Last week I attended the Digital Humanities Summer Institute at the University of Victoria. Julie wrote about DHSI last summer—if you’re interested in beefing up your DH skills quickly, DHSI is the place to do so. This post isn’t about DHSI per sa, but the next entry in ProfHacker’s long-standing travel series. While in British Columbia, I was able to stay connected with my family—and avoid hefty international voice and data fees—using my iPhone, Google Voice, and Apple’s Facetime. As soon as my ferry left the pier in Seattle, headed for Victoria, I put my phone in airplane mode, but enabled WiFi. Until I was preparing for this trip, I didn’t realize that such a combination was possible, but doing this allowed me to avoid using any expensive international data while still using services that work via wifi.
Almost exactly one year ago I wrote an introduction to Google Voice, Google’s personal switchboard app that allows you to direct calls to multiple phones. GV also allows free texting, and that’s what I used most while abroad. Whenever I was connected to a wifi network—which was pretty much all the time on the uVic campus—I could send and receive texts through GV. Between GV and direct messages in Twitter, I was able to keep abreast of what was happening at home through each day.
Texts only go so far, however. I also wanted to talk with my wife and my kids. I could have used Skype, but instead I connected with them through Facetime, the video chat software built into the iPhone. I was at first confused how to activate Facetime without making a phone call, but once I figured out the trick I was able to call my family through Facetime (The trick is this: you can’t dial through the quick-dial pane; you have to open the contact for the person you want to call and press the “Facetime” button). I could see them, they could see me, and I could even show them around uVic a little bit.
These solutions worked to keep me connected while I was abroad without breaking my budget. How about you? What solutions have you used to call or text while out of your home country? Let us know about your solutions in the comments.
[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user malias.]
