Yay!! You asked for it and now I’m gonna deliver, here is YET another tutorial breaking down what GSM is. And guess what, you don’t even have to read it! Just sit back and click PLAY. Don’t thank me yet, thank our good friend YouTube.com!

Yackie 101: Voluntourism

There comes a point — generally when you’ve lost your third passport in three weeks, you’re sunburned over 60 percent of your body and your bank account is empty — when you start to wonder if there is more to the whole vacation concept than lying on a beach getting toasted.

If you’re the kind of global trekker who wants a chance to contribute more to a local economy than buying overpriced trinkets that neither you nor your friends back home really need you should consider voluntourism.

If these perfectly reasonable thoughts cross your mind from time to time, you’re not alone. In fact, you’ve jumped on something of a bandwagon. The caravan of do-gooders heading hither and yon on altruistic volunteer tourism (a.k.a. “voluntourism”) programs has reached proportions that, if not biblical, are certainly large enough for the tourism industry to take notice.

Volunteer tourism is alive and well and growing in popularity. In fact, according to a new survey sponsored by msnbc.com and Condé Nast Traveler, more than half (55 percent) of the respondents expressed an interest in taking a volunteer vacation.

Volunteer vacations are vacations, which include some activities focused on furthering a charitable cause for which the participant receives no compensation.

The types of volunteer vacations are diverse, from low-skill work cleaning up local wildlife areas to providing high-skill medical aid in a foreign country.

Originally most volunteer vacations were undertaken by people with a direct connection to a particular cause and were considered more as short term, intense volunteer projects rather than vacations. Many of these organizations were long-standing international development assistance organizations which placed short-term volunteers on community development project sites.

According to the Travel Industry Association of America, more than 55 million Americans have participated in a volunteer vacation, and about 100 million more are considering taking one.

Volunteer vacations participants are diverse but typically share a desire to “do something good” while also experiencing new places and challenges in locales they might not otherwise visit.

While some experts on volunteerism welcome the expansion of volunteer vacations as an opportunity to provide more resources to projects and to encourage a volunteer ethic in people, others have pointed out that the business methods used by tour operators, such as exclusivity deals, and catering to the needs of the volunteer rather than the volunteer project, exploit the communities the projects are intended to help.

There are also other types of traveling that engage people with scientific research and education to promote the understanding and action necessary for a sustainable environment. Participants cover a fee that would include expenses on the different sites worldwide, and engage in projects according to their interest or location.

For more information on this subject visit:

www.charityguide.org/volunteer/vacations.htm 

www.globalvolunteers.org or www.GlobeAware.org

The Yackie World Travellers are hitting the open road. This time they’ve landed in Eugene, Oregon. Here’s a brief profile of the traveling duo.

OWEN BOWLING

AGE: 24
SEX: MALE
NATIONALITY: AUSTRALIAN
DATE OF BIRTH: 20/03/1984
OCCUPATION: PERSONAL TRAINER
INTERESTS: SURFING, SOCCER, TRAVEL, FILM AND PHOTOGRAPHY

ABOUT OWEN:

Owen was born and raised in Hobart, Tasmania. At the age of 6, his parents packed the family into a station wagon and roll-up caravan and drove around Australia for 16 months. This early adventure instilled in him the “travel bug” and he has since traveled extensively.

In 2002, Owen traveled to Italy and spent time playing soccer in the semi-professional “Serie D” league.

Owen has spent the past 5 years working as a Personal Trainer in Brisbane Australia.

JAIME KOHLEIS

AGE: 29
SEX: FEMALE
NATIONALITY: AUSTRALIAN
DATE OF BIRTH: 06/12/1978
OCCUPATION: PERSONAL TRAINER
INTERESTS: TRAVEL, RUNNING, WATER SPORTS, FOREIGN LANGUAGE, ANIMAL RIGHTS

ABOUT JAIME:

Jaime was born in Perth, WA and was already traveling before she could talk – moving to New Zealand for the first 9 years of her life.

