Do Not Call Register

I loathe the practice of cold call telemarketing. The Australian Do-Not-Call Register is absolutely awesome. Unfortunately the government lets charities through, which I handle by politely stating that I have a personal policy to never respond to this method of marketing, and hang up. I donate to World Wide Fund for Nature, Green Peace and the Salvation Army off my own bat, I don't need any help thanks.

I used to get two or more telemarketing calls a week, one time I had three in a night, but in the many months since registering my number at do-not-call, I have only received one telemarketing call which was a sleazy southern Asian guy who was pretending to have dialed the wrong number and wanted to know if he could talk with me anyway. I had a bit more to say to that guy than my usual polite spiel.

The do-not-call register is a major success.

I am not opposed to filling out surveys. When not in a rush at the shops, I will happily sit down and be interviewed or answer questionnaires. I seem to be targeted for this, which I believe may expose a bias in that method of research - asking people less likely to cause you problems.

I loathe spam junk email, but I subscribed to SMSpup which spam you with semi useful stuff from categories of companies that you can pick and in return will allow you to send free SMS messages from their web site. Not too bad. One of the SMSpup adverts was for OpinionWorld who have competition prizes for answering surveys. I almost passed this up but must have been particularly bored that evening. So every now and again I get an email from OpinionWorld about a survey they'd like me to fill in. They are easy enough to fill in when I am calming down from a heavy day at work. Occasionally you get tossed a gem survey like the one that sent me lollies, surveyed me about what I thought ... and paid me money to do it. Paid to eat lollies! That's special! I used the lolly money to buy the first two seasons of "The Shield" from DVDOrchard. Woohoo!

The ORU
SMSPup just sent me an ad asking me to join another survey company called "ORU" (Online Research Unit). I thought "Why not? I can has more lollies?" but I read the terms and conditions. Check out the section titled "The National Do Not call Registry" at the bottom of their old terms and conditions. Basically you gave them and any company who joins them, the right to bypass the do-not-call registry.

So I wrote an email complaining about this to the organisations that ORU touts as to their legitimacy. The Association of Market & Social Research Organisations (AMSRO), European Association of Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) and the Australian Market and Social Research Society (AMSRS) talked it though with "The ORU" and they have removed the clause from their terms and conditions. Hurrah for the power of the cranky user! And to the willingness of The ORU to change.

I still think that the "Do Not Call Register Act 2006" needs to be tightened up so that registrants can indicate that they want to never authorise calls under any circumstances.

Printing Ink Costs & CISS

Size	SnapFish	Harvey	BigW	BigPhoto	OfficeWrks	CISS
4x6"	0.19	0.25	0.19	0.12	0.19	0.20
8x10"	3.95	4.95	3.84	6.99
8x12"	3.95	5.95	3.84	7.99	4.95	1.00
10x15"	9.95	14.95	9.84
11x14"	13.95		13.95
12x16"	15.95		15.95
A3		19.95
12x18"		19.95
16x20"	22.95	29.95	22.95
A2		34.95
16x24		34.95
20x24"	24.95		24.95
20x30"	39.95	69.95	39.95
Prices at 2 Mar 2008 in Australian dollars.

I have to admit to not printing my photographs much anymore, I have a Flickr account and when I come back from a trip that has a lot of images, I will make a presentation with FotoMagico or iPhoto and force my family to sit through the presentation.

However I occasionally want a print in my office or to decorate my home walls or to give to others. In these cases I will usually head to Office Works, Harvey Norman or BigW and use the fine printing services there. Recently I signed up with HP's SnapFish with 50 prints for free, and they turned out nice and seem quite reasonable for 19 cents a print.

Then my brother in law came over and he mentioned a printing system that drastically reduces the printing costs of your home printer. The Continuous Ink Supply System (CISS) has a big container of ink sitting next to your computer with little tubes that run into specially modified versions of ink cartridges. The printing costs via CISS effectively makes your printer competitive with the retail printing services and much better value in some cases.

