Contours of the Earth

As a follow up  to my treating phones like email post, I just found a big gap in the capabilities of the system I set up. I noticed more and more web services are requiring verification via cellphone. I specifically encountered it with Paypal, GMail, and Craigslist. I tried both the voice and SMS options routed to all three numbers (my cell from home (forwarded), my skype online number, and my google voice number). Unfortunately I haven’t been able to verify on craigslist with any of my numbers. The two online numbers won’t be verified, and it seems that when I send to my cellphone, it won’t get forwarded so I can’t recieve the confirmation code.

Anyone have tips for doing these confirmation messages while overseas, without paying for international roaming?

skype, china phone, iphone. All part of my phone-forwarding plan

I have well over a dozen email addresses for specific projects, and for years I have been forwarding them all to my gmail account so that they are in one place.

I figured I would try to do the same thing with phones, since being abroad makes recieving calls a little more difficult. I’m not sure what even would happen to a call you made to my US cellphone before today because I would not want to pick up and get charged AT&T’s international rates.

I finally got what I think is a good setup with the addition of a skype online phone number. Now if you call my US cell, it forwards to my new skype number, which if I’m not online forwards to a cheap cell phone I bought in China.

If you call my business number, it usually forwards to my US cell, but now it will follow the same process as above. If I don’t pick up though, it should still reach my business voicemail box, which will be a great feature.

Since I just set it up, I’m not sure if there will be any glitches.

The next thing to do is unlock the iphone so I can use that anywhere just by switching the sim card. I just have to figure out how to avoid paying AT&T’s monthly fees without losing my number that I’ve had for years…

“Sail away from the safe harbour.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”
-Mark Twain

One of my goals for this trip to Asia was to pack as light as possible. In the first photo is what I initially planned to pack.

In the second picture is everything packed up into two manageable bags  (my sister included for size comparison). I feel like I accomplished my goal of packing light, but not everything from the first picture made it into the bags… the light jacket had to be left at home.

Check out part two here: where I pack even lighter.