Posted: 20 Apr 2010 04:12 PM PDT

Business travel is a pain. It upsets your routine and digestion. It throws you into a mix of strange places and stranger people. Worst of all, you usually have to deal with the one industry that proves service is dead: the airlines.

While nothing except maybe a private jet can eliminate the suffering, there are ways to ease it a bit. Knowledge is key and here's how the Web can help.

It always pays to know your enemies, so we'll start with some airline industry insider sites.

Aircrewlayover.com is where flight crew members offer recommendations to each other on restaurants, nightlife, hotels and entertainment venues. Looking under LAX (yes, cities are listed by their three-letter airport code), the restaurant recommendations sort of explain the quality of airline food. Useful, if your company doesn't allow you to expense meals.

More frightening than the food is Crew Rumors, which has a number of bulletin boards where pilots, flight attendants and ground crew post questions, gossip and complaints.

Topics include stupid pax questions and the rudest pax. "Pax" are us, the passengers. If you upgrade, you'd better act it: "If I had to name a group of pax who tend to be on the rude side, it is the first-class upgrades -- definitely. Just because they are sitting in 1A does not mean they are a first-class pax, they are merely a pax with a first-class ticket."

Or pax drinks: "I was once asked for prune juice. Can you imagine the damage that that could cause on a 14-hour flight to NRT? Gross!!!"

Then there's the fight over jump seats between mechanics and pilots on one airline. That can't be good. Here and there between the juicy stuff are recommendations on travel sites and books.

Crew Rumors is part of CrewStart.com, which has tips on places to eat and stay, a currency converter, a language translator, clothing size conversions and a host of other things that any frequent flier, pax or crew, would find useful.

Airline pilots have their own Web site at www.airlinepilots.com. Before you fly read up on pilot fatigue and air safety. There are also chat rooms as opposed to bulletin boards. Hey, they've got to do something when the autopilot is on.

We of the pax persuasion have our own forum for tips and complaints at Airwise. Topics include air rage, passenger rights, and individual airlines and airports. Airwise's main page has news, flight schedules and airport guides.

An overwhelming and fascinating list of links is at JohnnyJet. Oh sure, you'd expect bargain flights, hotel and car bookings and individual airlines. But what about the best toilets? Or a group of links for "Bored in the Hotel Room." There are also travel guides, maps, links to the Sunday travel sections of major newspapers, consumer complaints and passenger rights. A section devoted to business travel includes links to best places to close a deal -- from Ontheroad.com, global business basics and drinking customs and toasts from around the world.

For more on global business customs and etiquette, try Executive Planet, which covers top U.S. trading partners. For each country, articles include things to know before making a deal, making appointments, gift giving, conversation, business dress and public behavior. For example, if you're in England, it is not a good idea in conversation to bring up Northern Ireland. But current events are fine, so keep mentioning those cow bonfires.

Business Travel News Online offers a more corporate look at travel. And we discovered hotel rates are dropping due to a dip in occupancy. There's good news in every downturn.

Even more corporate is the National Business Travel Association, a site aimed at corporate travel managers.

But all this corporate stuff is making us want to run, at least in place. FitforBusiness.com is a guide for travelers who don't want to miss a workout. The site includes best hotel gyms, where to find sports courts and healthy advice.

If you don't care about athletic facilities, but want to make sure the room is up to snuff, there's WorldExecutive.com with its searchable listing of first-class and business hotels. You can view the rooms, as well as make reservations.

To make sure your airline is as good as your hotel, try Skytrax, which rates airlines' quality based on product and service. There are no five-star airlines based in the United States. Cubana is the only one-star airline.

But who cares about quality when your life is at stake? Amigoingdown.com lets you plug in your departure and arrival cities, the airline, the type of jet if you know it and the month you're flying. Then you get the odds of making it there alive. For our L.A.-to-Paris flight they were 1 in 1,801,586 and "That's very good for this route."

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Google Maps Navigation launched for Android phones in ... - Topnews

Posted: 21 Apr 2010 08:15 PM PDT

Internet search giant Google's turn-by-turn GPS navigation system has been launched for smartphones running its Android operating system in the UK and Ireland.

Google Maps Navigation has been made available for all devices running 1.6 or later version of Android operating system.

Until now, the system was available only in the United States.

The development could be a serious threat for the market leaders such as TomTom, which guides motorists to their destinations.

TomTom for Apple iPhone costs more than 50 pounds, but the newly launched Google Maps app is available free of cost.

Google Maps Navigation is an Internet-connected GPS that offers turn-by-turn voice guidance on Google Maps.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Rail trail up for state park status - LJWORLD

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 12:38 PM PDT

Topeka — A hike and bike trail in northeast Kansas could become an official state park.

When legislators return for the wrap-up session on Wednesday to prepare a budget, one of the side issues is a bill that would make Prairie Spirit Trail the state's 25th state park.

The measure — House Bill 2434 — is currently in a House-Senate conference committee and has gotten lumped together with several other measures, such as reopening an entrance at Tuttle Creek State Park.

But the major thrust of the bill is to make the 51-mile long Prairie Spirit Trail, which runs from Ottawa to Iola, a park.

"It would be very beneficial to us," said Trent McCown, manager of Prairie Spirit Trail for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

Prairie Spirit Trail is state-operated but it doesn't have official state park status.

Making it a state park would mean additional signs on nearby roads to the park, and the park would be included in state park guides and maps.

The trail runs along an abandoned railroad line that started to be developed in the 1850s and was originally meant to run trains all the way to Galveston, Texas. The corridor was abandoned in the 1990s and transferred to KDWP for public use.

A 17-mile trail section, from Richmond through Garnett, opened in 1996; a northern 16-mile section, from Ottawa to Richmond, opened in 1998; and the southern 18-mile section to Iola opened in 2008.

The trail is 8 feet wide to make room for two-way foot or bicycle travel. There are parking areas, water fountains, restrooms and picnic areas along the way.

A $3.50 day permit is required for anyone 16 and older, although travel within the city limits of Ottawa, Garnett and Iola is free. Daily permits may be purchased at self-pay stations at the Ottawa, Princeton, Richmond, Garnett and Welda trailheads.

Clark Coan, who publishes Kansas Trail News and is public information officer for Sunflower Recreational Trails, said making the Prairie Spirit Trail a designated state park would be good news.

"It would increase awareness and ultimately usage," Coan said.

McCown said the trail had 55,000 visitors last year. "We are under-used for the facilities we have," he said.

He described the trail as a "very safe environment" and a bargain destination for a relaxing experience, especially for a family outing.

"With the economy the way it is, we are trying to promote the benefits of keeping our travel dollars in this state," he said.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Maps Guides

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

“Web sites help navigate the unfriendly skies - Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel” plus 2 more

“Web sites help navigate the unfriendly skies - Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel” plus 2 more

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts