With the advantage of the governments investment allowance I decided to upgrade my Turbo Subaru Liberty with a new Generation 5 Liberty (called the Subaru Legacy in other parts of the world) that Subaru has just released. The Generation 4 changed very little over the Generation 3 models but the Generation 5 introduces a significant changes both internally and externally. Of course whenever a manufacturer makes significant changes there are those who like the new styling and those that dont. Thankfully I am those that like the changes.

I first had my eye on the new Subaru Liberty 2.5 GT Premium  but they were in very short supply so I was forced to test drive the Subaru Liberty 3.6R Premium Sedan which has a 3.6 litre boxer 6 cylinder engine. What surprised me was the performance of the 3.6 which is a 191kw compared against the 195kw of the turbo.  If you consider that the 3.6 uses standard unleaded but the 2.5 GT has to be fed 98 RON fuel then the 4kw difference could easily be made up by using the higher performance fuel in the 6 cylinder.

Leaving Kilowatts aside the performance of the two cars is very different.  Like all turbos the  Liberty 2.5 GT Premium lives on engine revs and it also features Bilstein sports suspension. The whole car is built around a sport performance and provides an excellent bang for your buck.

The Liberty 3.6R Premium Sedan certainly has power but its delivered in a much more controlled and smoother fashion and the ride is more comfortable.

The short supply of the Liberty 2.5 GT Premium  meant that actually obtaining one for my time frame was difficult let alone negotiating on one which proved to be near on impossible. The Liberty 3.6R Premium Sedan was much easier to obtain in the specification I wanted and negotiating on the price was far simpler.

From an RRP perspective the difference between the Liberty 2.5 GT Premium Manual and the Liberty 3.6R Premium Sedan which only comes in Automatic is only about $1,000 but in reality the different negotiated positions meant the real difference was closer to $5,000 and the difference between automatic models was closer to $6,500.

Because of the  price difference and the fact I was so impressed with the test drive of the Liberty 3.6R Premium Sedan it was a very easy choice to go for the more family friendly option and move away from the Subaru turbo’s.  If the price was on par the decision would have been harder but I still think I would have chosen the same model. I must admit that whilst I will miss the rawness of a turbo boxer engine I am very happy with my choice as is the rest of the family.  Maybe I am just  slowing down with age.

Other than the engine and suspension differences there is very little differences between the two cars. The GT has the sports front spoiler and black carbon fibre inserts on the dash and doors whilst the 3.6R has the normal spoiler and timber look inserts.

The Subaru All Wheel drive system is again just beautiful to drive.  It feels sure footed  no matter the road or weather conditions. I have been driving a Subaru AWD for that long I find I have to watch myself whenever I am driving a non-Subaru car as its a lot easier to come unstuck. The latest Gen 5 cars have a stack of new safety features and technologies but you for the most part you only get to test those out when things go wrong.

Subaru also delivers in the bells and whistles department with a range of new features including keyless entry, voice control, 8 inch lcd screen for navigation, reversing camera, audio and dvd playback and the amazing 10 speaker McIntosh stereo system.  The cars also feature rain sensing wipers, dusk sensing headlights and push button electric park brake.  The two features I have found the hardest to get use to is the keyless entry and electric park brake.

The keyless entry works by the key transmitting its location inside or immediately outside of the car.  It enables you to walk up to the car  and it will automatically unlock itself and you get in and push the button to start the car all with the key still in your pocket. In fact the key is more of a remote control than a traditional key. It’s unnerving walking up to the car and opening it up without unlocking it. You start wondering if you ever locked the car in the first place.

The push button electric park brake is another weird thing that takes some getting use to. Ever since I first started to drive the park brake was a mechanical handle you had to pull on. To now just push a button to apply the park brake feels very weird and is taking some getting use to. You can take the park brake off manually but with the smarts in the car you don’t have to. If you have your seatbelt on you can just drive away and the park brake will be released automatically.

Just a few days before I took delivery the Subaru Liberty 3.6R Premium Sedan won the Best Prestige Car in the Australia’s Best Car’s Awards which is the car awards for the Australian Automobile Association on behalf of all Australian Motoring Clubs including RACQ, RACV, NRMA, RAA, RAC, RACT and AANT.

The new Subaru Liberty improves on what they already did well and throws in a range of new technologies. It handles like a dream and is as sure footed as ever.

If your looking for a new mid sized car I would strongly suggest you test drive the new Generation 5 Subaru Liberty range. Some of the lower models don’t have all the features as the premium models but they all feature boxer engines, all wheel drive and 5 star ANCAP safety ratings.

Subaru will have to really stuff up future models or one of their competition will have to create something special for me to move away from their range.

The solution at the time was to whip up a website at australianrealestatesoftware.com to prove the concept and test if agents would use it.

The test proved both successful and unsuccessful at the same time. For a minimal effort it got quite a reasonable level of traffic for specific targeted audience.

Unfortunately because I did not want to invest too much into the first version of the site in case agents wouldn’t use such a directory I chose to only create a very basic site. This lead to people finding what they wanted through the search engines but not really browsing the directory for other solutions available.

The other week I decided to give the old girl a bit of a tart up and moved everything over to a wordpress installation. The wordpress CMS allows me to quickly and easily provide advanced functionality. So now the site not only displays a funky new look but visitors can now leave comments and easily rate particular solutions as well. At the bottom of every entry is a list of other software or solutions in the directory that might also suit.

