Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Intersting Finds

I just realized I haven't shared one of my most indispensable "killer apps" with you. It's "Hz@hz.com" and it so flippin' awesome.

Hz is a free service (how it remains free or un-acquired is one of the 7 wonders of the world, if you ask me). It has many capabilities, but I really only use one of them. As you may know, I travel a lot and experience the dark underbelly of the travel lifestyle: flight delays, cancellations, missed flights, and re-routing. I also frequently end up in situations where I want to know if there is an earlier flight I can take to get me home sooner.

Hz is my hero. If, for example, I want to know what the next flights are from London's Heathrow to Portland, Oregon I simply send an email from my PDA to "hz@hz.com" with the subject line "nextflight lhr:pdx" -- a minute or so later, I'll get a return email with a list of all of the flights between Heathrow and Portland, sorted by the number of stops first, then the departure time. Way cool.

Here's how this helps:

  • Last weekend, I was in London, trying to get back to Portland. I was going to take a flight to Frankfurt, then connect on a direct flight to Portland. However, the flight to Frankfurt was cancelled due to mechanical problems.
  • After an hour's delay, they reunited me with my luggage and directed me to "the guy" at the ticket counter for re-routing.
  • At the ticket counter, "the guy" wanted to re-route me through Seattle arriving in Portland at 9:something in the evening. I sent my email to Hz@hz.com.
    • Me: "Hey - what about United flight 929? It'll get me there at 5:25pm..."
    • The guy: "I don't see that."
    • Me: "Can you see if you can look it up?"
    • The guy: "Oh - there it is. I can get you on it. It connects through Chicago."

Thanks, killer app - I'm home 3 hours earlier and manage to make it to Girl Scout night at a Blazers game with my daughter at 6pm!

That's one example - and I was able to quickly retrieve better flight options for a couple of people next to me - one who was also going to Portland, and another to Caracas, Venezeuela.

Hz also has a number of other functions. For example:

  • Finding the nearest...
    • Wal-Mart based on your ZIP code
    • Starbucks based on your ZIP code
    • Post office
    • ATM for your bank
  • Tracking packages for UPS, DHL, FedEx, and others
  • Finding area codes
  • Finding weather reports for a city
  • Stock information
  • Definitions
  • Gas prices in your ZIP code
  • Much, much more!

To get a full list of the commands, send an email to hz@hz.com with the subject "commands" and you'll get an email back with all the amazing stuff it can tell you. (or, check out the web site at www.hz.com)

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Fresh gear: IPEVO and Skype

I've been in the UK this week, and I'm trying a new approach to save money on phone calls during my travels. I recently purchased a Skype-certified USB handset called the "Free-1" from IPEVO, and decided to try Skype instead of my usual (costly) method of making calls back home using my mobile phone or my calling card. It comes in black and white color choices, and I chose black so it doesn't end up looking as scuffed from being tossed into my laptop bag.

I'm quite pleased with the results. The IPEVO handset is very small and easy to pack in my laptop bag, and it's a snap to use (plug it into your USB port, tell Skype to use it as its default audio device, and you're done). Once it's connected, it operates much like a normal phone, and integrates directly with the functionality of Skype, making it easy to browse your address book and dial calls manually.

For the calls back home, I didn't want to be constrained by only being able to communicate with other people using Skype, so I purchased 10 Euros worth of "SkypeOut" minutes (about $12.50 US). This allows me to call phone numbers anywhere in the world for about 2 cents per minute using any broadband connection. When I purchased my credits, I paid by PayPal and received a special block of 120 bonus minutes (eBay owns both Skype and PayPal), giving me about 8 hours of calling time for that same $12.50 - what a deal!

SkypeOut, coupled with the IPEVO handset, makes the experience a simple one - I simply press the "OUT" button on the handset (a green plus sign), then dial the number I want to call. I then press the green handset button to make the call and my call is dialed. When the call is complete, I press the red handset button to end the call. Skype keeps a running tab of my remaining SkypeOut credits so I don't have to guess.

Oh - and the call quality? It is excellent. My wife and some of my colleagues couldn't tell any difference between these calls and the calls I used to make via "normal" phone lines (in fact they found them to be clearer than calls made from my mobile phone).

While my interest in this began with a travel-centric view, I will likely end up buying another SkypeOut handset for my home and begin using it for international calling from home, as well.

