Automatic arrival messages

I have signed up as beta tester for a service, ArrivedOK,which sends a text message to chosen mobile phones when your flight arrives at its destination. How does it know that you have arrived? You have to provide your flight schedule to their web-site. Then 30 minutes before your scheduled arrival, it starts scanning the mobile network for your number. Of course, if you have followed instructions, your phone is turned off. When you land and are allowed to turn on your phone, the ArrivedOK computer senses your phone and notifies the chosen mobiles with text (SMS) message of your choice.

They have built in rules which are supposed to prevent errors due to changes in flight schedules, or diversions, etc.

The site also allows you to list blogs, which are updated with arrival messages, similar to the text messages sent to the mobile phones. So look for messages on this blog in the near future. After the beta test, there will be a charge for this service, it will be interesting to see what they feel is the value to us frequent travellers.

For more information, click on the title above.

***LATE BREAKING***
I ran into a problem because their registration process did not filter out US based phone numbers. Currently their service works only for European based mobile phones. I heard from their customer support and they are working on a couple of solutions, the long term will take a few months to implement but will provide full SMS capabilities. They may also implement a short term solution which involves only email alerts and this could be ready in a matter of weeks.

Flight tracking gadget on blog

At the top of the blog page, I have added a gadget which shows the statistics of the flights I have taken since the beginning of 2009. The gadget shows a summary of miles, hours and count of flight segments, but you can view detailed information, including maps, by clicking on the summary.

Portable Speakers for laptop TV viewing

I am now carrying around (in my main suitcase, not laptop bag) a pair of USB driven speakers. I bought these from TigerDirect for less than $20, including shipping. They work really great when I use my Sling connection or Netflix Instant in my hotel room.

They certainly beat the puny speakers built into the laptop.

Ode to small airports

One of the advantages of visiting many different locations as a consultant, is that you often get to experience small airports. Currently I am travelling reguarly through GSP (Greenville-Spartanbug). It has 7 gates on the A side (I think) and 4 on the B side (I know). They also provide free internet service. So I have something to do while I wait fro my departure. of course, since it is such a small airport and the TSA lines are normally negligible, I do not need to worry about arriving early for my flight.

So I do not usually have time to enjoy the free Wi-Fi. :-(

Save some paper...save a tree

With refernce to my NW flight a few weeks ago, I forgot to mention that NW have an excellent green initiative. When checking in on-line for a multi-segment itinerary, you only print one boarding pass, which contains info of both (or more?) flights. DL is still printing one boarding pass per segment (per page), even if you select to not print the destination information. So here is another idea that DL will hopefully merge into the the new DL-NW system.
Actually there are quite a number of computer related items that DL can learn from NW:
Multi segment boarding passes
Segement related Outlook update (instead of just one for the whole itinerary)
User friendly flight status notification (i.e. ability to look up active items, even if you do not thave the notification number)
2D barcodes for mobile check-in (Strangely enough the original blog posting about the DL trail at LGA actually shows a 2D barcode!)

Oh well, maybe one day they will get their tech act together

Zivio Update

I have been using the Zivio BlueTooth headset (see earlier post) for a week now, so thought I would give my initial feedback.

1. Sound quality is excellent, I hear no complaints or comments from people at the other end, and I can hear everything very clearly. I have used it in windy conditions and on the streets of New York, which are good tests of the noise reduction.
2. Like other headsets which I have used, I cannot get a perfect fit, so it feels a little loose now and then. But with the magnetic ear loop, I do not feel in danger of losing the device and a quick press and it is reseated in the ear.
3. Battery life is great, I still have not recharged since its initial charge at the weekend. I do not use the headset all day like some, normally about an hour in the morning and evening each, with longer usage on Sundays and Thursday/Fridays while travelling. But I fully expect it to match the published 10 hour talk time.
4. Voice command is more reliable than with my nXZen headset, only very occasionally does the phone not recognize my command (and require re-initiating VC).
5. The device is defintely lighter than my nXZen and I could, if I wanted, easily wear it all day.

