Here is an app for your iPhone or iPad that can show you the types of power plugs you need in the different countries of the world. Very handy! It is called Plugs of the World - click/tap her to view it in the App Store. Thanks Katie for sending it through.
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While I was travelling overseas recently, I became extremely frustrated that replies to SMS's that I would send to my kids at home would not appear on my iPhone until I was back on a WiFi network. So often, I thought they had not seen my message or just not replied! It was especially frustrating if I needed the reply urgently, and often I would have to call instead of text to get around this issue (at a higher cost than SMS'ing). Why did my messages get delayed? Find out the answer to this question in this week's Handy Hint, available to all iTandCoffee Club members. It's time to Join The Club! Have you joined The iTandCoffee Club yet? It is only $30/year and gives you unlimited access to tips like this one, as well as exciting new offers. Starting in August 2015, iTandCoffee will be offering regular free 1-hour informations sessions for iTandCoffee Club members, on a variety of interesting topics. The first will be 'Understanding iCloud Photo Library', and following that will be 'Getting your head The Cloud'. Dates will be published very soon, so stay tuned! Join today - click/tap here for more information or to join 18/7/2015 0 Comments Don't miss the 'Travel with your iPad and iPhone (and other Technology)' class next weekIf you are travelling some time soon and thinking of taking any technology - or if you are wondering about the options for having phone and internet services while you travel - why not come along to this great iTandCoffee class. We have two places left at this 2-hour class on Wednesday July 22nd at 9:30am. We'll look at all sorts of great tips about preparing for your trip, and about using your technology while you travel. Click/tap here for more details or to book>> 6/7/2015 0 Comments So many ways to keep in touch from the other side of the world using your iPad and iPhoneThese days, travelling is made so easy by the availability of WiFi in so many places that you stay. This wonderful technology allows you to feel like you are so close to those you have left at home - even though you are on the other side of the world. You can be iMessage-ing, FaceTime-ing, Facebook-ing, emailing, sharing your photos on a Shared iCloud Stream. Phone access is also available at a relatively low cost. While many might see this as a big interruption to a peaceful time away, for me this was a blessing during a recent overseas trip with my husband, allowing me to have confidence that my kids back home would be able to contact me if necessary. It helped us diagnose my 16 year old son's broken hand (which he showed us on Facebook) and help our 11 year old with his homework when he needed us. Are you interested in finding out more about how to use your technology to keep in touch while travelling overseas? Why not attend the 'Travelling with your iPad and iPhone' class at iTandCoffee Check the below link for details of when this class is next running, I am just about to undertake some post-trip therapy, by commencing work on a digital photo book of our trip. I will be setting aside time over the next month or two to work on this book (which might end up being multiple books, given how many photos we took in the 7 weeks away). For those of you who have already attended the 'Make a Digital Photobook' class at iTandCoffee and would like a bit of a refresher - or just to get some assistance with your own book - why not join me to make your own photo book while I make mine! Below are the dates that I am proposing to set aside for this activity. Just fill in the below form with the date/s that you would like to come, and with your contact details. I will then send a confirmation email prior to the date. Cost will be just $20 per date, including tea and coffee. Learn how to create a Digital Photo BookFor those of you who have never made a digital photo book before, iTandCoffee is running the 'Make a Digital Photo Book' class during June and July 2015.
Click/tap the below button to see the dates for these classes and to book. The iTandCoffee 'Travelling with your iPad and iPhone (and other technology)' class was already full of great tips about travelling with technology. After our 7 weeks overseas, travelling with 2 iPhones, 2 iPads and a Macbook Air, I now have so many more great tips to share about this subject at classes scheduled in June and July.
