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Saving Cell Phone & PDA Power: Hey, Is This Theory On the Money?

I'm sure, when buying a new computer, you've felt the way I have: Why can't a big computer company like Dell or HP write an instruction manual that really tells you how to use your new desktop or laptop to its fullest? 

Or, at least, why can't computer manufacturers offer really helpful tips?  Here's something that road warriors may find useful, but I can't vouch for its accuracy: To conserve battery power in a laptop, TURN OFF YOUR wireless connection if you're not using it.  Doing that apparently could add as much as an hour to your battery's life. 

It seems that when your computer is searching for a wi-fi signal, it's gobbling up extra battery power.  And the same goes for your Blackberry or cell phone.  If you're running low on juice and you're in an area with poor cell coverage, turn your device off until you absolutely need it unless you can easily recharge.

This came up last week when I spent some time on Italy's mostly rural Amalfi Coast.  Cell coverage was dicey at the villa my family and I rented, but I couldn't figure out why my Blackberry so quickly lost its power each day--after all, I was hardly using it.  Someone smarter than I am (that would be my son-in-law, Alex Eaton) told me it's because they Blackberry was constantly searching for a cell signal, and that eats up power. (And, no, that's not me with the clunky cell phone on the left, though I will confess I once owned a phone like that.  I think it cost me $700 in the '90s.)

Now, I'm no engineer or computer/cellphone/PDA expert.  Maybe you are.  If so, I'd love to hear your reaction to this.  Does keeping a cell phone, PDA or computer with wi-fi on in an area with poor signals drain a battery more than normal?  Clue me and other folks who live on the road with these electronic devices some of us don't understand in, won't you?   

Letter from Ocean Drive: You May Ask, 'What? Is That All There Is?' But Include Lots of Art Deco In Your Trip, And It's Worth the Flight

A Sunday afternoon stroll not long ago down South Beach’s iconic Ocean Drive reminded me of Mark Twain’s crack, “If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?”

Not that I should joke about shootings along the eight or nine mostly commercial blocks of Ocean Drive--there have been too many incidents of violence late at night, when alcohol-fueled fights at the outdoor bars have gotten ugly.  And, of course, ten years ago fashion designer Gianni Versace was gunned down on the doorstep of his mansion on Ocean Drive, Casa Causarina.

But my point is this: If you remember the Ocean Drive of 12 or 13 years ago, when it was something of an outdoor catwalk for buff male models sans shirts and pouty, curvy women in impossibly tiny bikinis, well, that was yesterday.

And yesterday’s gone.

Today on Ocean Drive, you’re more likely to find Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch America tying on the feedbag at TGI Fridays (yes!) or visitors looking for a place to park so then can lift suitcases out of their cars--bellman are almost nonexistent at Ocean Drive hotels.  That lack of service is a great introduction to the guest experience at many of those hostelries, where the main attribute is their great, neon signs at night, not their shopworn guestrooms with barely enough space for a fat guy and a laptop.  (Which is not why I inserted my shot of The Clifton here--I just love that deco sign.) 

Listen, I know the tune: Nothing is ever the way it used to be.  Everything changes.  Stretches of the fabled French Riviera have all the charm (and summer traffic) of the condo-lined beachfront of an American beach town gone to hell.  Tour busses hold up traffic in July and August along Italy’s Amalfi Coast as they try to maneuver hairpin turns on its single coastal road.  Starbucks passes for the local café in dozens of countries around the world.  And there are Cartier, Tiffany and H&M stores just across the street from Islam’s holiest site, the Kaaba, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

But the myth of Ocean Drive lives thanks to television shows and glossy, oversized magazines such as, well, Ocean Drive, the thick bible of club life and double-truck ads for men’s watches the size of Big Ben, Italian sports cars, and high-rise condos whose computer-generated images always portray unaccompanied women lounging provocatively poolside.  (I’ve always believed sex sells, but are there really that many women available by Miami pools for men who can afford thin-walled condos with floor-to-ceiling windows and stainless-steel kitchens?)

I’ve watched the transformation of South Beach’s Art Deco district as an accidental tourist.  For five years, beginning 15 years ago with the first issue of Ocean Drive, I wrote a monthly Washington, DC, gossip column for the magazine and took every opportunity to visit the neighborhood when the weather in DC turned chilly.  I even co-hosted the pilot of a weekly lifestyle television show that Post-Newsweek Television proposed with a home base of South Beach.  The show, which never made it to the air, was titled, “Cool People, Hot Places.”  Or was it “Hot Places, Cool People”?

No matter--you get the idea.  Hipsters everywhere aspired to the South Beach life.

And many still do.  I called several days ahead of time to secure a reservation at Prime 112 for Sunday night but could only score a 5:30 table.  By Miami standards, 5:30 p.m. is considered brunch.

