Reflections From An Overcast Morning

I'm sitting where it should be sunny. And, it's not. This afternoon will mean visiting with good friends from Finland, who I know from Los Angeles, who live here as my friend is the Deputy Counsel General, and his wife an international business attorney. I'm in a hotel which is by all means a resort, but paying less than what one gets less of in NYC, Las Vegas or SF. Late lunch, early dinner will be the best Peri-Peri chicken in the world, from the Jardin de Frangoes and some really good wine I have collected the last few days here in Portugal.

Breakfast was filling. Espresso. Eggs. Bacon. Sausage. Smoked salmon. Fresh fruit-lots of it. Papaya, Mango. Kiwi. Orange juice. Oh, and the usual cheese one has here. I mean, all kinds of cheese. Not exactly what I usually have but last night I skipped dinner, got lots of rest. This morning I caught two independent films on iTunes, then did something I needed to do. I cleared out alot, I mean a lot of my GMAIL accounts that I have which seem to accumulate more email that I ever read. I did it using a new beta service called Mailstrom.co and it really, really works. What I like about it is the ability to deep dive into the accounts and get rid of hundreds of emails from senders, or to archive them. One feature though I wish they had was DUPLICATE catcher. That means I'm getting the same newsletters or emails sent to duplicate email addresses or duplicates of the same email to an account. Add that, and it goes from a single steroid shot to being stacked.

I've also been realizing how much media I consume when I travel. Between iTunes, Spotify (for amateur curated music and my own assembled music tastes) plus MPme on the iPad for really great curated music based on my wishes, but from real disc jockeys whose job it is to know great music. What I realize is that on the road I listen and discover more and more music, both old and new. I just wish I had remembered my Sirius/XM settings so I could listen to Andrew Loog Oldham on Underground Garage. It's the one thing I miss.

I also have been using the best GPS in the world. It's called a Samsung Galaxy Note. I not using it as a phone, as my IPhone5 with a local Vodafone PAYG (pay as you go) NANO SIM is killing it, but honestly, GoogleMaps, Navigation feature on the Samsung Galaxy Note really rocks.

If Google or someone would simply make an Android only GPS, with 4G/LTE for data and sell it for $49.99 the rest of the GPS market would die off. I used to be using CoPilot Live, which I still like, but the Google search and maps capability gives it a massive leg up over using Bing like CoPilot Live uses, and Apple Maps...forget about it. Not even close.

The broadband to the hotel is wireless. Think Fixed WiMax. Low latency, and tests to TurboBridge have sounded great, via CounterPath's Bria and G.722. That's over their network which is Wi-Fi. Locally, my iPad has solid connectivity on either Vodaphone or OPTIMUS' Kanguru 3G+ networks.

Ok. Now I have to find the gym..or go for a walk.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad