Copyright ©1997-2011 Glenn Fleishman except as noted otherwise. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint, contact Glenn Fleishman at glenn at glennf.com. Photo © 2008 Laurence Chen; used with permission.
Copyright ©1997-2011 Glenn Fleishman except as noted otherwise. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint, contact Glenn Fleishman at glenn at glennf.com. Photo © 2008 Laurence Chen; used with permission.
Turning technology from mumbo-jumbo into rich tasty gumbo
« October 2008 | Main | December 2008 »
What I am thankful for this year? Tons.
My two lovely boys, Rex and Ben.
My lovely and marvelous wife, Lynn.
My marvelous family, and my folks’ decision to move closer, to Port Townsend from Eugene.
My in-laws, a terrific group, that I’m also thankful for spending a week with on Mount Desert Island in Maine.
My officemates, Jeff, Larry, Hillary, and Kim, who keep me sane during the working day.
A vast array of generous colleagues, with Adam and Tonya Engst first and foremost on the list. It’s a pleasure to work so well with people I’m also such good friends with. It’s supposed to be impossible!
I’m thankful to be so busy, so productive, and so happy.
I’m thankful for a full night’s sleep last night, too.
Posted by Glennf at 12:22 PM
Virgin America has named all its in-service planes with monikers like “Tubular Belle” and “Virgin & Tonic” (said that one out loud).
I flew on Saturday on three of their craft: Runway Angel on the way down, My Other Ride’s a Spaceship for the press flight, and…an unknown plane on the way back!
I asked the cabin crew on the commercial flights what the name of the plane was. They didn’t know. They promised to find out for me. They did not! When I met David Kush, the CEO of Virgin America, at the press event, after some chitchat, I mentioned that the cabin crew didn’t seem to know the monikers. For a serene guy, he was momentarily nonplussed. “They should know that!”
The point of naming the planes is part of the overall Virgin America aesthetic: making flight more comfortable, personal, entertaining, and interesting. They’re only partway there, to be sure, but it’s clear they’re also trying.
The one flaw I experienced was that the seatback entertainment system, Red, is a little sluggish and buggy. I wasn’t able on the flights between SEA and SFO to watch almost any of the live TV stations—there was a satellite issue with a technical error screen (that I’d also seen on Delta Airlines in-flight system recently).
The touchscreen aspect is pretty poor: it’s not gesture based, and tap recognition is very coarse and poor on the three different screens I use across three flights.
Given that Delta and Virgin’s system looked awfully similar, I suspect there are very few vendors for this kind of thing.
Posted by Glennf at 2:33 PM | Comments (1)
You know how you sometimes are flying, and due to delays or other problems, you think, I just spent hours on planes getting nowhere. Yesterday, I specifically just that—purposely.
I was invited a few weeks ago to attend a press event in San Francisco for Virgin America that would take reporters, some notional celebrities, and others up and around the airport to launch Virgin America’s in-flight Internet service. (Some meager photos I took. My coverage over at Wi-Fi Networking News.)
Because I’m a journalist, I couldn’t accept travel to SFO (nor did Virgin offer), but I found an incredibly cheap round-trip—on Virgin America ($160 for a same-day itinerary).
The event started at 2.30 pm and the plane was scheduled to take off around 3.30 or 4 and land around 5.30 to dovetail with some YouTube event that was coordinated with the flight. We had two real celebrities on board from NBC’s 30 Rock: Katrina Bowden (the pretty young thing, Tina Fey’s assistant), and Keith Powell, one of the writers (his character went to Harvard, but I don’t hold it against him).
I got to Seatac at about 11.20 for 12.20 pm flight. Security was quick—they’ve definitely improved flow and are taking measures that I think involve more scrutiny with less hassle. I noticed this on our flight to Maine a few weeks ago. Less security theater, more help, more attentiveness.
Once inside the security bubble, I didn’t leave it until 11 pm last night! I flew into SFO, walked to the gate the reception was happening at (inside the same terminal, a real problem at SFO which has a lot of cases in which you have to leave and re-enter security), flew the Wi-Fi flight, landed, ate supper, and got on another plane.
It was a bit surreal, partly because of the kind of event, and partly to spend the day at the airport. I probably flew at least 2,000 miles, spending nearly six hours in the air—all to get back to Seattle.
Posted by Glennf at 7:31 PM
I just launched a very modest blog on Sunday called ItDied (at ItDied.com, naturally). The idea of the blog is to track hosting services as they go under. There are a lot failing all of a sudden and many, many more to come. In some cases, this might be a photo service that gives its customers 24 hours’ notice about their business shutting down (true!); in another, it could be Google providing 3 months’ notice of a change (also true).
I didn’t find anyone tracking these shutdowns, where your “cloud”-stored data might evaporate as the sunshine of a bad economy comes out (or some horrible metaphor like that).
I’ll try to provide references for people where there’s a reasonable place to migrate data, if such a place exists, too.
Posted by Glennf at 11:06 AM
Ben is not a devil—he’s a lobster!
Posted by Glennf at 7:09 PM
MegaGlennFeed
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 |
Recent Entries
Archives
October 2011 | August 2011 | June 2011 | May 2011 | February 2011 | December 2010 | November 2010 | October 2010 | September 2010 | August 2010 | July 2010 | June 2010 | May 2010 | April 2010 | January 2010 | December 2009 | November 2009 | October 2009 | September 2009 | August 2009 | July 2009 | May 2009 | April 2009 | March 2009 | February 2009 | January 2009 | December 2008 | November 2008 | October 2008 | September 2008 | August 2008 | July 2008 | June 2008 | May 2008 | April 2008 | March 2008 | February 2008 | January 2008 | December 2007 | November 2007 | October 2007 | September 2007 | August 2007 | July 2007 | June 2007 | May 2007 | April 2007 | March 2007 | February 2007 | January 2007 | December 2006 | November 2006 | October 2006 | September 2006 | August 2006 | July 2006 | June 2006 | May 2006 | April 2006 | March 2006 | February 2006 | January 2006 | December 2005 | November 2005 | October 2005 | September 2005 | August 2005 | July 2005 | June 2005 | May 2005 | April 2005 | March 2005 | February 2005 | January 2005 | December 2004 | November 2004 | October 2004 | September 2004 | August 2004 | July 2004 | June 2004 | May 2004 | April 2004 | March 2004 | February 2004 | January 2004 | December 2003 | November 2003 | October 2003 | September 2003 | August 2003 | July 2003 | June 2003 | May 2003 | April 2003 | March 2003 | February 2003 | January 2003 | December 2002 | November 2002 | October 2002 | September 2002 | August 2002 | July 2002 | June 2002 | May 2002 | April 2002 | March 2002 | February 2002 | January 2002 | December 2001 | November 2001 | October 2001 |