From: Alden S Klovdahl (Alden.Klovdahl_at_anu.edu.au)
Date: Thu Aug 19 1999 - 20:02:12 EDT
On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Esmail Bonakdarian wrote:
> I plan to travel to Hamburg, Germany in about a month and will take my
>
> My questions deal with power supply and modem usage.
>
1. look at your power adapter and make sure it says something such as
100-240 volts
50/60 Hz
if it doesn't you need to buy a universal ac power adapter from ibm.
2. buy a plug adapter in the states; it is harder to get an adapter plug
with designed to take a male u.s. cord plug outside the u.s. (with the
older power adapters you could just borrow a computer power cord from
whereever you were visiting and plug one end into your power adapter
and the other end into their wall socket.)
3. some phone have rj11's plugged into their base, so you don't always
need the correct wall socket plug ... sometimes you can just unplug the
cable at the phone end and plug that into your modem. failing that,
adapters for phones are usually available at computer or eletronic or
hardware stores ... sometimes even department stores with hardware
sections. ... in your country of destination. ... unless you want to
pay a lot more by buying one in the u.s. if you can find one.
4. germany is one of the countries that has very high telecommicantion
standards for modems. your own modem may not be legal in germany -
technically - though i doubt the law is enforced these days for
visitors with laptops.
5. try to find someone with a relevant modem in germany and get them to do
a printout of their handshaking commands ... can save a lot of time
experimenting with different combinations.
6. when flying out of a german airport, anticipate having your thinkpad
*very* thoroughly checked (an x-ray is only one of the steps involved)
which could take 10-15 minutes - assuming there was not a backlog of
computers to be checked.
it is a nuisance, but personally i would rather fly wondering whether
my computer had been damaged in the process (it never has been and
probably can't be) but also knowing that no one has gotten onto the
plane with their computer packed with something other than computer
parts.
7. i trust each backup you do is onto at least two diskettes, as any
normally paranoid graduate student should. it is likely that everything
will go through the x-ray machine which should be no problem - it never
has been for me - but it wouldn't hurt to do a couple of hard copies and
send one back by mail, perhaps with one of the floppy backup sets.
8. also remember that airports are prime locations for computer theft.
rather than carrying a laptop by itself in its usual 'steal-me' case,
it doesn't hurt to put that within a larger carry bag that may also
have some of your books and papers, designed to give any would be thief
at minimum a hernia. if your thinkpad is properly password protected,
it is not much good to anyone else, but it is no good to you either if
it ends up in a garbage can someplace.
9. assuming you have a shell account, just find a computer room at any
university you visit and you should be able to telnet back. when i
was in cambridge (uk) recently, there was a computer cafe/bookstore
just down the road from where i was staying and it was simplest just
to pay a couple of pounds to spend an hour checking email.
oh well, enough of putting off getting back to a chapter i have to finish
within the next 48 hours. some things don't change even after you finish
graduate school!
iowa must be nice this time of year ... most of last winter's snow melted
by now and still a week to go before the coming winter's snow starts. : - )
hals- und beinbruch, al
Alden S Klovdahl / alden.klovdahl_at_anu.edu.au / fax: +61 2 62 49 05 25
Sociology Arts / Australian National University / Canberra ACT Australia 0200
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