I have an old Canon IP4200, the CISS from RIHAC cost me $150 (inc delivery from ebay) and is the equivalent of 10 sets of ink cartridges which would cost from $1000 to $1300 for genuine Canon cartridges, or from $600 to $750 for non-genuine/refills (Inkjet Wholsale). A HUGE saving. The CISS has easy refills that make for even cheaper per print cost. The CISS refills are about $65 delivered, for 10 cartridge sets equivalent. $65 instead of $1300. ($Australian)

Another way to look at it : get some good 6x4" photo paper from somewhere like OfficeWorks and you can get about 20cents a print (depending on the cost of the paper), but the real value is in printing A4 or 8x12"; with some excellent 250gsm high gloss paper (I got a 50 pack of Kodak Premium Photo Paper, 250gsm gloss for $30) you can print A4 for under $1 (ink & paper), or $2 if you go for the uber expensive Canon Photo Paper Pro Super High Gloss. Under half that of the retail printing service.

Which brings me to the downside of the CISS for the IP4200. CISS is a bugger to install for Canon. You have to remove the chips from the original cartridges and place them on the CISS. You have to install silicon seals, tape the lid sensor down, install a metal arm, transfer ink out of the air balance chamber, and figure out how to reset the alert system. None of which is difficult and the instructions provided are very good. The process takes a while, requires you to read carefully, wear gloves, use a stanley knife very carefully, operate a soldering iron, and use a syringe. The process is not as scary as it sounds but it sure isn't as simple as just clicking the cartridges in.

The great news for other printer makes is that you don't have to bother with much of this. HP and Epson printers are much easier to install as the chips are included, no stanley knife to remove old chips or soldering iron to stick them on. I almost went out and bought a new Epson because of this.

I'm not sure any of this is approved by the printer manufacturer so warranty issues are questionable. But with the low price of printers these days, I'm not really concerned with getting the system repaired. Let's face it, after using the CISS once, I could easily buy 4 printers with the money I save.

Another potential flaw in the plan is that some third party inks last nowhere near as long as genuine inks. Check out your supplier's information on their ink. There has been much discussion and argument over standards for fade testing with ANSI designing a rating system to be announced in the near future. Check out Wilhelm Imaging Research, although there is some discussion about his testing conditions and anecdotal reports of reversed results. This area obviously needs more study. The ANSI rating will be a great help for we consumers. You can take steps to reduce fade or extend the life of the print by laminating, framing behind glass or using a photo spray. Also consider the environment you're placing the photo in; try to avoid direct sunlight, heat, humidity and smoke.

For comparison I created a printing price table. I took all due care to copy the details across but I can make mistakes so I strongly recommend you check out each sites web site for full pricing details. Information displayed here should be only taken as a rough guide, the CISS are my estimations only. There are all other sorts of factors including paper and ink quality that you need to take into account. Plus you don't have to buy and maintain a printer if you use the retail printing services, and you aren't restricted to size (generally).

I've just had the system for a little under a week and already I've produced dozens of 6x4 and a dozen A4 prints. The quality is amazing. My house walls are in for a shock.

Windows Desktop Search

I installed Office 2007 to get the new Outlook, Word, Powerpoint and Excel. To avoid complications with the large number of clients I work with, I didn't install the latest version of Access, sticking with Access2003.

The main reason I installed Outlook was because I was told how the search facility was much improved. In my experience, Outlook's search facility is the worst I have ever used; a beacon decrying the pitiful talent at Microsoft.

Imagine my disappointment when I find that the search in Outlook is every bit as awful as it had always been. I then approached the IT guys with my findings and they informed me that I had to install another piece of software to get search working quickly. Indeed I had noticed the little windows indicating that this might be the case, if only I had read it in more detail.

So I tracked down Windows Search and installed it. The software wanted to index every document on my computer but I didn't want that to happen, I have nearly twenty years of files in a refined directory tree that allows me to locate the documents that I need quite rapidly, so I figured out how to switch the file indexing off, just index my outlook files, thank you.