So while not the cheapest of headsets, this is definitely a keeper!

Paperless Check-In at LGA...Ooops

In an earlier post I expressed excitement about DL's expansion of their paperless check-in facility. On a recent trip I was able to use it for the first time. Below is the message which I sent to DL about my disappointment at the poor results which I experienced.

After using paperless check-in for CO & NW flights (EWR & DTW) I was full of expectation about busing it for my flight out of LGA on DL. Unfortunately, it did not meet up with my earlier experiences, in a number of ways. I would like to pass on some suggestions and hope that DL will take them as constructive criticism (Katie please note).

Firstly, the check-in process…I received the usual text message and went straight to the (mobile) site. I checked in and expected a text or email with my bar code (as with CO or NW). No such luck. I had to follow the link in the “check in now” email, and then select ‘Reprint’ to get the barcode to display. For mobile transactions there were just too many screens, scrolls and clicks. If I may suggest, the CO process, with MMS message (text message with text) is the better process, NW is a close second where the barcode is emailed. The latter will not work however for pax who do not have email on their phone.

Back to the story….Now that I have the barcode on my screen, one thing that struck was that DL is using a traditional 2D barcode and not the 3D code being used by both CO and NW. As 3D barcodes are easier to read, this put some suspicions in my mind. And yes, at the security checkpoint, even after setting my backlight to full brightness, the barcode could not be read. So out of line, reprint a paper pass, and back into line. Luckily I can use the Clear line, so at least I did not have to wait 15 minutes again [On an aside and not DL's fault, but the Clear line had "lost" their scanner and had to use the TSA scanner! Obviously not many people use this feature at LGA, especially Clear members].

Next stop, Crown Room, and yes again, no joy with the scanner. The agent at the door actually said that he thought that the Crown Rooms were not yet ready to accept the mobile barcodes.

So finally, what will happen at the gate? I am actually writing this in the Crown Room before my flight, so I will have to let you know later whether this last step was successful.So while I am excited about paperless checkin being expanded on the DL network, especially at my home airport, MCO, I am worried that I may not be able to use it much. Unless DL “borrows” technology from their sister airline NW, which I know works for me.

DL expanding paperless check-in

On the Delta Blog, they have announced that they are expanding the paperless check-in and will be introducing it soon to my home airport, MCO.

"MEM joins LAS, LGA and MSP, which already have the product up and running. Over the next few months our eBoarding product will also roll out in ATL, SLC, and MCO. But… as of 12pm we’ve reported only 15 mobile check-ins today in our launch city. Help us get the word out?"


This is great news as I love this system. I have used it on CO and NW flights (EWR & DTW). When you are on the road and not at a regular location it really saves having to hunt down a printer, or getting to the airport a little earlier so you can use the check-in kiosk.

Anything which allows me to arrive later at the airport is always good

The value of Elite Level Customer Service

On a recent return trip from Washington DC, I was booked via Memphis as my usual Delta flights via ATL were too expensive. After push back from the gate, we sat on the apron for a number of minutes before the pilot announced technical problems. Our expected departure kept getting delayed, 10 or 15 minutes at a time. As we were back at the gate, and after the third announcement that it would be at least another 20 minutes I knew that I would not make my connection in MEM. People we already leaving the plane, so I realized the staff at the gate would be busy. I also remembered that there was an ATL bound flight which I could catch, if there were seats. So rather than trying to arrange new flights at the gate I immediately called the DL Elite Level reservations, and yes, the agent was able to block seats for me all the way home. The biggest problem was getting NW to release me off the MEM bound flight so that the DL flight could be confirmed. While waiting for the offload, I did hear the NW agent telling other passengers that the ATL flight had no seats available.However, the DL agent on the phone was great, staying with me while I arranged the offload and then making sure that the DL gate agent had everything correct for my new flights.

Moral of the story is: in case of problems, get on the line with elite level reservations immediately!

