I just taught myself that having Captcha enabled for the Comments Page actually didn’t display the Captcha information at all, and then caused all attempts at Comments to fail!
Who’s feeling silly about now?
Anyway now you can actually Post a Reply and otherwise comment throughout the Blog. Sorry about that!
TripAdvisor Forums have their place in a travellers armoury, there’s a huge mix of participants from naive first time travellers to seasoned professionals. However like every other forum sometimes you need to take the “advice” with a grain of salt.
TripAdvisor is really all about making money
TripAdvisor is really all about making money, you as a reader are nothing but a potential sales lead for the services advertised throughout the site. Every time you search for hotel rooms and flights through the site the cookies being baked into your computer are adding to the sites income.
The staff of TripAdvisor are there to keep that well oiled cash machine running and not to ensure the participants in the Forums provide consistent accurate advice.
So with that in mind lets move onto the next contradiction.
Every Forum has Moderators, people who can keep the peace and offer sage advice when needed. In he case of TripAdvisor the two roles are separated, a Destination Expert typically has a high post-count and a high rate of “presence” on the Forums. The moderation seems to be done by deleting posts after they’re reported and very little (if any) feedback is given to the poster.
In my dealings with these Destination Experts I’ve found a mix of genuinely nice people who have the time and energy to help out, and also those who always seem to grind out the say cut-n-paste solutions that perpetuate myths.
Owee over at Owee58.com wrote a great piece about his attempt to become a recognised Destination Expert.
The term Destination Expert is misleading and in most cases an out right lie. A Tripadvisor chosen volunteer is a more accurate term. Please keep this in mind when using their resource.
Owee’s experience highlights the distinctly profit driven motives, and the level of restriction TripAdvisor imposes upon those experts (which also discourages many reputable writers from participating under their “real” names)
I spend a portion of my time on TripAdvisor kicking through the Bargain Travel forum and was surprised when someone posted a link to the great NomadicMatt “12 Things Not to Do When You Travel” article.
The link got posted in a few threads and a number of Destination Experts chimed in saying it was the best advice ever. Terrific, because the 12 tips are genuinely useful for all travellers.
The ones closest to my heart revolve around money, The “Don’t Exchange money at the airport” and “Use a fee free card”. The advice is rock solid and backed up by posts throughout the forums. Over in the Destination Forum for Malaysia we have a Destination Expert giving a good balanced view of costs while a few people are advocating everything from changing money back “at home” – to carrying large amounts of cash which then contradicts the “beware of bag snatchers” mantra!
Not once did an expert or TripAdvisor themselves suggest checking out the article, nor could many others post the link for fear or falling foul of the “posting links to blogs” rule. That rule would make linking to NomadicMatt.com a breach as it’s a very commercial Blog no matter how much we value the content!
I’m not even going to talk about the Monkey post! Well, ok, I will. There was a post about Batu Caves, the writer had asked if the caves were worth it given they had a dislike of monkeys. Fair question, I’m not a fan of them myself, and while some people tried to balance up the “value” of the attraction versus the population of monkeys others started talking about all the rabies travellers would get while being bitten.
Yes, monkeys can bite. No, monkeys don’t bite randomly
Once again there’s no consistency, and once again not even Destination Experts could agree!
When you use TripAdvisor do so with an open mind. Don’t let some views dissuade you from accessing what is still a marvellous resource, but always be aware of the pitfalls.
Opinionated Destination Experts, False Reviews and people willing to “work the system” to make a buck combined with he profit motive of the TripAdvisor company mean that like Professional Travel Bloggers you need to keep your wits about you.
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past 15 years you’ll be familiar with “The Amazing Race”, for those that are not CBS provides a nice potted summary:
THE AMAZING RACE is a multi-Emmy Award-winning reality series hosted by Emmy Award- nominated host Phil Keoghan, which pits 11 teams, each comprised of two members, against each other on a trek around the world for approximately 25 days. At every destination, each team must compete in a series of challenges, some mental and some physical, and only when the tasks are completed will they learn of their next location. Teams who are the farthest behind will gradually be eliminated as the contest progresses, with the first team to arrive at the final destination winning $1 million.
