Aardvark

So set myself up as a mine of useless information over at Aardvark (http://vark.com/).

 

Its one of those social sites that you hope makes enough critical mass to work.

 

To test it out I asked a question by sending an IM. Of course it was a real question I cared about " where can I get good sushi in Brussels?". It seems strange that in a town with so many foreigners in it I have not managed to find any decent Sushi yet.

I got an immediate answer from the Bot saying:

Aardvark says:

Got it. I'll find someone in your network who knows about **Japanese food**, and send them your question now.

I'll send you an answer in a few minutes!

 

True to its word quickly I received:

From Charles F./29/M/Brussels,BE, Re: **Japanese food**)

 

frankly, i haven't found anyplace truly great. samourai is well reputed, but i've never been. also rather pricey.

 

(Type 'thanks', or write back by starting with 'Charles:' -- like, "Charles: tell me more...")

 

I of course did send my thanks to Charles. Especially as I have been to Samourai (http://www.tablefinder.com/eng/Restaurant/samourai/) a resturant that delivers decent basic Sushi, while charging for a level of artwork it fails to diliver.

However, it was a real person providing real answers is real time.

 

Now I have to see if I can return the favor to someone else!

 

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Road away from the Sun

I've been waiting for these shots since we changed to daylight savings and the nice volcano put the dust into the air. The church is Zaventem.

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Travel Trials

OK so generally not a good week for my commute to Brussels.

The first issue was as I was checking in at LCY airport I received an email from the carrier VLM saying they had rescheduled my flight for the following week.

This did not particularly faze me as I had plenty of time to discuss any issues with the client. In fact, I was very happy with VLM for the electronic advanced warning.

Unfortunately when I landed I received a similar message for the following three weeks flights.

At this point I called the as usual fantastically helpful customer service people to see what was going on.

The bad news was that they had decided not to offer the early morning flight any longer. Now this did not cheer me up, but I am constantly advising and helping businesses to make hard decisions so I cannot really complain (much).

So in the end I have had to cancel the flights and am back to traveling to Brussels by Eurostar. Not a complete killer, despite the four am get up on Monday, but it means I will get home an hour and a half later on Friday. I get little enough time with the family that this is painful.

Well I got over that as I had a good work week on project, as the system was being belligerent and the team hit it head on and won. (Sounds so much better than we found a work around for a bug)

My next trial came today as around lunch I was informed by one of my coworkers that the local bus drivers had just gone on strike. The issue for me is I needed to get from one side of the airport where I work to the other side where the passenger terminal was. Of course you may have guessed the only way to do this is to get one of the shuttle busses! After much consideration (and panic) the issue was solved by another very kind coworker that drove me around the airport.

So at least the drama’s are over for the weekend, and I’m home to recharge for next week's issues!

 

 

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Diplomats

Well diplomats are somewhat a dime a dozen in Brussels du to the number of Embassies, Missions and Delegations based there. Also as I reside near the BRU airport and actually work there, you get used to the convoy's of police cars and motorbikes picking them up and dropping them off. These occurrences along with the semi random huge jumps in local security, are just part of the day to day.

However, this mornings one was unusual enough for a double take. So diplomat x, fully kitted out in their speed riding gear on their bicycle completely blended in with the area, even with the neon outfit. The very large SUV (4x4) police car with blue flashing lights and trailing car with diplomatic tags both doing the same 15kph as the bike made everything just a little bit obvious.

 

I really felt sorry for the diplomatic protection police who are normally the byword for discreet protection for their foreign visitors.

 

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Fond Memories

Well I came across the link below via Twitter today (http://twitter.com/Paul_Hartrick ) and nearly fell off my chair laughing!

http://paulhartrick.com/where-is-the-mens-room

 

Japan really is the place for culture shock for Europeans and Americans and the article brought back some great memories. I really want to go back for work as I love the place and the people.

