Recently I’ve had two stays at hotels that are part of the Hilton family. I believe that all hotels in this family use the same alarm clock, which was introduced with fanfare a few years ago. You can buy it at their site for $60.

As Don Norman observed, this alarm clock is pretty good step forward from other alarm clocks that are often found at hotels. Among other things, it comes with a plug so you can use your iPod or Zune, it’s got dedicated buttons on the top to quickly jump to pre-defined stations like “News”, “Classical”, “Rock”, etc.

While the Hilton family of hotels are proud of this alarm clock, I’ve never been much of a fan of it. Don’t get me wrong, it definitely is an improvement over some of the other horrible clocks I’ve seen – and it does a good job of making it obvious whether or not the alarm is set, but it does have some drawbacks:

• It’s actually not that easy to use – the picture above conveniently crops off the silk screened directions on the front of the clock of the buttons to press. The buttons are numbered, but they’re small and hard to read. You can’t tell from the above picture, but the button that is for “Alarm set” has a small “1″ printed on it. The fact that the directions are printed on the front is sort of a bad sign.
• Actually this clock is pretty hard to use in the dark – especially since you may need to read the buttons.
• The Alarm Off button actually cycles through the modes – off, buzzer, and music.
• You can’t set two alarms – which then again most hotel stays don’t really need. But would be a nice to have.
• It takes a while to set the time – because you have to increment forwards or backwards. The button is small and not fun to press or hold.
• Is it really that critical to have Aux In on a clock radio?

Recently I also stayed at a hotel that had the Sony ICF-C180 Dream Machine. While this doesn’t have dedicated buttons at the top for specific radio stations, and that the tuning is analog, it does make setting the alarm times really obvious and easy:

• The two alarm times are clearly presented below the main time, and in different colors for contrast. If the alarm time isn’t present, that means it’s turned off. That’s obvious.
• To set the alarm time, you hit one of the dedicated set alarm time buttons and turn the jog wheel on the side until the time you desire is reached. Easy.
• To switch between radio, buzzer, and melody for the alarms, or to turn it off, you just keep hitting set alarm time buttons.
• There’s a weekend button on the top – probably not very useful for a hotel stay, but a smart idea since I find I’m always changing my alarm clock at home for weekends.
• I also like that this clock has built in battery backup. Power outages happen!

The Hilton clock does a good job of solving the problem of visitors wanting certain radio stations, but not knowing what frequency they are at (I’m still not sure what the news station here in the Bay Area is – I only know that it’s 1010 WINS in NY) with the buttons on top. But when it comes to actually setting the time, the big discrete controls, and the differentiated alarm time displays on the Sony do a far better job in my opinion.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jean and I were at Macy’s at Herald Square today. Ok, obviously it was unbelievably busy. A few of the departments looked like tornados had struck them – followed by earthquakes. But none of that is surprising given that it was Black Friday after all.

What was surprising and noticeable was the incredible uptick in foreign accents amongst the shoppers today. And the amount of buying done was incredible.

Here’s a related article I just read that sort of clues in to what I heard at the store:

Discount Hunters Swamp Stores – News Story – WNBC | New York

Glenn Branney, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, had timed his visit to New York to coincide with the post-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy, known in retail circles as Black Friday. He spent Thursday relaxing, readying himself for Friday’s consumer melee.

Arriving at the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue at 4:30 a.m., he bought an iPod Touch and an iPod Nano, both music and video players. Then he moved on to Macy’s, where he had amassed a haul of coats, belts and wallets by 7 a.m.

“I’ve only just started,” said Branney, 31, as he stood in a men’s department peppered with sale signs and strewn with clothes scattered in the shopping scrum. He said he intended to spend a couple of thousand dollars, perhaps more.

“It’s fantastic, really, really good,” he said, adding, “and really cheap.” His home currency, the British pound, rose to $2.0716 in morning European trading Friday, up from $2.0634 the day before.

(Sorry if this sounds a lot like the post from earlier this month.)

It sure would be nice to have the tables turned – I’d love to go back to London one of these days.

