United Airlines dropping to actual EQM for flights under 500 Miles

So normally I fly United for short flights, since I get my 500 Elite Qualifying Miles per run. But as of July 2008 they will only provide actual miles for short flights. If anything the shovel that Jet Blue, Virgin America and Southwest that United handed over is now going to start the burial process.

Flights are less expensive on these other airlines, all 3 of these airlines actually have friendly flight attendants that are happy to be there. I love how the pilots say, flight attendants are primarily here for your safety. They really don't give a crap about your level of service.

So whats next United? Will your customers have to fly on a full moon, every other solar eclipse to get status points any longer? United tries over and over again to get new clients with these fake fairs that is only 1 seat per flight. When you actually get the email its booked by then.

iphone went un-available on the Apple Store

Ok, so as the geek that I am. I have been checking daily for an update around a 3g iphone. But today I just noticed that the iphone is no longer available for sale on the website. Hmm, could it be released this week?

SES NYC

So today was the first day of SES NYC. A very interesting mix of people, every year it seems to change just a little bit. You tend to see more of the change on the first day before the expo floor opens with a flood of free passes.

I ran into Jason Calacanis today with his cool new Macbook Air, what a great machine. I must have one!

We went on a St. Patricks day pub crawl tonight. A blast, I was sorry to leave but had to meet some friends. I was able to call may father, it is his 70th birthday today.

How to get picked up by Google Image Search

So its time for me to ask a question, how does Google and Yahoo handle decisions in terms of listing images and which site to trust. It seems to me that the originating site should get the credit for the images, but this is not true in all cases. I would love to hear feedback of experiences on how to get images in the index. Simply turning that little switch in Google Webmaster Tools seems to do little or nothing to really help.

Should the images be hosted on the same domain? Does that make any difference?

Should the images be a specific type? Seems to me that this should not be the case.

Should the images be free of any java script?

Should they have a enlarge feature?

Obviously and ALT tag can help and a decent file name, but this does not seem to make a difference in certain situations.

Would love to hear opinions on this.

Backup to Airport Extreme external hard drive using Time Machine

So I was frustrated to find that the default upgrade of Leopard did not include the ability to backup to an Airport Extreme USB based hard drive. The new one that was spoken about in the Mac World keynote did just this with a built in hard drive. With way too much fooling around I found that if you simply use the following command in the terminal...

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

It will set the drive to be mountable for the software. Of course after I found the command I realize someone had actually posted it here. But this would have been much simpler if they would have just given it to us.

Expedia Customer Service

I feel that it’s important to talk about sites abusing reviews, especially in the Hotel sector. Just a few months back I booked a room in New York City on Expedia.com, for a serviced apartment. I chose this accommodation due to the outrageous fees for hotels during the days I chose to stay. Reading the information about the serviced apartment I was impressed with what they had to offer and figured why not?

I got to the unit late at night around 11:30pm, flight delays from SFO and traffic made the process a bit slow. When we finally found the complex, there was a buzzer to talk to the night attendant. He promptly appeared and went through the list to see what room I was in. He then told me that Aaron Shear already checked in and there was nothing that he could do about it.

I called Expedia and asked what was going on? They said that they would be happy to talk to the manager and make things right. They spoke with the doorman and was unable to set things right. At this point 1.5 hours had gone by and I was ready to tear my own head off.

The doorman finally realized that they switched my room with another visitor and I was to take their room. At this point I just wanted to sleep so I did not complain, even though the comforter on the bed was stained in all sorts of strange colors. I simply took off the top cover and made sure the sheets where clean and slept.

During my stay I found that no soap was left, the so called Jacuzzi bath tub was defective, the tile was coming up and the mold content was more than anyone could handle. This was after the second day; I called back Expedia customer service begging them to put me somewhere else. But they did not comply and told me that there was nothing that they could do except give me a small credit for my $2,000 stay.

I can go on for hours about this but my main point is, if you write a negative review on Expedia.com they will not post it. They turned my review down twice and provided incorrect information about why it was not accepted. In conclusion be careful what you read!

Apple ipod touch update

Not to say I have completely switched from being a total Microsoft fan, but I have to say I love the new $20 update that Apple put out today regarding the ipod touch. It was not just a simple update, but an update where owners could receive software that would give them similar abilities to the i-phone and as well allow an simple ipod touch user the ability to get gps navigation through their new wifi hot spot intelligent software.

I am very impressed, the touch just went back in my every day life. Yes, serious thoughts went through my head about hacking the device months ago, but I do not have nearly as much time to chase problems down as I used to. Happy hunting.

Netflix response to Apple

I have been very interested in the response that would come from video rental companies especially Netflix with their downloadable rentals to Apple’s announcement to their new program. I was not expecting such a simple response…

“
Dear Aaron,

As part of your current Netflix subscription, you have the option to watch some movies and TV episodes from the Netflix library instantly on your PC at no additional charge. Now, we've made it unlimited!

So watch instantly on your PC when you want, and as often as you want. Select from our separate, smaller library of over 6,000 familiar movies and TV episodes available to watch instantly.

- Your friends at Netflix”

Personally I think the response should have been something link, we have a great selection of on demand current films at your normal subscription price. Rather than this bleak attempt to encourage members to use their service without talking to them about it.

I love Netflix, especially how they have not raked us under the coal for HD programming. But in my personal opinion there is a better way to respond to Apple. Sorry Netflix, but I may switch if this is how you wish to respond.