A couple months later, Microsoft installed this software on everybody's computer without asking, much to the outcry of the masses. Microsoft claims this was a mistake. I don't think so. To me, the forced installation of indexing software on every computer has many obvious evil intentions by Microsoft. Big brother is looking through every document on your computer. (1) They want to beat out Google from the desktop search facility by forcing their own onto your system. I have tried Google desktop search before and noted that it hogs too many resources to be useful for the very rare occasion that I needed it. (2) They want to make it easy to query your computer for files they don't want you to have or that you do not have legitimately. (3) They are working with external organisations (probably governmental or perhaps IP related) that want to track what you have on your computer either remotely or have an audit trail when they snatch your machine. (4) The software might report back when certain keywords appear in a document, just in case you're writing some sort of terrorist document.

I was safe, or so I thought. I had already told Windows Search to just index my email. So why was the hard drive ticking away? Oh, it put back "My Documents" in the search list. Bad Windows Search, no! I simply went back into "Windows Desktop Search Options" and remove "My Documents". Again. The indexing ceases.

The next morning the hard drive starts ticking away again. "My Documents" is back in the index list. No! I remove it. Maybe I didn't make myself clear. I don't want "My Documents" to be indexed. Hmmm, I located the folder for "My Documents", right click -> General Tab -> Advanced and untick "For fast searching, allow Index Service to index this folder". Not that we are talking about Index Service which is a different indexing engine. Hmmm, I have disabled Index Service already.

Next day; Windows Search is indexing "My Documents"! Bastards! Fine, I can put up with the slow Outlook search. Everybody off. Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services. Find Windows Search, change to disabled. Click on the little magnifying glass in the start bar (near the time) and tell it to exit. That'll fix it right? Not completely. Windows Search still shows up after reboot, it sits there looking smug. I am pretty sure it can't do anything because SearchIndexer isn't in the task manager - I did disable it, but I left the laptop on over the weekend. SearchIndexer shouldn't have done anything, but then Microsoft forced it to be installed on people's machines without asking so who is to say they don't force it to start whenever Microsoft wants. Microsoft has already proved that they are not to be trusted.

I click Start -> Run and type MSCONFIG and tap enter. Stop Windows Search from starting up and I think it all looks OK. As far as I can tell.

A few weeks later, I noticed Outlook thrashing the hard drive. Hmmm, was it indexing things it shouldn't? Time to completely uninstall Windows Desktop Search. Control Panel -> Add Remove Software, and good riddance to bad rubbish. During the uninstall process Windows Desktop Search tried to imply that everything I had installed after I installed WDS might not work. Nice try buddy. Being a Microsoft product we can't properly check dependencies, so I'll just have to take that chance. Any software that depends on Windows Desktop Search deserves to not work.

Basically, you are at the mercy of the company who created the operating system. They can do whatever they want when the software is not Open Source, and Microsoft is exceedingly anti Open Source. In the past I always assumed this was because it would be embarrassing for Microsoft to open their source code because (1) they are terrible at security, (2) write buggy code, and (3) have stolen code from other companies (they have settled out of court for hundreds of millions of dollars on a number of cases where they have been accused of stealing code).

I get the feeling that Microsoft has sinister motives with this forced installation of Windows Search. It was not a mistake, it is just too stupid for a mistake, even for Microsoft, particularly given the heat they have taken over the previous forced update.

Thankfully, Open Office is becoming quite usable. More and more software is being made available for other operating systems like OS-X (not that I trust Apple completely) and Linux. With every new system I purchase at work and home, the alternatives are carefully considered ... the number of Windows machines that I have to deal with is reducing rapidly. Joy.

Trust nobody. Give Microsoft the flick.

Toys

I had a birthday celebrating a numeric amount that is evenly divisible by 10. Western culture increases the significance of this even simply because of the nature of the number being evenly divisible by 10. Well 16, 21 and probably even 18 has their own reasons for attracting importance. 21 detracts a lot from 20.

