Dealmaker Subscription Card

I normally don’t pay much attention to the 62 subscription cards that fall out of each magazine I read, but the subscription card for Dealmaker magazine caught my eye.  It asks the normal questions regarding name, address, etc., but then has a few oddities:

1. There isn’t a price or subscription length mentioned anywhere on the card.  As the old saying goes, I guess “if you have to ask…”
2. They force you to write your Visa, Mastercard, or AMEX number, expiration date, and signature right on the back of the card!  There isn’t an option for “Bill Me Later” that might protect your personal information.
3. In small print under the billing information, they state, “Guarantee: We will never rent or sell your name or personal information.”  Yeah, you may not, but what about my mailman?

I guess one could always send the subscription card in an envelope, but then that kind of defeats the purpose of Business Reply Mail, doesn’t it?

Mike Holmes

I have gotten many hits over the last month or so from people wondering what happened to Holmes on Homes on TLC.  The show mysteriously disappeared from the channel’s line-up in September and has yet to re-surface on any of the Discovery networks.

I queried TLC Viewer Relations and received a response that Holmes on Homes is finished airing “for this season.”  That’s not much information, but it doesn’t seem that they have pulled the plug on the show - at least at this time.  Holmes on Homes continues to air on HGTV and BBC in Canada, so I take that as a good sign that Mike will eventually return to the U.S. TV line-up - even if it is on a Discovery network other than TLC.

Bedroom

Getting There & Parking

The hotel is about a $45 cab ride to/from O’Hare, including tip, for up to 4 people.  Overnight valet parking is $44 at the hotel and $32 at the nearby self-park, so planning to take taxis can actually be as cheap - or cheaper - than renting a car and paying to park.

Checking In

Check-in was quick and efficient.  We arrived early (around noon) and did not have to wait in line.  I asked for - and received - an “upgraded” room, which was a corner room on the 30th floor of the hotel.  Other times of day, I did witness short lines at reception, but it seemed as though everyone’s check-in/check-out was handled promptly.

Bathroom with Separate WC

The Room

The hotel is designed and decorated in a modern style.  Our room consisted of a bedroom and bathroom, which were in a slightly different configuration, since we were in a corner room.

Upon walking through the door, a short hallway led to the bedroom.  The bedroom contained a relatively comfortable bed, 4-door closet (containing space for hanging clothes, drawers, shoe storage, and in-room safe), desk, chaise lounge, and a small table.  The desk and the mirror on the wall behind it were rendered fairly useless by the flatscreen television, which was nice, but seemed like an afterthought in the design of the room.

Desk and Flatscreen Television

The bathroom door was on the right, along the outer wall (next to the windows).  The bathroom featured lots of marble, a single vanity, tub, an oversize shower, and separate water closet.

Overall, the room interior was well-executed and about what you would expect for a roughly $300+/night hotel in downtown Chicago.

Dining

The hotel’s single restaurant, Cafe Des Architectes, is open daily from 6am-11pm.  Breakfast was the only meal we ate there, but it was delicious and reasonably priced - particularly for a high-end hotel restaurant.  There are many other restaurants within walking distance or a short taxi ride of the hotel,

Bathroom Vanity

so dining choices shouldn’t be a problem.

Bar

The hotel features two bars: a small, 4-seat bar at the Cafe Des Architects (perfect for a quick drink, since it was normally empty), and the larger Le Bar.  Le Bar is open from 3pm-2am and was standing-room-only the two nights we were there (our party somewhat contributed to that on one of the evenings).

Overall

The Sofitel Chicago is a solid choice for travelers looking for an upscale oasis in Chicago.  The rooms, staff, and on-property food and beverage were all good.  My one possible complaint would be if I were having to park a car at the hotel, but that is much the same at any other property in the downtown area.  If you are a leisure or business traveler and can wait to make your reservation, the Sofitel website seems to offer fairly significant price drops as dates approach.

Related Links

• Sofitel Chicago Water Tower Website
• Trip Advisor Reviews

One of the only remaining worthwhile shows on the now-defunct Discovery Home Channel (the other being License to Grill) has moved to TLC.

Each week, Mike Holmes and his crew tackle another home construction or (more often) home improvement nightmare left behind by an unscrupulous contractor.  In the end, the homeowner gets what they originally paid for and the viewers get numerous tips for avoiding the same situation, as well as the proper way to do many common home repairs and improvements.

Mike’s tips have come in handy for this new homeowner and you can’t help but enjoy someone who takes great pride in their work.  We all should have the same commitment to our customers that Mike has to the homeowners on each show.

Holmes on Homes airs each Saturday night @ 10pm Eastern in the US on TLC.

For more information, visit:

Holmes on Homes @ TLC

Holmes on Homes Web Site

Probably the most sickening thing about these commercials once you really sit and think about it is the amount of money that someone made off of pitching this crap!  Where do I sign up?

