Tja wenn ich die Kanadische Regierung wäre…
dann würde ich auch auf der deutschen Webseite buchen….
Und ab geht’s in die Berge….
german - and not important content - ignore 
Mal n bisschen was für SEO tun - swoodoo startet jetzt mit der - natürlich allerbesten - Flugsuchmaschine für Billigflüge auch in Österreich und der Schweiz. Das ganze unter den Domains flugsupermarkt.ch und flugsupermarkt.at. Das war eigentlich schon die ganze Message.
Und wem das noch nicht genug ist - der darf sich die - trashige, aber coole - flugsupermarkt TV Werbung reinziehen.
Jetzt fühl ich mich besser. Und wie.
Book your holiday in the concentration camp?
Interesting title isn’t it ? Sounds macabre? It is!
During my work at swoodoo.com (german only, sorry) I accidentially stumbled upon translation issues concerning the city “Kaunas” (Lithuania) on other - travel related - webpages.
The city Kaunas was translated into “KZ Kauen“.
Actually “KZ” means “Konzentrationslager” == Concentration Camp. And “Kauen” is the old “Nazi” name for Kaunas. In Kaunas was the largest concentration camp in Lithuania where the Nazis killed around 25.000 people.
Interested in a hotel in the concentration camp?
More over - and this is the reason why I post this under the “PHP” flag - I want to show how dangerous it is to copy translations from other websites. Exactly this seemed to have happend - there is a bunch of websites out there who obviously copied from the same source.
Want a cheap flight into the concentration camp?
Or interested how the weather is in the concentration camp ?
And even worse - Adwords booked on the term “KZ Kauen”
I doubt that they booked this adword, most likely it is “Dynamic Keyword Insertion”… but nevertheless quite macabre.
If you are into I18n then you should take translation serious. Quite often translated webpages simply sound silly or funny, but as you can see in this example - sometimes it can be worse.
Dreambookers…
Nachdem ich den Artikel über Dreambookers bei Tourismus-Zukunft gelesen hatte wollte ich eigentlich auf ExcitingTravel ein Feature drüber schreiben. Nur darf ich nicht rein.
Ich bin schlicht nicht gut genug. Und nein 
es geht auch nicht mit einer anderen eMail Adresse…. Schade eigentlich…
Tadelloses Hören wird garantiert…
Wenn ich also bei fastbooking mein Hotel buche, dann kann ich besser hören ?
2 Ziele motivieren unsere Arbeit:
-, um Sie das genauste und verschiedenste Angebot möglich anzubieten
- um Sie eine Unterstützung und ein tadelloses Hören zu garantieren
Find ich super! Was ich da wohl höre?
Entschlüsselt ?
Ohne Worte.
BravoFly verwendet das neueste sichere Zahlungssystem SSL. Sobald Ihre Buchung bestätigt ist, werden Ihre Kreditkartenangaben übertragen und nach SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Standards in vertraulichem Modus ENTSCHLÜSSELT und für die Autorisierung verbunden.
Ach ja - die Grossbuchstaben für “ENTSCHLÜSSELT” sind Original und nicht von mir eingefügt.
Ryan Air’s CEO Michael O’Leary “Best Of”
The Guardian published yesterday a “Best of” O’Leary. Worth reading.
My favourites:
On the best way to settle his differences with Aer Rianta
With Semtex… preferably during a board meeting (2000)
On travel agents
Take the f**kers out and shoot them (2003)
You find them all here.
Beds and Blowjobs…
In the travel area this news is already a few days old. But as I suspect that the ones who read my blog do not follow the major travel blogs I decided to post it here.
Ryanair Pressconference with CEO Michael O’Leary in Düsseldorf. A Journalist asks about the configuration of Ryanairs planned long haul fleet. It’s just 90 seconds - worth to listen….
Incredible India - a PHP adventure - Part7
Ahhh 12 hours sleeping helped a lot. A really hot and looong night. I woke up a few times, switched on A/C for a couple of minutes and then felt asleep again.
I am really awake now
This morning we left the Green Meadow Resort. Actually this Hotel was quite cheap - we paid for two persons, 5 nights, including room service (we ordered some food) around 360,- Euros. I would say this is really ok. Hotel was ok, Garden really nice and food was super.
Talking about the prices in india. Actually you can get anything very cheap. But if you search for a decent level of comfort (and this hotel I would say was ok but more low-level) then you will have to pay a lot more. So either you opt for low to mid level or if you want business hotel standard like Novotel, Accor etc. then you will have to pay around 90-180 Euros a night. This is valid for Chennai - I heard that in Bangalore it’s even worse. You won’t get a good international standard room there below 300,- Euro a night.
