An Opinionated View of Mountain Bikes

When I was eight years old, I begged my parents for a three speed Mustang bike with cable brakes, and I finally got one for my ninth birthday. Gears and cable brakes were innovative and progressive at the time, and I wanted them. When I was thirteen I bought my first 10 speed bike, which was kind of a new thing at that time. It was a big thing to go from three speeds to ten – and I had to have it. I rode that bike on dirt trails everywhere, riding over rocks and small logs, and bent many a rim and flattened many a tire. I remember wondering why there was no such thing as a fat-tired bike.

In 1981, en-route home from a 2 year European trip, in California I saw my very first Mountain Bike. I could hardly believe my eyes; finally somebody had invented a full size, rugged framed, fat-tired bike! Innovation. Progress.

Fast forward to 1990, the year I moved to Whistler. Front suspension was only just appearing, but you had to pay a premium for it. The majority of bikes were rigid on both ends. Center-pull brakes were state-of-the-art. Bikes had bar-ends for climbing. Some guys were getting SPD (or clipless) pedals, which seemed like real progress; they kept your feet connected to the pedals. For my friends and I they were a must-have accessory. Then came V-brakes – we got them. Suspension became affordable – we got that too. Then came disk brakes – we had to have those as well.

And now, for some reason, the innovation and progress seems to be going retro. Today you rarely see climbing bars, they have virtually disappeared. As soon as rear suspension finally became affordable, hard-tails have become king again. Seems like only the downhill guys want it now, but we’re talking motorcycle-grade suspension on those bikes, and they weigh 80 pounds or more. Clipless pedals? Strictly old-school. All the new bikes have flat pedals.

I understand the reasons why; hard-tails are lighter. Bar-ends add weight, and riser bars have replaced the need for them. Flat pedals are safer, and today’s extreme riders easily demonstrate that their feet can stay glued to their pedals, even while getting massive air-time, although it seems to defy the laws of physics.

But I have a need to continue with progress. I LOVE my rear suspension cross-country bike. Sure, it’s a bit heavier, but why split hairs over a few grams? If I want lighter, I can always lose it off my body. I would never trade in the comfort, let alone the greater control, of pedalling over small roots and bumps without having to lift my butt off the seat. Pedaling while standing on the pedals saps energy way faster than does the extra weight of suspension in my humble opinion. And I still want my riding shoes to be connected to my pedals.

Speaking of downhill bikes, what’s with all those squeaky, dirty, under-maintained drive-trains? Many of the new-age downhill warriors, who all look like Darth Vader in their full body armour and full-face helmets, don’t even bother with chains anymore. Why should they? They get an effortless ride up and they don’t need no stinkin drive-train. But is this really mountain-biking? Don’t get me wrong, the park is lots of fun and immensely popular, but rusty, squeaky drive-trains are just not cool. A well-tuned bike, and knowing how to do it yourself, is what really separates the men from the boys.

Are We Ready for Windows Vista?

Windows XP is now getting quite long in the tooth, having been released in October of 2001, and is soon to be replaced by Microsoft’s long-awaited Windows Vista. Before Windows XP, the Windows family of operating systems was notoriously unstable and all versions were known to crash with some regularity. Windows XP was the first relatively stable version, and was the first consumer version of Windows based upon the industrial strength WinNT kernel.

As someone who makes his living troubleshooting and working with Windows computers, I can say that Windows XP certainly was a big improvement over previous versions. Networking is markedly improved; fewer reboots are required when adjusting network protocols. Multimedia is much improved, particularly for digital photography and digital video editing.

On the down side, Windows XP was the first version of Windows requiring product activation, an anti-piracy measure; this pissed off a lot of privacy advocates, and also makes repairs considerably more difficult, particularly if replacing a hard-drive. XP has also been criticized for its vulnerability to spyware, malware and other security issues. Service pack 2, issued a couple of years ago, added a built-in firewall and a much-need pop-up inhibitor, but in spite of this Windows XP is still considered weak in security, especially when compared to the Mac OS or Linux, both of which are virtually impervious to these types of problems.

