Recently the Seattle Post Intelligencer had to close it's doors. This was just the next in an ever growing list of print newspapers that have had to compete with similar 'free' services on the Internet.

The Associated Press has been fighting the dissemination of news via these free sources and it's going to lose. The cat is already out of the bag, the horse has already left the barn; pick any metaphor you want because it's too late to turn back the clock now and restrict the Internet.

Saul Hansell wrote a nice piece for the New York Times stating that the AP's real enemies are its customers. I agree.

I had to get Cameron to show me how to use Windows Movie Maker in order to create this…

I'm riding up the Denny Creek road on day one of the 2009 Courage Classic. Trying to film while riding is fun. The second bit is me rolling into the finish at Suncadia.

The other day at work while in a meeting a co-worker called me the Anthony Bourdain of the iSchool. :| They said I was outspoken, hip and sarcastic.

Of course I'm not as skilled, have much less professional experience, am not as well travelled and for sure I'm not as hip but hey, I'll take it.

I think it was the tall, skinny thing to be honest  but who am I to hold someone back when they are paying me a compliment…

Every time I go for a ride that is picture worthy I bring my camera. And so naturally I'm more likely to be behind the camera than in front of it. Now I'm not some sort of vain camera whore or anything but I like to document stuff and 'stuff' includes me so any time someone else takes a picture of me - be it on the bike or off - I love getting copies.

Last Friday I was racing at the track and when I got back to work on Monday there was a message in my inbox from a co-worker. Turns out her brother was in town and just happened to be at the track to watch some bike racing and to play with his camera.

When he heard the announcer mention my name it rang a bell (seems my co-worker had told him I raced bikes and that I did so on the track) and since he was playing around with the low light conditions anyway he squeezed off a few shots. He sent these to his sister and she sent them along to me. Nice.

I love Craig's List! Just when you think you have found all the gems up pops another. This one came from a co-worker (thanks Nick!) and I am in f'n tears after reading it:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sea/1192150038.html

Having worked in the bike biz for 15 years I sympathize with so much of this… And with quips like, "I also want a unicorn to blow me.", how can you go wrong? You can't; that was rhetorical. Now read this. And laugh. Hard. Then go for a ride and revel in the elitism that is second nature to all experienced or wannabe experienced cyclists.

Today one of the most amazing cyclists in the world won yet another race. Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli won the French National TT championship and in so doing added her 56th national title to her palmares.

Oh yeah, did I mention that she is FIFTY YEARS OLD? And still spanking women half her age. Amazing.

Just for fun let's compare Jeanie to a well know, perennial American powerhouse: Kent Bostick (just because he's also 50, sponsored and was covered all the time in VeloNews back in the day).

Hello…! Is there any doubt?

Too often we lose track of why we ride or race and when someone like this comes along you have to know that they simply love what they do. Sure, it might be a bit obsessive at times and they might not have any children but hey, respect worthy without a doubt.

Two years ago Jeannie was described as the best cyclist in history that gets the least recognition. I agree.

I've been following Joe Friel on Twitter for a few days now and every damn day he says pretty much the same thing.

"Montrose to Crested Butte, CO. Long day in saddle. TSS 292."

At first it did not even realize he was using an acronym and them I'm like, what the hell does TSS mean? So I looked it up:

Training Stress Score (TSS) - The TSS represents a calculated number that takes into account the duration and intensity of a workout to arrive at a single score of the overall training load and physiological stress created by that session. One hour of functional threshold (as hard as you can go for one hour) = 100 Training Stress Score points.

Welcome to the new world. At one point you could just sort of rely on your breathing and how labored it was. Then came heart rate which was quickly eclipsed by power. And now there is TSS.

Shit. Soon you won't be able to exercise without toting along a CPU. Oh wait, that's already happening…

"How was your ride honey?"

"Well, my TSS was 255…"

Nice.

For all the problems that Twitter has faced recently with the system slowdowns, lack of delivery, spam, etc. it still does one thing really well and that is let you keep up with those that use it.

