My rule of thumb with hotels is to write reviews only after staying at least two nights so that I have had time to experience (or at least discover) all that the hotel has to offer. The larger the hotel, the longer this takes; the inverse is also true.
Base2stay in Liverpool is an unusual exception to the rule. It isn't in the same league as monsters like the Marina Bay Sands but with 106 rooms it also isn't so tiny that you might expect a one night stay to tell you all you need to know. This is the clever bit; apart from the rooms and the 24hr reception desk, Base2stay doesn't have any facilities. None. Not even a small bar. It's brilliant.
So now you're probably wondering how a hotel without facilities could ever be called brilliant. What if you want to exercise? The hotel has neither gym nor swimming pool. Food? There are vending machines, a breakfast delivery service (which I didn't use and so can't comment upon) and microwave ovens in the rooms but no restaurant. Drink? Nope, you're on your own, although there are tea and coffee making facilities. Club, casino, conference room, business centre, concierge, room service? Again, no, not at this hotel.
What the proprietors have done, and done with great skill, is boil down the hotel experience to its absolute essentials; room, bed, bathroom, peace and comfort. They've done this by removing all the extras, the things you might use occasionally but that you can also obtain, often at far lower price, from third parties in the surrounding area.
What you do get is a modest room at a reasonable price in an elegant, comfortable building. Wifi is included in the price, as it should be in all hotels (see earlier rant on this subject), and there are plenty of power sockets in the rooms (including, I noted with interest, a Euro socket). Hidden or missing power points has, like expensive wifi, long been a bugbear of mine; it is my considered opinion that hotel rooms should have multiple, unused power sockets in each room to facilitate the convenient charging of phones, tablets and laptops. Base2stay delivers, with two sockets on each side of the bed and more at the desk.
The bathrooms are basic but comfortable. You don't get the full range of accessories (sewing kit, razor etc.) that you might get in some five star hotels but does anyone ever use those things? I don't, and I don't miss them when they're not in the bathroom. What I want is a good shower, fluffy towels, plenty of hot water, well-maintained surfaces and a decent light to shave by. Again, Base2stay delivers.
My conclusion is that if you want the absolute pinnacle of luxury and the added convenience of on-site facilities, just in case you need them, you'll want to look elsewhere. If you just want a comfortable place to sleep, Base2stay is definitely worth confiding. I will return.
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Sunday, 20 January 2013
PC Disappointments
Most of the advantages (and, to be fair, the disadvantages) of working on an iPad are pretty obvious as soon as you start to use one but there are also some more subtle differences, things you might not notice for months or even years. I've been using PCs, in one form or another, since 1994 (before then computers were mostly single-tasking and were not really comparable to today's machines) and Windows PCs have been my primary working tool since I graduated in 1995. How can I so quickly have come to expect my Windows laptop to work the way that the iPad works and to offer the same features? Let me give you an example.
The iPad is basically an Internet communication device; whenever it is connected to the net it will download your email, pick up your messages, look for app updates and so on. This all happens without user intervention and without specific apps being open or active so it's totally invisible to the user. The practical benefit, which will be familiar to anyone with a modern smartphone, is that if you have a 3G connection or if you wander through a wifi hotspot you will immediately have access to your latest email and any emails you wrote since you were last connected to the net will be sent.
The problem comes when you then expect your Windows PC to do something similar. I didn't bother to check my email this morning because I imagined that the file I wanted to work on, which was emailed to me yesterday (I know this because it's sitting, unreadable, on my iPad), would be available for me to access because my laptop had been connected to the Internet yesterday afternoon.
This is clearly nuts. I've always known that PCs need their email clients to be open before they will download email, so how has it been possible for the iPad so quickly to change my expectations? The answer is that background downloading of email, with or without the client being open, is just a much better way of working and to do anything else now seems quaint and antiquated; it is simply natural to expect your connected devices to have ready the things you need to use and any device that doesn't do this feels somehow broken.
So is there an alternative? Can a Windows PC be configured to retrieve email, without having to open Outlook, so that Outlook can then still be used as the primary email client? I haven't ever heard of such a service but I am now actively looking for one.
