So it has been about 4 months since my last post, but I have a little downtime on a particularly dark and rainy Sunday so I figured I would procrastinate from real work and post a brief update about what I have been up to. I have been very busy at work, but still very engaged with the stuff that I get to work on. It is nice having a job where I actually enjoy getting up in the morning and going. It also helps that it provides a little more job security than working at a start-up, a bank or Iceland. The summer went by too quickly with another sailing trip to Croatia, a few weddings including one in Turkey, visiting the family back in the States and speaking at a conference in Crete. I also had some downtime due to a small surgery (a Laparoscopic cholecystectomy), but at least I am now healthier. I did manage to pass my UK driving test on the first try (even though I hit the curb and stalled out), so that frustrating portion of my life is over (until I have to take a driving test again for some reason that I can't foresee). Currently, what is driving me nuts is dealing with the Experian credit reporting agency and HSBC. I have had an HSBC credit card in the UK for three years and have kept a very good history with them. However, when I went to get a new UK credit card (one that offers Virgin Atlantic miles), I was denied because, according to MBNA and Experian, I have no credit history. In attempting to fix this, I have had to sign up for a on-going credit report access and have spent countless hours talking to customer service peons at both HSBC and Experian. HSBC claims that they send the credit data to Experian, but Experian says that they have not received anything. Neither side seems too interested in helping me. The latest response I received was that I should check with Royal Mail because my address is not formatted properly. VERY irritating. I wonder why I keep paying off my credit card bills if they don't even report whether I do. So I have plenty of things to work on, but am doing well as the winter sets in. I turn 30 this November, which I guess is the next big milestone in my life.
So I admit that I am not very good at keeping my blog up-to-date. However, this is probably because I am not a blogger and actually DO have other things to do than post nonsense on the Internet.
Since my last post in November (7 months ago) I have been really busy with the "new" job. I guess it is not that new as I have almost been there a year, but I feel like I am slowly getting the hang of it and what I am working on. I must say that when I see friends from business school, many of them tend to complain about their post-MBA jobs. I am lucky in that I really enjoy the work I am doing and the people that I am working with. It is a very different kind of company, but it is one that suits me well. I hope to stick with it for a few years. Whether all of those years will be in London remains to be seen.
Besides work, I have managed to do a little travelling (both work and personal) including time in Zurich, Brugges, California, and an awesome weekend in the Cotswolds where we rented a house with 14 friends for a long weekend.
I have also been working on getting my British drivers license, which is a colossal undertaking. Although I have had my US drivers license since the age of 16, it is a requirement in the UK that all non-Euros and non-Commonwealth have to reapply. The UK test is supposedly one of the hardest in the world, so I have been taking refresher lessons (especially as I am applying for a manual transmission license). It is probably more difficult to "learn" to drive after spending years driving as the way you are expected to drive in the test has absolutely nothing to do with the way people drive in reality.
So, that was a quick update on what I am up to. I am currently sitting on my balcony during one of the few sunny and warm days that we have had so far. I was hoping to go for a run in the garden, but I found out it was "open day" meaning they are letting anyone into the place and it is packed. Plan B will probably involve the pub.
So my big Movember experiment raised £247 for prostate cancer research. As you can see from the video below, I can only barely grow a moustache within 30 days. Pathetic. Big thanks to everyone who sponsored me!
I am posting this with the hope that it will stop anyone who is contemplating purchasing the Nokia E61 "smart" phone. I have been subjected to using the E61 for the past two months and I have to note that I have never used such a poorly designed piece of consumer electronics garbage in my life. It appears that somewhere in the woods of Finland, a disgruntled Nokia employee decided to take they Symbian operating system and stuff it on a slow chip and, in turn, stuff all of that in a fat ugly box that looks more like a 1970's calculator than a phone. I have never been so disappointed with technology. I feel bad for Nokia, as the E61 represents, to me, that the company will not be able to competitively produce mobile phones in the future. Here are some of my chief gripes with the Nokia E61:
Waiting The Nokia E61 is a 3G phone meaning if you are standing within the zone where it is able to pick up a 3G signal (I believe it is someone's garden in Pimlico, but it has never been verified), the increased download speed should make up for the massive amount of time you have to wait to get to the part of the phone's interface that you hope to use. From the main menu, when I click on the text messaging application, I wait, without fail, for at least 6 seconds until the screen changes. If I attempt to go to a mailbox, the phone will hang for up to a minute. Every click to open an application results in a flashing screen until it figures out what it is supposed to be doing. The amount of time spent waiting on this phone provides ample time to throw it against a wall, retrieve it, throw it again, make a sandwich, and then re-retrieve it. Sometimes, when you are really lucky, it will hang for such a long time, it will forget entirely what it was doing and just unexpectedly reboot.
