Finally, got through the merge from and merge into functions of the new Report options page. Following that, I hurried through the rest of the Tutorial in the help file. It may not be perfect right now, but it will get polished over time.

So what was going to be just adding the last set of features before going beta, ending up turning into some fairly major changes and usability improvements. A lot of the changes were based on user input and I thank everyone for that.

There are quite a few changes this version, many of them quite noticeable in the program and in the Everything Report. See my Version History for a complete list. I'll be sending out a mailing tonight to everyone who's purchased and tried Behold to let them know about the new version and some of the new features.

As I use Behold to build my HTML webpage for my family research, I realize I will have to include thumbnails of photos. Up until today, I hadn't thought of a good way to do that.

GEDCOM files can specify IMG tags, which give the location of an image on the local computer. But TRichview, which I'm using as the engine for the Everything Report, does not yet properly wrap text around images. My plan was to wait until they implemented that.

But then I realized that I simply want to display a thumbnail (very small version) of each picture on its own line, with any descriptive text about it on the right. So an easy implementation would be a table with one row and two columns. In the first column is the image. In the second is the textual information. No word wrap around the image is necessary and it should look quite nice.

Now what about getting the full image. The idea was to click on the image to bring up the original. That would be possible from from the Everything Report in Behold, also possible from the HTML web page Behold produces, and probably possible as well from the RTF Behold can output.

But then I discovered something quite elegant. There is a really nice Photo-Zoom capability available for web pages. You just put your mouse over the thumbnail and the full size image instantly appears in the same window. No clicking or new windows required. It is very user friendly and useful!

What I'll do is finish up the current version, hopefully in the next week or so. I've only got 18 more days until this alpha version expires. But since I need the photos in Behold's output for my project, I'll add the thumbnail capability as the first thing after this version is released. And if it's not too hard, I'll try to add the photo-zoom as well. That will be a killer feature if add it.

So you won't have to wait for images until Version 3 anymore. It'll be in Version 1.

At last, this version is released! There are a few new things, a number of improvements, and many bug fixes including a few important bugs squashed related to problems customizing tags. Visually, the most significant difference is the elimination of the log file with that data being added into the File Information sections at the bottom of the Everything Report.

There really has been no use in me saying that the next version would be out in 2 months. It always seems to extend to almost three. Thank goodness that I added my expiry of the program after 3 months. At least that has forced my hand at getting a new version finished.

But now I'm guided by my new resolve to work towards the goal of Version 2.0 and get there as soon as possible, maybe within a year. First step is to get to beta. I'm again attempting to say 2 months (January 2008) to do the final bits of alpha work. There are 3 major features I want to that I feel need to be in version 1:

1. Handling Photos. I want to be able to display thumbnails with their associated data. Hopefully I'll find a quick and dirty way to code it to show a larger picture when you point to one with the mouse. Exporting to HTML should be easy. I don't know about RTF.
2. Displaying the same AFNs together. This will basically be a precursor to Virtual Merging. I've promised this to one purchaser for too long a time already. And it has been the feature that seems to get deferred every version. This time I'll do it.
   
3. Allow Behold to be used as a Portable Application on a pen drive. This really isn't that important now, but it will be quite easy for me to do (only take a few days) and it will be a "sexy" feature that might get Behold noticed.

Number one for me are the pictures. I need that feature to use Behold to make my webpage with info for my Romanian research. If your genealogy program exports links to photos in its GEDCOM, then you'll want that feature as well. I'm a bit worried as there is a chance that graphics might slow Behold down or make it use too much memory. But I'll tackle that problem if it happens.

So, enjoy this current release. I'm very happy with it. I've been tightening up and simplifying the code, and Behold is starting to feel like a real solid application.

My organization of my Romanian family is going to take about a week to complete. I plan to put the resulting Behold-produced page on my website so that my cousins and our researcher in Romania can all have access to the most up-to-date info at all times. Then, as new information comes in, I'll add it to the GEDCOM, and use Behold to produce a new web page.

I'll be organizing the photos for this project as well. Thumbnails, info about the pics, and links to larger versions of the pics will need to be included. That's what I want to add to Behold while I do all this. I better get to work and see how it goes.

With Photoshop Elements, I expected it would be able to create a photo gallery from the 300 pictures and 15 videos I took from my Nashville trip that I could put on my website to share with my relatives. It can, but only as a Flash-based gallery. I didn't want that, but I wanted a gallery that my relatives could download the pictures and videos from via right-clicking. PE didn't seem to provide that. I know there are online photo gallery sites, where you can put them up. But I really didn't think it would be difficult to set up my own.