I elected not to have a large party with all the friends and so forth. In fact, I very very rarely have a birthday party with all the friends. The celebrations are more of a family affair. And only then because they all know my birthday, and insist on doing something. I almost was able to contrive being out of the country over the allegedly significant day, but decided against the expense, and was thwarted by the family's insistence that celebrations would simply be delayed. It's not that I don't appreciate the family's efforts, I just don't want so much fuss made over simply having survived to this point. My family is full of great people, so a get together is nice.

We all got together and because of the divisible by 10 nature of my age, I got some uber gifts. The Nintendo Wii is an awesome video game platform and I highly recommend it to everyone. That isn't just people who enjoy video games, but people who enjoy being entertained. The bundled Wii Sports is an absolute hoot and a wonderful way to exercise - yes! A video game that requires gross physical effort. Dump that XBox 360 and the PS3 and get your obese children a Nintendo Wii. And a bicycle.

My fiance has seen me making eyes over the new iPod Touch, and took me out to the largest Dick Smith's store that I have ever seen to pick up this little box of wonder. I have read the reviews, looked at the iPhone and bemoaned the issue of the device being tied to an evil telephone carrier. The iPod Touch looked like the device I wanted, and I was so very right. Sure it has some features that are messed up because Apple is playing silly-buggers with their customers, but the features that are working are just phenomenal. I have demonstrated this device to friends and family and they are all blown away. My mother, who is over 60, but looks much younger :), was easily able to figure out how to work the device in seconds. To me this is a mark of how intuitive and simple the interface is. The video is clear, the screen is large enough to read web pages and small enough to slip into my pocket. So simply to browse the web (slashdot, digg, flickr, ebay) and watch some video podcasts (Ask A Ninja, Totally Rad Show) from anywhere in my wifi range. Awesome. I love it!

Recently some bright person has figured out how to "JailBreak" the iPod Touch, which means you can install a number of fantastic third party applications and fix the short falls of the system yourself. I have been hesitant to do this at the moment because I love the features already built in and I also want the next update that Apple has promised to fix the Calendar to allow you to actually enter information (this can be fixed with JailBreak).

A couple weeks before my birthday, I was heading to the Philippines. I always spend some time in the airport duty free but rarely do I ever purchase anything. I noticed the Nintendo DS on sale with the "More Brain Training" software. I had convinced an Uncle to purchase this little monster about six months ago and he has been raving about it ever since. Brain training sounded like an excellent excuse to pick up one of these devices as I am starting research for a PhD and will need all the brain power I can get. Maybe I don't need the distraction but I certainly need the brain power. So my brain did a tricky thing where I justified the purchase on the terms of brain exercises, fun for my fiance as well as myself, and there was a quickly approaching birthday that was evenly divisible by 10. Another factor was that the Brisbane International Airport duty free is actually very good value and I often regret missing out on taking advantage after I leave the airport. So I bought a baby blue Nintendo DS with the "More Brain Training" game - and had a blast. According to the device, my brain is getting younger :) Another highly recommended device.

All these guys along with filling my Flickr account with images taken with my new Canon EOS 400D + lenses have made for a wonderful set of toys. (I still love the Canon IXY!)

Creativity, entertainment and exercise. Getting older is cool!

Sugar vs Artificial Sweeteners

Looking at my eclipse mints tin, I noted that it didn't have the usual nutritional information on it, was probably on the plastic that I tore off to get to the minty scrumptiousness contained within. So I checked out Wriggley's poorly constructed browser specific web site to see what made these mints sweet (I sent them a note to sack their web monkeys who are Microsoft whores that are alienating the rest of us alternative browser users [!!! NOW FIXED!!!]).

• Malitol
• Sorbitol
• Mannitol
• Glycerol
• Aspartame
• Acesulfame K
• Carnauba wax
• BHT
• Acacia

Oh yummy. Quite a bit of alcohol in there. Some of the toxic type.

Then I thought about the various health warnings and possible links of artificial sweeteners to cancer, tumours, joint destruction etc that we keep hearing about through the old-wives-tales hotline.

