Friday, February 23, 2007

New Featured Parts & Products Showcase

Welcome Back to the Autos and Automotive Blog!

We have been testing and are now putting the final touches on a new Featured Parts & Products Showcase section at Syd's Eastside Auto Parts. We are happy to announce that it is now available and working. All online transactions are secured with 128 bit encryption and are safe (as usual for e-commerce at Syd's Eastside Auto Parts).

We will be adding many automotive parts and products to this new section over the next coming weeks. Here, we will be able to feature new auto parts and products, as well as showcase old auto parts.

Currently, the showcase is featuring a steering wheel from a 1949 Pontiac, and another from a 1952 Mercury.

1949 Pontiac Steering Wheel1949 Pontiac Steering Wheel

1952 Mercury Steering Wheel1952 Mercury Steering Wheel

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts will use this section to showcase such older products as well as to expand our reach and offer new auto parts and automotive products.

The
Syd's Eastside Auto Parts Search remains an important and functional focus for the website, where our customers can search virtually our entire inventory. But the Featured Parts & Products Showcase allows us to offer parts and products that you might not expect to find at an auto parts and salvage yard.

We hope our customers will enjoy the new service and that it may attract new customers.

Links:
Syd's Eastside Auto Parts
Featured Parts & Products Showcase

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Q : Where on the steering wheel should your hands be when you’re driving?

A : Not at “4 o’clock and 8 o’clock.” The rationale behind “4-and-8” that many driver's-education classes advocate is that it keeps a driver’s hands out of the way of the steering column’s airbag, preventing injuries to hands and arms, and to the face. “That’s stupid,” says Smith. With hands low and elbows on their thighs, he says, drivers have little ability to control the car. Solution: Better to raise your chances of avoiding an incident altogether by having your hands in the tried-and-true “10-and-2” positioning, says Smith. Or, experts suggest dropping the hands slightly, to a “9-and-3” position, to keep them out of an airbag’s path. You’re also probably turning wrong. In this age of airbag-equipped cars, experts no longer recommend the hand-over-hand method of turning the steering wheel. Instead, use the “shuffle” method, which feeds the wheel through your hands and keeps them from crossing in front of the airbag.

Q : How to Approve For a Poor Credit Car Finance Loan?

Add Up Your Current Debts
The amount of money you pay each year toward debts shouldn’t exceed 30% of your annual income. This includes your car payment. Before applying for an auto loan, add up the total amount you pay toward your debts each year, including the amount you plan to pay on your car. If this amount exceeds 30% of your annual income, you’ll need to take measures to lower your debt-to-income ratio. This means that you’ll either have to pay off some debts before applying for a car loan, or you’ll have to reduce the amount you’ll borrow.

Clean Up Your Credit Before Applying

Obtain copies of your credit reports from the three main reporting agencies. Check each report for errors or inaccuracies. Keep in mind that it takes these companies up to 30 days to follow through on disputes. Make timely payments on your other credit accounts in the months prior to applying. Even a few months of timely payments will improve your chances of approval. Finally, avoid applying for other forms of credit. Inquiries on your credit report temporarily lower your credit score.

Make a Down Payment

If you have bad credit, lenders are going to want to make sure that, even if you don’t pay your loan, they can resale the car and get their money back. For this reason, it’s important that you take out a loan for less than the car’s appraised amount.
For example, if the car you’re buying is worth $15,000, you’ll want to borrow less than that amount. Usually that means making a significant down payment. Making a down payment makes you less of a risk to a borrower, therefore improving your chances of being approved.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Can't Believe We Haven't Updated For So Long

It's very hard to believe all that time passed and we never bothered to update the blog. Horrible! The fact that we've been pretty busy is not a good excuse. We will try to be more consistent posting new stuff here.

We'll try to give you a brief overview of what's been accomplished so far. We are constantly working on improving the quality of iAuto and iRealty. We are improving our internal development processes: work flow management, project and task planning, coding, testing, and control.

We have made substantial product improvements that will appear in the new version of the software to make iAuto and iRealty more reliable, robust, flexible and smart. We've also added several smaller features that improve the overall functionality of the software and make it more usable and powerful.

Our iAuto/iRealty community is growing, and the forum is slowly becoming a focal point where information about updates, fixes, tweaks and bugs is gathered and made available to those who need it.

We've been engaged in several bigger projects where iAuto/iRealty were used as the platform for custom solutions and even developed a totally independent solution from scratch. We will announce one of the projects shortly when it goes live with the permission of the owners.

This should be it for now, we'll be keeping you informed as we go along.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

New Automotive Groups at Google Groups

Syd's Eastside Auto is proud to announce that it has started two new groups at Google Groups:

Autos & Automotive
An automotive and motorsports group for discussing all things automotive related. Topics may include autos, automotive mechanics, auto shows, automobile racing, automotive parts, salvage, classic cars, collector cars & more. Pickup trucks, tractor trailer trucks and motorcycling are also allowed. New members must be invited, although non-members may request membership. Each membership request must include a personal response so that we know that they aren't a spam bot collecting email addresses from such group mailing lists.

AutomotiveParts
Hunt for or offer automotive parts. Anyone may join to find or sell auto parts. All posts offering auto parts must include whether it is a used, rebuilt or new auto part. New parts should further indicate whether they are OEM, aftermarket or high performance parts. This group offers a unique opportunity for entreprenuers, salvage yards, parts shops, auto parts search pools and other automotive industry products. We welcome new aftermarket automotive and high performance auto parts sellers from drop shippers and wholesalers. Discuss the business or advertise your goods. Anyone may view the posts, but membership is required to post. New members must be invited, although non-members may request membership. Each membership request must include a personal response so that we know that they aren't a spam bot collecting email addresses from such group mailing lists.

Whether you are an automotive industry professional or just an automobile enthusiast, you will probably want to join the first group, which is more of a general subject group for anything automotive or motorsports related.

The second group is intended to offer a format for parts searches and querries, as well as offer a format from which automotive professionals can offer automotive parts, products and supplies.

We certainly encourage those of you who wish to join to do so. We are asking for a personal response from all new members in order to keep spam bots and spammers out of the group. We get enough spam as it is, I imagine you do to, as spam has alarmingly become a significant problem for anyone who conducts business on the internet.

-Syd's Eastside Auto Parts, Used Cars, Used Trucks & Rebuilders

New WebRing: "Automotive" - Seeking New Automotive and Motorsports Membership Sites

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts is happy to announce a new WebRing.

Automotive WebRing

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts, Used Cars & Rebuilders sponsors the Automotive SEARCH Network, which will also serve as the initial starting site for the new Automotive WebRing. The Automotive WebRing Hub is an official WebRing.com webring.

As we have previously announced, Automotive SEARCH is a selective search engine for automotive and motorsports related resources. More information about this new search facility is available in a couple of our previous posts, Automotive Search and Automotove Search Homepage.

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts is also a member of the webring, of course. Funny thing is, another member joined before actually getting the webring code implemented on that site and so the sponsor's site is the third on the list in their own webring. LOL!

But we are happy to have any and all family friendly automotive and/or motorsports related websites join our webring. The more membership we have, the better of a webring community it will be. The better the webring will be, the better the Automotive SEARCH Network will be, as well.

Automotive WebRing