Moving back to Australia, she focused her talents in the sporting arena. By 18 she was rowing for the Australian Under 22 squad.
This took her to Italy, Greece and Switzerland. This international travel was enough to open her eyes to a bigger world and she has not looked back, having traveled to over 15 countries.

Jaime has also spent the past 3 years working as a Personal Trainer in Brisbane.

How it started:

The Idea began in December 2006.
Springing from the revelation that although fulltime RVing was a style of travel previously exclusive to the retired generation, now it could also be an option for us!
Through much discussion and online research, coupled with a desire to do something different, we discovered that it was not only achievable, but possibly the best way to travel!

Over the next 9 months, whilst each working up to 3 jobs at once, we planned a skeleton of a trip that involved spending 3 months trekking around India, 2 weeks seeing the sights in London, Flying to Canada, Buying an RV in the USA and then driving down to the bottom of Panama and beyond! The possibilities were then expanded with the introduction of the new Canadian Working Holiday Program visa, allowing us to spend up to 2 years in Canada working, thus opening up the doors to Alaska!

Catch up with them and their travels at Yackie World Travellers.

Yackie 101: SIM Cards

So I’ve been constantly telling international travelers to get a Yackie Mobile SIM card and I’ve realized that many people don’t know what a SIM card is. So here is another yet another tutorial that breaks down the basics of SIM cards.

What is a SIM card?
The SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card also known as a “smart chip” is basically the “brain” of the phone, providing cellular service as well as many other functions including call log, voice mail and SMS and GPRS (internet connection standards). SIM cards are the size of a credit card but they have a pop-out chip about the size of a postage stamp which fits into all modern GSM phones. The smart chip is embedded with circuitry and when inserted into a GSM mobile phone provides wireless phone service on a particular GSM network. SIM cards are usually available prepaid or on a contractual basis, however Cellular Abroad only offers the prepaid version which is the most popular because of the user’s complete control over how much they spend. There are no hidden fees or surprise charges.

How do I install a SIM card?
SIM cards typically are credit-card sized cards with a smaller SIM chip almost completely floating within the card and attached on one edge of the chip by some perforated plastic. The chip is approximately the size of a standard postage stamp folded in half.

Whether you are a frequent business traveler, or just a tourist seeking a reliable and affordable cell phone solution, the Yackie Mobile International SIM card is the solution. The Yackie Mobile International SIM card makes it easy and affordable for anyone traveling overseas to enjoy the safety and convenience of cellular service! As long as you have an unlocked GSM tri or quad bnd cell phone, you can benefit from using the Yackie Mobile International SIM card.

If you’re heading overseas, be prepared to defend being an American. International travelers face a growing global anti-American attitude. A Forbes.com article discusses the unfavorable image of Americans abroad.

“European and world views of the United States and President George Bush have dramatically worsened since 2000; the trend has intensified since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. There has been a decline in perceptions of the United States throughout the European Union, including in such traditional U.S. allies as the United Kingdom and Poland, and in Muslim and Latin American countries, according to annual polls undertaken by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Pew Research Center and the BBC World Service.”

For the rest of the article visit: Anti-American Sentiment Grows Worldwide.

Concerned about being a magnet for anti-Americanism during your next trip abroad? Bruce McIndoe, CEO of iJet Travel Intelligence, offers his tips for staying under the radar:

Avoid American fast-food restaurants and chains.

Keep discussions of politics to private places, not rowdy bars.

Take a rain check on wearing clothes featuring American flags or sports team logos.

Keep your passport out of sight.

Keep cameras, video equipment and maps tucked away.

Soften your speech; Americans typically overshadow their hosts in the volume department.

Yackie 101: GSM V.S. CDMA

In cellular service there are two main competing network technologies: Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). Understanding the difference between GSM and CDMA will allow you to choose a carrier that uses the preferable network technology for your needs.

The GSM Association is an international organization founded in 1987, dedicated to providing, developing, and overseeing the worldwide wireless standard of GSM. CDMA, a proprietary standard designed by Qualcomm in the United States, has been the dominant network standard for North America and parts of Asia. However, GSM networks continue to make inroads in the United States, as CDMA networks make progress in other parts of the world.

