Archive for April, 2008
Mark Your Calendars: TechCrunch in Prague, May 23
In Czech on April 25, 2008 at 8:47 pmTerminal Problem
In Travel on April 25, 2008 at 1:07 amIf your profile is ABC1 and you plan to go to Heathrow Terminal 5 for shopping you won’t be disappointed:
Terminal 5 is working with a range of local and globally strong brands to create a new and exciting retail environment, with each store concept fulfilling the key criteria of being surprising, tempting and experience-enhancing. And whether consumers are after stimulation or relaxation, Terminal 5 will set new standards in retail and dining experiences with 144 different stores and restaurants from which to choose.
From a traveller perspective the audience demographic is anticipated to be 92% ABC1 in profile, and the Terminal will be used exclusively by British Airways – Domestic, European and International destinations.
On the other hand if you are one of us who don’t want to buy a new Prada bag at T5 but who want to connect at Heathrow to another flight or go directly to London, the situation won’t be as rosy. The real problem at Heathrow is actually the lack of runways. Two current runways serve five terminals and they are used to the maximum. Any disruption creates a ripple effect of delays and flight cancellations. My yesterday’s flight from London to Prague was three hours delayed and the reason was a rain shower that delayed some incoming flights few hours earlier. And on top of that BA lost my bag…
To summarize my experience: Heathrow T5 is an exclusive shopping mall but it’s a terrible airport.
Twelve Hours of Solitude
In Travel on April 24, 2008 at 2:20 pmI don’t mind long flights. Twelve hours of flight time with no Internet access allows me to focus on my long term plans and helps me to organize my thoughts. But not today. I was so exhausted from my busy trip that I fell asleep soon after the take-off from San Francisco and I woke up twenty minutes before our landing at Heathrow. No food, no movies, no work. Twelve hours of the ultimate solitude…
No Flash?
In SaaS on April 21, 2008 at 7:48 pmOne of the decisions we had to make is what client-side charting technology we should use for Good Data. The options were JavaScript or Flash. JavaScript is the standard part of the browser but Flash would give us nicer chart libraries. The main question is what to do if the user doesn’t have Flash installed. As always I found potential solution on the web (link).
If It’s Sunday, Twitter Must Be Down
In SaaS on April 20, 2008 at 10:40 pmThe picture below is from last week but Twitter seems to be broken again…
There’s only one Virgin on this flight baby
In Travel on April 20, 2008 at 2:14 pmI came to California on Virgin America flight from NYC yesterday. It was my first flight with this new low-cost airline and I was impressed by the service: leather seats; entertainment system that allows passengers to order food, watch one of 25 movies or satellite television, play video games or send instant messages to other passengers. And the mood lighting is really cool:
A casual traveler may wonder why there is not more airlines like Virgin America and here is why:
Under the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, Congress required that U.S. citizens own or control at least 75 percent of the voting interests of U.S. airlines. This standard has remained the same since then.
Current U.S. law defines a “citizen of the United States” as an individual U.S. citizen, a partnership whose members are U.S. citizens, or a corporation or association organized under U.S. law where at least 75 percent of the voting interest is owned and controlled by U.S. citizens. The law also specifies that the president, as well as at least two-thirds of the Board of Directors of the corporation, must be U.S. citizens. That is, the law has been construed as requiring actual control of the enterprise to rest with U.S. citizens.
I am sure they did not know anything about globalization back in 1938 but these requirements only help to cement the dire state of American airline industry today…
I’m in a New York state of mind
In Travel on April 18, 2008 at 12:57 pmSome folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighborhood
Hop a flight to Miami Beach
Or to Hollywood
But I’m taking a Greyhound
On the Hudson River Line
I’m in a New York state of mind
I did not take the Greyhound and I am not here on a holiday but I am still in a New York state of mind…
LinkedIn saved me $75k!
In Work on April 16, 2008 at 4:23 pmI use LinkedIn as the primary hiring tool and I found many of great Good Data employees on LinkedIn. I did some math last night to understand how much the recruitment agencies would charge me for the same people. It is $75k and that actually translates into one month of Good Data development. Go LinkedIn! Go!
