Can you believe a month?

I cannot believe I let the time get away from me like that.  Its been so long.  Its been so busy.  Its been racing.. and fun and much work and Christmas.        I won an MRR KOM again,  am riding really rather well, quite  a bit better than this time last year.   And much other stuff has happened.   Writing about it all in one blog is going to be somewhat large.

OK the bus story..     Following the MRR near miss with an agressive and stupid Grenda bus on Doncaster road   which I followed up in earlier posts...  I finally received this communication from Bryan Tudor of Grenda bus lines 


" Dear David

I have been unable to identify a driver of the description you gave who was in the
area at that time.
I understand that does not help either of us, you would prefer a more satisfactory
resolution and I are keen to address any behavioural issues of my drivers as
required.

On behalf of Grenda I apologise for your unfortunate experience however I am
heartened to hear that you have observed improvement in Bus Driver behaviour over
the years.
We do work hard to ensure that standards are maintained and the safety of our
customers, drivers and other road users is paramount.

Yours sincerely

Bryan Tudor"

To explain the situation again briefly we pretty much narrowed the bus down to one of two at a specific time.  But it appears that another bus service  occasionally supplies drivers and despite a description of the driver as female, Indian appearance,  somewhat overweight and at least into her 30's and probably older she could not be identified or so it appears.    Which led to my response.

"Sorry to hear that Barry.   More than a bit perplexed tho.

 I will at some point get a picture of the driver concerned or possibly
demand to see their licence.   Assuming they turn up on this side of the
world again.    If I get a pic I,ll send it on.

I do think it possible you have unauthorized people driving your buses...
bothersome that.    More so for you.. the liability issue is horrifying.

Anyhow have a very pleasant Christmas.     Should you need any IT related
help feel free to contact us..  we wont be going on hols. 
 Take care. 
 Regards

Dave "


I hasten to add that Barry has been responsive and I have no reason to believe he and Grenda have not tried their best.    Generally the bus drivers have been great.  Especially on that route.   Although I had a near miss in the subie a week ago when the bus beside us in the RH lane swerved hard left to pick up a fare.  I braked savagely as did the two lanes of heavy traffic behind.   Stood on the horn.    He swerved back into the right lane.    stopped dead.   As did I 2 metres behind... and behind us many more pre christmas rush hour trafic vehicles.     He eventually moved forward and left a couple of meters  so he was blocking both lanes.. and propped until his passenger ran up to him and crossed for the bus.  I gave him a good look.. nope.. not our homicidal Indian.   This one looked to be a homicidal Anglo Saxon.    Bus was a Ventura.   Was in Middleborough rd at 9:16.   And I had a camera.  I always have a camera these days.  And having a mate working for Ventura was able quickly to establish he was from the Oakleigh depot.   But I guess  that the companies are mostly trying.    And one idiotic move is still not the same as trying to intimidate cyclists.

What else has happened?   Got the snakebite site up and happening on shopify   Difficult to get it up and one customer will be getting a decent bill.  It involved in the end some custom programming.. setting up a spoofing mail server.. so mail could go to and from the address without us actually dedicating a mail server to it, image editing..  and some customised programming that stretched even Kathy.   Woot.  Really happy with that one.   And another 2 sites to do for that customer.    And I now know a lot about on line ecommerce sites.   If I can find the right product(s) we can run one of these ourselves.   If you have the right product let me know.

Two good friends have broken up.   And the person who didn't leave is determined to blame.. and probably in the end to hate the other.    For everything.. right back to the war.    Not entirely without cause.. but not entirely with cause either.    Cos its very seldom black and white.   I just find it unspeakably sad.     Both of these people are good people .   Both of them are well worth knowing.   Seriously sad.     

Did anyone see the Dr Who Chrissie special?   Your love has a day of life left.   She can stay frozen forever but has one more day of living to go.    So you grow old scared to let her out for that last day.    What would you do?    Loving and losing is tearfully awfully sad.   Loving and never having is way way way worse.   Grab that day.. cherish it.. say goodbye.   and remember them for the rest of your life.   So I say.   Of course its easy to say. 

  Love is the most special of all (insert Deity of Choice) gifts bestowed.    And the one thing sadder than losing it has got to be seeing it turn to hate.   We see family homicides all the time on the news.  Its by far the saddest of all outcomes.  Luckily I dont understand it.  I dont understand hate.  I understand dislike and despise.. but hate involves too much negative energy.  It takes as much energy to sustain as love but without the upside.     I remember having a row with my dad.. when I was a teenager in which I saw him visibly age.   Thats stayed with me my entire life..  it was a revelation.   No more hate for me.   If I have too I could hurt someone.. even kill them.  Not hate them.   I loved my Dad.  I still love my Dad.  Kevin  mate..  its nearly your birthday and I miss you every day.     

I dislike and despise this stupid dangerous bus driver,   perfectly willing to be a 10 000 kg bully .. not willing to risk her skin.. likely knowing she would be difficult to trace..  and scaring and possibly injuring or killing someone else not even a problem for her.   I do wish her the Christmas and indeed the life she deserves.    And I would very much like to see her not driving anymore.. in fact being on a bicycle would be so karmic.   But hate?   Nope..   Not worth the energy.

 I shall write briefly on the death of my Macbook.   Poor thing was a victim of a domestic.   Members of my extended family plotted and murdered the poor innocent thing  (full of wireless snooping and network hacking software as it was)      Loved my Macbook.   Leah and Mike poisoned it.. it died in great agony,  its life flickering out.  as scotch oozed out of every orifice.

Getting the data back was no real problem..   It is what we do for a living.  Bit of a ding in the work tho   A couple of days later A very depressed Dave sent Kathy  down to buy another for $1340 ish.   Could have taken a few bucks of that by shopping around but not much.    Anyway I completed the autopsy yesterday, it looks like the casualty was the main board.    (The logic board in Mactalk)    Its got one chip that looks hot,  some exposed copper.. one slightly damaged connector.. that looks melted.   Sigh.   Poor thing.   I have found a bloke that is going to have a go at the board.  its multi layer, and beyond my repair.    But I am guessing its going to wind up as bits on Ebay.   Guess what Apple want for a motherboard.  Go on guess?     Machine new is $1340.. how much do you think the main board is?    Try $2200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   And $180 to fit.  Ok the fitting price is reasonable.  Holy frak tho.  

The new one has the dodgy charger connector finally sorted.  Runs a teeny bit cooler.   Has not got all the software reinstalled yet.  Getting there.   

  Leah..  I love you.     And I am mildly fond of your old man.   Dont go doing that again.    Please.  

Who dat driving the bus

Following my meeting with the very annoying Grenda bus on Doncaster road, as detailed in this post,  I had several phone calls from the operations manager at Grenda.  Interesting.   You can follow this in the appropriate thread here on BV forums.  Anyway it was good that they were proactive.  The bloke who rang me was certainly being responsive and good on Grenda for that.   BUT..

Several conversations later an issue became apparent.   We will see if quote works better this time in this blogging software.. but this is my forums post.

Well I have had a further conversation with the operations manager at Grenda bus lines. It seems that the bus was one of two.. I suspect the earlier of the two.. that were Grenda services but actually driven by drivers supplied by Tullamarine bus lines. To date they have not positively identified the driver, as neither should have been a woman. 

Sorta interesting huh? I explored the possibility of their driver being of uncertain gender. The Grenda bloke is quite serious about following this up.. and I will carry a camera for a bit.. but it looks like their is some possibility that unauthorised people are driving their buses.... or at least their is some issue of accountability to be sorted

I really dont know how thats going to turn out. I,ll keep on it tho
Editing my first shopify site at the moment.   Well actually the owner and I are editing it from different suburbs at the same time.  Strange and likely to end badly  but so far so good.   Cheap URL registries on the other hand I am going to keep clear off in future.  Register free has some connection with Oz IT... but Oz IT is easy to set DNS up with and Register free has hidden those settings somewhere.  Not cool

Getting old

But I dont feel it.       Riding rather well atm

Sunday was the waffle wace (nope.. not a type)   Meet up in Kingsbury  ride to Whittlesea and back.  Then to Canucks and Marties and eat waffles.   Pretty cool way to start the day.