Data Transfer Speed:

With the advent of cellular phones doing double and triple duty as streaming video devices, podcast receivers and email devices, speed is important to those who use the phone for more than making calls. CDMA has been traditionally faster than GSM, though both technologies continue to rapidly leapfrog along this path. Both boast “3G” standards, or 3rd generation technologies.

EVDO, also known as CDMA2000, is CDMA’s answer to the need for speed with a downstream rate of about 2 megabits per second, though some reports suggest real world speeds are closer to 300-700 kilobits per second (kbps). This is comparable to basic DSL.

GSM’s answer is EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution), which boasts data rates of up to 384 kbps with real world speeds reported closer to 70-140 kbps. With added technologies still in the works that include UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone Standard) and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), speeds reportedly increase to about 275—380 kbps. This technology is also known as W-CDMA, but is incompatible with CDMA networks. An EDGE-ready phone is required.

In the case of EVDO, theoretical high traffic can degrade speed and performance, while the EDGE network is more susceptible to interference. Both require being within close range of a cell to get the best speeds, while performance decreases with distance.

Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards:

In the United States only GSM phones use SIM cards. The removable SIM card allows phones to be instantly activated, interchanged, swapped out and upgraded, all without carrier intervention. The SIM itself is tied to the network, rather than the actual phone. Phones that are card-enabled can be used with any GSM carrier.

The CDMA equivalent, a R-UIM card, is only available in parts of Asia but remains on the horizon for the U.S. market. CDMA carriers in the U.S. require proprietary handsets that are linked to one carrier only and are not card-enabled. To upgrade a CDMA phone, the carrier must deactivate the old phone then activate the new one. The old phone becomes useless.

(more…)

Cell Phone Recycling

Donate Your Cell Phones or Start a Donation Program

One in three Americans will replace their cell phones this year, adding to the 500 million unused phones currently waiting to be discarded or recycled. Cell phone recycling and wireless recycling programs keep valuable materials out of landfills, including an estimated $630,000 of precious metals from circuit boards, and enough copper from phone chargers to recover the Statue of Liberty, twice.

Apparently, throwing away your cellphone isn’t just environmentally hazardous, it’s downright wasteful. ReCellular, an electronics stability firm, is working on a going green campaign in anticipation of Earth Day. Hundreds of millions of used cell phones are taken out of service each year around the world as new innovations reach the marketplace. Worldwide, humans discard 40,000 cellphone a day, meaning 150 million per year. These cellphones are said to contain $94 million in precious metals. One in three Americans will replace their cell phones this year, adding to the 500 million unused phones currently waiting to be discarded or recycled.

Cell phone recycling and wireless recycling programs keep valuable materials out of landfills, including an estimated $630,000 of precious metals from circuit boards, and enough copper from phone chargers to recover the Statue of Liberty, twice.

They’re also offering five reasons to recycle your phone.

1. They likely still work. More than half of the phones ReCellular receives are still functional, and can be refurbished and reused - often in developing countries. The United Nations ranks access to communications as the second-most important contributor to quality of life, after health-care.

2. They contain valuable materials. Recycling cell phone circuit boards yields more gold per ton than the average ton of ore from gold mine operations, as well as other precious metals such as silver, platinum and palladium.

3. They can be environmentally damaging. Like all rechargeable batteries, cell phones contain heavy metals and chemicals that can be toxic in landfills, and should always be recycled.

4. They are of value. ReCellular offers businesses up to $150 per phone, and their charitable donate-a-phone programs raised more than $8 million per year for non-profit organizations.

5. They’re serving no purpose in the drawer. Really, what are you keeping those cell phones for? Send them in.

If after this you’re compelled to recycle your old phone, hit these guys up at ReCellular.com. Or feel free to check out www.CellPhonesForCash.com, they offer and provide responsible recycling and redistribution programs that not only keep cell phones from entering our landfills, but puts cash back into the pockets of those who have purchased or collected them.

This post was taken from Prepaidreviews.com - a top source of information on prepaid cell phones.

