i'm writing this on the plane but i've just returned from 10 days in italy.  we visited venice, florence and rome.  i'm exhausted.  my feet are cursing me beyond belief and i felt like i walked 800 miles even though it was probably about 60.  i won't bore you with my slideshow, but share my thoughts on traveling abroad as an american used to certain technical amenities.

i will caveat with:

• first trip to europe at all (fiji was my only other out of country experience)
• i'm an american :-)

for this trip i thought i was going to experiment with technology abroad.  for this i brought:

• HTC TyTn II (AT&T Tilt) with Windows Mobile 6 and built-in GPS
• Suunto D9 (built-in compass)
• MacBook Pro
• Skype
• iPod
• Canon SD850IS

my first problem was that i had the expectation that i'd be more 'connected' in italy.  bad expectation.  i had written this windows mobile application tapping into the built-in GPS of the device and plotting my points where we were walking - a bit of a 'where's waldo' for my trip so that friends/family could stalk follow us.  i had set up a facebook app and web site to use.  that turned out to be a complete bust.  here's my thoughts on some things.

internet access

as i mentioned, i thought i'd be more connected.  maybe we picked the wrong hotels (we didn't question any that our travel agent suggested which turned out to be a bad practice for two of them aside from internet access), but none of them had reliable (if any) access.  the first one in venice was just testing theirs out (they were kind enough not to charge us the €5 it cost for the day (that was the cheapest btw).  it sucked.  but they knew that too.  i think they were trying to share some connection with someone else and provide it as a service (at least that is what my poor translation resulted in).  we got it to work occasionally but it was VERY spotty.  what i learned was that the cities we were in (except rome) weren't really interested in being connected all too much.  it wasn't that much of a priority and fax was still king at the hotels.

the places where internet was available was expensive, like €10 for 15 minutes (roughly translated in US$ that is $15 at current exchange rates).  it was shocking really.  so my idea of having my GPS app didn't really work out at all. 

i also learned that because of that some other features i was planning on using my winmobile device for were useless, namely live maps and GPS integration.  i was thinking it would be awesome to get turn-by-turn instructions where we were.  the GPS worked great and centered our location each time.  the problem was the maps needed to be downloaded.  argh.  now this isn't a problem with windows mobile or live maps, but connectivity.  had i had my iphone (well, let's just say i wouldn't have been able to anyway with international data rates) i would have had the same problem in google maps...oh wait, iphone doesn't have GPS yet...nevermind :-).  you can see what it looked like on the image that is near this paragraph.  yeah, not helpful.  but if you do have a data plan or connective points, live maps on windows mobile rocks.

communication

we didn't bring our mobile phones.  no need.  we decided screw it, we're on vacation.  in hindsight it would have been nice to get some local pre-paid ones so that the six of us could communicate in italy when we got split up or were meeting for dinner, etc.  however, since communication with our families in the US, we wanted to make sure we had some method.

i had brought one of my laptops for email (when we could because of connectivity), but also had loaded skype on my windows mobile device.  the problem with the wifi spots we encountered is that they weren't mobile friendly (most required a pop-up window for a timer).  because of this, that didn't work out that well.  i downloaded skype on my laptop and this was a phenominal experience.  we talked about an hour and a half total to our families and it cost about $1.88 for the entirety.  oh my gosh that is cool.  the quality was perfect, the other users didn't realize we were talking on a computer (and on the speaker phone nonetheless).  i had low expectations of skype -- but after using it, i'm going to be using it a lot more -- it was awesome, awesome, awesome.  way to go skype.

navigation

i already mentioned that my plan for gps-enabled navigation failed.  we did most of our vacation walking.  walking along streets that aren't on a grid system...or any other system for that matter.  we went old skool -- maps baby.  the maps given to us were quite good but in particular venice and florence had hundreds of little side streets and areas that could get you lost in a hurry.  one time we think we'd be heading in the right direction but were in fact going the opposite way.  this is were i assign mad prop #1 to the suunto d9.  i will first say that this is a dive watch first.  so the d9 is a bit overkill for the feature i'm talking about, but if you are a diver (and a geek), this is a must have.  search on ebays for good buys on it.  wireless pressure information baby, oh yeah.  anyway, back to the navigation.  the watch has an awesome built-in digital compass.  when we weren't sure where we were at, we popped over to the compass and got the exact reading and heading (not that headings were helpful on a paper tourist map, but it is just cool to say anyway).  having this compass reading was indispensable to us given we didn't speak the language.  i assume any compass would do (it was hard to keep our north point through all the streets and talking in between), but it wouldn't be as cool.  multiple time zones on the watch without having to reset my primary time was helpful as well.

photography

i love my camera.  i decided not to bring my digital SLR for a few reasons, but primarily i didn't want to carry something so large.  i also had sold some lenses in anticipation for better lenses but hadn't replaced them yet.  so i opted for my snapshot camera, the Canon SD850 IS.  this camera is awesome.  seriously, i want you to know how awesome this camera is for a snapshot.  it can't compare to full-blown digital SLR with quality glass and a spectrum of range, but for snapshots, it rules.  the digic processor is the same as the canon digital SLRs (up to a certain model) so the quality of a photo is great. 

we took roughly 280 photos and most of them turned out great.  i did forget to bring a tripod, but managed to negotiate one down to €5 on the street for some night photos.  the street vendors nailed it, they were selling tripods and mini tripods like crazy.  italy is a beautiful site at night and all the sites (colleseum, vatican, bridges, etc.) and watching people try to take pictures with their flashes on their snapshot cameras was a bit comical.  i'm no pro, but i was able to help a family take a better picture in front of the trevi fountain (above) so that you could actually see their family -- their first shot used a flash and while the family looked great, but you couldn't see the fountain :-). 