I rode to the start... advancing years meaning I have to start taking training seriously.    Sigh.     On  Doncaster road.. with a loud ping.. the front derailier cable snapped.  Small ring for the rest of the day.

About 9 or 10 of us at the start.   We set off..  A pootle and a good chat on the way to Whittlesea.   The public dunny in Whittlesea bears witness to many blokes with bad aim.    And then we set off on the return.   Where things got a little frantic

To quote Ducky..

 What a wipper of a wide

Somehow I did actually manage to get up at Stupid-o'clock, and arrived at the start point at precisely 7:03. Being unfamiliar with the route I just sat in the bunch & cruised on the out trip. A very light tail breeze helped waft us on our merry way.

For the return trip I had secretly decided I was going to turn the wick up just a little bit anyway, even if it meant an ITT. So just as we left Whittlesea I started to wind it up & see if anyone followed. Nick (non-forumer), Percrime, Bek & Marty took the bait, but after a while it became just me, Nick & Percy, cracking along as a TTT, cruising at 43 km/h. As previously noted, Percy had no use of the big ring, so he was spinning at about 250 rpm to keep with us on the descents. 

Finished of with a well-earned feast of waffles etc. Thanks again to Bek & Marty for the catering. 

What he doesn' mention is that I took him in the slightly downhill final sprint.  I hit 60;00   my highes speed ever in the small ring.  Not bad for a grinder.

And the Waffles were great.

It looks like being a slow week this week.. one client decided he liked his sisters work more than mine..  meh..   he is biased.    Today is my birthday so I had to have a decent hitout on the Maling Room Ride 

But met the stupidest bus driver of the year.   In a "Smart Bus"   You know why they call em "Smart Buses" ?   No?   Its a comparative IQ thing.   Compared to the driver.....
Ok its an oldie. and not very nice, but hey if the companies carefully choose drivers that fit the stereotype..    I,m happy to use it.    Anyway here is my email to the Operations Manager of Grenda Buslines.   With who to date I have no bad experiences  worth mentioning.   Unlike the unloved Driver Buslines.

At about 7:37 this morning (23 November 2010) a Grenda bus lines bus
traveling westbound on Doncaster Rd  Doncaster west of Blackburn Rd tried on three separate occasions to merge into bus stops though a bunch of 20 +cyclists.

On the first occasion she overtook.. pulled hard left and braked hard
immediately she had passed. On the second occasion she did not bother
overtaking and pulled through the middle of the bunch several riders
having to take evasive action.   On the third occasion she pulled up,
overtook and with the front door alongside me started merging left into my lane.   Coming well within a meter of me.
Bullying arrogant aggressive behavior.    I gave her a finger on the next lights.. she looked at me and then drove through the red light.

I take this attempt  at vehicular intimidation particularly amiss as its my birthday.  This is the sort of behavior one might expect of 19 year old tradies in shiny utes.  Most of the buses we see along this route are extremely well behaved to cyclists..   and most are particularly nice to this well known training ride.  Then again most are National.     The roads were clear and all but empty.   The bunch is a well behaved one.. does not run red lights and except for the odd dropped rider  is mostly a pretty tight group.
The driver was female.. middle aged and appeared indian.  I appear to have the wrong rego.. but it ended in AD.   I have no doubt you will have no issue identifying the driver.  Next time I see her I will make sure I take a photo  and publish it.
You will be able to read about this incident on various cycling forums and my blog (Percrime.blogspot.com) shortly.  I will be sure to publish any response .    It should be noted that I have 20 odd witnesses to this behaviour.   Anyone who needs a  10 000 Kg weight advantag to be a bully has my utter deep contempt and loathing.     If at any time it comes to my attention that a Grenda bus has hit a cyclist I will make sure that the details of this incident  find their way to the appropriate person..
 My phone number is 0412 506 123.   I urge you to follow this up
Regards
David Thomas.
I doubt I get a response but who knows.    Stupid stupid woman.  If I had got the rego I would be talking to the cops right now.  Mental note to take a camera tomorrow.

On the positive side I claim the King of the Mountain up Belmore.. and my speciality  KOF  King of Fintona.    First decent hit out up Belmore in a while.. first time I have lasted to the end.    I have to say I don't feel 50... er.. something. 

Pretty happy overall.  Looking forward to racing. 

Ya gotta wonder.

Its been a week since I have posted..  Meh.   Such a tough week, and not a hell of a lot of excitement in my life.   I rode a bit.. worked a bit and turned a week older.   Sigh.  

Well my riding seems to be improving.. I was going to race today.. but I have spent 2 days working on a server for which I quoted 5 hours..   so I thought I had better try to break through that stonewall.   Made progress..  hopefully enough.    This server turned out to be deep in RPM hell.. where you install bits of software from various sources to try and get a particular thing running, and in the process screw the package manager software and make updates, and installs a thing of horror.     Depressing.  

I had a near miss this week when some fool in a taxi overtook me heedless of the oncoming ambo then swerved left and jumped on the brakes.    I came close to dragging him out of the car and beating him to death.   If we have to import our cab drivers from a different sub continent could we weed out the really useless ones first?    Seems little to ask.  Another friend is in hospital  when she was stopped at a stop sign at a T intersection when a woman cut the corner and drove right over her.   You just have to wonder.   How can anyone argue that that person should be given another chance to drive?  Ever?   How about on the same street your kids are playing?   Comfortable with that.. or should she only be allowed to drive where other peoples kids are playing?

Conversation with my mum.    Mum.  "Can we go to Bendigo to visit *********. "   Me  "Sure..  we are going down there pretty often for business meetings..     we can fit that in.  We will drive up the night before... stay at Pyalong with KKKKKKK,   and then go the rest of the way..   go to our meeting and then go on and visit **********"   Mum.. " I could't put KKKKKKK  out"  Me "They have the beds and we are going to stay anyway.. you wouldn't be putting them out"   "Mum.   "NO,  I couldnt put them out.. you can drive me into Bendigo and put me in a hotel,  and then stay with them"

Its like talking to an alien.    Yeah right mum... thats cool,  no worries.     I deny all genetic relationship here.   I was stolen from gypsies,  clearly.

One of my close friends has left recently..  its pretty upsetting.    Maybe I am getting warm and caring in my old age.  If so..  I am unconvinced its worth it.

Outclassed and not fast.

Sunday was the monthly Blackburn Sprint Series  at Blackburn Velo.  This is the same event I won D grade in last month with the infamous Team Splat!   Did not go so good yesterday.

Only I and Jenny were racing.  Sally has been very sick and incommunicado for the last fortnight.  I cannot speak for  anyone else but she has had me worried.  I have been mildly crook for the last week myself, although I seemed to be riding rather well.    Anyway Kathy kindly decided to come along and lend support.    

Had been troubled by a few mysterious flats on the track bike in the last few weeks..   and in fact fixed one on the friday in order to ensure a trouble free start to the racing.   One flat the Sunday prior resulted in a fall at DISC and I am still replacing skin from that one

   I find being in the right headspace and being confident in the bike is seriously important to my results.   Threw a couple of spare tubes in just in case and we set off .. in plenty of time to Blackburn.   To find some people warming up on the track.      Sigh.   Not so early.  Went to pull the bike out of the car and it had a flat tire.  Damn.   Change it..   go to get stuff out of the car.  And Jenny tells me that my bikes back tire just went 'bang'.   This is not funny.  Is doing my headspace in.   I change it again.. can get no consistent reading off the pump.   Try another pump.. same.  What is going on?