Food is the same - you can get some food on the streets for a few cents - and if you go to a good restaurant (like the ones we’ve kindly been invited to) then you won’t make it below 50 euros p.P. - but you get much better food and service then I would get for the same money in germany.
What I want to say is that there is no real mid-level available. At least it seems so to me after this week. Either low level - or high level. I’ve seen nothing between. I might be wrong. Next time I will try to search for something mid-level.
India is a country of extremes in any area. We have extrem poor people and extreme rich. Did you know that the most expensive home was build in india? Mukesh Ambani created his new home and spent 2 Billion $ on it. Impressive isn’t it? 27 floors!
Here are the facts:
- 27 floors at 173.12 sqm.
- 6 floors for parking, Mukesh’s family has 168 imported cars.
- Facilities for athletics and a swimming pool, and a health club.
- Helipad at rooftop
And still he can’t hinder people peeing on the pavement around the house. This is india. Extremes everywhere.
Talking about outsourcing. Let me give you an advise. For your first meeting you should always plan enough time. Just jetting to some place, rushing into meeting, negotiating and then flying home is not a good idea. Often american companies do this - plan a 2-3 days stay where I opted for a week. For sure you can negotiate the business terms in this time - but there is no time for the people behind the business. And this is important as this is the key to success. If there will problems pop up during the project - and there are always some - then it helps a lot if you have established a good and trustworthy relationship to the people you do work with. If not - you will have to pay extra attention. To make it short - these few additional days in advance will pay off during the project. Believe me - I experienced all sorts of problems in the past and having some sort of trust and relationship can make these problems simply disappear.
Today we went to our new hotel - the Fishermans Cove in Mahabalipuram It is a really nice hotel, 5 stars (indian standard not international) but still really really nice and worth to stay. I just had a quick bath in the sea - bay of bengalen - and it was really nice. Waves quite high, too dangerous to swim but still refreshing though the sea was warm. With our hosts we traveled to a nearby temple which unfortunately was already closed but we could see enough from the outside. This was followed by some shopping of handcrafted goods - having locals that supports you when you negotiate, bring down the price by a factor of 5-10. I can tell you that I am definitely too stupid to negotiate the right price.
Later we were again invited for a fabulous dinner directly at the beach. A star sprinkled sky, the waves on the sea and the nice temperature supported by ice-chilled beer (remember that I promised to support the local airline industries? I do!) created a extraordinary experience.
Wow!
I really felt in love with india. Colorful, loud, noisy, quiet, beautiful and ugly. Everything in full loads. I love it! It’s hot and a lot of weird people running around - but it is also colorful, emotional and simply make me feel well. And the people are so incredibly friendly and hospitable.
Talking about PHP - we will see. In three months I will know a lot more about the skills and availability of the people india. Give me some time then I will have answers for you.
Tonight we will head back to good old germany.
Unfortunately my mobile phone died - the high humidity was probably too much for it. I still hope that I can make it work again, otherwise I won’t have any pictures for you ;(
I hope you enjoyed my diary
Incredible India - a PHP adventure - Part6
Tired, I am so tired. The game was great but now I have to survive the day.
This morning we had a lot of contractual discussion and finally agreed on the conditions. I think that we have achieved good conditions which are quite ok for us and on the other hand do not demand to much from our partner.
If you opt for a long term relationship like we do, it is quite important that everybody feels and __IS__ a winner. Otherwise there will be a certain point where any partner have to decide how to go on - and this is not useful as there is always a lot of investment in terms of time and energy in creating such partnerships.
So we went for lunch to 601 - a quite impressive place. I was totally enthusiastic about the food, the interieur and even the restrooms. But finally I am done - I can’t take any food any more - I feel soooo stuffed up. For sure I gained 2 kilos or even more. And finally I found the right things for my wife - if you make such a journey then it is very wise to bring something nice back. At least if you care about your wife
Then we left Tidel Park and head back to the hotel.
A few words about Tidel Park. This is the building where our company resides. It is a 12 floor, huge and impressive office building stuffed mostly with developers. Did I say 12 floors ? Oh yes and each floor has 1000 developers so in this building here there are 12.000 developers. During lunch time in cafeteria downstairs there are 8000 people waiting for food. We got delivered some sandwiches all the days - better than to join the crowd downstairs.
Today I feel very tired so I will go to bed quite early - 21:00 is not my usual time but I feel that I need the sleep. So today no long posting - sorry for that.
Let me close todays diary with some indian wisdom:
Age is a matter of mind and if you don’t mind it doesn’t matter.
(c) Praf