So a machine to sort for a long time friend. It would not see the interweb. Turned out to be a combination of a dead on board network card and a extra firewall that had strangely downloaded and installed itself. Sorted. Noisy fan.. old machine, supplier had no fans that could easily be made to fix.. sorted with secret method I am embarrassed to relate. Sigh I have a bottle of wine from her already. Hope she realizes we need money as well.
Bike shop with virus infestation. Visited.. left antivirus and anti stealthware stuff running. Return visit required
Another 4 pages of products for a web site we are building turned up.. Just about to take the lappy to bed and do some of that. A lot of work there.
Another customer has accidentally blown away the install on an ibook.. data recovery... always time consuming. Very time consuming Also has a machine requiring a rebuild for a child.. being done at the moment. Its second hand, without an OS and I was going to put a linux on it.. then I discovered the XP home licence on the case. He is a kid.. he is going to want games on it, I guess I need to put XP on it.. cruel thing to do to a child but it could be worse.. could be Vista. :P
Friday morning we have a secret install to do in the city.. I have a major test of some stuff to do before that.. a good mornings work to validate it all.
4:pm job in the city tomorrow. 8pm job friday. Some leaflets printed to be delivered to a local area.
Website update.. with new links to blog... checkout addwords campaign and hits.. see how well its working
Kathy has a site to go online in the next couple of days, another one by the end of the week.. a bunch of VA stuff to get though.
Mark and I have a site to develop and get roughly happening by early next week. We are going to sell some plants on line. Mainly hedge plants and the like. not really my area but the site is... doubtless Kathy will be involved in that at some point.
Camera, netbook, and a decent second hand lappy to acquire this week. We could use a couple more lcd monitors too.
And Ashley (my evil brother) has some VA work for us... urgently.
Could be a good week.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Back to Track
I was going to talk about the bike lanes in Albert St East Melbourne so lets do that first (or was I going to rave about the hire bike scheme? My mind is going.. I can feel it. Ahhh well one rave at a post)
These two pictures one taken just before and the other just after these lanes came in. (thanking the Age online ) shows what we are talking about. The cars in the left lane are actually parked. Maybe. Sorta hard to tell. Definitely part of the issue.
Let me point you at this thread on BV forums.
Here is Bicycle Victoria's take on it all. Most of which I think is rubbish.
Speaking as a very experienced cyclist (he says looking at the floor shyly and scuffing his cleated feet) going into town in times of heavy traffic its sort of ok(ish) . But crikey some people park so badly they should lose their licenses.. or at the very least be booked. I am going to take a camera in some time soon. Its mildly entertaining watching them.
Coming out of town.. late in the evening its rather lethal. 40 kph is dangerously fast on it.. and I usually hit 50 for most of that trip on the mostly downhill road. Pretty safely using a lane and traveling at the same speed as the cars . The bike lane green surface is unsettlingly loose. The driveways are lethal.. and at 30 I usually manage to have a near miss with someone pulling across the bike lane and propping while they check for cars. Although the green surface may be loose I know of someone who has destroyed a tire on it while panic braking which means that the surface must be as abrasive as hell. The normal problem of cars overtaking marginally faster than you.. and instantly turning left is aggravated by the design.. they have some actual excuse They come up the outside of the row of parked cars and you come up the inside The poles now sticking out of the edge of the bike lane on the north west end are absolutely for sure going to kill or maim someone. And they are so obviously lethal that I plan to go in with a camera on Monday.. take pics of them and make them available to the police and or coroner when I hear of it happening
What I would do is.. maybe try it for a bit longer on the uphill into town.. With some serious enforcement. On the way out of town I would lose the car parking altogether. I would make the left lane entirely a bicycle lane.. it would be very wide. And I would allow cars in it. Difficult to say what I mean but try and market it as a non exclusive bicycle lane in which bicycles have the right of way.
The way to make cycling safer in the city is to make the strict liability on the car. Where there is an accident the car driver is assumed at fault in the absence of other evidence. If it can be demonstrated the cyclist is at fault then the cyclist is charged but otherwise the car driver is assumed at fault. This works in a lot of countries and pretty much gets rid of the sort of accident where the car driver claims the cyclist must have swerved. It makes car drivers careful of cyclists. It makes the more dangerous vehicle carry the onus which to me at least seems absolutely reasonable. Comments anyone?
Coming up Lonsdale street in the evening on friday one of my tail lights came off.. Stopped in the middle of the lane. Maybe a hundred cars missed it but the very last one.. some sod in a Camry managed by swerving to hit it fair and square. Class mate... pure class. Whoever you are, your wife and kids think you are worth living with. Wait. Sooner or later they will find out the truth.. self evident to many of us who share the planet with you. Take your small minded moment of triumph and hug it to you because you are indeed pathetic..
OK two raves per blog post.
The sad part of the day was the Grand Prix Cycles memorial ride for Steven Hart. I slept so late I took the car in. Our guesstimates of numbers for the ride varied.. maybe 200 or so with nibbles after. It was a very varied bunch.. and I got at least 2 dozen "how did you know Steven" I met some old mates. And TheotherActiveFeetGuy from BV forums. It was not so sad as all that actually. He touched a lot of people. RIP Steven. Life is fragile. Being missed is not so bad
Team Splat did track tonight. All 3 riders currently on the books. The gorgeous Sally back from her world travels finally made an appearance. And the Lovely Jenny.. still getting her mind back together after her nasty crash last year not only came .. but rode on a wooden olympic velo. And its only a couple of months since that scared the living daylights (not the original word I used here) out of me so I know exactly how much courage that took. I don,t think I can possibly describe how proud I am of her. She rode the full program too. Immensely proud of both girls. But Jenny beat her demons tonight so I don't think I will meet anyone as brave any time soon. She came around yesterday and we put new ABOC approved super sticky track tires on her bike and she was nervy then.. was waiting when I got to DISC and nervy then. And did just brilliantly.
A weirdness. That goes to it being a very very very small world indeed. One of the other girls at track was talking about her husband. Penny dropped. (no not that Penny. Yes her husband is a perfect notes client. And a good one. And possibly has a netbook for sale.. that might conceivably sort another issue. Amazing huh?
These two pictures one taken just before and the other just after these lanes came in. (thanking the Age online ) shows what we are talking about. The cars in the left lane are actually parked. Maybe. Sorta hard to tell. Definitely part of the issue.
Let me point you at this thread on BV forums.
Here is Bicycle Victoria's take on it all. Most of which I think is rubbish.
Speaking as a very experienced cyclist (he says looking at the floor shyly and scuffing his cleated feet) going into town in times of heavy traffic its sort of ok(ish) . But crikey some people park so badly they should lose their licenses.. or at the very least be booked. I am going to take a camera in some time soon. Its mildly entertaining watching them.
Coming out of town.. late in the evening its rather lethal. 40 kph is dangerously fast on it.. and I usually hit 50 for most of that trip on the mostly downhill road. Pretty safely using a lane and traveling at the same speed as the cars . The bike lane green surface is unsettlingly loose. The driveways are lethal.. and at 30 I usually manage to have a near miss with someone pulling across the bike lane and propping while they check for cars. Although the green surface may be loose I know of someone who has destroyed a tire on it while panic braking which means that the surface must be as abrasive as hell. The normal problem of cars overtaking marginally faster than you.. and instantly turning left is aggravated by the design.. they have some actual excuse They come up the outside of the row of parked cars and you come up the inside The poles now sticking out of the edge of the bike lane on the north west end are absolutely for sure going to kill or maim someone. And they are so obviously lethal that I plan to go in with a camera on Monday.. take pics of them and make them available to the police and or coroner when I hear of it happening
What I would do is.. maybe try it for a bit longer on the uphill into town.. With some serious enforcement. On the way out of town I would lose the car parking altogether. I would make the left lane entirely a bicycle lane.. it would be very wide. And I would allow cars in it. Difficult to say what I mean but try and market it as a non exclusive bicycle lane in which bicycles have the right of way.
The way to make cycling safer in the city is to make the strict liability on the car. Where there is an accident the car driver is assumed at fault in the absence of other evidence. If it can be demonstrated the cyclist is at fault then the cyclist is charged but otherwise the car driver is assumed at fault. This works in a lot of countries and pretty much gets rid of the sort of accident where the car driver claims the cyclist must have swerved. It makes car drivers careful of cyclists. It makes the more dangerous vehicle carry the onus which to me at least seems absolutely reasonable. Comments anyone?
Coming up Lonsdale street in the evening on friday one of my tail lights came off.. Stopped in the middle of the lane. Maybe a hundred cars missed it but the very last one.. some sod in a Camry managed by swerving to hit it fair and square. Class mate... pure class. Whoever you are, your wife and kids think you are worth living with. Wait. Sooner or later they will find out the truth.. self evident to many of us who share the planet with you. Take your small minded moment of triumph and hug it to you because you are indeed pathetic..
OK two raves per blog post.
The sad part of the day was the Grand Prix Cycles memorial ride for Steven Hart. I slept so late I took the car in. Our guesstimates of numbers for the ride varied.. maybe 200 or so with nibbles after. It was a very varied bunch.. and I got at least 2 dozen "how did you know Steven" I met some old mates. And TheotherActiveFeetGuy from BV forums. It was not so sad as all that actually. He touched a lot of people. RIP Steven. Life is fragile. Being missed is not so bad
Team Splat did track tonight. All 3 riders currently on the books. The gorgeous Sally back from her world travels finally made an appearance. And the Lovely Jenny.. still getting her mind back together after her nasty crash last year not only came .. but rode on a wooden olympic velo. And its only a couple of months since that scared the living daylights (not the original word I used here) out of me so I know exactly how much courage that took. I don,t think I can possibly describe how proud I am of her. She rode the full program too. Immensely proud of both girls. But Jenny beat her demons tonight so I don't think I will meet anyone as brave any time soon. She came around yesterday and we put new ABOC approved super sticky track tires on her bike and she was nervy then.. was waiting when I got to DISC and nervy then. And did just brilliantly.
A weirdness. That goes to it being a very very very small world indeed. One of the other girls at track was talking about her husband. Penny dropped. (no not that Penny. Yes her husband is a perfect notes client. And a good one. And possibly has a netbook for sale.. that might conceivably sort another issue. Amazing huh?
