So, off to France in a couple of weeks, so I'd like to find out whether I can use my Vodafone USB broadband modem over there, and what the charges will be.
Can I find out from the Vodafone website? No I flipping can't! It is perhaps the most disorganised customer-focussed website I've ever had the misfortune to get lost in.
I spent some anxious hours towards the end of last week restoring access to the website I run for the North Bucks Road Club (see here for an outline of the woes). I've now been moving the site to a new hosting company, which (apart from distracting me from blogging activity) has proven to be quite straightforward, apart from ensuring that both www.northbucksroadclub.org.uk and northbucksroadclub.org.uk point to the same place! I have a temporary fix in place, and I'll sort out a proper resolution next week.
The reasons for the anxiety has been the upcoming British Time Trial Championship on 6th September, which is organised by the North Bucks together with TeamMK. It's important that access to the event information is maintained, which is why the problems last week were so disruptive.
A glorious sunny morning greeted me, though it belied the chill in the air as we gathered first at the clubroom and then down at the start of this club event. Clearly, autumn had arrived!
The other factor to be taken into account was the headwind up to the turn onto the new dual carriageway - this was sufficient to knock me back to well below 20mph, before picking up speed on the undulating DC section. While the wind wasn't enough to cause problems, I could feel it tugging at the front wheel, particularly when passing lorries shielded me from it.
I've been having all sorts of problems with the North Bucks Road Club website. These manifest themselves at intermittent connection problems earlier this week, followed by complete loss of function yesterday morning. A bit of probing revealed that the issue lay with the hosting company (it's not the company that hosts this site) - as far as I could tell, database connections were timing out.
Yesterday lunchtime, this became more severe, with no access whatsoever. I have had a series of recent backups using Joomlapack, an excellent Joomla! extension that backs up entire websites. After a number of false starts (consuming several hours yesterday evening), I was able to restore a functional site on a local PC, thereby reassuring myself that at least the backup was functional.
This just, in the "What were they thinking of?" department. Poor old Microsoft. They get splattered by the EU for forcing Internet Exploiter down the throats of Windows users, they get told by a Texan court to stop selling their biggest money-spinner, Word, and now they are embroiled in accusations of racism.
An advert featuring happy executives (one asian bloke, a black bloke and a white woman) was clumsily Photoshopped to replace the back bloke's head with that of a white bloke for the Polish marker. The Photoshopping was pretty clumsily done, and they didn't edit the hand of the chap who lost his head. You can see the before and after pictures of this particular PR disaster at the BBC website.
So, we're in the midst of a major recession, the Government has spent huge amounts bailing out the fat cats of international banking, and Joe Public is tightening his or her belt. The Higher Education Sector, in which I work, is certainly feeling the chill wind of cut-backs, and in my Institution's case this comes on top of the Goverment's ELQ policy.
So, one might have thought that costly and pointless exercises such as the dreadful ID card plan, and the even more despicable Interception Modernisation Programme might have been curtailed or dropped. Not a bit of it. Computer Weekly reports (Home Office trebles consultancy spend):
The Astana professional cycling team has certainly been an interesting team this year. From the reappearance of Armstrong (for me, an unexpected force at the Tour de France), and the subsequent soap opera that ensued as Armstrong and Contador jockeyed for preeminence through the duration of the Tour, to the reassertion of Kazakh control and the departure of Bruyneel, Armstrong et al to form the new Radio Shack team, it's been pretty exciting.
Now, Cyclingnews.com reports (Vinokourov to head to the Tour of Spain with Astana) that Vinokourov is back in the Astana fold after serving his ban for blood doping, and will lead the team at the Vuelta.
This was my last open event before the Duo Normand (20th September) and, given the hopeless character of my season thus far, I was hoping for some indication of returning form. I decided to ride over to Tempsford, a ride made slightly dodgy by the huge roadbuilding exercise going an along the A421 - but of course at about 6am, there's not too much traffic. The ride was an excellent warm-up, and I felt pretty enthusiastic as I lined up at the start - and this despite the stiff breeze that had sprung up, and which would make the going a bit tough on the south-bound legs.
Fortunately the F1/25 starts with a short southbound leg to the Sandy roundabout, then a 12-13 mile leg north across the Black Cat roundabout to turn at the Buckden roundabout, then there's a final leg of about 8 miles that today was into the teeth of the breeze.
The Guardian reports (Office of Fair Trading to investigate targeted ads and pricing online) that the Office of Fair Trading is to investigate aspects of behavioural advert targeting.
"We are also considering including the use of personal information in advertising and pricing," said the OFT. "In particular, we may look at behavioural advertising where information on a consumer's online activity is used to target the internet advertising they see.
