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After looking at my usage logs, I have noticed quite a number of people have found this website after searching Google for the Gateway 500 firmware. So to help you all out, here are all of the versions released so far:

GW5_MOST_100.ZIP
GW5_MOST_104.ZIP
GW5_MOST_105.ZIP
GW5_MOST_202.ZIP
GW5_MOST_203.ZIP
GW5_MOST_205.ZIP

The above firmwares are for the MOST based version of the Gateway 500, i.e. Porsche, not the D2B version that is used in Mercedes cars. Installation is as follows:

Extract the G5_B_UPD.ROM file from the update package and copy to the root of an USB flash drive, then connect the USB drive to the Gateway 500 while it is powered. If there is an iPod connected to the Gateway you can leave as it is in any playback mode or status, do not need to disconnect or stop playback.

Update procedure will start automatically within few seconds and takes cca. 1.5 minute. Do not disconnect the USB drive within this time.
After a successful update G5_B_UPD.ROM is deleted from the USB drive and GW.EES.BIN file will appear with the new software version. If an iPod is connected during the update the iPod screen will light for the second time when the upgrade is completed and the new firmware version appears on the right upper corner of the screen.

When finished, it is better to restart the Head Unit and the Gateway 500.

What with Porsche not installing iPod support from the factory, and the fact that their stereo systems are all run through a fiber-optic system known as the MOST bus, a company called Dension have released an interface that sits between the iPod and the MOST bus – The Dension Gateway 500.

I purchased two of the above, one for my Porsche Boxster 986 with a CDR23, and the other for my Dads Porsche Boxster 987 with a CDR24 – The installation on the CDR24 went smoothly and is working, though I was having some issues trying to get it working with the CDR23. Read the rest of this entry »

Having had my Logitech Harmony 525 for a couple of months I could never understand why it changed the channels on my TV by only scrolling downwards and looping around the menu, even if I wanted to change to a channel directly above the one currently selected. Mental!

There are no options to configure this on the online configuration process, so after contacting Logitech technical support, a few days later they got back to me having made a “behind the scenes” change to my config file. My remote now scrolls up and down to scroll to my required channel using the shortest direction – Apparently this is something they have to manually add to peoples account. Why? I don’t know…

Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe that allows web developers to use their existing skills to build and deploy Internet applications to the desktop that combine the benefits of web applications – network and user connectivity, rich media content, ease of development, and broad reach – with the strengths of desktop applications – application interactions, local resource access, personal settings, powerful functionality, and rich interactive experiences.

Apollo is currently in alpha with support for HTML, JavaScript and Flash – There is basic support for AJAX with more coming in v1.0 no doubt. The alpha currently is only supported on Windows and OS X although Linux will be supported shortly after the release of 1.0, this has something to do with the latest Flash player not being finished for Linux, or something.

So I guess this works in a similar way to Java in that it’s machine-independent, although less powerful no doubt but with a smaller resource footprint one would hope. This looks like one to keep an eye on. Check it out here.

For those of us that are developing web projects on a Linux box that are fed up with jumping over onto a Windows machine to test their code in Internet Explorer there is a nice and easy script called IEs4Linux that makes the process of installing MSIE 5, 5.5 and 6 onto a Linux box a breeze.

Although IEs4Linux doesn’t fully support IE7 yet, there is enough support in their latest beta for testing code on – It pretty much loads up the IE7 rendering engine into an IE6 GUI, although there are still bugs, it should work well enough for testing.

Check out IEs4Linux here.