thanks. my question towards serial and firmware was more to this:

i can download firmware now, it's about 500KB. when my serial is "activated", does that filesize increase? or is it changed to work properly? i would assume that if my serial isn't activated then i couldnt even get to the page to update firmware, but i have no idea thanks again for the help here, i'm about to drive from SF to austin, tx and really would love to have my "parking sensors" in good working order