In this example the elephant in the room, as it were, is the inability of the iPad reliably to open Word 2010 documents, even if you try to import them into Pages. It's not clear to me why Apple hasn't resolved this issue but maybe it's on their 2013 roadmap. Either way, I don't see an immediate solution to my iPad/Windows email confusion, unfortunately.
The iPad is basically an Internet communication device; whenever it is connected to the net it will download your email, pick up your messages, look for app updates and so on. This all happens without user intervention and without specific apps being open or active so it's totally invisible to the user. The practical benefit, which will be familiar to anyone with a modern smartphone, is that if you have a 3G connection or if you wander through a wifi hotspot you will immediately have access to your latest email and any emails you wrote since you were last connected to the net will be sent.
The problem comes when you then expect your Windows PC to do something similar. I didn't bother to check my email this morning because I imagined that the file I wanted to work on, which was emailed to me yesterday (I know this because it's sitting, unreadable, on my iPad), would be available for me to access because my laptop had been connected to the Internet yesterday afternoon.
This is clearly nuts. I've always known that PCs need their email clients to be open before they will download email, so how has it been possible for the iPad so quickly to change my expectations? The answer is that background downloading of email, with or without the client being open, is just a much better way of working and to do anything else now seems quaint and antiquated; it is simply natural to expect your connected devices to have ready the things you need to use and any device that doesn't do this feels somehow broken.
So is there an alternative? Can a Windows PC be configured to retrieve email, without having to open Outlook, so that Outlook can then still be used as the primary email client? I haven't ever heard of such a service but I am now actively looking for one.
In this example the elephant in the room, as it were, is the inability of the iPad reliably to open Word 2010 documents, even if you try to import them into Pages. It's not clear to me why Apple hasn't resolved this issue but maybe it's on their 2013 roadmap. Either way, I don't see an immediate solution to my iPad/Windows email confusion, unfortunately.
Sunday, 13 January 2013
What I want to see from Apple in 2013
2012 was a mixed year for Apple. They had several hugely successful product launches (iPhone 5, iPads 3 and 4, a load of well-received laptop and desktop updates, etc.) but also some embarrassing cock-ups (Maps being the biggest problem). It doesn't seem likely that the mistakes will bankrupt Apple any time soon (their cash pile has grown to $120bn - another 2012 success) but there seems to be an atmosphere emerging around the company that isn't entirely positive, suggesting they've got some work to do to retain their "cool", "innovative" and "it just works" reputation. Here's what I'd like to see:
Maps is by far the most elegant mapping and navigation app on the iPhone but it lacks data, detail and features. Mapping is difficult and requires integration of many disparate data sources but its also a key feature in modern smart phones and Apple have to get it right. In 2013 I want to see an improved points of interest database, massively extended Flyover coverage and a much more detailed set of maps. Street view would be a nice to have but that's clearly an enormous job.
iCloud is an absolutely fantastic service but it seems to be a bit unreliable for 3rd party applications and the user access points, like the website, are rather limited. Improved reliability, additional storage (5Gb is enough, just, to backup only a single device), easier access and lower cost would all be sensible improvements for 2013. Adding the features found in Dropbox would be a nice feature to have, although displacing Dropbox (whose integration with iOS apps is peerless) might now be a tough challenge.
Siri. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. It's a great tool in some situations but it simply isn't good enough to be relied upon daily and don't even think about demonstrating it to your Android-loving colleagues unless you've practiced your test phrases and you know exactly what they're going to do. More data, more features and improved accuracy are all expected in 2013.
Closer integration between Mac OS X and iOS would be nice, especially if an improved iCloud allowed for slick sharing of files between both operating systems and applications. The walled garden approach is great in many respects but having a few gates to allow data to move easily between applications would improve things no end.
None of this is new, of course. Apple are undoubtedly already working along these lines and it is in fact inconceivable that there aren't other, better, more exciting and further reaching improvements to these services, and others, scheduled to launch this year. The most important Apple feature remains "it just works" but at the moment it might be more accurate to say "most things just work, some are a bit flakey".
