Featured What you been doing with your TRIUMPH today??

As of 2021 no such things as cheques anymore here - deemed an archaic method of payment. Banks do not accept or cash them anymore. This poses a problem for American citizens eligible of American pensions living here, as the U.S. only have electronic banking within its borders, and send out pension cheques abroad.

 

In the UK cheques are an out of date thing yet here is something that always winds me up....

I want to tax a vehicle. Payment is instant by bank transfer and can't be dated so if it's the 30th of the month it goes back to the 1st, one month wasted.
I normally pay for 12 months, then subject to weather, cash the tax in for refund accordingly a number of months later. The tax stops that instant and no further use on the public highway allowed.
The refund usually arrives within a week by.... yep you guessed it, cheque.
You then have to mess about cashing or uploading the cheque.

If payment can come out directly then why can't it go back by the same means?

Rant over

 

I understand your pain, which is why I pay monthly by direct debit. Your can SORN your bike easily at any time during the month and re-tax it at anytime after your SORN. All done through the DVLA web site and the bank and no cheques to worry about.

 

My Barclays account has £1000 limit on paying in cheques via the app. I know as 90 yr old mother-in-law has no internet, smart phone or pc and still only uses cheques - (We do her online shopping for her and she pays us back via cheque).
There must be thousands of older people that can't cope with tech - and probably safer for it.
(Cheque is a check for our American friends)

 

Know what you mean about our older ones. I’m guessing the banks will keep branches open for a while longer, but as time passes and more and more people adopt the tech they will progressively close them down.

 

How do your older folk get on, has the government sent them all to tech college?

 

I wouldn't know really. My sister takes care of my 91 year old mum's affairs. I suppose that's what most people do.
Government hasn't got anything to do with it though - it's the bastard banks. They don't care about anything but making money.

 

Self fulfilling prophesy I suppose, reduce branch numbers, open hours and poorly staff them so they become inconvenient and people will use online banking.....
"Oh, we closed the branches because no one was using them"

 

I don't trust the security of a phone, either due to bugs or loss/theft. So I don't do anything like banking or email on it, or install apps in general. (Just some handy open source apps for music and images, and TuneECU)

 

Use a good anti virus software package and VPN software and you should not have any security worries using your mobile for banking and online shopping etc.

 

Worked a couple of hours with the TEC cam. Had to improvise a bit with the crank locating pin.

 

I don't think you are alone on the opinion expressed above

It's ok others mentioning McAfee, Kapersky or VPNs etc but for individuals already confused and out of their depth this just adds another layer......

Even the help pages assume the reader has a degree in IT

 

Where there's a will theres a way

 

Today was an intense Bonnie day. In the morning at 6 degrees to the office and then in the early afternoon over the highway and my favorite mountain route, the "Alpl", to the dealer of my confidence (www.gesslbauer.at) in Birkfeld/Styria. The way there was indeed very cool, because it had a maximum of 3 degrees at the "Alpl" at 1,000 m above sea level. At my dealer then a main stand was mounted on my Bonnie. From now on, chain cleaning is much easier. The cost of this was €290.-. The assembly was free of charge for me. In total I was 320 km on tour today.
Below are a few photos.

 

Nooo! Buggy and backdoor ridden stuff that'll leave you as vulnerable, snoop on you, and clog up and slow down your phone or computer. Whilst charging you for the privilege to boot!

Having had to suffer antivirus on Windows work PC's that halved the speed of compiling code and generally got in the way, I consider anti-virus a virus in itself as it spreads and eats up computer resources.

Fortunately, for last job I could put Linux on my PC and feel like I had control over what it did

 

Personally, I'm not out of my depth with such things, but it reminds me of the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. The antidote to installing unnecessary apps shouldn't be to install more, just don't swallow the first fly

Personally, I'm a minimalist and try and remove/disable everything I can apart from the essentials that I actually want to use, less to go wrong.

 

nice weather went for a ride

 

Not my experience at all and have the same products on my phone, tablet and laptop. In many years of use I’ve not had any issues.

 

Had an issue with the Thruxton over the last week or so. Started last week, basically when I turned on the ignition the electronics came on (dials did their sweep) all good until I pressed the starter. Massive click and everything went dead. Tried a few times eventually the bike started. Anyway went to the bike yesterday and same problem, but the bike would not start. Took the seat off and did a little investigating. All seemed ok, except the nut on the live terminal on the battery was tight but did move a little under pressure. So tightened in up less than a quarter turn and hey presto bike fired up first time. Left it alone a few times and started every time I tried it started. Just goes to show how fickle these machines are lol.

 

I've had that - ever so slightly loose on the live terminal and the bike wouldn't start.