 

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Reply on Twitter

OK so in reply to the comment from Q1999

"still not sure about the whole twitter thing. it has proven its right to exist, but - ok, let me own up - my days are too boring and I have to few friends to hop on board"

That is part of what I love about twitter. You really only need to know 1 or 2 people and just have buckets of time! You can then go look at their friend list. You then click on the friends name and read their Twitters if interesting click follow, if not move on to the next person or look at this persons friends. You can burn a LOT of time this way so don't do it at work!

Another way of finding interesting people/tweets is twitscoop (http://www.twitscoop.com/ or set up a column in TweetDeck) This gives you a view of what is "Buzzing" and what topics are "Trending". As any particular Buzz or trend grabs your interest, just click on it. You will then be taken to a list of tweets about that. Guess what, if you find a tweet interesting click on the users name and you can see all of their tweets. Again if you like the tweets follow the user, if not move on.

Basically some of it is gossip on a global scale, some of it is brilliant insight (i.e. they agree with my preconceptions) and some of it is pure sales pitch. Follow what looks interesting to you. If you make a mistake in following someone you can also unfollow just as easily by clicking on your following link then just click on remove for that tweeter!

I try and add new people regularly by these methods, so I am constantly getting interesting input. If you tweet regularly (mine is just a stream of consciousness), you will get followers. You can use the same methods to look at their posts and friends and add as you wish!

The final think I would say is if you think something about someone's tweet, tell them. You can reply to a tweet easily and most people like feedback. A few of my (I hope) humorous replies have turned into very interesting conversations and mutual following.

Just remember best not to do all of this while you are supposed to be working!

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Zaventem in the Morning

Feeling Arty on my walk to the Bus this morning :

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Beta Peter

Well you have already heard from me on the wonders of Ping (http://randombusinesstraveller.blogspot.com/2009/02/pingfm.html) a piece of beta software. Well once again I have to sing their praises. They along with half the southwest are out at #sxsw destroying their livers! But as soon as part of the system goes down they are on their phones with WAP fixing the problem. You have to love these guy's dedication.

 

Another piece of beta software worth a look is the new tweetdeck http://post.ly/8et (@TweetDeck). This reads and writes to both Twitter and now FaceBook so If like me you use both this is excellent! I just want them to integrate with the ping update client and I am a happy bunny!

 

These keep me up to date on some of my key social networks with the rest being taken care of by my RSS reader Klipfolio Personal Dashboard (http://downloads.klipfolio.com/downloads/home ). This is a Freeware version of some business software I installed for a client and again with a thriving user community to ensure you can read information from stock quoted to Dilbert in one place. As this is a spin off and "taster" for business software it is a (little) bit more reliable than the others.

 

The final bit I am using (when in the UK and can afford the data charges) is ceTwit http://www.kosertech.com/blog/?page_id=5 on my WM6 phone. This Reads twitter, but will write either to twitter or the Ping client.

 

The scary bit about all of these is they are all Beta versions. OK so my PC, phone and data all have industrial level backup, anti virus and firewall, but the number of crashes for these applications is minimal and absolutely no more than the commercial Outlook 2007 I use! Another cool thing with these pieces of software is that when they fail they fail "cleanly". This means that they never take down anything but themselves and are generally pretty good at telling you if there is a partial failure.

 

The only other one for my wish list is that Twitter will implement something in their API so I do not have to give my password to every single integration point I want to use!

 

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Do as I say not as I do

Well yet another one got to me today.

 

You do take your life in your hands here at times as a very high percentage of drivers quite happily use their mobile / cell phones while driving. This is another one of those wonderful things where EU laws are enacted but only the Brits are dumb enough to enforce the law.

 

While Belgian law "prohibits the use of a cell phone while driving. Phone can be used when the vehicle is not mobile and not in traffic" , it is just plain not enforced around Brussels. Today's little exercise was to guess if the driver of an 18 wheeler truck would drop the phone he was using so as to have two hands to get his truck around the roundabout (Traffic Circle).  The thing that exasperated me was he was STILL on the phone after turning the truck in its side and climbing out the window.

 

Good (ish) news is the bus drivers do not do this but they all have hands free and are still constantly on the phone or chatting with their friends who stand next to them and chat.

 

No wonder this place has a death rate per Km that is twice that of the UK.

