Happy Hotelier

A Dutchman and a Belgian started Storytlr

The storytlr initiative

Storytlr is not a startup, just a fun project that we are building during our free time. We are a two people team, based in Belgium & The Netherlands: eschnou is our PHP Wizard and alardw the CSS Ninja.

A few months ago we saw this video from Loic Lemeur who was asking about a way to help him build ‘the centralized me’. We liked the idea because it sounded like reinventing the good old ‘personal page’, realizing that a blog can only capture one angle of what we did online. More over, we felt that this page had to be personal, and not yet another profile page locked in a social network, and plastered with company branding. Storytlr brings you just that, a platform to build the centralized you, and it is really about you, not about us.

Loic also gave us another idea in this post, where he explains that he ‘lost’ all his youtube videos ! We felt the same when we realized that our Twitter archives were not available due to Twitter downtimes. This brought us to the conclusion that we needed to ‘own’ our data. We needed a way to easily archive our online data and even back it up. In Storytlr, you own your data, you can download all of it whenever you want. Of course, it would be even be better if Storytlr was an open source platform so all this data is where you want it to be. This is also part of the plans.

Finally we realized that our flow of Twitter messages, Flickr photos, Qik videos were in fact telling a story, the story of our daily lives, and that sometimes we wanted to repackage this story in a nice format (beyond a photo album) to share it with friends. So we decided to make it really easy to mashup all these activities into a compelling story that is easy to share.

I’m off testing it at Happy Hotelier|Storytlr

They are getting kudos by Mashable.

I was reviewing something else, but couldn’t leave this street art topic out: Pimp my Drainpipe.

The above modified pipes can be found in seattle and were created by Buster Simpson as part of the ‘growing vine street’ project.

This installation can be found in the Kunsthof Passage, Dresden, Germany

So simple and so poetic!

More examples?

Via Deputy Dog | pimp my drainpipe

Added:
As per the comment of Joshua Smit (Thank You!):

Tags: Street Art

I’ve edited and uploaded my photos to Flickr. All in all I’m not very satisfied with the quality. I’ve certainly not shot enough (quality) as Heather from Heather on her travels suggested “to start a Travel Blogger’s society page”. Alas the light circumstances were far from ideal.. The first lesson for the next Travel Blog Camp: more light please - or should I bring more professional lighting?

The first photo is of Karen Bryan’s presentation.

The second photo is of Darren Cronian, who organized the event.

This is Matthew Cashmore of Lonely Planet, one of few who apparently tried multitasking by both listening intensely and Twittering away at the same time. I don’t know who the lady to the left of Mathew is….(added: Thanks to Matthews comment on Flickr (see below) the lady in question is his beloved Mrs Cashmore. Hi Catherine!)

From left to right standing: Unkown, Anthony and Tamara from Mr & Mrs Smith, Detlef Meyer of German Roundtrip and Kevin May of Travolution.

I’ve added here some photos from those I know.

I would like to ask my readers to comment on Flickr and give names and details to the faces, because here is lesson number two for the next edition:

1. What happened with the name tags?
2. At least it would be helpful if there is a list with thumbnail photos and names and web presences of those who attended, but Darren informed me that such could be a violation of UK privacy legislation… Can’t we ask the participants to waive this?
3. Isn’t that what networking is about: Knowing who is who?

Tags: Blogs, T-List, Travel, Travel Blog Camp

Just arrived back home from WTM 08 and TBC 08.

This is my first question: “Who is marketing my blog so well?” Lol

Travel Blog Camp 2008

Just a short note with a few impressions:

Kudos for Darren for organizing it and for the speakers to get the room a bit heated up. There really were about 80 bloggers, industry reps and pr types. Location was excellent.

Roaming Tales has posted a nice summary.

I had hoped that my new Blackberry was a better instrument than it turned out to be and am probably regretting I didn’t choose for an Iphone. It was frozen during most of today. Now I have learned that the Blackberry variant of cntr alt delete is: Pull out your battery. This doesn’t necessarily means a Blackberry is a bad thing. I’m even able to freeze an Apple computer withing 5 minutes of using it.