At this point someone rings about Kathy's old BMW we are selling, this is doing my head in.   Change it again.. tube has a hole.   Give the tube to Kathy to patch.   Looking at wheel for some explanation, tire is perfect.. not even nicked..    Thinking 'rim tape'   the rim tape is newish and undamaged  but is clearly being pushed into the spokeholes by tube pressure and it does seem like the tubes have spoke hole marks.    Maybe the tapes not thick enough.   At this point.. Kathy.. asks me to show her how to fix a flat.    Wha.....?     I really really really don't need this.    Start times for qualifying  are now up.. looking rather bad.   I show Kathy how to patch a tube.    Express opinion as to how much help she is being.  She hits me.

Great.        I take roll of insulation tape out..     run it around the rim tape 3 times.  Put a patched tube in.    Pump it up.   Kathy goes off to get some new tubes.   Tire stays up.    For a couple of minutes.  I put shoes and helmet on..   and check.. tire is still up.. maybe a bit softer  but.. its qualifying time.. and I go out and discover I am 2nd off.     Wow.   great preparation.. headspace and warmup.

So I go out and find myself unable to hold the bike down in the corners, waiting for the flat.  End up with 16.6 or something.    A bit slower than last time.  Meh.     didnt crash.   When I get back in the tire is noticeably softer...maybe second was not so bad.   I pull the tube .. and Kathy turns up with new tubes.    Win.

I put it in..  goes in perfectly. Pumps up normally.  I do the same with the front tire.. just in case.  With qualifying over I am able to go out and do a warm up.  Starting to feel happier.   And  Carl calls me over.    Its been decided that I did 2 seconds better than I did in my flying 200.   Which does mean I have finally cracked 16 secs.   And that I am racing in C grade.  Doh.

First race.   David Thomas vs Emily Apilito.  Em is 15.    She is the current 2nd fastest 500 metre racer in her age group in the country.. We are racing over about 580 metres.    She can accelerate like a cannon shell.   I am even slightly awestruck.    I lead,  try pretty hard.. aggressively pushing her up and  down the track..   My plan such as it is is to try and get in her face,  have the sprint start late,  grab a tow when she starts,  and try and come around the top when she spins out because of being on restricted gearing cos a junior.    It all works except for the grabbing the wheel bit.   Jeez she can accelerate.    I pull back a bit on the run to the line and I dont think it was all because she sat up and went to sleep.. but Em wins by 10 metres.  Watch my defeat here

Next round I was up against Justin Perrin,  an up and coming kid.   Good rider who definitely had the edge and the race unfolded much the same way.   I was just outclassed.. more work to do.   I looked up just before that race to see Sally watching.. very uplifting.


 In the last race I thought I had a chance.. I led out.. the other rider tried to jump me earlier and I decided to turn it into a drag race and held on for the win.   Not a bad finish to the day.


Jenny made it into the finals and very convincingly beat PennyR to take 3rd in D grade and uphold the honor of Team Splat!.

Life is a beach.

Last Saturday of the month.   Beach rd Bicycle Victoria  Belgian Beer Cafe ride.   The BBC ride.   By now its traditional for some of us.    Early meet at the infamous Belgian Beer Cafe in St Kilda rd.   A ride at some appropriate newbie training speed (its essentially a newbie training bunch ride) to Black Rock.   We try very hard to look after the newbies and teach them bunch skills and they (it seems ) try very hard to learn nothing.  Because if we are going to wait for them then they dont need to hold a wheel and if we ride away its too late..  sigh.  It seems like that anyway.  Turn around at Black Rock  and back and now we have done some work we can enjoy the wonderful waffles and chocky sauce  that members of the Belgian Beer Cafe Cycling Club get once a month.    Hence, of course, the ride.

Today I woke up and it was pouring.  Astonishingly.    The BOM radar suggested it was going to keep up.   For the first time in a year I wimped and did not ride to the start.  In spite of wearing a rain jacket I got soaked just putting the bike on the car.     So bored with riding in the rain but still it has to be done.  Got there...  the rain had discouraged many.  Although I am sure most have valid excuses.   Or pretend they have.    We ended up with 6 of us.   Including the gorgeous Jenny, a foundation member of Team Splat!,    the gutsy but slow to learn Katrina and her Dad,  both members of the huge and expanding Squeaza clan,   and the always entertaining Baudman..   but sadly missing Sally,  the other member of Team Splat.   ( I have a bad feeling about that.. hopefully just my normal paranoia)   I hasten to add that Katrina is actually an exceptionally smart young woman..  its just this sort of skill she seems slow to learn.   And if I understood why.. I would be much smarter than I am.


 It was a pootlefest down to Black ROck   just the lightest drizzle.. and a notable absence of two of the usual standout features of Beach Road,   parked cars and other riders.

Hopefully parked cars will be history in a while.  Beach Road becomes a parking free zone for a few hours in the morning starting November 6,  just a week away.  At least in theory.  Councils have been involved and I am more and more coming to the conclusion that councils only exist to fsuk things up, so I bet it does not happen even close to as advertised.     But in theory thats what will happen.   Read some propaganda about it here

Anyway the 6 of us pootled down.. Me and Jenny on the front.  Katrina not holding a wheel because  "the pace was easy enough so I did not bave to bother"   Some fundamental lack of understanding of the concept of practice by this particular muso.    I just dont get it.  WTF would you not practice when its easy?   Arghhhhhhhh.    And a pootlefest back.     And a great brecky..  a snooze on Jennys couch, a looking at Blackburn Saturday track racing.. yep.. I can do that.  Next week.    And so to here.

But I was pondering most of the way the absence of cars and riders    cars and riders..   Click.    No riders because of the weather?   Lots of marshmallow people around  and today was a likely day..  Even I wimped somewhat.   No parked cars because of the lack of riders.   Lots of people do drive to Beach Road for their ride.  It is the premier bunch riding location in Melbourne.    So could these people park on Beach Road.  Its riders.. lots of riders who have been agitating for parking to be banned on beach road.   Most riders are supposedly strongly in favour of the bans.   So is it possible that riders while supporting the bans  should drive to and park on Beach Road?    Is it?     I have the sinking feeling that that is exactly what is happening.  And that these same people will applaud the ban on parking when it comes in

I really really don't understand people but I really think this is exactly whats happening.   Amazing.

I have to go now and punch myself in the head.

NB...  Sally sick.

The very first post; again.

Ok..  so here we are.   Eposide 1   (ha) of the Percrime Chronicles.   I can go a bit more nuts here;  I guess..  be a bit less... or a bit more upbeat,    be more speculative.    Hang a bit more shit.   Whats the worst that can happen?    That bad huh?   Well we will see.   Is anyone out there?   Does any one care?

Kathy has decided that business blogs need to be well business like..  hard to argue with that.. but....      So this isn,t a business blog anymore.   Take that Kathy.   Instead its a vehicle for me.    

Trip to Bendigo  this week   well the job I did in Pyalong went good.   Now to do a version of that for us.   I want a drive on the linux box visible in some unlikely place on the web.  As a dump box.   I,ll see if I can do that today.      

This is going to be an interesting few weeks.   May we live in interesting times huh?

The very first post; again.

Ok..  so here we are.   Eposide 1   (ha) of the Percrime Chronicles.   I can go a bit more nuts here;  I guess..  be a bit less... or a bit more upbeat,    be more speculative.    Hang a bit more shit.   Whats the worst that can happen?    That bad huh?   Well we will see.   Is anyone out there?   Does any one care?

Kathy has decided that business blogs need to be well business like..  hard to argue with that.. but....      So this isn,t a business blog anymore.   Take that Kathy.   Instead its a vehicle for me.    

Trip to Bendigo  this week   well the job I did in Pyalong went good.   Now to do a version of that for us.   I want a drive on the linux box visible in some unlikely place on the web.  As a dump box.   I,ll see if I can do that today.      

This is going to be an interesting few weeks.   May we live in interesting times huh?

Auto Draft

Of fiery sheep and burnt skin

Its been an interesting week. More delving into the guts of Sony Vaio's, a few little jobs here and there. A couple of new websites (well to us.. really they are just updates), a support client wanting us to develop a couple of shopfront websites for him, and I have remote desktop.. and actually all remote services on private LAN's sussed. Even have a how to document together on my hot little macbook. And remote desktop enabled on one of my machines. and visible from the web. Even though we have a dynamic IP address that changes often

Here is the web server on the machine in the corner. If its not there its because I turned it off not cos its down, Totally reliable.. although it of course comes with security issues. And simple in the end. Cool huh? Got that wired now.

