[General Topics] quicksite:
I was PM'ing orb3000 last night -- thanking him for help with a recent posting about the DEVVY AWARDS program -- which had some timing setbacks, but is getting reworked to properly honor the entire collective of developers who made the Windows Mobile platform "sing" over past 6-8 years... and this will be its Swan Song since we all know by October WindowsMobile will cease to exist as an ongoing platform.

I was saying to orb3000 -- "thanks, and I look forward to visiting you in Mexico when I eventually take my 'XDA WORLD TOUR' visiting people in various countries that I've met in the XDA-devs community...

Well... Once of the ways I get myself into trouble is by taking ideas that hit me -- and then looking at them again and saying "Wait a minute.. WHY NOT FOR REAL?"

So this was just a thought: Nothing at all elaborate right now (learned that lesson!)... Why not just set up a GOOGLE CALENDAR called XDAtravel ....

For those who've used Google Calendar there are many great things about it:

• If you have a main Gmail account, and have a main GOOGLE CALENDAR you use for home/personal, or for work, you can just TURN ON, and TURN OFF "Other Calendar" overlays, such as, in this case XDAtravel".

• It's not PUBLIC, it's private and secure, but it's shared by those who have been given READ/WRITE permissions. Those are given by the XDAtravel "Calendar Owner" ... that's me, because I just created a gmail account called XDAtravel@gmail.com, simply to be able to create that calendar.

• Let's say that orb3000 thinks "yeah, that's good idea, I'd like the ability to just keep OFF most of the time, but every now and then TURN ON the XDAtravel CALENDAR OVERLAY and see WHO, in WHICH CITY is saying

• Or he could scan further and see "I wonder if anyone in CALIFORNIA, USA is open to having a travel guest in October or November.. If so, I am going to put a TEMPORARY "CLAIM" on those dates and then check with my boss at work to see if I can take some vacation days during that time. I know I have about 10 vacation days I have not used yet."

OR

• orb3000 could say to self, "My family and I have room to host someone here for just a few days, maybe 3 days maximum. That would be kind of nice. I don't have a particular day in mind, but I now that the month of October is a good time, not too busy.... so, I am going to make an ENTRY on the XDAtravel calendar that spans the month of October 2010 that says "MEXICO CITY" (*note, not actual city, just making up for example): "Open to having houseguest for maximum of 3 days. Please contact for details, and block out a section on the calendar when you might want to visit"

• and so on

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MORE BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT HOW GOOGLE CALENDAR WORKS:

• Google has improved over the years, so now, to simply SUBSCRIBE to the travel calendar, you do NOT NEED to have a gmail account. But you would need a yahoo, or MSN or hotmail or similar account. Because what enables you to access the PRIVATE SECURE SHARED CALENDAR is via an email invitation link, specific to you. And in order to be able to view or add to the calendar, you would have to first request to the "Calendar Owner" (that's me) permission to access, and the Calendar owner has to go into the Calendar Settings and explicity ADD your email address to the list of those allowed to access the calendar. Once your email address was added, a notification link would be sent to you by email, and you could click through, and then access the calendar.

• At that point, Google Calendar has really made their Interface Controls easy and great, with simple simple color coding of YOUR choice (what color to make this Travel Calendar's events) --- and -- simple simple ONE-CLICK to "TURN ON" a calendar layer (like this one) and one click to turn it off.

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(please COPY & PASTE this next little block to help me gauge your response)

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THE IDEA ITSELF: Encouraging a way to make it easy to coordinate staying a few days with fellow XDA community members when traveling internationally, given we're practically in every country around the world:

__ Great idea, seems workable, at least at first glance.

__ Great in theory, but I don't think people would really get into it, thus there would likely never be any "listings" to get the ball rolling.

__ Good idea, but not something I would likely ever want to take part in.

__ Good idea, but I don't see myself traveling, so I could never really use it.

__ Good idea, but I don't have the space to host anyone at my home, so I could never offer up my place as a destination someone could visit. ***

(*** My followup question: REALLY? TRULY? Many or most people who travel are used to the "student backpacker" culture where people are traveling as cheaply as possible, and staying in "hostels" or small tiny rooms, often without WC or toilet, or water... In my experience, what people traveling LOVE LOVE LOVE is having someone local who knows the city be able to maybe show them 1 or two things, then tell them other things to do. Travelers do not expect you to entertain them. They do not expect you to personally take off from work and show them around. They do not expect you to spend your money and cook for them. If anything, they want to take YOU to dinner for being nice and giving them a place to stay for a few days. What people love most is visiting with real people from another country -- not phony people from a tour, or some arranged visit to see "authentic Russian people eating authentic Russian food". So.... maybe.. think again :) )

__ As nice as it sounds, I don't like this kind of thing. I can't explain why.

__ I can explain why. I am here to exchange knowledge about my phone and tinker with software development. While it's interesting that XDA has people from all over the world, it's not why I am here, and I don't really care to meet anyone offline.

__ Bad idea. Full of problems.

__ Other: please comment:

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Thank you!

and even though there's nothing to tweet about -- hah hah -- just in case anyone IS traveling this summer and wants to find fellow XDA people more easily -- well, try subscribing to

http://twitter.com/XDAtravel

I have nothing to say -- it's just there as complimentary infrastructure if the idea were interesting. BUT... if people subscribed, you could find each other there. :)