What’s next…the cheese bar?

by Jeffrey White on

I’m going to really try to not be too snide here, but occasionally one stumbles onto a “travel story” and must let out a little sigh, given all the other possible subjects in the world that might have made a worthy 1000-word feature story.

Forbes Traveler brings us its latest survey of the best restaurants in America to go for…cheese.

I am trying here, dear Gadling readers.

First off, the article by its very existence implies that Americans’ knowledge of the cheese world pretty much stops with Kraft Singles. But there is a more sinister implication to such a piece: Is cheese becoming the next arena for the snob?

I make allowances for oenophiles, who can be truly insufferable, simply because I like drinking good wine too much, and if you have one or two in you regular stable of friends you are far more likely to get hooked up with some good stuff free.

Beer fanatics and connoisseurs of other spirits (whiskey, tequila, sake) can be tolerated (same reason as above).

My best friend is somewhat of a “foodie,” or so the term goes these days, and yet his exacting standards on many cuisines and restaurants somehow does not allow the overall joy of eating a meal together to seep from the table.

I’m not so willing to accept cheese aficionados into the fold, though.

To be sure, the world of cheese is as varied as that of any specific spirit, with distinct origins, scents and tastes to consider. I even like the cheese plate (or cheese course) that caps off a lot of European meals, though it was hard for me to get used to consuming so much dairy after the real task at hand.

My objection to such a piece is that I feel another snob trend is very much afoot, and I’m not sure there’s room for it. (A secondary objection might just rest in the fact that I can’t imagine pitching to an editor such an article along the lines of, Hey! Where can you go for the best cheese in America?!)

Cheese snobbery is probably already among us, I realize that. And it will be harder to deal with. After all, the chief antidote for dealing with a drink snob is to, well, drink more. I’m thinking of a Kingsley Amis line right now that says something along the lines that a booze bore begins to make sense after the third round.

So, you can dull your senses in this case.

But what happens when the person across from you has his nose dancing across a piece of smoky Auvergne gaperon? Or English Caerphilly?

Soon, he (or, to be fair, she) will start telling you that the next time you’re in Louisville, you must sample Kenny’s Kentucky Blue cheese at the venerable Seelbach Hotel. Or that the scrumptious Virginia cheese plate at the Inn at Little Washington is to die for.

What will take the edge off this? Fondue? Hey, it’s got schnapps…

Postscript: I didn’t pull the above reference of Auvergne gaperon out of my own knowledge of cheese. It’s highlighted in the ridiculous Forbes story about cheese I reference, as presented at La Panetière in Rye, N.Y.

The piece says that this noble cheese goes particularly well with “the 1914 Château Latour brought up from the award-winning cellar.” If you want more evidence that such silly features are out of touch with most travelers, consider that the wine mentioned goes for, oh, about $3,000.

However, if you’re willing to bring me in on that bottle, then I’ll listen to you talk about cheese all night long.

Product review – CradlePoint PHS300 personal wireless hotspot

by Scott Carmichael on

Let me open with a warning; this article is full of buzzwords and acronyms, but I promise to try and keep things as simple as possible.

The CradlePoint PHS300 is a pocket wireless internet router. Unlike other routers, that get their Internet access from your cable company or DSL provider, it connects using a cellular broadband modem.

Still with me?

To get access to the Internet using your mobile operator, you have several options; you can purchase a phone with Internet Access built in (like an Apple iPhone). You can also use a mobile phone with “tethering” capability, which involves physically connecting your mobile phone to your computer, or you can purchase a stand alone “cellular modem”.

If you need mobile Internet access on your PC, and you are not within range of a public Wi-Fi hotspot, you’ll have to go with tethering, or a cellular modem. However, both methods have several disadvantages:

  • You usually need to install special software on your computer.
  • The (often expensive) connection can only be used by one person at a time.
  • Reception is often lacking, as your modem will be away from the window, where the cellular signal is usually the strongest.
  • Battery life of your computer is severely impacted when you use a 3G modem card plugged into it.