 

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Spelling IS Optional!

Hey I built (yes built) my first computer in 1977 (!), in a Nissen Hut in the wilds of Suffolk, just so I could create a spell checker!

Well here is one for those of you that have given me grief over my spelling over the years (you know who you are!).

Lifted from a friend on twitter ( RT @NMKX) here it is verbatim:

 

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch procejt at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosnt mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter.

 

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Monster Drill Goes Down The Hole

As I said prviously my work overlooks the access point for the new Brussels high speed rail link and today they lowerd the monster drill bit down the hole.

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London City Airport LCY

Ok, so if you read this you know I love Eurostar, but i am now having to fly to Brussels.
Now LCY is my favorite airport, but even they are sliding into the horror zone.
Today's pain was security! On the entrance they asked everyone to remove their shoes , belts an laptops from bags. Now this is a pain but reasonable.The issue was on the other side where there was just enough space for one person and nowhere to sit to put your shoes on! This was then compounded by officials trying to get people out of the exit area.
This inevitably caused delays, frayed tempers and absolutely no increase in anything except travellers misery .
Of course the nice people anoying the travellers on the exit area did not appreciate having the root design flaws pointed out!
I doubt if I will get the call about my offer to provide flow dynamics consultancy, not because I was being difficult but because they just don't care!

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Expensive Kids (sorry UK Only)

Well for all of those of you that have kids you will already know how expensive they are. However the nice people over at software for students (http://www.software4students.co.uk/) actually have a way to save you money!

The general idea is that if you have a child in full time education you can register them and then buy software at the same price your Childs school or university does. Considering MS Office Professional plus retails for GBP349 and you can legally buy a licence for your home computer for GBP 44.03!

The caveat's on this are clearly documented and EASY to understand as well as actually being reasonable.

 

I do not work for them (honest), but if you have a child in full time education and they need some software, this should always be your first port of call.

 

Oh sorry to comply with the perfectly legal licence conditions, this is only applicable for the UK. Do not know about the scheme for other countries!

 

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Plurk

OK so another little site that I found via my friends at Ping (http://ping.fm/) is Plurk (http://plurk.com/peterhc/invite). This is a status / mini-blog site similar to Twitter (http://twitter.com/) but with a novel and interesting (read I like)time line interface for tracking your friends "plurks".

It also has a system of karma that is not terribly transparent, but like many good reward systems, it makes you spend more time on the site.

As usual I will be doing my updates onto the site via Ping, but once I find a few people to link to I'll start reading it as well.

Keep you updated, but it's worth a look!

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PingFM

OK so when a team of developers claims to be powered by " folk music and sugar-free Red Bull" it generally does not engender confidence, but Adam & Sean over at pingfm (http://ping.fm/) have both a great sense of humour and (sorry guys) a better product.

The basic idea is that you can enter your status and ping it out to multiple sites. This is so simple you can type "off to lunch" and automatically update over 30 social networking sites including the three top sites, twitter, Facebook and MySpace. Now that’s impressive, but when you figure out you can send that ping from over ten different methods provided by the developers its fantastic. This includes the main IM clients, email, SMS iPhone and WAP.

However, I am not the only one that loves the product, other developers do as well. This means that people such as twitterfeed (http://twitterfeed.com/) will take this blog entry, shrink it create a link to the original article and send it to my ping account (more 3rd party apps listed on the site and in Wikipedia) . Ping will then take this and ping it out to all of my many social sites so my 2 followers [ :-( ] can actually choose on which of the social sites they are linked to they want to read this from. Also my favourite WM6 client ceTwit (http://www.kosertech.com/blog/?page_id=5) will send direct to ping just I case I forgot to send the message be fore I left the office or after I am at the Bar (must remember not to do that again). This all meets my cardinal rule of data being "entered once correctly at the source". Bonus points for anyone that knows where I stole that one from, but you will first have to admit you follow my ramblings.

