Apr 23, 2008
There's greater reason than ever for active travelers to download Skype to their laptops (and buy the other paraphernalia for making calls)
Skype (www.skype.com) works best, of course, when a Skype-enabled caller makes a call to another person with Skype. The call is then entirely free. Making a call to a land-phone or mobile-phone that doesn't use Skype incurs a per-minute charge.
That's about to change. Skype has recently announced a program costing $9.95 a month that will enable Skype callers to make unlimited phone calls to land-line phones that don't have Skype, in 34 countries. Those include most of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Malaysia. Skype callers are already permitted to make unlimited calls within the U.S., even to phones without Skype, for only $3 a month. They can phone Mexico for $5.95 a month.
If you're a heavy traveler, and you travel with a laptop, you really ought to download Skype; and you really ought to consider signing up for its unlimited use plan. For $9.95 a month, you'll be able to place calls to the U.S. or most other foreign countries as you travel within most of Europe, the South Pacific, and Asia.
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That's about to change. Skype has recently announced a program costing $9.95 a month that will enable Skype callers to make unlimited phone calls to land-line phones that don't have Skype, in 34 countries. Those include most of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Malaysia. Skype callers are already permitted to make unlimited calls within the U.S., even to phones without Skype, for only $3 a month. They can phone Mexico for $5.95 a month.
If you're a heavy traveler, and you travel with a laptop, you really ought to download Skype; and you really ought to consider signing up for its unlimited use plan. For $9.95 a month, you'll be able to place calls to the U.S. or most other foreign countries as you travel within most of Europe, the South Pacific, and Asia.
Write and read comments about this post.
Labels: tools
Dec 13, 2007
A new telephone device for travel may possibly be more useful (gulp!) than Skype!
Skype (www.skype.com) is an excellent piece of software that allows for free phone calls made through your computer. It's free to download. However, calls are only free if your recipient is also on Skype; if you want to call a regular phone, the fees start kicking in.
So now there's a new gadget called MagicJack. Basically, MagicJack (www.magicjack.com), which is smaller than a deck of playing cards, turns your computer or laptop into a phone jack. It's a small unit that you insert into one of your USB ports. You can then plug a regular phone into that and start dialing. For a $40 fee for a year ($20 for each additional year that you wish to subscribe), you get this phone jack and the right to make free calls in the US and Canada, plus free international calls back to the US and Canada. It doesn't use your standard phone line; you just have to be connected to high-speed Internet for it to work. MagicJack also comes with voicemail and an American phone number through which you can receive free phone calls (Skype makes you pay extra for those things).
A few other companies have introduced similar products (Vonage's V-Phone is one of them), but those have come with the requirement to not only purchase the device, but also to pay a monthly subscription fee starting around $15. That makes MagicJack, with its once-annual fee of $40, period, the better deal. It also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, which few new electronic inventions do, so you can send it back if it doesn't work.
I haven't used MagicJack myself yet, and so I can't vouch for it yet. It seems to me that not all hotel phones have jacks that are the same size as the phones we use at home, so a user of MagicJack might need to also pack a lightweight phone handset or earpiece for use on the road. Also, all new electronics gadgets go through a period during which their kinks are worked out. Still, $40 a year for a device that provides unlimited calls on the road as well as back at home seems like a very good deal to me. Are there any readers of this blog who have experimented with MagicJack and would like to share a report?
Write and read comments about this post.
So now there's a new gadget called MagicJack. Basically, MagicJack (www.magicjack.com), which is smaller than a deck of playing cards, turns your computer or laptop into a phone jack. It's a small unit that you insert into one of your USB ports. You can then plug a regular phone into that and start dialing. For a $40 fee for a year ($20 for each additional year that you wish to subscribe), you get this phone jack and the right to make free calls in the US and Canada, plus free international calls back to the US and Canada. It doesn't use your standard phone line; you just have to be connected to high-speed Internet for it to work. MagicJack also comes with voicemail and an American phone number through which you can receive free phone calls (Skype makes you pay extra for those things).
A few other companies have introduced similar products (Vonage's V-Phone is one of them), but those have come with the requirement to not only purchase the device, but also to pay a monthly subscription fee starting around $15. That makes MagicJack, with its once-annual fee of $40, period, the better deal. It also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, which few new electronic inventions do, so you can send it back if it doesn't work.