After a bit of searching, I thought I found a wonderful tool. JAlbum is a free program to create your own photo album written in Java that has "endless customization". That sounded just like what I wanted, since I like to customize things and I'm quite particular.

The basic setup was quite easy, and it has lots of different "skins" you can choose from. I looked through many of them, finally settling on one of their most popular and most customizable called BluPlusPlus. But like the rest, I found it very bloated with too many features. I turned many off and was still left with a few things I wanted to get rid of, such as an unnecessary middle gallery layer, that couldn't be removed by the options. The only way was to change the Java programs themselves.

Now JAlbum supplies the Java code. I've never worked with Java before. Looking at the code, I would have to say the language is uggggg-ly! Java compilers for Windows are free, but I had no desire to get into that just now.

So I did the next best thing. I built the gallery using what I had customized so far. Then I manually edited the HTML produced to get rid of that middle layer and make other changes that I couldn't in the program. This worked out pretty well.

... until I discovered a few things that needed changing. I could no longer rebuild the files with JAlbum, or I would lose the manual edits I made. So now it became tedious. I wanted to remove 2 pages, which entailed manually changing the links on the previous and following pages, changing the count of pages in that section in the index, and changing every page in the section from "7 of 64" to "6 of 63", "8 of 64" to "7 of 63" ... well, you get the idea.

Finally I was done, until I discovered to my horror that the dates and times for every picture were off by one hour. My camera was on daylight saving time. In Photoshop Elements, I can easily change the time stamps. If I could have then used JAlbum to regenerate the pages, it would have been easy. Fortunately, the dates were in the format "Fri 18 Jan 2008 10:32:39 AM" so I could change all "2008 1:" to "2008 0:", "2008 2:" to "2008 1:" ... up to "2008 12:" to "2008 11:" and then the "2008 0:" to "2008 12:". Finally I'd check all the "2008 11:" to change the AM to PM and PM to AM and possibly change the date. Lot's of fun - NOT!

So here it is, a week later, and I got the album up, and it looks great (sorry it has private photos, so I can't link you to it). But it did zap a week out of me, after I thought a few hours would be all that would be needed. Another case of this programmer's extreme optimism.

Oh well. Now I'd better finish the Behold site customization, get the new site up, and get an interim release of Behold out. Beta is pushed back maybe until March, unfortunately.

There's a new version now up. For non-purchasers of Behold, Behold had only 4 days left until it expired. So I needed to release a new version, even though all it has new is 2 small bug fixes.

I didn't realize until now how long this site redevelopment has been taking. It's now two months and still isn't finished. But that's because I'm tacking everything on: A new website. A new web host. A new blog tool. New forum software. New mailing software. New automation scripts. In the meantime, other than new software, I've also learned the PHP script language, mySQL database, and CSS web markup. So I've been busy and my head hurts.

I've come to realize that it was necessary to do this prior to getting to beta and then version 1.0. Soon my site will be ready for growth and increased traffic. Will that happen? I hope so, but at least I'll have a nice modern site with all the tools in place to handle it if and when it does.

So with all decisions in place, it's just a matter of implementing everything, bit by bit, until it's done. My current Behold website uses 8 year old HTML/ASP/Access technology that lasted up to now. This rewrite will bring my site into the new CSS/PHP/mySQL world, and should hopefully last me for the 8 years.

This blog posting describes how I have begun to use network graphs to illustrate ("read") texts.

• Keywords: network graphs; reading;
• Source: This posting was originally published as a part of Infomotions's Musings.

Get 10% off home / residential phone service plus for 6 months

[263Chat] South African Amapiano giant Kabza De Small is set to serenade Harare fans on the night of Friday, November 22, with his latest hits in the genre that has lit up the world.

0.08

[Capital FM] Nairobi -- President William Ruto has congratulated U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on his recent election victory during a phone call, where the two leaders discussed strengthening bilateral relations and areas of mutual interest.

[This Day] The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), along with its partners - TotalEnergies Upstream Nigeria Limited, SAPETRO, CNOOC, and PRIME 130 - has inaugurated a cutting-edge mammography centre at the Federal University Teaching Hospital, Lafia, Nasarawa State.

[Prosper Africa] Prosper Africa's Tech for Trade Alliance (AT4T) is launching its latest pilot in Africa to field test a digital platform intended to bring visibility to Africa's drug supply chains, creating a more transparent, efficient, and safe commercial market for medications.