Hidden charging trick

I do not know if this is a ThinkPad only trick, but I just found out that the USB ports on my X61 stay live even after the computer is turned off. I occasionally have used the USB ports of the laptop to recharge my phone in an emergency, when no AC power is available. I turn on the computer for this and of course that uses even more power. With the number of devices today that use USB charging, e.g. phone, headset, etc., this could be a very useful feature.

Sorry, false alarm! I found out that after about a minute the power is finished and the phone charging light goes out. However, even if the computer has been turned off for more than 12 hours, the USB is still 'hot' for 30 seconds. But too short to charge the phone :-(

New Bluetooth headset

On a recent trip I discovered that I had lost my nXZen Bluetooth headset, or so I thought, as I did come across it in a forgotten pocket a few days later. I wanted something with good noise reduction/elimination as I have been spoiled by the nXZen which rivals the Jawbone in sound quality. While doing research into what is currently the best headset with noise reduction I came across the Joby Zivio. I found the best information about sound quality was at BlueTruth.com, where they have sound clips of many headsets, recorded under different conditions.

Not only did the Zivio have very good reviews with respect to sound quality, it is a very stylish device too. The sound quality is aided by a retractable boom microphone, which can be used when you are in a noisy environment, or do not want to raise your voice so your called party can clearly hear you. The Zivio also claims an excellent battery life of 10 talk hours. It comes with a series of different ear inserts, so you should be able to find one that is comfortable. Especially since the speaker unit has an adjustable angle too. If the ear fit is very good then you can dispense with the ear hook shown in the picture, it is just a magnetic clasp. I am keeping the ear hook as a backup, as I do not want to have the headset drop off my ear as I run through the terminal.

I have paired it, without problems, with my Treo 750 and held a quick, unscientific test. Standing outside on a blustery day, with cars going past I heard no wind noise (great!) and no background noise (great!). I will have to see what my wife says when I call from more noisy areas, like an airport concourse or car rental shuttle.

DL Standby List Not What It Seems?

I have in the past commented favorably on the Delta system of displaying standby status, and upgrade status, on large flat screens at the gate. This tells you whether you have a chance of making the flight, as it shows your position on the list, as well as the number of seats available.

Recently though ,I discovered that things are not quite what they seem. Due to delays at PHL (again), I was lucky to be able to get on an earlier flight, and also arrived in time for an earlier connection. Of course, without a reservation I was placed on the standby list, but I was glad to see that I was number one on the list. Once the flight had been boarded I felt that my chances were good, until the gate agent called up four passengers, with names that did not appear on the standby list and proceeded to board them. I also noticed that these passengers were indeed holding seat request cards and not full boarding passes.

So why were these names not the standby list? Were these some kind of special passengers, or were they friends of the gate agent?

P.S. The good news is that after allowing these other passengers on, we were lined up in order of the standby list, and allowed to board and take any seat, one by one. So I did make it onto the flight. I would have been a very unhappy camper though, if I had not made it.

Delta, it is not much good providing information, if the information that you provide is flawed!

A new income stream....

...but more inconvenience for frequent travelers.

I took a week off from flying last week, and worked from home. When I wnet to check my seats this week for my return I noticed that DL has a new "feature", Coach Choice seats. These are seats which are held open until 24 hours before the flight departs, and then can be purchased 'for a token fee'. The good news is that Elite level members do not need to pay, the bad news is that they are using half the exit row seats for this money spinner.

This means I have to set an alarm to remind me to log on exactly 24 hours before deaprtue, so I can get these special seats. Just an extra hassle that I could do without.

PHL security breach

Today, as I was about to have my ID checked by TSA, the word came down to stop all security processing. We stood around for over 60 minutes, for the majority of that time not knowing what was going on. Shortly before the end a rumour started circulating that it was due to a security breach.

In the Crown Room I overheard someone who had been at the metal detectors, and it seems that someone walked through a lane that was not in use. So of course, everything had to be shut down and rechecked.

Luckily my flight was already delayed, due to weather in ATL, so I just tried to relax and "enjoyed" the experience.

Still, as we say back in Blighty, some muvvers do 'ave 'em.

