Will self-destruct? ... Will reconstruct.

Interesting concept that was mentioned in Duncan's blog. Apparently, he received an anonymous email from some insider about that analyst (Hey, buddy!) joining Howard Dresner. That's not what interests me, because I know the details, but the fact that the sender used willselfdesctruct.com, an online service that claims the destruction of emails after a fixed number of seconds, views, or days. So, if you want to send someone an email and leave no trail, that sounds reasonable. I would agree if it worked. I sent this intimidating email to myself and allowed a single view.
How can I show it here, if it was supposed to be viewed only once? Oh, come on, people at willselfdestruct... you must have heard of a key sequence named Ctrl-S. Two keystrokes and the page is saved in pure HTML on my disk, from which I can load it again and again and again... you get the point. I'd argue I can do the same thing even if the viewing time is reduced to a few seconds, because I would still get my Ctrl-S punched in before the page disappears into nirvana. Of course, it might get tricky if the receiver is allowed only one second to read the email, which becomes a moot point then, since nobody would be able to read the email in a second anyway. Bottom line: Nice idea, limited use.

Amadeus.... it's Mozart year, after all

As a frequent visitor to travel-related sites (airlines, hotels, etc.) I've also used Amadeus regularly, because they can handle itineraries across airlines better than dedicated airline reservation engines. One thing that Amadeus provides, which is also very useful is the included CheckMyTrip service. With your record locator and your last name, you can see all relevant details about a booked itinerary. So far so good, nothing special there. But I just noticed a little icon on the page that says Add to calendar and this is a real convenient service. Through a little piece of software called Infotriever, all flight details are downloaded and accurately placed into the organizer, regardless of whether you use Outlook, Notes, PDA, or more. No more entering flights, hotels, rental car info by hand, certainly not with that level of detail (directly pulled from a calendar entry):

FLIGHT INFORMATION:

Lufthansa LH4795
From: London / Heathrow (LHR), London United Kingdom 7:25 PM
Terminal: 2
End of check-in time: 6:55 PM
To: Hamburg / Fuhlsbuttel (HAM), Hamburg Germany 9:55 PM
Terminal: 2

Status: Confirmed
Cabin: Coach
Duration: 1:30
Stop(s): 0
Aircraft: Boeing 737-300
Seat(s): Non-smoking
Mileage: 471 miles
Meal: Refreshments

Of course, there is still a little gotcha because of timezones. The Infotriever adds flight information based on local time, not Outlook time. This can cause a little confusion: in March, I will be flying to Tokyo, then Denver, then home again. Because I will be crossing the dateline, the departure times for the flights from Japan to the US get mixed up in the calendar, when the connecting flight appears earlier than the original outbound. Anyway, still much better than cut and paste, particularly on extended routings.

What Mozart would have said to all this? Probably nothing, but write another symphony in the same time I wrote this posting.