David Hurst

One of the problems with the Internet is anonymity. Perversely, this is also one of the great things about the Internet, but anonymity is not a universal wall of protection behind which bullies should hide. Over the years I have experienced cyber bullying in many forms, and none of them is pleasant.

I used to use email as a form of marketing, and was accused by some of sending “spam”. I beg to differ. Thoroughly researching a local business and then sending a tailored email of introduction is not the same as sending out blind spam advertising Viagra, penis enlargement or Angelina Jolie’s tits. Yet, the reactions I got from a few (presumably) well-respected local business owners were nothing short of disgraceful. Had I chosen to send them a letter, would they have written similarly venomous replies back to me? Hardly. And yet, sending a letter is more costly to the environment and opening and reading it takes significantly more time than opening and reading an email. I just don’t bother sending emails to people I don’t know any more.

Others like to write abusive comments on sites like YouTube, or in chat rooms or forums. Why? What is so fundamentally wrong with these people that makes them feel it is OK to abuse other members of the human race in such a way.

I’ll wager that none of the people I have received abusive messages from would have the guts to come and say it to my face. I’m 6ft1 and over 17 stone: people generally are not rude to me. But, offer up a virtual screen for them to hide behind, and it seems all sorts of people are ready to take a shot. Shame on you all.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been noticing flyers advertising Haynes Motor Museum littering the public highways around Yeovil. In particular, the flyers announce the presence of Roary the Racing Car at Haynes Museum on the 17th August. For those of you that don’t have kids (or don’t secretly watch kids TV whilst skiving off work with [insert life-threatening ailment here]), Roary the Racing Car is an animated TV show for kids. It features the vocal talents of Peter Kay as “Big Chris”, and an assortment of car characters that race around the “Silver Hatch” race track.

So, when an opportunity presents itself to take your not-quite-three-year-old son to meet some of his fave telly heros, as a responsible and loving parent you surely have the obligation to grasp said opportunity. I’m not sure what I was expecting - the posters weren’t particularly helpful, and nor was the website. A small printed notice at the museum entrance informed us that Big Chris and Roary were not performing a show, but were making “appearances” throughout the day. The notice was suitably ambiguous so as not to deter any parting with cash, and we duly paid our entrance fee. Haynes, obviously keen to capitalise on the money making opportunities of the day, had lowered the child ticket age threshold to 1 - i.e. all children aged one or over had to pay. There’s nothing quite like profiteering from babies is there?

As it transpired, the day was completely lacking in anything approaching organisation, as frustrated parents filled the museum waiting in a queue so their precious darlings could spend 30 seconds shaking hands with some bloke (or blokette) dressed in a furry Big Chris costume, whilst “Roary” sat there and rolled his mechanical eyes. In fact we queued for 70 minutes (during which entire time the 30 second theme tune was playing in a loop through some very tinny speakers), getting hot, sweaty and irritable, so our son could get his 30 seconds, and we could get some photographic proof of the event so that we would have something to show for our time. We got lucky, as Big Chris could only manage 40 minutes between cups of tea, and clearly the promotions company putting on the (non)show would not stretch their budget to a second Big Chris to fill in the Health and Safety gaps. The people behind us were not so lucky, and the general atmosphere was degenerating quickly into that of a linch mob, so camera and photos grasped firmly in hand, we left in a hurry.

I’m sure Haynes can do better than this. I certainly won’t be planning to go visit Bob the Builder or whatever else they choose to put on.

The highlight of the trip for me was the Ferrari Enzo on display in the supercars room (along with an XJ220, a McLaren GTR and a Ferrari F40). I managed to take some reasonable pictures of the big red beauty in between the kids running past, touching the car, and even sitting on the bonnet! The parents of said darlings walking past too, blissfully unaware of me trying to take my photo, and the fact that their kids were perched in their jeans on the paintwork of an irreplaceable piece of automotive history worth 700 grand. “Oooh that’s a nice one isn’t it?”

It’s sad but I feel the need to clarify what this website is: a personal blog. I use it to provide technical guides and reviews that are pertinent to my line of work, and that I think will be helpful to others. It’s also an opportunity to vent my spleen (which I do regularly) as it is an excellent form of stress relief - try it sometime.

My views are my own. It’s always interesting to hear other viewpoints, and reactions to my posts, so I leave the comments field available for others to contribute. This is largely successful, and Wordpress does a reasonable job of killing all the spam, but some comments go straight through, and some I have to moderate.

