Heatsink

Usually the person that goes into the back of someone is automatically responsible - I speak from experience of having shunted a vehicle! Even if the person in front has stopped suddenly, basically if there's a shunt it was because the person behind didn't leave enough space. I'd be well miffed if the news report basically decided to be judge and jury and imply that the younger driver was at fault!! Those local newspapers don't let the truth get in the way of a good story do they! Steve

Hey, You can get some amazing Creative PC speakers for a 1/5 of the price. I bought the ones linked below for my portable MP3 player, but now I've had them for a while I can truely say that there's no need to spend more for PC use. The quality of sound is beyond my expectations, and seems better than even my Sony stereo system! There's plenty of bass there if you need it too, which is a far cry from the tinny sound I've experienced on old speakers at this price. They have a long length of cable between the pair, and a headphone jack out on the front which some people may find very useful. The huge amount of really positive reviews on ebuyer.co.uk convinced me to buy, and I'm really pleased with them. You just can't beat the value for money! Also they look very stylish. I was even more pleased when I took a visit to PC world and saw how much they were trying to flog sets of desktop speakers for PCs/home which came with additional bass boxes etc. To me there really seemed no justification for spending more. These are the OEM speakers so they come in a plain box because they aren't intended to sit on the shelves in PC world. These exact same speakers are sold in a pretty box in PC world for over £25! Creative Labs SBS260 Speakers - Powered Set 2.5w RMS with 3.5mm Jack - OEM @ Ebuyer - Come to £9.32 when the VAT and postage is added. Pick yourself up a bargain, you won't be dissappointed! Steve

Well, we went to a show at the NEC the other weekend...... the Mother & Baby show! Imagine wandering around the stands and absolutely everyone has huge pushchairs that you have to dodge around. Not fun! Callum has already tried out his first bike, which he looked very happy to be on! Although at the moment he's happiest when sat on his push along car which is meant to be a 4x4 Quad bike! We also get to play with the big car trolleys that you can get in some Tescos! All good fun :D Steve

I'll be there with my wife and baby boy :lol:

Hello! Just stumbled across this thread. I'd best answer these questions being posed about the latest pads to clear everything up :) I've not kept my website up to date (that will hopefully be sorted soon), plus I don't post much on TF, so there is a general lack of information :"> At the moment the pads are at a "Pre-release" stage. Now that after much waiting and digging deep into my pockets, I have a mould tool, I now have a new supplier that moulds the pads. These are assembled by me into brand new Powerpad backings. With these changes to the means of production, there are some unknowns to be learnt about that can only be discovered via getting these pads ridden by a number of riders across a variety of wheel set-ups before the pad spec is at the point it can be officially released. My intial order for a small batch of moulded pads was in the red compound. Whilst my production mould tool was being made I was able to get a few example pairs made in a simple test tool and this particular compound was found to be excellent for brake grip. The longterm durability remained to be established. In these last couple of weeks a number of pads (going into double figures) has been sent out to a various riders for testing. In addition I've made some spare pairs available to riders that contacted me keenly wanting to get hold of pads. These were sold to help to cover costs, for example starting to chip away at the money spent out on the pad mould, getting batches moulded, and the new backings. So far the feedback I'm getting is really positive about the grip performance and the overall build quality. The thing I'm sitting up and taking interest in is that now I've heard 2 reports of them wearing quickly on grinds. I'm really pleased when people can tell me honestly what they think of the pads, because it's only via this process that I can get them spot on for release! I really would like to hear more from others who may have been holding back on saying negative things because they have really appreciated me sending them pads. Coupled with receiving these pads and assembling them, I've also started riding every night so I can also take part in the long term testing. It's tricky to fit riding in alongside the busy life of being a Dad, but now I've got a little playground arranged in the woods near my house some decent riding is suddenly really convenient. My personal experiences are that after a couple of weeks riding every night they seem to be wearing faster than some pads. They are about half worn now and are still grunting loudly away and giving me confidence to trust my bike. It's rather simplistic, but at this stage they remind me of peoples' perception of Zoo! pads. Very grippy but wear quickly on a grind, so are more commonly used on ceramic/smooth rims for sensible value for money. I need to get more rider feedback though to see whether this is consistant across the board. Also this was the very first run of pads, so I'm discussing the manufacturing set-up with the moulders to explore any options to maximise the properties of the material from the means it's processed. I'm also very keen to try out another compound which I previously did not have acces to with my last supplier. I will be selecting from those riders that have kindly taken the time to give me honest feedback and sending them out some of these pads for them to compare. Also for those that are keen to get their hands on these exclusive pads and be part of the testing team, I will be taking payment which will help to pay for the costs involved. From working with the moulders up until now, I think that the 15th of June is a realistic estimate for when I will have this comparison batch of pads. I have a limited number of red pads available for the meantime. ^ Pre-release Konig Pads So, in a nutshell: 1. The pads are at a pre-release stage 2. Limited number available of red pads with the majority used for testing with some still surplus and available to buy (which helps pay costs) 3. A few reports of speedy wear on a grind - if you did want a pair out of the few I have surplus, please bear this in mind. Alternatively, this shouldn't be a problem if you run a ceramic/smooth rim. 4. I would really love to hear more back from those riding these pads - I've heard alot of positive things, but would like to hear any negatives too since these are the most valuable so I can improve things. 5. The plan is to make my website easier to update so I can put any information about my pads on there for any interested parties. I much prefer this rather than posting on TF and boring you all about my pads! 6. New batch of reuseable Vee pads currently being machined. Available again in 2 weeks time (around the 15th of June) Just to restate the request for more feedback - If you PM me with your experiences, please understand that I may not reply for a few days since I'm increasingly out with baby Callum and so don't reply to messages as swiflty as before. Thanks, Steve

