables. $15.98

Total: $867.16

At least in the first year we won’t be saving any money but should roughly break even as long as we don’t spend on more content. I think the Mac Mini is a great addition to our household. It will get used by the kids. They are already familiar with Mac OS since they use it at school. It also feeds my gadget lust. I actually funded it through some money I keep aside just for such things.

I think we have it covered from all angles. And, then some. I’ll provide updates as our setup matures and we learn more about what works and doesn’t work.

Here’s a link to a post that inspired me to go the Mac Mini route: Mac Mini HTPC Setup

…is the sincerest form of flattery.

I read Jalopnik pretty much daily. I usually don’t check out the “nice price or crack pipe” set of articles but the one on the 1987 ASC McLaren caught my eye enough that I clicked throughto ebay to see more about the car. You know I love my fox bodies. As I scrolled through the pictures, something jumped out as familiar. Way too familiar. The car show sign.

Pretty much a carbon copy of mine right down to the bullet points.

And, also this one that I did for another feature car owner.

Not that I’m complaining. It is actually cool to see my design accepted by others.

In a way it pains me to do this. This may seem like an anti-Lotus Notes thing but it is not. I think Lotus Notes is very valuable when used in the right situations.

For a long, long time I have Lotus Notes as my email client. I never liked Outlook and Lotus Notes is what I used at work and have always been involved with it from an application perspective. Last year, I changed from using the Lotus Notes client for my triplewhitefox.com address to GMail. It just made sense. By having my mail in Gmail, I could get better access to it via my phone.

That left me with my mail archive in Lotus. With the arrival of my new laptop, I began migrating all of existing Windows applications and data. So, it left me wondering if, at the same time, I should migrate my email off of Lotus Notes. Simultaneously, I am involved in work with helping someone do this exact move – Lotus to Gmail.

Of course, there are commercial programs to do this. But, for doing it once this seems overkill and an unnecessary expense. In researching this I came across some good articles that helped me get it done.

The first was an article from the site Sales IT Tech entitled Transfer Lotus Notes Email to Gmail and Unleash That Captured Information. It provided the basis for my transfer procedure.

1. Connect Lotus to Gmail via IMAP
2. Create a label structure in Gmail to parallel the Lotus folder structure
3. Copy email within Lotus to the mapped IMAP account folder by folder

The problem I found was that, once in Gmail, the time/date stamps of the email messages were that of the time/date of the upload, not the original time/date of the email message. That led me to the next useful article on fixing the problem: Import messages through IMAP – message date wrong in Inbox

Basically this added several more steps:

1. Install Mozilla Thunderbird
2. Link Thunderbird to Gmail
3. Create a local folder structure in Thunderbird to mirror the Gmail structure
4. Using Thurderbird, copy mail from Gmail to local folders
5. Delete the mail in Gmail
6. Empty the trash in Gmail
7. Using Thurderbird, copy the mail from local folders back to the Gmail folders

This fixes the time stamp issue.

For me, the biggest challenge was the time involvde in moving my 7,000 messages that resided across over 80 folders. I have mail going back to 1998. At first, I was doing this on my old laptop running Windows XP and Lotus Notes 8.5.1. I experienced many IMAP timeouts in both Notes (an error message resulted) and Thunderbird (it just stopped responding). I settled into doing it in batches of about 100 documents at a time.

I later moved to doing it on my new laptop running Windows 7  Home Premium 64 bit again with 8.5.1 and had nearly no IMAP connection problems and was able to do hundreds of documents at a time. I still split up large collection of documents.

At the latest show that I attended I happened to glance in the trunk of a fellow fox body owner. With the show being at Mustangs Unlimited it is not uncommon for attendees to use the trip to pick up some parts. Though, the parts purchase in this trunk caught my interest. The owner of this 1989 Mustang GT with really nice turbine wheels had purchased Kleen Wheels Dust Shields.

I was previously unfamiliar with the product but I understand how hard those turbine wheels are to keep nice. What struck me was the picture of the wheel on the package.

I wondered whether they would put the picture of the exact wheel each Kleen Wheels Dust Shield fit on every package or if this was the standard packaging regardless of wheel fitment.

Well, it turns out that Kleen Wheels does use the same packaging across their entire line of dust shields and they have settled on using an image of our favorite wheel to hate because of upkeep. I can imagine that there might be harder wheels to clean but this is a great choice for them.

Mike P. gave me a heads up on the Carlisle coverage in the most recent issue of 5.0 Mustangs and Super Fords. I picked up an issue on my way home from a Mustang show today.

With  little digital zooming one can see our tent and a few of our cars. This picture is from the Friday of the show.

They also have a picture from Saturday but it is about a quarter of the size. Overall, it is good coverage in a 5 page article. If you don’t subscribe, you might want to go out and pick up a copy.

Just today I finished a big project which was an attempt to assemble every part number for the unique parts that make a feature car different from a standard Mustang LX 5.0 Convertible. I did this by browsing a Mustang parts database. This included interior and exterior parts.

I probably don’t need to tell you that it wasn’t easy.

There was no consistency in the descriptions used. Some did use “Feature Car” or “special edition” but many did not but could be differentiated due to the use of colors (white, yellow and red) in the descriptions where standard parts were black.

Some things that stand out as interesting in terms of the naming (not that I advocate changing how we commonly refer to these things):

• “Performance” white was used over “Vibrant” white for the 1993 parts
• What we usually refer to as “piping” on the 1992 interior was referred to as black “welts”
• The spoiler was identified as being part of “Convertible performance package”

The  parts lists appear on this site as part of the Frequently Ask Questions pages. I also added parts diagrams where relevant as well as a few new pictures of parts that I have assembled since the lists were last updated nearly five years ago.

If you can think of any parts missing from the list, I would be happy to attempt to identify part numbers for them.

Links: 1992 Feature Mustang FAQ (with parts list), 1993 Feature Mustang FAQ (with parts list)

A while back I asked in the forums how hard it was to swap a faceplate on a 1993 Mustang CD stereo. Around the time, I had purchased an NOS faceplate just to have it in case I find a stereo that is working but has a worn faceplate. I was still waiting for it to come at the time.

Even though I don’t have a full replacement I figured now was a good time to investigate the feasibility of a faceplate swap. It turns out the swap is pretty simple. There are just four plastic clips holding the faceplate to the stereo.

No screws need to be removed. Just carefully pry it off from the top or bottom.

Once the faceplate is off the circuit board is exposed.

I often mention the difference in the edge vs. other Ford CD faceplates for the same stereo. Here is the one I have from an ’93 Explorer where you can distinctly see the difference with the rounded edge for the Explorer.

It is interesting to note the part numbers of the Mustang and Explorer faceplates. Both have the same apparent part number, F32F-19A023 B.  The difference is the number in the circle preceeding the part number. The Mustang version has a “1″ in a circle. The Explorer has a “2″.

I was checking out the Mustangs Unlimited Web Site. I usually hit one of the three or four shows that they have a year. On their home page, they have a photo from one of the cars shows that they have hosted.  The picture they picked is not the ubiquitous car show picture with rows and rows of Mustangs. One lone black fox body convertible in a row of empty spaces. A smattering of other cars are around. Pretty boring. Right?

The more looked at the picture, the more I realized that it seemed oddly familiar beyond the usual “yeah, I’ve been to that parking lot.” My car was in there. If I enlarge the photo, you might be able to see me and the rear of my car.

I figured out that the picture is from June 2009. I parked next to a yellow feature car purchased by Tom F., its new owner, less than a week before. I had my son with me that day. It was a great time for father and son. And, oh yeah, I won third place that day. Great memories.