Flyin’ and Ridin’

I don’t know if you are a tennis ‘fan’. I am. I play it myself (not near often enough) and I find it one of the few sports that are enjoyable to watch. Also one where people are not trying to mutulate each other on purpose. With some new players like Richard Gasquet of France and Andy Murray from the UK, with Mario Ancic from Croatia returned and putting up heroic fights, watching a few matches on tele has been a real delight lately.

Of course (I think) we’ll have yet another Federer vs. Nadal final. My money is on Roger……

……. to have more products out! Summer approaching, and more importantly,our Summer Vacation is nearly here! Next week we’ll be loading the Jeep, and loading the bike on the trailer…. presuming I get it fixed one of these days!

But how to pay for it!? FS products are still not ready, let alone published. And to be honest, I don’t really feel compelled to do the same we did last year when we published Vancouver FSX in July, at a time when NOBODY was really interested in FS (anymore) and would rather lay on a beach somewhere!

With the good old Dollar having disappeared in swampy exchange waters and oil prices going through the proverbial roof, the ’summer business’ too has dried up. So now what? Sulk and stay at home? Nah. We’ll transfer some more of our dwindling retirement funds to our current account and just go for it. We only live once and we can only spend every Euro once too….. so better do it while we still can and are able to enjoy it.

If you don’t see me blogging anymore…. then I’m either out riding on the last drops of Arabian crude, or sitting in the waiting room at the social security building somewhere.

Oh, wait, hang on !! I see I just earned $ 1.40 with my new Google Adsense presence here !! There’s still hope for web entrepreneurs like me !!

Since I am still involved in (IT) management in some ways AND am running various projects with virtual teams, I am always on the look-out for better ways to get, or stay , organized. One of those ways is using timesheets, part of program management. Now, doing this in a regular fashion, i.e. where everybody is in the same office, or at least in the same organization with (usually) some sort of company network, is the classic way.
But what if your organization doesn’t really ‘exist? Like in my case with virtual project teams made up of all freelancers, and volunteers even? Or what if your staff is not always able to log in to the corporate network?

‘In’ comes web-based operation. Needless to say that I am biased, being a web-freak. But having traveled so much, and still doing so at times, away from ANY office or corporate building, I have truly come to appreciate what the world wide web has to offer us nowadays.

With the Timesheet Software from companies like Atlantic Global (AND their other software and services offered) you can keep control (or be controlled - yikes!) no matter where you are! I have been browsing their website and looking at their demos with much interest. It soon became clear that they have a wealth of information collected there, and a wealth of experience in that field. NOT only on the Timesheet and Expense area, but on the whole of project management, cost and budget control, and everything in between.

It also is clear that this product is not exactly for really small companies as my own…. BUT….. it may well be a real good contender for larger customers of our consultancy activities. If YOU are looking for an interesting company with an interesting product range AND you’re part of a large(r) organization, then this may well be of interest to you!

First some Flightsim news….. I owe that to all the ‘FS readers’ on this blog:

We have signed up two new authors, Ron Jeffers and Simon Smeiman, who have been working on some projects of their own. Ron is making some bush missions for FSX that we’ll put up in a nice package, and Simon has been working on a Piper Cub for FS2004 and FSX.
These are low-priced products (think around US$ 11.11) and of course not in the class of our Misty’s and Vancouver’s (or Lizzie), but well worth having a look at. More news soon.

The Lizzie is still struggling in the hangar of Ronald Zambrano, who is trying to get me a VC for it.

As for ‘riding’; I got me the Zumo screws yesterday and am also working on updating the riding websites more. The Moto Newz site is slowly taking shape and a few people even discovered it and visited it already.

I have also noted a big increase in site visits on ALL of my websites, which is good. The more the merrier, as they say!

Oh, and the mailman just dropped an envelope with the BMWST.com stickers in the mailbox. COOL! I’ll be sporting them proudly on the RT and on the trailer (yes, sorry guys! *grin*).

I lost two days, actually more I think but I lost track, trying to get the tinyMCE Advanced editor back to work on my blogs after upgrading Wordpress to 2.5.1. Today I spent most of my Sunday wrestling through umpteen forum posts and websites, reading about people with the same problems I had…… and like me, they did not get a definitive answer or solution. Clear the cache, tinker with .php files, run this, download that….. every new angle looked hopeful, and they all led….. NOWHERE. Needless to say I was pretty miffed. Even more so when one guy in the forums got scolded for ’spamming’ and he was the only one with a good solution, namely to get ANOTHER plug-in that DOES work ! (And yes, he WAS being a bit obnoxious posting the ‘competitor’ on the tinyMCE threads). So instead of replacing the (lite) tinyMCE editor of Wordpress with tinyMCE Advanced, I have now replaced it with the good old FCKEditor that I could not get to work before. It works because of the WP Plug-in version that Dean Lee made. Thanks Dean ! You can find the download here (if you’re interested), and Dean’s blog is here.