Crash! Boom! Bang!
In Travel on April 15, 2008 at 1:39 pmI did not expect to find my luggage when I arrived to Boston last night. But it was not my bag who had problems to get to the US. I was the one who was very late! The US immigrations computer system was down and there were several planes ahead of us waiting for the immigration clearance. I don’t know why the INS computers did not work but I am sure the reason is similar to the recent GrandCentral outage (the message below is from Craig Walker, founder of GrandCentral). Find GC and replace it with INS:
I wanted to write a quick note to all the GC users and apologize for the service interruption this morning. We had a power issue at our current colo facility and it knocked us off line for a few hours. Unfortunately I’ve been up in the mountains with the family this weekend and had no cell/internet coverage so couldn’t respond earlier. I did want to let you know that we were able to restore the service by noon today and are working extremely diligently to make sure this won’t occur in the future. We’ll do a better job keeping you informed in the future, not only about service related issues but also about upcoming features, soliciting your feedback, and generally making sure that you, the GC user, is well informed as to what’s going on with the service.
Expecation minus Delivery equals Frustration
In Travel on April 14, 2008 at 3:36 pmThis rule is as applicable to product management as it is to travel. I don’t expect to find my bag in Boston when I land there and so I won’t be frustrated. And I did expect long lines at Heathrow and I was not dissapointed…
BA: Long haul flight move to Terminal 5 has been delayed
In Travel on April 12, 2008 at 5:26 pmFlight delays happen all the time but delayed terminal is quite unusual. However it is not entirely unexpected. Once I landed at the Brussels airport shortly after the Belgian king opened a new terminal. We waited and waited and then captain made the following announcement: “Sorry for the delay. We were assigned a gate that doesn’t exist yet”. I am sure nobody told the king the airport was not exactly finished…
Below is message I received from BA today:
Dear Mr Stanek
You may have heard the news today that British Airways and BAA (the London Heathrow airport authority) have agreed to defer the move of the majority of our long haul intercontinental flights from Heathrow’s Terminal 4 to Terminal 5. The move, originally planned for 30 April, will now begin in June.
Although we have seen a steady improvement at Terminal 5, we want to be sure that customers can be confident of high service standards when the terminal is handling larger numbers of passengers.
Both we at British Airways and BAA recognise that the opening of Terminal 5 has not been as smooth as we would have wished. We will be working with BAA to iron out any remaining problems, including the baggage system, and develop a robust timescale for phasing the move of Terminal 4 services in to Terminal 5. We believe it is only sensible to make sure that Terminal 5 is operating consistently at a high standard before the move begins.
We do not underestimate the uncertainty and inconvenience this delay may cause you if you have a trip planned in this period. Our priority is to continue making improvements to achieve the high levels of service our customers should expect from us as soon as possible.
A small number of long haul intercontinental flights have already moved to Terminal 5. These will be unaffected by the delay to the move of other flights.
We will provide more details of the move as soon as we review progress of the improvements being made. The latest information will always be available on ba.com.
In the meantime, if you are planning to travel with British Airways on a long haul flight currently scheduled to operate from Terminal 5 after 30 April until 31 May, please check which terminal you will now be flying to or from by visiting http://www.britishairways.com/travel/routedest/public or ask your travel agent for more information.
Warm regards,
British Airways
How Good is Good Data?
In SaaS on April 11, 2008 at 9:25 amGood Data is still in the middle of development but we would like to get feedback from our potential users and partners as soon as possible. And so we published a very preliminary first glimpse of what you can expect from Good Data at http://www.gooddata.com/demo/demo1.html. Please let us know how good is Good Data!
