It’s Wednesday, I am sitting in our stateroom taking in some quite choppy seas. As far as I can see, which isn’t far, there are 8-10 foot swells until the fog line. This is about what I expected from the ocean in this area, we left Tracy Arm Fjord this morning heading for Ketchikan tomorrow morning and at the moment it’s slow going and pretty rough.
We are totally enjoying our vacation however. Monday morning we arrived in Juneau Alaska and although it was quite wet, we found ourself totally enjoying our day. We started with a trip to the Mendenhal Glacier. We took a not so scenic bus ride out there, it was raining and the windows were pretty foggy. Although we got a great verbal tour, we couldn’t see much of what was being pointed out.
When we arrived at the glacier things were quite different. The glacier was magnificent. We caught a bear fishing for Salmon at the creek, a Bald Eagle high in the trees and took in the beautiful Alaskan Scenery on our way back to the port.
When we returned to the port we waited a few minutes before we were off on our whale watching adventure. Our guide took us about 20 minutes out into the channels until we sighted these incredible creatures just off the boat. In all we saw about a half dozen Humpback Whales. The trademark spout of air and water, the big dives, the displays of Dorsal fins, it was amazing to see.
We sailed through the night after Juneau and when we woke up we were in Skagway Alaska. After rambling around town for a few minutes and even coming across a Starbucks (and a $6.75 White Chocolate Mocha, heh) we took off in a small bus for a ride up the White Pass. Our tour guide took us to the old cemetery, thrilled us with stories about Soapy Smith and other local color, and then we headed out the pass and eventually into Canada. The scenery was simply breathtaking. I can’t imagine how people managed to cross that territory in the gold rush.
After making it back to the boat, we woke up in Tracy Arm Fjord and the Sawyer Glaciers, these were pretty incredible as well. We sailed around and past our boat’s sister ship the “Star Princess” and seeing that ship against the glacier and mountain back drop really puts the size of the country into perspective.
That finds us back where we are now, in heart of the Inside Passage making our way to Ketchikan, then Victoria British Columbia and eventually back in Seattle Washington early Saturday morning. I am sure there will be more photos to come, but I have picked out a select few to show what we have seen and done on this vacation so far and uploaded them to Flickr. You can view these photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/philoking
I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. I going to check out the email I haven’t looked at in four days, see what’s going on and I’ll be back to the world on Saturday. Adios!
Apparently it is impossible to believe that someone could not want XM Radio. I mean, my car is capable, obviously I would want to pay for radio, who wouldn’t? 4 or 5 months ago I bought a 2008 Chevrolet Malibu that is capable of Satellite radio and came with 3 months of service. It also came with an MP3 player input which I use exclusively, daily and without fail.
I have a 160GB iPod with over 130GB of music on it that completely satisfies my music listening needs. The only problem is that XM Radio is apparently unable to admit that I might not need their service. I just hung up from the dozenth call at least, in which the last 4 or 5 I have been remarkably rude to no avail.
As soon as the poor victim, I mean lady, said she was with with XM Radio I said, “Ma’am, I don’t want XM Radio, I don’t use it, I don’t need it and I want you guys to quit calling me about it.” To which she quickly responded “But we are offering 5 months for $19.99.”
If I am so tired of them calling, and I have refused it nearly a dozen times, why would they still think it’s the cost that’s keeping me from re-subscribing? If you want to argue about cost, get OnStar on the phone to talk about the $60 for 100 minutes of phone service. I would use that but refuse to pay that kind of money for it.
As far as Satellite radio goes, I just don’t want it. I don’t use it, need it or care about it. Please, for the love of God, leave me alone. lol
So I decided to do a completely unbiased set of blogs on Google Search vs. Microsoft Live Search. It should be know that although I work for Microsoft, I pretty much use Google Search exclusively. Thinking about that today, I wondered why. This set of blogs is an attempt to answer that question, help me decide if I should switch, and of course, review the two for your reading pleasure.
I thought I really cared for Google’s Spartan approach, just the box ma’am, just the box. I compared the launch page and found Live Search’s search page to be very pleasant to look at and while still being basic in it’s functions. So what do we have besides the box? I’ll list them out and give you my best guess at percentage of how useful it is:
Links to Live Search, MSN and Windows Live – 30% – I am already at Live Search, if I wanted MSN I would have just typed it, and while I love Windows Live products, that’s not what I came here for. If this is my default landing page and I use either of those services frequently, it’s nice to have a one click launch.
News Link – 40% – This is same as the links at the top, but slightly more useful to me, I can get some news with one click if this is my browser’s launch page.
Links to Country, Options, Cashback, Advanced and Sign In – 60% – Most of these are things I would use regularly, and when I don’t they aren’t obtrusive. Nice.
Make Live Search Your Home Page – 90% – This works well and if you change it, it goes away. For those who want to change it, it’s easy and if you don’t it’s not blingy or annoying.
The Search Box – 100% – One thing I do like about the Live box particularly, is I can change the search before I get a list. With Google, it’s no more clicks, I can search then click images instead of clicking images then searching. But something about seeing my options first is a little more “informational” just a preference.
Bottom Links – 50% – A news splash, more bling for Windows Live Messenger and some admin links. I understand you have to have the latter, but the other two are not all that needed.
The bottom line is of the things I don’t find all that necessary, they don’t get in my way, so I don’t mind them so much. So what about Google?
Links for all of the search types – 20% - just like Microsoft, but not at the search box, I think proximity adds to usability, just my opinion.
Login links for my accounts @ Google – 80% – I do use Google a lot so these things are very handy.
The Search Box – 90% – I can dig adding the Advanced, Language and Options beside the search box, again proximity is good, Microsoft Live Search did well with the search types, but the advanced and options are a bit too far away for my taste, nice one Google.
Google Admin Links – 10% – Got to have them, at least they aren’t obtrusive or in the way.
Add Homepage Link - 90% – Works as well as the Microsoft one, it adds then goes away.
It really is a wash and neither clearly wins, the real answer will come in the next blog, search results. I will do variety of queries and then compare the top 5 results. See you next time.
So I am working on some music for Dawngrrl’s video project and here is my first clip. It’s supposed to be dark and industrial, kind of a movie intro/outro credits thing. Think intro to Seven or House on Haunted Hill. All Logic Studio.
