Travel & Humanitarian Photos
I can’t resist a gadget or a nifty technical solution. If it beeps and has lots of buttons then I’m pretty much already sold. A hefty, technical manual is a bonus although clearly, as a man, the very last thing I would ever do is read it. If it syncs information across multiple applications and various devices then I’m even happier.
Occasionally I have to remind myself that gadgets are supposed to make life simpler, not more complicated, and I sometimes have to take myself to one side for a quiet talking to when managing the syncing obsession threatens to overwhelm the prospect of actually getting some work done.
I’ve concluded that my Moleskine Diary/Notebook is probably all I really need to record appointments, addresses and memos but really, where’s the fun in that? The Moleskine is a classic and it’s nice to actually use a pen and paper occasionally but, despite extensive searching, I’ve not been able to locate its battery compartment and the USB port remains stubbornly hidden so I’ve been unable to sync it with anything at all. Very disappointing.
I’ve been using the WorldMate Live service for several months now and this sates my syncing hunger much more effectively. WorldMate Live is basically an online library into which you load your travel itineraries; flights, hotels, car hire etc. It makes the process of uploading information really straightforward. When I book a flight or hire a car online I’ll inevitably get a confirmation e-mail. I simply forward this to a generic WorldMate e-mail address and, providing the details are in a recognisable format, WorldMate automatically adds the itinerary to my account.
So, for example, I recently altered the date of a flight from Bangkok to Heathrow and received an e-ticket from the airline. I forwarded this to WorldMate, which picked up the details and completed the information, telling me the date and time of the flight, the terminal number, my reserved seat number, the fact that I’ll be flying on a Boeing 747, that I’ve requested the chicken tandoori meal option and that the man in the seat next to mine will be an retired chemistry teacher with a bladder condition that forces him to interrupt my sleep thirteen times during the night as he heads for the loo.
OK, one of the above was invented for comic effect. I’m actually a vegetarian.
Now here’s the really clever bit. Once WorldMate has the flight, hotel, car hire or meeting details it can sync them across multiple platforms. I use a BlackBerry , which has the free WorldMate client installed and this picks up the itinerary details from the web, setting alarms to remind me that I have a flight in six hours and that I really ought to have started packing by now. The BlackBerry syncs the itinerary details with my calendar, which automatically syncs with my Notebook computer’s calendar. That’s enough for me but if your syncing addiction is more advanced than mine then your local calendar can sync with something like Google’s online calendar, which your friends and relatives can sync with and pretty soon the whole world will know your travel plans. Just imagine how many people will come to meet you at the airport.
Am I being too lighthearted? I blame the festive season for the onset of this uncustomary jollity and know that you expect more sober musings from me so I’ll hunker down for the rest of the post.
The benefits of a service like WorldMate is that my only input is to forward the confirmation e-mail that I receive from the airline. Actually, I’ve set up automatic forwarding of any e-mails from Thai Airways, Eva Air, Asia Air and other airlines so I don’t even need to do that. Because the itineraries are automatically taken from what I guess is the central airline reservation database (Amadeus?), there’s no chance of me confusing dates, mixing up “am” and “pm” times or assuming that I’m departing from one airport when I should actually be checking-in across town.
The BlackBerry client also includes weather forecasts, currency conversions, time zones and, if you pay for the upgrade, flight schedules and live flight status updates. I assume the iPhone version is even groovier. It’s a solution that requires very little work on my behalf but which keeps my travel plans up to date and available to me wherever I am. If my plans change when I’m on the road then I alter the details on the BlackBerry, which feeds the changes back to the World Mate database.
Whilst we’re talking about gadgets and gizmos that simplify the process of managing information, are there any other nifty solutions that you’d recommend? There’s a special prize for the first person to tell me how to sync my WorldMate database with my Moleskine.
Had a good giggle at this one. I’m sure Moleskines will come with USB ports before too long.
In the meantime, use a scanner?
You took the words right out of my mouth, Charlene!
Funnily enough, I read just a few days ago in an internal magazine, that Richard Branson feels his most important ‘gadget’ is the moleskin notebook that never leaves his back pocket.
He is convinced that he’d never have managed to build his empire without it.
So don’t upgrade yours just yet!
Scanning my Moleskine. Nice idea.
Masher, if it’s good enough for RB then it’ll be good enough for me.