Microsoft SVC is offering free electronics recycling tomorrow. So come on by and safely get rid of your electronics! This link has directions to our campus. Come by between 8am and 5pm.

WHAT ITEMS WILL BE ACCEPTED?
?   Computers and peripherals
?   Printers
?   Computer Monitors
?   Televisions
?   Telephones
?   Cellular Phones

WHAT ITEMS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED?
?   White goods (refrigerators, washers, dryers)
?   Household electronic devices (hair dryers, toasters, coffee makers…)
?   Consumer electronics (stereos, speakers, VCRs, camcorders)
?   Automotive Batteries
?   VCR Tapes and Cassette Tapes

The actual drop off point will be the parking lot closes to Macon St – immediately after the bus depot.

Have you ever wanted people browsing your site to know if you’re signed into Windows Live Messenger?

Have you ever wanted people browsing your site to be able to chat with you immediately, without having to sign up for Windows Live Messenger account?

Well… now you can:

http://settings.messenger.live.com/applications/websettings.aspx 

It’s pretty easy – just follow the directions and it’ll spit out a snippet of code for you to copy and paste onto your page.

Give it a try!

Here’s the control embedded in this post (Thanks to Dave for the reminder):

You can learn more about them at http://get.live.com/

Personally, I’m most excited by Windows Live Calendar. That team has accomplished a great deal of work. Try it out!

Kos recently ran into some medical insurance woes – where allegedly Blue Shield told the anesthesiologist’s office that they had paid him, but in reality they didn’t. After 7 months of arguing, they paid $400 out of the $1032 claim.

Personally I hope to never get sick. First, going to the hospital may get you more sick from infections and all sorts of other complications that may happen.

If you do get well, or not, you then have to deal with the insurance/payment aspect. I remember in college, I once had to use three way calling to get the insurance company to confirm with the doctor’s office that a procedure had been done, and to straighten out some codes. Unbelievable.

One of the comments posted on this blog post really resonated with me:

I’ve got an MBA and a PhD in Economics…
… and I cannot reconcile my medical EOBs and bills with the terms of my health plans. Ever.
It used to be simple, transparent, fair. Now it’s insane.

Amen to that. I find the EOBs I get, especially around dental care, to be ridiculously complicated and arcane.

Going through the comments, there are some other interesting thoughts – here’s a few snippets:

This is also just as much the hospital’s fault. They signed a contract with the insurer, then purposely allow all of the individual doctors to be separate corporations so they aren’t subject to the negotiated rates.

Common problem

This is a common and near-fraud problem. I had to have surgery. My in-network doctor referred me to the in-network surgeon who arranged for the surgery in the in-network hospital (easily 10 miles further away from my home than several other hospitals).

Several months later, the $800 bill for the out-of-network anesthesiologist, who was handling all the surgeries for that in-network hospital that day.  Response of insurance company, “you chose to go out of network for this service.”  Sure, first (only) time I ever met the guy, I already had a needle in my arm, had only a surgical gown on, and was minutes away from being taken in for my surgery.  Choice. What choice?

The more stories I see like this,

the more I’m tempted by the Smith & Wesson medical plan…

Based on your experience, I’ll be sure to ask “are you in-network??” as I’m in the throes of labor before allowing anyone to provide any type of medical service. 

This happened to a friend from work. He’s been fighting Aetna over an emergency room visit with the exact same back and forth. It was on a weekend so primary care doctor was closed. Emergencies are supposed to be covered. Insurance drags their feet and eventually pays the “customary rate” to the doctor as Aetna calls it. Doctor wants to get paid and bills my friend for the difference.

Look at the friend office of any doctor or dentist office and see how many full time employees they need just to collect from insurance. Such a colossal waste.

My issue in my 10/2-10/8 emergency admit was multiple demands for copay and deductible as a patient. In the ER [9hrs from start to a acute bed] a demand for my $100 ER copay and a snotty comment “how do you know you will be admitted” … gee maybe being an RN with over 30 years of experience?