Friday, July 23, 2010
The last mountain
Its been an awesomely quiet week on the work front. Have done a lot of administration, organizing and promotional stuff but not much actual work. Really quite depressing. I have some bits and pieces of web dev to go on with.. and some of the same to do for ourselves and other things begin to look more organized but still. Blog hits continue to go up.. that is going much better, and the number of people looking at PerfectNotes from here is going up. Which is good. Its the only way I can justify this prodigious self serving ranting to my starving staff.
A couple of our clients are absolutely and totally flat out.. which makes me wonder why our local downturn. Its not such a complete downturn.. either, have had a dozen people or more ask for advice.. advice of the type that we cannot quite call consulting and charge for. Including one person wanting to talk about going from Thunderbird to Outlook. Can sum that bit of advice up pretty easy in one word, But it seems they were using a CRM package called ACT, Instead of ours. Sigh. And ACT cannot talk to IMAP. It needs Outlook. A reason to not use it right there I should think. Ahhh well. It turns out their is commercial software letting you turn IMAP to PST. And we have software of our own letting you go the other far more sensible way. So its all covered.
One of the things about proprietary software like MS Outlook is that it has its format for keeping data in. (PST) Athough PST supposedly subscribes to an open format no one else that I am aware uses it Getting it into another format to use with someone else's software is difficult and expensive.. Sometimes impossible. So once you have your 6 months worth of calendar stuff. email, business contacts and the like in Outlook its probably staying there. Welcome to the wonderful world of Microsoft, loyal Microsoft sl... er customer.
Kathy is off to Echuca. She says to explore possible Virtual Assistant customers. But I happen to know that their is a blues festival happening there this week. I suspect a connection.
Last night was the last mountain stage of the Tour de France. A bunch of us went to Blackburn Cycling Club and watched it live. About 15 of us this time. Bundled in blankets, watching it on the big(ish) screen. eating hot snacks.. Listening to Penny being soft. It was all good.
The stage was amazing Contador. knew his real danger was Schleck and stayed glued to his back wheel. He had to stay within 8 seconds.. and Schleck had to pull out.. realistically something like 30 seconds. Each attacked savagely up the last mountain Eventually each attack ended with Contador 6 inches behind Schleck and the peleton coming apart behind them. And that's how it finished. Contador 6 inches behind and 8 seconds ahead. Schleck winning the stage. Contador almost certainly winning the tour. Desperately hurting riders coming up the hill in dribs and drabs. The remainder of the main peleton down to maybe 20 riders some 5 or 6 minutes down. Armstrong still in with them. A great evening.
Tomorrow I shall expand on my opinion of the Melbourne Bike Hire Scheme. Wonder if the Age will post my comment.
A couple of our clients are absolutely and totally flat out.. which makes me wonder why our local downturn. Its not such a complete downturn.. either, have had a dozen people or more ask for advice.. advice of the type that we cannot quite call consulting and charge for. Including one person wanting to talk about going from Thunderbird to Outlook. Can sum that bit of advice up pretty easy in one word, But it seems they were using a CRM package called ACT, Instead of ours. Sigh. And ACT cannot talk to IMAP. It needs Outlook. A reason to not use it right there I should think. Ahhh well. It turns out their is commercial software letting you turn IMAP to PST. And we have software of our own letting you go the other far more sensible way. So its all covered.
One of the things about proprietary software like MS Outlook is that it has its format for keeping data in. (PST) Athough PST supposedly subscribes to an open format no one else that I am aware uses it Getting it into another format to use with someone else's software is difficult and expensive.. Sometimes impossible. So once you have your 6 months worth of calendar stuff. email, business contacts and the like in Outlook its probably staying there. Welcome to the wonderful world of Microsoft, loyal Microsoft sl... er customer.
Kathy is off to Echuca. She says to explore possible Virtual Assistant customers. But I happen to know that their is a blues festival happening there this week. I suspect a connection.
Last night was the last mountain stage of the Tour de France. A bunch of us went to Blackburn Cycling Club and watched it live. About 15 of us this time. Bundled in blankets, watching it on the big(ish) screen. eating hot snacks.. Listening to Penny being soft. It was all good.
The stage was amazing Contador. knew his real danger was Schleck and stayed glued to his back wheel. He had to stay within 8 seconds.. and Schleck had to pull out.. realistically something like 30 seconds. Each attacked savagely up the last mountain Eventually each attack ended with Contador 6 inches behind Schleck and the peleton coming apart behind them. And that's how it finished. Contador 6 inches behind and 8 seconds ahead. Schleck winning the stage. Contador almost certainly winning the tour. Desperately hurting riders coming up the hill in dribs and drabs. The remainder of the main peleton down to maybe 20 riders some 5 or 6 minutes down. Armstrong still in with them. A great evening.
Tomorrow I shall expand on my opinion of the Melbourne Bike Hire Scheme. Wonder if the Age will post my comment.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Sometimes you’re the nail.
Wow, that was nail biting stuff on the tour last night. A desperate brave solo breakaway by Carlos Barredo who was hunted down and caught.. and passed, exhausted and broken within the last kilometer, And in the breakaway that hunted him down... attack after attack launched up the steep heartbreaking slopes of the four Pyreneean summits the stage took in on the way to Pau Armstrong prominent in that bunch, riding strongly with his trademark impassive face, responding to the attacks and launching a serious dig or two off his own... and at the end. while probably the poorest sprinter in the bunch, he managed a sprint.
He did not win.. few fairy tales in the tour... its way too tough and brutal for that. But he hung with the leaders in a day long breakaway in the toughest of the mountain stages, and finished sixth. Its likely the last bit of greatness we will see from Lance... but it was superb. No one can really doubt that he is going down fighting and showing style. He once said "No gifts" and no one is giving him any, that is for sure.
Pierrick Fédrigo of France won the stage. But sorry Pierrick.. but no one cares. Armstrong got sixth... that is what everyone is going to remember.
Armstrong commented after his early crash that dropped him out of overall tour contention that "Sometimes you are the hammer and sometimes you are the nail" Well a lot of people have been hammered this tour...Renshaw out.. Evans back with the main bunch and ever further out of contention.. nearly every one in the peleton missing skin or nursing broken bones of greater or lesser consequence in what might become known as the 'tour of the crash' Its really wonderful to see Lance go out with style.
I was going to comment on Contador's unsporting behavior in attacking, and indeed taking yellow while Andy Schleck was having a mechanical issue the other day. But I think I already have. If Alberto wins the one thing he won't be able to say is that he won it without any gifts. Well he will be able to say it of course.. and modesty is not Alberto's best thing so he will say it loudly and often. But its just not true. Interestingly he has since apologized. I suspect that while he is not going to admit it he feels the same way I think the boos when he got yellow were probably a serious slap across the face. He deserved them IMO. But rumor says he is a nice bloke and smart, so hopefully he learned something
Ok yesterday was a group mentoring meeting at Box Hill Tafe yesterday afternoon Some useful point came out of it.. and I have been playing with this blog and will be playing with the website a lot doing Search Engine Optimization stuff. We generally do OK at that stuff.. but some useful suggestions came out of the meeting. One issue that Kathy had pointed out the other day is that while the blog is taking on a life of its own with a steady increase in readership the people concerned are not going to our business website. Which is Perfectnotes.com.au So go and visit it now. I am attempting to address this issue.
Another issue is that my style is a bit idiosyncratic. This blog is about half business blog.. and half cycling blog.. it works for me.. its how I like to write and this blog is at least partially about me liking to write. Its less polished business site than it could be. That is by design.. i think this sort of style is far less formal.. and it is at least partially about me as a person and us as nice people who will try pretty hard for the customer. I mean I don.t want to be a company like Telstra. A Telstra blog would have no soul. And they absolutely will not go that extra mile.. or even two cm for you. But a Telstra blog would be polished. So I could do polished if I want to. But if I do its going to be because someone has hired me to do polished for them. But it does mean that doing tags on content in my posts is an issue.. I mean is this a cycling post or is it one about SEO? And how many people are out their searching for posts on Cycling Search Engine Optimisation? Having a multitasking blog is tricky.
SEO needs frequent revisiting tho. Its a work in progress. As any web site should be. Another issue we have at the moment is that currently the blog is a wordpress site but the website is not. In the fullness of time the web site will be hosted by us and running in Plone and we will host the blog on the same site. But how to deal with it in the intern is an issue.
Bought print cartridges from France this morning. A lot cheaper than local. But then again its harder to sort a warranty issue. Kathy asked how long they were likely to take to get here. Well, its a mystery. But the last time I bought stuff from the UK it took less time to get here than the last time I bought stuff from Sydney. Such a small fragile world. I shall have to devote some more time to think about the election. Cannot help but think the world is too fragile to trust to pollies.
This group mentoring thing was run by Georg who I have mentioned previously as having a nice little financial software package called Finetunebiz Cashbook.that is probably a good fit for lots of small businesses worldwide. He has carefully stayed away from making it country specific and is pretty much targeting the user currently using a shoebox to manage their finances. He was really happy to see us as I had mentioned that I liked his bit of software and his analytic's program had picked up on it. So here is another little rev for him. I do think that the success of Perfectnotes is totally dependent on how well we network.. so this is me networking. In spite of all too many interruptions by the staff.
He did not win.. few fairy tales in the tour... its way too tough and brutal for that. But he hung with the leaders in a day long breakaway in the toughest of the mountain stages, and finished sixth. Its likely the last bit of greatness we will see from Lance... but it was superb. No one can really doubt that he is going down fighting and showing style. He once said "No gifts" and no one is giving him any, that is for sure.
Pierrick Fédrigo of France won the stage. But sorry Pierrick.. but no one cares. Armstrong got sixth... that is what everyone is going to remember.
Armstrong commented after his early crash that dropped him out of overall tour contention that "Sometimes you are the hammer and sometimes you are the nail" Well a lot of people have been hammered this tour...Renshaw out.. Evans back with the main bunch and ever further out of contention.. nearly every one in the peleton missing skin or nursing broken bones of greater or lesser consequence in what might become known as the 'tour of the crash' Its really wonderful to see Lance go out with style.
