The flight from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale, Florida was on Air Transat, a first for me. It was a no-frills airline but the flight was mostly painless and efficient. Then a ride down I-95 to Miami to join Varig Brasil for the 8 hour flight to Sao Paolo, the largest city in Brazil. It seems that all airlines these days have challenges in modernizing the updating their information systems and Varig was no exception. Each passenger checking in at Miami International was at the counter for a minimum of ten minutes. Most passenger’s required that the agent place a phone call for assistance.
In the 1960’s, IBM developed a special computer operating system called ACP (airline control program) specifically for handling airline reservations and related data. Back then, communications networks were slow and expensive and reservation agents had to be very facile with the keyboard. Many abbreviations were used so that not too many "bits" had to travel to the central mainframes. Today it seems like the agent is required to enter an endless number of keystrokes, even when there is no change to the reservation and the passenger simply wants to check-in. Self check-in is a very good idea and I have generally had good success with it — but it is never available for international flights because of passport and visa handling. Enough about airline IT woes for the moment. On with the long journey.
It was a long layover in Sao Paolo and I spent my time at the Diners Club lounge. A strong Brazilian coffee brought me to an attentive state and I started the hunt for a WiFi signal. To my delight there was indeed a strong signal in the lounge. Upon starting a browser, the typical subscription screen appeared offering a broadband Internet connection for various amounts of time and fees. Typical, except that all the web pages were in Portuguese and I regret that I am illiterate in the language. A couple of very friendly and helpful Brazilians and I explored the three different WiFi providers that were available. Two of them offered payment via a direct debit to a Brazilian bank or with an electronic check — Brazil has a very advanced e-banking system. Unfortunately, I do not have a bank account in Brazil. The third provider accepted credit cards but they required a CPF, which is the Brazilian version of a social security number. The CPF has to be a valid one! The bottom line is that to use WiFi at the Sao Paolo International airport, you have to be Brazilian!
Like the trip to Egypt, I was only able to be in Brazil for about twenty-four hours. I used the few free hours of the first day to take a short tour of Salvador. It was quite interesting, thanks to Gilvan, an excellent tour guide. (See pictures in the photogallery. Salvador is in the state of Bahia. Pedro Álvares Cabral was on his way to India in 1500 via a wide southerly swing out into the Atlantic Ocean (to avoid unfavorable currents) before heading east around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. The members of Cabral’s fleet became the first Europeans to visit "Brazil” (in English; in Portuguese it’s “Brasil”). There is a lot of interesting history associated with Salvador. Anyone visiting the city ends up spending at least some time in Pelourinho, the Old City. The buildings are colonial-era and the winding cobblestone streets are full of bars, restaurants and small shops.
The IT Conference was well extremely well organized. The good attendance was a testimony to IT Midia. Miguel Petrilli, VP for technology and information at IT Midia, gave an excellent overview of the conference and then Stela Lachtermacher, Editorial Director, introduced me. I talked about "The Future of the Internet" and hopefully was successful in tailoring my remarks to the audience. A panel was then convened by Stela and several guests. The panelists and the audience asked a number of questions which I did my best to answer. There was a lot of interest in the Semantic Web. An interview with me on on that subject was published in InformationWeek Brasil and handed out at the conference. I do not claim to be an expert on it but hopefully I offered some simple ways to think about the concept.
- Photogallery of pictures from Brazil
- Trip to Toronto – COMMON (Oct. 2004)
- Other patrickWeb travel stories
