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Backpacker’s Destination

August 21st, 2008

Finding a cheap temporary place to stay at Melbourne could be a bit troublesome. The Rates of hotel’s are zooming on. A backpacker would be an ideal place to stay, If you are on a world tour in a group then it is the best place to stay. I wouldn’t advice it for exclusive couple or family tour but for everything else it’s great. There are several backpackers around the city. I did stay in a couple of those before shifting to a permanent place.

ritz

Ritz backpacker

I found Ritz Backpacker the best of the ones I stayed in. It has quite a cheap rate of about 140$ a week, wherein you get a lot out of it. The breakfast for instance is free every morning you get fresh pancakes in the kitchen, thats one thing that’s worth waking up in the morning. There something happening every night like face painting, movies, some trips around the city etc., Also its a little off the city and very close to the beach that makes it an ideal summer choice. One downside is that there is a bar down, on Friday and Saturday nights the music goes on till about 3a.m and getting sleep would be pretty tough, but if you are a party animal thats a plus.

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Posted in Life in Oz, Travel, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Skype “The whole world can talk for 29$”

August 14th, 2008

I got the new Skype mobile that Rolled out few months back. I was planning to change my connection from Vodaphone to 3 since most of the students in Melbourne have it and you get that 3 to 3 bonus call time. It was my friend that Takanobu Nakamuru( not a relative of Hiro! ) who got me into the idea of getting one.Now i could talk to my parents and friends at low cost and most importantly they can disturb me anytime. It is a good buy for the 29$ pack wherein i don’t have to pay extra for 4000min of skype credit. I could also hold on to the same number that i had with Vodaphone connection. I don’t quite find this mobile flexible tried a few java apps and it did not work. Also at random times I’d lose the skype connection and it never comes back on for hours. Other than that the voice clarity is pretty ok which is expected considering it to be on the 3G network.

.Skype Mobile.

Skype voice chat usually consumes about 10-15 KB/s for a clear conversation and the 3G n/w provides about 2Mbit/s thats like about 256 KB/s(decreases on the roll). So the connection should be fine but Its not all the time during the night the conversation breaks possibly because of the low through-output. Guess every one in the city chats at night. Hope they integrate a low resolution video feature into it then it would become feature rich. If you have a java mobile then download the jar file from here. It would also work on most of the other platforms, but you should have a 3G network-browsing enabled (Might work on 2.5G but voice clarity would be poor).  A cheaper option would be to get the 19$ pack and subscribe to Skype + 5$ for the 4000min. Hopefully Skype rolls out more varients of Skype-exclusive mobile with more features.

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Posted in Life in Oz, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

How To Pick-lock

August 7th, 2008

I am a bit of an absent-minded guy, I tend to forgot some basic resources at crucial times. Like today, I locked my self out of my room. I had a packed schedule - 2 lectures, one lab and a career fair that i wanted to attend. All the required resources for those tasks were locked in the room with the key. It was turning into ‘one of those days’. I had two options call my land lord and ask for a spare key for which he charges 30$(OMG!! for a key) or Pick-lock for which i had no expertise. My next door house-mate had been in a similar situation wherein he kicked open the door and it cost him more than he expected 50$. So i decided to pick-lock and eureka!, to my surprise i did it in about 10 min. This is what you’ll need to do if you end up in the same situation.