I am very keen to test both services, Worldmate and TripIt on my upcoming holiday to Europe and compare the two. My biggest concern is offline functionality, as no one wants to pay roaming charges in another country just to check what time their flight leaves! TripIt’s offline capability was buggy when it first came out, but seems to be stable now. There is no mention on the Worldmate site about the offline capability of their app.

Check out the Worldmate iPhone app here

Urbanspoon iPhone App

So how do you make sure that your business is listed on Urbanspoon?

Good news, it’s easy and free!

First check to see if your business is listed by searching at Urbanspoon. If it is already there, update as much information as possible and include photos, menus and anything else that is relevant.

If your restaurant is not currently listed, simply visit the Add restaurant link at Urbanspoon and fill in as much detail as you can.

That’s it! You will now appear on Urbanspoon (usually in around 24hours), and most importantly on peoples’ iphones when they are looking for somewhere to go.

Links:
Urbanspoon
Download Urbanspoon for the iPhone at the Apple store .

I am about to head off on my first trip to the Northern Territory. I can’t believe I have never been there before. I am armed with my eee PC and iphone so I will attempt to blog about my travels on the way.

I’ll be posting photos directly from my iPhone to my travel map. Fingers crossed I’ve set everything up correctly!

• Archive Pages
• Bookmarking
• Excluding a Page from Navigation
• Incorporating Google Analytics and Sitemaps
• RSS Feeds

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Archives Page

I wanted a simple page, with a list of all my posts.  I don’t have that many yet, so I didn’t want to have a complicated drop down system.   I tried many plugins, but most of them required another plug-in to execute php code within a page or post; or I simply couldn’t get them to work.   Finally I found Clean Archives Reloaded and it was the only plugin that was dead simple and I could get to work in under 5 minutes.

Wordpress Post Archive List

Example: Archives on Kristi Barrow Ramblings

Download: Clean Archives Reloaded

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Bookmarks

Sociable is a great plugin to allow your readers to easily bookmark your posts.  You can choose from over 100 sites and decide which page types you would like the bookmarklets to appear.

Sociable Options for WordPress

Example: Check the bottom of this post!

Download: Sociable

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Exclude Pages from Navigation

I needed a way to exclude a page from the navigation.  This was necessary as I was creating a page to display Google Search results.

(There is a great post on how to create a Google Search Page for WordPress here by Liew Cheon Fong (LcF) HERE Google AdSense Search Results within WordPress Pages)

I found a simple plugin from Simon Wheatley’s WordPress plugin section that adds a simple check box to exclude the page from the Navigation

Example: Google Search on Kristi Barrow Ramblings

Download: Exclude Pages

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Google Analytics and XML SiteMap

The easiest way to set up Google analytics was with CaveMonkey’s Google Analyticator plugin, you just need to input your UID. A great sitemap generator plugin comes from Arne Brachhold,  which allows you to set many options and is simple to install.

Example: Estonians in Australia Sitemap

Download: Google Analyticator and Google XML Sitemaps

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RSS

Feedburner is a must for any blogger, and I found the quickest way to set this up was using Feedburner Feedsmith from Feedburner themselves.

Example: Kristi Barrow Ramblings syndicated by Feedburner

Download: Feedburner Feedsmith

Here is a list of things that I always ended up taking with me.  The few times I omitted something on this list, I would end up cursing myself on a plane, in a hotel room at Narita airport, a random bar in Seattle, a post office in Toronto etc.

BTW – I originally started this as one long post but it got a bit out of control.  I have split it up into 4 parts: useful gadgets; fun gadgets, services and stuff.  Here is part 1:

Useful Gadgets

Portable wireless router

Portable Wireless Router not much bigger than my passport

I paid around 7,000 YEN for this back in Feb 07 which was about $75AUD at the time.  A little bit tricky as it is all in Japanese – but I muddled through it with a few calculated guesses.

A portable wireless router is very useful for hotel rooms with non existent or flaky Wi-Fi connections.  Or even better, when the broadband cable doesn’t reach to a desk, or  a power point for your laptop!

A classic example of this was when I stayed at the Vibe Hotel in Surfers Paradise.  I had to sit cross legged in the middle of the floor, with the laptop connected to the broadband cord one side, and a power cord from the opposite wall.  My poor laptop looked as if it had been strung up.  I tried to take a photo, but couldn’t even fit the ridiculousness into one frame.

Also, having a router means you can share the Internet connection via an Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi.  Since most hotels charge upwards of $20 a day (The most expensive I have paid was $39.95 with excess charges above 200mb!), it can be useful for friends to check their email using their own devices.  I think this will come in very handy with the iPhone since most hotel rooms still only have decent wired broadband access.

Travel snaps for:

• Freedom to roam around your hotel room
• Ability to share connections amongst friends/colleagues
• Useful to carry with iPhone for hotel rooms with only wired connections

Alternatives:

• ‘Borrow’ bandwidth from open W-Fi Networks
  This did work for me once in suburban Barcelona, but I had to balance precariously on the window sill, 3 floors up.  Generally I find  Wi-Fi connections in hotel rooms pretty crap all over the world.
  

Noise Cancelling Headphones

Cheap noise cancelling headphones - do the trick

Obviously I had been lusting over the $500 BOSE noise cancelling headphones, but couldn’t justify the money.  These Sony Headphones are great (but clearly no where near the quality of more expensive devices) and I picked them up at Narita airport for around $50.  They do they job and make a big difference on that hellishly long flight between SYD and LAX.

Travel snaps for:

• Drowning out the constant roar of the aircraft
• Only requires 1 AAA battery and lasted the pacific flight with spare juice
• An In flight adaptor for us plebs who sit in economy is invaluable (make sure you have one of these)

Alternatives:

• Ear plugs

Power-board

Don't get caught short when you need more power!

I think this is one of the most underrated useful gadgets ever!  As we accumulate more and more things, we need more and more power, battery life and ability to charge!  Carrying an Aussie power-board means I only have to carry one country adaptor with me for each country I visit.  I can then charge or power my phone, laptop, camera, Nintendo, router etc without any problems .  I usually carry a 4 plug board, but now I think it’s time to upgrade to a 6 plug, just to be sure!

Travel snaps for:

• Charging multiple devices with one power adaptor
• Lightweight
• Range of sizes fro 2 plugs (aka a double adaptor) to 8 or even more!

Alternatives:

• Additional Aussie to X country adapters.  I have collected numerous adaptors, but since the UK, Europe, and the US are all different it gets pretty expensive if u need 3 adaptors for each device

Warnings:

• Be careful of voltage.  Luckily most devices these days are dual voltage, but there is nothing worse than buying and American gadget and smelling the smoke of death upon power up.
  Nintendo Wii’s are NOT dual voltage (Thanks to Magda for proving this one)