Not sure what came over me. It's not my birthday, and it's not Christmas. And I'm so deep into studies at the moment that I'll only be able to use it on and off over the next few months, but...

...I bought a Nikon D700 yesterday. What an amazing camera. 12.1 Mpixels, full frame (FX), 3D Color Matrix II, 5-8 fps, and unbelievably fast and sharp in low light.

I purchased the body from AV Camera, who are a very well known authorised dealer here in Bangkok.

And the Nikon 24-85mm AF-S from Sunny Camera - MBK 3rd floor, 3c33 - also an authorised Nikon dealer.

Ken Rockwell's site was an invaluable reference when looking at options for lenses. Most people, including Ken don't rate the 24-120mm VR that is advertised in many bundled packages for the D700. The Nikon 24-85mm is very sharp - but as Ken says, you need to be aware of the barrel and pin cushion distortions at fully wide and full zoom positions.

Here's a picture I took at Victory Monument last night. The NEF RAW version is incredibly sharp and rich in detail, with almost no discernable noise (click for a larger JPEG version).

 

Can't wait for my next trip - probably to Luang Prabang to put the D700 to work (albeit in my amateur hands).

Hehe... couldn't resist. I've seen quite a few product names in Asia that become lost in translation, but I'm struggling a little to understand what was on the mind of the Glico product executives when they decided to launch 'Collon Biscuit Rolls'.

 

An unfortunate incident today with Agoda Online Travel.  This is a site I've used once before to make a reservation for a hotel in Hong Kong. Unfortunately on that occasion we had to cancel. Agoda's cancellation policy for this booking meant that we lost US$15 on the booking, but I figured that was a reasonable penalty to pay as an administrative fee. Overall I found the service easy to use and thought highly of Agoda (at the time).

A couple of days ago I booked another hotel in Hong Kong and yet again - a change in plans meant that we needed to cancel this booking too. However this time I was stunned to discover that we would loose the FULL AMOUNT of the booking.

At the time I made the reservation - I mistakenly assumed that the cancellation policy we'd used on our previous booking - was an Agoda site-wide policy. I didn't realise that the cancellation policy can be different between bookings. Ok - you could argue that would seem logical.. but I was caught out for a couple of reasons.

Firstly - the link to the cancellation policy is at the bottom of the page and as in the screen shot attached (click to view the larger image) - says... Please click here for 'Cancellation Policy'. It's missing a couple of important words. I think it should say - "Please click here for the Cancellation Policy for THIS BOOKING.".

Secondly - on three of the four step page process - you have to scroll down to see this link.

I think the cancellation policy should be displayed right there on the page - or at the least a warning message during the booking process that explains clearly that the cancellation policy can be different between hotels and bookings.

For example - I went back to review the cancellation policy for the exact same hotel, on the exact same dates - and the policy now indicated that only the first evening would be forfeited in the event of a cancellation - and that any remaining nights would be refunded. Hmmm....

Ok -so I don't have a problem with the cancellation policies per se. If we're getting discount rates, I'm prepared to lose some flexibility in changes or cancellation. However I think Agoda owes it to its customers to make it much clearer that these policies can be different between bookings. They should WARN their customers in particular when a booking is totally non-refundable.

What's more - and what made this particular incident a sour one - is that when I tried to explain my concerns to a supervisor at the Agoda call centre in Bangkok - the conversation (from the Agoda side) quickly descended into an argument about who's fault this was - and that other sites operate the same way, and so I was to blame. That wasn't really the point of the call. What I wanted was recognition of the problem. As far as I could tell, they were getting good feedback, and they could have used this as an opportunity to improve their services in a way that would help to build trust and reputation, as apposed to reducing it.

The old used-car sales tactics of 'fine print' that's hard to read, find, or subject to misinterpretation really don't belong on a modern Web site today. Too much is at stake. Reputation travels farther and faster than before.

So.. Agoda - if I can get passed your argumentative customer service supervisor in Bangkok - please change this single but important link on your site to "Please click here for the Cancellation Policy for this booking...". And if you really want to build trust - warn customers explicitly when the policy indicates that they are not allowed to change or cancel the reservation - without having to click on a link or open another window.

You can and should do better Agoda...

At dinner with friends last night - and one of my friends gave the quintessential Occam's Razor answer to why marriages fail. Occam's Razor...

"One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything".

And the reason? Well... we live longer. In the past, life expectancy was what... about 35, 40 years? Get married at 19 and you only have between 16 to 21 years to slog it out. Today, in the developed world - average life expectancy is around 74. Get married at 28 and you may end up with your significant other for a whopping 46 years! :-)

Having spotted a tweet on Pandora.com - and then of course discovering that Pandora.com is not available outside the U.S., I was inspired to take a proper look at Last.fm. Incredible. Download the desktop app, and the appropriate plug-in for your media player - and Last.fm will "scrobble" whatever you listen to, building up a recommended playlist; similar artists, genres etc. I wonder how Peter Gabriel's venture over at We7 will fare in the same space.

