Shift your out of control prius into neutral and guess what? YOUR ENGINE DIES INSTEAD OF YOU!

That’s right folks. When your prius decides to accelerate on it’s own, show it who’s boss – hit the neutral gear and show your car who’s boss.

Make the right choice. Choose to blow your engine/motor up instead of yourself.

And while we’re at it, what the hell ever happened to having a ignition switch, cable driven gear selectors & accelerators and standard transmissions? We never can just stick with what works can we? I’ll be just fine right here in my 2003 Cavalier with a cable driven gear shifter and gas pedal. I like to feel the engine in my feet when I drive thank you very much!

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For everyone who has owned a BB Bold 9000, you’ve likely run across this problem:

My Bold speaker is having very low sound.. While on a call when I activate the speaker is so low I can barely hear it. On the other hand my Curve 8310 is having amazing sound quality..

Is there any settings to get more sound when the speaker is activated while on a call?????

From: Crackberry Forums posting

When I first got the Bold, it had an AMAZING speaker. Over time however, the output (volume) from the speaker had seemed to be diminishing; eventually to the point where it was louder to have on handset mode than speaker mode.

In doing some research online, I’ve found most people can just take it back to the store and get a new one. Likely this would result in the same issues as I’ve come to believe RIM knows all about the issue and just isn’t doing anything about it. Additionally this can be a problem for some who have purchased ‘unlocked’ blackberries as the store doesn’t touch those with a 35′ pole if you paid them.

Another option is to replace the midplane, which works just fine but it costs $10 and can be a bit scary to someone who isn’t familiar with electronics.

The third option. By far the most ghetto but so far has seemed to work quite nicely was conveyed to me in a dream by Richard Dean Anderson playing MacGyver. It involves duct tape.

How to fix the blackberry bold speaker problem:

- Cut a very small strip of duct tape into very small pieces, about 3/4″ x 1/2″ – you’ll need 3 of these

- Layer the pieces of duct tape one on top of another directly above the flash, where the square area around the flash/camera module meets up with the main part of the case (see pic)

- Close the cover on the back of your BB, making sure that the clips catch completely and it clicks into place properly. This is very important!

- Your speaker should be as loud as it was when you first bought it. If it’s not, consider adding a few more strips of duct tape until it works.

*** The pressure between the back cover and the blackberry causes a connection that seems to get loose over time to be pushed into place when the back cover is on, the duct tape ensures that the clicked-on back cover keeps pressure on the camera/flash module so the connection stays tight. I’m not sure of the relation between the camera/flash module and the speaker but I do know that when you push it down, it seems to restore the speaker volume.

GOOD LUCK!!!

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The cavalier needed a new serpentine belt today. I guess I probably should have taken it in earlier to get fixed but you know how it works… Ya go in for an overdue oil change and by the time you leave you’ve replaced the brakes, belts, hoses, had a complete engine rebuild and new shocks put on too. $2,503 later you wonder why your car didn’t fall apart earlier.

No really, I can appreciate the upsell they do at the oil change place; they have families to feed too. But, I digress…

So I didn’t know the ‘03 cavalier even HAD a serpentine belt. But it does, and here’s how they route it:

Got this diagram from the fine folks at serpentinebeltdiagrams.com (seriously? wow, cool!) – Apparantly they have diagrams for every type of car, who’da thought?

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