Actually, now that I think about it, you (as a UK passport holder) could probably also use the Schengen area to your advantage - if you want to be on the move a lot. The main problem would be renting a place for only a month: less of a problem in SE Asia than in Europe. Just a thought.
I have a list based on my own stays in those respective countries. I have some other countries also in this list based on a small amount of research (when I've thought "Hmm, I wonder what it's like living in.....")
Some depend on whether religion is important to you. Others on language. Others on currency strength/purchasing power. Others that sound like they're rubbish but actually provide surprisingly decent services (food, water, roads, communications, language). The main thing is residency visas and obtaining accommodations. In Europe, this will not be a problem for you, as I assume you're a UK citizen.
Europe: Czech Republic - Cheap(ish), OK taxes, decent services, even in some smaller cities. Gets a bit cold in the south during winter, though. Same is probably true of Slovakia. You're near to great places to ski (Austria, Switzerland, Italy) and nice places to take a bike-ride to (I stayed in Breclav for a while, just on the border with Austria. Used to bike to - and cross - the Austrian border or go out to many of the castles. Decent beer and wine, too!)
Italy/Spain/Portugal/Canaries/Gibraltar - I'm sure you've been to these places, and I doubt I need to mention why they would be on my list. Areas of each respective country can differ - I'd prefer Girona over Barcelona, or some small town east of Bologna as opposed to Milan, for example.
France - Not so great on taxes, but can still be good for UK immigrants. I'd like to move back there.
Romania - Very cheap. Decent services. Depends on which cities you go to, though. I would recommend Cluj over Bucharest, for example. Language may be a problem in some parts. Gets a bit cold in the south during winter. Center of the country (Cluj) seemed OK even in January. Some roads a bit dodgy.
Bulgaria - Very cheap. A bit cold. Somewhat corrupt, but EU, at least. Decent services in most of the country. On the eastern coast (black sea) there are even some resorts/tourist towns if that's your thing. May be a language barrier outside of Sofia (Bulgarian/Russian)
Turkey - Surprisingly good roads. Istanbul is great - a lot of western amenities available (Malls, Starbucks, Vodafone etc). Places like Samsun (North coast, on the black sea again) is also nice. You could even do short trips to Georgia and Armenia just to be interesting. Not as many Western Amenities, but friendly people.
Finland - Bit high taxes, high cost of living, but very good infrastructure. They're doing well on most fronts when it comes to privacy. Immigration should be a piece of cake as you're UK, but you'll probably need means of supporting yourself, therefore if you don't speak Finnish, this may be a problem (although, a large percentage of Finns, and almost all under 40 speak English). I left there in December '08 after living there for 3 years myself - I liked it there, but at the end of the day, I couldn't wait for the bureaucracy any longer to process my visa (I am not an EU citizen) - I'd already spent a big chunk of money and a combined total of 3 years (until May '09) waiting for visas. I know plenty of UK expats there, though.
Norway, Sweden, Denmark - Similar to Finland, without the language requirements in many cases.
You could also try places like Croatia and Slovenia, but I'm not 100% sure on these ones as I haven't been for decent periods of time. Switzerland and Austria may also be worth a look. And Malta. And Cyprus. And Greece. Maybe.
Asia: Thailand - Getting a residency visa may be an issue, but surely can be done. Reasonably priced communications (internet, mobile). Serviced Apartments very easy to obtain, and cheap, especially in Bangkok - but anywhere shouldn't be a problem. TESL a good option for full or part-time work if you're after it. Not much of a language barrier - most Thai people will try to speak English. At least the monarchy is stable!
Malaysia: Pretty good in most of the country, and if you live (for example) in KL, then taking a holiday to one of the Islands in the Andaman is j
Excellent. I can't do anything about you if you're a file sharer, but if you try to skimp us on our high taxes, you'd better watch out! (Tax records are public in Norway last time I checked).
Somewhat agree. I think I have about 4 or 5 different eclipse installs on one machine. I'm not entirely sure why. Possibly they are borked, possibly I got bored over a series of different days...
Lets see now... QT Java, QT C++, Android... uh... Flex... and... AIR... hrm. Should really look at that machine.
What if I left the room for several hours so I could go and get my lawyer and the cat just happened to step on the keyboard/mouse while the EULA was showing on screen AND I had video-evidence that I was not in the room at the time to tempt the cat?
The food behind my keyboard is irrelevant: I need kitty treats/raw meat/raw fish/catnip as much as he does.
Yay for Volvo. Generally speaking, they are decent cars anyway. But I want to know how is this different from any Mercedes S-class (in particular) made in the last 3 years - they're all RADAR guided with automatic braking, and are even programmed even to keep the car at a reasonable distance (I think 150m) during highway driving. All in all, we do need more intelligent cars on the road, though, and it's good that Volvo is joining the game.