A few days ago we went to my old mate Ian and his wife Lisa's for a barbie. I amused myself by hacking Ians router on the fly with my macbook and actually setting up some security. Wide open network. Since then I have read of an astonishing plugin for the firefox web browser called firesheep. It works like this.. if you use a nonsecure network at the same time as someone is using firesheep and you go to any of a myriad non secure sites.. including amongst many others facebook.. Mr firesheep has your username and password. Scarey huh? To beat it you probably need to force the non secure site to run https.. but that makes it harder apparently to deliver advertisements, so may not always even be possible. Its probably why so many of these sites are not secure anyway... that and the overhead in encrypting each bit of data. I have had a look at firesheep and its now on my Macbook.. more when I know more. But this is scary scary stuff

Ian became my mate for life after an accident a trillion years ago when I broke my hip. All other visitors bought flowers. Cept my mum who bought clean underwear in the wrong size. Ian bought scotch. A good mate.

Team Splat! returned to DISC last week for some training. While warming up.. my tire went down. Result a fall and a lack of confidence for the rest of the night. The tire was at 120 psi and at 80 psi in the bend at 25 kph the front wheel tucked under. Not saveable. Not impressed. I caught the replacement tube at 80 psi later too. Not confidence inspiring. Cost me some skin and a good pair of knicks to figure out that if the tire should squeal on a painted line at DISC its a really really good time to stop and check tire pressures.

Sally later on had a 0 kph fall out of the starting gate. Sally was having a slightly nervy night herself. In fact the only confident happy member of Team Splat! was Jenny. Who rode confidently and well Sunday week at Blackburn Velo is Team Splat!'s next official outing.. come along and support us.

Just heard that the Brumby Government has just revisited its abandoned election promise of a rail link to Tullamarine Airport. It helped get em elected last time and then was dumped, this election is looking pretty dodgy, trot it out again. Cos Victorians are stupid. We must be.. look at our pollies. :P But seriously how cynical are these people? Brumby probably thinks he has my vote because he is a cyclist. Think again mate. I know of few people who could not do a better job than you.. and almost no one who could not do it cheaper.

Auto Draft

Auto Draft

Of business and bikes.

Wednesday, supposedly a really good day to do a blog post. Lets see how this one does on the statistics. I am trying to write the blog 3 times a week, honestly, its just not always happening.

Interesting week. Kathy just fielded a phone call. Do we want to send a couple of representatives up to the Gold Coast to tout for Government Contracts. 11 guaranteed meetings, the people on the other side of the table prepared to sign off on 5 million bucks worth of contracts at a minimum on the spot. Mostly interested in data recovery IT consultancy and Plone. Interesting huh? Would cost us 35K and that all a tax write off.

Bit rich for our blood just atm.. for that I would certainly finish writing our bit of Data Recovery software. I can see it happening tho.. next year or the year after. We dont need much more momentum to be doing all right. And from all right to really good is not nearly as big a step. Their really is a market for companies like us. The big players mostly want to deal with the rich companies.. its small business thats vibrant, interesting, much more involved in networking and personal relationships and actually needs us.. instead of some big player, to sort out their issues.. which are as diverse as a single printer giving them grief, a web site that needs work, or some documentation that needs polishing. I am going into Carlton in a while to look at why one employees Outlook isn't This area is fun.. not boring in the slightest. Its where we want to be.

The evil laptop that has come to give me nightmares has finally got spares on the way. Maybe even the right spares. Its sorta hard to tell. I have hopes. I really really want that done. On that front its almost completely together now. and quite reliable.

I definitely need to pick the brains of a VPN network expert. I have 3 clients requiring a little bit of help in this area and while I am getting there... its a bit trickier than I thought; if you are a VPN expert and prepared to give us a hand send me an email. Kathy is snowed under with web development work. This is all php and other language programming and not simple stuff. Plenty happening on that front.

We are going ahead with the Bendigo expansion. Its a gamble but what in life isn't? At some point I probably need to find a smart, savvy trustworthy (because we dont want them to run away and do their own thing) IT savvy person to be the Bendigo face of Perfect Notes. And in fact we probably want to set them up with a VPN to our server farm I have just realised. So if thats you.. maybe drop us a line. Either Kathy or I and occasionally (as in next week) both of us will be plodding up to Bendigo fairly often. Its obviously time to sort our second car. Sigh. I try for a low impact life style honestly.

Ok... and now for our customary cycling rave.

The sprint series race is happening on Sunday week. My entry is in. I have had many comments to the effect that if I can win D grade so can anyone. I expect some competition in D grade.. and I seriously have to lift my game by maybe 2 seconds a lap to have much of a shot at C grade. Oh their are people in C grade I can beat.. but, there are people I possibly cannot. Sigh. That bike frame prize is looking pretty safe. Team Splat! will be their in its entirety. And we will of course give it our usual red hot go.

I am really proud of Team Splat!. We never set out to set the world on fire.. or win everything we entered.. we set out to have fun.. to give the two girls (I was never going to race track again) a decent support structure and to give it a go. I think our result hugely surpass that. We are a actual force to if not actually be reckoned with at least to be taken seriously. Our first effort with more than one rider entered and we got 1st and 2nd in D grade.

One thing that I feel strongly about in racing is that while its OK to finish last, and its OK to not train every minute, and its OK to not have it be the most important thing in your life its not OK to not take it seriously. Its not OK to not give it a decent try. Its not OK to not train at all. This is especially true of 1 on 1 competition like match sprinting or pursuits. And I,ll tell you why. If you race an opponent who does not do you the credit of putting in and you win.. then you win nothing. Your opponent was unprepared and not serious Your effort is wasted. And if they perchance should win (unlikely because not training tends to go with poor results but some people do have natural talent) then it is even a worse insult to you. It says "I can beat you without even putting in an effort, you are worth nothing, why are you here?" Its positively insulting. Not everyone agrees with me.. perhaps you need to have done Karate or another combat sport to see it this way. What do you think?

This past Sunday was the annual Around The Bay ride. The ATB is the ultimate goal of many recreational riders. Bitch Road fills up with riders of less than ordinary skill for weeks beforehand as they train for it. Sally and I decided to go for a ride.. and take in some of the atmosphere but both of us have done the event before.. and Sally had to be back early for family reasons so we decided to only go as far as Mornington.

I rode in, met Sally at the agreed rendezvous and set off. We went very hard... working mainly in with each other. pointedly staying away from the bunches although very often we ended up towing large bunches of our own. Several times in characteristic ATB style big bunches pushed past us, died instantly and we rode around the outside of them. We saw many interesting examples of inadequate roadcraft, amusing levels of non skill and amazing idioticity I mean really.. riding a TT bike.. in the bars in a bunch, and an average bunch at that.

We stopped several times for coffee and to watch the passing parade, saw the aftermath of a fatal heart attack on Olivers, Hill in Frankston (A likely place for a heart attack I must say) and stopped for coffee whenever it started raining.

On the return we followed the same procedure.. riding side by side chatting or doing bit and bit.. Sally and I riding very well together.. the trust built up by riding track very evident. Once or twice we worked in with other people one of who was on a Bike Friday. Wow you can draft those small wheeled bikes close . I figured out that you need not ever hit the back wheel, you could always put out an arm and push the bloke away. And the draft that close was amazing. I want a Bike Friday.

Afterwards Sally and I parted company on Princes Bridge. I went to the finish. Met many people I know. Drank beer. Had dinner with Kathy, and our friends Robyn and Ros. Robyn and I co own a unit in Glen Iris. Ros came down from Darwin to stay with her for the ATB. And then I rode home. Finishing off with a good hard 170 km for the day. And more hills than the ATB. A wonderful wonderful day.

