August 31st, 2005
This is kind of embarassing. For the next two weekends, I’m taking road trips. I’m borrowing a car which (gulp) actually still has a tape deck in it. In truth, it’s not that old a car, but it’s the no-frills entry-level model.
Unfortunately, the only audio tapes I own are Corey Hart and Bryan Adams, so I needed one of those nifty adapters that enable you to play a line-in through a tape player. Eventually I settled on the Logic3 Travel Kit for iPods.
Not only does it have the tape adapter, but it’s also got 4 other connectors and a car charger. The tape adapter does the trick, and the car charger is handy because my iPod’s battery is pretty shot. Three of the four connectors are retractable, which makes them handy for travel. In particular, I appreciate the fact that I no longer have to pilfer my iPod base’s cable when I want to take a trip. The head phones that come with are pretty lousy and tinny, and don’t retract very well because of the split cable. All of these bits come in a handy black carrying case that looks a bit like a shaving kit.
All in all, the Logic3 kit does a decent job of solving your travel audio problems. I can’t give it a full-fledged recommendation because of the dodgy headphones, but you could do worse.
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August 21st, 2005
I spent a couple of nights at the historical Palace Hotel in San Francisco while at the Blog Business Summit. The Palace is a lovely, finely-appointed heritage hotel in San Fran’s financial district.
I had a spacious room on the fourth floor. The furniture was nice, the bathroom was large, but the minibar was empty. More importantly, they only offered wireful Internet access, at US $16/day. That wouldn’t be such a big deal, except that the cable didn’t reach to the bed. I should know better, and bring along my Airport Express so that I can recline in the king-sized while working.
I didn’t get a chance to check out their business centre, but their concierge was very helpful in getting stuff done.
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August 21st, 2005
I recently spotted this curious invention on some tech show in the States. They’re called Sportbinox, and they’re queer binoculars that strap to your head. They look a bit like those nightsight goggles featured in games like Splinter Cell (hilarious related video here.)
Sportbinox are apparently intended for sports viewing and bird-watching, but I imagine they might come in handy on the beaches of, say, Cannes or Rio.
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August 21st, 2005
People are watching less television, listening to less radio and reading fewer newspapers. Those trends gets more drastic the younger the demographic.
The Wall Street Journal has an article about how hotels are finally getting onboard:
Marriott International Inc., seeing an increasing number of guests bringing high-tech gaming and personal-entertainment gear into their rooms, is adding high-definition television sets that can be easily connected to devices such as Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox and PlayStations, as well as personal computers. Even smaller, hand-held devices with the right connection capabilities can be plugged into the television sets, says John Wolf of Marriott, Bethesda, Md.
I’m not sure I want the hotel’s pre-selected array of music on an iPod, but I would appreciate a dock so that I don’t have to bring one along.
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August 16th, 2005
Gwendolyn sent along this nifty site, whose URL tells the whole story:
Simply put, I decided that it’d be pretty cool to build this website so you can put subway maps onto your iPod Photo. As I write this, I’ve only got one city up so far — well, almost. I skipped Staten Island. Do people actually ride that subway?
Nifty. They even have Vancouver sorted. Now, if I only had an iPod Photo.
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August 8th, 2005
Because The Universal Packing List will think for you. This is a little Web app that claims to “generate a custom packing list for any journey”.
As I’m headed to the Blog Business Summit in San Francisco next week, I figured I’d give it a try. The list it generated was enormous, and included such useful tidbits as “wash the dishes [before you leave”. Okay, so not an exceptional insight, but I suppose the list provides a useful starting point for travelling.
Alternately, you might consider consulting the venerable One Bag, who provides some sound advice on how to pack.
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August 7th, 2005
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but big leather bracelet thingies are back. Now, here at Geeky Traveller, we’re not particularly concerned with fashion. At the same time, we do want to know what the cool kids are wearing. According to Josh Rubin, they’re wearing Photocuffs.
These are thick bracelets which enable you to house photos of your loved ones, scenic vistas, or just random strangers. Maybe these will finally replace those yellow Armstrong wristband that every 18-35 year-old male seems to be wearing (they kind of remind me of flea collars).
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August 1st, 2005
Thank God. It’s not another site about knitting. In fact, CraftyTraveler.com (they prefer the one ‘l’ spelling–both are acceptable) is a great-looking new travel site with some strong opinions:
In short, I think the vast majority of travel web sites suck…Too many travel sites out there make their money by charging the travel vendor to be placed on their site. So, if you’ve found Bob’s Fishing Guides on particular web site, chances are Bob paid a pretty penny to be on that site in the first place. Further, chances are the description of Bob’s Fishing Guides on most travel web sites (”Bob is a master fisherman with 40 years of experience, and is a delight to spend time with!”) is written by Bob himself.
Amen, brother. Tell the truth. So many travel sites are just appalling aggregations of paid services, resplendent in fawning reviews and punch-the-monkey ads.
Craftiest Traveler Tony Wright is putting his money where his mouth is, and will pay you cold, hard cash for articles:
Accepted articles (almost all will be if you follow the editorial guidelines) will result in a check for $20.00(US) OR you can choose to enter to win $800 (1 in 40 articles is a winner!).
That’s $24.20 Canadian dollars! Or 32.05 Bulgarian Levas! Or 29,392 Iraqi dinars!
Thanks to Boris for sending this site along. As he proudly pointed it, CraftyTraveler also runs on Drupal.
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August 1st, 2005
Via Derek via Boing Boing, we learn that all of Michael Palin’s excellent travel guides are available online, for free. Each book has it’s own well-design landing page (here, for example, is Around the World in 80 Days).
There’s no way to grab the whole book in one file, and presumably they’re not actually Creative Commonsized or anything, but good for Palin for taking this step.
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