What up, kids? I just wanted to send out the obligatory 'Happy Holidays' message to everyone.

I trust you're all having a good time, those of you that celebrate Christmas that is. Me, I've been on vacation since the 22nd and won't return to work until 1/5/04. I've been basically sitting on my arse, watching a lot of X-Files and playing the hell out of Freelancer for the PC. It was way too easy -- beat it in 22 game hours.

On the gaming note, I wanted to let everyone know that I will be updating the site for the release of GT4. Bear in mind that a full car listing will not be immediately available. In fact, it may take quite some time because each car must be verified, etc.

Kerr

Hey everyone. I hope those of you that celebrate Thanksgiving in the US had a good holiday. As the top of the home page says, gtvault.com is hosted out of my own pocket. I felt that those who were generous enough to donate their hard earned money deserved some recognition, so I created the Donating Members page. The page lists all of the members who have donated money to gtvault.com.

You may notice some donors are listed as anonymous. This is because the e-mail address they donated with did not match any gtvault.com accounts. If you are a donor listed anonymously and want to be listed otherwise (or vice versa), please let me know. Thanks to all those who have donated money to gtvault.com!

Kerr

As many of you may have noticed, gtvault has been down off and on for a few days. There was a snafu with my domain registration renewal. Depending on geographical location, some users may have trouble accessing the site for another 48 hours. No data was lost as a result of this problem.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

Kerr

Dadthewheel posted a request for help on developing a GT3 car rating system. Since the post was at the end of a very long thread, I have created a new thread.

Read the comments on this post for Dadthewheel's original post.

Kerr

Update part trois: Avi24 posted a release date of 1/7/2004 from gamefaqs.com. Thanks for the post, Avi24!

Update part deux: GT2000 posted another link, this time to some GT4 Garage pics. Props to GT2000 -- enjoy!

Update: A member over at the GTP forums, Sage, e-mailed me the other day to say that the list of cars that has been circulating around is a wish list as opposed to a confirmed list. Just thought you folks should know. Here is another link to a lengthy thread about this at GTP.

GT2000 posted a link to a potential car list for GT4. If the list turns out to be accurate, I must say that I will be very satisfied. Let's hope the large quantity of cars doesn't mean a drop in quality elsewhere in the upcoming game. Take a look at the list here.

Usually I just ignore when people sign up with bogus e-mail addresses. They can't ever log into the site anyway since they'll never receive the confirmation e-mail. I logged in this evening and saw the latest, which was poop at toilet dot com. I thought it was funny enough to post and say thanks for the laugh. I'd have e-mailed you, but...

Kerr

I found a couple screenshots of Gran Turismo 4 in an E3 update over at CNN/Money. Click here and then click on the link that reads "Launch Pop-Up Gallery" on the right hand side. The graphics look very impressive, especially the aerial shot.

Here is another link with 7 pics (posted by youpey)

Kerr

I was reading up on the latest news on cnet.com and came across an article about Sony just finishing their first major redesign of the PS2 console since it's release. There were a number of great features in the redesign, including DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW capability, progressive scan output, and an integrated infrared receiver for remote control.

Now for the bad news - the Firewire (IEEE 1394) port used for iLinking up to six PS2's is being dropped! If you don't yet have a PS2 and want one that you can network, run out and get one now before the redesign hits the states.

There are two major auto shows that take place each year in Kansas City. The busiest and least entertaining is the K.C. Auto Show which has all the new cars and some minimal concept work from the major automakers. The second is the World of Wheels show. The World of Wheels typically caters to the custom crowd, and this year was no exception. I snapped some pics of the more memorable cars.... enjoy.

Z28 Cobra Smokey Willy's 300ZX Cycle Roadster Headers Surprise

I've been working on a vast array of enhancements for gtvault.com for some time. I finally uploaded many of them today. Here are the highlights:

• Added Tires, NA Tune, Turbo, Intercooler, HP, and Muffler to the Setup Form. All old setups are backward compatible and can be updated with the additional information if you want to do so. I went to the trouble of verifying what mods were available for every car in the game, and have implemented the necessary checks in the Setup Form so that invalid selections cannot be made.
• Changed database platforms to SQL Server 2000. The main difference you guys will see is an increase in performance during peak hours.
• Added the ability to search by Username or E-mail address on the Members page. If you like a certain tuner, you can now find them very easily instead of having to just filter by letter.
• Changed much of the cosmetics of the site. While I retained the general color scheme, I have changed the appearance of lists so they alternate colors and are easier to read. I've made many changes which are more sublte yet make things easier to look at and navigate.

There are probably a lot of things I'm forgetting and a lot more things I'd like to do, but I wanted to get the setup enhancements out there. The new additions will cut down on a lot of repetitive questions I've seen pop up in setup comments.

Kerr