Argument: You charge us for labour to research which pictures you hold the copyright for, we invoice you (for an equal or greater amount plus legal fees) to take them off the site.
I'm not an advocate of ridiculous lawsuits, but I thought you could counter-sue and at least get legal fees paid for... or of course, Toyota might just lose in a landmark "What the hell are you thinking, you stupid company?" decision by the judge.
Of course, for less than $10,000 she could have brought her and her husband plane tickets and hotels to Nigeria, rented armoured vehicles and security personnel and personally met with the scammers: and she'd have saved a bundle on Western Union fees.
On another point, why not just like, I don't know, Google the facts? Go to the Central Bank of Nigeria's website: it says to watch out for scammers, and also it's not located in Lagos, but Abuja.
For Pete's sake, I mean, in a way, I feel sorry that she and her husband are now financially in the shit, but seriously, who trusts anyone that blindly as to just send them cash without checking anything?
I've seen some of the "contracts" that these guys send out: I could do a better job in MS Paint using a nipple mouse (touch point... whatever).
I just noticed that I have CustomizeGoogle for Firefox and that I don't see sponsored links. However, going to openoffice.com redirects to http://download-new.com/openoffice/ which sports in very light grey, almost unreadable text, the following:
Disclaimer: This website has no affiliation whatsoever with the owner of these software programs, and provides only links to the software programs. This software may be obtained freely. New computer users should find our services valuable, and a time saver. If you are an advanced computer user, you probably don't need our services. Membership is for unlimited access to our site's resources. We provide an organized website with software links, technical support, tutorials and step by step guides.
Oh, and while I think about it, if you don't do it already - make sure you get all your downloads from an NZ or Australian server. Even Firefox. Thank Joe Pesci* for citylink.co.nz (among others)!
I should have figured that you'd be in New Zealand or somewhere equally lacking in decent internet access (South Africa, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia...)
You neglect to mention which ISP you are with, but perhaps you might be best to upgrade your plan a step or two:
I may be remembering a few details incorrectly, but the 50k EUR limit is kind of an arbitrary too.
A standard IBAN transfer to any of the Eurozone countries can't exceed 50k EUR without having to go through some other process anyway.
I can send even less if I'm trying to send outside the EU (I think it's 12,500 EUR), and in any case, transactions over a given limit usually have to be reported (the amount varies by country).
For this reason, if someone does gain access to an "average joe" account, the "magic number" is between 1,500 EUR and 1,800 EUR per transaction - too much higher than that (eg 5,000 EUR) and someone will notice, the recipient won't be allowed to pick up their cash because the computers will red-flag it and freeze the recipients account: that is, unless the account has transactions of that size all the time, but then it's probably not an "average joe's" account.
Great Idea! I my new product shall have a logo with *six* rings, representing all of the inhabited continents (and not counting Antarctica with a population of 1000 *temporary* residents), and it shall be called "Olimpyc"... or possibly the cyrillic versions of those letters, just to be annoying, because it would not sound much like "Olympic"...
I think I may be missing the point of this question - how does this rule out Skype?
I use it with my Logitech webcam on Linux and it seems to do just fine... I can even talk to people on Macs. And Windows when their machines are working/not full of viruses and spyware and such.
Perhaps I'm blind or misreading something, but I don't see SIP client specified anywhere in the original question.
Slashdot Mirror
I can imagine, mainframes throughout NASA are churning, as their displays show messages like "Rendering: 63% complete..."
Actually, now that I think about it, you (as a UK passport holder) could probably also use the Schengen area to your advantage - if you want to be on the move a lot. The main problem would be renting a place for only a month: less of a problem in SE Asia than in Europe. Just a thought.
I have a list based on my own stays in those respective countries. I have some other countries also in this list based on a small amount of research (when I've thought "Hmm, I wonder what it's like living in .....")
Some depend on whether religion is important to you. Others on language. Others on currency strength/purchasing power. Others that sound like they're rubbish but actually provide surprisingly decent services (food, water, roads, communications, language). The main thing is residency visas and obtaining accommodations. In Europe, this will not be a problem for you, as I assume you're a UK citizen.
Europe:
Czech Republic - Cheap(ish), OK taxes, decent services, even in some smaller cities. Gets a bit cold in the south during winter, though. Same is probably true of Slovakia. You're near to great places to ski (Austria, Switzerland, Italy) and nice places to take a bike-ride to (I stayed in Breclav for a while, just on the border with Austria. Used to bike to - and cross - the Austrian border or go out to many of the castles. Decent beer and wine, too!)