OK so it is free and it is beta so it has a few issues. However, the ping team have the fervour of people truly passionate about what they do and the system has only occasionally been down materially (i.e. more than 2 mins) and then they kept people updated on twitter (http://twitter.com/pingfm). As I work in pretty much every time zone I tend to notice other people that do the same and these guys really burn the midnight oil when there is any sort of issue.

You can find some more information over at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping.fm) or go over there and sign up for an account and start pinging (http://ping.fm/)!

Oh as well as text they also support pictures and have me convinced they will support video soon.

I now just have to hope they are making enough money to be happy and not have to sell the tech to someone that is not as passionate as they are!

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Technology

Well I do not generally repost other peoples stuff here but this one sort of blows your mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

 

 

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Zones

So what is a travel zone?

 

Well in Belgium that depends on the bus! Travelling from same point A (airport) to point B (hotel) but before my normal time (see why below) and got a different bus (same bus company). So it travelled the same route (slightly more stops) but the cost was doubled????  Apparently the zones are not defined by minor things like geography, but by the bus company deciding how may zones the bus travels through. So as this bus route had more zones I paid more, sort of made sense. Checked up that it was not a wayward bus driver being evil to the Brit, but that is basically how it is here!

Of course I would have been a LOT more upset if I had of been paying London Bus prices, where it costs you comparatively large amounts of money just to get on the bus!

 

OK so the reason I left early is because I got bonus points….

I am doing some SOX acceptance testing, you know 5 mins to do the test 3 1/2 hours to document the test!

The bonus points relates to while running tests last night I managed to kill the whole system (killed the App server). Probably a sad indication that it is the most fun I have had on project this week :(

 

I gave up at that point and went back to the Hotel

 

You name it we break it!

 

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Trains subsidy and service

Well the article on the BBC yesterday (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7897903.stm) and today's Journey on Thalys brings a few comparisons to mind!

 

I agree with the BBC that I as a tax payer should not necessarily be subsidising people that travel on the trains and that that cost should be borne by the travellers. As a long-term London resident I remember Ken Livingstone's finally deemed illegal "Fares Fair" policy where I was forced to subsidise all of the people that commuted into London.

 

However, they did not cover the difference in service which is also huge. As I write this I am sitting on Thalys (minimally subsidised) using my free Wi-Fi for a 2 1/2 hour train journey that cost me under GBP100 for first class. For this I get automated seat allocation, clean, uncrowded trains with staff whose English is better than my French. A recent UK train trip of similar duration was no where near as attractive. My 2nd class ticked was more expensive, only partial seat allocation and double booked to boot, oh and no Wi-Fi. On pointing out that they had multiple reservations for the same seat the line I got was that a "ticket does not guarantee at seat". On asking if as seat reservation (that they charge for) guaranteed a seat I was told to find another one. OK yes at that point I got a little stroppy (well a lot stroppy to be honest) asking which persons lap I should sit on as there were over 30 people standing in that carriage already. I also refused to allow the staff member to leave until they had provided me with written confirmation that they had double booked my seat and there was nowhere to sit so I could obtain a refund for gross misselling. As which point giving up on threatening to call the transport police I was upgraded to first class. The weirdest thing was that half the carriage clapped as I had overcome this jobsworth (oh its more than my jobs worth mate). I have no idea if this is a damming Indictment of the rail company or a commentary on the repressed nature of the British public.

I lived in California for quite a time and expect to pay for service (20% tip is the norm), but unlike most Brits, I will complain about bad service. Before one of co-workers comments, yes I do stroppy and pain in the ass rather well.

 

So I will continue to try and avoid travelling on British trains where ever possible. I will also add Thalys, like Eurostar to my preferred method of travelling.

 

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Further Ed

Well for those of you that are reading this because I am some mad brit wandering around the world breaking things, rather than actually knowing me, I am a bit of an education junkie.

 

I sort of decided when I went into full time education to do my MBA, that it was kind of fun. And no that was not just for the cheap student union beer as one of my friends states. As all of them are business related (no catapillar counting course in Antigua) they are tax deductible and give me something to do when I am stuck in the hotel on projects where there are no other away from home consultants to bitch about the client with :)

Obviously any course that requires I physically rather than virtually attend is a nono, with the exception of my CPA which I did in a one week immersion in between roles. Great for passing exams, but terrible for actually remembering anything long term!

