1000 Times 1000

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We’ve all experienced it, an awkward situation when the bill comes up after a dinner with a group. You know the drill… some people say they didn’t drink and some of them probably actually are telling the truth, but you’ve been having to much ‘fun’ to notice or to care about it. Others didn’t order a 8 euro starter and emphasize that but forget to say that they had that Irish Coffee… Well whatever it is, it is always a hassle.

So here are five ways how to settle the bill:

1. Go Dutch, as the Americans would say. This means that you divide the bill through all people.
2. The pricky way. This is hard and you need to have some calculating skills. Everybody is paying for what they ordered. What did you have? ok that’s 35 euro then. next…
3. Banking style. Everybody pays whatever they think they should pay and than there is one guy or girl who will cover ‘the rest’.
4. The Entrepreneurial way! One person pays for all of it and says: I’ve had a great dinner and time with you and as I just sold my company I’ll be more than happy to take care of the bill. You were my guests tonight.
5. Play for it! The Credit card game. (probably my favorite) This is fun! If everybody is wining about not splitting the bill equally (or nobody has sold their company lately) I suggest to put everybody their credit card into a hat and let the waitress pick one card who pays for all!
It is very exciting (as you probably can imagine).
But there is a way out, as not all people are risk seekers/entrepreneurs, every one can ‘buy’ oneself out for the average price of the bill plus a small “chicken out” premium of lets say 2 euros (hey I’m Dutch, we have euros).

The funny thing is that a lot of people finally will agree to put it the average price plus the premium although they didn’t agree with splitting the bill in the first place. Some people stay in the game for the fun and excitement of it, the others who chickened out are watching the ‘ceremony’ with the waitress picking one card and have fun as well.

This is a win-win-win situation. The people who chickened out feel winners because they paid their part, had a great evening and didn’t lose the game, the people who put in there credit card and won the game win for obvious reasons (they had a free dinner which made their evening) and the loser is a winner because he/she has a story to tell (its bloggable)!

Tara Hunt had her problem with the dinner bill as well :)

Any other ideas?

Season’s readings

Originally uploaded by cjanebuy.

FIVEs second edition is out. After “FIVE web application that will change your life” I came up with “FIVE books everyone should read”.
10 years ago I went to a seminar of financial guru Bodo Schafer on ‘how to make my first million’. I have to say that it was deadly boring, but I do remember one thing he said:

“A man is the sum of all books he read” - Bodo Schafer

Now, ten years later I know that this was bullshit after all and that is because he forgot one word:

“A man is the sum of all good books he read” - Patrick de Laive :)

So to make sure you will not read crap, I selected the FIVE best books out there for you. And as my dear friend Albert Einstein said that “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources” I’d like to ask you to keep this quiet….

It’s in Dutch… sorry

Well, lets put it this way: Top 5 gadgets I need to have (as I’m having a hard time to tell you what to buy)! So in 2007 I need to save a lot of money to fulfill my gadget needs.

Stop the presses!!!!!! at the Macworld Keynote in San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced some very hot new gadgets! There is only ONE Gadget YOU need to have:
From Macworld:
- 3 revolutionary products introduced today:
1. widescreen iPod
2. Internet communicator
3. Mobile Phone

AND they are not 3 different devices! It’s ONE; THE ONE

Its called the iPhone

Who needs a stylus! use your fingers!

Everything compared to the iPone is just a footnote…..

There we go:
Number 1. No doubt about it is the Blackberry Pearl. Right now I have a Treo 650 with crashing software, poor synchronization (let me rephrase that: No synchronization) a battery time of less then a day, lousy interface and usability and I can go on for a while. The Blackberry Pearl is THE email and photo phone I need to have with all features I need: great email handling, great synchronization, long lasting battery time, photo camera oh and don’t forget it fits my style :).
Everyday, I hope someone grabs my Treo and smashed it into the ground (or throw it in the Amstel river) and replaces it with a Pearl! (Yes you can film it and publish it on YouTube)
Price: 399 euros

Number 2. I’d like to do some entrepreneurial podcasts this year, so I need to have an audio recording device. According to my acquaintance Neville Hobson the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 is the best device out there for recording podcasts.
Price: 499 dollars (Oops… I have to save more and drink less coffee, I guess…)

Number 3. A pocket beamer! Not only to give presentations, but also to watch a movie in bed or to watch an important soccer game with friends. The Samsung SP-P300ME is very stylish, but also pretty expensive. There seem to be only a couple pocket beamers out on the market and the quality of the light isn’t that impressive (that will be a matter of time though). So my choice is still the samsung (it fits neatly with my mac :) ).
Price: 550 euros

Number 4. Wifi Voip phone. There are a lot of new phones coming to the market with wireless voip connections and build in skype software. I haven’t figured out yet what the best phone is to buy when you’re having a Mac, but the BCM WLAN800 seems to me the best choice, because it supports multiple protocals (Skype, but also SIP and MSN Talk). The Netgear and Belkin Skype phones are most popular, but they both have a lot of negative reviews.
I only have a mobile phone and I believe a lot of people threw away their landlines. But I think we will go back to landlines, but then with a local SkypeIn number (or from another provider) that is attached to our wifi phone at home. Basically this means you have a local number (at about 25 euros a year) where you can receive inbound calls and for outgoing calls you’ll pay internet prices (between zero and up to 10 cents a minute for international calls). Probably your better of waiting a while for the next generation wifi enabled voip phones, but if your an innovator, you got to have one, right?
(minor detail: Skype doesn’t sell Dutch local numbers yet…)

Price: No idea, nobody seem to sell it :( , but probably around 200 euros.

Number 5. The Wii.

need I say more…. (I’m not a gamer, but this one is so hot it cannot not be included in this list)
Price: Does it matter? ok, 250 euros (In Europe we always pay a kind of a premium… it’s less than 250 dollars in the US)