Googley Earth - tip "could not write to the current cache"

Google Earth runs great on ubuntu as do many applications, in fact many are developed on open source or linux environments and ported to Windows rather than the other way around.

Anyway, I noticed when I put Ver 5 and Ver 6 in that I had an obvious permissions error when starting, it would say "Google Earth could not write to the current cache or myplaces file location. The values will be set as follows:

My Places Path: "/home/username/.googleearth"
Cache Path: "/home/username/.googleearth/Cache"

Clearly the program has a default path which is not in the permissions route, normally you would expect to see this if for example you installed a program under your own user ID and not as root, if the default directory for storing files was under the ownership of root then clearly you cannot write here.

A simple fix though, the configuration file is held in this location:
/home/your_username/.config/Google
This is a hidden directory, the directory is case sensitive so Google is capital G.

The default for the two store locations are /root so this is obviously the issue as we're running the program as ourselves.

A quick check also shows we have the Google Earth cache in a subdirectory of our home in this case my home directory is "kevin" so the directory is:

/home/kevin/.googleearth
In there is the KML files and the Cache subdirectory.

To get everything going nicely just edit the config file (as sudo)

To save typing let's assume I've changed into the /home/kevin/.config/Google directory ?

sudo gedit GoogleEarthPlus.conf

right near the start edit the two lines below to show the path to your cache and main folder i.e the ones you have permissions for as in my example.

[Original]
KMLPath=/root/.googleearth
CachePath=/root/.googleearth/Cache

[Edited]
KMLPath=/home/kevin/.googleearth
CachePath=/home/kevin/.googleearth/Cache

Save the file and start Google Earth and the error is gone

It's clear to see here the original location is /root, if your running the program as yourself then you have no user rights in the /root folder unless the folder is chmod to 777 (or whatever permissions you would need) or your user is in the permissions group, this is not a clean way of doing things and you may as well mess about in the low security environment of Windows if your going down that route.
All that's been done here is to point Google Earth to your folder settings, in this case the cache files in /home/kevin i.e my files, I have permissions on my own files so when I launch the program by simply double clicking the desktop icon I am launching it with permissions "kevin", this all matches up and it means no one has messed about with security to open any holes etc.

In fairness I don't think I would expect the installer to make this change, in fact I would prefer to make it myself and define the KML and Cache paths for these exact reasons and that way I ensure I know where they are and the permissions they will need etc.

Still trucking

It's been a short week with the Passat since the Astra went back to hopefully a watery grave.

Even in the short time I've had it the work run on a mixture of urban roads and winding country roads is giving me 7mpg more than the Astra and almost 5mpg more than the Avensis.

There are a couple of things I've noticed  on the Passat, the windscreen is strangely flat and actually smaller than the Avensis and perhaps the Astra but you only notice this if your hunting around the car looking for obvious things, in reality you will notice the roof struts and doors are pretty substantial, you get the feeling that in a crash this is the place to be.

Cruise control is a little different to the ones I'm used to, every one I've used so far takes the speed up or down about 1 or 1.5mph per click ,this takes it 5mph so I was taken by surprise when I engaged it and clicked it 4 times.

Engine is literally silent when idling, none of the normal tractor noises or body shaking that accompanies most diesels and apart from some noise when gunning it (might check the exhaust as I've no idea what the previous owner did to it) you would not know it's not a petrol car.

Quite a lively character, if you use the throttle gently then it obeys and whisks you along with a purr and a sense of purpose, if you stab it all the way then something is unleashed under the bonnet and you notice several warnings from the traction control if your not lucky.