Happy Birthday to Perfect Notes!

Today Perfect Notes turns 1.

We have officially been in business for a year. Thanks to everyone who has followed us on this journey - and to all those who have helped, whether you are customers, prospects, connections or friends - thank you!

In actual fact, we started doing business before 15/10/09, but that's the official start date - so today is well worth celebrating - and it's a Friday too!

Well, it's been an interesting journey so far. While we have not continued down the path we started on a year ago, this looks like a sustainable business direction, so we will stay on this one for at least the next 6 months - unless someone drops a brick in our way again, in which case we will roll with the punches and change focus again.

One lovely thing about this celebration is that most of the customers who started this journey with us are still customers - so that tells me we are definitely doing something right. While a couple have gone out of business, or moved into areas where we can no longer assist them, only a few have decided to use others to do the work we started doing for them - a positive thing.

Oh - and we have managed to pick up some more along the way, as well. :-)

So - please feel free to comment on the things you like about our business - and how you will help us celebrate this milestone.

PerfectNotes is a sprinter.

OK a D grade sprinter. But absolutely not an 'also ran'. More on that later. First some stuff on the business.

A fair bit of work on at the moment. Its nearly crunch time to decide on the expansion into Bendigo... I have to give that a lot of thought. One thing is that we really need 2 cars all the time now.. and maybe even three. Thats for the core team of Kathy and I. We also need to give thought to bringing one of our part timers.. or subcontractors I guess they really are.. on board permanently.. I don't think we are quite their yet.. but soon.. very soon.

My depression over the business and stuff of a technical nature getting on top of me is pretty much over. After a few weeks when the simplest of jobs got silly annoying and nothing went right. I guess we all have those weeks..at least I hope so. Just this Sony to sort and that will be sorted. I have some VPN issues to work through for at least 3 clients next but I am looking forward to that. Its starting to be fun again.

We have a probable 3 sites more for web development. And one for certain. On top of some ongoing development.. A stack of VA stuff to do. Out of our trips to Bendigo we have at the very least established a relationship with a business embroiderer.. screen printer, a proof reader (for sub contracting VA stuff) a business coaching company and a variety of others. We have done some significant work for our client at Pyalong.. probably enough to pay for the trips. And we have had some fun. And scored a business coaching session for Kathy and I . Woot. So far so good. And last week was quite busy in its own right.

But life cannot be all about work. And none of this is the reason I find myself so happy.

The ABOC Summer Sprint Series started off with round 1 yesterday And as previously mentioned all three Team Splat! riders entered. Some last minute kerfuffles had to be sorted out with race licences and we thank Rob of Blackburn Cycling Club. The event was run at Blackburn Velodrome about 5 km away and I am pretty sure not actually in Blackburn. The Velo was pristine.. with the holes filled in and the lines freshly marked. The weather was perfect. It was a magical day for what amounts to my return to real rather than play racing after 30 odd years.

Team Splat settled in well, Getting pretty good at making ourselves at home at racetracks


And I won. In fact I won D grade. Really! Its true. I did. See... here are the results. I even wound up 5th in the aggregate points So a great day. Way to get lifted out of my funk.

Sally got second.. making it a Team Splat! 1/2 And while Jenny missed out on third .. which would have been the perfect result she did very well and showed a lot of potential. She won one of her races and tried her heart out in the rest.

The day started with flying 200's to determine grade and seed order. I tried pretty hard but flying 200,s are not my best thing.. I did,t enter flat out.. and in the bottom curve I backed off slightly and let the bike up out of the sprinters lane. A fairly average effort. I was 0.7 seconds slower than Sally... and fractionally faster than Janine V who had never even ridden at Blackburn before. When the seeding was done we had 6 in D grade.. a clear second separated D grades fastest rider.. Sally :D from the slowest rider in C: Obviously everyones standard has lifted.

I,ll only talk about the D grade racing.. some of the rest was blisteringly fast and close... but you know I can only rave so much. Its great spectating tho... come along.

First up Sally against Janine M. Sally a seasoned racer now.. Janine M a newbie... They rolled around for a lap.. Sally turned on the taps.. it was all over.. Then me vs Jenny in a Team Splat! double. Jenny lead out.. and I rolled around behind her for the first lap..pointedly staying in her blind spot and forcing her to look for me just as we had trained the day before. Going into the last curve on lap one.. I ducked under her.. went hard.. realised I was well clear and backed off to save myself for later. Legs feeling much better by now. The last D grade race.. Janine V.. fast and dangerous..vs Penny.. "training is for other people" Robinson. Result not a big surprise.

Round 2 Sally vs Janine V. The sprint started late with Janine getting the jump.. Sally got herself together.. chased hard .. closed.. closed more.. Janine visibly tiring and.... Sally ran out of time to catch her.

Me vs Janine M. I thought this one would be pretty easy... but some how... really early she jumped.. got 5 metres. I thought she had to be nuts to try and nail me that far out but hey.. I chased, got her wheel with a lap to go. Meh.. no advantage to being on her wheel.. a garden rake would make a bigger hole in the air. I went around on the outside.... backed off.. and took the win. Apparently she had followed Swervin Merv's advice to go early because Dave doesn't last. Thanks Merv, I owe you a beer.

Jenny vs Penny "My eyelash hurts and so I cannot train" Robinson. Blood on the velodrome. Jenny is looking pretty dangerous. She went really late.. jumped Penny on the bell lap and blew her away.

Round 3. Sally vs Jenny. Another Team Splat! double. Jenny is at her best over distance.. Sally over maybe 250 metres. The later it starts the better. I told Jenny to go early. Sally to go late. :D. Sally listened. Sally wins.

Me vs Janine V. Ummmmmm. A real threat. I wanted to go as early as possible.. I though I could get the jump because she didn't want that sort of race and was not tactically good enough to stop me jumping. I was leading out. Half way to the start (did I mention that they were rolling starts?) Janine said she could not get her foot in.. Suspiciously I looked sideways at her.. then she said it was in as we rolled over the start line.. I looked at the start official to make sure it was a clean start.. glanced at Janine.. and jumped.. into the first corner. Won by a long way. I did not expect that to be so easy. Burned more berries than I really needed.




Janine vs Penny "Training is for wimps" R. Janine.. by about a year.

So me vs Sally for 1st and 2nd in D. Janine V vs Janine M for 3rd. With the Janines going first. I thought Janine V much the stronger rider here.. with Janine M,s best bet being to go early and hope Janine V would blow up. Felt sorry for the commentators on this one. In the end both riders started the sprint very very late.. and Janine V easily won it.

So a Team Splat! ride off for first and second. Now while I am consistently faster than Sally in training I would never underestimate her. She is a fighter all the way down to the wire.. always finishes a race day faster than she started it and learns fast. I also dont think she has actually figured out how to accelerate really hard.. I think she has lots more acceleration in those legs and just has to sus out how to turn it on. Just my luck for her to manage it now. And I want the win. I decide again to play to my strengths .. and go very early.. I can hear the commentator saying "Dave likes to go early but its a lot different going early in a 3 lap race than in a 2 lap race, he may regret it if he tries that" Meh. Wanna bet?




I hook under Sally and go on the second turn.. grab 4 meters.. she chases... and on the second lap I can feel her there. I stay just outside the sprinters lane to give me options.. but I can see her back there in the sprinters lane.. coming up.. I jump into the lane and grit my teeth. Sally fades as we enter the third lap.. and I hang on for the win.

Woot.

Happy Dave.




A link to the videos of the races at Blackburn on Sunday last. Where D grade was dominated by Team Splat!
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=383E6B49E7D9C8E6

If you want to know anything more about the Blackburn series or track racing generally by all means email us

5 hours on the ring road. Insane.

