When you are traveling for pleasure, internet cafes and the odd wifi hotspot are enough to get you your internet fix, but if, like me, you are settling for a while and get a house…you’ll need another option. I have settled in a little flat and have been looking at what the options are for getting me online at home.

The obvious option for me was a a fixed line modem, where I can get wifi live for all my devices, but unfortunately my flat does not have a land line to connect to and so that option is a little out of the window. But for those that do, it will set you back around £70 for the modem, £15-20 for connexion and £10 per month.

The next option I investigated was getting a 3G USB connexion, which although would not work for multi-devices as wifi does, it would at least get my main device, my laptop, online. This service works out as a pay-as-you-go system, which I am always weary of, and you pay upfront for the 3G USB modem, around 220 Brazilian Reais – about £77. Plus you have the more expensive way of surfing the web, so it is not exactly cheap.

Feeling a little lost, I went into a local tech shop – TecMaster – you can see how the name lured me in. I told them about my situation and asked what options are open to me. The lady was really helpful and in my broken Portuguese/Spanish managed to, just about, work out another way of getting me online; Satellite internet. As the name suggests, this uses satellites to gain internet connexion and offers password protected wifi. I would need to have a satellite installed outside my flat – a bit like a Sky Dish – and also pay a monthly fee for the service. The satellite and installation would set me back around £90 and the monthly fee is around £17.50.

When out shopping I also came across a leaflet on Internet via digital radio, which is just another name for wireless internet here – perhaps the different name is to elude that it is a different option.

I am still looking at which option will be best for me and on the surface may opt for the 3G USB as I will be travelling around and I can take this with me. If I was staying for longer then the three or so months I have set out, I would definitely go for the Satellite / Radio option. Connection speed here is great and I have been pleasantly surprised with the many choices open to me for getting online.

I downloaded an app a few months ago with the good intentions of using it, but never letting it see the light of day, to which I have re-installed on my iPhone 3G. It is called Nike Training Club and is aimed at women (from what I can see) and better yet it is free.

I do enjoy going to the gym, but not so keen on the solo slog to and from and so have often opted for a home workout video as a more cost-effective way to get fit. When I say often, I of course mean once when I was 16 and once more when I was about 25. Both times it was an old video tape that my mum owned, some 80s gymnast if I remember rightly – brilliant!

An app is I guess the natural progression from a video tape…well maybe not so natural, but with a few advances in-between

The app is set out in an easy to use manor and also tracks your progress, giving you rewards for time progressed. I completed my first workout this morning – opting for the Get Lean “Wipeout” workout at intermediate level (lol) – and for the 30 minutes unlocked a “Contender” badge…a bit like a Foursquare badge, but with more aching. This can be shared with friends on Twitter and Facebook…I decided not to share this mediocre milestone and will wait until I have something a little more impressive.

Other rewards include extra workouts from celebs like Lea Michele, professional athletes like Shawn Johnson, and Rihanna’s personal trainer, Ary Nuñez. I don’t know who any of these people are, but they sound impressive and fit!

I can keep track of my progress via the My Workouts section and also the timings of my workouts via a Progress tab. When selecting a workout, I am presented with a goals section where I can select what I would like to achieve; Get Lean, Get Toned, Get Strong and Get Focused. All are fairly self explanatory from the names. From this I can select the level I feel I am at from Beginner (4-5 work-outs per month), Intermediate (2-3 work-outs per week) to Advanced (3-5+ workouts per week).

Each workout is between 30-45 minutes long and they are around 85 of them to keep you busy. You can introduce dumbbells and a medicine ball if you have them – I don’t, so use a bottle or two of water. You can view the full workout before starting and each exercise includes a video of how to correctly execute it. All the women in the videos are painfully beautiful and have amazing bodies – which seems to push me on, so no bad thing.

A really nifty feature is the incorporation of your iTunes music and playlists. So you can set this up before you start or use an existing playlist to keep you going.

Let’s see how I get on and for free, I would definitely recommend downloading it and giving it a try

My love of animals is well known by all my friends/family and when a dreadlocked puppy was thrown out by its owners a week ago, I was the first to put my hand up as an eager surrogate owner. Plus it would give me the chance to have a little project while traveling – a very cute one at that.