Lots and lots of torque at low rev's considerably different engine mapping to any diesel I've driven before, you always had to give them some revs to get the power out and get the turbo kicking in or if you had a low pressure turbo you would get power low down then have to rely on the engine revs to deliver the rest.
With this you get a huge surge of power very low in the rev range, encouraging you to change up far earlier than you normally would, in fact you can pop into 4th gear at 40mph or less and accellerate quite comfortably, no engine banging or complaints.
If you resist changing gear and thrust the throttle forwards then it obliges with a force that makes you think somethings just ran into the back of you.
Although not the higest horsepower engine by far the torque is delivered where you want it and I find it's getting me to change gear like I used to 30 odd years ago when I had driving lessons (i.e correctly) and it has enough power to get up steep hills etc without dropping gear, in fact there is a very steep hill on the way to work and i've noticed yound lads in their pimped up Corsa's tear off at the traffice lights, as they hit the hill they start to sag and the Passat just whisps by with hardly a murmor.

It's certainly not as nippy as the Astra but that was perhaps the only thing in the Astra's favor and to be fair there are plenty of cars that will leave the Astra standing so that was a poor mans go kart.

Little touches like the quick warm up in the morning (4 mins to defrost this morning) and you see the difference to the 15 minutes the Vauxhall took, nice instruments and a nice cockpit to be in, you feel relaxed and in fact don't feel the need to drive around gunning the engine, you enjoy the drive and relax more - I've noticed already I woudl rather cruise along now and let everyone else race for pole position rather than drive like fury and get to work feeling i've done 5 laps.

Surprisingly VW now have a 1.6 td engine that delivers exactly the same HP and torque so this would be interesting to drive, I would estimate it's a little lighter so would enchance the feel but the tax bracket is considerably lower so a tempting engine to look at. Most modern diesels are bullet proof anyway you can mess about with throttle mappings and fuel injections etc and put as much power down as you like i've seen shoguns mapped to deliver more than you would feel safe with so I suspect the Germans have simply applied this and proven the engine won't self destruct.
Much like the old F1 days were BMW were building a new F1 engine on a budget, at the rear of a building (so the story goes) was a jumbled mess of engine bodies sitting exposed to the weather and covered in grass etc, in fact the story says the engineers there used to go for a wee wee over them as well.
On a budget they looked at these engine blocks and were surprised that they had no defects, the weathering had toughened up the blocks and effectively removed stress from them, they went on to build the first 1000hp turbo charged engine from these.

Anyone who takes rusty scrap and makes a F1 winner or puts touches like an umbrella slot in the drivers door has only one thing on their mind, a dedication to what they do.
My short time in Germany showed me the people are proud to be German and proud to do things to the best of their ability, the difference sitting in a "cheaper" Passat to the poorly conceived Astra says the Astra had few influences from across the water.

I'm pretty pleased with myself there, I went all the way through an article and never once mentioned the war ... oops

'Tis Witchcraft I tell ye

Finally the Astra has gone back, the recent snow was a similar match with the Astra to a large spark is to a leaking petrol pump, somethings got to happen.

The Astra was not cutting the mustard, turning a mere 34.7mpg regardless of how careful I drove it and in fact on motorways where you would expect economy (as your in 6th gear) the fuel consumption was hardly any better at all, I never got above 37mpg on it.

I will admit in the dry the car had very good road holding but always felt light and "tinny", the noise above 40mph meant you left the radio off for most of the journeys and it was as comfortable as sitting on an old bus.

Even better was the hire company noticed a large portion of the front lower fascia missing which must have snapped off during the cold period or simply decided it no longer wanted to be on the car so threw itself into a gutter.

As a final insult the windscreen washers blew a fuse and vauxhall use those tiny micro blade fuses so despite have a load of spare car fuses, none were suitable for this pile of junk.

It went back and I'm not sorry to see it go.

In return I picked up a pool car for a short while, a Passat 1.9Td saloon, amazingly the car is some £3000 cheaper and although a couple of years old the different is staggering.

The seats are deep and comfortable, the noise levels are considerably different, in fact at the same speeds I would do every day to work you hardly notice the engine is on and running, road noise is almost non existent and the whole car just purrs along.

