My First Cruise Day 4

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Day 4 was thankfully less eventful than the 3rd day.  We docked in Cozumel Mexico.  We woke up to seeing a near identical ship out of the porthole.  Turned out the Voyager of the Sea’s docked slightly earlier than we did.  At breakfast we also saw two other much smaller carnival cruise ships in port.

We decided on a low key day and after brief browsing of the stores near the dock to hop a cab to a private beach.  We got some chairs in the shade and just relaxed.  We waded in the warm water, had a great lunch and just unwound.  It was really fun.  We took a cab back to the boat early and then relaxed in the pool some more.

It was really cool to watch the Voyager pull out of port.  They backed the ship out of the dock like you would back your car out of a garage.  It was very impressive to see that kind of precision with a ship that was over 100,000 tons displacement.

We had dinner in the dinning room.  All around great day.

My First Cruise Day 3

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Day 3 was a bit interesting.  It was our first port call.  We went to the Caman Islands.  We didn’t end up at the part of the island we were supposed to due to bad seas.  Our shore excursion was also canceled.  We ended up taking a cab to the downtown area we were supposed to goto.  We bought some rum cakes and walked around a bit.

Neither of us were up for much shopping.  We then took another cab to a beach nearby.  We had lunch and then tried to go snorcleing on a boat since that was what our original excursion was supposed to be.  Big mistake.  We should have realized that the seas beging so rough was a good reason not to go.  I was already fighting a migraine and took something for it at lunch.  Once we got on the little boat and it rocked around while at anchor I knew we had made a bad choice.  There was no turning back so we went on our way.  I got sick real quick.  I spent the rest of the short trip lying on the bow of the boat trying to rest.  As it turns out the seas were too rocky for M also and she couldn’t really snorkel that much in the choppy sea’s.

We then headed back to the beach.  For me the damage was already done and i having a full blown migraine.  M was a total trooper.  She got us into a cab/van back to the dock.  I barely made that trip.  She cut the entire line through customs and onto the tender back to the boat.  It was a long line, but i guess people are generally good and didn’t say anything when she was trying to get a sick person back to the boat.  I was able to lie down while on the tender and was very happy to be back in our air conditioned room so I could nap.

After a few hours nap I did feel totally normal.  Or well enough that we went to eat dinner in the dinning room.  We skipped the dinning room the 2nd night and on this night it turned out that the 4 other people at our table had skipped so we had the entire table to ourselves.  Overall it was a fantastic night, but not so great day!

My First Cruise Day 2

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The 2nd day of our cruise was really the first full day.  It was also a full day at sea.  The weather was much nicer than it was in Florida.  The morning was laid back.  We had breakfast at the windjammer and then I had an acupuncture appointment.  I had always wanted to try it so when we did the tour of the spa I signed up for one.  M worked out a bit when I was in the spa.

We had a relaxing lunch and then hung by the pool a little and also explored the ship.  The Navigator was huge.  I read up a lot about it before hand since i am interested in cool technology.  This ship was impressive.

For dinner we decided to skip the dinning room and hit up the steak house.  It was for an extra fee but well worth the price.  We had a great time.

My First Cruise Day 1

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Off on my first cruise.  M and I are taking the Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Sea’s to the Western Caribbean for 5 nights.  With the exception of rediculous traffic that was a close call to getting to the plane on time we had an uneventful flight.

The port was 15 minutes away from the FT. Lauderdale airport so it was a quick trip to the ship.  I was getting over a cold so they required that i be looked at by a nurse before we got on the boat.  I was fine so i breezed through that.

Right when we got on the boat we got our cards we could use to charge anything with.  What was cool was they took our photo so they can verify it is us anytime durring the trip.  I thought that was neat.  We got there a bit early before our room was ready so we headed to the windjammer for lunch.  The view was spectacular even though we were sitting in port.  The buffet was really nice also.

We brought our bags with us instead of checking them so once 1PM rolled around we were able to head down to our room.  We wanted cabin with an outside view but didn’t want to go crazy on cost so we ended up with a cabin on deck 2 with just a porthole.  It was ok.  I think we both imagined much worse.