Tapeless, diskless, driveless video camera - HF11

I finally took the plunge and upgraded my video camera. I decided I wanted to have something that did not need tapes or DVDs for recording. This left the choice between a hard drive or solid state memory. After a lot of research, e.g. camcorderinfo.com and CNET, I decided not to go with a hard drive camera. Primary reasons were drive reliability and battery usage.

Again the web reviews were useful in helping me narrow down my choice. My choice was made a little easier when I discovered that Canon had introduced an HD camera with 32GB of onboard memory, the HF11. Of course I could get more memory with a hard drive, up to 120GB, and other solid state cameras use memory cards. But having onboard memory is more reliable, and the camera that I chose has an SD slot for expanding the memory with SDHC cards. This amount of memory equates to almost 3 hours of recording at the highest quality. This is more than enough for week to week recording, as I can transfer the files to my computer on a regular basis. When we go on our round the world trip, sometime in the next 12 months, I can buy some extra memory cards, or use hotel computers to transfer the files home.

The camera arrived last week, and I had a great weekend playing around with it. An important part of my testing was with the editing of the digital files. The HF11 stores files in the AVCHD format, and I had read that this format uses a lot of computer cycles when processed for editing. Luckily, my editing environment, quad-core CPU with Sony Vegas software seems to be able to handle the AVCHD files almost as easily as the files captured from tape. One big advantage of the non-tape based recording is that file copying is much faster than the real-time capture that I had to do with tape.

I was totally blown away by the size of the camera, compared to my previous first generation HD tape based Sony HDR-HC1, it is about 50% smaller in all directions making it about one quarter in volume! It is literally a palm sized camera. That gives it a link to the travel side of this blog, because the camera is small enough to slip into a brief case, even a (largish) coat pocket. [Just remember to take it out when you go through security at the airport]

Once I have more experience with the camera, I will post some more information.

Expansion of paperless check-in

A few months ago I wrote about using Continental's paperless check-in service at EWR. I also mentioned when Delta started their trial at LGA. Earlier this week USA Today carried the good news that TSA have approved these trials and the service will be rolled out across the US. I was especially please to see that Delta will be introducing paperless check-in at two airports that I use on a regular basis, Orlando and Atlanta. No word of this on the Delta web-site yet, so I hope that USA Today's information is correct.
The other big question, now that Orlando and Atlanta are on the list, is whether Clear, who operate at both of these airports, will also have the necessary bar code readers. Hopefully they will, so I can save a tree or two.

Thanks TSA, finally a useful step forward

How secure is security?

In the last few weeks I have accidently left a small bottle of water in my briefcase, a couple of times. In both cases TSA did not see, or at least did not react, to this "contraband". While the bottle is small, it is most certainly larger than the 3 oz limit. I understand that something like this might be missed once, but twice in a relatively short period? Ooops!

So is this an oversight, or just TSA being nice to me?

End of extra fees?

Now that the price of fuel has fallen dramatically, will the airlines be dropping their extra fees for baggage, drinks , etc?

Probably not!!!!

I stand corrected - I just found out that Air Canada is the first to remove their extra baggage fees. Hopefully others will follow soon!

Kudos to AC

Time to segregate elite level boarding?

I have been flying out of PHL on DL for a number of weeks now. In addition to the awful gates that Delta uses, especially A13, the end of week flights often have a huge number of elite level passengers. On some flights over 80% of the seats are filled with Silver, Gold or Platinum travelers. Delta seems to have dropped the zone 2/zone 3 groupings for frequent travelers concentrating everyone into zone 2. When you have between 80 and 110 (yes, that was the number announced for one of the flights) people waiting to board an MD-88, chaos ensues. Even more so when a poorly designed gate A13 is being used.
So I think, Delta, it is time to re-think your process, and return to a segregated boarding. It would either have to be all elite levels, but by row, or, as a biased high level elite, even better would be zones by elite level, i.e. Platinum zone2, Gold, 3, etc.
For flights where the number of qualified passengers is below a certain threshold, e.g. 20, the gate agent could call the three zones simultaneously.