The Cradlepoint PHS300 fixes these issues by moving the wireless connection away from the PC. To connect to the Internet, you simply plug your compatible phone or cellular modem into the router, turn it on and you instantly turn the combination into a portable battery powered wireless hotspot. Brilliant.Connecting to the Internet is as easy as turning on your laptop (or Wi-Fi enabled smartphone) and connecting to the wireless network name being broadcast by the Cradepoint router, just like connecting to any other Wi-Fi hotspot. Since this is a regular WI-Fi connection, more than one person can connect to the signal, but you’ll of course have to share the speed with anyone else online with you.

The CradlePoint PHS300 router weighs just 4 ounces. The device has 2 connectors, one switch and a couple of LED light indicators. The 2 connectors are for power and for your USB cellular modem/phone. The switch powers the device on (or off) and the LED’s show the power,charging status and the connection status of the Wi-Fi and the cellular modem connections.

In this day and age it is a rarity when I come across a device that really delivers on the whole “plug and play” promise. In my first test, I plugged my modem card into the PHS300, turned the device on, and 30 seconds later I had my laptop connected to the Internet using AT&T. There were no settings to mess with, and I was even able to skip reading the manual.

Your connection is secured using 2 methods; with a common (shared) password, or with regular Wi-Fi security (WEP or WPA). Changing the settings on the device is done through your web browser, but fear not, most of these settings are only for advanced users, if you just want to get online, you won’t have to deal with them. When the situation requires it, you can create a password that can be shared by others, which is perfect if you need a quick and dirty Internet connection for more than one person in a meeting room or airport lounge.

The PHS300 is powered by an internal Lithium-Ion (user replaceable) battery pack, extra batteries are $29.99. Battery life is rated at around an hour and a half with a USB modem, or up to three hours with a tethered phone (which of course has its own battery). Included in the package is a regular AC adapter. A car charger is available directly from CradlePoint for $24.99.

The speed of your connection will of course depend on your modem and the network you are using.

In my first test, I connected to AT&T Wireless, using a Merlin XU870 modem card. In this test, my download speed was a comfortable 1281 kbps. In my second test, I connected to AT&T using a tethered smartphone (an HTC Touch Dual). This time the speed shot up to 1427 kbps, which is faster than many people have on their home broadband connection. I then used the Merlin card with a T-mobile subscription, and only reached 152kbps (T-mobile does not have 3G in my area yet).

For my final test, I connected to Sprint using my HTC Mogul smartphone. Let me say up front that CradlePoint fully admit that this phone is not the most reliable option for tethering, as Windows Mobile is considered too buggy to always keep a connection active. Despite the warning from CradlPpoint, I did not experience any loss of connection. The only difference between using a modem card, and tethering, is that I had to manually enable the tethering setting on my phone.

Here are the speeds I reached when using the CradlePoint PHS300 with my various phones:

  • AT&T 3G with an HTC Touch Dual: 1427kbps
  • AT&T 3G with a Merlin XU870 card: 1218kbps
  • Sprint EVDO Rev.A with a Sprint Mogul: 831kbps
  • T-mobile EDGE with a Merlin XU870: 152kbps

Of course, these numbers are fairly meaningless to most people, so let me just say that the speed on AT&T and Sprint was perfectly acceptable for most Internet applications, on the AT&T connection, things just felt much faster, pages loaded almost instantly and I was even able to view a couple of Youtube video clips, albeit with a slight delay at the beginning where the player buffers the clip.

CradlePoint offers several other models of cellular broadband routers including the CTR500 which has an internal Expresscard slot for the modem card as well as a network port for connecting your laptop through a wired connection.

All in all I am immensely impressed with the CradlePoint. At $179 it is the perfect solution for anyone who has dealt with the buggy connection software from their mobile operator, or who has watched their laptop battery die in an hour when they were surfing the web from the airport lounge. With most mobile operators charging between $60 and $80 per month for a wireless broadband connection, frequent users of paid hotel or airport Wi-Fi will easily be able to save a substantial amount every month. The biggest advantage of course, is being able to turn this device on, and have instant wireless Internet access for more than one person.

London notes: The city is cracking down on knife-wielding thugs

by Jeffrey White on

People in Britain like to point out how relatively uncommon, if not to say unheard of, gun violence is in their country. What they tend to overlook is that you are far more likely to get a knife stuck in your ribs.