15% Chav Some great questions in there! "Do you keep a special tracksuit to the side "for best"? " "Have you ever gone for a romantic meal for two in Pizza hut?"

It would be great if you could give us the full account of what you got back and how it came about. I'm thinking that this is a very common type of theft. Local chavs steal your very distinctive bike, either ride it themselves around the locality, or sell it on to another local chav for £50 for them to ride around. I guess they often change the components naively thinking it will disguise the bike a bit. Cutting to the chase, once you've spotted your bike being ridden around, how quick and easy was it to get the bike back? What did you have to do and was it possible to recover components that were sold on or get some money back for them? Were the individuals prosecuted for theft? I was thinking that our habit of taking photos of our bikes is really useful. If my bike was stolen, I think having that having a clear photo would be a huge help trying to prove that Chav X has stolen my bike. Also, maybe taking a note of the frame number (often stamped onto the underside of the BB) plus making a note of any other distinctive features on any of the components (chips/paint damage/unusual colours) would be an extra way of proving it just incase the thief claimed it was their frame. We could get together a definative list of what to do in such circumstances based on all the experiences we've had, and so help others to get things sorted asap rather than have to work it all out for themselves. Steve

I've just started properly practising them, and in a couple of sessions I'm progressing steadily. Only 23" at the moment (properly measured with my tape measure for what it's worth!), which is half what alot of people can do! I'm going straight to back wheel, and I'm hoping I'll be quickly sailing over 30" once I start practising to front wheel first/two wheels. Being able to make this magic "bar height" figure would be good enough to make me happy (Y) I've only had the opportunity to fit it in amoungst my schedule of full time work and looking after Callum in the last week since finally I got together somewhere to practise just near my house. Where I live is still being built, in fact the shops are being built at the moment so there's still no street furniture to ride on! My Trials playground Steve

I haven't got time to download it and try it out (Y) It would be interesting to take 2 intellibuddies and feed the responses from one to the other - Kind of like the Chinese take away trick! Anyone fancy giving it a go and posting the result?