Design I have no idea what the Finns where thinking when they designed this phone. It is HUGE. It has a big screen, and big keyboard and is amazingly thick. If you are really intent on buying this thing, make sure to also go pick up some cargo pants, panniers or a briefcase so that you can carry it around with you. A buddy, noting the similarity with older desk calculators, asked whether there was supposed to be a roll of paper coming out of the top.
It sure does have a lot of buttons! Unfortunately many of them have no definable purpose and, better yet, buttons you come to expect don't exist at ALL. The two most easily accessible buttons are Menu (which takes you to an unorganized mess of lame applications) and Mail (a button that will either cause the whole phone to hang for 25 seconds or cause it to reboot unexpectedly). Nokia must have realized that this was a design flaw because they released the E61i which is the same terrible phone, but with two extra configurable buttons. Awesome. i = 2 buttons.
My favorite design flaw is that the E61 "smart phone" is not really able to function as a phone. Inability to function as a phone I don't know if a single person at Nokia tried using the E61 before it was released to manufacturing. If they had, they would have noticed that it is not very easy to place the earpiece over your ear. I have found myself having to constantly readjust the phone until I can finally hear the caller.
However, the only time I can use the phone anymore is when someone calls me. It is just too damn annoying to dial the thing. When I received the phone, none of the 50 (I counted) buttons would automatically take me to my address book. Trying to configure that became a tear-inducing trip through the phone's preferences. Now, I find myself making a few to many clicks to dial anyone: "Contacts" -> "Back" -> Name -> Select -> Choose Number -> Select -> "Call" -> "Voice Call". At the end of the sequence, you must choose Voice Call over Video Call, which seems like an unnecessary option BECAUSE THERE IS NO CAMERA ON THE PHONE.
Lack of Hardware Features A camera is just one of the things you may expect from a current-generation "smart phone". Unlike it's fully loaded cousin, the Nokia N95, the E61 is very sparse on extras. There is no GPS (although the Google Maps MyLocation function works) and no camera. I think, if you really wanted to wrestle with it, you could use it, along with proprietary headphones, to listen to an MP3.
An interesting feature that is missing is "autolock" so that if you leave the thing in your pocket (of your cargo pants, remember?) chances are the buttons will eventually hit something and dial someone (usually emergency services). The phone has no native way to have the keypad lock after a set amount of time. Thankfully, some kind soul wrote a freeware application to provide autolock. Nokia should buy that guy a drink. Maybe make him VP of Engineering.
So it doesn't do well as just a plain phone, and there aren't many other hardware features on it... so you would hope that at least it could handle data and the Internet right?
Constant Asking of Questions
Which access point would you like to use?
EasyLAN
Search for WLAN
initAccess
O2 Postpay MMS
O2 Postpay WAP
O2 Postpay WAP(01)
O2 GPRS
O2 GPRS Streaming
Don't feel bad if you can't answer. The customer service representatives at O2 also have a hard time with this. The fun thing about the E61 is that it tends to ask you this question, or similar questions on an extremely regular basis. It never really remembers what you wanted. Even if you give it the same answer 100 times in a row. It's what I imagine working at a convalescent home is like at times.
Luckily, I have an unlimited dataplan, so I usually just tell it to stick with O2 Postpay Wap with the hopes that it will give me a rumored 3G connection. I tried at first to use the WiFi at home and at work, but then, when ever you leave the network, it asks you the above mentioned question. I don't understand how it is not possible to just have the phone follow the logic "If there is WiFi, use it. If it is not there, use the provider's network." I was told that there is software that I can purchase to get this functionality. I refuse to pay money to get a feature that I believe should come standard with any "smart" phone.
Don't Buy this Phone If you decide that the Nokia E61 will be your next purchase, I reserve the right to say "I told you so." Companies like Nokia need to realize that releasing poorly designed consumer electronics is no longer acceptable in this day and age. If a smart phone cannot handle the tasks that a cheaper mobile phone (like my Sony Ericsson K750i, which I miss) has mastered, then the design must be scrapped and re-thought. There are extremely worthy competitors out there (Apple comes to mind) and better informed consumers. Nokia cannot afford to release such bad products.
