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Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe
The Travel Technologist · April 13, 2000

Since it isn't feasible to write a follow-up to every Travel Technologist column, I often roll all of the engaging questions and comments from the last several weeks into one in enormous journalistic joint and light up, figuratively speaking.

So get your cigar cutters ready, friends. Here we go:

"I am on my third model of ThinkPad and I think they make good boat anchors," writes Doug Taylor in response to the story about one of IBM's faulty laptops. "The best one I had was my last one, which worked fairly reliably until I tried speech recognition software on it. I still fondly remember my Toshiba which I had six years ago."

Say, Doug, do you really mean that about the boat anchor? Because I have lots of friends who are divers and they're just crazy enough to try using a ThinkPad for a kedge. It would give a whole new meaning to the term "Big Blue," don't you think?

"Play fair!" warned reader Michael Zimet. "I always try to look at the bigger picture - is [the] experience symptomatic of a trend at IBM, where customer service ain't what it should be? Or, in today's world of extremely complex OS's and apps, is this a messy set of conflicts, mismatched drivers and DLLs? Why blow up his experience and make it sound like IBM is no good?"

OK, Michael. Let's say most ThinkPads don't blow up on the launch pad, as poor Steve Holden's did. Let's also ignore sentences like, "In addition, IBM is really at the top of its game, as the only vendor with 7 consecutive 'A' ratings from PC Magazine's coveted service and reliability survey." Do you think my conclusion, that IBM "can do better" is unfair?

Dan Hahn, a system engineer for a phone company in Schaumburg, Ill., took issue with my column on Internet connectivity in which I claimed a hotel's definition of "wired" doesn't always match up with a guest's.

"Hotel chains need to be enlightened on the great opportunity they are missing out on. I think they need to look at it like the cable TV they provide," he says. "How many people actually ask how many channels they get? Travelers don't ask and don't care, but if they turn on the TV and they don't get more than eight channels, they check out."

His idea: Why don't more hotels offer an Internet connection through cable modems?

For the umpteenth time, Dan, that's not the way the hotel business works. Every decision is made with one question - how much money will it make? - in mind. I'm convinced that customer needs are secondary. In other words, if ripping up the walls and stringing fiber through a property is more of a moneymaking proposition (as I suspect it may be in some cases) you can bet a hotel will do it. Never mind what's more convenient or cost-effective for a visitor.

"I believe $5 to $10 a day is a fair price to pay for a high-speed connection," writes Steve Spearman. "It's much better than the wretched per-minute fee that many hotels charge for toll-free and local calls over 30 minutes. I don't have to disconnect and it's a fixed cost I can live with."

Better yet, he suggests, why not incorporate the costs of connectivity in the club-level floors that cater to frequent travelers?

That would be a good start. But let's not forget that connectivity isn't a luxury anymore. We're not wowed by T-1 access the way we used to be. Dual-line "dataports" don't excite us. In fact, they infuriate some of us. Two RJ-11s imply adequate infrastructure to handle all the extra calls, and considering the fact that hotel chains like Hilton and Starwood sock guests with surcharges of up to 10 cents a minute for longer calls because they need to pay for new capacity, the plugs represent nothing more than an empty promise.

"I think Uncle Bill [Gates] has said that that Microsoft is never more than two years away from failure," writes Ivor Purser, reacting to my commentary about computer operating systems. "Whether you believe that or not, I think it's a great attitude. I detest dealing with organizations whose culture is so arrogant - for example, Dell - that they think they are always going to be number one."

I have two thoughts on Uncle Bill's pearls of wisdom, Ivor. First, I doubt he means "fail" in the sense that we think he means. When you're worth a couple of billion dollars, your definition of "failure" is everyone else's idea of filthy rich (as opposed to obscenely rich). My second thought is that thanks to Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, the clock is ticking.

"I will not use any variation of Windoze," adds Carl Gehr. "I'm not a Mac user, and I'll gladly wait to see if Linux ever matures. You see, I am one of the several million OS/2 Warp users who are quite happy with my very stable, clean and easy to use operating system. Just for kicks, you ought to try it some time. You might even become a believer yourself."

Yeah, you never know. I haven't used OS/2 that much, but I've liked what I've seen. Maybe if the government follows through with its threat to deal with the Microsoft monopoly, then OSs like Warp will stand a fighting chance.

All of which brings us full circle back to IBM. To its credit, a representative named Charles Christy from its "Integrated Technology Services" division e-mailed me while I was writing this column. He wanted the serial number on Steve Holden's laptop and pledged to "look into the case history of this issue." I passed the request on to Holden, who, last time I checked, was about to ship the unit back to IBM - yet again.

But this doesn't explain the unusual headline, which only fans of Belgian surrealist René Magritte (and readers who know French) will recognize. I'm referring to the bizarre 1929 painting The Treachery of Images which displays a picture of a pipe with the French subtitle "This is not a pipe." (By the way, if you want to see the pipe, it's on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.)

Well, look at it this way: If I'd called my story "Another column of follow-up comments" would you have read it? Besides, if you think about it for long enough, the title works nicely with my cigar metaphor.

You can put that in your pipe and smoke it.

E-mail me with your opinions at chris@elliott.org and I'll include them in a future column. As always, please include your full name, city of residence and what you do for a living.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. The Travel Technologist appears weekly on this site. This story was also published on Biztravel.com.