Travel and Lodging

May brings a lot of traveling.  Planned so far are New York City, San Diego, and London.  There’s a week in-between San Diego and London that I need to fill… whether it’s a road trip up Highway 101 or a short exploration of Chile, who knows.  Likely the former with the cost and time constraints.

I used airbnb.com for the first time to book places to stay.  I’ve been skeptical about it but find myself now fascinated.  The site encourages you to have a lot of communication with the “host” and the social aspect is interesting.  Hopefully the rooms I’ve booked live up to their photographs and reviews!

Since I can’t sleep tonight I’m going to go search for airbnb horror stories just to freak myself out.

Microsoft Surface Pro and our small world

I needed to get a new laptop and had had grown curious about the Surface Pro.  Most reviews I read were positive about the device (not so much about the Surface RT), and it felt like a great combination of tablet + laptop.

Unfortunately only the Surface RT has been released in Singapore, so there was no estimated date for the Surface Pro.  Just a couple days ago they announced it would be coming around the end of June.

Two weeks ago I was in Taiwan and reading more about the laptop and looked at availability on Amazon.  Via one of their affiliates I could get a Surface Pro shipped to Singapore.   I resisted at first, but then broke down while I was in a long queue at Taipei airport.

Amazing if you think about it… I pulled out my phone, launched the Amazon app, and it had the Surface Pro and type keyboard still saved in the shopping cart.  I clicked the purchase button and since it had my credit card information already, zip… the order went through.  This was Friday afternoon at 1 PM in Taiwan.

By 10 AM Monday morning the Surface Pro had made it from America to my home in Singapore.  I was blown away by the speed of delivery.  I think it’s going to take me longer as a passenger to get from Singapore to New York on my trip next month!

Anyway, after a week of using the Surface Pro and Windows 8 on it, I love it.  Windows 8 with a touchscreen is an awesome experience.  If you’ve been using Windows 8 (as I have) with just a mouse and keyboard, well, you basically haven’t been using Windows 8.  I’m motivated now to buy a touchscreen monitor for my desktop at home.

The gestures did take a little getting used to, especially when coming from an iPad, but after 15 minutes I was flipping through Windows and docking them with ease.

The type cover has also exceeded my expectations.  I think there’s minimal slowdown; I’m typing at essentially the same speed as on a regular keyboard.

The only drawback I’ve found is that it weighs more than expected.  Nothing too crazy but if you’re lying face-up in bed and holding it over you, you won’t want it crashing down on your face.

I’m looking forward to my first trip with it next month.  That will be the true test!

Moving house

Last month my wife and I moved from the apartment I’ve been living in since moving to Singapore and into an HDB flat just a couple blocks away.

After 10 years of living in a place, lots of memories are embedded within the walls and furniture.

We were moving to a smaller place, and I wanted to be ruthless when it came to throwing out old things. I had read one of those “life hacks” that suggested to take pictures of mementos and discard the actual object.

It was a long process. Finding letters, pictures, and trinkets that reminded me of different times and places. “Click” went my camera as it digitized memories and sent them to my computer.

It was nice to have these old feelings come out for a while.

More Than This

Happy Chinese New Year!  Goodbye year of the Dragon, hello year of the Snake.

It has been a rainy start to the year; appropriate since it’s a “Black Water Snake” year.

Had a wonderful afternoon nap, and now late night am looking at clips from favorite movies.

A little pause would be nice

Well here we are at the end of the world.  Scratch that, just the end of the year.  How’d that happen so fast?  I have a feeling that 2012 will go down as one of the most intense years of my life.

- Opened (franchised) a restaurant into Jakarta, Indonesia

- Left my Microsoft job after 14 years, the first and only job I’ve had since graduating from university

- Opened a new cocktail bar and restaurant (Tanuki)

- Got married

- Bought a house (and soon will renovate said house)

That’s kind of a lot of change in a pretty short time span.  Makes me want to catch my breath a bit.  Get organized.

Will try in 2013.

Outlook / Microsoft Office 2013 IMAP bug

Recently upgrade to Microsoft Office 2013?  Do you notice your IMAP account (likely gmail) showing messages that you deleted or moved into another folder previously?  Or even worse, a message from your mail provider saying you have exceeded bandwidth and are now locked out for 24 hours?

You’re not alone.  There are a few issues in Outlook 2013 which unfortunately while reported during the Preview period have not been fixed in the final RTM product.

From the Microsoft Answers site:

1) Outlook 2013 IMAP messages keep re-appearing after deletion or move

2) Gmail (or any IMAP accountd) “Account exceeded bandwidth limits” while using Outlook 2013 IMAP

For issue #1 you can try deleting and re-adding your IMAP account so it starts fresh.  I found that fixed the issue for me but others are reporting the issue remains.

For #2, which is a serious problem because it locks you out of your account for 24 hours (you can still use web access to the mail), I don’t know what the workaround could be.  The Office blog explains the new IMAP in Outlook 2013 which may shed light on what is going on.

Hopefully Microsoft is going to release updates frequently and  not make us all wait months for a service pack (or worse, just not fix this issue at all).

Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 RT

Windows 8 is finally here and along with it is Microsoft’s big bet – the Surface with Windows RT.  The company built the hardware itself (pissing off its numerous hardware partners) and it is basically positioned to compete against Apple’s iPad and Google’s Chromebooks.

Consensus is that the device is beautiful hardware-wise.  Unique case with a touch keyboard, slim tablet, and a kickstand to prop it up…

The criticisms I’ve read are centered around:

1. The screen dimensions make it awkward to hold in portrait mode (a little too long)
2. Windows RT doesn’t run all the applications that Windows 8 will run.  It runs basically the tablet-oriented apps and not the desktop and legacy applications.  That can be confusing for customers who don’t realize that Windows RT and Windows 8 are not the same thing.  The allowed apps must come from the Windows Store (app store)
3. The lack of applications – it’s a new platform so more will be coming, but yes, there’s a lack of killer apps at the moment.
4. Camera sucks

However it’s still an ultra-portable tablet with features that give it an edge over existing tablets for creating content.  Are people using it while still in the “shadow” of how one uses an iPad?  Perhaps it will take time to break out of using the Surface in the same way as using an iPad.

There’s plenty of reviews out there from the big tech sites, but this review by Hal Berenson had good analysis about what the Surface can offer.