I was going to comment on Contador's unsporting behavior in attacking, and indeed taking yellow while Andy Schleck was having a mechanical issue the other day. But I think I already have. If Alberto wins the one thing he won't be able to say is that he won it without any gifts. Well he will be able to say it of course.. and modesty is not Alberto's best thing so he will say it loudly and often. But its just not true. Interestingly he has since apologized. I suspect that while he is not going to admit it he feels the same way I think the boos when he got yellow were probably a serious slap across the face. He deserved them IMO. But rumor says he is a nice bloke and smart, so hopefully he learned something
Ok yesterday was a group mentoring meeting at Box Hill Tafe yesterday afternoon Some useful point came out of it.. and I have been playing with this blog and will be playing with the website a lot doing Search Engine Optimization stuff. We generally do OK at that stuff.. but some useful suggestions came out of the meeting. One issue that Kathy had pointed out the other day is that while the blog is taking on a life of its own with a steady increase in readership the people concerned are not going to our business website. Which is Perfectnotes.com.au So go and visit it now. I am attempting to address this issue.
Another issue is that my style is a bit idiosyncratic. This blog is about half business blog.. and half cycling blog.. it works for me.. its how I like to write and this blog is at least partially about me liking to write. Its less polished business site than it could be. That is by design.. i think this sort of style is far less formal.. and it is at least partially about me as a person and us as nice people who will try pretty hard for the customer. I mean I don.t want to be a company like Telstra. A Telstra blog would have no soul. And they absolutely will not go that extra mile.. or even two cm for you. But a Telstra blog would be polished. So I could do polished if I want to. But if I do its going to be because someone has hired me to do polished for them. But it does mean that doing tags on content in my posts is an issue.. I mean is this a cycling post or is it one about SEO? And how many people are out their searching for posts on Cycling Search Engine Optimisation? Having a multitasking blog is tricky.
SEO needs frequent revisiting tho. Its a work in progress. As any web site should be. Another issue we have at the moment is that currently the blog is a wordpress site but the website is not. In the fullness of time the web site will be hosted by us and running in Plone and we will host the blog on the same site. But how to deal with it in the intern is an issue.
Bought print cartridges from France this morning. A lot cheaper than local. But then again its harder to sort a warranty issue. Kathy asked how long they were likely to take to get here. Well, its a mystery. But the last time I bought stuff from the UK it took less time to get here than the last time I bought stuff from Sydney. Such a small fragile world. I shall have to devote some more time to think about the election. Cannot help but think the world is too fragile to trust to pollies.
This group mentoring thing was run by Georg who I have mentioned previously as having a nice little financial software package called Finetunebiz Cashbook.that is probably a good fit for lots of small businesses worldwide. He has carefully stayed away from making it country specific and is pretty much targeting the user currently using a shoebox to manage their finances. He was really happy to see us as I had mentioned that I liked his bit of software and his analytic's program had picked up on it. So here is another little rev for him. I do think that the success of Perfectnotes is totally dependent on how well we network.. so this is me networking. In spite of all too many interruptions by the staff.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Cybercrime.
At Monash law yesterday evening.
Student to me "Do you know where (the subject) cybercrime is"
Me "Its all around us. Its ubiquitous. Its everywhere"
Student. "Good Answer"
Incidentally I broke into our WEP wireless network in about 5 seconds the other day. It seems all the fuss about WEP security is based in reality. WEP appears to not be the way to go
Student to me "Do you know where (the subject) cybercrime is"
Me "Its all around us. Its ubiquitous. Its everywhere"
Student. "Good Answer"
Incidentally I broke into our WEP wireless network in about 5 seconds the other day. It seems all the fuss about WEP security is based in reality. WEP appears to not be the way to go
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Its raining indoors.
I have figured out how to do my little backup problem. So I will sort that this evening. This morning was windy but lovely and I ended up doing about 60 Km on the road bike this morning. Then came home with every intention of sorting backup problem. Woke up with 20 minutes to get to track at DISC. The lovely day had vanished. It was pithing down At track we did several 750 metre (Track TT distance for masters in our category) efforts. My legs hurt.
The roof at DISC leaks. It has leaked since new. Water and wooden velo,s are lethal. I have personally seen a single drop of water cause a girl to crash, at the womens meet a few months ago. There were several spots of water on the track tonight. No crashes. You can see where this multimillion dollar track is being damaged by the water. No one will sort it. I would really like to take an orbital sander with 80 grit paper on it to the knees of the person responsible. Asses. People get hurt on tracks anyway.. no reason to encourage it.
Ian turned up again. Ian is an old mate as I have mentioned before. A friend of well over 20 years standing. A very tough bloke. Ian has had a triple bypass, survived prostrate cancer and beaten the half century. And is now following in his fathers footsteps by playing with track bikes. He is having a ball.
One of the blokes has bought an orange Alchemy.. just like mine. Cool. . Not much meat to this post...so another support story. At Strange Secondary College in Hawthorn one staff member kept trashing his DE@T supplied laptop. When you do maintenance for schools you try for a SOE (Standard Operating Environment ) where you have a bunch of machines the same.. build a good image for them.. develop it properly and drop it on the lot. With these lappys we start with the DE@T (Department of Education and training) supplied image.. customise it for our network.. put the apps we like most. Firefox as well as IE.. and stuff like that and we talk to the teachers.. and if we can get intelligent suggestions out of them and we can get the software legally, then we put that on. And then we re image the machines... and then from this image do a bit of customization on the machines.. setting them up to run for that user on the secure supplied wireless points in the school.. and the like.
Within weeks this useful staff member had trashed his machine. Pretty much by installing every single thing he could find that was cool to install.. Eventually it would barely run. It had like 3 versions of photoshop.. tons of stuff that he did not know what was when asked; more malware than some countries have. 3 sets of anti virus software.. and lots of other stuff. Clean it up. and weeks later, same story. Save data. Reimage machine. Set up for particular staffer (quite a big part of it) and away he goes. Rinse and repeat.
Eventually I set the thing up with an image.... told him I could not save his data and he needed to do backups.. Modified the image for this particular staffer... and saved his very own image. He thus became the only staff member with his very own customized image.
This was because he was special. In a very very special sense of the word 'special'
At a rough guess this staffer was a third of my work load at one time. Funnily enough once he knew he was responsible for his own backups he was much less work.
Ok thats it for bad support stories for a while. Next time I will talk about some of the many lovely people I have worked for.
The roof at DISC leaks. It has leaked since new. Water and wooden velo,s are lethal. I have personally seen a single drop of water cause a girl to crash, at the womens meet a few months ago. There were several spots of water on the track tonight. No crashes. You can see where this multimillion dollar track is being damaged by the water. No one will sort it. I would really like to take an orbital sander with 80 grit paper on it to the knees of the person responsible. Asses. People get hurt on tracks anyway.. no reason to encourage it.
Ian turned up again. Ian is an old mate as I have mentioned before. A friend of well over 20 years standing. A very tough bloke. Ian has had a triple bypass, survived prostrate cancer and beaten the half century. And is now following in his fathers footsteps by playing with track bikes. He is having a ball.
One of the blokes has bought an orange Alchemy.. just like mine. Cool. . Not much meat to this post...so another support story. At Strange Secondary College in Hawthorn one staff member kept trashing his DE@T supplied laptop. When you do maintenance for schools you try for a SOE (Standard Operating Environment ) where you have a bunch of machines the same.. build a good image for them.. develop it properly and drop it on the lot. With these lappys we start with the DE@T (Department of Education and training) supplied image.. customise it for our network.. put the apps we like most. Firefox as well as IE.. and stuff like that and we talk to the teachers.. and if we can get intelligent suggestions out of them and we can get the software legally, then we put that on. And then we re image the machines... and then from this image do a bit of customization on the machines.. setting them up to run for that user on the secure supplied wireless points in the school.. and the like.
Within weeks this useful staff member had trashed his machine. Pretty much by installing every single thing he could find that was cool to install.. Eventually it would barely run. It had like 3 versions of photoshop.. tons of stuff that he did not know what was when asked; more malware than some countries have. 3 sets of anti virus software.. and lots of other stuff. Clean it up. and weeks later, same story. Save data. Reimage machine. Set up for particular staffer (quite a big part of it) and away he goes. Rinse and repeat.
Eventually I set the thing up with an image.... told him I could not save his data and he needed to do backups.. Modified the image for this particular staffer... and saved his very own image. He thus became the only staff member with his very own customized image.
This was because he was special. In a very very special sense of the word 'special'
At a rough guess this staffer was a third of my work load at one time. Funnily enough once he knew he was responsible for his own backups he was much less work.
Ok thats it for bad support stories for a while. Next time I will talk about some of the many lovely people I have worked for.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Election 2010
Not been much to write about this week. The Virtual Assistant stuff is happening. I wasted a day trying to figure a way to reliably back up files from a virtual Linux server to an actual Windows server. There must be a million ways to do this.. and the way I picked just decided to be unduly uncooperative. And I took Carl out to the airport Thursday...and have the exotic powertap wheel in the back room to deliver to a future Olympic Sprinter (I think anyway) 
Other than that a dead, cold and depressing week
I have finally cracked the shits with the fool that had promised to buy Kathys Toyota. Its on Ebay...finishing in a couple of days. Its going for more than $100 more than I offered it to him for. Here is the listing. Hopefully this thing goes. I have a lot more stuff to get rid off. And some to acquire. Specifically I need bookshelves and office chairs. Oh and cartridges for a Lexmark 1255. Got any?
Did the RRR this morning. Followed by brecky. And tomorrow is track. And since this post is light on content.. perhaps a support story from well in the past.. involving of course customers I do not deal with any more. And should not deal with for the sake of my sanity
OK teacher at old employer. A Hawthorn Melbourne Secondary College that shall remain nameless... mostly for the sake of the many useful and smart people that work there. Certainly not for the sake of the few wastes of food and air that worked their. Some few of the staff decided I was their private resource for unpaid work... in a couple of instances I was OK with that.. in a couple of instances.. not on your life.. possibly literally. Anyway.. get rung one evening at home.. "My home computer will not start" "Really", I reply.. "How sad" "Can you come and have a look" "Well indeed I could" (But no chance) "What is it doing?" Apparently nothing. No lights.. etc. "Can you check its plugged in and switched on" "I have already done that.. do you think I am stupid" "Not at all ..... could you just check the plug is in properly and switched on at the wall". "I am sure it is" Sigh.. "Could you please humor me and check" "Just a moment, I,ll have to get a torch?" Huh? "Why do you need a torch" "Cos the lights are all out" Boom tish. Yes indeed I think you are stupid. And why are you not ringing the power company?
