March 14, 20088 Comments on Bicycle repair videos
Alex is the Bicycle Tutor. He’s a bike mechanic in Vancouver, BC, and he posts bike repair and maintenance video tutorials to his blog. Very helpful stuff! Go see the Bicycle Tutor for bike care tips and instruction.
Which reminds me: I need to change the chain on my road bike. I have 1500 miles on my current chain (10 speed) and it’s already stretched. At $50 a pop, those 10 speed chains are not cheap.
February 27, 20084 Comments on Lucas Brunelle in Sweden
I’m a fan of Lucas Brunelle’s alleycat cycling videos. Here he is in Stockholm, Sweden.
I found this at Pierre Requiroule’s blog, where he writes: “Complètement malade et ça ressemble à une compilation de ce qu’on peut faire de pire à vélo.” That’s French for “These guys are freakin’ maniacs on bikes!” Those Swedes sure like their car horns, and those articulated buses look scary.
And I love the name of Pierre’s blog, which is “Tant de belles choses à vélo.” That’s French for “Cyclelicious” 🙂
February 26, 20084 Comments on Google AdSense TOS change — publish your privacy policy
Google has recently updated their terms and conditions for using their AdSense program. When you log in to AdSense to see how many pennies you’ve made for the day, you’ll be asked to accept or reject the new terms.
For most bloggers, the most important change has to do with posting a privacy policy that clearly discloses that third parties (such as Google AdSense) may be placing and reading cookies on your users’ browser, or using web beacons to collect information, in the course of ads being served on your website. Your privacy policy should also include information about user options for cookie management.
You can borrow the text of my privacy policy if you like. In my opinion, it mostly follows Google’s privacy notice requirement, though as of this writing it doesn’t yet contain information about cookie management. “User options for cookie management” means mentioning that web browsers allow you to disable and delete “cookies” with text like this:
“Cookies” are data sent to your web browser from a web server (such as Google) that can uniquely identify your computer and store information about user preferences. Most web browsers will accept cookies by default, but they can be set to reject cookies, either from all websites or from specific sites. You can also manually delete cookies from your web browser. These options are generally set through a “Privacy” setting in your browser setup.
I’m not a lawyer, and this advice is worth about what you paid for it. For most people, the easiest way to meet the Google AdSense TOS privacy requirement is to write a blog post with your privacy policy and then change your home page template to point to that blog post permalink page.
February 15, 20084 Comments on Robert Hurst’s blog
Robert Hurst is the guy who wrote The Art of Urban Cycling, which is now just called The Art of Cycling. He has his own website / blog up now at Industrialized Cyclist. Besides his blog on (mostly) biycle stuff, he has a nice section on bicycle accident and safety statistics — check out that URL if you want a clue about how he feels about this research… 🙂
His book, by the way, is about the best I’ve read on practical city cycling. Robert covers it all — if you haven’t read his book, I highly recommend it (and not just because Amazon will throw a few dimes at me if you buy the book…)
February 12, 200813 Comments on Bicycle blog
Blogged.com is a new blog directory that promises to help you “find better blogs.” Their directory of bicycle blogs looks pretty good — all listed bicycle blogs that I’m familiar with are worthwhile and I intend to check the others out.
I might just be writing this because they gave me a favorable mention in the directory, of course.
Amy the marketing person stroked my ego with this email: “Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.6 (GREAT) score out of (10). Your blog is currently in the top ten in the Sports / Cycling category of Blogged.com. This is quite an achievement!” I’m so easy to manipulate, I know.
If you need more bicycle blogs to read, take a look at Blogged.com’s cycling directory of blogs. You can see my own bicycle blog directory here.
February 8, 20086 Comments on 650B news site started
Crooked Cog Networks has started the 650B website to covers news, rumors (unsubstantiated and otherwise), and reviews of 650B mountain bikes.
Expect 650B news posted to sixfiftyb.com from NAHBS this weekend, where 650B bicycles from Ahren, Pacenti, Ventana, DeSalvo, Engin, Moots, Sycip and others will be shown.