Avoid Quest on Eden serviced apartments

A recent advertising campaign by the Quest on Eden Serviced Apartments led me to believe that it was ideally located near the Vector Arena, and since some friends and my wife and I were attending a concert there, we decided to try it.

When I booked the room I wanted at the Quest on Eden, I spoke to Nancy, who was very friendly on the phone and advised me that I could have a two bedroom apartment for the night I required. I asked for an apartment with a King in one room and two singles in the other, as advertised on the Quest on Eden website.

Nancy told me that there were no rooms with this configuration available, but I could have a queen in one room and two singles in the other. This would do just as well, so I accepted and confirmed with my credit card. Nancy took my credit card details and also my mobile number and email address, so that she could email me my booking confirmation.

About half an hour later Nancy called me back to tell me that I had given her an incorrect expiry date for my credit card.  I knew this was not the case, and confirmed with my colleague who was present when I made the booking. I gave Nancy the correct expiry date, which I recalled, without checking the card again.

Approximately one week later when I had not received the confirmation of my booking from Quest on Eden, I called Nancy back to make sure that there hadn’t been any further problems with my credit card or booking arrangements. She confirmed that the booking was indeed made and that she had emailed me. When she read the email address back to me she had a J instead of a G as one of the characters, which as it is the first letter of my middle name I know I gave it to her correctly. I corrected the email address, and asked her to read it back to me. I again confirmed that the room was booked, and that we required a queen and two singles. It was agreed that the confirmation would be emailed to me again. To date, I have not yet received this confirmation from the Quest on Eden apartments.

Once we arrived in Auckland city, the Quest on Eden was easy to find, however at 1:30 pm on a Saturday, the reception was closed and the front door was locked. The intercom advised me that there was a lock box that had an envelope with my keys in it. It required a second call on the intercom to get the lock box opened properly.

After my poor check in experience in the cold weather on the front door step, negotiating the extremely tight car parking garage only added to my frustration.

On getting to our room, we were somewhat surprised to find a king in one room, and a queen in the other. My good friends are not *that* close. Immediately I called the front desk to enquire as to why the room was not as requested.  There was a lot of reluctance from the duty manager to do anything about it.

Somehow it was my fault that there was no entry on the booking sheet stipulating the sleeping arrangements and that all his housekeeping staff had gone home. Eventually a rollaway bed was installed in the master bedroom while we were at the concert.

The rest of the furniture in the room was cheap and of very poor quality. One chair was broken, which took everyone by surprise who sat in it. The electric kettle was serviceable, if nearly antique.

The room was clean and tidy, and the bathroom well kept, however there is not enough hot water for four adults to shower, without at least one person having a tepid one. The panoramic view from our balcony was directly into the window of the flat in the building next door that was within spitting distance.

The checking out experience was no better, where I learned that for the privilege of nearly scraping all the paint off my car to get into the car park I was charged $11.50. I told Nancy that I was not advised of this when I booked, nor when I checked in, to which she laughed and said “There’s no such thing as free parking in Auckland.”  Despite their listing on mytravelguide.com stating parking is free, and front desk is 24 hr. I have stayed many times in Auckland, for both business and leisure, and always parked for free, unless using the valet service.

The homeless people on the front door step were always in attendance, regardless of the weather, or what time we left or arrived, and seemed to be friendly, if a little unnerving. On no account would I have spent a second night at the Quest on Eden, nor will I ever stay there again.

I was very surprised to find on my return home that this complex is rated four stars by Qualmark. I have many times stayed in motels throughout the country that have rated two or three stars which have been superior to the Quest on Eden in every respect.  I have also stayed in other Quest serviced apartments in New Zealand and have received value for money and good service. This latest experience has certainly dented my faith in both organisations.

Shame on you America

Eugene Robinson of the Washington post says it far more eloquently than I could hope to, however the link is to a mirror as the WP site requires registration to read articles.  If you are a registered user, then check it out there:

More infuriating than anything President Bush said in his State of the Union address was what he didn’t say.  Congress and the nation heard nothing, zilch, nada, not a single, solitary word about New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and the devastation that remains from the worst natural disaster in United States history.