Think about the fact that this person may be teaching your children. Scary huh? I have a client at Pyalong. Which is a small country town quite a long way away. He is a very valued client.. on mates rates in spite of the trip. I have loved friends up their.. and when I go up often stay either at the clients or my friends. But he has a terrible environment for computers. Its a commercial hydroponics facility. No its a legitimate one.. they are actually tomatoes. And the office computers have been known to have a half inch or more of mud in them, and in one case actual growing things. Just think of that as proof of how reliable modern electronic equipment actually is. We have in fact come a long way. Which means the machines are tougher and smarter. The people. nah. I am in one of my cynical moods
Because the election has been announced. Our new PM did not completely cave on the mining tax. Its going to apply to only about a quarter of the businesses it was going to apply too. Its going to come in at a higher rate. Yet apparently generate the same income. Not the complete cave I was expecting.. but close. Apparently she saved the country by negotiating it. Anyway.. her election cry will be.. I predict "Moving Forward" The opposition is going to go with the cry.. "Disloyal backstabbing untrustworthy cow who stabbed her boss in the back and wants your trust" Hard to argue with.. being true and all. The opposition does not impress. And the greens do not believe in nuclear power. Who the hell am I going to vote for?
Other than that a dead, cold and depressing week
I have finally cracked the shits with the fool that had promised to buy Kathys Toyota. Its on Ebay...finishing in a couple of days. Its going for more than $100 more than I offered it to him for. Here is the listing. Hopefully this thing goes. I have a lot more stuff to get rid off. And some to acquire. Specifically I need bookshelves and office chairs. Oh and cartridges for a Lexmark 1255. Got any?
Did the RRR this morning. Followed by brecky. And tomorrow is track. And since this post is light on content.. perhaps a support story from well in the past.. involving of course customers I do not deal with any more. And should not deal with for the sake of my sanity
OK teacher at old employer. A Hawthorn Melbourne Secondary College that shall remain nameless... mostly for the sake of the many useful and smart people that work there. Certainly not for the sake of the few wastes of food and air that worked their. Some few of the staff decided I was their private resource for unpaid work... in a couple of instances I was OK with that.. in a couple of instances.. not on your life.. possibly literally. Anyway.. get rung one evening at home.. "My home computer will not start" "Really", I reply.. "How sad" "Can you come and have a look" "Well indeed I could" (But no chance) "What is it doing?" Apparently nothing. No lights.. etc. "Can you check its plugged in and switched on" "I have already done that.. do you think I am stupid" "Not at all ..... could you just check the plug is in properly and switched on at the wall". "I am sure it is" Sigh.. "Could you please humor me and check" "Just a moment, I,ll have to get a torch?" Huh? "Why do you need a torch" "Cos the lights are all out" Boom tish. Yes indeed I think you are stupid. And why are you not ringing the power company?
Think about the fact that this person may be teaching your children. Scary huh? I have a client at Pyalong. Which is a small country town quite a long way away. He is a very valued client.. on mates rates in spite of the trip. I have loved friends up their.. and when I go up often stay either at the clients or my friends. But he has a terrible environment for computers. Its a commercial hydroponics facility. No its a legitimate one.. they are actually tomatoes. And the office computers have been known to have a half inch or more of mud in them, and in one case actual growing things. Just think of that as proof of how reliable modern electronic equipment actually is. We have in fact come a long way. Which means the machines are tougher and smarter. The people. nah. I am in one of my cynical moods
Because the election has been announced. Our new PM did not completely cave on the mining tax. Its going to apply to only about a quarter of the businesses it was going to apply too. Its going to come in at a higher rate. Yet apparently generate the same income. Not the complete cave I was expecting.. but close. Apparently she saved the country by negotiating it. Anyway.. her election cry will be.. I predict "Moving Forward" The opposition is going to go with the cry.. "Disloyal backstabbing untrustworthy cow who stabbed her boss in the back and wants your trust" Hard to argue with.. being true and all. The opposition does not impress. And the greens do not believe in nuclear power. Who the hell am I going to vote for?
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Virtual Assistant.
On the work front Kathy has our first VIrtual Assistant client signed sealed and delivered. Our second client I guess if you count my brother Ashley. Woot. This is great. And development continues on 3 web sites. Other than that its been a really really quiet week for my side of the business.. I have sorted one machine... and rebuild our laser printer. Done a lot of publicity. Tried to sort out a couple of outstanding issues. We shall see.
Really really optimistic about the Virtual Assistant stuff. Shall push it for all I am worth. Maybe the virtual blog stuff. What do you think.. could I adapt and write a blog in the style of someone else. What do you think? Pardon. Who do you think you are talking about? Sir you forget yourself. My people will set something up with your people.
Did you see Cadel? He won the yellow jersey with a broken elbow. A bloke who climbs mountains by getting out of the saddle for a dozen pedal strokes when others would change gear for a few seconds. A bloke who climbs in the saddle out then in then out.. Rather like me. In a style of riding that uses the arms more than any other imaginable style. He lost the yellow jersey and about 8 minutes chasing through the highest mountain in the tour with a broken elbow. And for the last 10 klicks of the stage swapped off with one team mate while a dozen wheel suckers hung on behind him. He looked as white as a sheet. And at the end... hugged a mate and let his emotions go. Some people are bagging him for that. Class.. sheer class. Good on you Cadel. Great effort. Heaps of guts. Kudo's
I remember when David Rafferton.. (Vidman) (the best graphic designer in Australia) rode up to you at the start of the 207 Amy's Ride and said what an inspiration you had been to him.. and how he had gone from a seriously overweight bloke to a guy who could hang with C grade on your inspiration. And how polite and I thought genuinely happy about it you were. Well done you. Keep it up mate. It ain't over till its over.
Cadel is clearly happy with his new team His old team are clearly happier without him. Even though they clearly are not going to get the 2nd Cadel gave them last year. Its interesting. I guess Cadel is not everyone's cup of tea. He is a nice bloke tho. Its the Chuck Norris thing I guess. Chuck has played all these really tough guys over the years. But so have lots of people. Sylvester Stallone.. Steven Segal.. millions. Chuck just somehow never seemed that tough to me. Yet the reality is that Chuck was 7 times US freestyle Karate Champion. He is a more genuinely tough guy than any of them. He seems like a nice guy cos he is. He is also the most dangerous of the lot. Just somehow does not come across convincingly like that on the screen (at least to me). I mean I know its the case. Intellectually. But he has not got me convinced. Somehow in spite of the evidence many seem to think Cadel is not the genuine article. In exactly the same way. But in the same way the evidence is clear. He is. .
I have not seen any new posts on Director on a bike's blog for a bit. Hope that nothing has gone wrong
I was trying to get some furniture for my office on fleabay this morning.. Missed both the furniture and my normal training ride. As penance I rode into town to swap a cable on a server. In pouring rain. I scored some dopey little dog where it lunged out of the bushes at my pedal and I drop kicked it into the middle of next week. The owner seemed upset. One reader has critiqued me for this.. saying it says nothing nice about me that I would drop kick a dog. Phhhht. If the owner cared about the dog maybe they would not train it to lunge at people. Maybe they would train it not to lunge at people if they cared about people either. Bet they don;t let it run wild along the freeway. And the difference here is that if it causes an accident its likely to be the cyclist or pedestrian hurt. I would rather kick the owner... and if the owner rushed at me its a fair bet that is exactly what would happen. But if the dog goes for my foot.. niceness is on hold.
A similarly well trained and bought up dog makes an appearance every year in the Tour de France.. and in most other bike races. Usually causes a couple of retirements. Trashes 20 or 30 or 80 K worth of bikes. And you know.. I would love to know the answer but I am fairly sure the owners never rush forward pulling a wallet out crying "Oh my God... I am so sorry.. here let me write you a cheque" The real problem of course is that people who can not bring up a well behaved pet are still allowed to have children. In fact they usually outbreed the people who can bring up a well behaved pet.
On the trip back I got wheel sucked by some girl on a flat bar who I could not ride away from. Sheesh.. she was good. I,m getting old....
Now about to cheer for Evans tonigh.
Really really optimistic about the Virtual Assistant stuff. Shall push it for all I am worth. Maybe the virtual blog stuff. What do you think.. could I adapt and write a blog in the style of someone else. What do you think? Pardon. Who do you think you are talking about? Sir you forget yourself. My people will set something up with your people.
Did you see Cadel? He won the yellow jersey with a broken elbow. A bloke who climbs mountains by getting out of the saddle for a dozen pedal strokes when others would change gear for a few seconds. A bloke who climbs in the saddle out then in then out.. Rather like me. In a style of riding that uses the arms more than any other imaginable style. He lost the yellow jersey and about 8 minutes chasing through the highest mountain in the tour with a broken elbow. And for the last 10 klicks of the stage swapped off with one team mate while a dozen wheel suckers hung on behind him. He looked as white as a sheet. And at the end... hugged a mate and let his emotions go. Some people are bagging him for that. Class.. sheer class. Good on you Cadel. Great effort. Heaps of guts. Kudo's
I remember when David Rafferton.. (Vidman) (the best graphic designer in Australia) rode up to you at the start of the 207 Amy's Ride and said what an inspiration you had been to him.. and how he had gone from a seriously overweight bloke to a guy who could hang with C grade on your inspiration. And how polite and I thought genuinely happy about it you were. Well done you. Keep it up mate. It ain't over till its over.
Cadel is clearly happy with his new team His old team are clearly happier without him. Even though they clearly are not going to get the 2nd Cadel gave them last year. Its interesting. I guess Cadel is not everyone's cup of tea. He is a nice bloke tho. Its the Chuck Norris thing I guess. Chuck has played all these really tough guys over the years. But so have lots of people. Sylvester Stallone.. Steven Segal.. millions. Chuck just somehow never seemed that tough to me. Yet the reality is that Chuck was 7 times US freestyle Karate Champion. He is a more genuinely tough guy than any of them. He seems like a nice guy cos he is. He is also the most dangerous of the lot. Just somehow does not come across convincingly like that on the screen (at least to me). I mean I know its the case. Intellectually. But he has not got me convinced. Somehow in spite of the evidence many seem to think Cadel is not the genuine article. In exactly the same way. But in the same way the evidence is clear. He is. .