C'mon Delta, give us really frequent travelers a break

Delta Ugrade Priority

A while back I posted my suspicions that Delta's upgrade priority was based more on ticket price that elite mileage (the plasma screens do say "a combination of ......."). In a recent issue of Business Traveller, a magazine that can be found in the Delta Crown Club rooms, I found proof positive of this policy. A reader wrote in to complain that he, as a Platinum member, had not been upgraded, while a colleague with Gold status, but on a more expensive ticket, received the upgrade.



I have to say Delta that I think your policy is wrong! I undertsand that if two people with the same elite level are vying for an upgrade that you use the ticket price as a tie breaker. But it should not be the primary deciding factor. The ticket is a one time event, while someone who has colected MQMs to reach an elite level is a return customer and should be treated as such.

So Delta, please use medallion status (or even last year's or this year's MQM count) as primary criteria for upgrade priority, rather than ticket value and trip disruption.

Cell phone usage at home

My home is located at the edge of a mobile phone cell, which means that my reception in house is pretty unreliable. As my business contacts tend to call me on my cell, poor reception is very inconvenient, so I have been looking for a solution.
There used to be three possible solutions:

1. A cell repeater, expensive and complicated to install, especially if you need to use 3G connections.
2. A supplementary antenna, ties the phone pretty much to one location in the house.
3. Femtocell, which is another form of repeater, and needs to be provider supplied. My carrier (AT&T) has not started with them yet, although there are rumors. T-Mobile and Sprint do have solutions.

Recently I discovered a new solution, cordless phones that have a built-in Bluetooth link. This allows you to pair your phone with the base station, and then use the cell phone as one of the outgoing, or incoming, lines. GE has the Cell Fusion models, and Panasaonic has Link2Cell. I recently purchased the GE model, which is a DECT system (as is the Panasonic), so no interference with your in-house Wi-Fi either.

I now leave my cell phone in the front room, where I do get some reception. When the cell phone rings, a second later the GE handset starts ringing too, and shows that the incoming call is through my cell phone, and includes caller ID information. The base station is also connected to our (VOIP) landline, so the GE handset acts as a two (or three) line set. Yes, three lines, if I pair my wife's iPhone with the second BT channel. I also use the handset to initiate outgoing calls through the cell phone, for business calls where I do not want to expose my home number through caller ID.

Being a DECT system the phone works well throughout the house, so I do not need to worry about missing cell phone calls anymore. Right now I only have a single handset, but the base station can accommodate up to six handsets. As my current DECT cordless handsets break, they will be replaced by the GE handsets. I am still playing around with some of the features, like distinctive rings for specific callers, and I believe that I can also assign a different ring between landline and cell phone calls. Audio quality is as good as our other cordless handsets, and the ringer is much louder.

Free gift from Delta

Today I received an email from Delta, which seems to be aimed at SkyMiles members who have not flown for a while:

"You're a valued SkyMiles® member and we've missed having you onboard. We'd like to welcome you back with a special gift—1,000 bonus miles. Register today, then book your round-trip ticket and fly by November 15, 2008.
Plus, if you book at delta.com you'll earn an additional 500 bonus miles. You'll always find our best fares at delta.com—guaranteed ....."

As I travel twice a week (out and back), it looks like they started missing me after a few days already. Still I am not one to pass up a few bonus miles, so I registered, and will book the necessary flight shortly

Thanks for the extra miles Delta!

Treo 750 Disaster

This weekend disaster struck on Labor Day. My phone had been acting funny for 7-10 days, freezing more than I had been used to, primarily while on power and after going into sleep (blank screen) mode. During the preceding week things were getting worse, with freezes while live. I put this all down to software (MemAid? Opera Mini beta?) and resolved to do some research. Thursday, as I was returning, the phone froze in the plane when I turned it on to call up my daughter, who was picking me up at the airport. When I did a soft reset, the phone decided to do a hard reset, and all sorts of other problems occurred. Next day I was able to get the phone working again, after carrying out a couple of hard resets, soft resets had stopped working. Part of the problem is that when the soft resets stopped working I was essentially unable to to a restore (or backup), because Sprite Backup does a reset before and after any activity :-(.

