Croissants

Friday morning I stopped at Starbucks on my way into the office. I picked up a latte and the Starbucks version of a "pain au chocolat." The coffee was fine, but that chocolate croissant was horrible. No crunch to it at all, just a bland, sticky piece of dough with chocolate chunks stuffed into it. Disgusting. Friday afternoon I took off for France, via Germany as you may have read below. I arrived in Cannes on Saturday night and had two lovely breakfasts since then. Freshly baked croissants, perfectly crunchy, and strong cups of coffee. Both times with a view of the Mediterranean. Cannes is great, a true old French city with some nice narrow streets and beautiful buildings. Some pictures so you can see for yourself:

Unlock your iPhone?

Walking around Cannes I came across a cell phone store advertising unlocking services for GSM phones and iPhones. One might think that's illegal, but it isn't and this store is located on a main thoroughfare, right across from a police station. (For those unfamiliar with "locked" cell phones: mobile operators typically subsidize phones and to guard their investment lock the devices to their networks. The phones can typically be unlocked by entering special codes or tweaking the memory, a service provided by the unlock shops.)

Frankfurt Stopover

On the way to Cannes, France, I stopped over in Frankfurt. With seven hours in between flights I had some time to explore the city and catch up with Saskia, the girlfriend of another Californian Dutchy Matthijs. Here are some pictures of Frankfurt, which I must say is generally a pretty ugly city and not recommended for a visit longer than mine :-)

Shuttle Nightmare Update

It took a while, and a threat to go to the media and consumer watch dogs, but South And East Bay Shuttle finally refunded me my $36 unused fare.

It was a bit funny. I sent a note threatening that I would take action and received a call a day later from the manager. She said that my refund had already been processed a week earlier and that she'd fax me the credit card credit slip to proof it. When I received the fax, the credit was processed that same day, not a week earlier.

I don't believe I would have received any refund without threatening to report the company to the Better Business Bureau, San Jose Mercury News Action Line and Consumerist.com. Also, the manager disputed my story and claimed there were several shuttles late that Sunday night that departed from SFO.

Well, I was the one out there for an hour and a half in the rain after midnight and I saw plenty of Super Shuttle vans, but only one South and East Bay van, nearly two hours after I first called them. And that van went to the East Bay, not the South Bay. I won't be taking a South and East Bay Shuttle anytime soon and recommend other travelers avoid the company as well.

The end of an era at CNET

In the past week CNET Networks announced that Jai Singh will leave the company. Jai was the founder/creator of CNET News.com and in the past couple of years was the overall editorial head for all of CNET's "red ball" Web sites including CNET.com, Download.com and News.com.

Jai started News.com back in 1996, when writers still used the word "nascent" along with "Web" and the bulk of the people around the world still had to discover the Internet. Jai was instrumental in making News.com the world's No. 1 tech news Web site. I was super proud when CNET hired me in 2005 to come work for News.com. Jai was one of the people I interviewed with.

It hasn't been easy for CNET in recent years. The "different kind of media compay" faces strong competition from sites such as Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch and Valleywag, not to mention all the tech pages in traditional media such as daily news papers and magazines. CNET has been working to reinvent itself, with News.com in particular joining the blogging fray and broading its coverage much beyond the hard core tech it used to focus on.

I left News.com last year and had a farewell lunch with Jai. We talked at length about News.com's course and competing with the blogosphere. Jai and I didn't agree, but the lunch was amicable. It will be interesting to see where News.com and CNET head now. The battle for the company's board and the call from outside the organization to focus, once again, on pure technology are fascinating.

I will always love CNET, watch where Dan Farber directs News.com. Dan is taking over News.com from Jai as editor in chief. Have fun Dan!