I was stunned this morning to find some guy had hijacked my well-ranked post about connecting iPhone to SBS2003 and posted a blatant advertisement for his website and services. This is not acceptable. Why would anyone think that it’s acceptable to piggy back on my search engine success and rob my bandwidth for commercial gain?

There are a few discreet adverts on my website, and I get paid for them. Companies that I think are exceptional get links, and I would never consider accepting money for them. People and companies I don’t know that post blatant adverts and links in my comments box are likely to receive the sharp end of my tongue.

Others feel strongly against my views on various issues and write rude and abusive comments. None of these will be published. It’s fine to disagree, because everyone is entitled to their opinion and free speech is one of the principal foundation stones of the Internet, but it is not fine to be rude and abusive to me on my website (you can write whatever you like on your own website).

I write what I think - some will agree, some won’t. I don’t force anybody to read anything.

My various technical articles are very successful, and I love to receive comments of thanks. It’s nice to know you helped someone out or saved them some time.

So, that’s what my blog is about, and providing you don’t post adverts or spam to it, we’ll all get along just fine.

I’ve been really enjoying riding my SV650S around, it is a fantastic and engaging bike, but for a big chap like me, it doesn’t offer much in the way of long-journey comfort. I had been thinking about selling it and buying a bike more suited to touring, but I came upon a better solution whilst browsing eBay Motors earlier today. There staring me in the face was an auction for a mint 1993 GSX1100F in purple and silver. Taxed, MOTed, and only 5986 miles on the clock!! Surely too good to be true? If it all panned out, I could keep the SV and have a classic sports tourer on the side.

It turned out the bike was a part-ex to clear being offered by a dealer in Exeter, and a good look at the larger photos on their website revealed what was looking to be a genuine bargain of a motorcycle with a ticket price of £1395. I jumped in the car…

The bike was every bit as good as looked in the photos, with just a couple of very minor blemishes. Apart from those it looks showroom fresh, and the engine is sweet as a nut. One previous owner, a brand new rear tyre, and a fully working electric windscreen. Could it get any better? Yes, actually, because I got it for £1,250, and then Bennetts charged me a measly £85 to add it to my existing insurance policy.

So, to sum up: A 15 year old, mint sports tourer, in my favourite colours, with ridiculously low miles for £1,250. I still can’t believe it.

Some would say I’m mad moving up to a 1127cc bike after only 3 months (and 2,500 miles) riding experience since passing my test. I have to be honest: I did question my own sanity. This is a big bike and quite a step up from the SV. In fact, it packs 136BHP and a top speed pushing 160MPH. Despite this, the ride home was enjoyable, effortless and not in the least frightening. Suzuki basically took a GSX-R engine, re-bored it and re-tuned it to make more low-end and mid-range grunt. It has fairly tall gearing too, so it is perfectly manageable. I did open it up a little a couple of times, and I briefly met the snarling monster of death that threatens to snuff out your existence if you forget who’s boss, but this is a touring bike. I didn’t buy it to race along bendy B-roads - I’ll take the SV over the GSX anyday for some rapid twisties - I bought it for distance riding, and that, it will do perfectly. I’m also 30, well experienced on the road generally, and I have good self-control over my right hand. I think I’ll be able to ride this bike and keep breathing.

Despite being a good 90kg heavier than the SV, the GSX1100F is reasonably easy to manage due to its lower seat and low centre of gravity. It’s only at low speeds doing tight maneuvres or wheeling the bike around that you notice the weight. On the road it’s smooth like you’d expect a bike of this low mileage to be - it fairly floats along. Whereas my SV650S is a very involving ride, I felt a little more like a passenger on the GSX. The riding position is more upright, as you would expect from a tourer, and the windscreen when fully extended, really does keep the worst of the wind and rain off you, which is nice given the appalling conditions I rode home in. It doesn’t drop into the corners like a lighter bike will, but once you have it cranked over, it holds its line and gives real confidence.

The big inline four delivers smooth power even from low rev ranges. You can quite happily just roll along in 5th gear with minimal throttle input, or open it up for amazing roll-on pickup and some nice lazy overtakes. Stopping is not quite so breathtaking as accelerating, with the braking technology showing its age a little. It certainly doesn’t feel as sharp as my more modern SV, but that’s not to say the brakes are in any way poor - there’s plenty of stopping power there too.

Really, I think this just proves that despite what the industry tells you there really is no reason to not consider an older, low-mileage machine. Mine has clearly been well cared for and has lived a somewhat sheltered existence. The previous owner managed a ridiculous average of 32 miles per month during the 15 years or so that he owned it. I put double that on it today, and I shall have no qualms about adding on the miles. Fact is, that this bike will still be worth what I paid for it even with double the mileage and a couple more years under its wheels.

