Starting up again

My new startup company is moving tomorrow to a new building along Charlotte St. I went to take a peek today at its comms room, where we will be locating our switch rack for the ethernet connections on our floor. Never did I expect to see this!

Did not know whether to laugh or be really worried I need to make sure the phones and internet connections are up when the CS team goes in on Wednesday morning. Definitely worth a post of the state.

Weather forecast is not good for tomorrow, wish us luck!

Be a traveler, not a tourist

3 days into my new job and I can't wait for the weekend to arrive. Don't get me wrong, I am really excited about my new role, new company, new colleagues, but I admit it took me few days to get used to the new environment. 512K office bandwidth shared by 10+ people, seats that are running out (I reckon I will be on the beanbag tomorrow), mini-toilets, no fancy robo-bin(a bin that opens the lid when you wave your hand over it) and no sophisticated coffee machine. But it is all fun, the people are so passionate about what they do, and they are a great bunch to be around even though I am still trying to get to know everybody. To celebrate my new found happiness, I am sharing with everyone a 10% discount voucher which you can use on all tours and activities found on the site, and there are thousands of them, literally! Lastly, if it is not too much to ask, it will be great if you can vote for us in the British Travel Awards under the "Best Holiday Experience" if you like us. (Unfortunately it is only available for UK residents)

You have to hurry, the offer ends 30 Sept! Happy traveling!!!

End to an eventful week

It started with a last minute booking of a return tickets to NYC last Friday. The next day was followed with lots of footie and a rush to Heathrow to catch my flight for a surprise visit to my girlfriend in the Big Apple. The crash of the Lehman and difficulties faced by AIG definitely did not help with the face time that we have for each other (she works in the financial sector). Undeterred, I continued my foodie tour of the city on my own, focused mainly on burgers and ramen specifically. In 5 days, I tried the Five Guys Burgers and Fries, swung by Shake Shack, tasted ramens from Minca and Ipudo. In between, I sneaked in enough time to visit my old favourites at Burger Joint and Ramen Setagaya. I felt I had gain a stone from the trip but the burger & fries from Five Guys were simply amazing and the broth at Ipudo was just heavenly. I even managed to play some tennis with friends after more than a year and enjoy a few recommended coffees.

Today also spells my last day with the company that I have spent my last 2 and half years. It has been an extraordinary journey and will miss the incredible team that I have been working with. Tomorrow I embark on a new chapter and wishes the very best to the folks of my old office.

Adiós and stay in touch!

Flickr goes MORE social...

My favorite photo sharing site Flickr just launched a new facelift to their homepage. If you are still seeing the old look and feel, scroll down the page and look for a link to try out their new site. Click on it and you will get the blue/pink flickr theme 'snow flakes' falling on your screen.

New features include a small graphical display of the stats above your photo stream, with the major addition of a 'explore' section near the bottom of the page that displays the most 'interesting' photos shared in the last 7 days. There are also more AJAX changes to sections for 'recent activities', resulting in a better user experience without the usual click-wait-refresh of before. There seems to be more emphasis on 'Groups' as well although it is one feature which I hardly use often previously.

Running with iphone

A GPS app called Trailguru recently caught my eye as I have been searching around for a useful tool to help me to map my runs. One of the nice features of the tool is its simplicity and ease of use. On first install on the iphone, you will be requested to register a new account on trailguru.com, which will serve as the repository to hold your GPS tracks. Registration takes less than a minute and I even did it on the phone directly. Initial FAQ readings all seem very positive and I set out to do a test run today by jogging back from office to home.


To start the track, you can just press "Start" which will then ask if you want to allow the phone to use your current location, or choose to manually turn on your "Location Services" under settings before starting the trace. This seems to work better for me as I was always able to get a GPS lock on immediately after. The application is clever enough to guess if you are continuously moving or have come to a stop based on the GPS location. Uploading the results to the website is a breeze as you are displayed with a screen to select the activity that you have just completed, choose if you want to share with other users, and post your track online immediately. You will then receive an email indicating your track upload with a link to view it online on a Gmap.

As expected, I was getting mixed results even though the screen was showing me the lat/lon coordinates, which might be down to the buildings around my office as I headed down to the river. It has clearly got the first stretch quite accurately (although it missed the stretch from my office down to the river bank), but completely missed the 2nd part of the route opposite Westminster to Pimlico. It was the best demo test but it did show enough potential for me to give it another go later this week. I think the fact that it even shows you the elevation and accumulated distance simply makes this app a potential killer, and not forgeting that you can actually view traces shared by other users around your route. As you can see, it is not only for runners like me, but you can even use it for hiking, trekking, cycling etc...and best of all, the app is FREE! Give it a go yourself and let me know how it went for you.

Swiss update

Have been experiencing a fair bit of swiss flavor for the month of August. First off was a trip to Bern and Lucerne with a couple of friends, one whom I have known for almost 18 years, and who is getting married in Oct. The highlight of the weekend trip has to be the golden circle day trip to Mount Pilatus from Lucerne, starting with a very lazy cruise on Lake Lucerne, followed by a journey up to the mountain on the world's steepest cogwheel rail. The views on the mountain was simply breathtaking, even though it was an overcast day. The cable car trip down was also exciting, especially for my friend who was very afraid of heights, and when I mean VERY AFRAID...You can view all the photos on my flickr.

I was out to Istanbul midweek to see my team members for the last time before starting on my new journey in life with another company later this month. As it was a last minute decision, I ended up booking an unusual flight to Istanbul via Geneva on Swiss Air as it was the appropriate in terms of the timings and overall price. Had an unexpected but pleasant surprise on my return trip from Istanbul as they upgraded me to Business and got to use the lounge between the legs. Was extremely helpful as we were out having dinner and drinks in Taksim and was directly off to the airport to catch my 5.30am flight. Couldn't have ask for more...swiss air has just gone to the top of my favorite airlines, and not just because they give out chocolates on all their flights.