He goes on to say

That night, Bush promised that “we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities.” He vowed that “this great city will rise again.”

What kind of president can see one of the nation’s greatest, most historic cities ruined, and not make its rebirth his highest priority?

What kind of president gives a State of the Union and doesn’t even mention New Orleans?

What kind of nation lets this happen?  Are you all too consumed with tech lust for Wii, Iphone & Vista?

Star Wars Abridged

Since I seem to be on a youtube kick how about one of my all time faves:

with the sequel:

Interesting Commentary on social networks

Someone tell Sam Jackson he’s my bro

Classic

Jack of all trades?

Steven Hodson, over at Winextra often makes thought provoking posts on his blog, which is why I am a regular reader of his. (Disclosure: Steven is a friend of mine, and I have enjoyed participating in the community forum he runs for many years)

Today was no exception.  Earlier in the day I had read the scobleizer entry on Robert Scoble’s experiment in travelling with a politician on the campaign trail. Something about Scoble’s post bugged me.  I wasn’t sure what it was – it seemed reasonable enough, explaining where he’d been, what he saw, and how he thought the experience would fit with his future endeavours.   There was little of the usual whining.

Then I read Steven’s post, posing the question Is there really any depth to blogging?  I realized what it was that had been bugging me.   So following Steven’s advice I thought about it for a while as I shopped with my wife for gardening supplies, and did some yard work. (Like she was just going to let me sit down and type this instead of shopping – yeah right…)  So eventually I got to sit down and write about my thoughts.

Firstly, there is a reason why Dan Balz and his colleagues were able to sit down and pump
out column inches immediately after seeing and hearing the things they did.   Dan and others are political correspondents. Dan has been involved in the paper’s political coverage as a reporter or editor for the past 27 years.   He knows exactly how the events unfolding before him, fit in with the way he has reported them in the past.   He knows exactly how he needs to report them to fulfill his objectives, and those of his employer.

Dan Balz is not a tech geek blogger, he does not write reviews for Vista loaded Acer Ferraris, he doesn’t write about football, crashing his car, losing his camera, or the political arguments he has with his family. He and others of his profession write about politics.   They live and breathe it.   Somehow Scoble thinks he should be able to keep up with professionals at the top of their game, during the build up to an event that occurs only once every four years.   Maybe Balz even “tries to read your blog, but can’t understand it.

Secondly, where is the stimulus for Scoble to publish?  He already has the scoop, the whole thing was done with the utmost secrecy.  How many other tech geek bloggers accompanied Edwards on his campaign as Scoble did? If Balz were to delay and think things over for any length of time, then he would be scooped by the NYT, WSJ or some other member of the press entourage.

The reason Scoble gives for his presence is that he was there to report on “the Tech side” of the campaign.   Meanwhile he drip feeds his readers tidbits such as “Edwards likes Diet Sunkist” – I’m sure that will get the political staffers knocking your door down to get you “that unique interview that is different from the ones CNN can get.” If there were 4
other A-list bloggers on that same trip, and ratings and ad revenue depended on it, would you take a week to “process the video and audio stuff” you got?

Readers might like to know whether Edwards check his Gmail account religiously every 15 min, or gets some flunky to do it once a day. How much time does the man himself get to spend on matters relating to his facebook or myspace pages? These pages appear to give some kind of blogger cred to Edwards in Scoble’s eyes. Safer to stick to the Sunkist eh?

Perhaps Mr Scoble should follow the advice of readers of his blog and stick to writing about tech matters, which funnily enough he can probably start typing about the minute he finishes his interview/test. Maybe for his next experiment he could run with a sniper or IED guy in a combat zone.   Tell us how cool under pressure those guys are, and how he’ll never be able to calmly sit down at a laptop in the middle of a war zone after a firefight and write a blog like a milblogger can.