And really, isn't that what it's all about? I recently went on a binge of sorts and sought out all the professional cyclists I admire and began following them. Know what? It's really cool to read about their daily trials and tribulations. People like Robbie McEwen who is coming back after yet another horrific crash was just out and managed 1.5 hours on the bike and did 200 m at 45 km/hr.

It's heartening. It's interesting. It's educational. It's a huge time suck. But it's also a ton of fun.

Oh yeah, unless you have a cell plan with unlimited texts, perish the thought of sending updates to your mobile device for everyone you follow… good grief. I only get updates for my real friends now and view the rest via the web.

Good stuff for sure.

Thanks to my friend Hank K for this gem.

Okay, it might be (read: probably is) just me but the documentation for dasBlog is just slightly less than ideal… I usually figure everything out but it's almost always written at such a high level that you really need to know your stuff to get the job done. Apparently I know just barely enough stuff. Thank goodness. I guess this post could also be called, "Upgrading dasBlog for Dummies".

In my case I upgraded dasBlog from 2.0 to 2.3 but these instructions would probably work for just about any version upgrade. Why upgrade? 2.2 had the features I really wanted (OpenID, fixed Daylight Saving bug, enable anti-spam, etc.) and I just got the latest version available.

This post assumes that you have console or at least RDP access to your server, that you are a member of the local Administrators group on your server and that your server is running Windows Server 2003 and that IIS 6 is your web server.

So I tried to follow the upgrade instructions and failed. When I would load my blog the version was not being displayed correctly so something about the engine was not right. I thought about it for a bit and then realized that dasBlog is really compartmentalized in that the content is quite separate from all the other stuff so I figured I could try to perform a 'fresh' install and then just dump my content in this. It worked!

Okay, let's get to the nuts and bolts.

1) BACKUP YOUR SHIT. It goes without saying, right? Of course not so I'll say it here. In my case I backed up/copied the entire dasblogce directory but if that is prohibitive you can get away with just the following things.

• The entire content directory.
• The entire SiteConfig directory.
• The directory containing any custom theme you might be using. If you are using a stock theme you can forget about this step.

I would also recommend taking a screen shot of your configuration.

Once you are sure you have all that stuff in a safe place you can blow away everything in the dasblogce directory on your server.

2) Now download the dasBlog 2.3 web files.

In the upgrade instructions it tells you to run the DasBlogUpgrader.exe script against your content but it's assumed that this script is packaged with the Web Files download and as of this post it still isn't. Luckily I found it and you can download it here.

3) Now open a Command Prompt and navigate to the directory where you have the DasBlogUpgrader.exe script and run it against your content like so:

If you are not sure what to do it's fine to answer Y to all the questions. That's what I did.

4) Next you want to upload everything. Put the entire contents of the 2.3 dasblogce directory in the dasblogce directory on your server.

Then put all of your upgraded content in the content directory on your server.

ASIDE - I use Windows Live Writer to post most of the time and all of that is saved in the content folder so if you back up all of it you are good to go.

If you were using a custom theme you will need to upload this to the themes directory.

5) Correct permissions are critical to allow dasBlog to run. You need to give the NETWORK SERVICE account the Modify permission on your content, logs and SiteConfig directory.

6) Lastly you need to configure your blog. In the SiteConfig directory you want to edit site.config. Just edit all the recommended values near the top, it should all be really easy and obvious stuff. If you are using a custom theme this is where you will need to specify the name.

You also want to edit the siteSecurity.config file in the same directory. This is where you add your account as an admin and the accounts of anyone else that needs the ability to post to your blog. If it's just you, simply edit the only admin entry and you're done.

7) If you had customized your blogroll or links you can quickly and easily restore them simply by copying the appropriate .opml file and navigatorLinks.xml file up to your SiteConfig directory.

8) Load your blog in a browser, log in and check all the configuration entries. Here is where you can enable OpenID, email, anti-spam, etc.

Done!

Someone is no doubt going to read this and go, "What a retarded way to upgrade dasBlog…" What can I say, it works and this way I know I'm running the latest engine with all the features and fixes and patches for sure.