And again this post is slightly overdue. It has been a very very busy week and so I do have some excuse. Its also been a confusing week.. I am going to use this blog post to try and put it all into some sorta perspective.S

On Monday my friend Robyn came back from her trip to Europe where she stayed with the gorgeous Sara. Sara is the best Mac person I know. And lives in London. If their are really good Mac people in Melbourne they have thus far successfully hidden from me. Expensive Mac people now... them we have. In all honesty I am one of the best Mac people in Melbourne and its not even my area of expertise (tho like a lot of techs my prefered laptop is a Macbook) but I am way cheaper per hour than Mac people generally charge.

Kathy and I were tasked to pick her up from Tullamarine which we duly did and then.... turned the cars nose north rather than south east. This came as a slight shock to Robyn. Evil snicker. Who was trapped in the back seat of her own lancer and comparing its roominess unfavourably with economy class in a 747. Certainly it was a cruel end to 20 hours in the air.

We arrived at mutual friends in the little town of Pyalong and lobbed on them for the night. One of these friends is my favorite niece the gorgeous Littlemissscribble. We had a pleasant night and then in the morning Kathy and I continued into Bendigo for a 7:00 am meeting with a networking group.

The group is a thing called BNI Business Networking International Its essentially a paid for and structured networking setup. You should look at their website for a better explanation. Its a successful attempt to structure the undoubted power of networking. Groups are everywhere. But as to this meeting being in Bendigo.. Kathy is looking at us expanding in that direction. My dad was bought up in Bendigo. I spent much of my youth there. Bendigo is a cycling town. Lake Cairn Curran where I used to sail is there. We have friends and customers in Pyalong which is more than halfway there. Its a reasonable thing to expand that way.

I personally think its just a tad early in the life of Perfect Notes. But maybe I am being too conservative. The meeting on Tuesday with an established group went well and we decided to return on Thursday. Back to Pyalong. Visit a customer. Say goodbye to Littlemissscribble et al... and off to Melbourne. Where I returned Robbyn's lancer to her and sent her on her way.
And discovered my Subie was US. Definitely not up to the trip to Bendigo. It was using more water than petrol

So Wednesday I took it off to my brother. Who runs a work shop that fixes heavy diesel's in Thomastown. Mech-hyd repairs. We pulled the radiator and Ashley (my evil brother ) bundled it and me into my Lancer and set off for radiator repair guy in Yarraville. An hour plus on the ring road to get there. Argghhhh. My Lancer has been at Ashleys for the past 2 months waiting for a new engine. With a bit of work it has condescended to run on 3.5 cylinders but I have seen Le Mans race cars that have had a gentler life than a Lancer being used by my brother apparently as a daily driver. Poor little thing. I am far from sure we want it back. Its never going to be a nice tight fun little car again I suspect. Its going to be a worn out race car. And they are not as much fun as you might think.

Anyway radiator guy took one look at the radiator and said "How long you been doing Subies Ash?" Reassuring. I could not have recognised it as a radiator from a Subie. I am told I can pick it up at 3:30... not for very much cash. Good because I don't have much cash So.. back to the workshop.. another hour and a half.. up to the bank.. and hell time to go back to Yarraville Another hour +... the ring road is a joke.. if I could carry the radiator on a pushy I could average twice this speed. And this is a freeway... back.. just me driving my clagged out lancer on a road full of loonies who are covering more distance sideways in their frequent unindicated lane changes into nearly non existent gaps than they are actually traveling forward. At an average speed of 5 kph even though a couple of bursts of inexplicable movement had me up to 80 for a few brief moments. The car adds never show this sort of gridlock. Doing this daily would turn me into a homicidal maniac in short order, no wonder many drivers are so annoyed by happy cyclists sliding through the gridlock. Thank Deity of Choice I no longer drive for a living.

Alone in the workshop putting the Subie back together in the twilght.. back to PerfectNotes HQ and then off to Pyalong again. We stayed with a customer this time.. they had dinner for us when we got there. We like Flavourful Hydroponics. Nice people with a good product and good customers too. Thanks for the tomatos guys.

And on to Bendigo in the morning. Some great people in this networking group. Hi Katrin. And an ex army bloke visiting from Singapore. Just from the people there this is a winner. But does it make economic sense? I have not figured it out yet. All comments are welcome

The old Subaru is a lovely car to do this sort of trip with. It seems like its issues are solved or at least much improved. Its like an old falcon that handles. Very nice car. Not letting Ashley get his hands on this one.

Sorted the clients issues on the way home. Had another clients new printer to sort this morning. Its a huge plotter for doing advanced and very large charts. I got a lesson in driving it from the Cannon tech and now am up to date with the very cutting edge of this technology. This afternoon I crashed and burned. Watched the UCI world champs. So few spectators. Geelong has been such a nasty unfriendly city to the world cycling championships.. it made me stay away. And they will bleat that its been a failure. Unwelcoming gits. I now hear that some plan to sue for lost income. Fools. If it had been a footy match they would have been so on board. Hopefully the courts see them as the wankers they are. Let me add that some of the shops have in fact apparently been totally on board. Them I have some sympathy for. A city tainted by bogans IMO. Not a place I would even consider relocating or chasing work in.


Anyway Michael Matthews of Oz won the under 23 race. Woohoo. Great win. What a sprint. Star.

As I mentioned Sally and I did velodrome training last Sunday. Sally's husband took some pics. And so here are a couple to finish off this post.

Me, trying hard


Sally, 9 metres high.

Its been a while

Its a week since I did a post. Oops. And that was on a Monday too.. Supposedly the worst day to do a post. At least according to my teammate Sally who is supposed to know about social media.

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m162/percrime/DISC/SallyDISC1.jpg


I don't know why so long.. lack of inspiration or something. Nothing I felt strongly enough to comment on perhaps. So I will try and make up for it all over the next few days. Writing or at least writing intelligently as I try and do can be just a bit difficult to start. Its ok IF you have something to say.. hard otherwise. I always find something to say but that blank LCD screen can be a bit intimidating.

OK lets briefly cover all the bases today. Cycling, well we did the inaugural 'waffle ride' last Sunday. Sally and I represented Team Splat! Sally posting as 'Elefunksoup' posted a hilarious ride report on BV forums. The waffles were provided by Rebecca, a truly lovely Canadian imput. It was a great day.. decent training into a punishing headwind on the return, and the event is a keeper.

It was the last winter training effort at DISC last night. It came to a choice between doing some gardening and attending DISC or going to Ballarat and watching the amazing Jeannie Longo race. At 51 Jeannie is the current outright womens TT champion of France. Sadly gardening won. I had to deliver Sally's track bike to her as it was at my place anyway. Another skills session. 3 handicap races.. Sally is easily the faster rider over 100 metres.. but over 500 I made her work for her 2 wins. There were 3 of us in those races.. I scored one win and 2 seconds to Sally. Of course the third rider is about 12 :( Sigh. Age may not weary us, but it makes everyone except Jeannie Longo slower. Sally bought along her own cheer squad. Her fella and her dad. So sweet. We are a bunch of nostalgic softies us trackies.

TRACK season starts. The worlds are here and is not the footy going to play hell with that? I think I will write on that more in another post but the draw in the footy is a terrible result for the UCI. Sad huh? Anyway the sprint series starts for Team Splat! next weekend. We have 3 riders up for it.. including me. We have approached informally another girl from DUCC's to perhaps join the team. Is it coincidence that Team Splat! is pretty girl heavy? Even I have been told I ride like a girl.. which er.. I dont think was meant as a compliment even tho I took it as one. :D Very very proud of my girls

Come and watch Team Splat! race. And let us know if you are interested in a jersey. I need about 50 firm orders. Can't be too hard. It will be a plain jersey.. in grey represent concrete or bitumen... with the Team Splat! blood splatter pattern front and rear.

I notice that my lovely niece Leah "Little Miss Scribble" is still reading my ramblings. Leah is one of the most important people in the world and I find that immensely satisfying and shall try and lift my game here to do her proud. Its been a while but I shall likely be catching up with her today in the remote wilderness stone fortress in which she, and her heavily armed retainers and guardians reside. Because PerfectNotes is going bush.. to talk to some country people, do some county networking and hopefully chase up some business. We have a networking meeting scheduled in Bendigo which we hope will lead to something worthwhile. Fingers crossed. We shall be pushing the Virtual Assistant service heavily. In fact since I imagine that Bendigo has some decent techs.. we shall be concentrating on the VA side of things.