After being quite lucky and getting home most nights for a while, I am now back on the road and the bug has bitten again.

 

Now I like being a mine of useless information and the different hats (accounting, business & technology) gives me some great insites to clients issues and methods to reslove them. It may not get the company clients (as I don't use most of them professionally, it make me look too "ivory tower"), but it generally does make the client come back again.

 

This is a personal itch that I have to scratch and previously only had one instance of entertainment from it. This was in a project steering comitte where I was being paid to shift the lines of business into new metods of working by the CFO that I had worked with at a previous company. One head of business cut me off in the middle of a presentation saying it was irrelevant and what would a techie know about it! Golden rule number one, if you are going to slap someone publically, make sure you have a bigger stick. So realing off ALL of my qualifications and the relevant University (I do love the top school researchers and staff to discuss issues with so they are worth the extra money) it was quite fun to watch them wilt and refuse to answer my question about their qualifications.

So I have just had another instance of fun. After applying for another ourse, I had the dean of admissions no less, phone me up to ask me why I wanted to do the course. Now for anyone that has had an interview with the dean of admissions, this is generally not fun and I normally have "discussions" around how I am going to complete a course sucessfully without atending enough of the lectures. But this call was completely surreal as the dean was completely obsequios. I still do not understand why, but it was really nice for the shoe to be on the other foot for once.

 

Was ther a point to this, I do't know I can't remember. Oh well time to go and break something!

 

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Belgium Planning

Ok so planners are not my favourite people at home due to lots of "issues" around my extension. However, they look absolutely fantastic compared to some of the Belgian ones.

 

The one that drove me crazy today, is my bus stop! Now this is on a major 4 lane highway where even the Express bus to the Airport (where I currently work) stops as it is the entrance to a large business park.

 

So You have a nice bus shelter on a concrete base for which I was glad as it was raining this morning. What drove me crazy was that there is actually no way to get to it except walk in the road (no) or walk on the grass (read mud) as the pictures show.

Joined up planning, I think Not.

 

I did get a message about moderating comments when I logged in today and accepted them all (honest), but I am getting errors both with IE7 and Firefox updating the site? Your guess is as good as mine!

 

Oh and YE HA I actually have a follower for my rabid ramblings.

 

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Belgium Planning

Ok so planners are not my favourite people at home due to lots of "issues" around my extension. However, they look absolutely fantastic compared to some of the Belgian ones.

The one that drove me crazy today, is my bus stop! Now this is on a major 4 lane highway where even the Express bus to the Airport (where I currently work) stops as it is the entrance to a large business park.

So You have a nice bus shelter on a concrete base for which I was glad as it was raining this morning. What drove me crazy was that there is actually no way to get to it except walk in the road (no) or walk on the grass (read mud) as the pictures show.
Joined up planning, I think Not.

I did get a message about moderating comments when I logged in today. I accepted them all (honest) but cannot find them after Explored died on me with "malformed request". Hopefully they will turn up somewhere!

Oh and YE HA I actually have a follower for my rabid ramblings.

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New Hotel

Well I found the new hotel last night so did not wind up sleeping at the office (Its happened a few times)

 

It is a nice little place with breakfast included located in a nice residential area. The only down side so far is that being residential, there is nowhere to eat locally and the hotel only serves breakfast.

www.hobbithotels.be

 

Oh well hopefully I will not be so tired tonight and I can find some where!

 

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Bad Service = Bad Decision

Well I really do not like the logistics part of this job at times.

Despite my older posting:

http://randombusinesstraveller.blogspot.com/2009/01/brussels-apartment.html

 

I have wound up with a "discussionette" with the company. This revolved around two areas. Firstly guess what, rental came up due for march and they had doubled their price :( Secondly as this followed a week where my room was downgraded, but I was not refunded (i.e. overcharged 100 Euro) the difference in room rates.

I have had a discussion both with the property manager as well as the company owner/CEO to which I got the Belgian equivalent to the Gallic shrug.