So now it would seem that Windows Vista, the replacement for XP, must deliver on the promise of greater security. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, Vista will come with many new features that promise to enhance the computing experience; features such as a blazing fast indexed search (some say copied from the new Mac Spotlight Search) which will not only search for files and folders, but also for file content, email content, calendar events etc. Other improvements include built-in speech recognition, a new mail program with Spam Filtering replacing Outlook Express, a revamped Media Player, a better Firewall, and a technology called SuperFetch which will speed program load time. We will also get a slick new interface called Aero, which will take advantage of your high performance video adapter and give your computer a 3D look and feel. However, this Aero interface will be disabled if your computer graphics card does not have at least 128Mb video RAM. I was a bit disappointed at learning this, as I have just purchased a brand-new laptop with only 64Mb video RAM. Microsoft has released a small application which will tell you if your system is Vista ready. You can find it by googling, “Vista Upgrade Advisor”

Vista will be offered in many more flavours than XP; we will be able to choose between Vista Starter, Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, Vista Enterprise, and Vista Ultimate. Apparently it will be possible to upgrade from a lower flavour by purchasing a download; for example, you could start with Vista Home Basic, and at some future point purchase a download that would convert it to Vista Business.

Did you know… Before Windows XP was released, it was code-named Whistler. Before Microsoft named Vista, it was code-named Longhorn. In 2003 there was a planned release of a new Windows codenamed Blackcomb, which was later abandoned. Microsofties are definitely among us.

Phishing - Be Aware

The “Cascading Effect” is when one problem leads to another, which in turn leads to another, which again – well you get the idea. Computers are highly prone to this principle. A case in point: Last Friday, my Outlook program slowed to a crawl and started crashing. A little investigation revealed the problem – my Outlook file had grown to its maximum allowable size of 2 Gbytes. Even as I tried to delete the contents of my “Deleted Items” folder, the program would repeatedly crash. I eventually got the problem resolved, which was a long and complex process, but in the process my anti-spam add-in program somehow disabled itself.

So here begins the “Cascading Effect”. Having put so much time and effort into getting my email functioning again, I put off fixing the anti-spam solution I had been using. Consequently, I had to manually discern what email was spam and what email was genuine – and on Saturday morning, before I was fully awake or had had any coffee, I got PHISHED.

Phishing is a sophisticated type of spam message that cons the reader into believing that the email is from a reputable and valid sender. In this case, I got 10 emails (First Obvious Clue) from eBay, with the subject line entitled “Security Management” (Second Obvious Clue) saying that my eBay account had been set to a “limited access” status. If I wanted to restore my account, it said, follow the link below, log in, and re-enter my credit card information (Third Obvious Clue). Still the coffee had not infused itself into my bloodstream, and the alarm bell did not yet go off. I clicked on the link, and sure enough I was presented with the familiar eBay login page. As I began to enter my username and password (which was usually memorized – how odd – Fourth Obvious Clue), I checked the website address and realized I had been duped. It was a very convincing fake login page; but the address in the address bar was not from eBay (Fifth Obvious Clue).

Had I entered my username and password, the Phisher would then have access to my eBay account and could start bidding and buying. Not the end of the world if you immediately recognize the scam, you simply login at the genuine site and change the password. If you fill in credit card information and send it back to the phisher, this is more serious: you must immediately call your credit card company and cancel the credit card.

I got lucky – mercifully the coffee finally kicked in, and I avoided the Sixth Obvious Clue, which would have been a maxed-out credit card statement.

Phishers usually target bank accounts. If you ever get an email from what appears to be your bank, asking to verify account information, BEWARE - BANKS NEVER DO THIS! Some evil bastard is phishing his way into your bank account. This is identity theft. Immediately report the email to your bank and to your ISP, and do your part to shut the perpetrator down.

First Lesson: Never check your email until you have had at least one coffee. Second Lesson: Keep Your Spam Blocking solution working, together with your antivirus and anti-spyware solutions. If you don’t have it, get it. Third and Most Important Lesson: Your Bank Will Never Ask To Confirm Your Bank Account Information!

Browser Wars

As the browser wars continue to heat up, and Firefox gains market share, Microsoft has at last released its long-awaited Internet Explorer 7 beta, but only for Windows XP users with Service Pack 2. This is a long-overdue move on Microsoft’s part, as Internet Explorer 6 has proved to be very vulnerable to spyware and other security issues. For the purposes of this article, I downloaded the new Explorer 7 Beta for evaluation, and although these days I am loath to pollute my new computer with any unnecessary software, I tentatively went ahead with downloading Opera, Maxthon and Netscape for comparison. I already use Firefox as my daily browser, simply because it’s safer.

Perhaps the most important new feature of all the browsers, including IE 7, is tabbed browsing. All the new browsers have it, and once you’ve used this feature you’ll wonder why it didn’t exist earlier. It’s a little odd that this feature has taken so long to appear, as we’ve had tabbed spreadsheets for years.