Once we were settled in to the cabin we had several hours before ship left port.  We both wanted to schedule appointments at the spa so we went up to check it out.

It had been raining on and off all day in South Florida but when the doors opened on the elevator and we walked out onto the deck for the first time is a sight i wont quickly forget.  It was spectacular.  Just the open deck looking out on the water.  Even with the bad weather it was still a sight to see.  We did a quick tour of the spa and each scheduled some appointments.  M actually went right away and did something.  We just relaxed the rest of the day and had a great dinner meeting our table mates for the first time.

Google Apps Premium

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On several occasions I have blogged about Zimbra. In June I decided to switch back to Google apps. For about a month or so I had been playing with both Zimbra and Google apps. What’s funny is I was relatively happy with Zimbra, but when I was playing with android phones I started looking again at Google apps. It seems like nowadays Google apps is universally accessible on multiple operating systems and phone platforms. Zimbra does use Microsoft’s exchange sync but do not as universally compatible as Google apps. The biggest drawback was the limitations on android phones. Even though I ended up not keeping an android phone I actually like the flexibility that Google apps gave me. When I first started using Zimbra I actually A copy of mail both on my Gmail and on my Zimbra account. Recently I have been less concerned about downtime with anyone provider, so that redundancy seemed like overkill.

What I ended up doing was I stopped using Zimbra and started using the free Google apps. Once I got the IOS 4.0 upgrade for my iPhone however I was compelled to purchase the paid version. There was a quirk with each change sync settings and IOS 4.0 that was fixed with the premium version. I tried the 15 day free account and liked it. I ended up canceling my Zimbra account and and now I am only using Google apps. Feature wise I can’t complain about Zimbra. Overall the two products were similar. I do however like the UI of Google apps. Recent integration of Google voice to my Google apps for domains also affirms my choice was the right one for me at the time. The

So far I’ve been happy with my choice for the past few months. I know every year or two I reassess the situation. I did that about two years ago when I switched from Google Apps to Zimbra, any year or so before that when I moved on to Google apps from another mail provider. Let’s hope I am satisfied with what I have now for a few years. Of course if Google doesn’t continue to innovate I’m open to other options.

RIP Partsearch

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Today seems like the last day of Partsearch Technologies. It looks like the staff has been let go and the company is going out of business.  It is still kind of odd that I found myself wanting to write about it. After all I haven’t worked there since February 2007. In any event I have several friends that still worked there up until the end, and after spending so many years working there I feel like a wanted to write something.

For the past several weeks I’ve heard about problems they been having. Of course it seemed like (to me) there’ve been problems for years. In the end I have mixed feelings about this day. Partsearch was a place I loved to work at for many years, but toward the end for me it was a place I dreaded to work. At the time my decision to leave was both sudden, and a long time coming. What I mean by that is, by the time I was ready to leave I realized I should’ve left the year before. I talk about that now because it seems like the decisions that were being made then probably had an impact on the company’s ultimate demise.

In recent years I have had many negative things to say about working there. In reality as I said I had several years where I loved working there. I met many friends that I still keep in touch with today. I got to work side by side with one of my best friends for 2 years. I went from being just a systems engineer, to manager, then to a director. Today I can’t help thinking about all the fun times I had, but also about the frustration that led me to leave.

I talk about this now because in the end it seems like the company doomed due to its virtual reliance on one client. This wasn’t news. This was actually in fact a problem since the day the company was founded. Over time from what I’ve heard their reliance on Best Buy decreased, however at the end the vast majority of business was still from them. The detail that I have are fuzzy about the last days, but I recall talking to other managers years ago, and discussing the fact that in the end the business model just did not work. That and the companies reliance on one customer was worrisome from the get go. I’m not a finance guy, all my information is secondhand and anecdotal, but to me this seemed obvious. Let’s put it in an other way. If it was a great business model, Partsearch would not have relied on Best Buy for such a large percentage of revenue 10 years into the company’s history.

