The IT Nerd

Well, I’m finally in India. The flight from Dubai left late due to the fact that the passengers couldn’t seem to obey the Emirates Airline ground staff’s instructions to board based on the zone letter printed on their ticket. That resulted in a 20 minute delay on top of the fact that the plane got into Dubai late. Another note, I flew a Boeing 777 which compared to the Airbus A380 seemed primitive in every way. It was noisy, with ancient (compared to the A380) infotainment and it wasn’t as comfortable with a lot of turbulence. The A380 seemed to cover that up somewhat as I didn’t notice any turbulence at all.

But at least I am here.

I got off the plane and went down to customs. I had to hand over three forms:

• A health form basically saying I had not been anywhere where Ebola is active. You handed that in at a special checkpoint which had thermal imaging cameras to find people who were running a temperature.
• A customs declaration basically saying that I was not breaking the law by bringing in anything that I should not be.
• An immigration form.

The first two were handed out on the plane. The third was not. If you weren’t smart enough to get the latter, you got punted out line for the customs and immigration officer. That was me. After being punted out of line I found a copy and quickly filled it out and lined up again. This time I got through.

After picking up my checked suitcase (Note to self: Make the suitcase stand out as there are only a billion black Samsonite suitcases out there), I went out to arrivals where a gentleman was holding up a sign with my name on it. I felt like a VIP as he took my bags and led me to his car and drove me to the hotel.

Now this is the part of my story that might get me into trouble. This guy drove like he had played Grand Theft Auto a few too many times. He was weaving in and out of traffic, honking everyone in his path, driving over the speed limit, and was completely unable to stay within the lane markers. I also noted that taxi drivers were doing exactly the same thing. So I am guessing that this is a common behavior.

Now I am not staying in New Delhi. I am in a city called Gurgaon which is near New Delhi. It’s apparently the leading financial and industrial city in India and that is where my client is at. The hotel that they’ve booked me in is the Fortune Select Excalibur which from all appearances is a pretty upscale place. One thing that caught my eye is that when we drove up, it was heavily fortified. There were concrete blocks on the road arranged to slow cars down and a gate where the driver stopped while a security guard used a mirror on a pole to check underneath the car. Presumably for explosives. If that wasn’t enough, my laptop bag and suitcase were x-rayed before being let into the hotel.

Clearly these guys take security seriously. Very seriously.

After checking in, I got some sleep. After all, I had flown for 15 hours via two flights and been awake for much longer than that. In the interest of avoiding jet lag, I slept from 5AM when I arrived to 8:30AM when I went to get some breakfast. After breakfast, I set up my computer on their WiFi network. That took some doing as they gave me the wrong password and had to send a guy up to my room to get it sorted. It’s stable, though a bit slow when doing a remote session. But I should not complain as I’ve had much worse in hotels.

Here’s my view from my room. As you can see, they have a pool. Though I will not be using it because it is raining today:

Here’s the skyline from my room:

Another thing I noted was that there are bottles of water for me to drink everywhere in my room. As in three of them. Plus there was a pair of the same brand of water (made by Coca Cola) in the car that took me to the hotel. This reinforced two warnings I got from friends who are Indian:

• Don’t drink the tap water ever.
• Don’t eat fresh fruits and vegetables ever. Only eat cooked food.

Apparently, if I don’t follow those guidelines, I’ll get what is known as Delhi Belly which would not be fun. I’ve consumed one of the bottles of water. If I get something, I’ll let you know as tactfully as possible.

One last thing that I noted, the power has gone out twice since I’ve arrived. It’s come back within a couple of minutes, but that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

The plan for today is to work out (I brought my cross trainers and my workout gear) answer some e-mails, relax and get ready for the first day with my client tomorrow. I’ll be here until Thursday and I will be leaving early Friday morning for Australia. Tomorrow I am also going to get a local SIM card for my iPhone 5S, so I will let you know how that goes. I do have transport arranged from my hotel to the client and back as well, so I’ll document that experience too.

I’m typing this entry from the gate while waiting for my flight from Dubai to New Delhi. This has been an interesting 12 hours. Let me see if I can recap the events for you.

First, my flight aboard the Emirates Airbus A380 from Toronto to Dubai left on time. And I mean literally left on time. I was impressed. Point to point it was 11 hours and 30 minutes. The A380 is a massive aircraft. I cannot believe how many people they managed to get onto it. The thing is I think Emirates might have tried to get too many people into economy. I say that because I sat in the middle isle and my shoulders barely had any room. It was not unusual for me to touch the passengers on either side of me. Room for my feet disappeared when the person in front leaned back to sleep. Other than that, the plane was reasonably comfortable for the most part taking into account that I was flying economy.