On 10/3 someone from the business office came to my patient room with a letter stating they expect me to pay the $721 deductible before discharge. When my room was invaded, I was in severe pain, nurses scrambling and I was on the way to the ICU.

AND then on the day I was going to be discharged, the business office called me in my room saying they expect me to pay the $721 before I leave. HaHa…. no purse, no credit cards, nothing with me…..I was told by the nurses that they are required to wheel patients by the business office before they can be discharged to home…… thankfully none one forced this on me…… I had already raised enough of a stink

There’s plenty more in the thread. Just remember: don’t get sick.

I was reading this article in the NYTimes the other day, about how foreigners are snapping up residences in Manhattan. The second paragraph caught my attention:

That was enough of a glimpse of New York for Mr. Timmons, a 32-year-old carpenter from County Meath, Ireland. Last summer, he put down 10 percent on a $760,000 studio under construction at 75 Wall Street.

75 Wall St? I worked in that building as a network engineering intern for many summer/winter breaks at Dresdner Bank. Surely this was a typo.

Nope.

Apparently I had missed the news on Luxist, which mentioned this back in April. Here’s the official website for 75 Wall St.

This is pretty surreal news. To think the place where I once saw what an executive top floor looked like (the faucets were gold colored and had LCD read outs for the temperature, the receptionists were models, there was a separate gourmet kitchen), where I visited my first trading floor (I didn’t know behavior like that was acceptable in a workplace), where I was in my first minor high rise fire (burning electrical stuff smells horrible – like something dying and rotting), and where I first ate in a cafeteria that one day randomly served caviar, is now closed and being converted into condos.

Very very surreal. Though I worked on just the 26th floor, and faced up Wall St, the views were still pretty awesome. (Irony: the data center on the 26th floor faced the river – meaning the servers had the best views.) And super easy access to the subway. I’d love to own a place there.

This reminds me of Season 2 of The Wire, when the underemployed dock union workers lament how their old granaries/piers/etc have been turned into luxury housing, because their industry has become irrelevant.

It’s also sort of surreal to read that a 32 year old carpenter in Ireland is buying this. Did I make the wrong career choice?

Another quote from the article:

[Nick Ayers of London]’s agent, Andrusha Bohackova of Bellmarc, helped him find a $668,000 one-bedroom condo at 230 Riverside Drive. He moved into the apartment in April and says he’s happy with his investment — for now. He hopes to sell the apartment eventually, move to France or the Amazon and live off the profits. “My money increased 100 percent by just coming over here,” he said.

Oh… right. Let’s look at how things have changed since I entered the workforce full time:

Ouchers.

Personally I love the Panasonic FX series of cameras. I’ve had a few (in part because one of them was stolen) and I was always impressed because of their slim size, great image stabilization, and, recently, ability to specify photos in a 3:2 ratio. This was after owning a few Canons – which always seemed kind of chunky, and back then, didn’t have image stabilization.

But one thing always bugged me about the Panasonics: picture quality. There always seemed to be a lot of noise, which degraded the PQ.

After a few wedding photos that I thought were blurrier than should be, I decided to take a look at the Canons again now that they have image stabilization. Personally, I love the design of the Canon SD1000 – it’s exactly the size and shape that I want. But it doesn’t have image stabilization. Doh!

In the end, I decided to give the SD870 IS a try. Frankly, I’m not liking the chunkiness of it, nor the weight, nor the lack of 3:2 ratio – but there’s definitely an improvement in PQ. Here’s a sample:

With the SD870 IS, you can clearly see the ruffles in the ribbon vs the FX30. This is minor, but it’s something that’s really bugged me.

Now, to be fair, the FX30 is an older model – right now Panasonic is up to the FX33. Reviews on the web seem to indicate that PQ is better, but still noisy.

In summary, I’d love to see a camera that’s slim like the FX33, be squarish like the SD1000, have image stabilization, and have great PQ. Personally, I find the megapixel war pretty silly. What good is 12309 petapixels if the PQ isn’t all that great?