[MSF] Ahead of World Diabetes Day, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called on pharmaceutical corporations Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, and all insulin manufacturers to take urgent action to increase access to diabetes treatment in low- and middle-income countries by immediately making insulin* pen injection devices available at US$1 (R17,81) per pen.

January 9, 2006 - On Friday, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich announced that he wants to ban the unauthorized sale of phone records within his state. The practice, know in the industry as “pretexting”, occurs when someone pretending to be the phone company’s customer calls the phone company and gains access to all of the call information available for the actual customer. Surprisingly, no state currently outlaws this practice. And disturbingly, this lack of regulation has seen the birth of a new cottage industry that allows nearly anyone the purchase the phone records of any person they desire.

In addition to making your RSS feed available to your visitors for use with their RSS Feed Reader, as a webmaster you may also want to make the same feed available on your website for viewing with a regular web browser.

There are several ways to do this, some have advantages or disadvantages compared to others. The best solution is one where the webpage is automatically updated on-the-fly, is easily spidered by search engine robots, and easy to implement.

Free RSS to HTML PHP Script

With the Corona virus not far from everyones minds and the precautions that individuals took to protect their health. It is not a far stretch to consider the possible germs and bacteria that have potentially taken up residence on our cell phones. Mobile devices are never far from most individuals. They are constantly being touched, placed down, picked up and placed near the face. A study published in 2017 found that cell phone screens were host to multiple viruses and bacteria including: E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus.  Depending on the temperature and relative humidity, cold and flu viruses can survive from a few hours to up to 9 days.

How to Clean Cell Phone Screens

How to Conserve and Make the Most of Your Data Usage?
Mobile data usage on a cell phone refers to any information the cell phone exchanges using a cellular network.  Almost every application on a cell phone uses data, in some way. Arguably some applications use more data, than others.

There are a number of steps you can take to make sure you do not exceed your mobile data limit that comes with your cell phone service.

Adjust Wi-Fi Settings
It goes without saying that when you are located near a secure/safe Internet hot-spot you should use it to connect via Wi-Fi. Using Wi-Fi rather than your cellular connection will preserve your mobile data usage for when a wi-fi Internet connection is not available.

What Uses Data on a Cell Phone?

Cell phones are now very common in the Western world and have become increasingly more important in a crisis. There are a number of different ways that cell phones can be  extremely helpful in an emergency situation, as a result it is important that the cell phone be operational and have power in the event it is needed.

During a crisis the battery life of a cell phone is crucial. A cell phone may be the only source of communication available.

Prolonging the battery life of a cell phone can be very important and should be considered a priority in an emergency situation. Regardless of whether you have an iPhone or an Android phone there are a number of things that can be done to extend the life of a cell phone’s battery.

Cell Phone Use in Natural Disasters and How to Conserve Battery Life

How to Conserve and Make the Most of Your Data Usage?
Mobile data usage on a cell phone refers to any information the cell phone exchanges using a cellular network.  Almost every application on a cell phone uses data, in some way. Arguably some applications use more data, than others.

There are a number of steps you can take to make sure you do not exceed your mobile data limit that comes with your cell phone service.

What Uses Data on a Cell Phone

Whether your cell phone has a broken screen, is no longer the latest technology, or you are simply itching for the latest cell phone model, it is important that you take appropriate care in disposing of your old cell phone.

How to Dispose of Old Cell Phones

How do you keep a glass of beer cold the longest? By using science, of course. At least that's what one researcher has turned to, finding the optimal shape of vessel that will keep a poured beer chilled for as long as possible while you drink it.

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Category: Science

Tags: Beer, Physics, Mathematics, Glass, Design Engineering

Ice wreaks havoc on surfaces, but we might have a new way to prevent it building up. Scientists at Northwestern University have shown that textured surfaces with thin layers of graphene oxide can stay completely frost-free for long periods.

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Category: Materials, Science

Tags: Ice, new material, Surfaces, Northwestern University, Snow, Biomimicry

We're kicking off this week with a treat for your peepers. Unlike their usual settings, Harvard University staff photographer Niles Singer pointed a camera and a strobe flash at some of the school's athletes and performers as they ran, jumped, and danced in the dark.

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Category: Photography, Consumer Tech, Technology

Tags: Photo, Gallery

The S'Mouse City Model offers a modern tiny house take on the traditional shepherd's hut. Featuring a very compact but comfortable interior layout, the towable dwelling also comes with optional off-the-grid upgrades.