Tonight I sit smugly on my sofa with the sense of self-satisfaction that can only come from the safe knowledge that I have just found an absolute bargain!

It would appear that Microsoft is losing faith in Windows’ ability to cope with changes in modern computing, and are now working on a new project called “Midori”. I’m glad they realise this. Windows is archaic behemoth of an operating system, built on an unstable foundation to start with. Someone once told me that the rise of the PC and Microsoft was largely due to companies not wanting their staff to be “playing games” on their computers. At the time, the marketplace choice was plentiful: machines like the Amiga and Atari ST offered windowing, multi-tasking, operating systems with colour displays. Instead, in their ignorance, the company executives chose the IBM PC, and with it Microsoft DOS - a product Bill Gates bought from elsewhere and re-branded to fulfill the IBM contract. Whether this is the real reason the PC took off or not, the fact remains that the IBM PC and Microsoft DOS marched hand in hand to market supremacy. Many other platforms were faster, and many had better operating systems, but it was Windows that prevailed. Therefore the software companies wrote for Windows, further tieing everyone to the OS.

In today’s computing world, people are increasingly mobile, and often have more than one computer. Take me as an example: I have a desktop computer at home, a laptop that I use primarily for work, an ultra-mobile laptop I use when I don’t want to carry my big laptop around, and an iPhone, which is essentially another computer. I also work on a number of different machines at work. Suddenly, having an OS that is tied to a piece of hardware seems a bit of a misfit, and this is precisely what Microsoft are researching with Midori.

I’m not convinced that this is a new concept or amazing innovation by Microsoft, although they will no doubt claim such when/if Midori ever comes to market. There are other companies who have tried variations on this theme, but I think the solution doesn’t need inventing, a similar solution already exists: Linux. The beauty of Linux is that it separates out the components of the OS, and it doesn’t really care where those components are. In simple terms, there are three levels to the Linux OS: level one is the Kernel - the heart of the operating system itself; level two is the windows server - the code required to present high resolution images to the display, and the core windowing behaviour, and; level 3 is the window manager or GUI. In a standard Ubuntu installation you have a kernel based on the Debian Linux kernel, X11 as the window server and Gnome as the GUI. You could just as easily run KDE as your GUI. Or you could have a Red Hat kernel and run KDE or Gnome on that. It’s all interchangeable.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. The GUI does not need to be output on the same physical computer as the OS. You can use a basic terminal and network connection to work with your OS. (This is not the same as using Windows remotely via VNC or Remote Desktop, as in those cases the GUI is on the same computer and images of it are shunted through the network connection.) This opens up other possibilities, namely: supercomputers. Supercomputers that have thousands of processors and huge volumes of RAM, can be worked upon by large numbers of people at the same time. With the progression of Internet bandwidth, we could rapidly see a scenario where we rent space on a supercomputer and then use this from any terminal we like. Likewise, the software we need could be rented also. Then, your personal hardware becomes largely irrelevant.

Some would argue that this already exists with Windows using Citrix etc., and to an extent it does, but you still need a computer with an OS on it in order to use it, which sort of defeats the object.

So, I welcome the Midori project and the fact that at least one part of Microsoft is actually thinking about what people will really need from computers as we move forward. The main issue for Microsoft to overcome is that 80% of its income comes from PCs that are shipped with Windows pre-installed. Currently they have a captive audience and a steady revenue stream that requires a comparitively low advertising budget. They are consistently losing customers to Linux and Mac as it is, although despite the increase, these numbers are still a drop in the ocean. Midori and other similar concepts are likely a long way off from the mainstream yet as this form of computing requires something of a paradigm shift across the whole industry. In the meantime, Microsoft have a real task ahead of them to make their next version of Windows a success. Another (comparitive) failure like Vista will give a real boost to the OS migration. Ideally, they will build elements of Midori into the new OS, to start a phased changeover.

It’s not just Microsoft that need to think ahead like this, it’d be nice if Apple did too. I don’t want to pay Apple for their MobileMe syncing service (formerly .Mac) - I believe I should be able to sync my desktop, settings and select files between my iMac and my MacBook Pro. It’s a real annoyance when you try to keep both machines set up identically.

I guess the only downside to all of this is that your entire computing experience will hinge upon the quality of your connection. But perhaps a change to centralised computing would force the telecoms companies to up their game too, and that can only be good for computing as a whole.