A few tips to make life more comfortable for expats moving to the Middle East + tips for getting the best price

Watching your favorite TV shows from back home

We're really big 24 fans but getting American TV shows in the Middle East is not always easy, and purchasing DVD's and shipping is not possible either as they will be confiscated in customs anyway. No problem as I just download it off the Internet

Here's how:

First, you need a way to play it on your television. You have two choices:

1. Burn the TV show onto a CD and play the CD on your DVD player. Most DVD players play VideoCD (VCD) files. I personally think it's a hassle to burn a CD or two every time I want to watch something so I much prefer the next method.
2. Plug your computer into your TV using an inexpensive s-video cable that you can purchase from the grocery store or any Radio Shack. Simply connect the s-video output of your computer's video card to the s-video input of your TV.
   
   
3. Use an audio cable to connect audio-out of the computer to the audio-in to the TV. The computer end takes a walkman-style plug and the TV end takes two RCA style ends (one for left and right speakers).
   
   

Almost all laptops and recent desktop computers have an s-video output. If your older computer video card lacks a TV output, replace it with an ATI Radeon or NVIDIA card. My ATI Radeon 9200 cost $59. An ATI Radeon 9800SE is $152 from www.newegg.com and can be hacked to turn it into a 9800 Pro!

Almost any tv show or rare movie is available (click here for the original 1962 episode of the Beverly Hillbilly's). Other rare movies and tv shows I've downloaded are the original episodes of Giligan's Island, original 1949 Batman series, and a 1910 Frankenstein movie by Thomas Edison.

Avoid the temptation to download movies still playing in the theater. They are either DVD screener copies that display the copyright text, "For screening purposes only - do not copy" at the bottom and is immensely annoying (and effective) in preventing piracy or are copies from somebody sitting in the back of the theater with a video cam. The problem here is that it's annoying to watch people's shadows as they get up and walk around the theater and video cam quality is poor.

www.tmstorrents.com specializes in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Malayalam. Other good index sites are www.torrentreactor.net and www.isohunt.com

Cheap Long Distance Telephone

Instead of paying 70 cents per minute thru the monopoly telephone carrier, Etisalat, I use my computer to place calls to the states and pay 4 cents. I bought a $9 microphone and reused my walkman headphones and signed up at www.dialpad.com. No, the person you are calling does not need a computer to talk, only a regular telephone. Etisalat has been desperate to block web sites of what they see as competitors (which they are), but www.dialpad.com has been able to bypass Etisalat's attempts at blocking customers inside the UAE. Voice quality is slightly less than telephone assuming you have a DSL line.

If the person you are calling also has a computer with microphone and speakers/headphone, you can use the free www.skype.com service. Voice quality is better than telephone and works with slow dial-up connections too.

After a while, you may get tired of talking to people using a microphone and headphone. You can use your normal phone with Skype with a $39.99 adapter from www.phoneconnector.com

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