Staying connected.....

By Donna B. McNicol -
We are not moving to the Hinterlands of Zarnia, we are moving to Cuenca, Ecuador. Fortunately for us, we found Internet access is very available there, several companies offer the service and many apartment buildings provide it. There is a bit of free wi-fi as well. Since I am a writer, that's critical for me. But we also want to continue our blogs and stay in touch with family. Oh yeah, and visit Facebook. :)

We also want to keep things backed up so we have several portable hard drives for back-ups as well as storage of music, photos and movies. I use both Carbonite and DropBox to keep things backed up offline. DropBox is especially important for me since I use two laptops (my small one for writing and the bigger one for programs I don't have on the small one). Files are kept in sync between the two as well as my phone.

Since I can access the files on my phone, I keep important personal documents there. I can easily pull up a copy of our pup's shot record, a membership card, a travel itinerary, etc.  Comes in very handy.

Of course we don't know what will will get for a phone data plan when we get to Cuenca. Stu will bring his iPhone 4S (unlocked), I already have my iPhone 3G set up in Cuenca for phone/text only, and I'll have my Android which will probably get a pre-paid SIM card in the US.

We've got two Google Voice numbers which are working now, sending any calls to emails and texts. Those will be local numbers for folks back here in the US. We may get a MagicJack or some other VoIP system that will provide another way for folks in the US to call us without making an international call. We will have Skype, too.

So no, you won't lose touch with us when we move to Ecuador. We'll be CONNECTED!


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