$150 Per Day For Broadband!?

I am in Dubai right now and my hotel charges 150 Dirhams (AED) for 24 hours of broadband. Although that is not quite as bad as it sounds, approximately $40 USD, it still is annoying considering I am staying at a hotel that has been voted one of the best business hotels in the Middle East. $40 and it isn't even Wi-Fi! It is an RJ 45 cable. Come on people! The hotels I have been staying at in London and Istanbul were not as luxurious as this and they both had free Wi-Fi.

Also, Flickr is blocked in this country. What the heck?

I don't have a good sense of what Dubai is like yet because we arrived at 2 a.m. so I slept until noon. It is hot and the city is full of cranes. I'll go exploring in a bit.

One cool thing about this resort is that it is so prestigious that a representative from the hotel met us at the gate and took us straight to the front of the visa line. That line would have otherwise took us an hour to get through but we got our passports stamped right away, then off to baggage claim, and then shuttled to the hotel in a towncar with cool towels waiting for us. Not too shabby!

T-Minus Four Days

I'm going on vacation on Friday. I'll be in Istanbul and Dubai for vacation but don't stop watching TeXtra. I have great shows lined up for while I'm gone!

Meanwhile, Episode 76 will be coming at you tomorrow!

TeXtra Episode 71

Here it is!

I really don't understand this BET story. Maybe I'm just not cool enough? I don't know.

We changed the lighting on the set a bit. I really like it! Enjoy!

Natali’s Birthday Resolutions (Involving my online persona anyway…)

I've been really crappy at posting to this blog. But no more! My birthday is tomorrow and it is time for me to be more consistent! I hereby resolve to be better at:

1. Social networking...yes, even MySpace.

2. Posting links to my freelance stories.
Such as the following WIRED article by yours truly.

3. Attending Silicon Valley events.

4. Answering emails in a more timely fashion.

5. Stop drinking so many Starbucks chai tea lattes! Oh wait, this is about tech.

Happy Birthday to me!

Under The Radar Conference

I was invited to the Under The Radar conference at the Microsoft Mountain View campus today. I was only able to attend the first half of the day because I am off to watch the Giants in Spring Training this weekend with my father. (Go Giants!)

Nevertheless, the first half of the conference was good. I liked the scheduling apps WAY better than all the wiki presentations. Note to presenters: when you say "the distinguishing feature of our application is our user interface," it essentially means, "We did what everyone else does, but we think we made it a little more aesthetically pleasing." Yawn!

See my coverage for PC Magazine here.