Prime 112 is the scenester steak house where valet parking is $15 on weekends (before the $5 tip to the valet), a side of Brussels sprouts costs $12, and a bottle of bubbly water adds $9.50 to your bill.  The lobsters started at four-and-a-half pounds Sunday night, at $25 a pound.  I like Prime 112 because the people-watching is first rate, and the food is very good in that over-the-top, American steakhouse kind of way.  As a dinner party pulled up to the valet parking just behind me in a sleek Maybach, I was well aware I was out of my league in my Grand Am from Avis.

It was a gorgeous, warm night, so my two business associates and I asked to be seated outside.  Prime 112 is located at the southern end of Ocean Drive, just a couple blocks around the corner from the legendary Joe’s Stone Crab, and life in these parts used to be much quieter than the street’s more northern blocks with their hotels and bars.

But the ‘hood is about to shift from second gear directly to fifth gear very soon.  A couple of low-rise, faded residential buildings across the street from Prime 112 are now empty and fenced off; a banner announces that a new development will soon replace them.  Prices for the new, 28 oceanfront condos begin at . . . six million dollars.

Oh, my. 

“All anyone can talk about in Miami is real estate,” said my friend Alex Gordon over lunch.  She’s in public relations, which is a good thing, as the real estate business in Miami is only limping along after several years of a buying frenzy.

And simply driving along the edge of downtown Miami from the airport to South Beach explains why: Too much product.  Glass towers of condos are everywhere, and cranes promise more to come.  But no longer do lines form before dawn on the day a new project’s sales office opens.  In fact, a developer who intended to convert the Royal Palm hotel--up Collins Avenue in the neighborhood of the Delano and The National--into interval home ownership recently defaulted on the mortgage.  Converting hotel rooms into suites that building owners can sell (and continue to rent out when not occupied) has been all the rage in Miami the last couple of years.

Today, that's so over.  One of Miami’s premier developers, Jorge Perez, CEO of Related Group, saw the sales of condo units drop so alarmingly between 2005 and 20006 that he’s now looking for other opportunities in Mexico and the country of his birth, Argentina.

But still the conversions and tear downs and building continues--beware the slick ads with the women in bikinis.  Alex says too much money goes into the glossy exteriors and stunning lobbies of marble and glass and sculptures and fountains, while the walls between units allow owners to listen to their neighbors’ breathing.   

Of course, few owners in the million-dollar-plus aeries live in Miami year around; the heat and the humidity during the summer is so oppressive that those who can afford it escape to the mountains of Colorado or south to Argentina or Chile to ski. 

I did walk across Ocean Drive after my lunch with Alex and was pleased to see the wide beach on the Atlantic Ocean was well populated.  There were more women sunbathing topless than I recall, but that same turquoise sea beckoned, and to turn around and look back on the pastel colors of the Art Deco buildings of Ocean Drive against an azure sky brought a feeling of pleasure. 

The celebs--the Hiltons and Trumps--still come to South Beach.  But they know which clubs are hot, and they're often paid to show up, the better to fuel the paparazzi photos that will lure paying customers to clubs where a private table the size of a waiter’s tray can cost $1,000 to rent for a night.  It’s the celeb set who gets the white suites at the Delano and, at least until recently, signed deals with developers to lend their names to new high-rise developments. 

But I don’t think it was just because I was in South Beach during spring break that I felt the place had grown uncomfortably less authentic.  Sure, there are still a couple of model agency offices along Ocean Drive.  But the News Café, where the early adaptors talked deals 24/7, is huge now, its tiny outdoor tables filled with folks who don’t look the least bit local.  Real business is done elsewhere now, and Ocean Drive is more a Disney World set than the historic neighborhood it is. Which is, of course, what happens when magazines and television shows and movies glorify few blocks.

Should you avoid Miami and South Beach?  No.  But don’t feel that you’re missing much except for bumper-to-bumper traffic if you stay at the lovely Four Seasons or Mandarin Oriental in Miami proper.
 
Stroll Ocean Drive early on a weekday morning when you’ll be able to admire the buildings without the crowds.  By all means spend half a day at my favorite design musuem in the world, the Wolfsonian on Washington Ave.  (But keep in mind it’s closed, oddly enough, on Wednesdays.)  For good deli, there’s still the durable LA-transplant, Jerry’s, on Collins Avenue.

Walk through the lobby of The National day or night and admire the impossibly long swimming pool lined with palms that suggests Humphrey Bogart might emerge at any moment in a white suit.  In the hotels around The National, there are lots of hard-to-get-into restaurants, such as Ago at The Shore Club, and the food is even edible in some.  But book early for Prime 112 and go for lunch or an early dinner at Joe’s Stone Crab to avoid the lines.