By the way - IPEVO has recently released a handset driver for the Mac, so it's now certified for both Mac and Windows systems.

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Fresh gear: Travel headphones

Earbuds_sm_2 As you may be able to gather from some of my posts here, I spend a lot of time on airplanes. Last year, I used some of my American Express Rewards points to get a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort 2 headphones (I couldn’t justify paying $300 in cash for them, but using my Rewards points was painless). The Bose headphones are very nice - they’re the Escalade of noise-cancelling headphones.

Unfortunately, the Bose headphones are so bulky (even when they are folded) that I don’t really bring them along any more except when I travel on international flights. As a result, I’ve been listening to my iPod and my laptop using the headphones that come with the iPod. They’re very good, but they just weren’t doing the trick for me on planes - particularly when listening to the audiobooks I download from my subscription to Audible.

Well, I just finished a round trip to NYC with my latest headphones, and I love them. They’re Sony’s MDR-EX71 earbuds. They don’t have active noise cancelling, but they have very comfortable rubber ear pieces (three sizes are included) that allow them to block out most of the ambient noise, including the racket on a plane. They sound great, come with a tiny case (not shown in the picture) to hold the extension cord and extra ear pieces, and have a cool little sleeve (looks like a capsule in the photo) to help you store them in a laptop bag without messing up or losing the rubber earpieces. The sleeve also reduces the likelihood of tangling.

The sound quality is very good, and you get a lot more bass out of these buds than the ones that come with the iPod. They sound good enough that I’ll probably put my Bose headphones up on eBay or something. I wore them continuously on a 5½ hour flight and they were comfortable the whole time.

At about $30 via Amazon, the Sony MDR-EX71’s are affordable, and they perform at least as well as other earbuds I’ve tried out that cost $150 and up. If you’re in the market for some comfortable, great sounding earbuds for travel or other places where you’d like to isolate the sounds around you, I recommend these.

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Updated: Don't be the crumply traveler

Mrcrumplyman Do you look rumply and crumply when you travel? You don't have to any more. I am happy to say I was invited to be a guest author on Lifehack.org this week, writing about wrinkle-free packing.

As I mention in the article, I've tried every cool method for packing that I could find, but I've finally found one that works. So go over there and read it and, when you are ready to pick up the supplies, here is your shopping list:

  • Eagle Creek Pack-It Folders (I recommend 15" or 18" size for men's clothing - check the recommendations on the product page)

  • Eagle Creek Pack-It Cubes (I use these for Zone Bars, socks, underwear - which I roll and put in a Pack-It Cube, etc.)

  • Lands' End Wrinkle-Free clothing for men or women

  • If you're still worried about wrinkles (for example, suit coats that stay in any folded configuration for a long time can develop creases, or you may make mistakes in folding) I recommend my trusty friend - Wrinkle Free Spray. Simply spray it on, smooth out the wrinkles and it's dry and ready to wear in a couple of minutes. Also works to remove "hanger shoulders" from knit shirts.

I swear by these things, and get comments all the time from my fellow travelers on how unrumpled I look. In fact, this week at the meet-up in London, both Adrian Trenholm and the (blogless) Christopher Morgan commented about how tidy my shirt looked for having traveled from the US the day before (and that was in the evening after a full day).

Why not give it a shot? I started with one, and now I have two for longer trips.

Oh - and wouldn't they make a great gift for that traveler in your life this holiday season?

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LifeHack: Knowing whether you've got good airline seats

Gadget alert:  I use a web site called "Seat Guru" to see how good or bad my airline seats are before I fly.  As part of the itinerary I get from my travel agent, I can see what type of plane I'll be flying on, then I can look up my seat and see if it's a "problem seat" or not.

For example, later this week I'm flying to London on United Airlines.  I'm waiting for an upgrade to Business Class but since that's never guaranteed, I want to make sure my Coach seat is OK.  I fire up SeatGuru.com, select United Airlines from the navigation menu, select the Boeing 777-200 from the list, and I see a seat map of the plane.

SeatGuru color codes the seats.  The green ones are the ones you want, the red ones are the ones you don't, the yellow ones are the ones to watch out for. Hover over the seat on the diagram and you'll see a popup that tells you why it's colored that way.

On this next flight, my seat is 22H - not colored at all, so it's a "normal" Economy Plus seat.  Tomorrow, I'll call and see if I can get moved to a green one...

Oh - and did I mention SeatGuru is free?  Very sweet.

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