having this camera was great and having the ability to do some short video clips as well helps in my overall vacation.  this was an essentially piece of technology (of course a camera is, but i mean on the level of features and quality that this provided).

entertainment

i didn't really do much entertaining outside of the flights, but in-flight i needed my portable media device.  my largest one is an iPod (80G) -- note: new zune wasn't out yet, and i haven't had a chance to review one myself, but looks promising -- and i loaded about 15 movies and two tv seasons (the office and lost season 1).  having these at my fingertips was essential to my sanity over the long flights.  i hadn't seen lost before and was able to watch the complete season 1 and i'm hooked (got to go rent the others now).  i laughed my butt off watching my favorite episodes of the the office as well.

one of the other cool things was our flight back from italy.  we were on a newer delta plane that was equipped with a new in-flight entertainment system that was awesome.  it was a touch screen system on the seat in front of me.  they've appeared to partner with dish satellite tv so we watched the sunday night football game on the way home if you wanted as well.  there were on-demand movies ($5), HBO shows ($2 each), and in-flight games that enabled you to play with others on the plane!  i particularly liked the MP3 feature enabling me to browse their list of "cds" and create my own playlist and then listen to it (good quality and good recent selections as well).  you can read about this change on the delta blog site.  it was a very positive user experience for me overall.  i'm not a delta flyer, but i was very happy as a geek to see this level of technology being implemented in-flight.  bravo.

i have a bunch of other opinions about italy and my trip, but they aren't technology related, so i won't bother you.  thanks to the fine italian folks for their hospitality (except for the hotel staff at all but one of our hotels...very rude and not service-focused) and patience with my butchering of the italian language.

you may remember the result of EOLAS litigation a while back.  yes, the one resulting in what some feel is the annoying 'click to activate' functionality/feature/whatever that resulted when web authors chose to directly use <embed> or <object> tags in content, usually flash.

this, of course, is mitigated when script creates the content, such as what silverlight does by default as well as the SWFObject script that many flash developers use (and if not, they should be).  well, while i still think a good practice in some instances, we may be looking at a solution.

pete lepage of the internet explorer teams posts about an update coming soon (ctp in Dec 2007) that will remove that.  seems that microsoft has now licensed the technologies from Eolas and enabling internet explorer users to have a better experience.

let's all say it at once: yaaay!

my only complaint.  the naming.  sigh.  c'mon seriously: Internet Explorer Automatic Component Activation Preview -- are you serious?  how about just IE SP1?  oh well, we can continue to make fun of "mr. microsoft product naming guy" but the benefits really are in the technologies.

i'm headed out on holiday for about a week.  i haven't taken one in a long while and this will be good for me (hopefully).  i'm also headed to europe where i've never been, so i'm pretty excited.  i'm leaving the cell phone behind, so no twitter, etc.  i am equipped with a windows mobile gps-enabled handset and skype.  i'm looking forward to that experience and being able to use my custom application that i wrote to plot my points so my family can track us on virtual earth.

anyhow, likely no posts for a week (not that you care).  when i get back i'll tell you all about the plans for The Code Trip, but in the meantime, feel free to peek.

the ability to embed messenger 'stuff' into your web applications, now you can!  just announced the ability to provide your status as well as have people interact with you directly on your web applications/sites.

how do you do it?  visit http://settings.messenger.live.com/applications/CreateHtml.aspx to create the html for your specific presence/messenger account.  you first have to enable the ability to do it (i.e., you'd be allowing anonymous visibility into your messenger status), but once you do, you'll be able to cut and paste.

on my blog (if you are reading this through a reader) i've added my presence indicator as well on my contact page, you can start a messenger chat with me in the browser.

very cool for messenger users/developers!  get yours today!

yo, check it.  expression design has released a service pack. 

what!?  i know how can that be?  a service pack < 8 months after its release?  i say awesome.  i've been wanting microsoft teams to continue to become more and more agile especially with regards to very helpful features or great improvements of existing features based on user feedback.

one such point of feedback that is implemented in expression design is that of xaml generation of the layers and/or complete surface.  you didn't know design can generate xaml?  shame on you.  i did a podcast (you should really subscribe to the podcast feed on the left of my blog or just use this link) talking about using vector images (svg) and importing into expression design and getting xaml that you could use in your applications. 

there are essentially two ways of doing this in expression design:

1. if you only want pieces of your design file to be xaml (i.e., you want to xaml-ize a fragment of the design), you can select the layer(s) in your design file and go to the edit menu and choose 'Copy as XAML' and bam, you now have xaml for those selected fragments in your clipboard.  go forth and develop.
2. if you want the entire design surface to be a xaml representation, you would use the file menu and choose export.  from there you'll be presented with what looks like a typical 'save as' dialog box.  change the file type to xaml and after choosing location/name click ok.  you'll now be presented with a much improved options window (in service pack 1):

in previous versions the options weren't exactly clear.  for instance the xaml type you wanted (either WPF or silverlight) was in a different tab).  i really like this improved export user interface.  i especially like the option of converting text to paths.  this really helps when you don't want to (or can't) redistribute any type faces.  upon export, you will get all the xaml plus (if you chose that option) path data for your text areas.  very cool.

so if you have design files or vector files that you would want to use in silverlight, this is the perfect tool and function to create the xaml representation of that data.  so go get service pack 1 for expression design and you'll be happy.