No strings attached

Well the whole of teh intarweb it would seem is running hot with the whole M$ Ferrari free review unit ethics debacle.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t think there is a problem with microsoft doing this.  Their ethics are only questionable in that some bloggers then have a hard time dealing with the equipment (too time-consuming to return with a no thank you note).

The ethics question only really comes into play with regard to disclosure. An ethical blogger will disclose the fact, no question.

To me it’s more a question of credibility.  If a blogger posts on their site that they have received a shiny ferrari laptop running vista, and it was the best ever user experience they have had, and go on to say how they came to have it and in fact they still own it, or gave it to their ex, or the homeless shelter or whatever, then that’s all dandy.  People may even rush out and buy one based on their recommendation.

If in a month’s time they mention the new office chair they have, and how great it is, and how wonderful the manufacturer is for sending them the chair, unsolicited and allowing them to keep it, or give it to their kid sister or the kid dumpster diving out back, that’s fine too.  i may even check it out, my wife needs a new chair.

Then say, hypothetically like, they post about this great cell phone that arrived in the post, unsolicited, and how vodafone sent it asking for a review, and how, by the way they are allowed to keep it.

If one were an astute reader, and perhaps even a conspiracy theorist, then one may believe that they can see a pattern forming.  The blogger’s ethics are unquestionable – full disclosure every time – great – fantastic even – stand up guy!

But would you buy a used car from this man?

I’ve read bloggers that do this often, many times they don’t disclose, certainly they didn’t in the days before the practice was widely known.  Their ethics suck.

I’m sure most of the people MS chose were good solid bloggers that have a good history of disclosure and well thought out reviews.  It would be a huge PR blunder not to.

Most will probably finish up with reputations intact, but it is up to us – the readers to let them know we don’t like being duped.
 

Geek Violence

Ed Bott really has got his nickers in a twist now. He

“calls BobH on his bad manners”

by saying

Well, Bob, %!@# you. And of course, by “you” I mean the generic “you.” Which is to say, you.

Even after BobH apologised to him and begged forgiveness. Now Ed says he would have punched Bob in the nose, given the opportunity!

Well Ed, your exception taken to Bob, was that he prefaced his comments with a generic “you” that you took personally (Disclaimer: I don’t know Bob).

I see Bob has plastered his same original comment on other blogs too. Perhaps you should go back to reading comprehension class and note that I used the clearly generic “one”, in a hypothetical sense.

The fact that you (specific, not generic) are so obviously pained by these comments suggests that perhaps you do have niggling doubt in the back of your mind somewhere about accepting/keeping/giving away/smashing etc the review unit.

If you truly seek to comprehend what I wrote in my previous comment, then you may notice that I did not mention ethics, but rather reputation and credibility.

Surely it is ethical to disclose that goods or services have been provided free of charge for the purposes of the review. The question for your readers then becomes one of whether or not there is bias in the review.

Would you donate the laptop to a charity anonymously, and not post mention of it in your blog? I doubt it. Somehow the posession of that laptop no matter how brief is likely to be used in way that elevates your social status.

On the question of ethics, would you consider it ethical to accept an unsolicited laptop, even to donate it to a worthy charity and NOT do a review about it, either good or bad?

Whatever…

OSX on a Zune?

So are the A-list blogs still “citizen journalists”? Or have they crossed over into becoming mainstream media?  Is there any requirement for them to verify claims made, or can they just post any old drivel?

Engadget, another one of the top blogs seems to be so hard up for news that they posted a rumour about the M$ zune being hax0red to run linux. No pictures, no source code, no verification. No shit?

That’s all very nice and all but at least I have an actual picture of OSX running on a zune. Yay me.

It didn’t even void the warranty

Yeah right…

Y’all are seriously sick

I just checked out the latest post on BoingBoing, reviewing their stats for 2006.  Given that this is supposed to be *THE* A-list blog, for the sWANKy hipsters of web 2.0, the list of top search keywords makes for telling reading.

The web is more than just pr0n

Yeah right….