You know I bought and installed a Zümo 550 recently. The thing is, to mount it on the bike you put it in its holder and then push down a little lid, which i turn inserts two small pins into the Zümo itself, so it won’t fall out. But what if the lid pops up, for instance by hitting a bump in the road? They have thought about that! But alas, not hard enough!
To prevent this from happening, they have added a tiny screw that you need to close after closing the lid. It will hold the pins in place even if the lid should pop open. But the screw is ’special’ and you need a special screw driver to carry with you all the time. That, my friends, is ridiculously cumbersome!

But, help is near - literally! I found a small company in a village a few miles from here that sells nice replacement screws for a few bucks, and THESE you can turn in and out with your fingers!

Just goes to show there’s a business concept in ANYTHING!

Since part of my business is about ‘traveling’ I am always on the lookout for related websites. And doing so I often ‘trip’ over interesting places on the world wide web. WeLoveLocal.com is such a place. It is a website –limited to the UK for now – sporting reviews of ‘local businesses’ by local people, the Local Guides. So if you’re looking for a good Thai place to eat in say, Hull, then you just type ‘thai food’ in the search field, and ‘Hull’ in the ‘near’ field, and presto, you get more than 50 addresses with a nice little Google Map to show where they are.
But that’s not all, of course…. Next to each name and address you can find if there is a review done or not, and see how many stars (1-5) a place racks up.

So far so good. But what if you find a Thai restaurant with a review written by a guy who hates Thai food? And how would you know, anyway. Well, that’s one of the nice parts of the site. Not only does it help you FIND places and show reviews about them (or not, for that matter), it also provides you with a ‘profile’ of the reviewer, mainly showing what things he or she likes and loves, or hates! Which is what makes the entire site more useful!

WeLoveLocal.com is made by a group of young people, working at eMomentum, which in itself is an interesting Internet company with more than one iron in the fire.

Pity the site only caters for the UK (so far), since I think it has potential for other countries as well. The ‘local knowledge’ will be useful to visitors too, so you are not confined to only going to well-known (and boring) global chains for your shopping and dining!

We were wakened this Saturday morning before 7 a.m. by the phone ringing next to my head. Phone calls like that can only mean trouble. Either Mom’s going bad, Nina’s father having health issues, or Vivian having some sort of problem.

Sure enough and unfortunately, I was right in my fear. Turns out Vivian is on the line, telling us that she just had a guy standing bent over her and touching her while she was asleep! WTF !!??
After the initial flurry of words and us not really understanding, being still half asleep, it turns out that Viv’s ‘new’ neighbor forced her bedroom door and entered the house. She woke up when he touched her, and he fled, hiding outside. Vivian saw him  and TALKED to him, saying he couldn’t hide! Dumb or brave? I stick with the latter.

THIS is the point where I as a father (or as a husband if it were the case) am wishing that we would NOT have gone all softy in this country and society. This is the point where I have to admit that some of those gun nuts DO have a point. This is the moment in time I’d have put a bullet in the chamber, slid the safety catch forward and would have confronted the bugger with the fact that NOBODY touches my daughter and/or wife.

I might not have shot him on the spot, but I sure would have made VERY certain that he’d gotten my point….. and find another place to live SOON!

Instead…. I had to advise my daughter to call the police (who actually turned up, which is a small miracle in itself  nowadays). Police came and in fact arrested him, Vivian went to the station to file complaint. The guy was drunk, and maybe stoned as well, who knows. Doesn’t matter and is no excuse in MY book !

rant on

The problem of course is that he’ll get his wrist slapped at most and that’s the end of it!
We can NOT make him ‘physically aware’ of what his place in society is. We’d get arrested.
We can not even put his name on the Internet, telling the world about the trash he is….. we’d get fined (yes, happened a few months ago here).
We can’t even get a judge to make him leave and find a stone to crawl under…. there are no such laws anymore.
Chase him out of the city in tar and feathers….. that’s what I would like to do….. after I’d smack him one on both of his eyes, that is !

But no, we now live in a country where even real criminals, murderers and worse get put in an ‘open institution’ where they are allowed to ‘go shopping’ once a week, or go home over the weekend. And where authorities are subsequently truly amazed that such people evade their (civil and unarmed) ‘guards’,  and commit another rape or murder (happened 3 times over the past 12 months already) !!!

Am I angry?? You bet I am!
Am I being unreasonable? Well, maybe. But I have lately come to the conclusion that we have been way too ‘reasonable’ for many years now, adding injury to insult in many cases for the rightful and law-abiding inhabitants of this country.

With countries getting crowded, social ‘control’ diminishing, criminals getting free play and intimidating even the bravest of honest people it is high time we step up to the plate and change our laws, put some tax money towards protecting ourselves instead of some goat herder in Africa or Afghanistan and get things back on track!

