Best Buy Jumps in on iPhone Business
AT&T has had a sweet deal since the inception of the iPhone, being the only retailer authorized to sell it outside of Apple itself. 
The free ride has ended, and as CBS News reported, Best Buy now has the availability to sell the iPhone from its 970 full-size stores and 16 smaller stores. They claim to have upgraded their computer systems to handle cell-phone activation and spent 250,000 hours training its employees, but from personal experience I would be slow to buy it there.
It is suspected that Radio Shack will be the next retailer to get in on the iPhone frenzy. They already sell AT&T phones, but not the iPhone. AT&T continues to be the authorized provider, but time will tell on that as well. What looks like a big windfall, could become a disaster if they don’t stay on top of the service side. 

No More Phone Books
Not only do I agree with hotels eliminating Phone Books from the room, but I’d like to see them stop stackng them at my front door as well.
I stopped using the Phone Book when 411 came about, and I stopped using that when I discovered Google.
Hyatt Hotels, Hyatt Place, Kimpton Hotels, and several chains operated by Starwood Hotels — Westin, Sheraton, Aloft and Element — no longer put phone books in the rooms. Hilton and InterContinental Hotels leave it up to individual hotel owners to decide if to use them. I would like that same option. I cannot help but wonder how many trees are wasted annually to print these monsters.

Added Baggage Charge Isn’t Cool
Finally go! Airlines gave Hawaiian the opportunity to fly the “higher route”, but they opted to get into a pennies match instead by charging $17 for the added bag after go! announced that they would be charging $25. Rest assured that go! will now drop it to $15. What will Hawaiian do then? After all, the space where the bags go is there regardless, and blaming the price of fuel for this attempt to grab a few added bucks is a “low shot” for sure. Incidentally, I am a big Hawaiian Air fan. 
All I can say is that I am glad that I fly 1st Class; not because of the “baggage savings”, but because I will get to board early enough to get an overhead space for my carry on bag. I am sure that those carry on bags will be stuffed to da max to save baggage charges, and put in the 1st overhead area they pass on the way back to their seat. It’s bad enough that the flight attendants are keeping the first few overheads to themselves. 1st Class passengers who arrive a little late have to hike half way through the plane to get an overhead, and upon landing have to do the “salmon swimming upstream” number to go find it.

What a Hassle!
I stopped checking bags many years ago due to the delays and incidents of lost luggage, so the added cost is meaningless to me. People traveling to and around Hawaii carry too much luggage anyway. Visitors arrive here and then discover that they don’t need the three piece suit and heels to go to dinner. At that point they stay in the luggage the whole way.

Finally something positive being done…
There’s no place in the world better to travel to than Hawaii. I found it refreshing to read this story in today’s Honolulu Advertiser. With so much whining about gas prices and hotel rates, and this and that, it’s about time that someone took an approach that is solution oriented. The creative efforts of John Monahan, HVCB president, are to be saluted. With businesses cutting back on everything they can think of to survive a “recession”, they are actually inviting it.

What a Product!
This is the time to be bullish, spend some money to get out there and Sell, Sell, Sell Hawaii.
To quote J.Paul Getty, “I buy when people sell”.

Today’s Pacific Business News Headline Read:
“Honolulu Jobless Rate 3% in April.”
The article attributed this (in part) to the shutdown of Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines, as well as Molokai Ranch.
If you were to continue reading, (as many won’t) the article went on to say, “The national unemployment rate in April was 4.8 percent.” If you ask me, a better headline would be:
“Honolulu Has 97% Employment” and then go on to say, “That is almost 2% better than the national Average in spite of shutdowns by Aloha Airlines, ATA Airlines, and Molokai Ranch.”

And in the Honolulu Advertiser the headline was:
“Visitor Arrivals Slump 7.6 Percent.”
Then the smaller print at the end of a long 2nd paragraph, read, “Despite the decline in arrivals, visitor spending remained buoyant, rising 0.4 percent to $881.5 million compared with April 2007.”
I’d like to see that headline say:
“Visitor Spending is UP in Hawaii”, and then more about that!

“Sleepy” no more!
I took this photo this morning at the once sleepy little Island Air terminal. Thanks to Aloha’s demise, it’s not so sleepy any more.

When I first moved to Hawaii an executive said, “Never fly Aloha, it means “Good Bye”. Of course he was joking, but I remembered that and always flew Hawaiian Air.

Actually, my favorite was Royal Hawaiian Airlines; a plane small enough that one passenger (usually me) got to sit in the co-pilot’s seat. I was saddened to see them leave.

When Aloha Airlines said, “Aloha” a couple of weeks ago their employees made an impassioned plea to the people of Hawaii to NOT fly go! It hasn’t worked; a good 90% of the people you see in this photo are flying go! today, thanks to the poor management, and eventual demise of Aloha Airlines.