There's also little to criticise about the rate of hardware improvement, especially if, as rumoured, Apple have moved to a six-monthly refresh cycle (see iPad). 2013, I think, is all about the software and services
Maps is by far the most elegant mapping and navigation app on the iPhone but it lacks data, detail and features. Mapping is difficult and requires integration of many disparate data sources but its also a key feature in modern smart phones and Apple have to get it right. In 2013 I want to see an improved points of interest database, massively extended Flyover coverage and a much more detailed set of maps. Street view would be a nice to have but that's clearly an enormous job.
iCloud is an absolutely fantastic service but it seems to be a bit unreliable for 3rd party applications and the user access points, like the website, are rather limited. Improved reliability, additional storage (5Gb is enough, just, to backup only a single device), easier access and lower cost would all be sensible improvements for 2013. Adding the features found in Dropbox would be a nice feature to have, although displacing Dropbox (whose integration with iOS apps is peerless) might now be a tough challenge.
Siri. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. It's a great tool in some situations but it simply isn't good enough to be relied upon daily and don't even think about demonstrating it to your Android-loving colleagues unless you've practiced your test phrases and you know exactly what they're going to do. More data, more features and improved accuracy are all expected in 2013.
Closer integration between Mac OS X and iOS would be nice, especially if an improved iCloud allowed for slick sharing of files between both operating systems and applications. The walled garden approach is great in many respects but having a few gates to allow data to move easily between applications would improve things no end.
None of this is new, of course. Apple are undoubtedly already working along these lines and it is in fact inconceivable that there aren't other, better, more exciting and further reaching improvements to these services, and others, scheduled to launch this year. The most important Apple feature remains "it just works" but at the moment it might be more accurate to say "most things just work, some are a bit flakey".
There's also little to criticise about the rate of hardware improvement, especially if, as rumoured, Apple have moved to a six-monthly refresh cycle (see iPad). 2013, I think, is all about the software and services
Sunday, 6 January 2013
2013 Techno Resolutions
Last year I broke my normal rule and made some Techno Resolutions, a list of technology related things that I definitely was, or wasn't, going to do. Now, at the beginning of 2013, it is time to review last year's resolutions and make some new ones. Let's start with last year's:
- Blogging - I had two concrete targets for 2012: 1) publish something vaguely interesting on my blog at least once a day, and 2) publish a 500 word article every Sunday at noon. I failed dismally in the first task with only 160 posts last year, down from 295 in 2011 and well below my peak of 347 in 2009 but managed (just) to get the 500 word articles out each week (53 entries in 2012, 26,500 words).
- Twitter and LinkedIn - I choose an arbitrary target of 200 followers/contacts on each site. This wasn't a problem on LinkedIn, where I quickly blew past the target (currently on 235, for what that's worth) but progress on Twitter was much slower and I'm languishing at 117.
- Apple products - I said the only Apple products I'd buy were an iPad 3 and a new iPhone (although I was sure it would be called the "5" - oops) and despite the temptation of the new MacBook Pro Retina laptops I have stuck to my resolution. Just.
- No other gadgets - I planned to buy no gadgets at all in 2012 with the possible exception of the Jawbone Up (which I didn't, in the end, buy).
- Cameras - I was a bit vague about publishing photos which is probably just as well because nothing really happened on this front. Not a bit fail, but not really a win either.
- Contact lists - mine are a mess and I was going to sort them out. I've made some progress by dumping Gmail's Calendars but that's about it.
- Kickstarter and web technologies - I backed several Kickstarter projects and completed a fair chunk of Codecademy's training courses, so this is a resolution I kept.
- Blogging - continue the weekly 500 word articles on a Sunday and hit the daily target on my other blog.
- Twitter - 300 followers by the end of the year.
- Apple products - no purchases at all this year. Tricky.
- Other gadgets - replacements for failures or losses only, again with the possible exception of a Jawbone Up, or similar.
- Cameras - gotta get that photo sharing going, somehow.
- Contact lists - I'm definitely going to sort out my contact list mess in 2013.
- Kickstarter - I plan to back at least 5 projects this year.
- Codecademy - complete at least one more training course.
- Web project - complete (for some definition of "complete") 2 or more of my web projects.
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