I have not seen any new posts on Director on a bike's blog for a bit. Hope that nothing has gone wrong
I was trying to get some furniture for my office on fleabay this morning.. Missed both the furniture and my normal training ride. As penance I rode into town to swap a cable on a server. In pouring rain. I scored some dopey little dog where it lunged out of the bushes at my pedal and I drop kicked it into the middle of next week. The owner seemed upset. One reader has critiqued me for this.. saying it says nothing nice about me that I would drop kick a dog. Phhhht. If the owner cared about the dog maybe they would not train it to lunge at people. Maybe they would train it not to lunge at people if they cared about people either. Bet they don;t let it run wild along the freeway. And the difference here is that if it causes an accident its likely to be the cyclist or pedestrian hurt. I would rather kick the owner... and if the owner rushed at me its a fair bet that is exactly what would happen. But if the dog goes for my foot.. niceness is on hold.
A similarly well trained and bought up dog makes an appearance every year in the Tour de France.. and in most other bike races. Usually causes a couple of retirements. Trashes 20 or 30 or 80 K worth of bikes. And you know.. I would love to know the answer but I am fairly sure the owners never rush forward pulling a wallet out crying "Oh my God... I am so sorry.. here let me write you a cheque" The real problem of course is that people who can not bring up a well behaved pet are still allowed to have children. In fact they usually outbreed the people who can bring up a well behaved pet.
On the trip back I got wheel sucked by some girl on a flat bar who I could not ride away from. Sheesh.. she was good. I,m getting old....
Now about to cheer for Evans tonigh.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Rest day.
And about time. Badly needed. Shattered riders thank you.
The blokes on the tour probably need a break too :D .
On the training front I managed a run today. 3 km. It will do. Now running regularly. Its a start
On the work front I have now firmly established that the print cartridge in my laser printer, (brand new out of the box) is buggered, but sadly it was bought years ago ... and I cannot find the invoice. Seriously annoying. A replacement cartridge for this printer is around $350... time for Fleabay I think
And speaking of Ebay the spare car finally is on ebay after one prospective purchaser stuffed me around.. sheesh its not like I am asking for real money for the thing. And a second purchaser decided it needed too much work.. fair enough, cannot argue with that. Anyway hopefully its a good deal for someone and it goes to a good home. Otherwise it goes to a scrapyard. Anyway it goes.
My mate Alaina posted on facebook today that she was eating breakfast in a cafe on Southbank London that we had eaten in last trip. How cool is that? and she is living only a few hundred metres from there. It really really is a small world.
Lots of interest and a little bit of work on the Virtual Assistant stuff. I think that Kathy has a great idea here. Its going to fly.
The wind the other day was intense. Our roof actually survived but Kornang Creek bike path has a tree down across it. A big gum that has come down roots and all. On my trip into town I did note only 2 petrol powered vehicles on the bike path. An all time low. The average is usually 4 or 5 and the maximum so far has been 8 Mind you both of these were 4WD,s . Cos you need a 4WD to drive on a bike path. If you cannot ride a bicycle that is.
We finally have tires. Jenny ordered from Ribble I think it was... and astonishingly they put the tires in the mail and the things turned up. Nothing at all like our experience with Bike Bits Suck. Which you have read about previously. See people.. some companies out their do actually do right by the customers. These are the ones to deal with more than once.
My commute back yesterday was great fun. I met uteman. Had the seat all the way back.. so that his gut could fit in. Uteman seems to not like bicycles. And I see his point. They sure don;t like him. I cannot see to many bicycles not collapsing under his weight. But if he found one. ... and used it a bit.. maybe he could sit in a less grand prix position in his ute. Uteman thinks blokes wearing lycra look silly. Uteman does not own a mirror.
Tonight lets hope Lance and Cadel can pull something special out of the bag. And lets hope that tomorrow something happens and I can do a better blog.
The blokes on the tour probably need a break too :D .
On the training front I managed a run today. 3 km. It will do. Now running regularly. Its a start
On the work front I have now firmly established that the print cartridge in my laser printer, (brand new out of the box) is buggered, but sadly it was bought years ago ... and I cannot find the invoice. Seriously annoying. A replacement cartridge for this printer is around $350... time for Fleabay I think
And speaking of Ebay the spare car finally is on ebay after one prospective purchaser stuffed me around.. sheesh its not like I am asking for real money for the thing. And a second purchaser decided it needed too much work.. fair enough, cannot argue with that. Anyway hopefully its a good deal for someone and it goes to a good home. Otherwise it goes to a scrapyard. Anyway it goes.
My mate Alaina posted on facebook today that she was eating breakfast in a cafe on Southbank London that we had eaten in last trip. How cool is that? and she is living only a few hundred metres from there. It really really is a small world.
Lots of interest and a little bit of work on the Virtual Assistant stuff. I think that Kathy has a great idea here. Its going to fly.
The wind the other day was intense. Our roof actually survived but Kornang Creek bike path has a tree down across it. A big gum that has come down roots and all. On my trip into town I did note only 2 petrol powered vehicles on the bike path. An all time low. The average is usually 4 or 5 and the maximum so far has been 8 Mind you both of these were 4WD,s . Cos you need a 4WD to drive on a bike path. If you cannot ride a bicycle that is.
We finally have tires. Jenny ordered from Ribble I think it was... and astonishingly they put the tires in the mail and the things turned up. Nothing at all like our experience with Bike Bits Suck. Which you have read about previously. See people.. some companies out their do actually do right by the customers. These are the ones to deal with more than once.
My commute back yesterday was great fun. I met uteman. Had the seat all the way back.. so that his gut could fit in. Uteman seems to not like bicycles. And I see his point. They sure don;t like him. I cannot see to many bicycles not collapsing under his weight. But if he found one. ... and used it a bit.. maybe he could sit in a less grand prix position in his ute. Uteman thinks blokes wearing lycra look silly. Uteman does not own a mirror.
Tonight lets hope Lance and Cadel can pull something special out of the bag. And lets hope that tomorrow something happens and I can do a better blog.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Cadel in yellow.
This might be a shorter than usual post. Lacking energy. Need coffee in huge amounts. Somewhat buggered.
Track last night. Poor gear selection saw me not hanging on for 8 lap flat out efforts. On 81 or so gear inches I was spinning my heart out. Totally being blown away by Janine (who to be fair is improving heaps), over the distance in our pretend pursuit. I went up to 84 and did better than that.. really needed my 15. And finally borrowed a 15 from Carl and was back to sore legs.. being able to breath and being able to hang on for a few laps. On about 89. A good gear for me. Sprinters cough later. Hacking bits of rarely used lung onto the floor. I am certainly no spinner and its a tough way to learn. Not overly happy with my effort but hey. Next week.
My 15 is ( I think) on the gorgeous Sally's bike.
Lead rider for Team Splat my last contact with Sally was a cryptic message the other day to the effect that she is in love with an orangutan at Singapore zoo. I may not get my 15 back for a while
My mate Ian finally came along and had a great time. Ian is a bit er special. When I smashed my hip and everyone came and saw me in hospital and bought flowers, he bought scotch. You hang onto mates like that. Jenny came along to watch and get inspired. Having ridden into the fence at Blackburn she has a couple of demons to beat. Oh I know those demons. On friday one of the blokes rode onto the while line at the base of the fence at DISC....... and must have brushed the fence with his elbow... thats a long way up. I had my heart in my mouth.....apparently frightened Jenny too. Hmmm
Then home.... Significant other had cooked dinner. Then we set off to pick up Carl and go to Blacky and watch the tour. Just around the corner a possum had been hit and just in the middle of the road. What gets me is the asshole who hit it and just left if there would probably consider me a cruel basket because I have been known to kill my own dinner. I stopped.. SO went back to get it out of the middle of the road. Came back crying. It had a dead baby with it. Sigh. Some people are in fact ar$$es. And some of those don't even know it. Or care.
Blackburn was great. The minimal yet elite crowd meant we could and did crap on about anything and everything. SO and Carl have rallying in common.. my rallying career while fun was far from successful although I did OK ish with motokhanas and the like. Lots of nibbles. Muffins.. chocky cake. Mmmmmm. The tour itself was great. Cadel in yellow. at the end of the day. Armstong probably out of it ... i will be very surprised if he was not badly hurt in that first crash. I am thinking cracked rib or something. Andy Schleck winning the stage in a great sprint finish. He has to be the best chance to win the Tour I think. No way could Cadel match his accelerations up the hill. Cadel is no sprinter. Andy turns out to be able to sprint... and do it more than once.
Been reading a blog from one of the bosses of my mate Sara. About his rather bad face plant. At least I have better luck with dentists than him. Is a small world hey.
Oh and I still have not got that UPS sorted. Next job. More later
Track last night. Poor gear selection saw me not hanging on for 8 lap flat out efforts. On 81 or so gear inches I was spinning my heart out. Totally being blown away by Janine (who to be fair is improving heaps), over the distance in our pretend pursuit. I went up to 84 and did better than that.. really needed my 15. And finally borrowed a 15 from Carl and was back to sore legs.. being able to breath and being able to hang on for a few laps. On about 89. A good gear for me. Sprinters cough later. Hacking bits of rarely used lung onto the floor. I am certainly no spinner and its a tough way to learn. Not overly happy with my effort but hey. Next week.
My 15 is ( I think) on the gorgeous Sally's bike.
Lead rider for Team Splat my last contact with Sally was a cryptic message the other day to the effect that she is in love with an orangutan at Singapore zoo. I may not get my 15 back for a while My mate Ian finally came along and had a great time. Ian is a bit er special. When I smashed my hip and everyone came and saw me in hospital and bought flowers, he bought scotch. You hang onto mates like that. Jenny came along to watch and get inspired. Having ridden into the fence at Blackburn she has a couple of demons to beat. Oh I know those demons. On friday one of the blokes rode onto the while line at the base of the fence at DISC....... and must have brushed the fence with his elbow... thats a long way up. I had my heart in my mouth.....apparently frightened Jenny too. Hmmm
Then home.... Significant other had cooked dinner. Then we set off to pick up Carl and go to Blacky and watch the tour. Just around the corner a possum had been hit and just in the middle of the road. What gets me is the asshole who hit it and just left if there would probably consider me a cruel basket because I have been known to kill my own dinner. I stopped.. SO went back to get it out of the middle of the road. Came back crying. It had a dead baby with it. Sigh. Some people are in fact ar$$es. And some of those don't even know it. Or care.