We bought some Malteasers that turned out to be gone off. I wrote the following cheeky letter: They sent me a £1 voucher for their products. In hindsite I could have got more if I'd adopted a more threatening tone e.g. "I'm not happy and have written to Watchdog. I'll be passing on all the details including the more worrying incident a while ago where I found glass shards in a Malteasers packet"! (Bit of creative licence there!) Steve

Hey Aust, What did you get? I can appreciate you're excited about it now, but be careful you don't get carried away and become a super tatooed sailor! You'll have to live with those tats for life long after the novelty has worn off or pay for painful and expensive laser removal treatment. I'm not a fan of tatoos myself - I'm convinced I'd get bored of any design over time, also people make assumptions about you (that's love and hate on the knuckles rulled out!), and when I'm old and wrinkly I'll look a sorry state! So speakth the old man! Steve

Trying to bob a teething baby to sleep at the moment (Y)

how long left? any news?

I'm sure you've all seen the signs by the road side, in people's cars, in newspapers, had flyers through the door: "Be your own boss - Earn £100 to £2000 a month - www.workfromhome.co.uk!" etc. Or "Loss lbs now! - Call xxxxx - www.looseweight.co.uk" Strange that they never tell you how you might make lots of money, or about the products that can apparantly help you loose weight! I found this following article which explains the link between all these signs and reveals the sad way that people's desperation to seemingly make money from nothing ultimately means that the people laughing all the way to the bank are the Corporation at the top of the pecking order. To be enlightened check this out: http://www.cockeyed.com/workfromhome/workfromhome_s.html ^ One more for the "Life manual" which we should all be issued with on birth! Edit: Just been surfing his site some more - The guys a genius! For some fun after reading the article above, check out his pranks he's carried out :) The MacDonalds Menu one for example! http://www.cockeyed.com/pranks/prank.html Steve

Not bad luck, but instead undeniable proof of a complete lack of parental guidance from the Mum of the teenagers. I heard the Mum on radio blaming the government for her girls getting pregnant - the Sex education wasn't strong enough apparantly. I had a good laugh at that! She should be taking primary responsability for rearing her children that she brought into the world, and giving them the appropriate guidance! I would wager that she's the typical Chav mum that would rather relax in front of the TV than take an interest in her children and where they've got to late at night, hanging around with older youths etc. The Mum has already got her just desserts. Looking after children is hard work, and you have to put the child before yourself and the activities you'd like to do. Her daughters will be desperate to remain teenagers and live alittle. Guess who's going to have to do the baby sitting to make up for these girls not being mature enough to shoulder full time responsability for their off spring! Of course the people that suffer the most are the babies themselves. Have you noticed that those breeding away like mad are at the bottom of the social pyramid? The crazy thing is that having another child means more benefit money, a larger council house, and it all adds up along with the disability benefit, and the black market (cash in hand) work to a standard of living where they enjoy all life's luxeries. On the other hand, if you try and make something of your life by getting an education, and working full time, you're too saddled by paying back student loans, extortionate mortgages, council tax, stealth taxes to be able to afford living on one persons salary (or working and paying the expensive child care) and also keeping a child! Steve

