VOIP, VOIP, everywhere

Using a telephone in Australia is an expensive endeavour. If you use your cell phone (or mobile as they call it here) you are often paying 90 cents per minute plus a 35 cent connection fee. I know, it's a rip-off. It is not any better with your landline (home phone). Each local call will cost you a 30 cent connection fee with no charge for additional minutes, while calls to other cities will incur a connection charge AND a long distance charge. Don't even think about calling a cell phone as that will cost you arm and a leg.

Never being one who likes paying too much for anything (aka 'cheap'), I looked for a cheaper alternative. I have been using a VOIP solution in Canada since 2005 (Primus TalkBroadband) and have loved it (plus it saved us a LOT of money). I was amazed by the number of companies offering cheap VOIP service in Australi. Seeing that there are over 20 VOIP companies here I was sure to find something I liked. And I did! I actually found several companies that have great rates and provide all the services that a normal phone provides.

We (my brother-in-law and I) are currently testing one provider that gives us a ton of local, long distance and mobile calls for $15 a month. That is a great deal, but I've found another provider with more features and excellent rates to most countries. I will be trying it out soon! The coolest feature is the ability to make calls from your computer and have it look like you are calling from your home phone number (also called a softphone). Really COOL!

I know, I know, I just can't stop finding these new services. Not that VOIP is new, but the way it's implemented, priced and enabled here is very advanced. I'll let you know when I finalize on a VOIP provider that's worth the money.

I know that you can do a lot of these things with Skype, but with the VOIP setup that I am describing, you can wire up the house to use the same phones that you were using before, which makes it easy for the rest of the household to use all the benefits of the inexpensive/full-featured phone service. Try that with Skype!

I drove and lived to tell about it!

Today was the first day that I took my brother-in-law's car out for a drive. He and his wife are away so I figured that I might as well try driving sooner rather than later.

My first trip was only going to be a drive to a shopping centre, as it is time to replenish the fridge with fresh groceries. I first scoped out the route using Google Maps. The way my mind works, it helps me to actually SEE the route in advance. As backup, I brought my GPS phone, just to have all bases covered.

Getting out of the parkade at home was a bit tricky but not too bad. As I got out on the street, I kept repeating to myself "Keep LEFT, keep LEFT!" That worked! Except, when you're focusing on keeping on the left side of the road, you occasionally miss a turn. :-(

I got to the mall safely, no traffic incidents and no police chasing me. I had to keep paying attention to the speedometer as the police here are REALLY strict about speeding. If you are going 3 km/h over the speed limit you will get pulled over or will get a nice picture taken by a speed camera.

There was only one thing that I kept messing up as I drove. I kept turning on the windshield wipers every time I wanted to turn! LOL I did it so many times that even I started to laugh at myself. The windshield wiper is on the left side of the steering wheel (opposite of what it is in Europe/North America), so I think I hit the wipers instead of the turn signal about 75% of the time. My goal for the next drive is to get that percentage down to at most 50% of the time. :-)

A routine, finally!

I have been on the move for so long that I have started to crave a routine. You know, doing the same ol' every day. Well, I decide last week to create a healthy routine for myself and I believe that I've succeeded.

My routine this week was this:
-get up around 7-8 am
-work out or go for a 45-60 minute bike ride
-eat breakfast
-call Carla
-apply for jobs, call companies, etc.
-lunch between 12 pm and 1 pm
-stop applying for jobs between 4:30 pm and 6 pm
-have supper around 6:30-7 pm
-go for a walk and/or watch a show and/or read financial/computer stuff on the web (must do at least 15 minutes of stretching in the evening, preferably when I am watching shows)
-go to bed between 10 pm and 11 pm

I intend to keep the routine going, as it provides me stability and keeps me doing healthy things on a daily basis.

I also realized that out of the last 7 weeks I had spent 1/3 of the time in Croatia, 1/3 of the time in Ottawa and now the last third in Australia. That's a lot of change in less than two months! I can't even remember what it's like having a job and a home and doing the same thing week after week. Who knows, maybe it's a good thing that I cannot remember those days as I will get there soon enough. :-)

That was a hot week

Last week was pretty hot here in Adelaide. Temperatures went up to 35 C, so I would usually go biking or working out before 9 am. Otherwise, the sun will burn and melt you. Simultaneously! :-)

I am enjoying living in a warm climate as it really allows me to be more active. It is easy to go for a walk or a bike ride. If my knees were feeling better, I would be going running as well.

I took a few pictures of the beautiful scenery that I see during my morning bike rides, so I will share them with you here. Please don't hate me! :-)

GPS feature of my cell phone

As I have written while back, I have a pretty fancy cell phone (HTC TyTn II). This thing can do anything, from checking email and editing Word and Excel files to playing games and telling you how to get to your destination (by the use of GPS). Yes, you can also make calls with it. :-)

I recently installed Trackr, a program that tracks your GPS position, on my phone. It will post your latest location to a website (which is how I can display my current location on the right side of this blog). Trackr can also record your track which can come in handy if you want to track your biking or running sessions. When you are done recording your track, you simply upload it to your account on Trackr's website and your whole track is shown on a Google Maps.

You can export your track into a GPX format while you are on Trackr's website. Then, take this GPX file and upload it to http://utrack.crempa.net/. Utrack is amazing! It will create a report of your track and will show your a speed profile, elevation profile, various statistics and a map of your track in Google Maps.

I was able to do all this using free software and free websites. Trackr is now available for Blackberry devices so go ahead and download it from their web site.