Yackie 101:Unlocking Your Mobile Phone

An international SIM card can be one of the best ways to cut your roaming costs and international calling expenses when you travel or study abroad. Most people already have a mobile phone and many do not realize that you can take your mobile phone with you as it will work around the world. To do this, you need to check that your phone is:

1. Tri or Quad Band Mobile Phone
2. Unlocked

Is My Phone Compatible?

Most modern mobile phones run either tri or quad-band GSM which means that it will work in most countries around the world. If you have an older dual-band phone this may not work. Your best option is to check the manufacturers website or your mobile phone manual as it will tell you what GSM bands your phone can work on. Most of the world run on the GSM 900/1800Mhz bands, while the USA runs on GSM 850/1900Mhz bands - however you can check every country at:
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml

If you have bought a phone in the last 12 months it will most likely be fine!

Is My Phone Locked?

If you know your phone is GSM compatible with the country you are visiting, the next step is you need to find out if your phone is locked. If you have bought a mobile phone, most networks will lock the phone to their network - meaning that you cannot use this on any other network. This will obviously restrict you if you want to use a different SIM card, however you have every right to unlock it and this is perfectly legal.

Cell phones today are designed to use a subscriber identification module (SIM) card in the form of a little microchip that the store puts in there that holds their subscriber information. When you hear the term “locked” cell phone, it is referring to a code inside the SIM card that causes that phone to work directly and only with their service. So if the phone is locked, the SIM card only works with that particular carrier where the phone was purchased. The reason carriers do this is to keep consumers from purchasing phones on their plan at greatly reduced price, only to use it with another carrier. Some carriers will only keep the phone locked until they feel they have recovered the cost, at which time those same carriers will unlock the phone so it can be used with another carrier.

In June of 2004, a class action lawsuit was filed by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) because they felt as if these locked phones were interfering with their rights to do business with anybody they wanted to. The idea was to leave the phones unlocked or at least have them unlock themselves after the initial contract was over. There are many web sites out there that advertise the ability to unlock your phone, depending on what kind it is or how old the phone may be. The reason that some of them can be unlocked without visiting the place of business is the software that is on the phone itself. In most instances, the higher priced phone will allow you to enter a code that a provider will sell you that will enable the software to be unlocked.

A question that I am constantly getting from students that travel around the world is “How do I unlock my phone?” To some of you this may not make much sense, but essentially what the person is asking is how can I use my mobile phone around the world when I travel!

If your phone is locked you can unlock this by one of the two methods:

1. Contact your network provider and ask for your phone unlock code. All mobile phone networks have to give this to you by law, however many may make it hard for you to get your code, or make you wait a long time for it. If that is the case you can opt for option
2. Do a Google search for “mobile phone unlocking” which will come up with a number of websites that will offer mobile phone unlocking for a small fee. You can even enter your make and model of your phone to that search to get a more specific answer.

As long as you have an unlocked GSM tri or quad band cell phone, you can benefit from using the Yackie Mobile International SIM card. The Yackie Mobile International SIM card makes is easy and affordable for anyone going overseas to enjoy the safety and convenience of cellular service! Why pay exorbitant rates for incoming and outgoing calls from other providers when you can enjoy better service at substantially lower rates?

Visit YackieMobile.com for more information

Hopefully this has give you all the information you need to make your sim card purchase and avoid roaming costs when abroad!

Today I visited Yackie Mobile’s World Traveller’s site: http://www.yackieworldtraveller.com, it’s a travel based website that promotes all the diverse ways in which we can see this earth.

Yackie’s World Traveller Team, Owen Bowling and Jaime Kohleis, are embarking on a global adventure. With the help of Yackie Mobile, they hope to share their exciting journey with the rest of the world. They will fly, drive, sail, train, camel, horse and elephant ride, bike and bus their way through the different landscapes that welcome them.

The list of countries they will see are:

Malaysia, India, Nepal, England, Canada, Alaska and the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, much of the Caribbean and possibly on to South America, Africa and Europe.

Right now they’re in London. Their sightseeing has included Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, Hyde Park and of course shopping on Oxford street!