/rant

One of my oldest tft monitors (a Medion) started being troublesome. I had to wait to turn it on until AFTER the PC had started and the main monitor was running. Don’t ask me why, I have no clue! But since it was also getting pretty dim (pun intended) I decided the main monitor would replace it, and I’d buy me a new main monitor.

Started to look around and found that it is getting more and more difficult to find a ‘regular’ size monitor. Apparently the world now loves ‘widescreen’! First my notebook, and now this. All just to sell more tft pixels, no doubt. Anyway, prices have come down more and I now am typing this on a 22″ wide Acer monitor (no speakers and no DVI) that only cost me 145 Euros. I am not complaining, but will need a larger desk once again if I am to replace the second monitor as well at some point!

It now turns out that the former main monitor too is getting dim ! What’s the useful life of these things anyway? Two years max !!!??? Sheez!

What else? Ah yes, I have finally ’switched’ the old EuropeRides.com site to the new ‘blog format’ site. You can still type www.europerides.com, it will take you to the new place automatically! I hope……..

Talking of ‘blogs’. As you know I have been working with WordPress more and more for a number of my sites and recently upgraded all of them to version 2.5.1….. but now I can’t get my editor software to work anymore (tinyMCE). Been ‘wasting’ a good part of this week again trying to find a solution.

Computing STILL takes up too much time and it seems NOT to be getting any better anytime soon!

Hope y’all have a wonderful weekend !

In spite of the recent problems and anxiety she mad it! 89 ! Mother lived in a time where automobiles were rare, aircraft a miracle and travel was mostly done by train and on bicycles, if at all. Can you imagine !!??

I am wondering what my children will be ‘missing’ when they are my age….. having computers and chips built into every appliance and even into people, cars driving or flying by themselves and food being served through a needle…… *cough*. “How could they have LIVED with having to EAT green stuff and dead animals…… “.

Whatever.. today is today… and congrats to Mom !

Hah! Got ya! This is NOT about flightsim aircraft. Sorry!

I recently bought and installed a real Garmin Zumo 550, the ideal companion for motorcyclists who love to plan and ride tours. This is a great kit, not only adding all-weather navigation capabilities to the motorbike, but also providing the spoken instructions to both our helmets via the Autocom intercom system.

AND it links to my mobile phone via bluetooth AND it plays MP3 music while on the road. I tell you, Navvy’s Heaven.

Since I got a few questions about how I installed it, I made lots of pictures of the installation and have now written a real ‘manual’ for it. You can find it on my EuropeRides pages.

Yup, FINALLY. This evening I flew my first circuit with the Lizzie, at long last. That’s the good news. Is it up for sale yet? Hell no! That’s the bad news.
What we have flying now I’d call the Alpha Version, and we want to turn it into Beta as soon as we can, so more people can have a ‘go’ at it and find the flaws. Then it will also be off to the sound man and the flight model man (Aaron and Rob)…. and we can continue work on the special missions!

Meanwhile my sinusitis returned and after more than 2 weeks of headaches I finally went to the doc, and got another box of anti-biotics to swallow. Yuck! I was trying NOT ot go that route again.

Oh, and an update on Mom; she’s doing relatively well, now in a nursery home, but still a loooooong way of to going home, if ever. Still, she is taken good care of now, so we can go to France after all, as we had planned. This time the office PC comes with us, and the bike goes on the trailer!

Still looking for a more versatile blog layout and I like this one. But I have to ‘tinker with it (and get rid of all the senseless advertising and put something in place that makes more sense….. as it were ).

So please continue to visit even if it looks kinda weird at the moment… things will change over the next few days (once I get rid of this hopeless migraine that’s bugging me today).

I’ll also have some news on the Lizzie and on Tongass in a few days, so DO check back please!

Meanwhile, have a great weekend !

François

I think this is one of the few times I haven’t posted anything in a week! Sorry! I have a lot going on, so that’s why. Here’s a list:

- Taking daily care of Mom and (especially now) Dad

- Updating customer’s websites - adding new pages to Smit-Winkel, and putting a new photo ride report onto Rijschool Schipper (see here).
- Working on the new company I am partnering in….. more on that soon!
- Starting talks with yet another PR job for a group of people in the US.
- Running the ‘new’ simFlight news… taking LOTS more time, really.
- Composing/writing a book for my mother, while she’s still with us
- Chasing various designers to come up with new FS products !
- Studying use and installation of my new Garmin Zumo 550
- Riding with ‘The Schippers’ and their ex-students, and doing the photo reports for them
- Figuring out how to service the BMW myself
- Learning new web design tools
- Writing articles for Computer Pilot
- Working on my Normandy Tour Book

Hey, am I busy or what !?? And on July 15th or there abouts we’ll be leaving for our beloved Mountain Retreat for a month….. bye bye Holland !

More details on some of the ‘projects’ mentioned above will follow soon. Stay tuned!