East Eats West

Stinging digital travel criticism

When traveling through New Zealand many backpackers and tourists still rely on the legendary Lonely Planet travel guide. However, with the advent of the community-generated online content and feedback, the game has changed (and not only because of WikiLeaks). At the forefront of travel-advice by travelers for travelers is the website TripAdvisor. TripAdvisors lets any traveler review an accommodation. The reviews are not edited and entail an overall ranking. I often use it for an independent review of an accommodation. However, while most reviews are fairly neutral and positive, some lodgings get outrightly bashed. I found that particularly for budget-accommodation guests can be unforgiving with their criticism, sometimes blaming an inner-city hotel for a noisy street or a remote motel for a lack of services. While such feedback can be valuable to pinpoint the bad apple or help managers to improve, I found that some reviews for budget accommodations are too strict, not taking the low price into consideration. You get what you pay for, isn't that fair? For managers TripAdvisor can be a blessing or a curse. A high ranking attracts guests but spiteful comments can damage the business profoundly as the only way to respond for managers is to post a comment that clarifies the criticism, however, they cannot delete vengeful reviews. www.TripAdvisor.com

Budget audio home system

When it comes to looks the Bang & Olufson high-end and high-price home entertainment and audio systems are hard to beat. With various active loudspeakers and control panels one can turn a house into a multi-media auditorium. But it comes at a price. The much cheaper, and much cooler alternative, is to buy an Apple laptop and an Apple Airport Express Wi-Fi station. The Airport Express simply plugs into any power socket and picks up the Wi-Fi signal transmitted by iTunes. One then simply plugs in any active loudspeaker or amplifier into the Airport Express and without further fiddling one can then beam music via Itunes to any room. Believe me, it sounds harder to do than it is! The Airport Express costs a bit more than 110 USD and the only real downside is that the MP3 format of Itunes is not really high-fidelity. But it is enough for some background music.

 

My apple and my friends

Since my last blog entry about my new Apple MacBook Pro two things surprised me. First, I used to refer to my old IBM ThinkPad as my computer. The apple in contrast is referred to as Mac, so it got a name. The second thing is that I got so many enthusiastic emails from friends, congratulating me for my new Apple. It really seems as I joined a new club. I even inspired two friends to get their own MacBook Pros. Wise decision!

On the other hand I have to admit that the Apple deserves praise rightfully. In contrast to Windows it does not try to overwhelm its user with gazillion of functions. With Windows I always felt as I have to adapt to the software and not the other way around. With the Apple in contrast, I rarely use the drop-down menu or try figuring out how something works. It is all there in one simple graphical interface. For example looking for a file does not include opening explorer and answering various questions. Looking for a file on the Apple is typing in a word in he search function and then the Apple gives me a selection of findings across documents, photos and even website. Very smart!

meApple

I had my sturdy and reliable IBM thinkpad laptop for over five years and it has never failed me until recently when the wireless antenna broke. So I decided to look for a new laptop that is easy to use. After having a careful look at Windows Vista and Windows 7 I went to the Apple store in order to have a look at the legendary Mac computers. The most striking thing about the Macs are the incredibly built quality that Lenovo nowadays lacks. I was surprised by the incredible screen quality and the ease of use. Particularly editing and uploading pictures for website is very easy. So I decided to get a new MacBook Pro. But actually what surprised me the most about getting an Apple is that people start to react enthusiastically towards me being now also a member of the Apple family. I realized that buying an Apple is a lifestyle change. Well, not everyone is so enthusiastic that I spend hours with my new companion.

Is facebook evil?

Do you love facebook? Do you think it is a wonderful tool to stay in contact with friends? And do you think it is great because it is free? Well, think again. Have you tried to erase your profile from facebook and failed? It is free for a reason. Facebook collects all the information about you (just read the privacy guidelines) and is constructing a detailed profile of each of its users (that is you). Facebook knows where you are and what you do (status), who you know (friends) and what you buy (if you shop via facebook). It has also pictures of you (photos) and as the rumours go six big commercial companies are tapping into this information. Facebook openly states that your facebook-data is used for marketing (read the privacy agreement). There are a few things one should not do on facebook:

• post any private information like birthdays, address, preferences

• not buy anything on facebook

• not post any inappropriate comments, pictures or links on facebook (like “I am bored at work”)

• be very selective to whom one links

In order to clean up your facebook-profile, use this very useful “how-to”: http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/

PS: Check your public online profile easily on www.zoominfo.com and be shocked!

Enhanced pictures

Picture: Before and after using Picasa.

Sometimes the internet offers a brief moment of joy and pure astonishment. I recently had such a moment when I used Picasa, a free photoshop program by Google, to work on my pictures for my blog. It was outrageously easy to use and my pictures looked much more professional. Try it yourself and see the difference! Some blog-programs even support Picasa so you can upload your pictures in a breeze.