I want to try out all the apps and online tutorials to train and entertain her and see which ones work best. So far I have mainly been reading online about how to house-train her and that has worked well.  She now fetches and sits on command – most of the time

There are many great apps to help you find long walks, vets, breeders and dog-friendly bars/restaurants etc, but most are made for the UK or US that I can find – not made for here in Brazil. However, there are lots of training and helpful apps that I can try out from this part of the world. Here are the apps that I’ll be trying out:

The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan: Cesar Says… (free) – If you haven’t seen the program The Dog Whisperer yet, please do it is awesome. It basically is a bit like Super Nanny, but for dogs and doesn’t have a large greek lady soothing angry children, but a grey haired American soothing dogs. Well anyway, he basically sweet talks dogs into obeying your every command and I want some of that action for Marley. The app offers a soundboard of Cesar’s “well-known” quotes and his signature “Snap…Tsst” command, which he uses to alert dogs that he is the pack leader – this is going to be fun!!!

PetMD: Dog First Aid (£1.49) – When it comes to any little injury or illness that I have, some might say that I am a bit of a hypochondriac…but hay, better safe then sorry! Luckily for Marley, I now have this app downloaded to give me access to a huge amount of information on how to react to any emergencies that come up. This could be that she has drunk/eaten some poison, has a tick or needs CPR…well I hopefully wont need this app, but I’ll be browsing tonight to make sure I know how to react if something does happen.

Dog tricks: Best of 101 Dog Tricks (69p) – This is a must have app to get all the basics for training in one app, also I have seen lots of different publications talking up this app. Let’s get down to business…I secretly would love Marley to be in the movies/be an internet sensation – I’m not asking for much – but to achieve this goal she needs to know some moves. The tricks she can learn with this app include; sit, down, crawl, shake hands, fetch, spin circles and hoop jump (video obvs to come later). The app provides a step-by-step guide, with pics and videos included, to help you teach your pooch all she needs. There is also a log to help you keep updated with your progress – with a bonus surprise when you complete each trick!

Dog Whistle! (free) – Marley is very well behaved, but does have one annoying habit – barking – it is not all time, but when she does it is when she is at her most undisciplined. I have heard that dog whistles are good for correcting bad behaviour and also for use during training for tricks. So I have downloaded this app to see how it works.

With thanks to Mashable, The Woof Report and Blogging a Life of Dogs for helping me track down these apps.

the Culicidae

Traveling is aces and delivers many an amazing experience along the many routes you take, however it often comes with a slight pain – mosquitos. Those little delights that leave an itchy, red and sometimes bulbous lump on your body, which become the centre of your universe while they co-exist your skin.

I was lucky enough while in Argentina to not suffer a single bite, part of which I am convinced is down to my having my traveling jabs just before leaving – making my blood less sweet? But also as there seemed to be less mosquitos at this time of year (Spring), last time I was here it was the height of summer and I suffered the consequences.

Upon reaching the boarder of Brazil however is a different story. One little bugger set its sights on my neck and sunk its mouth into my jugular! Mosquitos here seem to come in two forms, well at least two that I can make out with my eyes, one which is what we are familiar with in Europe – the leggy, buzzing ogre with long piercing mouth – the other is a more rotund beast with a slightly larger body. This is the blighter that first got me in the neck and seems to have a taste for me here, from what my legs tell me anyway!

When this insect bites you it seems to do it with its mouth, as a pose to a protruding straw like device, and it is a messy bugger too leaving a trickle of blood behind – you can imagine how hot I looked with blood dripping down my neck at Brazilian boarder control! At first the bite seems to be harmless and I actually thought I would react less to this then the normal mosquitos I’m used to in Europe. Oh how I was wrong!

The only saving grace is that these mosquitos seem to go for everyone – not just the gringos – and so my poor boyfriend, Argentinian, has also suffered and we can share itching sessions at night.

The protection

I have currently been using a spray called Off! which seems to do the job, but when you are in and out of water (rafting, showers, swimming) it means constant reapplications of a rather odorous repellent. I also have a plug in repellent that I bought one holiday called Bloom, which works brilliantly in the house. Another option I’ve explored is a plant that grows locally here called citronella (looks quite a lot like large grass), which is a natural repellent that locals grow outside houses to ward of mosquitos from entering the house. You can also take a handful of the stuff and add to a bottle of alcohol, that you can purchase from any pharmacy for next to nothing – a much cheaper alternative to the more expensive shop bought stuff.