Now this type of behaviour in a service industry is bad business. During a global recession it may be close to suicidal, as customers do have the ability to go else where.

 

Guess what I can save money, by staying in a Hotel for four nights a week rather than paying for their apartment and this is exactly what I have done.

 

Not the outcome I wanted, as I liked the apartment (when I got the one I paid for), but not enough to pay well above the market rate.

 

Hotels, operate on a form of CVP costing. i.e. they have high fixed costs but once they have covered them the rest is pure profit. This is why the key measure in a hotel is its occupancy rate. So the apartment, could have done a deal with me and got a guaranteed contribution to their fixed costs for the next six months. They chose to follow the commodity pricing route, which if they are regularly going to have 100% occupancy rates is the right choice. However, I as someone who can read the reports on travel and tourism, think they just threw away guaranteed income against wishful thinking.

 

Oh well at least I saved some money!

 

 

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Smoking Ban

 

OK so can someone please explain to a dumb Brit, why our federally minded friends in Belgium have imposed a smoking ban in public places UNLNESS you happen to be in Brussels?

 

It was a real blast from the past last night going into a bar with a local friend and having to cut your way through the smoke to find the bar!

 

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Internet Shopping

Well and inherent issue related to what I do is the general inability to go shopping for presents.

Ok true international items like jewellery I have found all over the world, much to my wife's (I Hope) pleaser.

But where you are looking for a specific item, even if you have a local store, you have very little time at home to actually go, browse and buy. This is before you get to the sometimes horrifying premium you pay for this level of distress purchasing.

Of course the answer to this is internet shopping. However, the big problem for this is that the business model that allows some of these people to offer exceedingly good prices on such a low margin also makes them unable to offer any sales support.

This means that when your lovely purchase dies, sometimes getting it repaired is [designed to be] nearly impossible so you give up and just buy a new one. Of course if you are [not a business] in the UK and are not completely crazy, you brought your goods with a credit card.  This means if it all gets too crazy, you phone the credit card company and they legally have to sort it out or refund you your money. This is not to say they do not need to be reminded of the law every so often, but legally THEY are selling you the goods on credit and they are legally responsible for the transaction. <rant off>

 

I have had two experiences recently that bear mentioning:

The first was with www.amazon.co.uk.  Now having brought a semi expensive electronics Christmas present for number 1 child, it proceeded to die before the new year set in. so the process was as follows:

1 fill in form at site

2 Receive replacement goods within 2 working days (along with stern warning to return defective goods within 30 days)

3 Receive information on printing label and collecting courier company

4 Call courier company and arrange collection at my convenience

5 Receive email from Amazon stating goods have been relieved and RMA is closed.

Now that is a grown up company with high tech logistics that you normally pay a [small] premium for, but still less than a bricks and mortar shop. Guess what, I have spent a lot of money there and will continue to do so.

 

The second one was more surprising and therefore more pleasing. The same child having saved up all of their Christmas money and some other cash, decided they wanted to buy a [very specific] fender guitar. Now I was involved in this transaction solely to enter a credit card information. So after a few checks on the site and the [small] company (www.PlayRecord.Net) I entered the relevant credit card information and the guitar arrived.

The look was exactly what no1 child wanted unfortunately the sound was not. As it was still the holiday season I was home and the online store was now closed, I took it to our local friendly music store for a check. (They did not stock the very specific guitar and could not get it within the time required by no1 child) The result of which they agreed that either the guitar had never been setup correctly or had met some misfortune (not physically apparent) since it was set up and gave me a price to remedy the issue.

As this had been my first purchase from the store it was with some trepidation I contacted them by email and explained the issue.

There response was unequivocal. They (along with me) were surprised that the fender had obviously failed quality assurance, but told me to have the guitar adjusted locally and to send them the bill. I have just received the refund for the (not cheap) setup of the guitar to my credit card.

Not only was this done without any begrudging of the cost, it was done with an air of surprise and apology that I had to go to any effort.

Guess what next time any of the kids want something musical (don’t ask), I will be straight off to www.payrecord.net to get both a great price and fantastic service. A shame more businesses cannot follow their excellent business model!