The duo says that through their affiliation with Yackie Mobile they hope to inspire thousands of would be or existing travelers to stop talking and start doing! Yeah, that’s exactly what I would love to be doing at this moment. I’d love to switch places with either one of the lucky adventurers right now. I’m sure they won’t have any trouble communicating with the world with the help of Yackie Mobile.

To keep up with where their journey will take them next check them out at http://www.yackieworldtraveller.com.

    Today I found myself thinking about my trip to South Africa last year. For the first 2 weeks in Japan I found myself constantly homesick and I used my roommates cell phone to call home every chance that I got. I didn’t think the bill would be that much and when it finally arrived I saw her mouth drop and her eyes seemed to have popped out of their sockets. The girl looked as if she’d seen a ghost! She looked at the total and then looked back at me shaking her head. I asked her how much I owed her; she laughed and said a number too far into the triple digits. I didn’t have the money, so I asked my parents. They said that as much as they loved talking to me they didn’t think it was worth the price. After doing some math, if I had known about Yackie Mobile’s SIM card I would have saved about $340 bucks!

    For most college students that’s a lot of money to spend on just a phone bill. Whether students are making calls to their home country or calling their new friends in their host country, it is important for students to find a low-cost means of communication. That’s why the Yackie Mobile SIM card is perfect for students who are abroad and need an affordable way to keep in touch.

    The Yackie Mobile SIM card is an advanced international roaming SIM card with the ability to roam globally at discounted rates in over 200 countries. Incoming calls are only ¢29/minute and outgoing calls in most countries are ¢39/minute. * Yackie Mobile does not require a contract and is simply pay as you go. Students can even assign a local number of their destination to the SIM card. For example, if a student was traveling to France from the United States they could assign a France phone number to their SIM card and have the added benefit of no roaming charges for calls made to the United States. The next time I decide to travel, before I start yakking it up I’ll make sure to use the Yackie Mobile SIM card for all my communicating needs.

*Check with your service provider on the rates they provide for international roaming calls. If your compare their rates with ours you will see that Yackie Mobile really does save you a lot of money. For example to receive and make calls in South Africa,  AT&T charges $2.49 a minute!!

    I recently got a email from Malina Lipa, a backpacking enthusiast whose next adventure will take her to explore the historic wonders of Rome. I met Malina while completing a study abroad semester in Madrid. She found out that I’m doing an internship with Yackie Mobile and wanted to know if I could provide her with more information on the services of my company. She told me that she’s had problems on her previous journeys with finding a smart affordable way of keeping in contact with her friends and family.

    I told her that Yackie Mobile will provide her with peace of mind by keeping her in contact with loved ones, and that she would save money no matter how far she might be from them. Yackie Mobile never locks you into a contract and you pre-pay, so there will be no surprise bills. Malina will save up to 80% on world wide roaming cost and be able to make and receive calls in over 200 countries!

    I told her to go to Yackie Mobile’s website www.yackiemobile.com for more information on our rates and SIM card.

I‘m so excited to be working with Yackie Mobile. Today is my first day on the job and I’ve decided to keep a blog of this awesome internship experience which they’ve offered me. I just got done with all my background training and I’m amazed with all the fantastic services Yackie Mobile has to offer!

I want to go out and shout to the world that finally there is a telecommunications company that will help world travelers stay in touch with others and save money while managing their calls around the world. I can empathize with the frustration travelers face when they can’t find affordable technology to keeping in contact with loved ones and friends while traveling abroad. I recently completed two consecutive study abroad semesters, one in Madrid, Spain and another in South Africa, and trust me, I know the feeling of shock when it came to realizing how much I spent monthly on making international calls back home and to friends who were studying in other countries. I spent way too much money when I could have been saving had I known about Yackie Mobile.

Yackie Mobile is one of the first telecommunications companies to introduce a merger of their Mobile International Roaming SIM card and their Yakie VoIP service. This means, that with your Yackie personal phone number you can save money by making calls over the internet for FREE! NO other SIM card provider offers this!

All Yackie Mobile users need is access to a computer, with that they can save airtime and money on their SIM by making internet phone calls. All they would have to do is download an applicable program and start yacking. It is almost like stretching the minutes. To find out more go to www.yackiemobile.com.