You can learn more about the details of this challenging “game” by hundreds of hours trawling fan-sites, or just pop over to Wikipedia.
With that out of the way lets talk about four things travellers can take away from The Amazing Race.
Travel as we all know isn’t always easy, it can be long days of disappointing destinations and infuriating experiences dealing with people. The rewards, or the good days more than make up for these, and there’s always “next time” when the same things won’t happen again right?
The old saying of “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail” could apply here, it’s all about the research you do and how you prepare. On “The Amazing Race” teams are provided the basic outline of their leg. They’re told of key route and transit factors, provided a budget and from there it’s up them.
Sometimes it’s not the fastest route (13 hour ferry ride vs a 2 hour flight) nor the most direct route that can give you the best experience. Using resources like TripAdvisor or Travel Blogs can open you eyes to many of the different ways to move around or to your destination. Some may not seem glamorous or exciting when you’re sitting at the keyboard, but do try and remember that “half the fun is getting there”.
So when planning your travel don’t just think about the destination, consider the steps along the way. Can you “tick off” another form of travel, perhaps doing that overnight “sleeper” train journey will spare you the expense of a hotel room and let you arrive refreshed in another city or country. You could have tales of raging North Sea storms to share, stories that will set your holiday apart from everyone else who just flew.
“A Detour is a choice between two tasks”, sure for television these tasks can be arduous parodies of life or culture in of the current location, but for travellers the lesson is about making choices to suit you.
Have you ever read the destination guide for a place and thought how boring it sounds? The lesson here is to seek out activities that you will remember for years to come. Don’t be afraid to step out from your comfort zone, pull on the silly Panda hat and have a go. Do you consider yourself too old for some attractions? Wrong, you’re never too old for a theme park or zoo. Too shy for the beach? Why not get yourself dropped off Survivor style?
It’s these detours – or choices – that can make a good holiday great, some will cost money and others will take time, but unless you get out of the hotel and get amongst it you’ll never know. Eat in a local market, dance along with a street musician or take a look at that ancient monument. In short don’t limit yourself!
Plans can change, and sometimes getting the heck out of dodge is a good idea. Sometimes forgoing one aspect or leg of your journey can open up more opportunities. Say you’re sitting in you’re sitting in your hotel, the weathers been bad and you’ve trekked as much of the city as you can. Why not take a “Fast Forward” somewhere else? Check with the local Low-Cost-Carriers, maybe there’s an overnight side-trip you could take?
Just like on the show taking a Fast Forward also adds elements of risk and unknown, you are forced to make plans without having detailed planning, think on your feet and if you don’t pull it off you could find yourself having wasted time and money.
So for your successful Fast Forward be honest with yourself, are you prepared to just pack up and move on without the meticulous research that you’ve been relying on? Do you have the budget available for incidentals that you will incur?
If the answers yes to the above then why not give it a go?
Travelling as a couple, or in a group, is great because you get to share experiences, split some of the costs and you’ve always got a (hopefully) friendly face around when things go wrong. Maybe you’ll also moderate your experience to “fit in” with others.
Roadblocks are solo tasks, and for the traveller really it means taking the time to do your own thing. There’s nothing worse than being at the foot of a 1000 step climb into a cave system and hearing one of your travelling companions say “Lets go, it’s too far/hard”. You know what? Just do it without them! That’s right just because you’re in a group it doesn’t mean you’re bound to them.
From dining choices to attractions and travel types who we travel with can affect our experiences and it’s important to stop and ask yourself who’s trip you’re really on.
Tired of comforting to others? Take an entire trip yourself, without your partner or friends you can rediscover your inner strengths, develop your self reliance and even bring out the confidence you never knew you had.
The next time you’re watching “The Amazing Race” think about how you behave when you travel. How do you react when things go wrong, when the taxi driver gets lost and you end up at the wrong monument or the only food around is friend bugs?
Stress during travel can bring out the very worst in people, so think about how you deal with it, try pulling on the smile and thinking “well now I’ve seen Loch Ness AND the local duck pond!”
