Just a little textile museum

but wow what a courtyard.

I have to say... if Barcelona had a tech-scene, I'd move in a heartbeat: what a wonderful city...

As seen at 3GSM...

Oh Canada...


Coolest truck-cab-ever

Apple UK Commercials

(Image by quatzacoalt.)

The guys over at Apple seems to have some great ads on their website. Same as the US Mac/PC ads, but with a slight English twist. They're great fun!

50% longer batt life for $100?

The batteries from FastMac sure sound interesting... and they've received good reviews from the folks at Gizmodo. An extra 50% battery life, on a battery that costs less than the one from Apple sure sounds like a great deal. I think I'll have to get one for my Mac (I have to say, I love the 15" display... but these things suck *way* more power than my old 12" PowerBook).

Via Rob Hyndman.

Mind maps: not just for 5th grade any more!

Getting ready for 3GSM next week, and fleshing out more of the people and companies I'd like to meet (yeah, I should've started on this some time ago, but what can I say... the decision to go was fairly last-minute).

So I've been using MindJet's MindManager on my Mac for a while now, and have found it really helpful for not only sketching out ideas, etc. but also for helping map out networking: Who're the people I want to meet, the people I'd love to reconnect with, the companies I'm interested in, the spaces I'm curious about and the companies and people in them.

Paper's definitely the easiest way to get started with mapping, but tends to break down pretty quickly when you start looking at really large maps, with lots of people/companies in them, and that you want to be able to edit, annotate and share.

So there you go, one other cool way to use mindmapping... I'm just getting into the habit of using this sort of tool, but so far I'm a fan.

A few hours in Paris?

It turns out there's no direct flight from Toronto to Barcelona (I'm going for 3GSM, so I'm spending a few hours (enough to leave the airport and explore) in Paris... It's been a long time since I've been back, so I'm curious: Anyone have suggestions for what to do with 8 hours in Paris?

My Mac or the plane?

So on the flight down to San Francisco, I found the power-port in my seat was pretty sketchy... I'd plug the adapter in, and it wouldn't get any power... then I'd unplug it, put it back in, and now it would have power... for a few minutes, and it stopped.

The guy next to me didn't have his laptop power adapter out, so I couldn't exactly experiment with this, but I'm curious: Has this happened to anyone else? Just general flakiness of the thing? (I'd expect that it'd either work or not.)

I wonder if it's the plane (Air Canada Airbus 321) or whether it's the ridiculously power-hungry adapter Apple ships with the MacBook Pro...

If anyone else's had a similar experience, I'd love to hear it!

"You're awesome dude... this time I mean it." - PostReach

Okay, so what's with the "guest blog" stuff here? One of my best friends, Hans Chung is the co-founder of a cool new startup called PostReach. The idea? You have friends that are bloggers... you like these friends. You like what they have to say. You might not mind the occasional blog post from them showing up on YOUR blog... especially if you got some of your posts occasionally put up on theirs.

The idea's an interesting one... and I can't wait to see what happens. In the meantime, I'm a happy guinea-pig. Send me an email if you'd like to be added to my PostReach group.

Book I want : Founders at Work

Jessica Livingston, a partner at Y Combinator has written a book that includes interviews with 32 startup company founders, including Steve Wozniak, Mike Lazaridis, Joel Spolsky, Ray Ozzie, Ann Winblad, Sabeer Bhatia, and others. It looks awesome!

Via Joel on Software.

Barometer of evil

I was having lunch with a friend (Wojtek, get a blog so I can link to you! :) today, who suggested I put some sort of "barometer of evil" up on my website. Until I've got time to actually build some sort of *real* barometer, this one will have to do :-)

JetBlue vs Air Canada

My JetBlue account has always had my shortened name (Sutha Kamal) on it ... meaning each time I book a flight, my boarding card says "Sutha Kamal". Generally this is okay. The security folks look at the boarding pass, then my passport, realize that I'm the SAME person (the first and last name on the passport just have a few more characters at the end :-) and away I go.

Anyway, with airport security getting a little more strict lately, I figured I'd call JetBlue and have them change the name to my full legal name to avoid any issues. I use my email address and password and log into the JetBlue website, where it addresses me as "MR SUTHA KAMAL" and has my JetBlue number. Then I call up customer service and have them make the change. "Amanda" puts me on hold for a few minutes, and then announces that the change is made. Now here's what's really cool: I REFRESH the page in my browser (no logging out or anything), and boom, the change is made! How cool is that?

Contrast this with Air Canada. I haven't been able to log into their website for several days (started working this morning). I called support and the best they could do was say "um, there's a known problem and we're working on it. Please give it another try in an hour."

Wow. Now that's a difference!

European conference season...

Two questions:

- Anyone going to 3GSM in Barcelona in a few weeks?

- Anyone have a spare ticket to the Future of Web Apps conference in London? (Seems like it's sold out... and I'd love to go if someone's got a pass, or happens to have changed their mind about going... :-)

Thanks!