TripAdvisor app for iPad and iPhone

Hey guys! I wanted to share something that I discovered on Twitter earlier today... TripAdvisor's free application for both iPad and iPhone!!! Now for those who don't know who or what TripAdvisor is, it's a website that gives new and frequent travellers the extra edge. It allows travellers to search for popular hotels, restuarants and attractions, as well as finding cheap flights. In addition to that, it has reviews on hotels and restuarants. And now its easily accessible on your iOS device (oh and did I mention its free as well!!!).

The application for iPad and iPhone is very interactive, available in 18 languages and in 26 countries around the world. The iPad application includes finger-gestures allowing travellers to check out points of interest at their destination of interest with just a simple swipe of the finger.

TripAdvisor application also includes:

• More than 40 million reviews for hotels, restuarants and attractions and travellers are able to leave their own reviews as well. 
• Allows travellers to search for the cheapest flights using TripAdvisor's flight search engine and compare fees using its fees estimator.
• "Near Me Now" feature helps travellers find out what hotels, restaurants and attractions are nearby.
• Access to the TripAdvisor forums which gives travellers the opportunity to ask and answer questions. 
• Upload photos from your photo library.

Being a frequent traveller and having used TripAdvisor's website numerous times you can understand why I'm so chuffed that they've released an application for iOS devices. This app will definitely come in handy to whoever is intending on travelling. I've added a link to iTunes store where the app can be downloaded. So download and enjoy!!!

Assoicated Link:  TripAdvisor for iOS


The TripAdvisor iPad app also includes:
* More than 40 million reviews and opinions for hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Travellers can add their own reviews while their experiences are fresh
* The ability to find cheap flights using the TripAdvisor Flights search engine and compare airline fees using its Fees Estimator
* “Near Me Now” functionality, so travellers can determine what hotels, restaurants and attractions are nearby
* Access to the TripAdvisor forums, where users can ask questions of their fellow travellers and receive helpful feedback.

Read more about tripadvisor by Matt Chapma

The TripAdvisor iPad app also includes:
* More than 40 million reviews and opinions for hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Travellers can add their own reviews while their experiences are fresh
* The ability to find cheap flights using the TripAdvisor Flights search engine and compare airline fees using its Fees Estimator
* “Near Me Now” functionality, so travellers can determine what hotels, restaurants and attractions are nearby
* Access to the TripAdvisor forums, where users can ask questions of their fellow travellers and receive helpful feedback.

Read more about tripadvisor by Matt ChapmanThe TripAdvisor iPad app also includes:
* More than 40 million reviews and opinions for hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Travellers can add their own reviews while their experiences are fresh
* The ability to find cheap flights using the TripAdvisor Flights search engine and compare airline fees using its Fees Estimator
* “Near Me Now” functionality, so travellers can determine what hotels, restaurants and attractions are nearby
* Access to the TripAdvisor forums, where users can ask questions of their fellow travellers and receive helpful feedback.

Read more about tripadvisor by Matt Chapman

Syncing Notes with MobileMe

If you're anything like me then you must love the Notes App on your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Mac. I simply love this app! It always comes in handy whenever I need to quickly jot down something, whether it be work related or personal. From a client's order to a list of must see dvds, the use is endless. The only thing that used to get to me was the absence of a sync feature in the Notes app. But ofcourse the guys at Apple heard my cries (lol) and now with the new iOS4, syncing Notes is possible. However, the only catch is, you need to have a MobileMe account. You can easily register an account on www.apple.com or even via settings on you Mac. The annual subscription costs about $99 (roughly R675,00). From a personal opinion I would encourage signing up with MobileMe for various reason not just for syncing Notes, but for syncing Mails, Contacts, Calenders and more from iPad to iPod Touch, iPhone and Mac.

On your iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

Well, now that we've got that out of the way you first steps would be to enable Notes syncing with MobileMe on your iPhone, iPod Touch and/or iPad. Tap Settings then Mail, Contacts, Calenders. Tap on your MobileMe account info then tap on Notes to activate syncing.

Make sure from herein forth that all your notes on your iOS devices are created in MobileMe. Do this by selecting MobileMe as your default account in the Notes settings on your device. Tap Settings then Mail, Contacts, Calenders. Then under the Notes section select MobileMe as the default account.