OK, that’s a bit of an overstatement. But here in Europe’s largest city they are cracking down on knives in a big way.

Last night, surfacing from the Angel Underground stop at around 8 p.m., I saw at the station’s entrance police hastily setting up portable metal detectors — two of them — through which they would choose people at random to walk.

Others seeing this might have been confused at first. But only the night before, walking through Leicester Square in London’s tourist-heavy West End, I came across the same kind of checkpoint: Two metal detectors right in the middle of one of the square’s thoroughfares, maybe eight police officers, and a line of mostly younger-looking night revelers who had all been stopped and told to walk the line, so to speak.

It was a seriously odd sight in the middle of the heavy flow of foot traffic, these detectors, surrounded as they were by the humming clubs, theaters and pubs of the district. It seemed almost funny. I stopped and asked an officer what was going on.

“Metal detectors,” he said.

“I can see that. But what are you looking for?”

“Knives.”

London is about three months into a massive initiative to curb a significant surge in knife violence this year, which has already claimed the lives of nearly 25 Londoners, mostly teens.

Just last night, a man was stabbed in the South London neighborhood of Brixton, and a youth was stabbed to death in east London.

Local surgeons here are telling newspapers that roughly one in three trauma patients they see these days are victims of a stabbing.

The Evening Standard recently did a survey of city hospitals and reports that there have been 424 patients treated for stab wounds this year, and calls roughly half of them serious cases. Royal London Hospital alone has seen 100 serious stabbing victims so far this year (compared to 71 this time last year). London’s Helicopter Emergency Service tells the Standard that it has treated 121 stabbing victims, of which 19 died on the scene. Medics say they’ve performed open heart surgery on 10 patients on London’s streets this year.

What’s going on?

Gang violence has been on the rise, and this being a decidedly antigun society (pretty much any gun is illegal here), knives are often the weapon of choice. That in turn drives others to carry knives on them for protection.

“A lot of people think that it’s better to be safe than sorry, and the only way they can be safe is maybe if I carry something, you know,” Londoner Leila Shire tells The Washington Post.

Out walking yesterday, I asked a few Londoners what was behind all these stabbings. Were the streets becoming unsafe? Some say yes, some say no.

“I wouldn’t say Londoners are that worried,” said a man named Harold Baker. “I think there is this feeling that these troubles are happening far removed from the center.”

“So, out of sight, out of mind?”

“You just asked whether I’m worried. I can’t say that I really am, no,” he said.

I put the same question to a woman who gave her name as Margaret and said she lived near Croydon — a decidedly doggier area of London — and had three children. “You just worry about kids,” she said. “No parent would want their children carrying weapons.”

Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown in June said teenagers as young as 16 caught carrying knives could face prosecution (the age used to be 18, and they usually first received a warning).

It’s unclear whether this metal detector and stop-and-search campaign has had much of an impact since revving up this past May. That month, police randomly sopped 4,200 youths and found 5 percent carrying knives, according to the Post. No recent data has been published.

Authorities say they are still letting most off with warnings. And police say overall knife crime countrywide has actually decreased 16 percent from last year (though London incidents look to be on the uptick), despite the fact that those involved in knife crimes these days increasingly turn out to be kids in their mid-teens, says the Post.

Photo of the Day (08/25/08)

by Abha Malpani on

I’m a total sucker for street performances, especially when I travel, and especially if it’s something cultural – I always stop and watch! This shot has been taken by user jonjanegoin on Nanjing Road in Shanghai, China. Its simplicity makes it so real — and he’s managed to capture a moment with as much precision as possible.

Want your photo featured on Photo of the Day? Submit it to the Gadling Flickr pool for consideration.

Barenaked Ladies frontman survives plane crash

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Ed Robertson, the lead singer of popular Canadian band Barenaked Ladies, survived a crash of his Cessna 206 yesterday, in an accident that involved Robertson and three others. The plane, piloted by Robertson, was traveling over a rural area of southeastern Ontario when its engine stalled unexpectedly.

Robertson managed to set the plane straight and land it among some trees. The four passengers were forced to exit through a window but were not injured.

Robertson hosts a show on the Outdoor Life Network called “Ed’s Up,” which documents Robertson’s plane trips.

This should make for an interesting episode, huh?

More here.