This made me laugh. You know a product has long since reached the 'tipping point' when even your cleaning lady tries to sell it to you. I was sitting here minding my own.. when my cleaning lady asked me if I would like to by some of the of the V word (I don't dare write it in full - since I suspect I'll be cast down into spammer hell if I do). Actually at first I didn't know whether to laugh or be worried. Do I look like I need it? Apparently her younger sister has a nice little sideline in 'other market' pharmaceuticals. Lol.

This is scary - U.S. School District to Begin Microchipping Students - as Karen Lawrence Öqvist"s points out as well.

I remember reading about high schools offering parents access to the school's Intranet to see whether or not their sons or daughters were actually at school or not, and I thought that was worrying at the time.

Another example of the continuing cycle of media and government generated fear being used to reduce civil rights in the name of 'security'?

Reading The Catcher in the Rye , or Nineteen Eighty-Four and students today might wonder why it is that they are able to easily identify with Holden Caulfied, or wonder perhaps whether or not they are actually living in 1984; while their freedom to make decisions (and accept responsibility for their actions) is being steadily reduced.

I remember some of the things I did in high-school. The choices I made weren't always the right ones - but they were an important part of growing up for me.

Teenage years are a complicated time. We're struggling to find the balance between life at home, life at school, our need to be accepted by our peers and even our need to be able to begin to form intimate relationships with others. What happens when a teenager suffers his or her first heart-break and is too embarrassed to tell their parents about it - and can't face going to school that day; just wanting a little down-time in order to try and resolve their feelings before facing the world again. Where does their freedom to choose to do that go?

Employees are protected from surveillance at work under various regulations (Lawful Business Practice Regulations in the UK). Surely our teenagers deserve equivalent protection from surveillance at school; where they deserve the right to prove they are responsible and trustworthy before losing their freedom to choose.

On my way back to Bangkok after a long weekend in Hong Kong.

Was very lucky with the weather and had a great trip. Saw most of the major site - including the The Big Buddha,  a trip up the tram to the peak, a visit to Stanley Market and Repulse Bay plus plenty of shopping and other sites. I was really impressed.

Hard to tell from just a weekend but I'd rank HK as a pretty good place to live. Pics are here...

If I could design the future of social networking it would look like this...

I'd have a platform... some kind of service or software platform, from within which I could blog, twitter, chat and link to the people I know. I'd be able to choose exactly what information I wished to publish and when, and whether that information was published to just my friends, or to the world.

I'd be able to host the platform anywhere I choose. I could pay for it, or it might be free. If I paid for it - I'd want total control over where and how any advertising was allowed from within or outside the platform.

Imagine taking the best of LinkedIn, a decent blogging engine, something twitterish, a good chat client, a good media sharing platform for photos and videos. Add a pinch of social bookmarking - and wrapping all of that up into a very cool platform that I can use to represent me and those I choose to interact with in the online world. A sort of Bittorrent-ish, Groove-ish application for society. Goodbye MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Skype, goodbye to all of the walled garden social networking sites - and hello to my own little neighborhood in cyberspace.

The end of walled gardens like Facebook and other social networking sites is actively being discussed. What's missing is the glue in standards and software to bring together an alternative. The big guys like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo want to try and grab on to this and hold on to it for its obvious potential in targeted marketing and advertising revenue.

I hope that doesn't happen. I hope we're each able to grab on to it, to control it and to use it to build new communities and socially meaningful ways of communicating with the world.

If you've never lived in a tropical climate before - there are a few things people need to warn you about. Firstly, I live in a small apartment (well the apartment is large - but it's a small building) and the landlord and us tenants don't really like to spray insecticides. We prefer to try and keep the place clean in order to keep the invertebrate population down.

It adds a new dimension to 'snacking' and keeping the place tidy. Drop just a few crumbs of that chocolate chunk cookie on the floor - and you're in big trouble. The main offenders are small red ants. When they show I know it because a bite from one of those tiny buggers gives me a lump the size of a golf ball. I remember once in Phuket - they were in the hotel I was staying in - or to be more precise - in the walls of the hotel - and crawling out from behind the towel rack in the bathroom. I grabbed a towel (as you do) after a shower and started to dry myself off and ouch. I won't go into any more details except to say I was pretty worried for about 24 hours.

And then there's the cute little gecko house lizards. These are actually good guys to have around since they eat bugs and insects; except when they crawl into the back of your computer and die. The smell is awful. Took me ages to figure out where it was coming from :-)