Category: Search

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How I Used AI To Plan My Vacation To Japan

As a tech consultant, I’m always looking for new ways to put AI to work. But today, I want to talk about something beyond the usual business applications – how I used Claude, an AI assistant, to plan my family’s Japan adventure. It saved me a load of time.

You might be thinking, “Wait, you used AI for travel planning?” Most of us default to the usual suspects: TripAdvisor, travel blogs, and those massive Google Docs we share with family members.

Instead of jumping between dozens of browser tabs and trying to piece together the perfect itinerary, I simply had a conversation with Claude about what my family and I wanted to experience in Japan.

The magic wasn’t just in getting suggestions – it was in the back-and-forth dialogue that helped refine our plans. When I mentioned we wanted to experience both traditional and modern Japan, Claude didn’t just spit out a generic list of tourist spots. Instead, it helped craft daily itineraries that made sense geographically and culturally. For example, when Claude suggested pairing a morning visit to the serene Meiji Shrine with an afternoon in electric Akihabara, it also explained how these contrasts would give us a deeper understanding of Japan’s cultural evolution.

AI adapted plans on the fly. When I mentioned concerns about travel times between locations or specific dining preferences, Claude would instantly recalculate routes and suggest alternatives. No more spending hours on Google Maps trying to figure out if my ambitious plans were actually feasible.

As someone who works with technology daily, I’ve seen plenty of AI use cases, but this experience reminded me why I love this field. It’s not about replacing human judgment – it’s about enhancing it and speeding it up. Claude didn’t plan my trip for me; it planned it with me, taking my preferences, concerns, and family dynamics into account every step of the way.

Be specific about your interests and constraints. The more context you provide, the more personalized your itinerary becomes. And don’t be afraid to ask for adjustments – that’s where AI really shines, iterating and refining plans until they’re just right.

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AI Chatbots

AI chatbots are big news. People ask me what they should be doing with them. Here are my ideas to get started:

  • Search: Instead of searching Google for websites, consider using an AI chatbot.
  • Proofreading: Chatbots can offer suggestions and make changes based on grammar and content.
  • Shopping: If you have a specific need, for example for an appliance that fits in a particular set of dimensions and has particular needs, Chatbots can shortcut your research.

Keep in mind that these chatbots do “hallucinate” so always verify important information.

The key is to interact with the AI Chatbots. Don’t just ask it to write you an email. Tell it what you are trying to do and ask it to ask you questions so that it can do a better job. Then provide it feedback and tell it what kind of changes you would like.

I think of these chatbots as smart and very literal minded assistants. The more information that you can provide, the better that the assistant will be able to do what you want.

I personally like using Claude, but I also use ChatGPT. Deepmind (the new chatbot from China) is also highly regarded. Give them a try and see how they fit into your life.

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SEO Services

As always, I recommend to ignore spam emails suggesting that someone will improve your search rank by performing Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Google knows about the tactics that SEO Consultants use. And if Google notices that you are artificially trying to improve your rank, they can penalize or ban your site from their search. Instead, the best way to improve search rank is follow our Google SEO and Other Search Engine Results Performance Suggestions.

Here’s the latest SEO spam that I received from sify.com:

Hi,

I am Sunny, SEO Consultant.

I hope you are doing well and have time to read my proposal.

Advertising in the online world is one of the most inexpensive and highly effective methods of promoting a business.

We are a Leading Indian Based SEO & Web Development Company and one of the very few companies which offer organic SEO Services with a full range of supporting services such as one way themed text links, blog submissions, directory submissions, article writing and postings, etc.

We are a team of 85+ professionals which includes 28 full time SEO experts. We are proud to inform you that our team handled 180+ SEO projects and obtained 100000+ manually built links in the past 1 year.

Let me know if you are interested and I’ll present you with a proposal that would not only improve sales of your company but also brand your products.

Feel free to contact me in case of any enquiry.

Kind Regards
Name: Sunny
Designation: Online SEO Consultant
Country: India

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Improving Search Rank

I just got a spammy marketing email from NationalPositions Marketing telling me how they could improve the Google search rankings for techdc.com. We’ve written before about how such services are sleazy and can even lead to being banned by Google.

This particular spam message is interesting because they provided what they saw as my top Google search terms.

search_pos term
12 wifi finder
22 vnc port
48 download flash videos
42 netstumbler mac
22 nausia
37 wi fi finder
40 imac 24
48 common computer problems
39 24 imac
20 antivirus bootable

This makes sense. Wait. Nausia?

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Bogus Domain Name Expiration Notices

As a owner of several websites, I regularly get misleading domain expiration notices from companies that are not my domain registrar.

Sometimes the notices are about domains that really are expiring soon. Today, I got a notice of expiration notice from a place called domainregisstra.com from verranhaddad@sellstones.com. While the email never stated the expiration of the domain, it implied one by stating a “due date” of May 13, 2011. The email text stated:

Attn :

This solicitation is to inform you that it’s time to send in your registration for [mywebsite.com]. DRS is a submission service and search engine ranking provider.

Failure to complete your search engine registration by May 13, 2011 may result in the cancellation of this offer (making it difficult for your customers to locate you using search engines on the web).

Your registration includes search engine submission for [mywebsite.com] for 1 year. You are under no obligation to pay the amount stated above unless you accept this offer by May 13, 2011. This notice is not an invoice. It is a courtesy reminder to register [mywebsite.com] for search engine listing so that your customers can locate you on the web.

So I looked up my domain at whois.com and found out the real expiration date of April 20, 2015.

The main scam here is that this looks like a renewal notice from my registar. But it’s from a company that wants to move me to a different registrar. If I was going to renew my domain, I’d just go to my real registar.

The price quoted from this email is $75 per year. That’s a scam considering that places like hover.com and godaddy offer domain registrations for $5 to $15 per year. The only claimed extra value is a “search engine submission”, which is really a worthless service. If your site is brand new and no search engine knows about it you can submit it to Google and submit it to Bing for free.