So, if you have plans for a trip in the near future and plan to take your technology along, join iTandCoffee during June and July for this great two-hour class. Select the button below to find out dates for this class and to make a booking. If you even find that you need to dial an overseas number that starts with a + (for example, +61 to dial Australia), you may find yourself staring at your iPhone's keypad wondering how to key the required '+'. You will notice that that the keypad has a small '+' symbol underneath the zero. To select this '+', touch and hold on the zero key for a second or so. A zero will show initially, but if you keep holding on the zero key, you will see the zero change to a '+'. Then, just type the rest of your overseas number and tap the green button to dial. You may have seen an earlier article that I published about my preferred option for having mobile phone access while I travel, the Woolworths Global Roaming SIM. (See How to keep in touch by phone while travelling overseas.) Not only does this SIM give you relatively cheap mobile phone access in a large number of countries, it also gives you access to mobile data - should you need it - at $0.45/MB. What can be difficult is understanding just how much data you use when you do basic things on your phone - like a couple of searches on Safari. So, I figured I would try out using my mobile data briefly to see how much I used. I turned on my mobile data and data roaming, having earlier made sure that all apps were turned off for mobile data use. I reset my usage settings to zero, then I turned on just Safari, and did a couple of quick searches about the monument we were visiting, looking at just one result. I then looked at my data usage for that couple of minutes - to discover that I had already used 11MB, at a cost of nearly $5. And I hadn't even found an answer to the question that I was looking to answer! So my lesson for the rest of the trip? Save my mobile data for an emergency! Related Articles 9/4/2015 3 Comments Making sure that your contacts' names appear in the Messages and Phone apps when you travel OSOne of the things that can happen when you travel overseas is that phone calls and messages that you receive while travelling don't seem to be able to show the Contact name associated with the number - even though the person contacting you is actually in your Contacts App. The reason this happens is that the number that has contacted you has an international code in front of it, but the corresponding Contact's card in your Contacts app does not include this international code in front of that person's phone number. Because of this, the Messages and Phone apps cannot match the received number to a number in your Contacts, so no name is shown. The easy way to solve this problem is the just add the international dialling prefix to each of your Contact's phone numbers in the Contacts app - eg for Mebourne phone numbers, you would add +613. For mobile numbers, you add +61, but drop the leading zero of the mobile number. But, what do you do if you have hundreds (or even thousands) of contacts? Well, there's an app for everything - and I found an app that sorted this out for me really easily. It is called Plus One. I downloaded it to my iPhone from the App Store, for a cost of $1.29. I got this app to select all my contacts that were missing 'international codes', and then I 'unselected' any that did not need to have extra digits added (for example, 13 or 18 numbers). Then, I told it to add the Australian international code to each of the still-selected contacts. Just like magic, it sorted all of them out - even adding the 3 for Melbourne numbers. You can check out this app in the app store here >> One of the things that anyone travelling overseas needs to think about is just how to ensure that you have phone access while away. While the easiest thing to do is to set up International Roaming with your mobile carrier - which will allow people to contact you on your usual number - this can end up being a very, very expensive option. Telstra International Roaming charges As an example for those of you with a Telstra mobile, Telstra will charge $2.00 per minute for calls while you are in the UK (both incoming and outgoing), and 75c to send an SMS. Calls in France will cost $2.50 per minute. And, if you accidentally use data or send/receive an MMS, you will charged $3.00 per MB. If you are not planning to make or receive many calls or use data, maybe this is the easiest option to use. However, if there is the chance that you might be using your phone on regular basis, it is well worth looking at cheaper options. Cheaper options Purchase SIM cards at your destinations One option that you have for cheap access to phone and data while you travel is to purchase SIM cards in your destinations. However, this is not so easy in certain countries, which may require you to have a social security number to purchase a SIM. It also means that you won't know your contact phone number until you purchase the SIM at your destination. Additionally, to utilise the data offered by these SIMS, you will need to know how to set up certain network Settings to gain access to the carrier's network. Purchase a 'Travel SIM' before you go Another option that is cheaper than International roaming - one that I have preferred to use and have recommended to many other clients - is to purchase a pre-paid 'travel SIM' before departing. My travel SIM of choice over the past couple of years has been the Woolworths Global Roaming SIM, which you can get from any Woolworths supermarket for $29. You get $10 credit to start you off, and can add credit as required - with the option to set up automatic top-ups to if want to be sure that you always have sufficient credit. This option allows you to, before you go, give your travel SIM's phone number to friends, family and any businesses that might need to contact you overseas - bank, hotels, airlines, rental car companies, etc. For example, if you get an authorisation SMS every time you pay someone new through your online banking, you can register your temporary number with your bank just before you leave so that you still receive such SMS's. The Woolworths Global Roaming SIM uses the Vodafone network in the UK, so the phone number for the SIM is a UK mobile number (starting with +44). This means that those who call you on this number are calling an overseas mobile number. If you are concerned about the cost that this will incur for those who call you, you can choose to pay a little bit extra to register a local number for your Woolworths SIM. This means that those calling you are only charged the cost of a local call, while you are charge to 'per minute' rate that applies to the country you are travelling in. Some examples of these rates are shown next. Examples of call, SMS and data rates for Woolworths Global Roaming When you are in the UK, incoming calls are FREE, and outgoing calls to Australia (or within the UK) are only 18c per minute. Texts are 14c per SMS, and data is 45c/MB. For France and Italy, incoming calls are only 5c per minute, and outgoing to Australia are 34c per minute. Outgoing calls within the same country are 26c per minute, sending texts is 14c per SMS and data is again 45c per MB. So you can see that this is so much cheaper than your International Roaming option that is offered by the likes of Telstra. Do you need help preparing for your travels with your technology? If you need help with exploring this 'travel SIM' option further, or would like help getting set up with such a SIM before you travel, iTandCoffee can help. For more great tips about travelling with your iPad, iPhone and other technology, why not come along to one of iTandCoffee's information sessions on this topic, scheduled in June and July. Find out more about these information sessions here. A problem that you might encounter when your travel One of the things that happens when travelling overseas is that your Messages and Phone apps seem to no longer be able to show the names of your contacts. Instead, you just get phone numbers, which can be a pain when you want to easily recognise who is contacting you. Keep an eye out for an upcoming iTandCoffee article about how to easily solve this problem. |
What's on at iTandCoffee ?Below is our list of videos, classes and other events that are coming up soon.
Videos shown are offered for eligible members of the iTandCoffee Club. If you have questions, why not join fun and informative 'user group' meetings, held once a month. All iTandCoffee classes are run as online classes (using Zoom), which means you can attend from anywhere. |
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