Information as close as your keyboard

By MONIKA FRY

Technological innovations make travelling the world a lot less complicated than it used to be only a few years ago. The advances dispense with bureaucratic headaches, saving the overseas traveller valuable sightseeing time.

One of these beauties is online banking. This allows you to shift money from one account to another, to check your account balances (to make sure the tenants are paying the rent), to pay bills and view statements (including those from past months) from any Internet-connected computer in the world.

The ASB Fastnet Internet banking site also lets you check up-to-the-minute foreign exchange rates.

Keeping a central repository of useful files that can be accessed anywhere in the world is an alternative to carrying an expensive laptop. On-line document storage could prove a useful way to bypass immigration officials (I'm just a tourist, I haven't come to work) with your curriculum vitae or as a useful service to store collected travel research.

It is safer and a lot lighter than wads of paper or countless floppy disks to carry around. One company which provides free online storage is My Docs Online.
E-mail can be retrieved and sent from hotel lobbies, backpackers, libraries, airports, universities and even shops that rent their computer by 15-minute slots.

Obtaining a worldwide e-mail address is fast and easy on-line. Hotmail may the most ubiquitous address around but there are numerous other companies such as Yahoo providing much the same service.

However, some travellers have been caught out by not using their new Hotmail address within the first 10 days, then finding their stored e-mail has been deleted and inbound mail has bounced back to the sender.

Related Links


ASB Bank Online

My Docs Online

Hotmail