Most of the approved artificial sweeteners have been thought to be linked to cancer, but tests that show they are linked have used extremely high amounts of the chemical or have been faulty in the conduct of the experiment. However - there still may be a link, and if it is 1 chance in 10,000 of causing cancer then I want to know. And that would be about the chance of increased cancer risk, given the levels we use - which is why the causal effect is so hard to detect.

Some sweeteners aren't thought to be linked to any health problems at all. Yet.

Also note that some sweeteners are banned in the US despite tests showing they are safe because of alleged pressure from the powerful US sugar industry.

A list below is provided for your entertainment. Keep in mind that indeterminant chance of getting cancer doesn't mean that the product doesn't cause cancer. It is just hard to detect.

You should, at the very least, check out the last one I put in.

• 950 Acesulfame_K Poor aftertaste.
• 951 Aspartame Possible link to headaches, brain tumors, lymphoma.
• 952 Cyclamate Possible links to cancer.
• 954 Saccharin Nasty aftertaste. Possible links to bladder cancer.
• 955 Sucralose aka Splenda. Organochloride / chlorocarbon. Probably dangerous.
• 956 Alitame by Pfizer.
• 957 Thaumatin Naturally isolated from the katemfe fruit.
• 961 Neotame by nutrasweet. Produces toxic methanol.
• Stevia Natural plant extract. Possible mutagen of liver.
• Xylitol Wood / birch alcohol. Kills dogs.
• Maltitol Sugar alcohol. Low GI.
• Sugar Proven links to obesity, heart disease, diabetes. Possible links to hyperactivity. One of the largest killers of modern humans.

Yeah. Artificial sweeteners may slightly increase your chances of cancer for SOME artificial sweeteners - and there are a LOT of them. Eating sugar based products has a very strong chance of putting you in the ground early.

When I asked a nutritionist "What would be better, sugar based fizzy drinks or artificial sweeteners?" the first reaction was of disgust and "Don't drink fizzy drinks at all!", which is sound advice given recent developments on the effects of Sodium Benzoate (Presevative 211) which will destroy your liver or stuff your brain with parkinsons and a possible plethora of other nasty effects. However, after much discussion that involved the nutritionist refusing to believe that you need to choose between the two by my postulation that the average schlepp wants the fizzy stuff, the nutritionist begrudgingly conceded that she would recommend artificial sweeteners, given the slight unproved concerns of health issues versus the devastating problems associated with high processed sugar intake.

Yes I eat Eclipse mints and will continue to do so, even tho they seem to be mostly alcohol, artificial sweeteners and gooey crud they scrape off some tree :)

I also drink Pepsi Max, Coke Zero, LA Ice Maxi and so forth. The chances of sweetener related problems are so small compared to sugar related problems. However ... again ... Sodium Benzoate ... maybe I won't drink fizzy stuff any more.

Ideally, I reduce fizzy drink intake to nothing, consume water instead and simply brush my teeth when I want fresh breath, but the world is set up to make that more awkward or stupidly expensive in the case of water.

It's simple. Exercise more and eat less! And ... it's hard. Exercise more and eat less!

"Greater consumption of sugar-sweetened and low-calorie sodas was associated with a significantly higher risk of stroke." - Bernstein 2012. Soda consumption and the risk of stroke in men and women.

"consumption of diet soda at least daily was associated with significantly greater risks of select incident metabolic syndrome components and type 2 diabetes." - Nettleton 2008. Diet Soda Intake and Risk of Incident Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). Atrayee 2008. Genotoxicity Testing of Low-Calorie Sweeteners: Aspartame, Acesulfame-K, and Saccharin.

"artificially sweetened soft drinks may increase the risk of preterm delivery." - Halldorsson 2010. Intake of artificially sweetened soft drinks and risk of preterm delivery: a prospective cohort study in 59,334 Danish pregnant women.

"The results of this mega-experiment indicate that APM is a multipotential carcinogenic agent, even at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg body weight, much less than the current acceptable daily intake." - Soffritti 2006. First experimental demonstration of the multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered in the feed to Sprague-Dawley rats.

