Other odds and ends...

I'm using this blog as a skeleton to help put together a tip sheet for next year's fellows. So, I want to make sure I get everything written down that I had to do before coming.

I had forgotten to mention that MIT has International SOS. And, if you have your MIT certificate, you can go to the private MIT SOS portal and scroll to the bottom of the page. There will be an image of an insurance card, click the print card button to load the PDF. I had an issue with the web browser ADOBE where the card number would not display, so I downloaded the pdf to store and print out.

ISOS also has an emergency information  and vaccination record storage option that should be good, but I had some problems entering information.

MIT employees are covered by International SOS (ISOS) for emergency assistance while traveling abroad for both work-related and non-work-related trips. Students and MIT employees traveling abroad are encouraged to register with ISOS prior to departure.
MIT’s ISOS program does not cover medical expenses. For information about health insurance coverage in the case of a medical emergency while traveling, consult your health plan. Whatever your coverage, do not hesitate to seek medical care if you become ill while traveling.- Travel Clinic

I got my Singapore phone number on Friday. SingTel prepaid cards are available in some SingTel shops, but not all. Mostly you can just pick one up at the 7-Eleven, pop it into your unlocked phone, and start using it. I put the SingTel Hi! card ($15 for $18 of credit) into my dad's old G2 phone. I then just turned off the data network. While I'm on WiFi, I can use WhatsApp to message people like a text message. I can also use WiFi to download maps to use with my GPS and city guides on trip advisor. I can get monthly plans after I get an employment pass, but I may just stick with the prepaid plan. Phone calls will probably only be used for meeting people.

I think WhatsApp is kind of a silly service. It's just another internet messaging service. The only difference is that it's tied to your phone number. So, it finds your contacts by searching for their phone numbers in it's registry. To activate WhatsApp, you need to have a phone number that receives texts or calls. I gave WhatsApp my GoogleVoice number. Then, Google emailed me the text message with my registration code. It can also call your google voice and leave a voicemail with the code if you have trouble with the texting option.

I still have GoogleVoice connected to my old mobile service. I don't know if that's bad or not. I simply turned off Call Forwarding and turned on "Do Not Disturb" mode.

For GoogleMaps, you can view a map on the Wifi, and then in the menu or some other options (it's different in different versions) you can "Make Map Available Offline." The maps are about 1 or 2 MB depending on the size. I then use this offline map and my phone's GPS to locate myself when I'm out and about.

I highly recommend nice family of offline appa: the TripAdvisor Offline City Guides. You download each city that you want. It stores Trip Advisor entries for attractions, shops, restaurants, itinieraries, and other items on your phone. You can access them offline, and even bring up maps and have TripAdvisor use your GPS to guide you to the selected location. It was helpful for me to find the borders of Chinatown, yesterday.