Blackburn was great. The minimal yet elite crowd meant we could and did crap on about anything and everything. SO and Carl have rallying in common.. my rallying career while fun was far from successful although I did OK ish with motokhanas and the like. Lots of nibbles. Muffins.. chocky cake. Mmmmmm. The tour itself was great. Cadel in yellow. at the end of the day. Armstong probably out of it ... i will be very surprised if he was not badly hurt in that first crash. I am thinking cracked rib or something. Andy Schleck winning the stage in a great sprint finish. He has to be the best chance to win the Tour I think. No way could Cadel match his accelerations up the hill. Cadel is no sprinter. Andy turns out to be able to sprint... and do it more than once.
Been reading a blog from one of the bosses of my mate Sara. About his rather bad face plant. At least I have better luck with dentists than him. Is a small world hey.
Oh and I still have not got that UPS sorted. Next job. More later
Friday, July 9, 2010
Le Tour
Sleepless nights followed by sleepless nights. Evans going well. A nice bloke Cadel. Fingers crossed. A certain Brit 200 meter specialist. probably the fastest bloke in the world over 200 meters, has answered a few questions about his ability in no uncertain terms. Two astonishingly fast wins in a row.
A fun time of the year. Cuts into the sleep but. Tomorrow night a few of us will be watching the race live at Blackburn CC Clubrooms. Freezing and eating nibbles.
One of the nice things about cycling is that you do get to meet your hero's. Tho I am not sure Cadel Evans is blogging about meeting Percrime. Never mind. Anyway its club level cycling that is the source of future champions. Our equivalent of the Tour. Last night was the first ever ABOC sprint series race at DISC. I don;t know if anyone who reads this blog came along (except for Kathy and Jenny who both came to watch. No idea if Penny reads it... tho she watched and then came home and ate with us (we can afford to feed Penny... eats less than the cat but is more fussy if that's possible)
I was working in at Monash and heh.. sprinted out to DISC from the city. The roads were seriously full of loons. You can pick Friday evening peak hour just because they usually release the inmates from the asylum for the weekends. Near head on in little Lonsdale st with a car going the wrong way down the one way street Watched a scooter rider nearly get clobbered in Wellington St when the Hiace she was passing decided that the traffic was too heavy and turning right was the go. Neither looking or indicating were possibilities, turning the wheel was the limit of his competence. Watched a bloke stop for a green light.. also on Wellington... wait 50 seconds and then take off just as the light turned red. Had a woman nearly drive into my leg through a stop sign on Station st at 1 kmh as she tried to force her way into the stopped traffic.
Ahhh yes... speed is the biggest killer on our roads according the telly. I would have thought it was not looking and/or inconsiderate stupidity And I remain firmly convinced that we need the death penalty reintroduced. For all the tools who stop at the lights.. wait for the light change and then put the indicator on.
Anyway the Sprint series was great. Only 13 riders.. Carl was disappointed but you know small starts and all. The racing was great. I was actually asked to race.. but I was there on a road bike.. don.t have a current full license and would have been slowest by a long long way. They were quick. I got to marshal instead. This is going to be a great series. That Emily is going to make the Olympics if she wants too. She is at the age where she may not manage the commitment... then again. But I hope to see her win gold. Looking forward to the next one. Will do a link to the video,s when they are up.
Edit. Here is heat 1
My chest from Moe got sorted out. I went and got it Friday morning. Left at about 6:00. Foggy drive. Going though Warragul (where I and a good few pretty good cyclists were born) the fog was down to about 200 meters. Ended up in this weird surreal paceline of cars. Everyone watching the taillights in front. The driver on the back would decide everyone was crawling.. pull out and blast past everyone at warp one.. and then suddenly reach the front and discover they could see nothing and it was not so easy without tailights to follow.. They would pull left and brake until they were going a little slower than the line had been going. You get exactly the same thing when riders discover that punching a hole in the wind is tougher than wheelsucking. And go to the front and slow it all down. Sigh. So this kept happening and we kept going slower. Some dumb people out there.
But the chest was as advertised and looks very nice in my office. Thanking you marnieb. Now I need bookshelves. Dark wood.. many shelves.
Oh I meant to say. Sundays track left me tasting blood. Unlike Wednesday's dentist. Which was scarey and horrible.. and will be the last for a while. Which is all about me cos it didn't hurt and I did not taste blood. But my profound gratitude to my dentist who is a fan and will read this. Been very lucky with dentists who will put up with me.. dealing with dentists is very far from my best thing.. and I want them to know that they are appreciated.
OK this weekends work. Try and get UPS monitoring software running remotely on one client site. Do a new Adwords campaign for our Virtual Assistant stuff. Go for a run. Not riding today.. Bit concerned the roof is going to blow off.
Have been looking at a couple of blogs running that are connected with business. Its the same problem.. hard to find the time to do it.. so they just do not get updated. Started with the best of intentions.. but its a problem. Perhaps I could offer updating blogs as a Perfectnotes service? Any comments.
A fun time of the year. Cuts into the sleep but. Tomorrow night a few of us will be watching the race live at Blackburn CC Clubrooms. Freezing and eating nibbles.
One of the nice things about cycling is that you do get to meet your hero's. Tho I am not sure Cadel Evans is blogging about meeting Percrime. Never mind. Anyway its club level cycling that is the source of future champions. Our equivalent of the Tour. Last night was the first ever ABOC sprint series race at DISC. I don;t know if anyone who reads this blog came along (except for Kathy and Jenny who both came to watch. No idea if Penny reads it... tho she watched and then came home and ate with us (we can afford to feed Penny... eats less than the cat but is more fussy if that's possible)
I was working in at Monash and heh.. sprinted out to DISC from the city. The roads were seriously full of loons. You can pick Friday evening peak hour just because they usually release the inmates from the asylum for the weekends. Near head on in little Lonsdale st with a car going the wrong way down the one way street Watched a scooter rider nearly get clobbered in Wellington St when the Hiace she was passing decided that the traffic was too heavy and turning right was the go. Neither looking or indicating were possibilities, turning the wheel was the limit of his competence. Watched a bloke stop for a green light.. also on Wellington... wait 50 seconds and then take off just as the light turned red. Had a woman nearly drive into my leg through a stop sign on Station st at 1 kmh as she tried to force her way into the stopped traffic.
Ahhh yes... speed is the biggest killer on our roads according the telly. I would have thought it was not looking and/or inconsiderate stupidity And I remain firmly convinced that we need the death penalty reintroduced. For all the tools who stop at the lights.. wait for the light change and then put the indicator on.
Anyway the Sprint series was great. Only 13 riders.. Carl was disappointed but you know small starts and all. The racing was great. I was actually asked to race.. but I was there on a road bike.. don.t have a current full license and would have been slowest by a long long way. They were quick. I got to marshal instead. This is going to be a great series. That Emily is going to make the Olympics if she wants too. She is at the age where she may not manage the commitment... then again. But I hope to see her win gold. Looking forward to the next one. Will do a link to the video,s when they are up.
Edit. Here is heat 1
My chest from Moe got sorted out. I went and got it Friday morning. Left at about 6:00. Foggy drive. Going though Warragul (where I and a good few pretty good cyclists were born) the fog was down to about 200 meters. Ended up in this weird surreal paceline of cars. Everyone watching the taillights in front. The driver on the back would decide everyone was crawling.. pull out and blast past everyone at warp one.. and then suddenly reach the front and discover they could see nothing and it was not so easy without tailights to follow.. They would pull left and brake until they were going a little slower than the line had been going. You get exactly the same thing when riders discover that punching a hole in the wind is tougher than wheelsucking. And go to the front and slow it all down. Sigh. So this kept happening and we kept going slower. Some dumb people out there.
But the chest was as advertised and looks very nice in my office. Thanking you marnieb. Now I need bookshelves. Dark wood.. many shelves.
Oh I meant to say. Sundays track left me tasting blood. Unlike Wednesday's dentist. Which was scarey and horrible.. and will be the last for a while. Which is all about me cos it didn't hurt and I did not taste blood. But my profound gratitude to my dentist who is a fan and will read this. Been very lucky with dentists who will put up with me.. dealing with dentists is very far from my best thing.. and I want them to know that they are appreciated.
OK this weekends work. Try and get UPS monitoring software running remotely on one client site. Do a new Adwords campaign for our Virtual Assistant stuff. Go for a run. Not riding today.. Bit concerned the roof is going to blow off.
Have been looking at a couple of blogs running that are connected with business. Its the same problem.. hard to find the time to do it.. so they just do not get updated. Started with the best of intentions.. but its a problem. Perhaps I could offer updating blogs as a Perfectnotes service? Any comments.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Small world innit?
Today was our monthly Box Hill TAFE organized Networking night. I was in the city and rode in and met Kathy there. The topic was an interesting look at the person presenting its own little bit of small business cash management software. Finetunebiz Cashbook. Runs on windows... and has a complicated authentication setup but does seem a thoroughly decent bit of software. Runs on what essentially is an excell spreadsheet which is nice.
A girl came up afterwords.. who hit me with the classic.. "you don,t remember me do you" "Alas... there have been so many...." Nah I managed nothing as 'stylish' as that. A student at Swinnie when I was there.. now starting a small business doing oil paintings and web design. Her name was Kate.. and while (amazingly ) I actually remember her last name, I think putting it here not appropriate
I gave her Kathys card as with brilliant forward planning I had none on me. I can see her being a useful contact. Actually I can see a couple of useful contacts coming out of the night. Kathy had a solid half dozen inquiries about her virtual assistant offering. All looking very very promising after a lack lustre start to the week.
In keeping with my plan to do a very local leaflet drop I have done a very local leaflet. What do you think?
I decided the back office has to be more organized. Went looking on Ebay for bookcases.. with no luck.. nothing local and immediate for money I was willing to pay. Also went looking for a chest. Something to put the large pile of rarely used but valuable motorcycle leathers and helmets in. Found a nice one.. In Moe. Which is a bit of a bummer. Decided it was worth one bid. Bid $66. One and only bid. Won as I often seem too. That was Sunday evening. Still have not heard from 'marnieb' Ok there are actually a lot of legitimate possibilities why this might be the case. However I may rethink this buying from Moe thing. Let us wait and see.