Throughout the past few years, I have used or tried out Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera, NetVibes, NewsHutch (defunct), and FeedLounge (defunct) before finally settling on Google Reader as my feed reader of choice. Google’s product started off as an awful mess that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone, but has progressed into probably the best web-based feed reader available. I say that because of it’s easy-to-use interface, Firefox integration, and the integration with the Google suite of products that make it easy to access.

My own feed reading activities have progressed to the point where I’m somewhat of a feed junkie - although probably nowhere near the level of the truly tech-obsessed. In a typical week, I cover a few thousand entries across my feed subscriptions. A fairly low percentage are actually interesting to me (as you can see, I’ve only read about 600 entries in a month).

Over the past few months, I’ve become a disciple of the “read feeds in batches” school of thought. Feed reading can waste a lot of productive time if it’s done frequently, but if I can wake up early on the weekend and plow through a thousand feeds while I drink coffee, I think that’s a productive use of my time. Granted, some items are fairly old (in web time) by then, but there are few things in feeds that need to be known or acted upon the same day.

If you’re a Google Reader user, check out the “Trends” link in the left sidebar. The statistics are interesting, and in the case of the “Inactive” Subscriptions trends tab, useful. I monitor this tab to see when it’s time to unsubscribe from a feed because it’s no longer producing any useful updates within a 3- to 6-month timeframe. You can also use the “% Read” statistic to see if there are feeds that are no longer of interest and just eat up time. Anything below 10-33% is probably not worth continuing to read - depending on the number of site updates.

I hope to see a few more of you subscribing to my feeds!

Zeldman on the Vanishing Personal Site

Bloggers are now outsourcing. Photos go to Flickr, short bits to Twitter, links to Del.icio.us or other services, and it affects how centralized our experience is for our readers. I’m a fan of the all-in-one site, but I don’t post a lot of non-text content at this point, so we’ll see if I can put up with the “pain” of developing my own services when I get to that point!

Our seats were in the “Red Porch” center field lounge section of the stadium and I was very impressed with the experience. I wouldn’t normally think of the last row in center field as a great seat for the game, but as you can tell from the picture, the view was very good. In fact, all of the seats look as though they would have a pretty much unobstructed view of the field. Due to the more vertical nature of the upper deck construction, those seats also have a closer view of the field than older stadiums.

The center field lounge seats offer in-seat food and beverage service from a limited menu (burgers, hot dogs, chicken tenders, snack foods, beer, wine, and mixed drinks). The Thursday night crowd in the section wasn’t huge, so I would worry about the service level if it were packed, as they only had two servers to take orders. Our server indicated that she had been the only server the previous night and the section had been full! The good news is that once your order is placed, the food and beverage seem to magically appear with almost no wait time.

Another great aspect of the center field lounge seats was the ability to stand up, hang out and watch the game. In fact, I never sat down throughout the entire game, although the padded seats looked comfortable. The $67 ticket price included $20 worth of food or merchandise credit, which won’t get you very far at the game, but overall was a decent value for the seating, view of the game, and the service.

The Nationals have a beautiful new stadium, so let’s hope they can put a decent product on the field for the local fans. Even if you’re not a Nationals fan - which I’m not - it’s worth a trip to check out the stadium and have a good time!

I couldn’t tell you the last time I played pinball - not because I don’t enjoy it, but because I don’t see it anywhere (as the article states). I’m sure this is a fun place to work, however!

Haggling Tips from a Pro

Good negotiating skills are critical in business. Start getting your feet wet in retail situations.

Related Article from NY Times

Farm Economy Going the Way of Housing?

Rising land and commodities prices are prompting many farmers to over-extend themselves. We’ve seen how well that worked out with home buyers in (previously) hot markets. How will it play out in the farming industry?

San Francisco Not So Ideal for Tech Start-Ups

I’ve often wondered how being in the incredibly-expensive San Francisco metroplex was beneficial to a tech start-up. High initial costs are not known to be a good thing for any under-capitalized business. As David Heinemeier Hansson explains, it probably isn’t beneficial if you’re looking to build a lasting business with real value.

I can’t say that there are any real surprises here. Basically, the structure of CEO equity packages tend to put them at odds with long-term investors because they only need a (relatively) short-term jump in the stock price to be set for life.

Veerle on Adobe Kuler’s New Feature

Adobe Kuler - a web-based color palette tool - introduces the ability to upload a picture and have a color palette extracted from it. Very helpful for designers of all colors ;-)

Tips for Locking Down Your Mac

It’s fun for us Mac users to laugh at lowly Windows users (particularly those stuck with Vista), but we still need to remain vigilant.

Weak Rivets May Have Sped Titanic’s Sinking

Apparently, quality control in iron rivets wasn’t what it used to be.