Despite being the same size engine i.e 1.9 Td the power difference is not that noticeable, the  Astra needed some dubious use of the right foot to make it move or a prod of the "Sport" button to make it leap forwards, I found on twisty country roads such as the Pennines that the Astra needed considerable work to keep the engine providing power, if you went into a bend in the wrong gear you would lose all momentum and it would not pull itself out the bend unless you quickly dropped a gear.

With the Passat the engine gives an enormous amount of power at low rev's, you feel the torque and despite being a 5 speed gearbox can change up quite early in the rev range knowing the engine will simply apply the same high levels of torque in that gear as well, in fact you almost run out of torque if you simply floor the throttle, it's very similar to the first LET (Low End Torque) engines I first saw in the Fiat, Nova etc of their day, you had a short stroke engine giving lots of torque at the low end and it make for some great driving.

While this engine is providing you with more than enough torque your also finding on the country run to work I'm seeing about 7 mpg more at the moment - topping almost 42mpg. The previous owner decided to return it without the usual oil in the engine so I'm going to check the levels over the weekend and hopefully get the oil back as it should be.

Equipment is good, it has a feature I used to love in my Vectra, a simple LED light shining down into the car so at night the area around the gear lever is illuminated in a soft glow, the Vectra had a yellow LED, the Passat is Red, I don't mind the colour I just love the fact you can see what's what without too much messing.

The Radio is fine, I can hear it now and that makes a change, the heaters are more than ample, the Astra was often very cold - it was difficult to get the heating right and the fans were very loud on settings 3 or 4, the controls were placed so your hand obstructed the view when you were driving, on the Passat they are in fingertip reach of the gear lever and the fans are not only quieter but more powerful, rear passengers have their own air vents as well which is nice.

Defrosting is about 3 minutes on the Passat, about 10 minutes quicker than the Astra !

Nice touches such as heated wing mirrors (although they don't fold like the Avensis used to), the boot is perhaps crossing two time zones it is simply cavernous, although the car is a saloon and the first one i've had I have never seen a boot so large. The remote will open the boot for you which pops up nicely and you lose any bags in there due to the amount of space on offer.
The car has a keyless starting system, insert the fob into a slot and press and your started and ready to go, a really nice touch, no more keys bashing my knees as i'm driving along.

The Witchcraft ? Ah that will be the hand brake or rather the lack of it, if you instinctively put your hand down to grab the brake lever you will pick up some bottles, cans or sunglasses, this car has an electronic hand brake.
Pull up to a stop and press the "P" button and it apparently applies brakes to all 4 wheels, to release the brake you can simply drive off !
You can release manually but surely this is the work of the Dark one himself and a sign that no one can deny of Witchcraft ?

Despite expecting the car to simply roll backwards down hills etc it's actually a very clever idea, I now have a lovely range of cup holders in the center console, air conditioned glove box and center storage and more leg room than you can shake a cat at.

It's surprising the difference between the two cars, in many ways the Passat is very similar to the Avensis and you can see the difference, the Avensis had more gadgets (sat nat as standard, rain sensitive wipers etc) but you feel the build quality more in the Passat, not that I felt the Avensis was cheap and tatty - in many ways I miss the Avensis, had the previous owner not decided to dent every single body panel I would have considered purchasing it for my own use.

Time though to give the German auto industry some miles and I'm sure the Passat will not dissapoint...

One last thing, I noticed a pocket in the drivers door for ... an umbrella - the Germans REALLY know the British Market !

Lock it up for New Year

The subject on many lips lately is hackers and security, even more so with the announcement that someone can crack into your mobile phone calls and listen in with noting more than a cheap Motorola phone and some cunning skills.
An irony is that i have a firm belief that some of our greatest software advances are due to people cracking security in areas like Playstations, Xbox, WEP etc, this brings security forwards as people develop countermeasures and also brings skills out in testing and breaking those measures, I'm sure a time will come when a status quo will exist in the time and effort needed to break security will be far more than the rewards and people will simply not bother.

How can you help yourself ? I teach several subjects in my role and during the Desktop and Notebook course we discuss some basic security and their advantages.