Don’t be “that team”…
Ive already expressed my skepticism of the “Blogger Dream” – and gone a little ways to describing some of the pitfalls and pittances it can earn. However I still enjoy reading about the dream and occasionally have fantasies about getting rich quick.
I suppose it is, in fact like most creative pursuits it takes time and effort to plan, write and post content that will attract and maintain an audience that’s also willing to follow up with Facebook Likes or Retweets. Although the best perspective I’ve seen thrown on it comes from Theodora at escapeartistes.com
It’s not subsistence farming in a drought. It’s not child protection or first response. It’s not labouring in the sewers, in a sweatshop, or on zero-hours contracts at the minimum wage. Nor is it rocket science, the SAS or brain surgery.
She then goes on to point out the low barrier to entry, hey I meet all of that, well except maybe the high-spec photographic equipment and I’m only partially convinced of my own delusions of grandeur.
Really there’s more, lots more, but you should really pop over to her nicely detailed post on “Why I’ll Never be a Professional Travel Blogger” and then think about what you’re reading when Zite, News360 or Flipboard throws you yet another tantalising story of how some witty hipster has travelled the world for free.
Yes my friends, they may not have spent much money to get around the world but their credibility is traded the moment they don’t declare the true financial link to what they’re reviewing.
Pandas I have seen previously: 2 (Ying Ying & Le Le)
Pandas I will see next: 6 (Xing Xing, Liang Liang, Kai Kai, Jia Jia, Wang Wang & Funi)That will take my tally to 8/49 of the Pandas living outside of China – and perhaps 0.4% of all Pandas in existence (based on middle estimates of Panda population).
“Pandas, mate why are you so fascinated by Pandas?” I get asked this all the time (well ok I’ve been asked once), and I thought I’d explain.
I was born in 1975, by the time the early 1980’s rolled around I was old enough to watch and understand the documentaries on the fate of Pandas in the wild. At the time Pandas in captivity wasn’t really a “done thing” and in the wild they were “rare”. The WWF (Not the Wrestling mob) had kicked conservation efforts in gear and raised the profile of the Panda and so this young impressionable kid in Sawtell/Toormina thought he’d never see a live Panda, ever.
For me the ability to see a real live Panda (even if in captivity) represents in one tiny way just how life can change, and just how things we thought we’d never do/see can still happen.
The Pandas for me also serve as a reminder to take the opportunity to do things when the opportunity arises, to do while I can, not complain when I can no longer.
So yes that’s the Panda story.
2012 – Ocean Park Hong Kong. I’m fairly sure I trekked the whole park but I only recall seeing two Panda despite there being supposedly 4 in the Park. I will have to check the pictures more carefully to ensure I’m not missing any!
Making money online is everyones dream isn’t it? Turning a website in a revenue stream is something I’ve tried and not succeeded at for years!
I’ve raved and ranted enough to friends over the years about how people somehow can create a passive income sufficient to support living in some of the most exotic places in the world. Jealous? Certainly, I won’t deny that, but I’m also curious how one steps from obscurity to “success”.
But enough of my green eyed monster, after my debacle with Adsense and discussions with colleagues and friends I’m hitting out on a new path. It’s almost certainly more interesting talking about the mechanics and how well the idea performs than actually “doing it”.
Back in October I took a punt and registered a couple of domain names through my usual GoDaddy account and bound them to the basic GoDaddy Hosting. TheBookingSpot.com and the back-end domain ReservationDestination.com are to be my little foothold into the multi billion dollar business that is Travel, and more specifically Whitelabel and Affiliate based Travel searching. The potential here is pretty obvious. I like travel, I like a good deal, and I have some ability to string together lumps of code into websites.
The first challenge was to work out a gimmick, an idea that would give me an enthusiasm for the project, and somewhat touch into my personal experiences.
I settled on a combination of trip-planning resources and Motorsport events around the world. The idea is to utilise the motorsports draw-cards and help fans find flight and accommodation deals to get there by bringing the information they need into one place. By pre-loading destination information, setting reasonable date ranges prospective travellers are able to quickly work out starting costs and go on from there.