 

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Computers at Brussels Airport

Well a funny incident at duty free today.
The whole computer system went down, resuling in long queus. The funny part being the staff running around grabbing the baskets from people in the queues then running around the shop to get prices and codes.
The whole effect was reminiscent of the keystone cops and anyone that was not enraged was rolling around in laughter.

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

Business or Pleasure schizophrenia

As social sites proliferate am I really the only person having this issue?

 

I work as a professional and so reputation and references are key to my employability. The problem with this is it means I am trying to maintain two very separate personalities across various social sites. One is a trustworthy professional that should be allowed to spend millions of dollars worth of company money and the other is a baby brother of an ever so slightly kooky family spread out across the world.

 

My personal mantra is I do not care about a persons race, creed, colour, gender (born or current), religion or sexual preference. I just care about if they are "good people" or not. This position has made me very lucky with my friends who have to make some effort just to talk to me occasionally. However, professional services is often about perception, especially in an area where you may be controlling significant volumes of the companies money and trying to deliver a specific business benefit that is sometimes intangible.

 

Security is one side, either all of your passwords are the same or like me you use  a tool such as Roboform (http://www.roboform.com) to generate and track all of you different passwords and identities. (I must write something on their 2go products and the joys of U3)

 

The other problem is you start to get a bit confused as to who you are today. Also with so many sites I use like twitterfeed and ping.fm updating multiple sites, I am thinking I need to get out my drawing tools and create a network diagram, just to make sure none of my rude or unprofessional PERSONAL replies, end up on my business social sites.

 

Tell me what day it is and I will tell you where I am

Official Mine of Usless Information

 

London Has Snow Vancouver has Fog!

This came to cheer me up from a friend in Vancouver

Tell me what day it is and I will tell you where I am

Eurostar Again

Well the buses a all cancelled today in London. Trains are already cancelled or expecting severe delays. Many schools are not opening.
BUT Eurostar for Brussels left on time!

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

Rip Of Roaming

OK so I will admit that I am currently somewhat addicted to my windows mobile phone.

 

But with my current gig in Brussels, especially as it is fixed price, I have been looking at mobile roaming for voice and data.

 

An excellent resource is http://www.roamingsims.com/ for voice calls. The general principal being that if you have an unlocked phone you can use one of these services to receive your calls for free.

Of course as a business person with all of the business cards (hopefully) floating around the world, changing your phone number twice a week is impossible. The simple thing being before you swap your SIM's just divert your "home" mobile number to the roaming SIM. This works well. Of course this means your mobile operator is not making a fat profit for allowing you to use your phone abroad, which despite the EU's intervention on roaming tariffs they still do. Also it does mean you will burn minutes as you will pay for the call to be forwarded. But as you should be making less to no outgoing calls this should be ok as long as you manage it.

Now do test this out but some of the tricks used by the mobile operators are:

Forwarding your number to another mobile is mysteriously (on page 9872) not covered in your inclusive minutes

Forwarding suddenly takes a long time with a "we are now forwarding your call" message appearing from nowhere.

Your forwarding suddenly gets "reset" to Default

 

Now of course none of our mobile operators would undertake such anti-competitive and illegal actions by design [ :) ] So to check up on these "accidents" I just call my home cell from the office first thing in the morning. If one of these overnight "accidents" has happened, you just put in your home SIM, cancel any diverts and then enable the diverts again. All if fixed until the next "random accident"

 

One of the other things with using one of these SIM's is as the generally have no data connection, you do not have applications phoning home and running up obscene data roaming charges. (don't get me started ) All I generally do is plug my phone into my laptop and it piggy backs off the back of the laptop and syncs everything it needs. All of my replies etc get synced when I get to the next location. This may all sound a bit difficult (and yes I am a bit of a closet techie) but my last client happily (?) paid my data roaming charges as I wandered around Europe for them. with a GBP 1k data roaming charge not being unusual, a little but of difficult is worth it on a fixed price job. Besides what else do you have to do in the evenings???