Drivelock - if your system supports drivelock then this is one of the first defences.
This puts a password on the hard drive itself so in the event that someone powers up your system the drive will not mount itself or be accessible, what's important is to understand that Drivelock is a function of the hard drive not of the BIOS so although you set it through the BIOS if you remove the hard drive and attempt to bypass the operating system (for example putting it into a USB caddy) the drive will still be locked.

When setting Drivelock you will need to secure your BIOS (Drivelock will tell you it won't continue until you set a Bios password), set a good strong password then for Drivelock you normally have two passwords, the user level (your day to day password to unlock the drive) and the master password (In case you forget the user password or need to over ride it).

Once set the system will prompt for Drivelock password when booting the system, even if you intend to boot from USB drive or CD-Rom the system will still ask for it. This will prevent people using a boot disk such as Ubuntu live or a Windows recovery CD to bypass your OS login passwords and gain access to your data.

Drivelock is so efficient that if you remove the drive, put it in a USB caddy then to all intents you do not have a drive connected, you have not put the password in so the drive is not even visible as a device. To use it in an external caddy you must put it back in your system (or a compatible PC), enter the Drivelock password and in the BIOS disable the lock, at that point the drive behaves as any non protected drive.

People often ask me what happens if the encrypt their drive i.e will Drivelock work, Drivelock works BEFORE any OS is mounted it is at the drive firmware level so as an example, think of a car, you unlock the door and open it, get in, sit down and start the engine. Think of the engine as your Operating system, think of Drivelock as the car door (locked), in normal situations the door is not locked, you simply walk up to the car, open the door and start the engine.

With Drivelock you Unlock the door then start the engine (with a different key).

As another example imaging leaving your laptop on a train, could you power it up and get as far as the Operating system (where it asks you to log in) ?
If so then anyone with a live CD or Windows boot CD can easily start your system up, bypass any need for passwords and simply gain access to your files.

If you have some letters to the bank, perhaps a list of your passwords etc then everything on your laptop and far more is compromised.

Drivelock will secure your drive even when it is removed from your machine and attempts made to break into Drivelock cause it to lock the drive out after three attempts, at that point you must power down to try again.

If you have TPM (Trusted Platform Module) fitted then take control of your TPM chip, put ownership information in and secure your TPM.
TPM works by generating random numbers/keys, these are used for passwords such as https sessions, encryption and even drivelock.
One option in BIOS is normally to enable TPM Drivelock, this puts a 256bit (32 character) random password onto the drive, only Drivelock and the drive know the true password so you will never know it.

TPM will challenge you to prove your ownership (perhaps a fingerprint swipe), at this point TPM will unlock the drive - the beauty of this is that you can't use an obvious password as TPM chooses it, the strength set by TPM and it removes the weak point (you) from the password option.


TPM is also used if you decide to implement Bitlocker, this is Windows whole drive encryption, once Bitlocker is enabled then TPM will hold the master and run time keys that Bitlocker needs - should TPM fail (and your keys be lost) you can export a master recovery key for Bitlocker (make sure you keep this in a very very safe place).


As TPM is used more and more it will hold keys for just about everything, banking, log on passwords, file encryption passwords etc - should your TPM chip fail (or motherboard) then obviously the passwords are lost, TPM software allows you to export your keys to pen drive but you should NEVER export your master and public keys together, you can export your public keys and simply put the pen drive into a convenient drawer or even hang it on your wall, these are public keys and offer no security risk if others know them. Your public keys would be sent to others to allow them to send you an encrypted email, they encrypt it using YOUR public key.


With your master keys you would export them and take these to your bank and lock your pen drive away in the deepest vault, should your master keys be compromised you should dissolve them and immediately create new ones then refresh any applications that relied on these keys.
If someone sends you an encrypted email then you would decrypt it by using your master key, this confirms your credentials to the public key (used to encrypt the message in the first place) and is therefore of such importance you never reveal the master keys to the outside world.