The other thing that happened is that I became ill on the flight with sweats, tingling extremities, and a touch of dizziness. I contacted the cabin crew and a tall man with a German accent arrived and took charge of the situation. First he gave me some mango juice while he had me sit down in a seat near to the kitchen in the middle of the aircraft. Then he had me put my head between my knees and told me to breathe deeply. That actually helped a bit. He was very attentive asking me some very pointed questions and expected me to answer them honestly, which I did. He then took me to the back of the aircraft and had me lie on the floor with my feet up. I thought that was weird, but within 10 minutes, I was feeling better. He then escorted me back to my seat and kept a close eye on me for the rest of the flight to make sure I was okay. I really appreciated that. He figured that I had been sitting too long so there wasn’t enough blood getting from my legs to my head. It a common thing apparently on long haul flights. I never did get his name, but if Emirates Airlines reads this, there’s a tall German cabin crew member on flight EK242 on 2/27/2015 who deserves a raise for the way he took care of me.

Other notes about the Emirates A380:

The infotainment system called ICE is the best I’ve ever seen. It combines a touchscreen that responds to smartphone like gestures with a Sony Playstation like joystick with a secondary screen. It’s easy to use and the system is full of content including exterior shots of the A380 from the nose, underneath the plane, and from the tail looking forward. I watched a movie and several TV shows instead of using my iPhone to keep me entertained.

Each seat had one of these. It’s a travel toothbrush, a cloth and a mask so that you can sleep. I forgot mine on the plane which is a shame as it was a nice touch.

Another note, this flight had WiFi. You could get 10MB free or pay $1 for 500 MB. Basically, enough to grab e-mail and maybe do some light surfing. I only enabled my iPhone and didn’t pay for WiFi as all I was doing was iMessaging my wife.

Once I arrived in Dubai, you have to go through security again. But before you do, make sure you check what gate your connecting flight is leaving from.

Dubai International Airport is a huge airport so this is how I get to my connecting flight which was at gate B22:

I took an elevator which took me from the A series gates to this place:

Yes, I catch a train to get to the B and C series gates. The train took about 5 minutes point to point. Another elevator ride and a short walk, I was at my gate. But if I were so inclined, I could take advantage of the shopping:

There’s a lot of high end shopping here at Dubai International. That likely means that it’s above my price point.

I’m typing this using the 30 minutes of free WiFi that’s available at the airport. If you need more, you’ll have to pay for it. Alternately, I could use Skype WiFi combined with the Skype credits that I always have on my Skype account to get online. It was very easy to get connected, but free “all you can eat” WiFi would have been appreciated.

Very shortly, I’ll be boarding my flight to New Delhi. After some sleep I’ll post the next part of my trip online. Watch for it!

UPDATE: Before I board my flight, I should mention that I am seeing what looks like “man in the middle” behavior when it comes to SSL connections. Certificates appear to be coming from the access point and not from the server. I haven’t got time to definitively prove this, but if this is the case, this is not cool.

Today is the day, or evening as the case may be, to leave Toronto and fly to New Delhi India. Since I am the type to leave nothing to chance, I left at just before 5PM for a flight that is taking off at 9:40 PM.  Now I live very close to the airport, so I take public transit to get there as there is an express bus that goes to Pearson Airport from Kipling Subway Station which is close to my home. To see what time that bus arrives, I use an app called Transit which interfaces with the Toronto Transit Commission to show me accurate route and schedule info. It will also plot a route for me as well. It’s very handy and it saves me money as I don’t have to pay for a taxi or drive and park the car at the airport. The advantage of leaving home this early is that I was able to check in quickly and breeze through security. Speaking of the check in process, I am flying Emirates Airlines and I have to admit that this was the easiest and friendliest check in process I have ever experienced. Other airlines could take a few lessons from them. Speaking of checking in, I got a couple of e-mails asking me how I packed for 14 days away. This is what I am traveling with:

I somehow managed to get 13 days worth of business casual clothes as well as all the personal care items I will need for 13 days of travel. My laptop bag is on top slid through the handle so that I am only wheeling one thing through the airport.

I’m in Terminal 1 which is a very nice place to be. Though one thing that was not nice was the free WiFi that Pearson Airport offers. It was pretty spotty in Terminal 1. It took two reboots of my MacBook Pro to get it to connect and allow me to surf the Internet. Others around me had the same issue so I knew it wasn’t just me. Once I was able to connect, it was decent. This mirrored my experience when I traveled to the UK last year. This terminal had the same tablets that I saw the last time, and I leveraged them to order some coffee. It was delivered to my table within 10 minutes. One thing to note is that the system only takes debit and credit cards. If you want to pay cash, you’ll have to walk up to one of their restaurants and carry it back to your table. Speaking of my table, I should also note that I’m writing this blog entry from a table that has power and USB which makes it handy to keep your devices charged.

There was one other thing that I noticed in Terminal 1:

Best Buy clearly is aiming this at travelers who forgot some sort tech related item. It takes credit cards and seems to be easy to use. I bet Best Buy saves some bucks on employees with this setup as well.

My next stop is Dubai UAE. I’ll arrive on Saturday evening Dubai time and I will have a 90 minute layover before continuing to New Delhi India. I’ll post a report when I arrive in Dubai to let you know what the Dubai International Airport is like.

