[nycbug-talk] Travel advice. . .

[G.Rosamond]

Some basic travel points useful when leaving the US. . .

1.  make sure your passwd doesn't contain funky characters.  it's a 
real hassle dealing with different keyboards, character mappings, etc.  
I had enormous hassles, and couldn't explain in Spanish, nor probably 
to a non-tech in English, that I couldn't type my passwords since they 
are complicated and contain funky characters. . . .and my passwords are 
more trained rhythms than anything else. . .

2.  get to know the local staff of the internet cafes, if possible. . 
.good place to find out basics of connectivity, etc.  Apparently, in 
Costa Rica, you can get a cable connectivity at 2 meg up and down for 
15000 colones a month. . .about $33 dollars. . .and I think that was 
with a static ip.  But of course the language barrier could mean I'm 
completely wrong.

3.  make sure you turn off auto complete, clear the cache, cookies, 
history, etc in Internet Explorer, which you'll probably be using.  and 
beware of spyware on the boxes.  although lack of security meant that I 
could easily install putty for ssh on any box. . .

4.  Since we are the types to be in internet cafes with some frequency, 
getting to know the local staff also can get you some massive 
discounts. . .for instance, i was once charged 200 colones instead of 
300 colones a few times. . .$1 is about 445 colones, so that is about 
$.18 cents.

That's it for now. . .

g