Passwords - Where possible remove the human factor by using TPM to generate and secure your passwords, if not then use a long and secure password at least 14 characters/numbers, a non dictionary word and use special characters where possible.


You can increase a passwords security quite considerably by using special characters and numbers, take the following password "cheddar", now I like cheddar cheese so it's a simple word to pick (strength tests done using Microsoft password checker -


Password strength is weak, it is a dictionary word so easy to crack.
Cheddar - still weak.
C43dd4r - Strong
C43dd4r&! - Still Strong
1+L1k3+C43dd4r&1973 - Still Strong

One trick is to think of a passphrase (A sentence) and take key letters to form a password, let's consider "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog" - lets take the first letters of each word - TQBFJOTLD, it's not a long password so still considered weak.

How about the first and last letters, TEQKBNFXJSORTELYDG - this is now strong, the reason its not a very strong password is there are no numbers or special characters to increase the permutations.

Lets go back as step to TQBFJOTLD, lets put some numbers and special characters with it, let's assume we like the year 1986, let's put (using just 86), 8+TQBFJOTLD-6  we are now getting stronger but if you try this you will be amazed how easily you remember the password if you define some simple rules.

To explain in more detail, let's assume you have only 2 characters as your password and you use letters or numbers, this gives 26 lowercase characters plus 26 Uppercase plus 10 numbers per position = 62 possible characters for the first password position x 62 for the 2nd = 3844 permutations.

There are 32 special characters you can use so you can appreciate adding them into the equation makes each positions 26+26+10+32 = 94 possible characters, for our 2 character password this makes   8836 permutations for 2 characters.

If you have 14 character passwords, using combinations of all these then your password will have 94 to the power 14 or 4,205,231,901,698,742,834,534,301,696 permutations (more info here) .

TPM will generate 32 character passwords so you should by now appreciate that his is a significant amount greater in permutations for anyone to crack (I have no idea what this number is in English, surely more than a Trillion?)

 1,380,674,536,088,650,126,365,233,338,290,905,239,051,505,147,118,049,339,937,652,736



 Using TPM will generate passwords that are technically challenging for anyone to break through, it will remove the "human" weak point - we like to use dictionary words, it removes the need to remember complex passwords and as far as we are concerned there will simply be a challenge from the TPM chip to us to confirm ownership and then it will deploy the necessary password.

Once your rolling with Drivelock and perhaps TPM then start looking at using encrypted folders or containers to hold key files, Truecrypt is excellent for this as it is effectively a software representation of TMP functionality but in a program that runs in Windows, Linux etc and best of all - it's FREE !

Within 5 minutes you can have it installed and secure your key files in encrypted containers, their tutorials are excellent but all of this is useless if you don't use strong passwords.

Truecrypt allows one feature to help humans remove weak passwords, it allows "Keyfiles", these can be nothing more than a text file or a JPG, they form an additional file with your password to provide strength, if you encrypt a file container than you can put a password on it AND use a keyfile (perhaps a file held only on a seperate pen drive), you must then provide the password AND the keyfile to decrypt the data.

It has many other features but start at the beginning and go from there.

Snow joke

We've all had a bit of snow and it was perhaps a chance for the Astra SR to redeem itself, so far it's not impressing me and although it's fast the ride is firm, noise levels terrible and all in all not selling itself to me.

I've been surprised with the grip from the Astra in the wet, perhaps it's only positive quality so far - most Diesels skip around in the wet like a stone on an ice covered pond, the Astra (to be fair) gives good grip with hardly any loss of power.

However ... along came the snow, now I've had some pretty shitty cars for the snow, the Avensis was probably best categorized as "shit" when driving in snow but the Astra actually managed to perform worse.

I couldn't get out our car park at all at work, the traction control can't be turned off so it instantly cuts engine power when the wheels have no grip, a lot of digging later and several people pushing I got out the car park.