Italy/Spain/Portugal/Canaries/Gibraltar - I'm sure you've been to these places, and I doubt I need to mention why they would be on my list. Areas of each respective country can differ - I'd prefer Girona over Barcelona, or some small town east of Bologna as opposed to Milan, for example.
France - Not so great on taxes, but can still be good for UK immigrants. I'd like to move back there.
Romania - Very cheap. Decent services. Depends on which cities you go to, though. I would recommend Cluj over Bucharest, for example. Language may be a problem in some parts. Gets a bit cold in the south during winter. Center of the country (Cluj) seemed OK even in January. Some roads a bit dodgy.
Bulgaria - Very cheap. A bit cold. Somewhat corrupt, but EU, at least. Decent services in most of the country. On the eastern coast (black sea) there are even some resorts/tourist towns if that's your thing. May be a language barrier outside of Sofia (Bulgarian/Russian)
Turkey - Surprisingly good roads. Istanbul is great - a lot of western amenities available (Malls, Starbucks, Vodafone etc). Places like Samsun (North coast, on the black sea again) is also nice. You could even do short trips to Georgia and Armenia just to be interesting. Not as many Western Amenities, but friendly people.
Finland - Bit high taxes, high cost of living, but very good infrastructure. They're doing well on most fronts when it comes to privacy. Immigration should be a piece of cake as you're UK, but you'll probably need means of supporting yourself, therefore if you don't speak Finnish, this may be a problem (although, a large percentage of Finns, and almost all under 40 speak English). I left there in December '08 after living there for 3 years myself - I liked it there, but at the end of the day, I couldn't wait for the bureaucracy any longer to process my visa (I am not an EU citizen) - I'd already spent a big chunk of money and a combined total of 3 years (until May '09) waiting for visas. I know plenty of UK expats there, though.
Norway, Sweden, Denmark - Similar to Finland, without the language requirements in many cases.
You could also try places like Croatia and Slovenia, but I'm not 100% sure on these ones as I haven't been for decent periods of time. Switzerland and Austria may also be worth a look. And Malta. And Cyprus. And Greece. Maybe.
Asia:
Thailand - Getting a residency visa may be an issue, but surely can be done. Reasonably priced communications (internet, mobile). Serviced Apartments very easy to obtain, and cheap, especially in Bangkok - but anywhere shouldn't be a problem. TESL a good option for full or part-time work if you're after it. Not much of a language barrier - most Thai people will try to speak English. At least the monarchy is stable!
Malaysia: Pretty good in most of the country, and if you live (for example) in KL, then taking a holiday to one of the Islands in the Andaman is j
Excellent. I can't do anything about you if you're a file sharer, but if you try to skimp us on our high taxes, you'd better watch out! (Tax records are public in Norway last time I checked).
I have one word for this: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggh!
Of course, there are ways around it. I find the most effective is to include something like
<!-- Additional IE/Win specific style sheet (Conditional Comments) -->
<!--[if IE]>
<style type="text/css" media="all">@import "/fix-ie.css";</style>
<![endif]-->
or
<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<style type="text/css" media="all">@import "/fix-ie.css";</style>
<![endif]-->
between and . Then I don't necessarily have to hack the stylesheet, it will just load and override the previously defined elements.
Microsoft? Good Job? What is the world coming to?
See comment #28121575
Somewhat agree. I think I have about 4 or 5 different eclipse installs on one machine. I'm not entirely sure why. Possibly they are borked, possibly I got bored over a series of different days...
Lets see now... QT Java, QT C++, Android... uh... Flex... and... AIR... hrm. Should really look at that machine.
Ethics aside, has anyone thought of hiring the RBN to SPAM/DDoS these people? (Just to annoy them)
Fight fire with... Vodka... In Soviet Russia, fire fights you! (Sorry, had to be said).
...and much cheaper and less irritating than my aforementioned idea to leave the room in order to get my lawyer.
What if I left the room for several hours so I could go and get my lawyer and the cat just happened to step on the keyboard/mouse while the EULA was showing on screen AND I had video-evidence that I was not in the room at the time to tempt the cat?
The food behind my keyboard is irrelevant: I need kitty treats/raw meat/raw fish/catnip as much as he does.
Yay for Volvo. Generally speaking, they are decent cars anyway. But I want to know how is this different from any Mercedes S-class (in particular) made in the last 3 years - they're all RADAR guided with automatic braking, and are even programmed even to keep the car at a reasonable distance (I think 150m) during highway driving. All in all, we do need more intelligent cars on the road, though, and it's good that Volvo is joining the game.
To Toyota, one word: No.
Argument: You charge us for labour to research which pictures you hold the copyright for, we invoice you (for an equal or greater amount plus legal fees) to take them off the site.