Features Galore:
I spent most of the day today just figuring out how to do all of the stuff this car does.
-Blue Tooth connection to my iPhone through the 15 radio speakers.
-Walk away self locking.
-Warm Up (or cool off) engine starting from 200 feet away.
-Bells and Whistles (literally) for every little thing you can imagine.
-Monthly e-mails telling me how it is running, oil pressure and even the tire pressure. 
-Voice directions as you go to any address - “Turn right here…” etc.
-It even flashes a “Hello Easy” to me in the windsheild when I start it.
-Sun Roof - Moon Roof
-Air conditioned seat settings.
-Heated seat settings.
-Best of all it is quiet as a mouse and “The Float” ride. I cannot feel the Honolulu potholes every 10 feet.

I just hope I can remember it all when I return from the mainland in two weeks.

Was it REALLY 50 Years Ago -?
I received a phone call yesterday from Terry Peterson inviting me to attend the “50 Year Re-Union” of my high school graduating class. It was a real déjà vu moment as we tossed names and stories about. He is still married to Thelma Manning, one of our schoolmates, while I have said, “I do” six times in the same number of years. Terry said that would probably qualify me as the winner of the “most times married” award. I wonder if I will also get the “longest hair on a guy” award. I am sure that the competition will much fiercer for the least amount of hair left.

Harvey’s Broiler
Cruising Harvey’s was the thing to do, especially on Friday night. That looks a little like my 50 Ford sitting there. It was a consistent parade of cars showing off their latest tuck and roll upholstery, and sounding off the glass pack mufflers. 

The Warren Golden Bears
The event will be held back in Downey, California, and include a “brown bag lunch tour” of the Warren High School Campus, where we were the first graduating class from the school. I’m not someone who likes to dwell on the past, and as scary as “50″ sounds, hearing that 42 of our classmates have already moved on to the hereafter was even scarier.
This should be a real blast. If any of the “Class of 59″ happen to see this Blog I hope you will post a comment about yourself, and if you send me a picture from “then”, or better yet “now”. I will include it in this post as an update.
You can also register your profile here for free. That should help Terry and the other organizers prepare for this.

Sony or Dell
As an admitted neophyte with the computer, it is always a big step to buy one. My first computer (in 2002) was a Dell, which I tossed out the 2nd story window along with the geek that tried to install a simple scanner on it. I also admit that today I probably could have handled the telephone tutorial that Dell offered at the time; perhaps even better than the geek did. In any case, it left a bad taste in my mouth for Dell. Since then I have only had Sony computers (lots of them).

Computers Don’t Like Coffee 

Spilling coffee into my lap top has caused me to order a new computer more times than I care to think about. When something goes wrong I buy a new one and trash the old one, or I give it to a friend capable of making it work. This time it was just a matter of wanting something bigger and faster.

So, I called my favorite geek (I hope that’s not offensive) and asked him, “What’s hot?” As he described the latest and greatest Sony computers I learned that they all come with the VISTA operating system. He went on to say that the only PC still available with Windows XP was Dell. My mind raced back to my earlier experience with Dell and I decided to look into VISTA. I found this YouTube presentation and it scared me. Then I read this article in The Register where geeks can talk to geeks. One said, “I have tried my best to work with VISTA. It just did not work, so I went back to XP and all my problems are gone.”

5-Day Delivery Time

So, Dell gets another chance. I ordered the biggest and best Dell made and had it delivered to my house.

From None to Three

I made an appointment with my “main geek” and had him set up the Dell, keep the Sony, and also install a Compaq as a third back-up; all XP. As I look at myself today with three computer monitors going I wonder whatever happened to that guy who swore that he would NEVER touch a keyboard.
STAY TUNED!

Vince Wilson - Google Gadget Expert

I am amazed at how many people there are out there that have not yet become aware of Google Gadgets and how they work. The most amazing thing of all is that they are FREE. If you are adept at web page design you can create your own Google Gadgets.

If you are like me you should enlist the aid of someone like Hawaiian photographer and web builder Vince Wilson. Vince has close to 30 gadgets on the web now and is ranked in the top 10 gadget builders in the world, and he is right here in Hawaii.

Vince created my first gadget in September of 2007, and the hits to my site jumped from 1,539 in August to 4,385 in September. The hits have grown steadily every month. In the first week of February, 2008 I have already had 2,579 hits and am on track to have 10,684 hits this month alone. 

To see and get (FREE) any or all of my four Google Gadgets, click on the gadget name and click on “Add To Google”:

Success Tips Gadget

Retail Selling Tips Gadget

My Blog Gadget

Christmas Countdown Gadget