Dentist tomorrow. Oh joy. I like 'my' dentist.. but generically ... mmmm... dentists. Phobic and don,t care who knows it. Got rung at like 6:30 by her assistant.. nurse... dental technician.. receptionist.. I don.t actually know the job description.. but one of her people. To see if I had fled the country. Sigh.
A girl came up afterwords.. who hit me with the classic.. "you don,t remember me do you" "Alas... there have been so many...." Nah I managed nothing as 'stylish' as that. A student at Swinnie when I was there.. now starting a small business doing oil paintings and web design. Her name was Kate.. and while (amazingly ) I actually remember her last name, I think putting it here not appropriate
I gave her Kathys card as with brilliant forward planning I had none on me. I can see her being a useful contact. Actually I can see a couple of useful contacts coming out of the night. Kathy had a solid half dozen inquiries about her virtual assistant offering. All looking very very promising after a lack lustre start to the week.
In keeping with my plan to do a very local leaflet drop I have done a very local leaflet. What do you think?
I decided the back office has to be more organized. Went looking on Ebay for bookcases.. with no luck.. nothing local and immediate for money I was willing to pay. Also went looking for a chest. Something to put the large pile of rarely used but valuable motorcycle leathers and helmets in. Found a nice one.. In Moe. Which is a bit of a bummer. Decided it was worth one bid. Bid $66. One and only bid. Won as I often seem too. That was Sunday evening. Still have not heard from 'marnieb' Ok there are actually a lot of legitimate possibilities why this might be the case. However I may rethink this buying from Moe thing. Let us wait and see.
Dentist tomorrow. Oh joy. I like 'my' dentist.. but generically ... mmmm... dentists. Phobic and don,t care who knows it. Got rung at like 6:30 by her assistant.. nurse... dental technician.. receptionist.. I don.t actually know the job description.. but one of her people. To see if I had fled the country. Sigh.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Weekends are for..
Racing.. and training. ABOC's winter Sunday track session this evening was a killer. Intervals, lots of intervals, all indoors on wood at DISC. I was not the slowest..so called enduro.. closer to being the slowest than the fastest though. Worked my butt off. Still coughing up garbage from deepest rarely used recesses of my lungs, eating everything in the house and have the taste of blood in my mouth.
On the plus side.. finally actually started running again after a 2 month break (I actually ran out of usable running shoes) on Thursday. Sore back Friday.. sorer back yesterday and today... Which is just the price you pay for stopping an exercise and starting it up again, I know that. Back is not sore any more. Or alternatively the rest of me hurts so bad I am past noticing it. Whatever. It works :D
Did some paceline too. Almost did a half decent job of holding a wheel. Boy am I happy with myself
If you want to see some real track sprinting ABOC is holding an invitational at 6:30 PM next Friday the 9th of July. I,ll be a spectator or maybe helping out.. all the riders will be a lot quicker than me. Its at the indoor Velodrome at Darebin International Sports Centre which is DISC So come and have a look if you are in Melbourne and the teeniest bit interested in track
Over the weekend a friend gave me a brilliant idea. Well hopefully it will turn out to be a brilliant idea. We are not wildly interested in doing tech support for just people as opposed to companies... tends to pay less.. and be more troublesome. Its also not rocket science.. the issues are not complex and we have lots of bargain basement competition.. including a good number of perfectly competent teenagers.
But on the other hand.. if the week is slow and the work is nearby why not? It might lead to business work in the way that a lot of our business work does lead to us doing tech support for the same people at home, and that has worked well for us. So while the school holidays are on, lets do a local leaflet drop, pushing the 'school holiday special' thing and see if we can chase up a few more customers near PerfectNotes HQ. Good idea? Here's hoping.
OK the Tour is on... have to go watch. Cheers.
On the plus side.. finally actually started running again after a 2 month break (I actually ran out of usable running shoes) on Thursday. Sore back Friday.. sorer back yesterday and today... Which is just the price you pay for stopping an exercise and starting it up again, I know that. Back is not sore any more. Or alternatively the rest of me hurts so bad I am past noticing it. Whatever. It works :D
Did some paceline too. Almost did a half decent job of holding a wheel. Boy am I happy with myself
If you want to see some real track sprinting ABOC is holding an invitational at 6:30 PM next Friday the 9th of July. I,ll be a spectator or maybe helping out.. all the riders will be a lot quicker than me. Its at the indoor Velodrome at Darebin International Sports Centre which is DISC So come and have a look if you are in Melbourne and the teeniest bit interested in track
Over the weekend a friend gave me a brilliant idea. Well hopefully it will turn out to be a brilliant idea. We are not wildly interested in doing tech support for just people as opposed to companies... tends to pay less.. and be more troublesome. Its also not rocket science.. the issues are not complex and we have lots of bargain basement competition.. including a good number of perfectly competent teenagers.
But on the other hand.. if the week is slow and the work is nearby why not? It might lead to business work in the way that a lot of our business work does lead to us doing tech support for the same people at home, and that has worked well for us. So while the school holidays are on, lets do a local leaflet drop, pushing the 'school holiday special' thing and see if we can chase up a few more customers near PerfectNotes HQ. Good idea? Here's hoping.
OK the Tour is on... have to go watch. Cheers.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Wins and losses
Followers of PerfectNotes people on Facebook (and that page needs to start being updated daily) will have noticed that Kathy... everyone's favorite developer, has had a win recently. We were approached by another IT company... a city based operation, with gorgeous offices, to see if we could do something for them. And the proof of concept of this works
It was this carefully unnamed company,s technical people that approached us. They are running a mainly windows operation, using IIS as a web server on a Windows 2007 server. What they wanted to do was , to simplify as much as possible for non technical readers, to run a customized Linux web server that runs a thing called Cyn.in which
While testing the concept our network at Perfectnotes grew substantially but only in a virtual sense. We now have a windows machine.. duel booting a windows enterprise server and barely managing at that. We have a couple of virtual machines running Cyn.in. On real machines running various things. And I have spent some time sorting all that out. But it all works. Is a major win. Very very cool.
Whats not so cool is that Stephen Hart, the owner of Grand Prix Bicycles, a shop in GlenHuntly road in I think Caulfield was killed on the holiday of a lifetime while bicycle touring in Italy. I don,t want to go into details.. but it would appear things went wrong on a mountain descent and it was all over in a moment. Just one of those things. I only met Stephen once or twice... but the shop and he have a great reputation and its a sad loss. I cannot but think its not a bad way to go, quickly while doing something you love, on the holiday of a lifetime but he leaves a wife, friends and co workers and it has to be unbearably horrible for them
I firmly believe that cycling is not a risky sport although there are stupid nongs who do their very best to make it so. I have not lost close friends cycling as I have through motorcycling. But things like this do bring it home. CCCC report on it all here There will be a memorial ride shortly.
It was this carefully unnamed company,s technical people that approached us. They are running a mainly windows operation, using IIS as a web server on a Windows 2007 server. What they wanted to do was , to simplify as much as possible for non technical readers, to run a customized Linux web server that runs a thing called Cyn.in which
Cyn.in is a collaboration software that inter-connects your people with each other and their collective knowledge, seamlessly.and have it appear to the rest of the world as if that software was running on their Windows server. They needed to have it all work seamlessly with various media, and of course have no security issues.
While testing the concept our network at Perfectnotes grew substantially but only in a virtual sense. We now have a windows machine.. duel booting a windows enterprise server and barely managing at that. We have a couple of virtual machines running Cyn.in. On real machines running various things. And I have spent some time sorting all that out. But it all works. Is a major win. Very very cool.
Whats not so cool is that Stephen Hart, the owner of Grand Prix Bicycles, a shop in GlenHuntly road in I think Caulfield was killed on the holiday of a lifetime while bicycle touring in Italy. I don,t want to go into details.. but it would appear things went wrong on a mountain descent and it was all over in a moment. Just one of those things. I only met Stephen once or twice... but the shop and he have a great reputation and its a sad loss. I cannot but think its not a bad way to go, quickly while doing something you love, on the holiday of a lifetime but he leaves a wife, friends and co workers and it has to be unbearably horrible for them
I firmly believe that cycling is not a risky sport although there are stupid nongs who do their very best to make it so. I have not lost close friends cycling as I have through motorcycling. But things like this do bring it home. CCCC report on it all here There will be a memorial ride shortly.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The nanny state
Well today was a waste of time. My brother had organized a wrecked lancer to donate an engine to replace the slightly ill one in my lancer. I organized to have the day off, went over their on three cylinders and in a blue cloud, to meet the towie with it. Very bent lancer. Right engine.. cept it wasnt. Faced the wrong way.. had a fuel injection rail and a distributor at the wrong end.. and worse when I checked the vicroads site, the car was not stolen.. but had finance owing. I would have rung the finance company but vic roads wants you to pay $26 to have information like that. Which strikes me as insane.. assuming they want their car back surely they should pay vicroads. Or me for recovering it Why would I pay to help them out? So .. got it towed back to where he got it from. Sigh. That was a waste of time and money I left my Lancer (and apparently my wallet) at my brothers workshop where doubtless.. like other cars I have left their over the years it will gradually vanish from human knowledge.
Not a good day at all.
But in breaking news the terrafugia-transition flying car has passed its FAA approvals and is now legal as a light sports aircraft.. and presumably road legal somewhere.. probably not Victoria. Which as an Australian F1 driver is on record as saying recently truly is the nanny state.
But mostly where car driving is concerned. By coincidence a friend turned up here last night with her son. She is in the process of teaching him to drive. And out of curiosity I wondered if she was going to buy him a Terrafugia-Transition, as of course you would
But here is the thing.
In order to get his license her son has to comply with the following lifted from VicRoads
You must be at least 18 years of age and a Victorian resident to be eligible to apply for a probationary licence. You will need to pass a Hazard Perception Test and Drive Test at a VicRoads Customer Service Centre.
Learner permit holding period requirements and supervised driving experience
There are different requirements you must meet before applying for a probationary licence, depending on your age and when you obtained your learner permit:
* if you are under the age of 21, you must have held your learner permit for at least twelve months and completed a minimum of 120 hours (including at least 10 hours at night) of driving with an experienced driver before you take your licence test. You must have recorded these hours in an official Learner Log Book signed by you and your supervising experienced driver.
What are the requirements to fly you ask? Well I am glad you bought that up. From the Horsham flying club in Victoria it states the following
Age Requirements
The minimum age to learn is 15 years. There is no maximum age. Students under the age of 18 must have written consent from a parent or guardian.