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Category: Tiny Houses, Lifestyle

Tags: Tiny Footprint, Building and Construction, House, Home, Micro-House

Six years on from the first iMicro smartphone microscope, the team has unveiled its latest: the iMicro Q3p, a fingertip-sized, lightweight device that makes microscopy inexpensive, portable and accessible to anyone with a camera on their phone. What's more, this new model features polarization, allowing you to see (and photograph) incredible detail in the structures of materials such as crystals and minerals – all for less than 1% of the cost of the equipment normally required to view these structures.

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Category: Technology

Tags: Kickstarter, smartphones, Microscopes, Gadgets

In this episode of Bleeding Daylight, I interview Eric Stephens, a pastor, life coach, and founder of Redwood Christian Ministries. Eric shares his powerful journey from a difficult childhood marked by the absence of his biological father and struggles with addiction and depression, to a transformative encounter with the love and acceptance of Jesus Christ. […]

Astropad has introduced Bookcase, a unique smartphone case that transforms your phone into a dedicated e-reader.

Many people plug in their phones before bed without a second thought, but experts say it's best to avoid overnight charging.

Apple is reportedly preparing a new feature that could bring a highly anticipated improvement to the iPhone charging experience.

The latest iPhone iOS update is nearly here, these are the new features, bug fixes and general improvements that you can expect to see in December.

The players and fans celebrated the win in style

(Telecompaper) Cybersecurity company Sophos has announced its appointment of Andy Travers as regional vice president for EMEA North...

(Telecompaper) Dutch online marketplace Bol.com has started selling refurbished smartphones, tablets, laptops and smartwatches, with the Refurbished quality certification...

(Telecompaper) New Ugandan operator Talkio Mobile has launched a festive campaign giving over 10,000 customers who book a Talkio SIM online automatic entry to a...

(Telecompaper) ZTE brand Nubia has launched its latest flagship gaming smartphone series in China, touting the performance standards, thermal system, display technology and battery size of the two new devices...

Phone call recordings and transcripts are a few taps away.

This year's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is the first title in the series to be available on phones the same day as PC and consoles.

Use Apple's Find My app to keep tabs on your device whether it's powered on.

Commentary: The base iPhone still lacks an always-on display, but I hope Apple changes that with the iPhone 17.

De grootste smartphonefabrikanten waren vorige week allemaal in het nieuws, met kwartaalcijfers van Apple en Samsung en nieuwe toptelefoons van Xiaomi en Honor. De grote Amerikaanse techbedrijven presenteerden ook hun derdekwartaalresultaten, zonder tekenen van een vertraging in hun wereldwijde groei...

1. Android 15 QPR2 brings the newest Linux kernel to all tensor-powered phones and tablets  Android Police
2. Here’s everything new in Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1 [Gallery]  9to5Google
3. Your Google Pixel Phone's Newest Android 15 Beta Update Arrived  Droid Life
4. Google is preparing to bring back a beloved customization feature from Android 11  Android Authority
5. Android 15 QPR2 beta 1 release includes major upgrade for Tensor-powered Pixels  PhoneArena

1. 18 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2  MacRumors
2. iOS 18.2 makes AirPods more powerful than ever, here’s why  9to5Mac
3. Apple Likely Planning to Release iOS 18.2 on December 9  MacRumors
4. iOS 18.2 Public Beta 2 Upgrades Find My and Brings More AI to Some iPhones  CNET
5. iOS 18.2 beta 3: 4 Apple Intelligence features you can test now  Mashable

Four years down the road, the Triumph Tiger 900 gets a significant midlife update that aims to fix most of the existing 900’s issues.

Triumph Tiger 900 GT: engine, performance, refinement

The main improvements are within the 888cc three-cylinder engine, and multiple changes have resulted in not just more power and torque but also the promise of more efficiency. The previous Tiger 900 was far from slow, but the jump from 95hp/87Nm to 108hp/90Nm makes the bike feel even more potent and reactive.

But it’s not just about speed because this engine is also really lovely to ride at a relaxed pace. It’s torquey and very flexible with the gears, so you can ride over speed breakers in third and use sixth as low as 40kph. The fuelling is also beautifully smooth, and you can open the accelerator at very low revs without any signs of protest. This means less clutch use – both off the road and in heavy city traffic, and that’s always nice, even though this clutch isn’t particularly heavy to operate.

I’m also a fan of the sound and feel of this engine with its deep, raspy growl. That said, while it’s characterful, it’s also far from perfect. The big complaint with the 900 engine was its high-rpm vibration, and Triumph has tried to improve that. Heavier bar-end weights and rubber-damped handlebar mounts have made some very clear improvements, but this is still not the smoothest engine in its class at high speeds.

