Technology

For those of you who might be planning a similar adventure I thought it might be helpful to update you on our technical situation...

Jim's iPhone:
The iPhone has been UNBELIEVABLY useful.  Consider just some of the apps I carry around in my pocket these days:
1.) GPS and Google Maps.  I always know  where I am in Paris and I can always find my way home.  The "directions" capability is also pretty helpful when trying to figure out how to get from point A to B with the most bizarre, inconsistent street system you can imagine.
2.) Paris Metro map.  This app tells me how to get from where I am to where I want to go and what time the next train arrives.
3.) Paris Velib locations.  This app tells me where I find the closest Velib (bike kiosk) for getting and returning our bikes.  Just click a button and it pulls up the map with the closest stations.
4.) Metric to U.S. unit conversions.
5.) French Language translators: phrases, words, conjugations, and pronunciations.
6.) Skype for making international calls.
7.) Camera for capturing the wine bottle label so I can find it later
8.) MapMyRide which has maps of bike rides in Paris so I can find my way out and back.
9.) Secure ID vault (passport, pins, credit card info etc....i.e., everything I would know if I were in St. Paul)

Oh yea...it has a phone too.

It was easier than expected to hook up here.  I had to jailbreak my phone but that was very easy for the release of my phone (3GS, 4.01).  The rest was simply popping a card in from Orange.  Orange has a "as you go" plan (no contract) which was good for me because I'm not making a lot of calls from the phone.  They also had unlimited internet access for 7euros/week with no contract.  This was a little dicey because it meant I couldn't use the iPhone's native e-mail/calendaring interface.  However, it wasn't much of a compromise to just use gmail and google calendar directly.

The iPad has also been wonderful.  We're only using it in the apartment so far so I haven't bothered to get 3G service for it like I had in the U.S.  However, it works great as an additional web appliance for e-mail and browsing.

Phone for Jane:
Bought an inexpensive plan from Orange for Jane with an "as you go" plan for her as well.

Calling home:
Skype is my solution for international calling.   Of course, I can call home to somebody's computer for free.  However, I can also call to somebody's phone for only $.02/minute.  Almost free!

Our old home number:
I've mentioned in an earlier post that I ported our old home phone number to 3jam.  It's very cheap.  Now all calls to home go to voicemail and I get an e-mail with the voicemail.  Folks can also SMS me at that number and they get sent to me as e-mail.

Getting called in France:
Folks can call me or Jane direct on our french cell phones then we call them back with Skype.

Computers:
I dragged my iMac and a work computer with me from the states.  Connectivity has not been a problem.  France has very good internet infrastucture.  They even have fiber to homes in Paris (although my landlord doesn't subscribe to that level).  So my performance is generally good.  The surprise was the number of internet sites that block traffic from France.  For instance, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon On-Demand, and Google Voice do not allow european IP addresses.  Of course there are some proxy services that make you look like a U.S. IP.  I might give one a try if my hunger for U.S. apps pushes me there.