All in all I arrived later than I anticipated and missed a speaker (Alex). But I missed a lot of what actually happened and was said anyway, because I tried to concentrate making some nice photos. Not sure how they turned out, because I rather process them at home on my own computer. So you’ll have to wait until probably Sunday when I will have some time to process them. And here, Kevin, speaks the Blogger who takes his time. A (photo) journalist would have put every effort in posting these photos today (err last night).

When after the speeches and debate I stepped outside with some fellow smokers and returned, more than 2/3rd of the people were gone already. That amazed me a bit. Haha especially Darren must have been worn out as he didn’t take me up on my offer to have another beer. Big question here: “Are the Dutch Better beer drinkers than the Brits?”

Today I took off to spend with DW. Tomorrow I will roam a bit over WTM. Anybody wanting to see me can DM me at Twitter | Happy Hotelier

CU soon

Tags: Blogs, T-List, Travel, Travel Blog Camp

The Airlines did it again for me. I’ll hop over to London by car tomorrow. Nothing Zen in trying to get a last minute flight at a decent rate.

Travel Blog Camp 2008

I’m looking forward to meet about 80 to 100 fellow travel bloggers and industry persons at Travel Blog Camp 2008 (Registration is closed) set up by Darren Cronian of Travelrants in a London Pub tomorrow evening.

The header of this post is a bit cryptic. It means that those in the know who are attending WTM 2008 will keep contact via Twitter on a self created Twitter “channel” that can be found when you do a Twitter search on Search.Twitter.com/Search/#WTM08. If you follow the link you get a view of the discussion like this:

Twitter Search for #WTM08

Quite funny to see the Dockland Light Rail being out of order for some time at the first day of WTM 2008.

Likewise, if you would like to follow the tweets on #TBC08 you enter Search.Twitter.com/Search/#TBC08 and you get the sequel to this:

Twitter search for #TBC08

You see me spreading the word via the T-list Group on Twitter.

If you are interested, you can read back the wider discussion between the Travel Twitterati at Travel Twit

If you want to follow me, look at: Twitter | Happy Hotelier

So now you are all geared up to follow us….off I go….

New to Twitter? Get a heads up by Sarah Evans at Mashable

Tags: Blogs, T-List, Travel Blog Camp, Twitter, Zen

Whoa! It looks so classy. The Whirlpool Glass bathtub from the house of Wasauna looks to be the perfect thing to go with most of the modern bathroom designs. Like the sexy Hoesch Water Lounge, the Glass Bath enjoys a sexy make with both sides transparent. Touting sixteen jets and seating capacity for two persons, it offers a distinctive experience, from a meditative, restorative soak to the stimulating rush of waterfalls and whitewater. The tub is made of high quality Pilkington glass and stainless steel. The package comes complete with the chrome faucet and classic standalone shower apparatus. This luxurious bathroom fixture carries a levelheaded price tag of US $3199.

Wasauna’s See-through Whirlpool Glass Bathtub - Born Rich

I told you I’m addicted!

Tags: Designer Bathtubs

This wonderful tub concept has been designed by NOA Design for Hoesch. The Hoesch Water Lounge is actually a chaise lounge and bathtub hybrid that flawlessly merges the soothing qualities of a lounger and a bathtub into a single product. The fully transparent tub side panels are supported by a metal construction that reveals the exceptional design of the whole thing. The chair features little gaps to allow bubbles that will comfort you. Moreover, the tub filler is integrated into the 1.4 meter high swiveling halogen lamp. I am all impressed with the neat and graceful make of the Hoesch Water Lounge. This water lounge looks to be a perfect example we can quote to describe a luxury bathtub.

Hoesch Water Lounge - Luxurious Chaise Lounge And Bathtub Hybrid - Born Rich

Just another hobby of mine: Designer Bathtubs

Tags: Designer Bathtubs