The first thing I wanted to test was speed. On my computer, Opera is the fastest to launch, Firefox and Netscape are the slowest. While I like Firefox because it is much more secure than Explorer 6 and earlier, I have never been very impressed with its launch speed. Also, it seems a bit sluggish loading graphics compared with the others.

Maxthon, while actually based upon Internet Explorer, crams loads of features into the browser window that IE never offered before this latest release, including RSS feeds, Roboforms, and the ability to return to previous sessions after closing the program (Opera also offers this handy feature). Unfortunately Maxthon also sneakily attempts to install Weatherbug, which is an annoying piece of adware that forces you to answer a questionnaire before you can uninstall it. The Roboforms feature is also available for Opera and Firefox, and is similar to the “autofill” feature of the well-established google toolbar. After initial setup, whereby you fill in your vital stats (address, email, phone number etc), you can then quickly fill in web forms with the single click of a button, saving much time and aggravation.

There is not enough space to compare all the features of all these browsers, but I can tell you that Firefox will remain my browser of choice because of one unique feature that isn’t available with the others – a plug-in called StumbleUpon. After initial installation, Stumble asks about your various interests. You pick your categories and finish, and a new button then appears on your Firefox menu. If one of your interests is “cats” for example, then you can pick that category and then click the Stumble button; the browser then “stumbles” through an impressive list of websites dedicated to cats. You can also add your own favourite cat site to the Stumble database. If you don’t pick a category, then Stumble randomly brings up sites related to all the categories in your list. It’s almost like Google on steroids.

If you spend a lot of time surfing the internet, I would strongly advise that you switch from Internet Explorer 6 (or earlier) to one these new browser alternatives. The additional features alone are worth the trouble, but more importantly you will drastically reduce your vulnerability towards becoming infected with adware and spyware.

The Power of eBay

This story is about eBay, not my car. If you don’t care about my car, skip ahead to the middle of the story. You may recall my column from two weeks ago I was shopping for a new wheel/tire package for my car – well they arrived (all the way from Texas), they’re mounted, and they look fabulous! The trouble with modifying your car is that the first mod is seldom the last – once you get started there’s no going back.

And so it is with me; I have now become addicted to eBay Motors in my quest for more upgrades for my car. This is a fabulous place to hunt for hard-to-find parts, and the savings are definitely worth the effort. For example, I wanted a new high performance muffler. I researched the muffler and found the one I wanted – but its retail cost was $275 US – a bit rich for me. I found the same (new) muffler listed on eBay, and the bidding had reached $90 US. I started bidding and eventually won it for $128 US – less than half price of normal retail.

I have shopped on eBay before, and I’ve sold one or two items as well, but I never really got right in to take a proper look around. After finding the muffler I wanted, I started poking around a little deeper. On a recent visit to Vancouver I picked up a magazine called “Entrepreneur’s eBay Startup Guide – Start a Business on eBay TODAY!” Inside I found out many interesting facts about eBay that I didn’t know before. For one thing, eBay Motors, added to eBay in 2000, has become the biggest online automotive marketplace in the world; eBay Motors sells a car or truck each minute, and achieves over $6 Billion in annual sales. eBay is considered one of the safest places to buy an automobile, because of a thing called Feedback Rating. More on this in a moment…

There are many entrepreneurs doing many interesting things with eBay; it has spawned quite a number of success stories - even millionaires. One popular eBay business is the Drop Off Centre, or eBay Consignment Store. Basically this is a place where a person can take the item she wants sold, and the item is then listed on eBay on her behalf. When the item sells, the store takes a commission and turns over the remaining money to the seller.

A variation on this is the eSpecialist. This is an eBay business whereby the eBay businessperson comes by your house or business and takes pictures and descriptions of the item you have for sale and then posts it on eBay on your behalf. Basically the same as a Drop Off Centre, except that no warehousing is required. The eBay professional roams to your location, lists your item, then takes a commission once it sells. There are people out there doing this and grossing $1M + p/year. What a great business – no inventory to purchase or stock!

The great equalizer on eBay is the Feedback Rating system. When considering purchasing an item, the buyer can check the seller’s Feedback Rating. Most businesses on eBay have a 95% or better positive feedback rating, or they don’t survive. Feedback shows the published satisfaction comments from previous buyers. Without this, the eBay business is dead. And a good Feedback Rating provides a great comfort level for potential buyers. If you haven’t been on eBay lately, go and take another look.