"cola consumption may increase the risk of chronic kidney disease." - Saldana 2007. Carbonated beverages and chronic kidney disease.

"Cases are presented demonstrating the early initiation and rapid progression of dental caries in three adolescents. A common factor is the ingestion of high amounts of caffeinated-carbonated soft drinks." - Majewski 2001. Dental caries in adolescents associated with caffeinated carbonated beverages.

Word DOC to HTML

It seems that whenever I try to find some simple piece of shareware or freeware ... especially freeware, on the internet using a search engine, I get a list of pages that invariably don't have what I want in their list of dodgy, overpriced software. I aso get for my trouble, at least 50% of the page splattered in eye wrenching advertisements that turn me off even casually browsing the descriptions of the software. Most of these pages will try to launch a pop up advertisment, and all of them will be running at least one set of tracking javascript. I loathe the authors of these pages.

There are some nice exceptions, SourceForge being a favourite. TUCOWS used to be excellent but now has joined the stinking pile of ad riddled sites.

A great idea is to get an ad blocker for your browser like AdBlock for FireFox or Safari Block for Safari.

I was looking for freeware to convert a folder full of MS Word documents to HTML. A simple task that I could have easily coded in VBScript (yes, it is useful for something). If you are any sort of HTML coder you will know that Microsoft products tend to generate the most ugly and bloated HTML code possible that will probably be least compatible with browsers available from companies other than Microsoft.

I spent 30 minutes looking for software, and found myself unwilling to download anything because if the web site looks dodgy then the software on it is probably dodgy. Phht. So then I start the search for VBScript to do it. I mean it should have been done a dozen times before and why reinvent the wheel, even if it is an easy wheel to invent.

Well I spent a while browsing, getting distracted by various other scripts and in the end just gave up and wrote it myself. Sure, this is easy, short, but since I really didn't find it anywhere else I am going to share my work in the hopes of saving some other poor slob the drudgery of creating it.

Option Explicit
'==========================================================================
' Word2HTML
'
' COMMENT:
' Converts all of the DOC files to HTML files in the specified folder and subfolders.
' DOC files are not destroyed or altered (unless MS Word messes with things)
'
' RESOURCES:
' http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/resources/qanda/hsgarch.mspx
' http://www.activexperts.com/activmonitor/windowsmanagement/scripts/msoffice/word/
' http://www.wizardwrx.com/CommonTypelibs/O2002_MSWORD.CSV
' http://www.helenfeddema.com/CodeSamples.htm
' http://www.pcsupportadvisor.com/Windows_scripting_host_page2.htm
'==========================================================================

Const SourceFolder = "Q:\PROJECTS\DocFolder"

' Alter the SourceFolder to point to your folder containing the DOC files
' *** Do not change the code below

' NOTE: You can Save As any of the below formats
' Const  wdFormatDocument=0
' Const  wdFormatDOSText=4
' Const  wdFormatDOSTextLineBreaks=5
' Const  wdFormatEncodedText=7
Const  wdFormatHTML=8
' Const  wdFormatRTF=6
' Const  wdFormatTemplate=1
' Const  wdFormatText=2
' Const  wdFormatTextLineBreaks=3
' Const  wdFormatUnicodeText=7
Dim thisFormat
myFormat = wdFormatHTML
myFormatExt = ".html"


Sub DocSaveAs (thisDocName, thisFormat)
Dim sDocFile, fso, wdo, wdocs, wdoc, sFolder, sOutFile
WScript.Echo thisDocName 
sDocFile = thisDocName
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set wdo = CreateObject("Word.Application")
sDocFile = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(sDocFile)
sFolder = fso.GetParentFolderName(sDocFile)
If Len(sFolder) > 0 And Mid(sFolder,Len(sFolder),1) <> "\" Then sFolder = sFolder + "\"
sOutFile = sFolder + fso.GetBaseName(sDocFile) + myFormatExt
Set wdoc = wdo.Documents.Open(sDocFile)
wdoc.SaveAs sOutFile, thisFormat
wdo.quit
Set wdo = Nothing
Set fso = Nothing
End Sub