One thing I noticed a few days earlier was the Astra does not like a bit of ice, anything resembling ice causes it to skid in that "I'm sure I have ABS but nothing seems to be happening" sort of way, today I found either the snappy clutch causing me to spin the wheels at the slightest throttle pressure, the engine stalling if I tried to pull off in 2nd gear (come on Vauxhall, I could pull away in 3rd gear in most diesels I've had) and then the slightet dab on the vicious brake pedal caused yet another skid so I had to use nothing more than throttle and gears to stop - what a crock of shit.

There's no doubt the Astra is quick, there are many cars that will leave it behind but it's a nippy blighter and even more loony with the sports button on but I've had enough of it, for day to day driving it's noisy, unrefined and I think terrible value for money.

Weather permitting the Astra goes back tomorrow, I'm swapping into a 1.9tdi Passat so it will be interesting to see the difference, I did notice one button in the Passat that immediately got my vote "ESP OFF" - that's what you need when the white stuff comes and despite the dire equipment level in the Astra I almost find it offensive that Vauxhall seem to know better than you but omitting one from their car, in fact i've had one in just about every diesel I've driven due to the torque they generate so in slippy or snowy conditions it's common sense to be able to turn it off.

I've come to the conclusion that any car without a engine temperature gauge is the work of the devil and should not be trusted, it should therefore be burnt at the stake at a cost of 37.2 mpg.

Perhaps when I get in the Passat I will get my hearing back and some comfort, apparently the 1.9 tdi is surprisingly powerful despite a low horsepower so this may be an interesting comparison.

Black Ops

Hoorah it came early ...

A perfect end to a shitty day, had a filling at dentist then got home to find Black ops arrived a day early .

So far it's WOW !!!!!


Mental graphics, insane level of bullets and crap flying towards you, but here we go again for another COD classic.

SOLID COPY !

End of an era

It's been a while since I wrote anything, since the last post I've ripped out and completely re-decorated the bedroom making sure the Xbox and 37" TV have prime place so everything's gone fine there.

Holiday was back at Bigbury on Sea, drove down in pouring rain, arrived in blazing sunshine - fried some local sausages (from the Saint Annes Chapel shop - awsome shop by the way) and local bacon on the beach which started the week as it meant to go on.

My Avensis finally reached the end of it's company lease so was returned with only 87900 miles on the clock, I had just got the diesel nice and loose and there it was being returned.
Unfortunately the previous owner had managed to dent and scrape every body panel on it so it wasn't worth me buying it otherwise I would have considered keeping it.

I'm now in a hire car for a while, a brand new Astra Sri (1.9td 150psi).

Comparing the two cars it's surprising what you miss, no cruise control in the Astra, no rain sensitive wipers, no electro chromic rear view mirror, no sat nav built in, no leather seats, no electric seats, only front electric windows, no folding door mirrors, no under floor storage, no pop out cup holders, no rear arm rests or cup holders, no rear 12v accessory point, no climate control.

In fact I think the list goes on and on, the Astra (considering it's a high spec model i.e SR) is as sparsely equipped as the older Club or similar models I used to drive in the past.

The dashboard only has a radio (with MP3 input) a basic computer and that's your lot.

Add into this mix the Vauxhall Trick wipers and your in for some fun, I had these on my Vectra, press the indicator and you get three flashes, press it harder and it stays on. If you need to cancel it then you have to press the SAME direction, if you press the opposite then that one comes on.
It's common to see Vauxhall drivers going along with one indicator going then the other and so on until either they give up or the system self cancels.

Now I can live with these to a degree, the other problem is the driving position, the seats are like solid wooden boards, very little comfort and quite deep seat bases so you find yourself hitting the steering wheel getting in and out and I'm not a tall chap.
Getting yourself into a reasonable driving position you then find other problems, the indicator lights on the dashboard are exactly in the position the steering wheel rim is, you cannot see if you have your indicators on other than listening for the faint tick sound emitted by the unit, you have to duck your head down below the steering wheel to see if they are on - come on Vauxhall have you actually tested this car with real people in it ?

