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Editor's welcome - March 2005

Welcome to this, the March 2005 edition of Classic Car Times, which I think, has the best reader’s prize draw competition that I’ve yet been able to offer. I won’t say anymore here but make sure you enter!

This month also sees the return of the ‘Hot Seat’, this month featuring another overseas contributor, Gene Garland.

When you look at this, please also make sure you check out the link at the bottom that tells you how you too can contribute to the site. This feature was put together to allow people who say ‘I could never write an article’ to see just how easy and enjoyable it is. The last note I had from Gene concluded:

"I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it"

Unfortunately, I’ve had a couple of unpleasant incidents this month.

The first was that the road tax is due on the Mini. Working in IT, and more specifically the Internet, I was extremely interested and pleased to see that the DVLA were offering a facility to renew the road tax via their website. I good application of the technology I thought for those of us who work full time and welcome the convenience.

Of course, things are never quite that simple.

The first time I tried I was actually too early. Apparently, you cannot make the request until about 15 days before it is due. Why send it out so early then you’re probably asking exactly as I did.

My second attempt failed for some unexplained technical reason. This didn’t worry me, these things happen, so I tried again. I was then told that I would have to wait 2 hours after my last failed attempt.

Attempt 4 was a couple of days later and resulted in the same failure. The message advises you that you can also renew it over the phone, which was attempt 5. This also fell foul of the 2-hour rule.

Yesterday I queued up with everyone else at the Post Office!

The second unpleasant thing this month was a message from a site visitor. This is what I received:

Your "soft-ware" is of"racist obstructionary interference" by refusing to send an E-mail to the owner/advertiser of a car,your un-ethical business practices constitutes felonious intent.
Cease/desist any/all future contact RE: this E-mail.

Hopefully your local police will arrest/prosecute/convict and you'll be in jail where you displace that you belong!

For those of you who have either never registered on the site or did it some time ago, I’ll remind you what happens and why. When you register, I need to be confident that the email address supplied is accurate otherwise we might end up with adverts where there’s no means of getting hold of the seller. To check the email address is correct, an email is sent to it with a link back to the site. If you receive the email, act upon the instructions and use the link, I can be confident that the address was indeed correct and activate your account. You can then login and use the full features of the site. Quite simple really and an approach used on thousands of websites.

I obviously have some visibility of what you people do on the site and so understand what the sequence of events was in this case. This person (who I obviously won’t name for fear of being arrested, prosecuted and convicted) registered on the site and received the email confirming that this had happened.

However, instead of reading and following the simple instructions and activating the account (something that everyone else manages), he simply tried to login, which failed because he had not used the email link, and then sent me the above. I do know however that he had received the email, as the above tirade was actually a reply to it.

I was obviously extremely put out when I received this message and considered sending back something equally strong, but I thought better of it. What good would come of it? I simply removed all details about him and honoured his wish that I desist all contact. I don’t need people like that visiting the site and you probably don’t want to have dealings with them.

So why am I going to great lengths to explain this? Well firstly, I feel better for getting it off my chest. Secondly, just as a reminder and plea that if you do have any problems, issues or suggestions regarding the site then simply drop me a friendly message and I’ll do my best to sort it out. Please just remember that this is all done as a hobby so it may take me a while to get back to you.

To put a balanced view on matters, for every message I get like that above, I probably get a hundred of encouragement and praise which are always appreciated and remind me why I put the effort in. Thanks to all of you who take the time to do this.

Finally, if anyone does know what "where you displace that you belong" actually means then I’d be keen to hear from you.

As ever, I hope you enjoy the rest of the site this month.

    John Cooper
    Editor

editor@classiccartimes.co.uk