 

I may rant some on our friends the banks next time. It irritates me that I get paid in Euros, have expenses in Euros, but have to pass everything through UK banks and get ripped off with fees in both directions. Now when I worked in the US getting local Business and personal accounts (with required web access) was no problem (OK other than ID they understood), and moving cash was super easy with my friends at sterling exchange (http://www.sterlingexchange.co.uk/). But doing the same in the Euro zone at any reasonable cost is impossible.

All sensible suggestions gratefully accepted

 

 

Tell me what day it is and I will tell you where I am

 

Brussels Apartment

Well I have managed to find a "hotel apartment" (http://www.be-housing.be/En/). Now this has been fun as I am here for just over six months and all of the apartment people want to keep them available for the Eurocrats who don't really care what they pay as long as they get a receipt. The last thing I want is to get thrown out at the end of 5 months  and try and find somewhere when every hotel pretty much doubles its price. For those of us on a fixed "away allowance" i.e. flights, food and accommodation are in the allowance and that’s ALL I get regardless of costs, this is slightly less fun.

 

I was mildly wary as the reviews were very mixed, but the location made the commute to work a lot less painful than the hotel had been. i.e. it is less than a 10 min walk to Gare du Nord station and you ca get anywhere in Brussels (or in fact Europe) fairly easily from there.

 

Following my usual pattern in a new location, I went walkabout. This s pretty much two fold. First to see any of the local stores, restaurants, bars, cafes etc that I might want to visit and secondly once I have walked somewhere I have a map in my head and cannot get lost.

The first night was a bit comical, and for anyone that does not know, any area that has condom machines bolted to the street walls, probably gets a "bit rowdy" late at night! SO that writes off that quarter (honest boss). The next quarter I found, was funny in a different way. Primarily full of Turkish immigrants, but giving the area a very strange flavour:

Shops - General food stores about the size of a postage stamp and specialising in such things as olives or pickled vegetables

Bars - Again postage stamp size and generally full of large older men with more hair in their moustache's than I have on the whole of my head.

Restaurants - Eat any food you want as long as it is traditional Belgian food (Frites - French Fries) or traditional Turkish food (Kebab - Kebob)

 

Well after my adventures last night, I decided I would be a bit more professional about it tonight i.e. look at Google maps or my GPS before going walkabout. Guess what, I found the European quarter and am now a happy bunny. This generally being defined as places to eat when I do not want to cook and somewhere to buy chicken (that will not kill me) when I do want to cook.

 

Oh well one of my co-workers very kindly brought me a bottle of Belgian beer from their local brewery and I'm off to finish it now!

TTFN (first and only time to explain, its from Winnie the Poo and stands for "Ta Ta For Now"

 

Random thoughts for future weirdness. Drop me a line and I might even write them

Safe placed to buy chicken around the world without dying

GPS phones and why they are useless on foot, but still worth having

European roaming and how to avoid a mortgage to pay them

Windows mobile or Blackberry addiction and how to survive if your management will not pay your mobile data roaming charges.

How much electronics can you put in a backpack without being strip searched at every airport.

 

 

Tell me what day it is and I will tell you where I am

 

Must be on the road again as I set up a blog

Return to Travel

Well after a nice break where I got home most nights, I am back on the road!

 

My weekly journey is now from Home (London) to Brussels. Mainly because of timing I am out on Eurostar Mondays and back on Fridays by plane.

So brief thoughts after a week:

I still love Eurostar. Despite being a longer journey, there is a lot less wasted time and a lot less stress. Security is still a pain, but it is ALL up front and the Eurostar people are as polite a possible under the circumstances. Try saying the same about any airport security staff.

Brussels public transport is comprehensive. However, it is quite possible to be in a location where you have to get on a Tram, to get to a Metro station, to buy a ticket for the Tram!

Oh and while you are buying your ticket, you had better have coins. Why is it that even the US has reliable machines to validate a dollar bill, but Belgium machines only take coins or payment cards that require a Belgian bank account. This is a country that pretty much lives off of foreigners!

 

Tell me what day it is and I will tell you where I am