I can recall spending weeks and months preparing to build websites for customers that were to be the next big thing for Partsearch. The problem was the next big thing never came. It was always a bit demoralizing to spend all this time and money and effort on a website and never generated more than $5-$10,000 a month in revenue. This happened, more times than I can remember. At one point we had to have been managing 15 to 25 websites with 2 to 3 generating 90% or more of the money. One of those sites with the company’s own Partstore site. And from what I heard Partstore wouldn’t have gotten much focus if it wasn’t for Dan convincing upper management it could make money. Don’t get me wrong, the actual building and constructing the sites and infrastructure was challenging. That’s what I did. That is why I liked working there for so long. The frustrating part was to do it knowing that historically it wouldn’t make any difference.

I guess in the end my thoughts about working there a very bipolar. On one hand I got to work with some good friends. I gained new friends. I grew as an engineer and manager. I learned a lot more about technology than any other place I’ve ever worked. Gus for one still motivates me today even though I haven’t worked for him in over five years. All that positive thoughts get clouded when I think about the frustration of having to deal with Glenn and other upper management. In my mind the lack of understanding some aspects of technology, and being delusional in the fact that they thought they could build software better than they could just buy off the shelf that eventually led me to leave. I know you can argue anything I’m saying right now. However think about this, as far as I can remember the website infrastructure was rebuilt, or attempted to be rebuilt no less than four times in 10 years. In all those attempts (again as far as I am aware) it never worked just right. Today that still baffles me. In the end it was a e-commerce site, with the search engine backend, and fulfillment system. That’s nothing groundbreaking, yet there was so many problems with it.

What I find kind of funny is that I knew several people that worked there up until the end. Most of them are actually happy the companies out of business and they’re forced to look for something else.

When I was younger and jaded right after I left Partsearch I look forward to this day. Then it was almost like when it happened it would be justification. Now when the day is here, it is just sad. For everyone that I still know I was working there I wish them good luck finding a job. For those friends who had already moved on like myself, I say take a moment to think of the good times we all had. Because now that it is all over, all we have are the memories. When you count up the time that I was happy there outweighed the time I was unhappy!

Plex Media Center 9

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Earlier this month Plex came out with a new version. I had been really liking version 8 since I started using my Mac mini as a media center back in late June. I was eager to download the new version when it came out. Initially I was not very pleased. I had significant issues with my media library upgrading. Well, part of the problem was it didn’t upgrade. I had to start over and lost all my customizations. The new version also had issues downloading TV metadata initially. Thankfully the download issues were resolved and I am actually quite pleased now how Plex 9 is turning out.

I also purchased the IOS media streaming app for my iPhone and iPad. That is slightly slow, but it is very cool to be able to stream everything to my portable devices.

I’m still playing around with my set up, but I hope to have everything tweaked the way I like it very soon.

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Virgin Mobile Mifi

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You may remember that back in December I had purchased a Verizon MiFi. Other than the cost I was actually very pleased with it. I never really used it that much. It was a really nice to have and did come in handy, but I didn’t NEED it. I was pleased and surprised to see virgin mobile announce mobile hotspot of their own with the pay-as-you-go price plan. The $20 a month for 200 meg plan was perfect for my occasional need for hotspot. Before my trip to Syracuse for the Fourth of July I ran out to Best Buy and got one. I wanted to try it out head-to-head with my Verizon one and see how the performance was. The reality was the Verizon hotspot was faster. It is very noticeably faster when I ran a benchmark. Of course for the price that speed difference wasn’t really that much when you take into account the vast difference in cost. Well at least that was my opinion.

While I was away I bought 3G iPad. That made my needs for mobile hot spot decrease even more. The fate of my Verizon MiFi was field. Even though I bought the Virgin one in early July I didn’t get rid of Verizon one until late August. Most of the month of July was playing around with both of them to be really sure that I wanted to get rid of the rising one. Once I was sure I wanted to get rid of it, I needed to wait until the billing cycle ended.

What I like best about the virgin hotspot is its flexibility. I don’t actually need to keep paying for service every month. I can purchase service for month, and when that expires I can purchase service again when I need it. That means I can go up to a year between actually paying for month of service. That suits me since I don’t always need a mobile Wi-Fi since I have my iPad 3G, but I have the option when I need it.

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