You can download the program for free here: http://picasa.google.com/

Delete everything

I received some fearful feedback on my last blog entry about “delete all”. A friend told me that he had stopped using his bonus or credit cards for buying groceries as he recently was asked to participate in a consumer research project based on his shopping habits. So the retailer knew about his preferences because of his card. This highlights the first problem of data in the digital age: as long as we pay with cards or buy online we leave a trace of data everywhere. Only cash is safe.

Furthermore, anything you send via a network like the internet or your company network will be stored either by your computer, the network or any data mining system like Google or Yahoo. So better think twice before you send something sensitive via the internet and definitely do not use your company email. You better make sure you get rid of all the data on your own computer because deleting it only will not do the job. Your computer retains the information as you easily can find out if you use a data-retrieval program. A sure way of deleting all the unwanted information on your computer, memory stick, external hard disk etc. is to use an erasure program like Space Eraser.

The third problem is that the government or other authorities collect history about you. In Switzerland if a bank or an asset manager thinks you are a criminal, for example they suspect you of money laundering, the federal police will put you on a “blacklist”. You can ask the police if you are on the list but not why or how you got on it. Even if you are innocent you will stay on the list. If you are on it you will very likely stay on it for a long time. The same if the FBI, CIA or any other clandestine government organization think that you are a terrorist and put you on a list. All of a sudden you could be barred from flying or the like. Unfortunately there is no solution to this problem yet.

And by the way: the next time you upload data, text, pictures or comments on YouTube, Flickr, Picasa or Facebook, better think twice. It will be stored forever!

Read more (in German) on data-security here:

http://de.news.yahoo.com/gp/20080102/ttc-wann-sind-geloeschte-daten-wirklich-a8a9a5f_1.html

Wicked Wiki

With career paths becoming more erratic and professionals moving about it becomes harder and harder to store information and knowledge in a company. And for modern-day knowledge workers the issue becomes amplified. Managers near and far increasingly complain about the lack of communication in their company. I discussed this problem recently with a friend of mine who works in IT and who experiences exactly this challenge in his multi-cultural and multi-location IT-team. His modern-day solution is as simple as beautiful: make employees use wikis (insert definition from Wikipedia). A wiki in short is an online forum that groups discussions into subject and therefore stores knowledge. But it does not only store knowledge it also encourages intellectual competition. Because as long people are not motivated or rewarded for sharing knowledge, they will not do it. Just telling them won’t do!

Has anyone already experience with wikis in corporate environment? If yes, please share your insights in the comment section. Thanks!

Which SmartPhone do you need?

I have never been attracted to mobile phones and always thought them too expensive. But recently I renewed my phone contract and my friend Ann in Bangkok convinced me that a combination of a PDA (personal digital assistant) and mobile phone is more practical as I would have only one phone instead of two devices. After reading a few reviews and consulting a sales person I finally bought an expensive (990 CHF without provider discount) Nokia 9300i Communicator and I have been fiddling around with it for a week. Let me share with you my short experience with this clever machine.

Before you buy a SmartPhone you have to ask yourself 3 questions: Do you need all Windows Office applications like Excel or Word? How do you like to enter data: touch-screen or keypad? How big must the display big? The Nokia Communicator’s main advantage is its fool-proof functionality with a separate “phone” on the outside and its big key-pad for typing messages. So if you are not a tech-geek but know how to use a Nokia phone, you will be able to use this machine right away (trust me, I can use it and I did not read the manual). Additionally I can get the Communicator easily repaired locally without sending it to a service centre, saving me time and hassle. Synchronizing it with Microsoft Outlook is dead-easy and functions well. And last but not least the size of the Communicator, basically a bigger phone, is handy and it does not look like a rear-view mirror. The downsides are that the display is rather small, especially for Internet-surfing, which you can do via GPRS or WLAN, and the little knob that functions as a mouse is rather clumsy to use. For example models from HP and QTek are easier to navigate as they have a touch screen. Furthermore is the Communicator rather slow for example when you scroll through days in the calendar. If you want to download Windows Office files or work with Word and Excel the Windows Mobile software is definitely better than the Symbian software on the Nokia. With some models with bigger touch-screens typing messages with the touch-screen might be difficult for some users and some of the phones only have a small or no keyboard at all. Last but not least the Communicator is the prettiest machine of them all. The Nokia Communicator’s software incorporates a calendar, a web-browser, Real Player and it can play MP3-files. With its 128MB memory card it can hold quite a bit of data and the battery lasts for several days, depending on usage. Contrary to the Blackberry the Communicator has a pull not a push mail-functionality, meaning that emails have to be actively downloaded from an Exchange Server (instead being “pushed” on the device automatically like with the Blackberry).

The bottom line is that SmartPhones are rather expensive between 700 and 1’000 CHF but the added functionality can definitely facilitate business-life. And if you really want to be part of the young urban binging white collar crowd, get a “Crackberry”. Otherwise the Communicator is a reliable and neat choice.