I haven't used MagicJack myself yet, and so I can't vouch for it yet. It seems to me that not all hotel phones have jacks that are the same size as the phones we use at home, so a user of MagicJack might need to also pack a lightweight phone handset or earpiece for use on the road. Also, all new electronics gadgets go through a period during which their kinks are worked out. Still, $40 a year for a device that provides unlimited calls on the road as well as back at home seems like a very good deal to me. Are there any readers of this blog who have experimented with MagicJack and would like to share a report?
Write and read comments about this post.
Labels: tools
Dec 10, 2007
In terms of its practical benefits, a website called FlightStats.com has become one of the most important in travel
Because of the hub-and-spoke system used by most airlines, the great majority of our flights require a connection to reach our destination. You change planes in Minneapolis, let's say, to reach Billings, Montana. You have an hour in which to walk from the gate of one plane to another, often in a different and far-away terminal.
Now let's assume that the flight you've chosen to Minneapolis has a record of arriving 40 minutes late at least 50% of the time. Or that the "median delay" is 40 minutes, leaving you (and your luggage) unable to reach the other terminal in time. How wise is it to take the flight to Minneapolis in order to make a one-hour connection to Billings? Wouldn't it be smart to book a flight whose arrival is more reliable, even if that flight is not at the most convenient time?
Before scheduling a flight that involves a connection, it has now become a prudent step to check the on-time record of that flight. FlightStats (www.flightstats.com) does just that. And though none of us enjoys complicating our lives, the conditions of air traffic in America require this extra bit of caution. In a country whose airlines all want to leave at the same popular times of day, requiring far more take offs than the airport or the air controllers can handle, delays are rampant.
We shouldn't book these habitually-late flights if by doing so, we lessen our chances of making a connection. FlightStats tells you what's likely to happen.
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Now let's assume that the flight you've chosen to Minneapolis has a record of arriving 40 minutes late at least 50% of the time. Or that the "median delay" is 40 minutes, leaving you (and your luggage) unable to reach the other terminal in time. How wise is it to take the flight to Minneapolis in order to make a one-hour connection to Billings? Wouldn't it be smart to book a flight whose arrival is more reliable, even if that flight is not at the most convenient time?
Before scheduling a flight that involves a connection, it has now become a prudent step to check the on-time record of that flight. FlightStats (www.flightstats.com) does just that. And though none of us enjoys complicating our lives, the conditions of air traffic in America require this extra bit of caution. In a country whose airlines all want to leave at the same popular times of day, requiring far more take offs than the airport or the air controllers can handle, delays are rampant.
We shouldn't book these habitually-late flights if by doing so, we lessen our chances of making a connection. FlightStats tells you what's likely to happen.
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Dec 4, 2007
As the price of a portable GPS drops to $149 at Staples, these travel devices become a near-essential for your next driving vacation
In my recent post recounting my belated discovery of the portable GPS devices that everyone else has used for years (I'm a late-comer to most technological advances), I mentioned that many brands could be purchased for just slightly more than $200, a hefty sum. That was before the Christmas-season discounts kicked in. All over the nation, outlets of Staples are now advertising prices of $149.99 for a Navigon 2100 portable GPS and $169.99 for a wide-screen Omnitech portable GPS (that used to sell for $299). As with everything electronic, those discounted rates will henceforth be the standard price, and never again will you need to pay those more inflated numbers.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why you'd need to buy the costlier versions of these devices, obtaining such inessential features as "traffic alerts" downloaded to your screen. And it's obvious from the pictorial representation of these devices that all of them are accessing the same basic maps and traffic illustrations.
But one thing is clear: a self-drive vacation will no longer be the same, and very soon, every such motoring vacationer will find their way from place to place with the aid of these astonishing "boxes." Keep in mind that you can also used the GPS for walking around an unfamiliar city, in addition to navigating unfamiliar highways and streets.
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For the life of me, I can't figure out why you'd need to buy the costlier versions of these devices, obtaining such inessential features as "traffic alerts" downloaded to your screen. And it's obvious from the pictorial representation of these devices that all of them are accessing the same basic maps and traffic illustrations.
But one thing is clear: a self-drive vacation will no longer be the same, and very soon, every such motoring vacationer will find their way from place to place with the aid of these astonishing "boxes." Keep in mind that you can also used the GPS for walking around an unfamiliar city, in addition to navigating unfamiliar highways and streets.
Write and read comments about this post.
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