Visitors can now even subscribe to updates either through RSS, email or twitter.

The change has already proved to be highly successful and the average number of pages viewed per visitor is now 5 times more than the previous design.  If you are an agent and you know something that should be in the directory and isn’t, let me know by submitting the details.

The Amazon Kindle fits up to 1,500 books

This is the news that many have been waiting for and the availability of the Kindle will allow Australia to catch up with the US in terms of ebook sales. Amazon recently announced that for every 100 paper books sold they now sell 35 ebooks yet in Australia the ebook readers have had very little exposure.

eBook readers, or eReaders as they called, are the future of reading books and magazines, textbooks and newspapers. The eInk technology in modern ereaders allow them to recreate the pages of a book with the added ability of being able to carry a whole bookcase around with you in a unit that weights a fraction of the weight of a new release. The Amazon Kindle will hold about 1,500 books. How long would that take you to read?

We purchased an eReader about 5 months ago now but the prices in Australia were that high we had to import it from Europe. In the past couple of weeks we were involved in the purchase of another ereader as a 40th birthday present for a friend and prolific reader of novels. In just two weeks it has changed her whole reading experience as the Kindle is about to do for thousands of Australians.

Watch this Introduction Video of the Kindle

Amazon’s Kindle is the worlds most popular eBook eReader but until now it has not officially been available to Australians. Whilst it was possible to import the Kindle into Australia after you purchased it in the US you could not take full advantage of it because is Whispernet connection was not available in the US. Amazon now sell an International version of the Kindle which for $USD20 over the price of the US version gives you access in most of ht world including Australia.

Advantages of the Amazon Kindle over other ebook ereaders

The 2nd generation Amazon Kindle eReader

Whispernet is the first of two things that set the Kindle apart from other ebook readers. A usb connection is standard for transferring books to an ereader and a wifi connection is now becoming possible but Amazon has always thought big, real big.

When they released the Kindle it had an always on data connection though the mobile phone network much the same as many smartphone can access the internet. The best part was that you dont have to pay for this data connection as the price is factored in when you purchase your books. Of course another advantage is that you don’t ever need a computer to purchase and download new books.

With the Kindle you can finish up on one book, load up the bookshop browse the best seller list, pick another book and download it in around 60 seconds. In fact because you can access many of the worlds best newspapers, if you leave it on your bedside table you have the mornings newspaper downloaded and ready to read when you wake without taking on a frosty morning to find your paper in the lawn or making yourself presentable for the neighbours.

The the Kindle also automatically downloads posts from your favourite blogs and gives you free access to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia.

The other advantage that the Kindle has over any other ebook reader is it has access to the Amazon bookshop which holds over 350,000 titles and rising. Prices for new releases for Australians will be $USD9.99 which pitches a new release at just a fraction of what Australian books sellers sell them for. Older releases are even cheaper than that.

The Kindle is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it is certainly the best option for most avid readers. Similar to many movies and tv shows being illegally available there is an underground market on the internet for enovels and ebooks. These often come in a wide variety of formats that the Kindle can’t handle and is better suited for the Chinese Jinke range of eReaders which is sold under many names such as the BeBook, Hanlin and EcoReader and can handle dozens of different formats.

But will you like reading on Kindle eBook eReader?

eInk means that an eReader is more like a book than a computer. A computer screen is back lit but an eInk screen is not. If you are reading an eReader at night you have to have a light on it just like normal book. Reading a computer screen in full sunlight is impossible, but not so with an eInk screen. As I mentioned we have had another eReader ourself of just under 6 months. eInk does such a great job of simulating a paper page that in the first week or two you often find yourself trying to turn a physical page.

If you love reading, then you will love an eReader and especially the functionality and ease of use of the Kindle now available for Australians. The saving in books alone make this an amazing investment and your making a green statement saving all those trees!

Australia only gets the standard Kindle so far which is perfect for reading novels. The larger DX version is better for newspapers. If you are interested in the Kindle you can check out the Amazon website and order yours today.

Ella is just over three years old and is officially the prettiest little girl in the world according to her dad. Thats me!

Harry Connick Junior decided a political statement was in order when a bunch of doctors did a skit imitating the Jackson 5 on the Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion.   In an ad break Harry demands an on air apology saying the display disgusted him. But Harry must not have realised one thing about the interent is that it’s pretty easy to find what you yourself may have forgotten.

The crew at Crikey dug up a skit where Harry Connick Junior played a skit as a black preacher.  Now whilst he is not in full jet black facepaint on, he does seem pretty tanned and he is doing a comedy skit on a variety show pretending to be a black man. Sound familiar?  Harry Connick Junior is a Hypocrite.

Next we have the case of New Zealand politician Clayton Cosgrove.  New Zealand newspaper, the Dominion Post was having a slow news day so pounced on the fact that a local real estate photographer changed the colour of the sky.  The newspaper approached Clayton for his comment since he started the recent reform bill in parliament for the New Zealand real estate industry.

When asked about the photographers photoshopping skills he said that agents should show the property in “its ordinary environment” and “I just think it’s a bit on the nose. The more straight up you are, the better you are.”

Clayton reckons the photoshopping photographers are ok though ”if they could make me look slimmer and give me more hair”.   Clayton Cosgrove is a Hypocrite!