My “experience” as a TripAdvisor user and Senior Contributor has taught me that more often than not people want to have their hands held when planning travel, they need to have dates suggested so they arrive in time, they need to be told where and when to go. Condescending? Yes. Fact? Yes. So I’m trying to combine those elements. Maybe I should sell reviews? According to site sites there’s significant revenue opportunities (about USD20-40) per review by a Senior Contributor. It’s probably a better paying option than this!
I’m a fan of WordPress, so I’m using that as the backend and linking together various tweaks and plug-ins to create a more specific experience. Underpinning the revenue collection aspects will be “Whitelabel” arrangements and regular “Affiliate” programs. To mop up other potential links etc I’ll continue to use Skimlinks as a catch-all engine to bolster income.
The second phase of the project is build a bit of a Community engine, a reason for people to come and stick to using the tools. The recurring traffic and word-of-text promotion that will eventually reduce a dependency on paid advertising.
Why don’t you try a search right now 🙂
It was in January I decided to share my amazement at how people could travel and live worldwide without a “real job”.
Then in August I shared my successes with the Adsense income I was generating through YouTube and a few other sites. By that point I was hitting around 7 cents a day. Not exactly rolling in the cashola.
In short, no, not even close.
Instead I’ve joined what seems like thousands of small volume bloggers and content producers who are dropped from the AdSense program by Google for some non-specified breach on the month a long earned payout threshold is reached. That was it, I completed the review process trying to eek out a specific reason, but none was forthcoming. could I have clicked on an Advert while watching on of my YouTube videos? Maybe I wasn’t supposed to have Skimlinks running at the same time?
I just don’t know.
So guess I will have to move on from the easy wins of a passive advertising income until a viable replacement for AdSense crops up. There are a few but lets just say I’m fussy and I also like the idea of finding a program with a lower payout threshold to be sure I don’t spend years driving clicks that someone is getting paid for only to never see my share. You see that’s the real scam here, Google sold ads on my sites to advertisers for years, and do you think in 2014 they’re going to refund the advertisers who paid for displays on ausmicro.com back in the day? Nope, so they win and I (and every other content producer) get screwed. Not really impressed.
The time has come to move on – it’s likely I won’t ever utilize a Google AdSense program as an advertiser or as a content producer, well definitely not as a content producer, supposedly once the account is locked it can’t be unlocked, but yet because its never deleted its a breach of their T&C to create another.
Oh well back to the “Get rich quick drawing board”
With our first full month back online ending I thought I’d take the time to thank everyone for popping back and taking a look around.
While there haven’t been new posts in the Forums it’s obvious to see that the repository of technical information is still appreciated by many.
It’s great to see the Forums still being recognised as holding some of the best Mini-Z and Bit Char-G technical info online.
Myself, I haven’t been so active on the Forums yet but I am still plugging away slowly behind the scenes working out how to restore some of the attached files and information that make this place what it is.
You can do your bit by sharing the news that ausmicro.com is back on other Forums. Take it to social media or the streets!
Head over to the Forums to share what’s in your R/C Garage now, ask for tips, or post up about racing happening in your area.
When we imported the Forums into the new BBPress system we reset all the passwords. So to get your old username back you’ll need to use your Registered e-mail address on this page http://www.ausmicro.com/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword to have a new Password generated and e-mailed to you.
I have managed to find in old backups some of our early video contributions from the Bit-CharG days and have uploaded them to YouTube. You’ll need to check our Forums for a link!
Over the end of year period I’m going to try and get all the old attachment files restored into the forums. This will be a large amount of work but will be worth the effort as many and central to the quality of our technical posts.
I like to share the updates about bringing back ausmicro.com with all of the former members, and every few weeks I’ll be sending out updates like this. If you feel I’m cluttering up your mail box there’s instructions on how to unsubscribe at the end of this e-mail.
I can’t wait to see you on the Forums
$20 isn’t much money in the scheme of things, but there comes a time when I would rather keep it than spend it.
Coffee Syrups are one of the things that I would rather not spend $20 on so I’ve started to experiment with some home-brew replacements that cost around $1 for the equivalent volume!
This is the easy one, it’s my wife favourite addition and the cause of this home-brewing.
