The view of Llanberis and Snowdon from Fachwen. March 2010.

“You buy your parts on–line from Wiggle! You should support your local bike shop. Who‘s going to fit it for you eh!? Wiggle can‘t fit it for you can they!? Hmm?”

This was the obnoxious lecture I received from the proprietor of a LBS this morning when I took my mountain bike in to have a new component installed on it. This was after asking me where I bought the component in question and making a disapproving face at me in response to the answer, before then launching into his lecture.

I left the shop happy that the excellent mechanic they have there is going to do a great job, but thoroughly undervalued as a customer.

Organisations that occupy pre–intarwebz niches are struggling and dropping like flies all over the world. Dozens of newspapers across the developed world now no longer exist because people are getting their news from the Web. Even a long–established UK TV channel is now fighting to survive because people are getting their TV programs and films from the Web. Invariably those that do survive will be the ones that embrace the Web or those that change their business to provide products and services that can‘t be delivered via the Web.

The ones that lecture potential customers about how they shouldn‘t get their news, TV programs or films from the Web probably won‘t survive.

The situation is no different for high–street shops such as your average LBS. The LBS in question needs to accept the fact that they can‘t compete with the Web on price. They need to accept that they probably can‘t beat the Web for after–sales service. Probably not enough to make up for the difference in price anyway. They can however provide a service that can‘t be found on the Web. They have something I need. They have expertise and the tools to provide a service that I want to pay for.

They need to embrace the fact that people like me who buy parts on the Web need their expertise and are willing to pay for it. Far from being a missed opportunity, I‘m a customer!

Charge me an extra £5 and hold back on the lecture. I don‘t need to know how much you hate the fact you can‘t compete with the Internet on the price of components. I want something you have and I‘m willing to pay for it.

I'm a customer, you idiot!

I just tried to go “ex–directory” for the new mobile phone number directory service.

They say that they wont give my mobile number to any Tom, Dick or Harry that pays them a £1. And, despite not wanting to perpetuate the intarwebz hysteria about this service, I reckon there‘s probably no smoke without fire.

Is it coincidental that when there is some hysteria about this service that they take down the removal service for “essential maintenance”?

By Jake Armstrong

Bristol Bikefest 2009 was wet, treacherous, dirty and challenging. But is was a lot of fun as well.

This photo is by Pete Tiley, he‘s taken a lot of quality photos. Nice, therefore, that one of them is of me.

There is a link in my delicious links (listed on the left of this site) entitled be less shit It is a brief, compelling argument on how it's easy to produce something incredible. The link no longer works unfortunately and I can't find the original page anymore, only references to it. The words are by Rory Marinich and here they are.

It‘s easy to make something incredible. All you do is, don‘t let what you‘re doing be shit.

If something is shitty, you make it better. There are usually a few hundred thousand things in anything that are shitty, but they‘re all easily fixable. You just have to dedicate yourself to not being shit.

Anything can be shit. An idea can be shit. Don‘t execute a shitty idea. A design or a lyric or a guitar part or a photo can be shit. If it is, do it better.

It baffles me that people think making really, really brilliant, stupendous, worldshocking pieces of work is a particular challenge. It‘s mainly a battle of endurance. The longer you try and deshit something, the less shit it is.

Experience helps, because with experience you stop being quite as shitty the first time around, but even a complete amateur can write a brilliant, masterful symphony, if he‘s got the dedication needed to start with complete shit and slowly remove all of the shit (which means, to be clear, that when he‘s done there‘ll likely be nothing left of his original shit symphony, not even the melody).

This is called ‘revision‘, and it is one hundred percent effective, and people still don‘t do it.

It‘s almost stating the obvious but sometimes the obvious needs stating for to it become obvious.

A while back I posted an advertisement for the flat I have near the centre of Cardiff. I now have some photos of it, so here they are.

If you are interested please email me on elwyn at malethan dot com, or if you prefer, leave a comment.

Update: I‘ve been getting a few enquiries from families and groups as big as 4 people. This is a great flat and it is roomy, but is not suitable for families or for more than two (or maybe three) people.

There are more details on the Gumtree ad, here.

One of the first things I did when I decided to start working on a blog was to look at the etiquette of the blogosphere. It seems that one of the biggest no–nos is to steal other people‘s bandwidth by hot–linking images.

Well, I‘ve posted some images on here, which are not my work. I‘ve gone to the bother of hosting them so as not to transgress, I certainly don‘t want to piss off other bloggers, by breaking with etiquette. Also, bandwidth costs money, so it makes sense that it is frowned upon.

That hasn‘t stopped people from hot–linking images that I am hosting, this one in particular. So I decided to do something about it.

I have significant experience of configuring Apache and mod_rewrite so I could have rolled my own solution. I'm not one for re–inventing a wheel that has already been invented a million times however. The best article I could find that details how hot–linking can be tackled using Apache is this one at A List Apart, which as a great site for web–professionals.

In that article, the solution actually results in broken images on any pages on “unauthorised” sites. My solution is much the same but slightly different in that it renders an alternative image. Mine is a shameless promotion of my software development skills, though probably not my design capabilities.

I‘ve recently ordered a Brompton folding bike so I can get off the M4 and on to the train for my commute from Cardiff to Bristol — I‘m already a traffic–bore and it‘s going to drive me nuts if I don‘t stop driving to work soon.

I say I ordered it recently… They take a loooong time to deliver! So I‘m still waiting, 6 weeks later :(

I saw this today, It‘s a Pacific IF Mode and looks saweeeet! I have no idea how expensive it is, but it looks at least as good as a Brompton, and they‘re pretty pricey.

I love the way the Star Trek movie website is looking. It's been a while since I've been genuinely excited about a new Star Trek release. Most of the previous films, certainly the recent ones have been disappointing. Nemesis was a cheesy and a little bit tame. Insurrection – as a genuine fan, it pains me to say – was just plain crap. I guess it was an odd numbered film and therefore it was likely to be a bit shit because of the curse.

I literally can‘t wait for this one to be released, let‘s hope it breaks the curse. Hope I'm not setting myself up for a massive let–down.