Working Nomad

Getting ahead of the pack and keeping your finger on the technological pulse is what keeps you ahead. One thing that will be huge is mobile / PDA / cellphone websites. Check out this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5056344.stm&quot on Google and mobile computing.

I believe now is a great time to be jumping on the mobile bandwagon. Up until now there has been few resources on the subject but the big guys, such as Google and Yahoo! are moving in so it’s time to get onboard.

It is possible to design a site using XHTML and CSS so it delivers one set of content to normal laptop / PC browser and one set to mobile appliances. There is no need to have two different sets of content. You just split the content from the presentation and the code does the rest.

CSS is a stylesheet and is a very powerful way of managing the look of your website. You will in effect have a laptop/PC CSS file and a mobile CSS file. XHTML is similar to HTML and is worth getting to know for the future.

Check out http://www.w3schools.com" for some great tutorials on CSS and XHTML.

So on the browser version you can carry http://www.google.com. Ads for income and on the Mobile version you can carry services such as <a http://www.greenlightwireless.net which is similar to Adsense.

I seriously believe this will be the way forward for website publishers who are serious about making money from the Internet.

My advice is to get in their early and become established on both platforms and make your website content as future proof as possible.

Just a few hours before I leave Bali for Malaysia on the first leg of my journey home. I then need to work my way down to Singapore to catch my flight to Frankfurt then London.

Can’t belive it is all nearly over now! The trip will have been a little over 8 months in total.

It is sad to be leaving Bali in a way but I definetly feel I have had enough time on the island. Many expats make Bali their home but it is not somewhere I could live long term (thats goes for all of SoutheastAsia).

I really hope the island continues it’s recovery as the tourist numbers are badly needed here. Encouragingly many more Asian tourists are coming here to replace the Aussies who have been put off in recent times.

Well I finally managed to book my flight on the British Airways website after using three different cards! They finally accepted my Nationwide credit card. By the way if you are from the UK you should get a Nationwide account because they do not charge you for using your card abroad which is pretty neat.

Well I had no hangover today but enjoyed a few beers watching England last night with some fellow England followers from Norway and Sweden. Now Sweden are out their fans here are firmly behind England. Most of them had England jerseys on and hats!

The Norwegian guys follow the English Permier League religiously and all have their favourite teams. It was good watching the game with such a mix of nationalities and the people you meet on these trips contribute much to the overall pleasure of travelling.

Well Tuesday 4th at noon I will be back on home soil. The Working Nomad site will continue to rumble on with reports from trips around Europe and monthly earnings etc so I hope you still visit the site and participate in our forum!

I am excited now about going home and I should be back at my Mother’s house in time to possibly see England play Brazil (positive thinking!).

Well I am online to book my flight home (via Frankfurt) but the British Airways web site is telling me my Visa card is not a Visa card even though it has Visa on it!

Another odd thing is that one way flights to Germany from Asia are way too expensive. I rang around and did a lot of web searches for flights but nothing cheap.

So I decide just to get a flight back to London. It turns out that I have to change planes in Frankfurt anyway and the flights are very cheap! I am wondering whether they’ll let me stay in Germany and miss my connecting flight?

I will only stay in Germany if England are still in the World Cup. I have been checking out various news sites and apparently England have already lost the game against Ecuador tonight due to the predicted hot weather. So no need to stay in Germany!

So I will be back here tomorrow with another Visa card and hopefully a hangover from celebrating the previous nights’ events in Stuttgart..

Having been in Bali now for six weeks I have really got a good feel for the way the Indonesians live and the struggles they face day to day. One of my Sumatran friends is becoming concerned that he has no wife and more importantly, no children.

See there is no retirement pension in Indonesia. Your security in old age is your offspring. Without children getting old in Indonesia is very tough, hence why so many have large families in the developing World.

Another friend wants a new life in Australia, and who can blame him. An Aussie couple has offered him somewhere to stay in Perth to stay if he can get over there. That’s the problem you see. An Indonesian passport costs 1 million rupiah ($100). This far exceeds what people earn in a month here.

It is ridiculous that the Government here charges this amount which is way out of proportion to everything else. On top of that to make an Australian Visa you need a bank account with a lot of money and you need a return airfare.

Is there any wonder why so many Indonesians risk their lives crossing over to Australia illegally in small boats? Unemployment in Bali is very high with many flocking in from other Islands in the hope of working in the tourist industry, such as my friends from Sumatra.

Next time you get on an airplane consider yourself extremely privileged. I know I will.