On your Mac

So lastly you need to setup your Notes application on your Mac found in the Mail app so that all devices including your Mac are in sync. This is done as follows: 

1. In the Mail menu, choose Preferences and then click on the Composing tab.
2. Under "create notes and to-do's in" choose MobileMe from the drop down menu.
3. Now close the preference window.

Remember to move all Notes from "on my mac" to MobileMe so that they may sync with your iOS devices. And that's it! Easy and simple steps to setting up Notes syncing with MobileMe. I hope you Apple addicts are as happy to have this new added feature as I am and I'm sure it'll come in pretty hand too. Enjoy! :-) 

Hong Kong (March 2010)

Color-coded Cab service at HK Airport

So in March this year I decided to join a friend of mine who was off to Hong Kong on business. This was not my first time to the far east but definitely my first time to Hong Kong. Saying I was excited was certainly an understatement. I flew Emirates Airlines which ofcourse meant flying via Dubai. So in other words, I first flew 9hours to Dubai, transit for about 3 hours and then roughly another 6hours to Hong Kong. I love traveling, but hate flying, unless its business class ofcourse (lol). So the flight was long and we arrived at Hong Kong airport at about 11pm local time. I was exhausted and was hoping that the service at passport control was going to be a swift one. Well, service was way faster than i had expected and that was just the start of my expectations being exceeded in Hong Kong. They have a really cool taxi system which is governed by colors, almost like following the trains on a subway in Europe. I stayed in the Kowloon district of HK (about 30min driving), so I was off in a red cab!  

HK's Kowloon District

We stayed at the Grand Kowloon Hotel which not only was amazing, but was on the infamous Hong Kong Harbour which meant we had awesome views from our rooms. The service was great and speedy as well and in no time we were all settled in our rooms. So far I was loving HK! I was lucky to enjoy good weather all of the 6 days that I was there despite the weather report predicting rain. The Kowloon district is quite small I felt, which was good because traveling to the malls and shops was simple. The hotel had a daily shuttle which took us to and from every 30min which was great! I loved Hong Kong for various reasons but the 3 things that stood out the most was the city was unbelievably clean, no dirt or even little papers in the streets. Secondly, it was very hard to find a dirty car as well. Its as if car washes didn't charge to wash cars there! All the cars no matter which parts of the city I was in was always clean. And then thirdly, absolutely no signs of poverty anywhere, no beggars, no street kids, nothing! Especially considering that China is so close by, I'd have expected it. 

Hong Kong Harbour (view from my hotel room)

With regards to shopping, in comparison to South Africa, Hong Kong is not cheap but not really expensive compared to places like Milan or the rest of Europe really. The malls are really nice and they basically have all the big names you'd expect to see on Oxford street, Bond street and 5th Avenue. I really like the fact that they too have all these wonderful stores on the road as well as in the malls unlike back home where big name stores are found in the malls only. Generally one feels safe almost everywhere you go with absolutely no sense of feeling threatened in any way at all, despite the lack of any visible policing. I guess coming from South Africa one tends to take note of these things. Language barrier was not too much of a hassle as most of the stores and places I went to the staff spoke English and were generally quite pleasant and helpful. 

On Friday I attended the local mosque in Kowloon and was quite impressed to see there was quite a large Islamic community living in the district, mostly Pakistanis and Indians tho, but impressed still nonetheless. The mosque was nothing shy of beautiful as well with its marble pillars and walls. 

Malick and I

My travel buddy Malick and I met up with his Chinese client who was kind enough to show us around to certain dining hotspots and all I can say is ... Damn!!! these people eat weird things! but hey, when in Rome right? (lol). Our new designated tour guide/client took us to a restaurant inside a very fancy shopping mall. I cant remember the place's name for lack of being able to pronounce it but what a spread! There didn't seem to be a starter, main course, desert kind of layout but more like a tit-bit setting. Foods varied from Shark Fin (eeuww!!!) that looked like 2minute noodles to a, I have to admit, not half bad Abalone in some sort of sauce serving. There were some other foods that I never attempted to try out, due to the fact that they just looked inedible, but hey! the watermelon juice was awesome (lol). 