“Natural body movement when wearing the band creates a halo of insect repellent around the bosy. The tourmaline mineral is infused in the silicone band to attain the believed natural health, vitality and concentration benefits of ion power”

Well it is time to take action – real action – in the form of The Eye. This little beauty I purchased before I left in the UK from Amazon for £5. It is a wristband mosquito repellent with “Tourmaline Ion Power” – take that mosquitos!! It is also waterproof and doesn’t require constant reapplications, it is also has five holes that allow me to adjust the level of repellent released. Plus the device is odourless and lasts for 4 – 6 weeks and can be worn on the wrist or the leg. I went for a small size thinking my wrist would be the best host for the band, but it seems my legs are the real target and in hindsight I would have gone for a large size to fit the band on my ankle.

So now it is time for a little experiment and to put this device to test. From this day forward, I will only be using the wristband in my fight against mosquito bites and will report back with my weekly diary once the 6 weeks is up. Fingers crossed I survive

I’ve been here in Argentina for exactly one month now and my keen mobile eye has been on the look-out for what phones everyone is packing…and of course, what they are doing with them. I knew that the market would be very different to the UK, but it has been very interesting looking at how the operators and phone manufacturers have been marketing to the masses here…and how people react to it.

The first thing to mention is something I have not seen, and that is Apple…I mean not at all! I knew before I came that Apple did not have any stores here, but figured that there would be some iPhones, iPads and iPods here…I was wrong. That is not to say that there are no tablets, smartphones or mp3 players here as there are, lots. The main brand in this area is Samsung with its Galaxy range, the big push at the moment seems to be on the Samsung Galaxy S II – HOT! I’ve not seen the phone or tablet out and about, but it is certainly present in the shops.

The main smartphone that I have seen is the BlackBerry and it is well talked about with a lot of people joking that there low-end phone is their “BlackBerry” and I would put it on a par with the iPhone, in terms of the notoriety it has in the UK. Price wise these phones don’t come cheap and prices match up to the UK, although people here are of course not on UK wages. Plus the ‘price-wars’ we have seen in the UK between operators, have not occurred here and so like-for-like it is much more expensive for a contract without all the extras we are used to in the UK – text bundles, all-you-can-eat data etc.

From my experience, the majority of people here go for pay-as-you-go and I have opted for a Movistar chip and have been very happy so far. The signal is great in the city centre and it is the only operator available in the mountains where my boy works rafting. Plus, I get regular messages with special offers, which mainly surround topping up a certain amount and receiving double that amount or free. All communication directs me to the Movistar website to find out more offers, but as I don’t have a smartphone (and it is all in Spanish) I am not to sure of what my other offers are One very cool thing from the operator is an SOS function, when you are out of credit and you can get an additional 6 Pesos (just over £1) loaded and you pay it back when you next top up – nice!

So what are people using their phones for…well as you may tell from this posts title…music is big here! Just about every person I have seen with a phone has been using it for music, whether they have a feature phone, smartphone or low-end bog-standard phone like mine. The big player being Sony Ericsson and its Walkman range – also to note its Xperia X8 is the property of a fair few here in Argentina…i.e. I’ve seen two, but that it the most I have seen of any one smartphone.  It definitely has the most popular feature phone title anyway (from my experience) and the main pull here seems to be the music. Coming in at second place is Nokia, which has good gaming features too (read snake) and I can now recognise someone playing snake just by sound alone, thanks Nokia !

One other quick note is that of radio phones – I have seen loads of people using them and no-one seems to worry about the fact that everyone can hear your conversation. I’ve been trying to see the brand names of the phones but with little luck so far, I will update soon

So all in all, music is the big pull here in Argentina and pretty much all of the phones I have seen here on sale have music features – many with radio too – the smartphone market is as expected, not quite as saturated as in Europe, but growing fast. The pay-and-go market is bigger then pre-pay and operators are savvey to this fact. From what I have seen so far, operators need to offer free music, data and messaging to really get more customers. Call time is expensive here and so people try to avoid it where possible, using text mainly and radio in some cases, and so it would be good to see some more offers from operators on that front. I’ll be in Brazil in the next couple of weeks and can’t wait to see what phones people have and what the operators are offering – stay tuned!

One of my favourite things is shopping for a new phone and so you can imagine my excitement at picking a device for me to use while traveling in South America. Unlike in the UK where I have been an iPhone girl since the 2G, I needed a phone with just the basics – calls, texts and maybe a cool game wouldn’t go a miss.