I’m starting to pack my bags for my two week trip to India and Australia. Now that I went through booking flights and getting my visas for both countries, I can talk about the tech that I am taking with me. Many things are going to be same as I documented here when I went to the U.K. last year. But I have made some changes:

This time I will be traveling with the Olixar Travel Adapter With 4 USB Ports as it will save me from having to use my MacBook Pro to keep my iPhone 5S, Belkin Travel Power Pack 9000, and my Blue Ant T1 Bluetooth Headset charged.

Now this case has a whole lot of stuff in it. Here’s a list of what I am taking starting from the top right inside the case:

• Mini DisplayPort to VGA and DVI adapters from Apple
• A Expert Island mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter that I reviewed a while back.

Now outside the case from top right to bottom left:

• Apple Remote
• Lightning Cable
• A Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable. Admittedly, I’m not sure why I am carrying it as nothing works with Firewire anymore.
• A three in one cable that I got at a conference that has Micro USB, Apple 30 Pin and Apple Lightning connectors.
• Three USB Sticks. One is blank, one has a bootable image of OS X Yosemite, one has a bootable DiskWarrior 5.0 image.
• Two USB extenders to allow me to plug in bulky USB devices side by side to the two USB ports on my MacBook Pro.
• Bytecc 4 port USB hub
• Mini USB cable

Not making the trip this time are:

• iKlear travel wipes and a microfiber cloth as I ran out of the travel wipes and won’t get around to getting more before I leave.
• Multi-tools from Swiss Tech as I got hassled twice in airport security because of them. I have travelled with them before and never had an issue. But I don’t feel like taking a risk this time.

Not pictured is a Micro USB cable and a variety of other USB sticks with utilities for Mac and PC as well as blank USB sticks. You simply can’t have too many of those. Also of note, I will be upgrading my 250GB hard drive to 500GB as 250GB is no longer enough space to back up to. More on that in a second.

I’ll be away from home for two weeks, But I think I’m covered from a tech perspective.

Check back on Thursday where I will describe the process to building your own external hard drive. And on Friday I’ll document leaving Toronto to get to Dubai which is the first stop on my trip.

I’m catching up some things since my trip to the UK this past week and one of the things to do was to answer this question:

IT Nerd, I read about your trip to England and I do have one question. You used a SIM from a local mobile phone network and an unlocked phone. Can you really save that much money when traveling to England versus roaming with Bell, Rogers, or Telus? 

Thanks!

Thanks for the question. The short answer is yes. You will pay way less than with Bell, Rogers, or Telus. The long answer goes something like this. I used a T-Mobile SIM from EE to get me the following for £10.

• 100 minutes of talk time.
• 400 texts
• 1GB of data

Later in the week, I got more of the same for another £10 for a total investment of £20. That meant that I effectively got the following:

• 200 minutes of talk time.
• 800 texts
• 2GB of data

At today’s exchange rate, that’s $35 Canadian for all of that.

Now let’s see what the big three telcos offer starting with Bell. According to this link you have two choices. Since the UK is in “Zone 1” you can pay these prices if you simply want to pay as you go:

• Voice: $2.00 per minute
• Text: $0.75 a text
• Data: $8 a megabyte.

Not exactly cheap. Our other option is to go with assembling a travel bundle for voice and data that aren’t cheap either and don’t come anywhere close to the cost and feature set of what I got from the UK.

Next up is Rogers. Now Rogers like Bell has two choices according to this link (make sure to choose Europe). The first choice is to pay as you go, and here’s what you will pay:

• Voice: $2.00 a minute
• Text: $0.75 a text
• Data: $9.99 a day for 20 MB of data

Your other option is to use a talk, text and data travel pack which range from $60 which gets you this:

• 40 minutes of talk time.
• 150 Sent texts
• 40MB of data

Or you can go for $100 for 31 days which gets you this:

• 100 minutes of talk time
• 150 Sent texts
• 100MB of data

So just like Bell, Rogers is not even close to what I paid this past week.

Finally, there’s Telus. If you choose to pay as you go, here’s what you’ll pay:

• Voice: $1.50 a minute
• Text: $0.60 a text
• Data: $5.00 a MB

Okay. That’s cheaper than Bell and Rogers. But still more expensive than what I paid. Now Telus does offer travel packs starting at $50 which gets you this:

• 50 minutes of talk time
• 150 Sent texts
• 100MB of data

Going up to $85 gets you this:

• 100 minutes of talk time
• 200 Sent texts
• 300MB of data

Finally, going to $150 gets you this:

• 200 minutes of talk time
• Unlimited sent texts
• 500MB of data

Now that’s still not anywhere close to what I paid, but these options are the best of the big three carriers. So if you must roam with Bell, Telus, or Rogers, it looks like Telus is the winner on that front. But if you really want to save money while traveling in Europe, take it from me. Have an unlocked phone (or get your cell carrier to unlock it for you seeing as they have to do it if you request it and are willing to pay) and buy a SIM from a local cell phone carrier in the country that you’re visiting. You will save lots of money and you will be able the use your smartphone the way you want to without worrying about running up a huge bill or running out of your voice or data allotment. To me, it’s a no brainer.