Shark Fin Soup

Abalone in sauce

After dinner that night, our Chinese friend told us about a little island called Macau which was a 45minute boat ride from HK harbour and after checking that visas were given on arrival we were on our way. The boat ride was cool, costs about $300 (HK dollars) and felt like taking a local flight on a small airline carrier. Macau is sort of like the Las Vegas of Asia. Many huge casinos, all the big names like MGM and Starworld are there. So in other words... it's a gambling mecca! Ofcourse we tried our hand at a few games of roulette, but I was way more intrigued by "Craps". I'd always seen people playing craps in the movies but back home in Cape Town none of the casinos have Craps available. So in just about short of 2hours we were up $4000Hk... woohoo!!! But, the compulsive gamblers as we soon came find out we are, gave it all back in a few short hours. So after that and a midnight snack at the local 24hour MacDonalds we were back on the boat and arrived in HK at about 7am. I always believed in coming home early in the morning rather than late at night (lol). 

Casino in Macau

Casino in Macau

That Saturday morning on our return from Macau we slept most of the day away and was also busy packing as our flight back home was that Saturday night. In conclusion my trip to Hong Kong was way too short, I'd love to go back there because there's so much more I'd still want to experience in HK. Hong Kong might not be a cliched tourist destination like a tropical getaway but I would definitely recommend adding it to your "must see" list. There's quite a number of things and pics I would like to still add to this post but I'll leave that for another time. So watch this space... :-)

Enabling Apple Airprint

It has been just about 2 weeks since Apple released the long awaited iOS4.2. And among the many new features that were released, including Multi-tasking for the iPad (Yay!!!), was the new Airprint feature. Airprint allows for wireless printing of emails, photos, documents and even web pages from all supporting iOS devices like the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. However, on the release of iOS4.2 it was said that Apple had decided to pull back the Airprint feature due to apparent stability and compatibility issues. On the release of iOS4.2 the Airprint feature was however made available with certain restrictions in place, like being able to print wireless to a few select HP printers only. Ofcourse this was a massive disappointment to me because despite having an HP printer, mine was not on the compatibility list.

So is this the end of the line for Airprint? Certainly not! There were many posts on various forums after iOS4.2's release detailing ways to enable Airprint on iOS devices but were very intricate and could be quite confusing to the average bloak. Many forums referred to downloading files from the the beta version OS X and putting them in the appropriate locations on your Mac. I found this way too risky so i kept searching.

I stumbled on to a post that seemed really simple and straight forward. I tried it and it works beautifully. 

Click on the following link and follow the simple instructions given and you should be good to go in no time! Remember installation is at your own risk so dont forget to BACKUP! 

Have fun and enjoy! :-) 

Airprint Hactivator

My First Blog!!!

Wow! My first official blog! What to say and where to start? Well, im definately not going to give a whole background of who I am and where I come from, I think my profile does enough of that. I've wanted to start a blog for some time now but never really got around to doing it, but i guess there's no better time than the present right? So here I am now posting my first blog! So what's the this whole hype of blogging really about? An online diary? Online journal entries? Social networking? Well, I think most people post the 'interesting parts' of their lives worth talking about, worth sharing or worth remembering. But on the flip side, one individual's interesting event could very well be an absolute bore to another. So what does one do? I reckon try to keep things fresh, keep it updated, talk about 'whats happening now'??? in addition to whats happening in your own life. Oh well, things are always way easier said than done so lets rather see how it goes. As my profile shows, I'm an absolute freak about all Apple products, I just love everything about them. Their simplicity, their designs, their technology but most of all the fact that it 'just works' something Microsoft can take a lesson from. What I'm trying to say is that I love this product so much that I will be posting articles relating to the latest Apple developments, new products and reviews as well. So guys I'm gonna try to keep my content as fresh as possible. Another thing I love is traveling. I've traveled a little bit, not nearly as much as I'd like to but enough to know that I'm addicted to it. So other than Apple info, I'll try to keep you guys and gals updated on my travels and post as many pics as I can. I'm like a Chinese tourist with my camera when traveling (lol). Comments and suggestions would also be appreciated. And thats about it! My first post done! That wasn't so bad. Lets see where we go from here....