In this instance we’re trying to replicate the flavour and sweetness of Davinci French Vanilla syrup that is most commonly used in Australian Cafes.
All a coffee syrup is made of is sweeteners and flavours, to adjust sweetness you simply vary the amount of sugar in the mix. The commercial product I’m trying to match is approximately 75% sugar.
The scientific way of doing this is to measure ingredients by weight rather than volume. Naturally I didn’t do this and simply worked on a 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar mix.
As it turns out the 1:1 volume ratio gave the desired sugar content.
This is the hard bit. The commercial syrups will often use Vanilla essence rather than extract – and worse still they can use a completely artificial flavour! You could do the same of course but the whole idea here is to make a more natural product as well as save money.
To that end I used a Vanilla Extract concentrate which is not cheap but meets with my tasters approval.
How much to add is the question, it’s personal taste sure but to match our commercial product we’ve found it takes 7.5 to 10ml of Vanilla Extract per 250ml of water/sugar.
So we now have a 1:1:2 relationship. Thats:
1 Cup water
1 Cup Raw sugar
1.5-2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract.
The last part of the operation is the brewing. It turns out the most successful way of making this work is to slowly bring the sugar and water to the boil. The solution will be initially cloudy. There will be a scummy foam on the top.
Once it’s brought to the boil I allow it to simmer very slowly for at least 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Over then time the liquid will become clear (although it will still be dark due to the sugars colour).
Once the liquid is clear, and there’s no scummy foam on top (and at least 5 minutes have passed) I turn off the heat and add the vanilla. Stir the mix together and allow to cool to room temperature before decanting into a bottle for serving.
After scoring the deal of the century on flights and the Formula1 dates being announced I’ve been waiting for Sepang Circuit to put them on-sale.
When Sepang Circuit slipped the tickets on-sale last Monday I quickly secured some Topaz (Upper level, back straight) Grandstand tickets at an exceptionally good value 50% discount. For me this was an essential part of the trip plan as my travel insurance includes event cancellation and changes in its cover. Now if the Formula1 race is cancelled, postponed or moved I have some insurance to deal with it.
This has also meant that I’ve started feeling more comfortable about locking in the side-trips to LegoLand (yes I know I’ve been before) and for something different a couple of nights in Penang.
LegoLand is located down in Southern Peninsular Malaysia and a short distance from Singapore. So after a few days in Kuala Lumpur I’ll board my flight to Johor Bahru and spend 4-nights checking things out in a bit more detail. Flights were cheap, I initially tried searching using a few different engines like Zuji, Bravofly, Expedia and the trusty Skyscanner only to realise that sometimes making an effort to check directly with airlines pays off. Onto the Malaysia Airlines website I went!
So for 120RM I had return flights from KUL to JHB, including checked and carry on luggage. Even the normally competitive AirAsia couldn’t match that!
I’ve yet to book the accommodation for this side-trip. Naturally I’ll be resorting to my favoured standby of Hotels.com but this time will also add LastMinute, Expedia and a few others into the mix. Heck it may be time to forget my aversion to bad spelling at check out Otel.com!
The planning for my trip to Penang was a little different. With only a couple of nights “spare” in the itinerary and a desire to go somewhere different I hit up the usual suspects (Zuji, Bravofly, Expedia, Skyscanner) and once again settled on going direct with a twist.
Yes readers, I booked a flight on a smart phone via an airlines app! It was with Malaysia Airline again, and amazingly for the same 120RM Return that I was already paying to fly KUL to JHB. The MHMobile App worked very well right down to scanning my Credit Card!
A small “glitch” was having to populate all of my details into the App, I would have thought these would be imported from the profile I have with Malaysia Airlines Enrich Frequent Flyer Program. Still it’s not too hard to set put details in and make bookings.
To push the boat out in experience even further I used the Hotels.com App to book corresponding accommodation in Penang!
All done while enjoying a coffee with a work colleague!
The world of travel has come a long way in just a few short years and as I’ve now locked in some 6 nights outside of Kuala Lumpur it’s time to hit TripAdvisor and start to get some more ideas on what to do with the remaining 4 nights in KL.