Hours Required for a RAAus Pilot Certificate
Student without previous flying experience
MINIMUM of 20 hours for Restricted Pilot Certificate. A further 5 hours is required for a Cross-Country Endorsement .
In other words its a heap easier to get your pilots license than your probationary car license. And what this means is of course that at 15 its perfectly possible for you to be allowed to take off and fly and land your flying car. But absolutely illegal for you to drive it on a public road. Cos of course in Victoria that is the dangerous bit.
I want one anyway.. I want to take it out.. and swoop at speed camera's with it.
Speaking of speed camera,s; its not impossible to have a win with even them. On Thursday evening I was riding home on the pushie down Whitehorse road.
Of all things a Lancer forced its way past way too close at one set of lights.. middle aged couple in it. Caught em at the next set.. gave them 'the look' whearas they went past again.. very close.. way over the limit.. obviously deliberate; a high speed buzz of the sort that appeals to a certain very stupid kind of bogan that usually does not make it to middle age. (Even the road toll occasionally has an upside if one believes in evolution)
Flash from the roadside ahead. RAV 4 parked on the median strip. Engine running.. camera on the dash. Karma (Carma) . :D
Not a good day at all.
But in breaking news the terrafugia-transition flying car has passed its FAA approvals and is now legal as a light sports aircraft.. and presumably road legal somewhere.. probably not Victoria. Which as an Australian F1 driver is on record as saying recently truly is the nanny state.
But mostly where car driving is concerned. By coincidence a friend turned up here last night with her son. She is in the process of teaching him to drive. And out of curiosity I wondered if she was going to buy him a Terrafugia-Transition, as of course you would
But here is the thing.
In order to get his license her son has to comply with the following lifted from VicRoads
You must be at least 18 years of age and a Victorian resident to be eligible to apply for a probationary licence. You will need to pass a Hazard Perception Test and Drive Test at a VicRoads Customer Service Centre.
Learner permit holding period requirements and supervised driving experience
There are different requirements you must meet before applying for a probationary licence, depending on your age and when you obtained your learner permit:
* if you are under the age of 21, you must have held your learner permit for at least twelve months and completed a minimum of 120 hours (including at least 10 hours at night) of driving with an experienced driver before you take your licence test. You must have recorded these hours in an official Learner Log Book signed by you and your supervising experienced driver.
What are the requirements to fly you ask? Well I am glad you bought that up. From the Horsham flying club in Victoria it states the following
Age Requirements
The minimum age to learn is 15 years. There is no maximum age. Students under the age of 18 must have written consent from a parent or guardian.
Hours Required for a RAAus Pilot Certificate
Student without previous flying experience
MINIMUM of 20 hours for Restricted Pilot Certificate. A further 5 hours is required for a Cross-Country Endorsement .
In other words its a heap easier to get your pilots license than your probationary car license. And what this means is of course that at 15 its perfectly possible for you to be allowed to take off and fly and land your flying car. But absolutely illegal for you to drive it on a public road. Cos of course in Victoria that is the dangerous bit.
I want one anyway.. I want to take it out.. and swoop at speed camera's with it.
Speaking of speed camera,s; its not impossible to have a win with even them. On Thursday evening I was riding home on the pushie down Whitehorse road.
Of all things a Lancer forced its way past way too close at one set of lights.. middle aged couple in it. Caught em at the next set.. gave them 'the look' whearas they went past again.. very close.. way over the limit.. obviously deliberate; a high speed buzz of the sort that appeals to a certain very stupid kind of bogan that usually does not make it to middle age. (Even the road toll occasionally has an upside if one believes in evolution)
Flash from the roadside ahead. RAV 4 parked on the median strip. Engine running.. camera on the dash. Karma (Carma) . :D
bikebitsuk.com
Its actually Bikebits UK .com. but Bikebit SUK .com gets it absolutely right
Was I you I would not give them the time of day.
Clincher tires that are suitable for the wood at DISC are rare. And hard to find. And Expensive
So Jenny and I were happy to find them for a very cheap price at bikebitsuk. And Jenny promptly put in an order for two pair. And I told Carl Brewer of ABOC that he could have the tires I have borrowed off him for months (made out of recycled condoms.. best fu$$ing compound around) back
However bikebitsuk.com screwed us around. Not with non recycled condoms.. I speak metaphorically. Asswipes. The tires never turned up.. because they never had them. Bikebitsuk.com are now in my list of things I must do next time I visit my lovely mate Sara and her hubby in Hampton London.UK.
This is a picture of me and the lovely Sa on my motorcycle the second last time she was in Melbourne.
I really want to tell Malcolm face to face how impressed with his customer service I am. Class, all the way NOT. Will my annoyance last long enough to actually visit? Well I guess it depends on how many people annoy me this much in the next few months. Malcolm will be a hard act to beat.
Jenny did get her money back today. But still. It was well over a month of buggering around. And with no contact from bikebitsuk for most of that time. At least it means I have her permission to express my annoyance with the joke that is bikebitsuk.com
That is the thing about the internet. You have to actually make an effort. One dissatisfied customer can do you a lot of damage. Me being a dissatisfied customer, I am happy to do bikebitsuk.com a lot of damage. OK they are probably a little start up like us. OK they are probably trying hard. But they made no effort to make up for their oops. They could have done a lot. Even sent Jenny a bunch of flowers or something. And possibly gained a customer. I would never not try and square it with a customer. So stuff em. Asswipes. One internet company to not deal with. Make a note and don't. I never got a reply to the below email.
Was I you I would not give them the time of day.
Clincher tires that are suitable for the wood at DISC are rare. And hard to find. And Expensive
So Jenny and I were happy to find them for a very cheap price at bikebitsuk. And Jenny promptly put in an order for two pair. And I told Carl Brewer of ABOC that he could have the tires I have borrowed off him for months (made out of recycled condoms.. best fu$$ing compound around) back
However bikebitsuk.com screwed us around. Not with non recycled condoms.. I speak metaphorically. Asswipes. The tires never turned up.. because they never had them. Bikebitsuk.com are now in my list of things I must do next time I visit my lovely mate Sara and her hubby in Hampton London.UK.
This is a picture of me and the lovely Sa on my motorcycle the second last time she was in Melbourne. I really want to tell Malcolm face to face how impressed with his customer service I am. Class, all the way NOT. Will my annoyance last long enough to actually visit? Well I guess it depends on how many people annoy me this much in the next few months. Malcolm will be a hard act to beat.
Jenny did get her money back today. But still. It was well over a month of buggering around. And with no contact from bikebitsuk for most of that time. At least it means I have her permission to express my annoyance with the joke that is bikebitsuk.com
That is the thing about the internet. You have to actually make an effort. One dissatisfied customer can do you a lot of damage. Me being a dissatisfied customer, I am happy to do bikebitsuk.com a lot of damage. OK they are probably a little start up like us. OK they are probably trying hard. But they made no effort to make up for their oops. They could have done a lot. Even sent Jenny a bunch of flowers or something. And possibly gained a customer. I would never not try and square it with a customer. So stuff em. Asswipes. One internet company to not deal with. Make a note and don't. I never got a reply to the below email.
No Malcolm. Not good enough.
Get us these bloody tires or its unlikely you will sell anything to Oz
again.. and nearly certain that visiting Victoria is not something you
ever want to do. And since I am in the UK every couple of years.... way
to get annoyed.
Or alternatively find some acceptable way to make our experience with you
at least ok if not an overwhelmingly positive experience. Pull the digit
out and sort it.
4 suppliers.... riiiiiiighhht..... Pretty sure I could find a nuclear
reactor..or at least a MBT with less effort than that.
Regards
David Thomas.
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "malcolm"
> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 7:36 PM
> To: "'Jennifer Campbell'"
> Subject: RE: Order Update urgently required.
>
>> Jennifer
>> As you have started the process of reclaiming the money paid my hands
>> are
>> tie and I have to wait for the process to take its course.
>>
>> I have been trying and trying to get hold of the tyres you order and I
>> have
>> placed order with 4 different suppliers to get supplies. All have
>> confirmed
>> my order but none have delivered to date. This applies not only to the
>> Diamante Pro light but various other Vittoria tyres and tubular. Nobody
>> at
>> this end of the world is saying what is going on whether it is a
>> production
>> problem and or commercial problem. I have been inform that a new price
>> list
>> has been announced taking effect from 1st July and prices are
>> considerable
>> higher than they were and perhaps this has been the problem with all the
>> currency fluctuations prevailing at the moment.
>>
>> As soon as I here from the chargeback dept of Natwest Streamline I will
>> instruct them to refund immediately.
>>
>> Sorry we were unable to help at this time
>>
>> Regards
>> Malcolm Cross
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jennifer Campbell [mailto:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: 29 June 2010 07:18
>> To: info@bikebitsuk.com
>> Subject: Order Update urgently required.
>> Importance: High
>>
>>
>>
>>> Hi Malcolm,
>>>
>>> You have charged me for my 4 tyres on 15th May 2010. I have NOT
>>> received
>>> them. You have NOT responded to my emails.
>>> I will be contacting my credit card provider to have this payment
>>> cancelled.
>>>
>>> I am unimpressed with your lack of customer service.
>>>
>>> Jennifer Campbell
>>>
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>> From: "Jennifer Campbell"
>>> Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 12:09 PM
>>> To: "International Cycle Components"
>>> Subject: Re: Order Update
>>>
>>>> Malcolm Cross,
>>>>
>>>> Hi Malcolm,
>>>>
>>>> Tyres haven't arrived yet - can you confirm when they were posted?
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Jennifer Campbell
>>>>
>>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>>> From: "International Cycle Components"
>>>> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 12:15 AM
>>>> To: "Jennifer Campbell"
>>>> Subject: Order Update
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Bike Bits UK
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> Order Number: 1845
>>>>> Date Ordered: Saturday 15 May, 2010
>>>>>
>>>>> The comments for your order are
>>>>>
>>>>> Jennifer, thanks for the order. The postage for the 4 tyres will be
>>>>> GBP13.00 via Royal Mail airmall small packets. Please confirm your
>>>>> acceptance so that we can ship quickly and ask Sage Pay to debit yor
>>>>> card with the additional cost. Thanks Malcolm Cross
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Your order has been updated to the following status.
>>>>>
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