We went out to find a pay-and-go cell for me to use with my new Movistar chip and found that many shops sold new phones unlocked for next to nothing price-wise. After scouring a couple of shops (literally a couple, i tend to fall in love with the first one I see) I encountered my little LG – with a black face and back, and a red stripe that runs all around the device…let’s be honest, when you are going low-end it is quite a lot about the looks

I’ve never had an LG phone before and have enjoyed getting to know the menu system and various features in contains. There include a torch, wireless FM radio, MP3 player, a camera (think it is 1.3-2MP max), calculator, stop watch, unit convertor, and a pretty neat looking world clock that sits on a world map. It also has a game called Space Ball, which is very much like Snake on Nokia devices – probably my fave thing about the phone, other then the torch.

All in all it is a great device for the needs that I have here, my iPhone hosts my apps and music and I can access wi-fi with it and my LG works as a great functional phone. My only complaint would be that the only access port is a mini-usb, great for connecting to my laptop but really annoying for listening the radio or music on it as my headphones are not mini-usb.

A quick note on pay-as-you go here – it is great! You get a message, every other day or so, to inform you of the deal of the day e.g. top-up 20 pesos and get 40 pesos worth. The network coverage is also very good and it is relatively cheap for calls and texts.

Well, it turns out most of the people on my flight had the same feeling and as we turned up at check-in 2 hours before the flight we were surprised to be asked to present our return ticket. More so that we could not board the flight without one, so we were told to go to an internet cafe and book a ticket, all within the confines of the 2 hours!!

This was my first experience of the camaraderie that exists within the travelling community. We all went onto separate computers shouting out if we had found anything as we scored the bus companies for a way to book online. One such couple and I formed quite a nice bond, as we panicked about missing our flight and scarpered around trying to find the £1 / 20 minute charge in the airport – plus £3 to print! It really annoys me when huge companies like BAA, take advantage to this extent of a captive audience.

The bus companies we found seemed to be a no-go, the only one we found you can get to the point of booking and then it asks for your nationality and did not have an option for an EU one :-/ In the end we found a cheap flight via eDreams out of the country within the 3 months. Although my drama continued as my computer jammed at the point of printing and would not print my ticket. Thankfully the lady at check-in accepted my confirmation email on my iPhone and I was given my boarding pass…phew.

So the lesson here is, make sure that you check the visa requirements as although many countries are a lot more lenient then in britain, they can implement them and you could be sent home. The lady at check-in told me that just two weeks ago someone had been sent back to the UK for this reason and then this happens the airline is fined and hence they are being more vigilant at the moment.

Photo by Doug Evans: http://www.evansphoto.com/

I saw the below video shared on twitter yesterday and went on to watch in amazement, this printer works so intuitively…it is as if the makers, Artefact Group, read my mind as to how I would want it to work. The beautiful design and ingenious technology made me instantly think of Apple.

The printer connects wirelessly to any device, be it phone, camera, computer or tablet, as well as your Internet properties like Facebook and Flickr accounts. You can view the images from these sources much like you would on the screen of your computer. You can not only select the images that you want, but actively manipulate and edit them before you print. This could be combining photos, changing the alignment/margins and zooming in.

I would love to take this with me travelling, but think it may be a bit too big to be one of my travelling gadgets – unfortunately. However, this is the perfect addition to any home/office environment and is definitely the best photo printer that I have seen so far. The full video above and it is well worth a watch as seeing it in action is pretty cool.

More information: http://www.artefactgroup.com/#/content/swyp

This has got to be my favourite news story of the day, via PocketLint. To celebrate Monday’s upcoming UK launch of the Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blue-Ray, the BT Tower is going have a blue strobe light switched on by CP3O – turning the iconic building into the world’s largest lightsaber! Anthony Daniels, aka C3PO, will be switching on the light tonight at 8pm

645 bottles have so far been installed, costing around a dolor to make and install, to help the cause (Lighting a Million) by donating or volunteering please visit this site: http://isanglitrongliwanag.org/

“Isang Litrong Liwanag (A Litre of Light), is a sustainable lighting project which aims to bring the eco-friendly Solar Bottle Bulb to disprivileged communities nationwide. Designed and developed by students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Solar Bottle Bulb is based on the principles of Appropriate Technologies – a concept that provides simple and easily replicable technologies that address basic needs in developing communities.”

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