Its scary to realise that Leah is now the same age her mum was when I first met her. I remember that meeting with her mum too. Hi Jeannine. Put the kettle on please.

One of my camera's has turned up. Its the Sony. It would be. I am still resurrecting this Sony laptop.. one of the connectors has what looks like a factory fix on it and I cannot for the life of me manage a decent connection. Sucks. My opinion of Sony has gone through the floor and I will never be recommending Sony products again. If the damn manufacturer does not have service manuals available deal with some one who does. Its a simple rule. Follow it.

OK Social Comment. The winging by the people of Geelong over hosting the world cycling championships is pathetic. I wont be going down more than a couple of times because I dont want to spend time and money in such a bogan backwater.. If the event fails, its going to be down to the losers of Geelong doing all they can to make it fail. Football is pretty much it for sport down there. Geelong always represents itself as a pro cycling city but that has never been my experience. I had a long term girlfriend in Geelong once and the city has never endeared itself to me in any way on my commutes to her. Its a bustling city with all the charm of a small hillbilly town. And the ceaseless complaints about having a couple of streets blocked off for something that is not the footy are annoying me.

It lives Igor!

There has been a new twist in this saga of the dead laptop. Marky came over to have a look at the dismembered corpse on the autopsy table.. er workbench. Aside from pointing out that I need a bigger and better magnifying glass on a long flexible mount.. and yes I do, he said some actually useful stuff. Mark knows a bit more about the electronics than I and since all my attempts to actually find an engineer just lead to many suggestions to just replace the mother board. Nearly all of them from people totally technically not up to replacing this particular mother board. Anyway it led to a result.

Mark said.. "Hmm, I wonder if this track is supposed to be there" I peered through the magnifying glass at a solder track between a power transformer and a transistor on the power bus that was the size of a flake of dandruff. "Looks factory" I commented. Mark expressed some doubt. "Lets scrape it off and see" I suggested.. "Re soldering that is no problem. He did. We tested. Power lights and a BIOS screen. OK thats a way from actually having this machine running but hey...

So now I have a theory. This box had been dropped on the back right corner. That side of the frame had twisted out of alignment and broken the dvd player.. by moving it so it had no connection. I fixed all that then discovered a damaged cable.. and lifted the thing to get its model number. I think that in fixing all that I released a single dandruff speck sized flake of solder that managed to find exactly the one worst place to lodge itself. Wow. Its only a theory.. but it holds up and fits all the facts. Now to try reassembly of a really complex machine for which the company releases no manuals.. but yeah I can do that. Still don,t know if anything electronic is damaged but I have hopes.

So I didn't kill it. I feel much much happier about myself as a tech now. Depressed for a week over that. Wow. And now we go back to the client. But first lets see if I can get this machine running an OS.

EDIT... machine now boots.

I went looking for DDR1 ram yesterday for a client laptop. and found 2 sticks of1 Gb Kingston (manufacturer of quality RAM) RAM, at almost the last place I tried. That machine goes from a dog with 256 Mb ram to a decent useful machine for the cost of about $150.. Its a huge difference and probably the last upgrade that machine will ever have. As also detailed in this post the answer is indeed more RAM

FInally went and saw "Tomorrow when the war began" last night with Kathy and a couple of close friends. I was looking forward to this movie as detailed in this blog post And it lived very much up to the hype. I thought it was well done.. smart and rang true. It seemed to me to be very very faithful to the book. The hardware was right. The one criticism I have heard that was worrying was the absurdity of one bunch of kids fighting back against an invasion.. in the context of the book they were one bunch in one area amongst many instances of insurrection... but luckier, faster learning and more successful than most. And this turned out in the end to be the case in the movie as well.. they heard about other unluckier rebels and the RAAF put in a brief appearance. So the movie was very very good. I loved it. There were 7 books in the series and 3 books in another continuing series about the central character after the war.. where she had a few issues. This might turn into a fun movie franchise.

The answer is more RAM

Its been a tough couple of weeks. Kathy and co have kept things ticking over. While I have been coping with a attack of funk and a bit of depression and actually have not been worth very much this week. I had a machine die on the operating table.. the first time that has ever happened to me. And it was a decent machine too. I have no idea what happened.. I had only covers off the machine and no way that I can see that it shorted anything.. but it has broken at some very very subtle level, with no sign of damage. It shook my faith in myself... very upsetting.

I asked in a lot of places for advice.. and got.. "change the board"; " change the board", "If I was you I would change the board" and similar stuff... not one person gave an actually useful response. At least I know I am one of the better techs out there.. at least I know how to solder and drive a multi meter. Unfortunately changing the board is not an option. Long term I might be able to sort it.. but ended up talking to the client. Not a profit maker but what can you do? Saved her data and shall buy her a slightly better lappy or contribute to a new one with the option being hers. All you can do is the best you can for the client.. and while we value all of them this one is very good value. Hopefully this only ever happens once.. its the first one I have lost in nearly 20 years of doing this stuff.. but hey... Lappys are always trouble. There is a lot in a very small space. And it was a Sony. So nice of Sony to have no manuals. Doesn't help.. thats for sure.

I have always believe that its how you fix the things you do wrong that really matters. Have not had to put it into practice very often.. if at all. The client was just great.

Have another lappy here. Needs an update. Is about 7 years old.. but uses DDR 1 RAM. WIthout going into too much history DDR 1 is the first of the really modern RAM. Before that we had SD RAM. Synchronous Delivery or something. RAM is the work bench of the computer. Data gets written from the hard drive to RAM.. gets worked on and then gets written back. The bigger and faster your RAM the better. But its limited by the size of the data bus.. the paths into which the RAM is plugged. Its also limited by the design of the Operating System.. XP for example really only recognises 3 Gb of RAM.. on some computers you can put more.. the machine will not run any faster. And so on.

SD RAM can do reads and writes of course. But not at the same time ( ok its actually slightly more complicated than that....depends a bit on what you mean by time.. but its close enough) DDR RAM.. double data rate can essentially do them at the same time. DDR RAM is similar to the better than system RAM that high end video cards used to use which shared the same capability. Anyway DDR RAM was much faster and a big step up. I figured it would be easy to get for this machine. Well I can get it. Not easily.

We are up to DDR3 now... DDR4 is on the way. Older RAM no longer made and especially no longer made in the increasingly larger sizes.. if it ever was. And as the sizes get better and the cost gets cheaper modern RAM becomes increasingly huger than was possible say 7 years ago. Its important to remember that that 7 year old laptop is still perfectly capable of most things the average person wants. Increasingly software needs more RAM as programmers can be less careful of the amount of resources their software runs just because RAM is more plentiful and cheaper all the time. But generally speaking that computer can still do word processing, and internet browsing just fine. But more RAM would be nice. Its just not available or its hugely more expensive than increasingly cheaper modern RAM.

So people buy a new machine.. cos they can get more RAM with it. Interesting yeah? OK this 7 yo machine has XP pro and office and is about a 1.4. Its fine for word processing and internet browsing. Except that its got 256 Mb of RAM and no one has DDR1 for sale. And XP and firefox like more than that to run at more than a crawl. But I found a source with some 1Gb sticks. And suddenly this machine is useful again. THe cheapest and best upgrade possible. Was not easy finding it.. and er.. not all that cheap. When they stopped making DDR1 this must have been hugely expensive RAM. Now being sold probably for less than the production cost.

The lesson... As soon as you can put as much RAM in your box as you can afford and it will take. It wil maybe let you hang on to this machine for a couple of years longer. It will absolutely make it worth more. And just before they change the RAM spec again it will be a dirt cheap upgrade. That will only get more expensive in the future.

Gee I am a moody bugger.