Triumph Tiger 900 GT: comfort, ride & handling

Wind protection is usually based on your height and helmet, but I find that this height-adjustable windscreen results in some uncomfortable helmet buffeting at high speeds. Thankfully, the rest of the ergos are beautiful. Despite having gone up by 10mm, the 820-840mm seat height is very low for an ADV of this size and capability, and even tall riders will be comfy here. The seat is also new, and the comfort is fantastic.

The highly impressive chassis remains unchanged, and some fantastic suspension allows this bike to tear effortlessly through any form of terrible road. Like before, there’s a 45mm USD fork with 180mm of travel and a monoshock with 170mm of travel. The suspension is adjustable, but not fully – compression and rebound at the front and preload and rebound at the rear. The stock settings are good enough, but with a remote rear preload adjuster, you can easily make any changes you need.

Even though the GT is the road-biased bike in the line-up, it’s fun to ride off-road and will easily get you through one of those Ladakh adventures. But you must remember that it’s running road tyres on alloy wheels and has no crash protection; Triumph has even removed the earlier GT’s plastic sump guard. For most casual ADV riders, this will be more than capable enough off-road, and I’d only recommend going for the Rally if you really want that hardcore capability or taller seat.

Road handling is neutral and easy but not particularly sporty, and you won’t have to work too hard to scrape its footpegs. It’s definitely no Multistrada V2 in the corners, but it’s still good enough that you’ll have fun.

The impressive braking hardware is the same, but there’s a new linked-braking system that adds in some rear brake when you use the front. It feels quite natural while bringing some more stability to the braking.

Triumph Tiger 900 GT: verdict, price, service cost

As for features, the biggest change is the new 7-inch TFT from the Tiger 1200. This one has a great layout and, thankfully, gets rid of those weird layouts from the old Tiger 900. But, like in the Tiger 1200, it takes an eternity to boot up and feels laggy to operate. Triumph really should have fixed this.

But what’s most frustrating is that Triumph still expects you to pay an additional Rs 43,531 if you want a quickshifter. It’s a feature I really missed, and not getting one in this day and age on a Rs 14 lakh motorcycle is quite annoying. Thankfully, you get most of the essentials you’d want on a big ADV, such as two power outlets, cruise control and heated grips; you can even opt for heated seats.

The Tiger 900 has always been the sweet spot in the big ADV segment in India, and this latest update only sweetens that package, especially since it costs just Rs 20,000 more than before. Tigers have also built a great reputation for reliability over the years, and they run fine on regular petrol.

However, there are some cost concerns. The first is that the Tiger 900 GT is a CBU, so the on-road price gets very high in certain states that heavily tax CBUs – it’s nearly Rs 18 lakh in Mumbai. The other disappointment is that spares and service costs for the big bikes actually went up instead of down and are now about 20-30 percent more expensive than before since Bajaj took over Triumph’s operations in India.

Nevertheless, the Triumph Tiger 900 GT is a fantastic all-round motorcycle, and it continues to be my go-to recommendation for the casual adventure rider looking for a premium midsize ADV.

Also See: 2024 Triumph Tiger 900 GT video review

On the Sunday before the 2023 Munich Mobility show, BMW handed me the keys to one of its press cars for a drive, so rather than walk around taking in the sights of the city, my plan changed to seeing the countryside from behind the windscreen of the second-generation M4 Competition Coupé! How much would I see, though, I wasn’t sure; the M4 is fast. Really fast. 

BMW M4 Competition: Powertrain and performance

This M4 gets a new 3.0-litre twin-turbo, inline-six petrol motor (code: S58) that produces 510hp: appreciably more than the previous car’s 450hp S55. Torque is also up – 650Nm from 550Nm. Fire it up and you know there’s muscle under that hood, thanks to a nice and sporty growl. It’s not an aural symphony though; you expect more. So the exhaust amplification button stayed on for my entire drive, even when easing it out of the BMW Media Centre garage. Can’t blame me, right? 

Amped-up exhaust sound aside, driving it out was a pretty laidback affair, as was driving it through the little traffic and few traffic lights before we hit the expressway. The engine really is the superstar of this car. On one hand, it’s docile and civil, and yet, engage one of the sportier drive modes, and it’s wild. What I particularly like is the way power comes in. It’s hard and fast, not punchy in the mid-range; just a massively strong push all through the rev range. On the unrestricted stretch of the German autobahn, I’m at ridiculously high triple-digit speeds in no time, and it’s only the sight of other cars sharing the same road that makes me back off. The car? It simply wants to motor on faster still. 0-100kph comes up in a claimed 3.5sec, and mash your foot down and you’ll be in no doubt of that claim. 

