I meant to post a link to the photos I took in Taiwan a while back and never got around to it (can you tell it’s clean up day today ;-). They are on Ofoto which is my preferred service for digital photo sharing and printing.

Hope you enjoy the photos. I had fun snapping them as I walked around the back streets and the amazing National Palace Museum.

Well, my new laptop arrived at the office while I was in Taiwan, so this evening I have been playing with it. In particular, I have been listening to streaming radio over my 802.11 connection (wireless internet radio).

So far I have been mostly listening to Club 977 which offers commercial free 80’s music streamed at 128 kbps via the iTunes application. Even while downloading software for my new toy (like Konfabulator) it hasn’t dropped out at all. Very cool.

I’ll probably post more about the new laptop as I spend more time playing with it. Sometime soon I want to try creating a DVD with it and see how that works out. For now I’m just concentrating on getting my basic software installed, and the wireless connectivity sorted out too.

Well, congratulations to Ping for the correct location: I was in Taipei to drop off a board for a demo at Computex and make sure that it all worked correctly.

Apart from Computex, which was both huge in terms of the number of exhibitors, and packed (to the point that it was difficult to move around), I also went to a few other places.

Food & Drink

• China Pa – a restaurant/bar place that served the most amazing spicy food and any kind of drink you could imagine. All in an environment that included carved wooden furnishings, comfy chairs and live music.
• Naomi – a underground lounge bar with unusual decor, good snacks and OK cocktails (the Long Island Iced Tea was good, but I have had better – and worse). There was a fairly trendy crowd in and the video being projected onto the walls from overhead projectors was decidedly odd in places. Also, a little expensive – there’s even a cover charge.
• Champagne – just a few doors down the street from Naomi, but this one is at street level. Very impressive wine and champagne collection (with prices to match), but also a very good selection of every other kind of drink you can imagine. Well worth a visit.
• The Hyatt does a buffet that I’m told is amazing, but I missed it. Instead, I ate in the little lounge/bar area on the second floor, overlooking the lobby. They had a dim sum type thing going on, but extended to include bite-sized servings of foods from all over the world – for example, cucumber sandwiches made on a slices of bread about two inches square – with crusts, so not just larger slices cut down to size.
• The Brasserie at the Landis Hotel – this one was not so good, at least for me. The Singapore-style noodles I had were totally devoid of any spices, and the chilli sauce I requested was equally mild. That said, the pain au chocolat and croissants they served with breakfast are among the best I’ve had anywhere in the world, including France. The rest of the breakfast was excellent too – anything from Chinese style to full English cooked to cereals & fresh fruit.

Attractions

I only really saw one attraction in my limited time there (I don’t count Computex). That was the National Palace Museum, and it is well worth checking out, though it is somewhat large and perhaps a little overwhelming.

Well, it is not California. But for those who want to guess here are some photos. If you have any idea (and those who already know are not eligible to enter 😉 please leave a comment with your guesses…

 

One of my tasks for the day, and believe me I’ve been so busy recently with work that I had plenty of tasks to perform today at home, was to look into buying some theatre tickets for the Lion King musical at the Orpheum here in San Francisco early next year.

As with many of these things, the tickets are being sold online through TicketMaster. Sounds good? Well, the people that designed the TicketMaster booking system should be fired! The system, for those that have not tried using it, requires the user to guess which particular show will have seats left and then enter one of those words-in-a-graphic validation things. If you were unlucky in your guess, you get to go back to the beginning and guess again.

How much intelligence does it take to realise that what any user will want to do is specify the number of seats, the acceptable classes of seating and have the system present a list of dates that have matching seats available?

Finally, just to rub salt into the wound, if you do finally manage to find a date where seats that match your needs are available, they charge you what they call a convenience fee. How does this system rate as convenient? What definition of the word are they using?

Anybody else fed up with credit card applications? I am getting them at a rate of about one per day. A while back I decided that there was only one solution: stick the terms and conditions page they always include back in their reply-paid envelope and mail it back to them. Perhaps if enough people do this they will get the message and stop sending these applications (either that or they will stop sending reply-paid envelopes).

Anyhow, this week one bank managed to send me two applications and in both cases they had a window envelope enclosed for the reply. The return address was on the back of the application form. Smart, but not smart enough – the part that was pre-printed with my name and address was on the opposite side, so I simply cut the form in half, making sure that there was no identifying information left, and glued that to the terms and conditions.

So, I think it is time to see if we can (a) stop this game and (b) generate some additional revenue for the postal service. Whenever you get a credit card application, send back the terms and conditions in the reply-paid envelope and be sure to shred the actual application form to prevent identity theft.