Top-drawer hotels such as the Ritz Carlton South Beach and The Setai succeed in creating an oasis of quiet and luxury even when South Beach is a pulsating, non-stop party scene, as it was two years ago on Memorial Day when my girlfriend and I unwittingly arrived during a hip-hop convention.

For Northerners in the winter, stepping off a plane and into the sunshine of Miami is a marvelous balm, an abrupt change of channels that sets everyone to wondering, “What would it be like if I lived here?” 

And there’s still just enough beautiful people, enough energy and, of course, enough beach to entertain.  But like the ill-timed downpour during January’s SuperBowl, sometimes the realities of paradise intrude--the drunk kids on Ocean Drive after midnight, the mediocre food and high-priced hotel rooms, the crowded sidewalks and assembly-line feel of some eateries. 

And like a planeload of gamblers on an early morning flight from Vegas--the city I think closest to Technicolor Miami in sex appeal and style--you’ll probably have no difficulty returning to your own life, even if there’s no beach outside your door. 

Revealed: The Unhappy Truth Behind Airlines' 'Schedule Inflation' And Why It's Important To Bring Lots of Reading Material Aboard

Around 5:30 Monday evening, I boarded Northwest flight 735 from New York's JFK to Minneapolis-St. Paul, a distance of about 1,027 miles that normally takes just over two hours to fly.  But the airline's schedule clocked the trip at three hours and 17 minutes.  Why?  Because there's a daily traffic jam on the runways of JFK during the early evening; my fellow passengers and I spent an hour in a long line with other aircraft waiting to take off.  

In Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, the paper's excellent aviation writer, Scott McCartney, provided a revealing look at the enormous growth in schedule inflation--the increasing time it's taking planes to complete routine flights despite the fact that jets today fly faster then they used to and have more sophisticated avionics that allow them to chart more direct routes.  The culprit: airport congestion and the FAA, which lags behind the airlines in being able to route aircraft more directly.

I spent years taking the Eastern Air Lines (you remember them, don't you?) and Delta shuttles almost weekly between Washington, DC, and New York in the '80s and early '90s.  The actual flying time was--and still is--about 30 minutes.  But most trips took an hour because of congestion at LaGuardia airport.  Today's commuters look back on that schedule longingly--some DC-NYC shuttles routinely take two hours now.   

In 1997, American Airlines' flight 29 departing New York for Los Angeles at 7:05 p.m. took just under six hours to cross the country; today, American flight 21, departing at the same time, takes 23 minutes longer. 

The future was supposed to signal progress, and while I never quite believed the new milennium would find us all equipped with Jetson-like jet packs that would zip us about at will, I did think more sophisticated aircraft and airports would continue to make traveling easier and more efficient.  Aircraft enginners have generally kept up their part of the bargain, but airports haven't upgraded sufficiently to handle passenger load.  And, as McCartney notes, an outmoded, national radio beacon system on the ground still means airplanes must meander through the skies from point to point instead of taking an as-the-crow-flies direct route from Point A to Point B.

And Minneapolis-based commercial aviation watchdog Terry Trippler adds to our understainding of why fllying trips are longer rather than shorter: Too many flights. That's not to say that we should allow fewer people to fly; it's that airlines, in an effort to offer an expanded menu of departure and arrival times, are putting smaller planes on routes so they can offer more flights a day.  Sometimes they're not necessarily carrying any more passengers between cities than they did a decade ago.  But those additional flights on smaller planes mean more take off and landings.  Which means more congestion.

I wish I could belive that things will get better in the next year or so, but they won't.  And with some chagrin, I looked this moring at a ticket I bought for an upcoming New York City trip in July and noted I would be returning to my hometown of St. Paul on the same flight out of JFK that I flew Monday night.  As our pilot told the passengers when we pulled away from our gate and became number 20 in a line of aircraft waiting to depart, "This is routine at JFK at this time of night."  Which is why Northwest's schedule allows three-and-a-half hours for the trip. 

Technically, if a flight departs or takes off within a half hour of its scheduled times, it's considred "on time."  In the case of Northwest 735 and more and more flights these days, building routine delays into the published schedule is a facile way of suggesting things are working just fine.  And no one knows more than weary frequent travelers that, these days, that just ain't so.    

Southwest Begins SFO Service Aug. 26 With Three Cities and a Sale

For years, Southwest Airlines was content to serve the San Francisco area with flights into and out of Oakland airport.  And why not?  That airport is smaller than San Francisco's main airport, and it's less likely to suffer from schedule-crippling fog.

