Jason Dunn
04-07-2003, 03:30 PM
I remember telling people that based on the one other time I’ve been to Europe, I wasn’t going to get jet lagged on the way over, it was the trip back that would be brutal. Yeah, right. :roll: I spoke a little too soon – I arrived at 9:30 AM Paris time, which was 12:30 AM my time. As the day wore on, I became very tired, but I didn’t want to sleep all day because when night came I wanted to adapt to the local sleeping pattern. I took a short nap, but I feel utterly exhausted at the moment. Oh to sleep… :zzz:<!><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/paris01.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 1: The SARS reporting form I had to fill out on the airplane. Yikes!</i><br /><br />I saw quite a few people at the Paris airport with face masks – fear of SARS has spread far and wide. I wasn’t surprised to see it at the airport, but I was surprised to see someone wearing a mask at the hotel. I found out later it was a Mobius attendee from Hong Kong. I’ve since watched a BBC news report on SARS and have a greater understanding of the disease, and while I don’t feel very threatened by it, there are certainly people around me who do. I certainly won’t be travelling to Asia until this is over. Lucky for me, I’ve never been invited to Asia, so not going isn't an issue. ;-)<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/paris02.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 2: The French countryside as we approached Paris. It was beautiful! The colours in this photo (and the next) look a little odd because I had to compensate for the photo being shot through the airplane window. I asked them to open a window so I could take pictures, but they looked at me strangely and said no… :lol:</i><br /><br /><b><span>Oh Fido, Where Art Thou?</span></b><br />I discovered that my <a href="http://www.fido.ca">Fido loaner SIM</a> isn’t activated for use in Europe. :-( When I turned my phone on it said “Only for SOS”, which I assume means only emergency numbers will go through. Not cool at all! I thought that when they turned it on for US roaming, that meant it was “international ready”. I wasn’t sure about the GPRS roaming, but I thought for sure I’d at least have a phone to use. And since there’s no Internet access in the Disneyland Hotel room I’m in (no surprises there) I have to wait until tomorrow to email my contact at Fido/Microcell and beg for Europe roaming to be turned on.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/paris03.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 3: Getting closer to Paris…I have no idea what this small town was.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/paris04.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 4: The airplane I flew in on. Good old reliable monopoly Air Canada…who just filed for bankruptcy protection the day I left Calgary. So if you never hear from me again, it's likely because I'm trapped in a foreign land trying to get home. :lol:</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/paris05.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 5: I was completely thrilled to see my first Castorama in person as the driver pushed past 150 KM/h. I have no idea what Castorama is, but I needed something to distract me from my impending death at the hands of the suicidal driver, so I willed myself to be thrilled. ;-) I thought Calgary drivers were bad, but the French seem to excel at gambling with life on the road!</i><br /><br /><b><span>It's the Magical Mobius Tour…</span></b><br />There was a welcome event during the evening, and it was a blast! There are many new faces at Mobius, and many new sites that I hadn’t heard of before. I was able to meet a few new people that I had previously known only through email, which is always a pleasure. And you wouldn’t believe the number of devices! P800s, Nokia Series 60 phones, Pocket PCs, Palms, Clies, and more. We had some great chats about our respective devices, what we liked, what we didn’t like. <br /><br />Speaking of the P800, it’s quite an impressive device. Performance is much better than what I saw a year ago – they’ve clearly optimized the device, and perhaps that’s why it was delayed in late 2002. Although I think the idea of a two-handed phone with a touch screen is a less effective approach that Microsoft’s single-handed paradigm, there was one thing that blew me away about the P800: responsiveness. Screen redraws on the P800 were instantaneous, and the multitasking was impressive. I watched Howard Chui open up app after app, over eight in all, and the system didn’t get any slower. Switching from app to app was instant, and even after opening all those apps the device was as snappy as it was before we started. I’m growing weary of the sluggishness that all fully-loaded Pocket PCs seem to exhibit. Is this something inherent to the Windows platform? The more software you install the slower Windows gets?<br /><br />It was also great fun to talk about our sites – talk quickly turned to server hardware, operating system choices, and other incredibly geeky topics that most people there loved. Thankfully, we had the bar all to ourselves for several hours, so the public was spared our geek pheromones. :lol: We tossed around traffic numbers, database design, the pros and cons of PHP vs. Java (one guy runs a popular mobile site using a Java server on a Pentium II 300 Mhz!), and a dozen other things. I felt very much in my element, except when it got deep into developer discussions – HTML coding makes my head hurt, so I just nodded here and there and kept saying "I have a brilliant guy named Fabrizio that takes care of that for me." It's an understatement to say I'm the luckiest mobile devices site owner to have the great developer support from my friends and community. :-D<br /><br />Other discussions included the ever-present "How do you make money with your site?" discussion. Most of the people there are like me – running the site full time, getting a part time income, and having at least one or two other jobs. It felt good to be among people as overworked, stressed-out, but ultimately driven, as I am. I was pleased with the openness most people had – we shared traffic numbers, advertising numbers, and other facts about our sites. There's so much talent and experience among the people here that I'm sure everyone benefited from sharing stories. There were a few people, mostly from the larger sites, that kept information like that to themselves, but I think they lost more than they gained by being secretive.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/paris06.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 6: The Intel Centrino ad campaign was everywhere in Paris. Between this first sign I saw on the road, and my travels later on in the city subway system ("the tube"), I must have seen no less than ten huge ads for the Centrino. One of my fellow Mobius attendees theorized it was because "Centrino" sounds French, so Intel wants the French to think they invented it. ;-)</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/paris07.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 7: The hotel we were staying at: the Disneyland Paris Newport Bay Hotel. It was strange to be in Paris and be surrounded by American iconography from the old settlement days. It was equally strange to come to a technology conference and have kids running around screaming all around me. ;-)</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/paris08.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 8: Same hotel, closer shot. There were buses coming and going all the time. Over to the left (not shown here) was the conference centre. It's always nice to have Mobius at the same location as our hotel. Less travel time = more sleep.:rock on dude!:</i><br /><br /><b><span>My Kingdom for a Dell Battery Charger!</span></b><br />My Dell is acting a little quirky in regards to batteries. The battery I drained earlier today doesn’t want to seem to charge using my <a href="http://www.gomadic.com">Gomadic Dell USB Sync and Charge cable</a>. One battery charges as designed, the amber light on the Dell coming on during charging. The other battery, which was charged in the Dell cradle before leaving, doesn’t light up amber when charging. The OS reports that the battery is charging, but the Dell hardware does not. Even after leaving it plugged in for two hours, it didn’t absorb any charge. Very odd. I’ll have to investigate further when I get home. I didn’t bring the Dell AC adaptor with me (I live and die by USB charge n' sync cables), so I’m very glad I brought the second battery.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/paris09.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 9: There was a faux waterfront created by Disney behind the hotel, complete with a lighthouse. I did not, however, see Puff the Magic Dragon anywhere. Pity.</i><br /><br />Tomorrow the conference starts, and I can't wait! :-D