Dim strComputer, objWMIService
strComputer = "." ' can be altered to a network computer name eg: sph-simonf
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")

Sub ProcessFolderHTML (thisFolder)
Dim  colFolder, objFolder, strFolderName, colFiles, objFile
If Mid(thisFolder,Len(thisFolder),1) = "\" Then thisFolder = Mid(thisFolder,1,Len(thisFolder)-1)
Set colFiles = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("ASSOCIATORS OF {Win32_Directory.Name='" & _
thisFolder & "'} Where ResultClass = CIM_DataFile")
If IsNull(colFiles) Then Exit Sub
For Each objFile in colFiles
 ' PROCESS FILE
 If objFile.Extension = "doc" Then DocSaveAs objFile.Name, myFormat
Next
' RECURSE SUB-FOLDERS
Set colFolder = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Associators of {Win32_Directory.Name='" & _
 thisFolder & "'} Where AssocClass = Win32_Subdirectory ResultRole = PartComponent")
For Each objFolder in colFolder
 ProcessFolderHTML objFolder.Name
Next
End Sub


WScript.Echo "Word2HTML: Processing folder '" & SourceFolder & "'"
ProcessFolderHTML SourceFolder
WScript.Echo "Word2HTML: Conversion complete"

Europe: my guide

Long time no post - well I went to Europe for a while. This is my second trip to Europe, but this time we were determined to see more places over a longer period than the first two week trip allowed. I thought I would share some tips. You may want to check out my photo collection hosted by the wonderful people at Flickr or on my .Mac website while it still lasts.

European capitals are expensive

But that still does not mean you have to be ripped off. Expect to pay more for food and accommodation, however, do some investigation. We travelled during low season so we were able to haggle prices down. Other things like food can get you though, people really want you to pay top euro for cola. Grab some in larger bottles from grocery stores before you go out. Fill up bottles with water, apparently it is safe - I had no problems doing this and I even used a public fountain in Venice. Don't buy food or drink around tourist attractions. Certainly don't get your money changed under the Eiffel tower where an obnoxious little man sits in his booth, pretending not to speak any English but apparently understanding everything we said, adding extra charges for no readily apparent reason. I wish I took a pic of his grey bearded angry red face for the blog. Just to balance it out, everyone else we met in France was extremely friendly and helpful.

If you have a Eurail pass make sure you investigate time tables on the internet before you go. Also, check out alternative times and train types. There are a couple private train companies that like to think their trains are so much better than the standard ones that they can charge a very large premium above the Eurail ticket. Don't go on these, there is always an alternative and every standard train that we went on was fine to at least as good as the private company trains.

Accommodation

My partner found a great site called Trip Advisor which shows reviews posted by the general public about hotels. We were initially very concerned as many of the hotels we were looking at had some poor reviews in amongst some glowing reviews. Then after looking at some five star accommodation I realised that some people complain about anything. You have to read the negative review with suspicion to try to determine the psychological state of the person who wrote it. Some people will tell you the hotel is a write off because the desk clerk wouldn't pay them enough attention. Phht, welcome to Europe you self indulgent idiot. Others find a stain on the carpet or a crack in the wall and think they whole place should be condemned. Or perhaps the bathroom isn't an acre wide for their fat American backsides to fit in. Some are legitimate, like the one I am going write about the appaling Brodies Hostel in Edinburgh.

Again, low season is great. In Edinburgh we abruptly left the horror of Brodies Hostel and I decided to splurge. I knew the train station was close by, which had a "last minute" hotel booking place. They mentioned a couple places and I asked if she could get us in for 20 pounds less, a quick call confirmed that this was fine and we were in a very pleasant four star hotel rather than the barely better than a dumpster zero star Brodies Hostel.