A friend of mine is really into Ebay and he has already lost control of himself on there to the thrill of the bidding process. Plus he's already got caught out by some well known scams including one where he sent a mobile phone to someone in Africa before the money was sent so that "It would arrive in time for his son's birthday". Of course, the error of being duped into sending goods before payment is obvious, but what about some of the tricks where money appears to have been paid (I've heard about this being into bank accounts) only to then not be approved after the goods have been sent. Is this situation only possible if you accept on one of the more unusual money transfer methods (e.g. so that you can receive money from your prospective Nigerian buyer/scammer) or can this occur via UK cheques, postal orders and money sent to Paypal accounts? Maybe these problems are uniquely associated with payment methods from outside the UK? One thing that's annoying about all this ebay marlarky is that I find myself logging in every 5mins to see if anyone has bid higher! It's like torture when the price remains static all day! Anyway, I'm learning alot about ebaying at the moment. Isn't it amazing how bad most of the adverts are? They either over bombard you with the hard sell, or tell you nothing. I've put a much better advert in than an identical item (if I may say so myself!) which is finishing 1 day before mine and it's paying off. My item has now reached its reserve and is currently £30 higher than the rival. I know that there's still time to go and this may be the final highest bid, but because they wrote such a rubbish advert, it's not been hard to make mine stand out as the better one to go for! As further proof of how I've been learning about ebay, here's a comparison of the bid value progress for my item against an identical one that has recently completed. The anecdotal trend for a 7 day auction from the few items I've looked at is an inital fast rise from the stupidly low starting value over the first couple of days, a plateau at a steady price for a few days, and then frenzied interest again near the closure of the auction. Hopefully by finishing on a Saturday evening the people following the auction will be around to get involved in a crazy bidding war which takes my item to pretty much the price I paid for it new! Realistically my goal is to reach £190 if I can, (May be a long shot - I bought it new for £250 8 months ago) The reserve was £130 that has just been attained late last night. ^ Am I the only one that is this anal about ebay?! :"> Thanks for all your input! Steve

Thanks for all your advice :turned: I decided to send him a private message turning his offer down saying I wanted to carry out the sale within Ebay and that there was no reason why he couldn't win the auction. I think in the past I've received some money via paypal only to have it taken back out for being dodgy - Rather strange! I never did hear back from the person who sent me the money so I suspect they were upto no good. I wonder if you need to allow a period of time for the money to be verified before jumping into action ? Anyway, I've got 20 watchers for the item and it's slowly creeping up in bids even if the reserve hasn't been hit yet, so it's all looking good for a nice legit sale :) Steve message

The wonders of the invisible "Editted by" for SMs :">

I was reading about the Xbox versus PS3 thing in the paper (not the Sun!) Here's a simple version of what's happening! All the machines are going to be faster than current PCs because they're all based on newly developed processor technology. Interestingly, who ever wins the war of consoles, the main winner will be IBM who is making the processors for both the rivals! This is a major coup for them because AMD and Intel have been left behind here. In a nutshell, the Xbox has an inferiour spec to the PS3 because Microsoft have decided to concentrate on being the first to market. Microsoft are also hoping that despite having a lesser hardware spec (which will still be immense in comparison to anything on the market at the moment), they will be able to attract loyality via good quality games. I think that the HDTV aspect is just a gimic to create a smoke screen over other hardware issues. This will only be useful to a tiny number of people at the moment. Apparantly there isn't much money to be made in selling the Consoles, it's more in the Game development. You should expect to pay more in future for Games too, because to meet the hardware possibilities these will require bigger budgets. I currently owe 0 consoles and a knackered 400 Mhz PC. I last played games on my computer when I was a wee nipper and owned an Atari ST! Steve

I too used to spend plenty of time genning up from Dave Dennis' site that you've posted a link to there. It really inspired me as I was first getting into Trials. It was like a shining beacon of light in an otherwise murky and uninformed trials world! I couldn't have been retaining much of the info though because I then went out and bought an X-tort! Those were the days when X-Street Team riders were riding X-torts and I thought they looked very smart. ^ X-Street Team bikes - Check out how much higher the front end of the white one is with the Taboo forks compared to the Blue one with the Fatties! X-tort review I'm still waiting for my blind dog to be trained :turned: Steve

Hi, I'm a newbie to Ebay and being lazy at the moment thought it would be quicker to tap into your experience rather than trawl through the Ebay help (where I can never find the answers to my questions!) Someone has posted this rather dodgy question on the sale page for my item: The intial price was £10 and the item is worth upto 10x that so his/her first offer is hardly attractive! This question appears publically on the sale page I believe, along with my response. Surely even if I did want to pull a fast one (not my style), it's going to be obvious if the question appears? Secondly this is surely unethical to behave in such a way. I'd rather play by the rules than try and pull a fast one since I'm confident the item will reach a good price. Thanks in advance, Steve