Short Change

We are planning a February vacation to Vancouver to visit my sister. Wishing to get one day of skiing at Whistler in during our week on the west coast, we are trying to book a hotel or condo for two nights, midweek in February. Some folks recommended that we stay in the "Village" so I checked out the Westin in Whistler. At first their website explained that they had no availability but after I called, they explained that their smallest room, a Junior Suite is available for $599 a night. WOW!

My wife recommended that I try to use my SPG Starpoints. Unfortunately this year I have collected more Marriott Reward points due to my client's location. I learned something new by calling SPG:

1. Rooms are available on the nights I requested for 10,000 points
2. You can purchase points in 1000 increments for 35$

In other words, by buying points, I can get the same room for $350/night. The only difference is that the reservation for $600 would be refundable while if I changed my plans, I would have to keep the points.

To make things more attractive, I could risk the hotel "booking up" and apply for a Starwood AMEX netting 10,000 points in about 6 weeks, thereby savings an additional $350. Who said it will be less attractive for Americans to tour Canada with a weak US Dollar?

Labels: Travel

Recently, I bought a QuickCam from Logitech which boasted a 1.3Megapixel camera that I hoped would make the video calls between my infant daughter and her grandparents much clearer. I was concerned about the bandwidth of my Internet connection and the ability of my Instant Messenger Software to process the video.

On Monday, the Boston Globe reported that with Skype 3.6 and the latest Logitech drivers, you can achieve DVD quality video conferencing. It seems to be a great marketing program to:

• Highlight Skype’s superior ability at calling (it can do more than a telephone!)
• Promote new uses for spending more money on brand-name Logitech webcams (like I did)
• Provide a real reason for people to buy a new computer with DualCore Processors other than
• It will run faster
• It will actually run Vista

Last night, I spent 1 hour installing the latest software, Skype Beta, rebooting and testing if the upgraded video worked. It is interesting that the Logitech site fails to promote these new features, while Skype promotes in plain (sic) English that you need

• Skype Beta (free but a noticeably bigger download at 20 megs than the last version)
• A Logitech high quality webcam (neglecting to mention that you need the latest drivers – Logitech update did not automatically install it for me)
• 380kb of Internet bandwidth (Does my 54.0 MBps from the 802.11g count, or do I need to worry about what the cable company plan?)
• A dual core processor (preferably from Intel, Skype’s development partner)

Wow that seems easy enough – even with a background in semiconductors, I thought I could get this working. Well after an hour (on my wife’s non-DualCore laptop), it finally started to work – much slower and of course, not in a higher definition. Skype began flashing me ads that I should buy a DualCore computer from Intel (thanks Skype – I’ll go out and buy a new computer to use your software!). Nowhere on Skype or Logitech’s site is it noted that BOTH computers need DualCore processors.

Tonight, I was planning on wasting another hour to get it up and running on my Centrino Duo, but then I re-read the Globe article – BOTH computers need a DualCore processor. So now not only do I need to buy my wife a new computer, but I need to get my parents to buy a new computer. If only Skype had a revenue model to collect on new Intel processors, EBay would look smart right now! Instead, I just feel silly for wasting my time and slowing down another computer with software it can’t handle!

Labels: Retail, Technology