Programs to Help Travellers Leave Much to be Desired
A few services now exist in different countries to give frequent travellers an easier time getting through security and customs. However, the execution of these services still leaves a lot to be desired. I have recently attempted to join some of these programs and have experienced several problems which I am sharing here.
INSPASS One of the first large-scale biometric customs and immigration facilitation services was the US Imigration and Naturalization Service Passenger Accelerated Service System (INSPASS). The service operated from 1996 to 2002 in several airports and land crossings in the United States. Frequent international travelers with US citizenship were able to enroll by visiting enrollment areas in airports. After providing adequate documentation including a passport, the traveler was photographed and had the geometry of their hand scanned. After a security background check, the traveler would receive an INSPASS card. Upon arriving in the US, the INSPASS user would go to a specific lane in immigrations and enter their card and have their hand geometry re-scanned in an INSPASS kiosk. If the system was able to match the user to the information carried on the card, the user was granted access to the United States through a metal gate that would swing open.
INSPASS was modeled on the successful, yet smaller implementation of biometric border crossing facilitation created by the Dutch at Schipol Airport. INSPASS, however, was deemed a failure as less than 100,000 people were able to join the system. At it's heart, the system relied on a single centralized database that all of the kiosks would have to connect to in order to verify a user's identity. Several technical problems arose with the kiosks that caused them to be unable to contact the database at times, rendering them unusable. These problems and the tightening of US border security post-September 11th doomed the INSPASS service. The US now is working with Canadian borders to develop the NEXUS system which facilitates travel between the US and Canada for low-risk citizens of either country.
Of course, there is no way for me to actually know whether this is the case as I have been unable to enroll for Iris during my last three attempts. It is only possible to enroll when leaving the UK in the international departures terminals. Every single time that I have attempted to go to the inconveniently located enrollment offices, there is a sign or an angry civil servant announcing that the system is down due to a "technical fault". There is no way to check ahead of time whether the office is open.
I have only seen one person use the Iris entry point at customs. I carefully asked a border inspector whether he had seen a big uptake in the use of the Iris booth. He laughed and said that even if people were signed up to use it, it was usually broken. I suspect that the problems experienced by INSPASS of having a central database is causing IRIS to flounder as well.
CLEAR Although there is definitely a benefit to a frequent traveler to get through the customs and immigration process as expeditiously as possible, the process of getting through security before boarding a flight can also be subject to long delays as slower passengers realize that they aren't supposed to have their keys and coins in their pockets when going through a metal detector. Thanks to Richard Reid and his cohorts, the amount of extra steps in security include things like removing your belt and shoes while holding a plastic bag with whatever liquids you have decided are necessary to have with you at all times.
Steven Brill has started Verified ID, a company that has taken advantage of the TSA's Registered Traveller Program to create it's Clear service. For $100 a year, a Clear member is given a card that contains information about the traveler on a chip. Similar to IRIS, the user enrolls at an office (located in airports and in major cities) and has their photograph taken along with fingerprints and an iris scan. A background check is performed by the TSA and a card is issued that can be used at the Clear security lanes in several US airports.
I enrolled with Clear and waited a very long time to finally receive my card. I was very excited to use it, as the long security lanes tend to drive me insane. It was with my new Clear Card that I traveled to California on business. After arriving at the California office, where I was to stay for two weeks, I received an email from Clear stating that, due to an error, the encrypted photo on my card was not actually of me, but instead of SOMEONE ELSE. The actual text of the email is below:
I am writing to inform you of a problem we recently discovered and to explain the steps we are taking to correct it.
Simply put, although there has been absolutely no breach in the security of your data, the encrypted digital image of your photograph that is stored in code (i.e. encrypted) on the chip on your Clear card is incorrect.
We discovered the incorrect photographs earlier this week and immediately took steps to identify the source and issue corrected cards. The problem affects fewer than 250 members whose cards were issued recently. And the photograph itself has no current practical use in our lanes. (It can be used to print a digital image of you identical to the photograph we took when you enrolled. In the past we have used it to print out receipts with your image on it when you passed through our lanes, but we don’t currently use it to do so.)