Toyota put the indicator and headlight icons together in good view, your headlight icons are fine why not do similar and put the indicator icons on either side then it's sorted - not a hard one to solve for Christ sake.

Even more fun though are the air vents, the side ones by the window need the vertical fins turning all the way up to close it, this means you can't set a position and leave it, if you do then you always get air out, if you close it you have to set the position up all over again - for fuck sake Vauxhall, we can send probes to Pluto, why can't you leave the air vent where you like it and just close off the air flow ?

The central vents are effectively null and void, in most cars they are high up on the dashboard and you can direct a cool breeze to your face in the summer etc.
On this car someone with very limited intelligence put them half way down the dashboard, if your like most people you have comfort positions on the steering wheel to place your hands at 10 O'Clock and 2 O'Clock positions, they are the recommended positions and lots of people hold their steering wheel this way.

If you do on the Astra the central air vents will blow cool air onto your left arm, nothing at all will find it's way to your face unless you change your grip on the wheel, for many people it's natural to hold it the same way as they have done for the last 30 years so i'm sorry Vauxhall but your wrong, the vents are shit and your Astra design sucks big time.

Interior is drab, sparse and looks little better than a Corsa, for £21k I would expect a damn site more from my car and this is not cutting the mustard, imagine going into a lap dance bar, paying a premium price and finding a drab, dull tired looking woman in front of you who does nothing to inspire your senses or provide any kind of eye candy.
Similar to a lap dancing club your compelled not to touch anything in the Astra in case it breaks or you feel tainted by the experience, in fact there are so few options or features inside you won't press more than one or two buttons anyway.

The seats slide back and forth with 1960's styling, bringing a few moments of fond memory's, your first driving lesson in a Fiat 127 when you had manual seat adjustments because it was cutting edge technology 30 years ago.
Now it's there because Vauxhall cannot compete with other manufacturers so turns out cheap looking and poorly dressed lap dancers in a world of style and entertainment.

As far as the engine goes, I used to think the Avensis was a noisy engine, most diesels are particularly at tick over, the Astra does not let you down here, lots of vibration and noise at tick over, it's certainly no better than the Avensis.
Power ... well the Avensis was 125hp, this is 150 and has 6 speed box, you find yourself a gear higher than you would be in a 5 speed box so you feel your changing a lot more at lower speeds, its common to be in 3rd when you would have been in 2nd and so on.
The Astra has one and only one redeeming quality about it, the engine has plenty of oomph, 0-60 is gone in a flash, 1st gear is like many diesels, a quick struggle to light up the turbo and your in 2nd gear 2 microseconds after pulling off, in the Astra though 2nd gear propels you forwards similar to the Enterprise engaging Warp drive, there is a yelp of power and your now in another county, keep the power on and go to 3rd, 4th and 5th and your well above motorway speeds before you know it, engage 6th and your still pulling strongly.

Average fuel consumption at the moment is 39.8mpg, not impressive, on the Motorways over a 300 mile run I could not break 39.9 mpg on country or urban runs it gives 36.8. The Avensis would give 36.9 without fail on country runs and was very easy to get this up to 45 by keeping a higher gear or cutting the speed down a little (5mph), on motorways the Avensis would be in the high 40's or 50mpg, in fact at 70mph you would often see 52mpg with a full or empty car.

On the dashboard of the Astra is probably the one and only button that would interest most of you, the Sport button, hold your throttle steady and press it, the car immediately responds with considerable increase in throttle and power, holding it at 60mph I engaged and the car (without touching the throttle) went above 80 and was still going when I disengaged.

Traction control seems about the same as the Avensis, it's a far cry from the old traction where they simply killed your engine rev's, the current ones control your traction with elegant precision and you hardly know they are there, perhaps a little squeak from your wheels every now and then is all you ever get.
The Avensis was almost impossible to wheel spin, this seems no different.

Unfortunately no button to turn traction off though - on the Avensis I had control manually if needed.