The next, disastrous, step was that the phone refused to cycle through the hard resets. I was able to do a hard reset, but it just stuck somewhere in the initialization process. Tuesday morning I called AT&T immediately, who were not able to offer any help as they told me I was out of warranty. I contacted Palm, through their Live Chat support and has handed off to the phone support group. While they could not help me, they did indicate that their records showed that I was still in warranty, because of that fact, they could not arrange an exchange repair, I had to return to AT&T for that. When I called AT&T, I was told that I was indeed out of warranty, by one week! If I had called a week earlier, my phone would have been exchanged for free, now it would cost me $399 for a refurbished model, more for a new one! begging and pleading with AT&T had no effect, even when talking to their retention department, where I was transferred immediately when I asked how much my Early Termination Fee would be (as offset against the cost of a replacement phone with AT&T, compared to taking a new line at one of their competitors) :-( :-(

However, before taking that final step I decided, as my phone was pretty much worthless, I might as well try to re flash the ROM. This was because I had a gut feel that the reset freezes might be due to a corrupted ROM. I am not too sure how that can happen, but as the phone's ROM can be flashed I guess it can be corrupted too.

Unfortunately I had lost the flash software which I had used a number of months earlier to upgrade the phone from WM 5.0 to WM 6.0. However, even if I had it, it would not have helped as it was designed to be loaded via a sync connection. And as my phone would not reset, no sync. I knew that there was an alternative method to flash the ROM, using an SD card. So using good old Google I manged to find the necessary software. I used a spare mini-SD card, loaded the software and then used the particular key presses to start the ROM flash procedure. It took about 10 minutes, and much to my surprise and relief....it actually worked. I have a fully functional phone again!

On the same forum where I found the 6.0 ROM (xda-developers), I also saw postings about upgrading the Treo 750 to run WM6.1. As I now had a way back to WM6.0 I decided to try it out. It was not as easy as the instructions indicated, but I did finally manage to load something that looked like WM6.1 on my phone. Unfortunately I discovered that firstly my data connection stopped working, and then shortly afterwards the initially working phone connection also stopped . So I had to drop back to WM6.0, but it works and I just saved myself having to buy a $399 replacement phone. Now I can wait until AT&T add the Treo pro to their line-up, and my contract is up (April next year). or maybe by then I can go for a new HTC Touch HD.

MemAid for WM6

I have been using the Opera 9.5 beta for WM recently, and while it is a fantastic browser (think Safari on the iPhone), it is a memory hog. I tried out and was impressed with MemAid by DinarSoft. this program monitors memeory usage and can reclaim 'lost' memory. It also allows you to set limist for the PIE browser cache, and even for Opera (although it does not work with the 9.5 version yet).
You can schedule a regualr memory clean on a daily basis, so that you alway have a 'clean' system.

Recommended tool!

I am afraid that I have to caution you about my recommendation above - I suspect that this program is responsible for the ROM corruption mentioned in the post above. However, I will add that it is only: 'suspect this program is responsible'.

More (good) technology news from Delta

On a couple of recent flights I was privileged to experience some of the new changes to Delta's interiors. One of the surprises was the availability of USB power at all seats ,yes including coach! One was on a 737, I think 800 series, which will found regularily on domestic flights, long and short. The second was on a 757-200 (Ex-TWA seating according to Seatguru) which had been refurbished with intercontinental seating (electric lie flat style, masses of legroom and in seat 110V or USB).
The USB connections are great for recharging a cell phone, especially since I find that I am tending to run out at the end of the day with my Treo 750. I was thinking of buying a second battery, but think I might not need to with this new power source. Of course, it is not available in all aircraft yet, but I hope that Delta will install these outlets out as they roll out their in-flight WiFi.

Way to go Delta, you are thinking of us frequent business travellers again - thanks