We submitted your enrollment data, including your photograph, correctly to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) via their designated clearinghouse run by American Association of Airport Executives. However, because of a mistake at the clearinghouse, the data returned to us after TSA completed your security threat assessment contained the incorrect photo.
The American Association of Airport Executives has apologized and assures us that the problem at the clearinghouse has been corrected. Even so, we are investigating audit processes that will allow us to detect future errors and prevent them from reaching our members.
While we take all such errors seriously, your data was always encrypted- within TSA’s secure environment, the clearinghouse’s secure data storage facility, and our own equally-secure storage facility.
The clearinghouse has now provided us with the corrected, encrypted data for your photograph, and we are issuing you a new Clear card. Your current Clear card will continue to work temporarily, and you may continue using the registered traveler lanes anywhere in the country.
Please begin using your new card as soon as it arrives. Your old card will be deactivated two weeks after your new card is issued.
Again, please know that all information on your Clear card is encrypted. The photograph, and all other data on your card, can only be accessed by a certified registered traveler kiosk such as those used in the Clear lanes.
We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this error. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me directly at (212) 332-6383
Sincerely, Mary Ellen Kayden Director, Member Services Clear
I immediately wrote back telling them to NOT cancel my card as I wanted to use it to return home to London. After receiving no response, I sent another email begging them not to cancel the card until I got home and could collect my new card. With still no response, I called Clear and spoke to an operator who, after checking my details in the system, confirmed that my card would still work on my return journey.
Imagine my surprise when I went to the Clear Lane and was told that my card was invalid and that I would have to stand in the long security line. A further phone call to the company resulted in a deeper investigation where it became known that my card had, in fact, been deactivated. I was offered a laughable 1 extra month of Clear service. Upon return to London, I did not receive my replacement card for another week.
Most of my travel to the US is out of New York and San Francisco, both of which are served by Clear. However there are times that I expect to be flying out of Boston (and other airports). Obviously it would benefit me if Clear was available in these airports. I contacted, through the website, Boston's Logan Airport to see if they would be instituting Clear Lanes any time soon. Their response is below:
Thank you for your interest in the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) proposed Registered Traveler program. However, since security checkpoint wait times at Boston Logan International Airport average less than most major airports across the country even during some of the busiest times, Massport has decided not to participate in the program at this time. Should circumstances change we may reconsider this decision.
The concept behind the Registered Traveler program is a good one. As previously envisioned by TSA, it would accelerate the screening process for passengers who voluntarily choose to enroll. Yet, given the wait times at Logan, Massport questions the benefits of the program for our customers at this time since registered travelers would still be required by the TSA to pass through metal detectors, have their carry-on and checked luggage screened, and be subject to secondary screening if they trigger an alarm. Travelers would also pay a fee for joining, in the expectation they will avoid excessive waits at checkpoints.
At Boston Logan International Airport we always strive to combine world-class security with world-class customer service. Thank you again for your interest in Boston Logan International Airport. For more information on the airport or other Massport facilities, please visit our website at www.massport.com.
Sincerely
Jack Hemphill Massport
So, apparently Massport thinks they are doing just fine. Good for them.
It is no secret that international travel is becoming more laborious with delays and extremely long wait times for customs and security. It is nice to see that there are efforts underway to improve these situations, but the current offers from IRIS and Clear still have a ways to go before delivering on their respective promises.
So, I get a Google Alerts email once a week for any occurrences of my name that show up on the Internet. Imagine my surprise when it alerted me to an obituary with my name on it. Spooky pre-Halloween surprise? After thinking about it, I am sad that I missed out on the chance to meet a guy a shared a name with. Sounds like he was a pretty nice dude, as well.
I realize I haven't posted anything in awhile, and I am due to update this page with some information about how things are going with the new job (awesome) and at home (the girlfriend broke her wrist). I promise I will get around to all that, but right now I am making a plea for sponsorship for my mustache.
During the month of November (currently renamed to "Movember") I will be growing a mustache to raise money for prostate cancer research. More details about this charity event can be found at http://www.movember.com/. I will be part of a team from work. If you would like to sponsor me, I'm asking for £5 per sponsorship, but have been amazed at how generous people have been. Click here to go directly to my sponsorship page or go to movember.com and sponsor my registration number: 65424.
I promise to send mustache updates to anyone that sponsors me!