I'm not an advocate of ridiculous lawsuits, but I thought you could counter-sue and at least get legal fees paid for... or of course, Toyota might just lose in a landmark "What the hell are you thinking, you stupid company?" decision by the judge.
Of course, for less than $10,000 she could have brought her and her husband plane tickets and hotels to Nigeria, rented armoured vehicles and security personnel and personally met with the scammers: and she'd have saved a bundle on Western Union fees.
She'd probably be killed.
On another point, why not just like, I don't know, Google the facts? Go to the Central Bank of Nigeria's website: it says to watch out for scammers, and also it's not located in Lagos, but Abuja.
For Pete's sake, I mean, in a way, I feel sorry that she and her husband are now financially in the shit, but seriously, who trusts anyone that blindly as to just send them cash without checking anything?
I've seen some of the "contracts" that these guys send out: I could do a better job in MS Paint using a nipple mouse (touch point... whatever).
Yeah, but not through Western Union.
I just noticed that I have CustomizeGoogle for Firefox and that I don't see sponsored links. However, going to openoffice.com redirects to http://download-new.com/openoffice/ which sports in very light grey, almost unreadable text, the following:
Disclaimer: This website has no affiliation whatsoever with the owner of these software programs, and provides only links to the software programs. This software may be obtained freely. New computer users should find our services valuable, and a time saver. If you are an advanced computer user, you probably don't need our services. Membership is for unlimited access to our site's resources. We provide an organized website with software links, technical support,
tutorials and step by step guides.
Oh, and while I think about it, if you don't do it already - make sure you get all your downloads from an NZ or Australian server. Even Firefox. Thank Joe Pesci* for citylink.co.nz (among others)!
*Someone had to take over from George Carlin.
I should have figured that you'd be in New Zealand or somewhere equally lacking in decent internet access (South Africa, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia...)
You neglect to mention which ISP you are with, but perhaps you might be best to upgrade your plan a step or two:
Telecom (Xtra) has "Go" at NZ$39.95/mo with a 3GB cap, or "Explorer" at NZ$49.95/mo with a 10GB cap.
https://www.telecom.co.nz/broadband/select/1,10627,205728-204466,00.html
TelstraClear has their PDQ Launch 256kbps/Turbo 2+mbit options at NZ$24/mo or NZ$36/mo plus the NZ$2.95/1GB or $11.95/10GB/mo for usage (based on the 1GB cap, can I assume you have PDQ launch+1GB?) http://www.telstraclear.co.nz/residential/homeplan/internet/pdq-broadband/speed-and-usage-plans.cfm
I'm sure ihug, orcon and slingshot all have their plans too - perhaps it is time for a change. ...myself, I could never move back to NZ from my 100mbit/unlimited (or 110mbit with some isps)broadbandy goodness. My bills would sting too much.
I may be remembering a few details incorrectly, but the 50k EUR limit is kind of an arbitrary too.
A standard IBAN transfer to any of the Eurozone countries can't exceed 50k EUR without having to go through some other process anyway.
I can send even less if I'm trying to send outside the EU (I think it's 12,500 EUR), and in any case, transactions over a given limit usually have to be reported (the amount varies by country).
For this reason, if someone does gain access to an "average joe" account, the "magic number" is between 1,500 EUR and 1,800 EUR per transaction - too much higher than that (eg 5,000 EUR) and someone will notice, the recipient won't be allowed to pick up their cash because the computers will red-flag it and freeze the recipients account: that is, unless the account has transactions of that size all the time, but then it's probably not an "average joe's" account.
Great Idea! I my new product shall have a logo with *six* rings, representing all of the inhabited continents (and not counting Antarctica with a population of 1000 *temporary* residents), and it shall be called "Olimpyc"... or possibly the cyrillic versions of those letters, just to be annoying, because it would not sound much like "Olympic"...
What about "Mac Donnells" from "Outsourced" (2006)? (See about 33 minutes in to the movie, and again shortly after when he meets the other yank bloke)
Gizmo is pretty good. It can connect to MSN, Yahoo etc... and I think Gtalk/Jabber... so... may fulfill the criteria.
Ubuntu has it in the repositories. Other distros may do too.
It also has clients for Nokia S40, S60 series phones and others.
...Don't tell me it has to be Open Source/Open Standards. B'oh.
I think I may be missing the point of this question - how does this rule out Skype?
I use it with my Logitech webcam on Linux and it seems to do just fine... I can even talk to people on Macs. And Windows when their machines are working/not full of viruses and spyware and such.
Perhaps I'm blind or misreading something, but I don't see SIP client specified anywhere in the original question.