To save ourselves a night of accommodation we decided to try a sleeper cabin from Zurich to Venice. I had never been in a sleeper before and was quite happy that we were trying it out. I was surprised that it was 100 euro over the eurail pass, but thought that was reasonable ... until he explained that it was 100 euro each. I was hesitant, I still wanted to experience a sleeper. Then the attendant said "I would not regret it, the sleepers are wonderful." So I got the sleeper tickets. He lied. They were crap. It would have been much better to travel in on an earlier train and get an extra night in Venice. Still, now I know. Maybe there are better sleeper cabins around but I won't be game to try them.

Time of year

Low season has fewer and smaller crowds, more free seats at events and on trains, you don't get hot and sweaty while trudging around, most things are cheaper or negotiable, you get to see snow (except global warming seems to have prevented that for our trip) or at least frosts and fogs. The downside is that some places are closed (the chocolate museum in Belgium) or close early, you have a lot less light to work with, fountains are empty in the north (Venice and Rome were fine), many trees are leafless and no flowers (although Amsterdam still had heaps), it can get bloody cold and windy. Despite the cold, we had an awesome time! Frankly I gladly accept the chill to avoid the crowds.

Travel guides

Travel guides are hugely useful. Lonely planet, Frommers and Let's Go seem to be the common ones about. I got the "Let's Go" guide and picked up plenty of great tips on what to see, eat and places to stay. Not all the places to stay are that good, but a little research on your own and you will find plenty of accommodation bookable over the internet.

One of the tips in the guides was about pick pockets and how they worked. Very interesting. So when we encountered them I knew exactly what they were and how they were going to operate. We actually encountered them in Rome at about the exact place that the guide told us we would. I was so amused that I stopped in my tracks and said to my partner "Oh! They're pick pockets! Cool!" and then realised that there were about to make a grab for my pocketed camera so I launched into a run, knocking them out of the way. I reported them to a nearby policewoman who only spoke Italian but understood my mime. So rather than be the event where I lost my camera, it was the event where I foiled pick pockets thanks to the warning from the guide books.

Europe is enormous and there is lots of good information to put in these guides making them quite bulky. You can get pocket guides which are specific for only one city which have the same sort of information, usually in more detail, as the large guides, as well as containing really good quality maps. Certainly the pocket books fit into my pocket, but I was wearing a nice warm winter jacket with deep pockets. During summer they would be more of a pain. You would have to carry them around in your backpack, but they are far easier to carry than the complete Europe guide. Each hotel usually has a good tourist map for free which is usually pamphlet size and often the hotel clerk can offer you great tips about the local area.

Non-smoker's guide to Europe

Only go to Italy, everywhere else stinks. Switzerland was particularly nasty because of the combined effect of the very smelly cheese fondue. In each country we visited we were told that they were considering or about to ban smoking in public places / bars and restaurants, but nobody could name a specific date. In Italy this had already taken place. We also noted on the news that Hong Kong had gone smoke free. Really, Europe would have you believe they are all about high culture, but I think they are an oldish culture that plays catch-up on many issues. They have their fair share of rude, ugly, ignorant, aggressive, unhelpful people like any other culture.

If you have to visit France, Amsterdam, Germany, Switzerland or what ever country that has not yet been enlightened about their responsibility of keeping the local air breathable for others then your best bet is to have dinner early and ask the restaurant about the non-smoking area. If you get placed out of the way in an ugly spot near the toilet or the kitchen doors then just get up and leave - there are plenty of restaurants about. One particularly lovely Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam put us way at the back almost in our own private quiet softly lit room - it was excellent, as was the meal. Alternatively, a restaurant in Wales had the non smoking area next to the kitchen surrounded by the smoking area, at which we just chuckled at the waiter, politely informed him of our disapproval and left.

You should not be impolite as these people are not as well educated on the issues of smoking so you must make allowances for their immature cultural differences.

You must go!

Apart from the caveats ... just go to Europe, have a big budget, make sure you check out the hotels somehow before you go. It is awesome. Europe is a romantic setting - the perfect place to pop the question. She said yes :)