But with the summer start up of Virgin America at SFO, Southwest apparently felt it needed to defend its stake in San Francisco, so beginning late August, the airline will fly 18 daily flights--non-stop service to Chicago's Midway airport (three daily flights), Las Vegas (seven daily flights), and San Diego (eight daily flights).  And to get passengers used to the new service, Southwest is offering deeply discounted tickets if you book 21 days before you travel.  You may begin buying sale tickets now for travel between the start of SFO service, Aug. 26, and Oct. 31.  Obviously, with the 21-day advance purchase requirement, the sale ends Oct. 10.

Sale fares are as low as $39 one way to San Diego, $59 one way to Vegas, and $99 to Chicago Midway.  By the way, those fares are also valid from the other two San Francisco airports served by Southwest, Oakland and San Jose.   For a schedule of all Southwest flights from the San Francisco area, including ongoing flights to Boston, DC, and Orlando, visit the airline's web site.  For rules and details on the sale, click here.  As always, sale seats are limited, so the special offer fits your travel needs, book sooner rather than later.

Here's An Idea: Marriott Financial Center Puts Desktop in Lobby; For Biz Travelers, It's An Easy Way To Print Out A Boarding Pass

Why are some of the most simple things often obvious?  If you're a frequent business traveler as I am, you may often find yourself at midnight typing on your laptop in your hotel room when you remember you ought to print out your boarding pass for the next day's flight.  Except you probably don't have a printer available at the moment.  And you don't want to go in search of the hotel's business center--even if it is open late. 

During a recent trip to New York City, I was delighted to stay at the Marriott Financial Center--just a block from Ground Zero.  The Marriott was used as a staging area for rescue workers following 9/11, but it's now renovated, and its nearly 500 rooms are nicely outfitted with Marriott's crisp, classy "Revue" bed linens.  In addition, there's a Roy's downstairs, and I don't mean a Roy Roger's.  (Although I do recall having a great Middle Eastern lunch at a Roy Roger's in the Cairo Marriott years ago, when young Cairene men and women attired in Western wear served platters of humus and falfallel .)  This Roy is Hawaiian fusion chef Roy Yamaguchi, and his outpost in Manhattan's financial district is a great retreat for dinner after a long day of work (or sightseeing) in New York City. 

But the detail that caught my eye at this Marriott was the computer terminal on a small desk in the  lobby.  A discrete sign invited guests to use it to print out boarding passes.  And I did--saving me a step at the airport and making me wonder: Why doesn't every business hotel in the world offer such a logical, helpful service?  And now that I think about it, why limit this to business hotels?  Leisure travelers, too, ought to have their boarding passes in hand before going to the airport. Thumbs up to the Marriott employee who came up with the idea.

And Two Airlines You've Never Heard Of Continue To Expand; Jet Airways of India & MAXjet Spread Their Wings With New Routes

Chances are, unless you're a frequent visitor to India, you've never head of Jet Airways.  It's India's largest, privately owned airline, serving 40 cities in that country as well as ten other international destinations, including London.  This August, Jet Airways plans to link New York (from Newark airport) with flights to Mumbai via Brussels.  And by fall, Jet Airways will also serve San Francisco and Mumbai with flights via Shanghai. 

The new routes--the airline's first to and from North America--are intended to make Jet Airways a household word and, according to a press release announcing the new service, to help Jet Airways become one of the world's top five airlines by 2010. With plans to begin service between India and Toronto, Johannesburg and the Persian Gulf, it's well on its way to becoming an international player.  The planned purchase of 20 wide-body Boeing 777 and Airbus A330 jets, as well as 10 Boeing 787 Dreamliners, must have the competition startled.   

I've flown Jet Airways within India and found the airline uncommonly comfortable, its staff gracious, and its cabin service a cut above most domestic service in the US--not that that's a very difficult accomplishment. 

This is not a discount carrier, though I expect Jet Airways will undercut its competition in price.  The airline pours Krug and Dom Perignon in first class, and its new Boeing 777s will have private suites for eight passengers (left), seperated by sliding doors from the main cabin.  Business class will offer flat beds, economy passenger seats will recline 130 degrees.

Meanwhile, MAXjet --the all-business class airline that along with Eos is responsible for the fare war among trans-Atlantic carriers trying to lure business-class passengers--is also spreading its wings.  It's converting its seasonal service between London's Stansted airport and Washington's Dulles airport into year-round service beginning May 24, 2007.  And on Aug. 30, 2007, MAXjet links London and Los Angeles with service Sunday, Monday, Thursday and Friday.  Tickets between London and LA begin at $699 each way--often the equivalent price of coach class on most airlines.  MAXjet's seats aren't lie-flat, but they're leather, and passengers enjoy business class cuisine, space and lounges.  Currently, the airline flies to London from New York, DC, and Las Vegas.