Had a couple of issues this last week. Its all sortable of course.. nearly anything is. But instantly I go from being upbeat and optimistic and working my butt off for this business to moody.. unhappy, dare I say 'grumpy?' and wanting to crawl back into bed. I am not a depressive person.. and I have friends who deal with deep depression.. been there and not going there again, but sometimes I peer over the edge of that cliff and see the depths below. Scary. Got to work on being upbeat.

Its time to look at the google add words campaign again. The Virtual Assistant one. We are running a couple of these campaigns for clients and they have been hugely successful. This one.. not so much. Its tricky as I have alluded too in the past. The obvious keywords are wrong or far too widely applicable. What would you type in if you wanted to hire a VIrtual Assistant in Melbourne to.... scan some stuff in for you, polish up a report, email a bunch of clients, build a spread sheet for you, clean up some photo's update a web site, ghostwrite a business blog? See what I mean? Its a serious question by the way..what keywords are applicable? Talk to me. We need this to work

PerfectNotes IT also needs to find a decent electronics tech.. I can solder a component in OK,, can swap out bits... figure out some of a board,s logic, but we need occasional access to someone who can say, "Its the F1113 transistor here, if I put in a C112 in it will work just fine" Or who is at least better than me. They need to be within Coooee of the Melbourne Eastern Suburbs, Anyone? Am I a voice shouting in the wilderness here?

During the week I was offered a hummmmmm sponsored entry into the Degani Kinglake Ride a bit of a hill fest in the kinglake area. My team leader Ian , his missus Lisa and various others from Lisa's company were going to be doing it as a team. Late notice as the ride was yesterday (Sunday) and it was Saturday evening before I read the ride instructions. Holy frak... it was like reading the instructions to the Paris Dakar Rally or the Whitbread Race I posted on BV forums about the lack of an EPIRB in the required bits, and got a post back saying it and radio skeds and frequencies were on the last page. A joke but not by much. Hey its just a pootle in the hills on public roads. Not that you would know it. And the rules. "No overtaking" "Do not exceed 60 kph" Riiiiiighhhhhhht.

Met up with Ian and Lisa at their house and agreed to meet at the start.. and that was the last I saw of them till I called in on the way home. They never made it.. As far as I know I was the only team member to ride. Sigh. There is a picture of Ian in Wikapedia under "unreliable" Not what I needed.

I had a good day anyway. Met one person I knew. I would honestly have thought that it was impossible to have 3500 cyclists in a bunch anywhere near Melbourne and not have people there I knew. Mind you everyone was dressed the same. Nice jersey. Good score


Anyway.... Here is my FB post about the ride. And indeed the evening.

Ride leaving time 9:00. Ride completed.... 11:20. Nominated time for ride 3 hours. Actual time 2 hours 20 mins. Average speed 28 ish. Time for will walker climb 28 minutes 15 secs .. just under twice his time. :( Passed 128 people on the climb. Got passed by about 40... none on bikes and mostly in vintage mercedes that sounded worse than me.

Rode the first 15 km and the start with fixie. We spent most of that time being rude to the people shoving past on the left... All of whom blew up on the first climb

Problems I had. some lower back pain...

Then I went to DISC and got my legs torn off me by CARL. But did ride a really good take a lap with Jenny... we took 3 laps from the bunch together.. last launching an attack with 4 laps to go and convincingly catching them with time to spare.

My leggses hurties.

And Jenny wrote about DISC on the Team Splat! page

well, Dave and I were at DISC training tonight - Sally off doing some road riding.
Carl from aboc cycling ran another great session for the "enduro" bunch. One of our tidiest efforts at the warm-up laps.
3 x 3 minute bursts with gradual increments in speed before a final sprint.
Followed by 50 sec recovery/10 sec sprint bursts for 15 minutes.
"Take-a -lap" drill to finish. We managed a fine piece of Team Spat! co-operation and worked together to take 3 laps from the "bunch".

Truly, it's the first night I have felt really comfortable at DISC and not panicky at all.

I,ll see if I can find a pic of me on this ride at some point. The climb referred to is some 7+ km steep pitch that a really quick rider onces set a superb time up.. possibly on a motorcycle (snicker)

THe world champs are nearly here. The biggest thing to EVER happen in cycling in Australia is happening just down the road in Boganville.. er Geelong. Nothing much has been said about it.. THe locals mostly seem to not want it there. If its not V8 motor racing, or the Footy its foreign. One bloke said "WHo cares about cycling?" 350 million more people than ever have heard about Aussie Rules you hillbilly. Sheisse. What can you do? No advertising has been seen. No promotion. Lets ignore it.. and it will go away and not come back.

But Cycling Tips Blog put it so much better than I can

Oz is not Iraq

Cos we have rain. And a government. :D At last!!!!!

I have been digressing from the point of this blog a bit in the last few posts. The point of this blog...if you have somehow missed it.. is actually to drive visitors to our website...... Me being able to rave on about stuff is just gravy. And so I should occasionally use it as a platform to expand on matters IT and geek related or relating to the business. Just recently I have got all political and cycling oriented and managed both at the same time. Now that Australia finally has a government finally declared at 17 days after the election, I shall shortly get over that.

Huge huge wake up call for pollies everywhere. The result could not be closer. One pollie getting his d**k caught in his zipper and Australia is off to the polls again. I was actually really impressed by the independents... although they could bore the paint off a wall. The good thing about a scared minority government is that it tries hard to please everyone. And the bad thing about a scared minority government is that it tries hard to please everyone. I doubt the government will last out its term but this could be very very good.. or very bad. Sure is going to make the soon to be held Victorian election interesting.

Bob Katter the Queensland independent is a nutter.. its embarrassing to realise that I almost agree with him on gun laws and I absolutely do agree with him on the right to use violence in self defence and the defence of property. Is a bit of property worth killing for..? well if its my property... and you are a low life thieving scumbag of utterly no use to the planet.. I,m ok with it. And if you are not ok with dying.. fine.. go beat up a defenceless unarmed old lady. I don,t agree with Katter on anything else.

Broadband as I predicted was a defining issue for the independents choosing who to declare for. Senator Conman er Conroy was not mentioned. The green
vote was obviously significant... if more people had voted below the line I wonder what would have happened. But as I said.. enough politics.. time to discuss the business.

We actually survived 17 days without a government. Hmmmmmm Interesting.

Our time on NEIS the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme is just about over. NEIS is a brilliant Government scheme (hard to get away from politics is it not?) and I dont often use the words "Brilliant' and "Government" in the same sentence. They pay us something to get the business up and running. Very very cool. T PerfectNotes is just about making enough money to pay the bills without them In spite of a quarter full of tension and issues from many directions. With a staff essentially of 5 or maybe 7 depending on how you count them.. 3 of who are full time.. and one of them a cat, we have not quite made the big time, but we have hopes. Paying the bills, eating and most importantly having fun. Its our business... unlike people I have worked for in the past.. who make petty demands of employees and increasingly and constantly up these demands.. we run it. I can go for a ride in the middle of the day if I want. Sometimes anyway. It possibly means I am up at midnight sorting something. Hell I was up at 1 this morning chasing a nasty little virus around a clients office machine.. But its my business. Brilliant. When we make the shift to having employees instead of contractors... we will have to try and not turn into the other kind of workplace

Most of the people we deal with are great. We have some good and loyal customers. Some of them have become friends. The networking thing is turning into fun. Writing this blog is turning into fun. Watching small businesses grow and knowing we had some input is fantastic. I am pretty optimistic at the moment as you can tell. And with a new government that arrived heralded by massive flooding in Victoria.. portents of doom.. thrown in.

Virtual Assistent enquiries continue to come in. Which reminds me that I have a ton of updating to do on our own website. Sigh. Its not all gravy If we get rich out of this business its going to be the custom work and the Virtual Assistant stuff that pays for the Ferrari.

Networking meeting last night.. as usual these are all good.

And now for a brief support story.. If your computer is running XP and is clean of viri and malware.. yet will not run microsoft updates.. its not clean. Trust me on this. I learn something new most days on this job and that was last nights lesson.