Geeklandia Redux
In SaaS on April 10, 2008 at 1:12 pmDavid posted the following comment earlier today:
I better remember your post from two years ago, when you said there will be only 5 computers in the world. We’re almost there – EC2 and Google AppEngine is here, and others will follow soon (Microsoft, EMC…)
David, I wrote it almost four years ago on my Geeklandia blog. Here is the link to the original post in Czech and this is the English translation:
Back in 1943 Thomas J. Watson reputedly made the statement that there is going to be market for only five computers in the world. For sixty years we laughed at his apparent lack of vision but he who laughs last, laughs best. Count with me how many computers there will be in five years: 1. Google, 2. Yahoo!, 3. Amazon.com 4. eBay 5. MSN/Hotmail. (Posted on September 24, 2004)
Systinet Axiom: It’s A Service World
In SaaS on April 10, 2008 at 9:48 amIn the early days of Systinet (summer of 2000) I made the following proposition that served as a guiding principle for the company development: The web will be full of services within the next five years.
We saw the massive growth of services on the web since then. From Flickr to YouTube, from Gmail to Twitter and thousands of others. And the circle has closed a few days ago when Google announced their service platform: Google App Engine. It’s the ultimate service container as it only supports creation of web services:
* An application can only access other computers on the Internet through the provided URL fetch and email services and APIs. Other computers can only connect to the application by making HTTP (or HTTPS) requests on the standard ports.
* An application cannot write to the file system. An app can read files, but only files uploaded with the application code. The app must use the App Engine datastore for all data that persists between requests.
* Application code only runs in response to a web request, and must return response data within a few seconds. A request handler cannot spawn a sub-process or execute code after the response has been sent.
NetBeans Early Avant-Guard Poetry Site
In NetBeans on April 9, 2008 at 11:16 amJava was very young when we launched NetBeans ten years ago. Our website was one of the early information sources for the language and we were flooded with questions and comments from our users. Some of the messages were so special and poetic that we created an internal page called “NetBeans Early Avant-Guard Poetry Site” and our colleague Janet Haven analyzed some of them. Here is an example of poetic user comment and a review writen by Janet:
I try using NetBeans Developer,
So I want to know
NetBeans Developer.
Ikegami’s brilliant syncopated rhythm both mocks and reveres the traditions of his native land. Neither nature-oriented haiku, nor over-punctuated beatnik, Ikegami’s work straddles the East-West poetic divide with grace and skill. We look forward to hearing more from this master of the “Asian Fusion” school of poetry.
If you want to read more please put on a black beret, light a cigarette and follow this link.
Bad Day for SaaS
In SaaS on April 7, 2008 at 1:45 pmBig in Tanzania
In Kiva on April 7, 2008 at 11:07 amThe global demand for energy is exploding and that is exactly why I decided to invest in coal. Or more precisely in charcoal. My investment is based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and it’s run by Veronica Mtalemwa:
Veronica is a married woman with 3 children, ages 12, 6 and 2 ½. She owns a small charcoal store, which she started in 2001, and is a batique designer. She works everyday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at her business and can earn a monthly profit of about $290 from her sales. More about Veronica at Kiva.org
SOA is DOA. It’s time for WOA…
In SaaS on April 6, 2008 at 2:57 pmMy excitement about the lack of TLAs lasted less than 24 hours:
Three Letter Acronyms
In SaaS on April 5, 2008 at 7:27 pmOne of the best aspects of working on a web based project is the complete lack of Three Letter Acronyms. I don’t really miss the hype around SOA, EAI, ESB, WS* or any other TLAs. And there was some substantial hype! The first article below illustrates the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” that SOA enjoyed back in 2004 and the second article takes us back to the reality:
BAA plans to ensure smooth customer service and operations through SOA
16 Nov 2004
BAA plans to ensure smooth customer service and operations when Heathrow Terminal 5 opens by introducing software linking up key information systems. The Sonic ESB enterprise service bus product was chosen following an in-depth EU approved OJEC procurement process, with the first systems set to go live in 2005 in preparation to the terminal’s opening in 2008.….
Terminal 5 problems persist
April 5, 2008
A computer glitch in the baggage system at London’s Heathrow airport caused more delays Saturday at the airport’s new Terminal 5, officials said.
Since Terminal 5 opened last week, about 19,000 lost bags had to be transported to Milan, Italy to be sorted and hundreds of flights have been canceled…
