Foreign Perspectives

It doesn’t seem so long ago that people were debating about whether mobile phones should be banned from restaurants.

Nowadays, many people make the assumption that they can call you at any time. After all, if you’ve got a mobile, then why shouldn’t they call you? Of course, at the other end of the line this leads to the habit of never turning the phone off and of answering it no matter where you are.

So it confuses people when I don’t have the phone switched on all day. Why would it? I don’t want to be called all of the time. It’s not so much that I switch it off in the movies  but that I only have it switched on when I want to be reached on the phone.

Probably more annoying to those who feel that I should be contactable 100% of the time is that I don’t even pick up the voice mails more than once a day. In this instantly-reachable age my record so far is one person leaving seven voice mails over the course of a single day asking me to call them. It must have been urgent then? Well, no, it would have been OK to leave it another week that time.

Regain your freedom: switch off your mobile!

When you do several courses at a time you sometimes get a bit of a logjam of assignments. On the whole, it’s generally not so bad as you know quite a bit ahead of time when the assignments are coming up but that doesn’t stop it feeling like quite a busy period when you’ve a series of consecutive deadlines as I do now.

Coming up first is the world archaeology assignment (A251) due on December 3rd so I’m aiming to get that one completed this week. Following close behind that is the CMA for the web applications course (TT280) although I nearly completed that before breakfast on the day it arrived so I will probably finish it off and submit it over the weekend. After that it’s the final assignment for that course which I want to start on this week. Finally, it’s the completion of the final assignment for the medicines course (SK185) which shouldn’t take long.

In theory after that it’s the assignment for the microbes course (S171) but the final date for that is in April so I’m just doing that course as and when I get a few minutes. So far, I’m about 1/4 through it which means it must be nearly time to start the assignment (for short courses you can generally do the assignment as you work through the book).

One of the big hassles with the ipod touch is that it’s very much a closed system. But it doesn’t need to be. So for those who’d like to run it without needing to bother with iTunes, here’s how…

1.  Enable USB tethering:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pmcenery/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ipheth-utils

2. Enable mobile device support:

Go to System>Administration>Software Sources, click on Add and select

ppa:pmcenery/ppa

Click on Reload then Close.

Go to System>Administration>Synaptic package manager, search for libimobiledevice0 then install it.

At this point you are able to drag and drop MP3 files onto your iPod.

3. Enable Rhythmbox sychronisation:

sudo apt-get install amarok

If this doesn’t work, then:

rm -r ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok
rm -r ~/.kde/share/config/amarok*

Which should have you all set for an open iPod.

Aren’t debit cards the same as credit cards? No, they are very different and have different characteristics when you’re trying to use them overseas which aren’t always apparent.

The first key difference is that they are directly linked to your bank account and this makes them a little more risky to take abroad (it’s much safer to take credit cards and a cash card).

Debit cards for international use come in four versions although not all are available in every country. These are Visa, Visa Electon, Mastercard and Maestro.

Cards branded Visa and Mastercard can be used where-ever the equivalent credit card can be used and, aside from the link to your bank account, are processed in the same manner as a credit card (press the “credit” button if prompted on an ATM or till).

Cards branded Visa Electron and Maestro are supposed to be electronic use only which means that you cannot use them in one of the old-style carbon copy type machines. In practical terms, almost all “civilised” countries use online terminals these days but this does not apply everywhere so it’s best to have a credit card as a backup. Maestro is a little more limited in that it can’t be used when you’re not at the point of sale therefore you can’t use it to guarantee hotel reservations. You can’t use either of these cards to hire a car.

Note that acceptance of cards is neither universal nor universally practical. If you are travelling to countries off the tourist routes you can find that cards aren’t accepted or are only accepted in widely dispersed locations. For example, in India I found that using cards simply wasn’t practical. Cards branded Visa Electon and Maestro are much less widely accepted than those branded Mastercard and Visa.

Bank charges on debit cards come in several basic forms. First, they charge transaction fees when you use the card to get cash. Typically these fees are around 2% with a minimum charge of £2/$2 per transaction therefore it’s best to withdraw amounts of £100/$100 to minimise this charge. In most cases, there is no transaction charge when you buy things using the card so it’s better to do that instead of withdrawing cash. Second, they usually apply a foreign currency charge which is typically around 3% (no minimum). And, of course, there may be an annual fee for having the card. Some card issuers charge a transaction fee on overseas purchases too: if this applies to your bank, use a credit card to make purchases instead or if you can’t do that, withdraw cash and use that for purchases.

Despite all that, it’s still usually cheaper to get cash on a card than to buy travellers cheques as your cost will typically be around 5% max compared to the 7% or so for travellers cheques.

Downsides are basically those charges but, if you’re careful, you can minimise them. For those living in the UK, some pre-paid cards eliminate all charges and if you’re in the American military a USAA card works in much the same way as do some American issued CapitalOne cards. If your bank is a member of the Global Alliance (Bank of America, Bank of Nova Scotia, Barclays, BNP, Deutschebank and Westpac) then you can withdraw cash from one of the other member banks ATMs without the transaction charge (you still get charged the foreign exchange fee).

I’m going to work my way through the various ways you can take money abroad over the next few weeks or so in the travel money series. I’ve already covered cash, travellers cheques and credit cards and will be covering cash cards and prepaid cards in future episodes.

It was both windy and raining heavily yesterday which always seems to bring out the worst of fashion, doesn’t it?

Gone are the nice looking clothes and in their place are all kinds of really awful anoraks, wellington boots, and iffy umbrellas. Hairstyles are, of course, are history at least for the day though some seem to take days to recover after a windy day.

Still, on the whole it’s not as if anyone is actually looking at what you’re wearing on a windy day as they’re all racing to get out of the wind and rain.

However, even inside it doesn’t always get much better as even in heated rooms it somehow seems colder when it’s windy outside and, of course, there are all the wet clothes, umbrellas and windswept hair to contend with too.