Month / July 2006

by TheJames

Hard Drive Failure

Last night I went to copy a CD for Jenny and my laptop gave me a very
bad message.
“Your hard drive has reported an error that Mac OS X cannot recover
from. If this drive has not failed completely back up as much data as
you can.” the next few minutes were filled with a slow torture or
intermittent clicking noises emanating from my laptop during its
death throws.

I managed to back up some of my files, but little things like ALL of
my bookmarks, contacts, email, web projects, music… (the list goes
on and on) have all been lost. My last back up is about 3 months old.

So, please send my your contact info and any bookmarks and links to
files / programs that I might find useful. And learn from my pain;
back up regularly.

by TheJames

2006 Tour de France : a Start with Scandal

As many people’s free time gets consumed by the greatest bicycle race, controversy overshadows the sport.

It has already been reported many places, a phenomenal number of riders have been banned from this year’s TDF due to a Spanish report titled “Operación Puerto”. Below is a complete list of the riders under investigation for what in the professional cycling world is referred to as “doping”. The wikipedia describes doping as “the use of performance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids”.

Some people may remember that Lance Armstrong was just recently cleared of doping allegations from a 1999 investigation! So needless to say it is not a fact that these riders are guilty of doping, just that they are under investigation and thus ineligible to race in this year’s TDF.

So pick your favorites and enjoy this year’s “Le Tour de France” on OLN with complete live and later in the day enhanced coverage.

Read the full story here » VeloNews: 2006 Tour de France Special Coverage

The following riders were named in the ongoing Operación Puerto doping case by Spanish investigators on Thursday

Astaná-Würth

  • Michele Scarponi (I)
  • Marcos Antonio Serrano (Sp)
  • David Etxebarria (Sp)
  • Joseba Beloki (Sp)
  • Angel Vicioso (Sp)
  • Isidro Nozal (Sp)
  • Unai Osa (Sp)
  • Jaksche Joorg (G)
  • Giampaolo Caruso (I)

CSC

  • Ivan Basso (I)

Caisse D’Epargne-Iles Baleares

  • Constantino Zaballa (Sp)

Saunier Duval

  • Carlos Zarate (Sp)

Ag2r

  • Francisco Mancebo (Sp)

T-Mobile

  • Jan Ullrich (G)
  • Oscar Sevilla (Sp)

Phonak

  • Jose Enrique Gutierrez (Sp)
  • Jose Ignacio Gutierrez (Sp)

Communidad de Valencia

  • Vicente Ballester (Sp)
  • David Bernabeu (Sp)
  • David Rodriguez (Sp)
  • Jose Adrian Bonilla (Sp)
  • Juan Gomis Lopez (Sp)
  • Eladio Jimenez Sanchez (Sp)
  • David Latasa (Sp)
  • Ruben Plaza (Sp)
  • Jose Luis Martinez (Sp)
  • Manuel Llorent (Sp)
  • Antonio Olmo (Sp)
  • David Munoz (Sp)
  • Javier Cherro (Sp)
  • Javier Pascual (Sp)former rider and now an official

Unibet.com

  • Carlos Garcia Quesada (Sp)

Riders retired or suspended for doping

  • Roberto Heras (Sp)
  • Angel Casero (Sp)
  • Santiago Perez (Sp)
  • Tyler Hamilton (USA)
  • Igor Gonzalez Galdeano (Sp)