Paris Day6: Culture Crazy
Posted by martin newham in Holidays, Travel on September 4, 2009
Throughout my holiday in central Paris, I’ve been using my technology. I’ve been using a number of iPhone applications which use local databases and GPS to route you around the city, find the nearest metro’s etc. There have been a number of digital guides I’ve used as well, later I’ll post some of the ones I’ve used and how to reduce data charges and increase battery time.
After a great breakfast; thanks Sofitel – I was ready to go…
The day started of dark and threatening but I was determined to get out… using Rick Steves’ Historic Paris Walk for the iPhone and Touch was the walk around the Notre-Dame area…
Paris Day5: Culture Shock
Posted by martin newham in Holidays, Travel on September 3, 2009
Well what a day! Slept well, left the hotel about 10am, visited the Arc de Triomphe at the end of the road…
… and caught the metro. Arrived at walked to Eiffel Tower; got some great pictures it’s an amazing structure built to celebrate the turn of the century in the 1900’s and its still as strong as ever.
Paris Day4: Chalk & Fromage
Posted by martin newham in Holidays, Travel on September 2, 2009
Dear readers, you will remember that I was enjoying the new room at Disney Newport Bay Club hotel yesterday; well last night at 3am the balcony door opened and refused to close! Lucky it wasn’t wet of cold but after 20 minutes of trying to stop it banging on the stop, I just jammed it open with a chair for the rest of the night – needless to say the interruption ruined my sleep for the rest of the night and I woke up like a bear with a sore head.
Needless to say the “cast members” were as always very helpful and fixed the door around 8am; at which point I went back sleep.
I packed again and distributed my various belongings with the concierge for a half day in the Disneyland Park. I must admit the cast members are great in the hotel, although in my opinion my whole hotel experience with Disney was let down by the physical hotel – however grand it looked.
Paris Day3: Silent Night, Stormy Head
Posted by martin newham in Holidays, Travel on September 1, 2009
With the fiasco of the rooms yesterday; you’ll be glad to hear that last night I slept the whole night – without interruptions!
But the morning itself woke with a bang. The weather had flipped 180, yesterday was one of the hottest – today it seemed like one of the wettest! Of course it didn’t just rain there was also thunderstorms and lightening – I’m sure it was natures work just to prove Disney how to do it properly.
Breakfast today was with Pluto; he made an appearance in the hotel lobby having pictures taken with the guests – a talented pup, signing autographs as well; although I’m a little concerned as it seems he has very poor vision…
Paris Day2: Disneyland Park
Posted by martin newham in Holidays, Travel on August 31, 2009
At around 12:30am I was woken up by the refuse collection below the room I was staying in – not a quick five minutes, but I can only assume some unhappy “cast member” taking it out on the empty bottles. I much have counted at least 20 glass bottles being thrown into refuse, that interspersed with the lift next door delivering people; a thankless task, but still noisy.
The following morning, after inspecting the HUGE queue for breakfast, to be honest I’ve seen smaller queues within the park! I decided to forgo the most important meal of the day and see what can be done about my room.
Paris Day1: Arrival.
Posted by martin newham in Holidays, Travel on August 30, 2009
Arrived at the hotel at Disney around 2pm local time. Check in was a bit of a chore, bit finally got onto the room – it’s on the 8th floor and overlooking the hotel delivery area – 4/10 for location.
Paris Day1: Departure
Posted by martin newham in Holidays, Travel on August 30, 2009
Well we’ve just left St. Pancras station, I feel as if I should be wearing a seatbelt.
Paris Day1: Ready to go
Posted by martin newham in Holidays, Travel on August 30, 2009
Arrived at London St. Pancras International to get the Eurostar train direct to Disneyland Paris.
The train leaves at 09:53, so I’m hanging around in the very small departure area waiting.
I think Disney has loaned the station some brass band. They seem very Disney-esk.
Weekend of Celebration – Tim & Belinda’s Wedding
Posted by martin newham in Holidays, Musings, Travel on July 20, 2009
17th ~ 19th July 2009
Ceremony occurring on the Saturday 18th July 2009
Update: I’ve posted the Slideshow video from the DVD at the bottom of this post
What a fantastic couple of days; a good friend of 20+ years honoured me by inviting me to his very exclusive wedding located in Winchelsea near Rye in the UK.
They had converted a small hotel, into what can only be explained as an extended family home for 3 days. The whole hotel was reserved for the wedding group, and the setting and location was amazing.
We arrived late Friday afternoon and we shown to our room, the 18th Century building can only be described as unique, its exposed beams and low ceilings really brought home the historic charm of the building (I have the bruises to prove it).
2,000+ people snuffed out in Twitter, helpdesk ignores plight *updated
Posted by martin newham in Musings, Web/Tech on June 22, 2009
Updated 22nd & 23rd June 2009
Just sent this email to the BBC’s Click program, hopefully they will be able to investigate..
Hi Click, I would like to highlight a issue thousands or tweeters as well as myself currently experiencing with our mutual friend Twitter..
You can see from the link, that I’m just one of 2,000+ people (People are missing from Find People search) that have been silenced by a bug in search that Twitter doesn’t seem to be looking at, and it seems that more and more are experiencing the same problem on a daily basis.
So what’s the symptoms? Not appearing on search may not seem like a bit issue, but imagine if the BBC website suddenly stopped showing up on Google ?! The effect in Twitter is the same – no-one can find your tweets anymore, if you reply to more than 1 person at a time *ONLY* the first person will get the message;
“@mate1 @mate2 Hi Guys” – only @mate1 will ever see the message.
Why? Because all Twitter clients on PC, MAC, iPhone etc supplement incoming tweets using the Twitter search engine (it saves Twitter API calls) If you’re not in search you’ll only be seen by a few. Being the search engine, it also means that in some cases you won’t show up in the people search tool.
I hope you’ll be able to investigate this issue and get some information, as repeatedly victims receive helpdesk updates saying the issue has been fixed; which it hasn’t. If you wish to see my case log with Twitter, please let me know.
If you are experiencing the same problems; perhaps you can send the BBC an email as well…