The ride itself is OK, the suspension is firm but comfortable, firmer than the Avensis but you feel more pot holes and bumps, I've also found it has a tendency to be twitchy on the road, often moving to the left or right through no action of yours but most likely due to a small defect in the road etc, the Avensis on the same roads would not wander as much, you would sense the road change but the car would carry on regardless.
I've also seen a bit of under steer, give it some rev's and take bends a bit closer to the car's envelope and on perfectly dry roads it can twitch out and under steer leaving you a little wide, I think this is perhaps the fact there's a stonking heavy diesel engine under the bonnet and the laws of physics apply.
The Avensis didn't suffer too much from that, I think the wheel track was wider and it always seemed to go where I pointed it with very few issues considering it was a much much heavier car.

Boot space is OK, it's an estate but no more space than the Avensis hatch, the problem with estates is the immense drumming and booming from the rear when your driving, the road noise is amplified and makes using the radio pointless, in fact for most of our motorway journey we turned the radio off as we couldn't hear it. On the Avensis the road noise was much less and the sound system infinitely better. On the subject of noise the Avensis had no perceptible wind noise, you often had to open the window to hear if it was stormy or feel any cross winds, the Astra whistle like the old models, get to motorway speeds and your accompanied on your journey by natures rendition of Roger Whittakers "Streets of London", another reason to turn the tinny and cheap radio off.

We tried adjusting the bass, treble etc but these seemed to engage other settings such as Shit, really shit, bass only shit, can't hear a fucking word shit, was that the news ? shit and so on - I think all I ever did on the Avensis was put the treble up 2 notches and left it like that for several years.

All in all, apart from the fact it's quick (but easily beaten by other cars such as Golf GTI etc) the car leaves me dry, it's nice looking on the outside but that's like your lap dancer looking nice and being an axe murderer on the inside, you get inside the Astra and feel cheated, I've had a Skoda with more buttons and gadgets and many many cars that offer more than this, the SRi badge should stand for Shitting Robbed Innit, they have robbed all the gadgets and features you would expect for one thing and one thing only, a bit of speed, on the urban roads it's a sprinter, sprinting from junction to junction leaving boy racers in their Corsa and Saxo's far far behind, press the Sports button if they appear in your rear mirror and see them vanish.
Take it on the motorway and you need ear plugs, and you need a big wallet as cruising economy is not impressive, the body rumbles and roars with every bump and mile, touch the throttle and there's more noise but it's all wasted due to the general road noise and the song that should be "lots of power and torque" sounds like its playing along with "music to murder your loved one's by Vol3." your getting a mixed track, one that encourages to say "Fuck this, I'll drive slower because I'll get my hearing back", at this speed the road noise is much better but the engines effectively turned off so the music's not playing.

At 50mph it's like Radio 4, a sombre tune with little to entertain you.

Would I buy one, Yes but only if Vauxhall had a shotgun at my testicles, in reality NO, not a chance, not ever, not even if I was given a large discount (which I can get from my company) - it's just a 100m sprint racer and although it appeals to the child inside you and inspires lots of giggles when letting the horses out to play it's the subject of dark nightmares and bitter dreams when you let it above 50mph.

Hopefully I'll get a new company car and we'll see what that's like, odd's are it will be far slower but with fuel prices it's perhaps time I took my right foot off a bit and also saved a few points on my licence.

Final words, a tip to Vauxhall, when your designing a car, try asking real people what they want and go from there, horizontal arm rests in the door might look good on Gok but in the car it looks like someone's put 0.1 seconds of thought into it, the wing mirror controls are almost on the bonnet of the car, the Japanese ? they put them within easy and obvious reach. As far as my lap dancer goes, I feel a bit let down and violated, I wanted a pretty and sexy dancer with some class and breeding, this one looks the part outside but her dances only inspire for a moment then are lost on the dull soundtrack and club atmosphere, you feel when she speaks it's with the mouth of a whore but not words to make you feel sexy, warm and tingly, instead you feel the need to get your coat and look elsewhere, you surely shouldn't be paying premium prices for such offensive behaviour.