Throttle response is also very quick, as is the gearbox, which is also smooth in its operation, due to the switch from a 7-speed DCT to an 8-speed torque-converter. Even in Sport Plus, shifts don’t have a hard edge, and while I was fine with that, some drivers will miss that aggressive feel, which does add to the thrill. 

BMW M4 Competition: Ride and handling

The way the M4 drives is very customisable via the drive modes, and specific setups can be called up via two customisable and cool red hotkeys right behind the steering wheel. Engine, transmission, steering, dampers, brakes and ESC can all be tweaked, and there’s even a drift score analyser that will rate your drifts based on length, angle of rotation, speed and more. The car we have has the xDrive all-wheel-drive setup, but it can drift, says BMW. Given that we were on public roads, I didn’t try this, but it’s an indication of just how much focus BMW has put into making this car fun.

It’s fun around corners even if the wheels don’t break traction, and on a country road that leads us to a lovely riverside café – our planned lunch stop – the M4’s chassis balance really shines. There’s plenty of grip and no body roll going around corners quickly; you can turn in with remarkable precision, knowing exactly what the tyres and suspension are doing. BMW says the AWD is rear biased, which it is, but it does feel like it engages the front axle quite often and not just for off-the-line getaways. There’s a remarkable neutral grip through fast corners but, of course, on a racetrack you can switch to 2WD with the ESC off and get the tail out. The ride quality over a few broken edges is firm but we’ll only know how pliant the suspension is when we drive it here over our rough and tumble.  

BMW M4 Competition: Exterior design

I wouldn’t call the M4 an attractive car. Apart from the large grille, the lines too seem in discordance with each other; the front ones are sharp whereas towards the rear they go soft, and the rear itself appears quite bulky. But it has presence: rather than a handsome Captain America, the M4 is more like the Hulk. Its large and gargantuan grille, massive size – and assuming you choose brighter paintwork – all scream for attention. Being a Sunday, the riverside café we’ve arrived at has plenty of family patrons and a lot of the kids are pretty excited looking at the M4.

We got a lot of stares, even from an older gentleman parking his sedan next to it. But he’s not impressed at all; I suspect it had less to do with the M4’s appearance, and more with its huge bulk, which took up a chaunk of his parking space too. Yes, at 4,794mm in length, this 2-door coupé is a big car and, in fact, is only about 30mm shorter than the long-wheelbase 3 Series sedan. That at least means it’s roomy for a 2-door. The rear seats are okay for adults for short durations, but let’s just say, in our group of journos, no one was in a hurry to sit there; not with a 7 Series also part of the convoy. 

BMW M4 Competition: Interior and features 

The M4 is comfortable up front though. Our test car came with carbon-fibre-backed seats, which reduce the overall weight and give you a snug racing feel, even with the seat base divided into two separate areas for your thighs. There’s plenty of carbon-fibre around the cabin too and everything is built and finished to the typical high standards of BMW. The switches, fabrics and surfaces feel good to touch and it’s nice to see that, despite its strong sporty character, the insides are premium and well loaded too. There’s a three-zone climate control, powered seats, a HUD, a Harman/Kardon sound system and a 10.25-inch touchscreen. I’m not a fan of the 12.3-inch digital instrument panel though. There’s no traditional ‘dial’ look, and what’s provided instead isn’t easy to read or aesthetic in nature. The car we get in India now though has BMW’s new ‘Live Cockpit’ setup, which uses a single panel curved display housing a 12.3-inch instrument panel and a 14.9-inch central touchscreen, and its graphics are different. 

So then, while I hate working Sundays, driving an M4 through the gorgeous European countryside really didn’t feel like one. Yes, I did look at the sights as they whizzed by, and this was a Sunday like no other. The M4 is fast, and that’s its main appeal, and while you can easily blast down an autobahn, it also allows you to enjoy an engaging drive through some lovely twisty country roads. If there ever was a car that signified substance over style, this is it.

Also see: 

Hardcore BMW M4 CSL adds 40hp, sheds 100kg

Laurie Baker’s spaces are meant for the common man. Even fifty-plus years later, his buildings continue to inspire architects, much like museums. Five award-winning architects from different generations talk about their favourite Baker building. International Museum Day is on May 18