By SHELTON BUMGARNER
Marmot’s Hole Guest Blogger
Even the most jaded, curmudgeonly expat veteran in the ROK eventually succums to a bit of homesickeness and finds him or herself longing to hear the voice of a relative back home or maybe listen to a bit of Western music.
Since getting some expats to spend money on anything that doesn’t involve “wine, women and song,” can be like squeezing blood from a turnip, it is imperative that any online option be free or nearly free.
But never fear, there is hope.
One of the newer options for calling home for free can be found via Skype
The service is free if used between computers that have the Skype software installed and provides strikingly clear calls. The service’s creators can afford to have a free option, because, according to PC Magazine:
The service uses a peer-to-peer networking scheme, but rather than sharing files, connected PCs help route one another’s calls. Skype also uses that routing technology to get around the need for (and cost of) central servers and directories, so call delivery can be free.
The software handles compression with several proprietary audio codecs, which, depending on the available bandwidth, deliver bit rates from 3 to 16 Kbps???enough for decent voice audio. The service does end-to-end encryption using 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), which is nearly impossible to hack. Skype also supports text messaging, a useful feature for immediately sending notes to the other party
Making a call via Skype is much like making a call with a regular phone. It includes the option to “call” a fellow user who is not simultaneously using the service. Although, obviously, their computer has to be turned on and connected to the Internet via an “always on” broadband connection.
Skype also provides a fee-based service allowing users to send and recieve phone calls from individuals using an analog phone anywhere in the world for about 2 US cents. Skype has also introduced a fee-based voice mail service.
More information on Skype may be found here, here and here.
While I feel a bit uneasy about using Skype because there must be some sort of catch, to date nothing I’ve read makes me believe that the service is anything but on the up and up.
Meanwhile, for the expat tightwad who wants to hear a few tunes for free there are several streaming options available. My favorite, by far, is a service out of Brazil named Terra Radio that allows you to listen to many of your favorite artists for free. While the service has its downsides for the English speaking expat in Korea– it’s in Portuguese and you can only listen to many popular albums for only 30 seconds — overall the selection is large enough to warrant at least a gander.
Another good site is Yahoo! Music. The selection is quite large and it is easy to get a sense of what’s popular back home — even if your home is Canada, the UK, or any other major English speaking nation. One downside — not all songs listed are available for individuals accessing the site with a Korean-based IP address.
And, last not but least, there is always Shoutcast. It is to music what Usenet is to the written word — a confusing, interesting and sometimes confounding virtual community that makes you feel naughty and stimulated all at the same time. You never quite know what you’re going to get when you search for an artist and sometimes, even if you think you’re going to listen to U2, you end up listening to Las Ketchup.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
If all else fails, you can always listen to National Public Radio online.
11 Comments
………….
ditto
not fair
Skype is actually a great service. The sound quality is amazing and it rarely if ever cuts out. I’ve been using it for months now between Canada and Korea, Canada and Japan, as well as within Canada.
The online music selections, however, are generally garbage, and about as mainsteam as they come. A simple and easy way to get a decent selection of streaming radio is by downloading Apple’s iTunes music player. Don’t worry, you can use it on PCs, and is basically a clean and easy to use window’s media player.
Once you download iTunes, choose their radio offerings and you can choose from hundreds of stations that are selected by someone with a bit of taste and categorized for easy navigation.
I have been using Skype since around December of last year and have been very happy with it. Once my current phone card runs out, I’ll be investing in skype out which allows you to make phone calls from your computer to a landline phone for minimal charges.
I’ve talked with people in Canada, China, Japan, The Netherlands, The U.K., and Australia with no problems.
doesn’t deserve a post.
however, mac minis in korea being uncustomizable does deserve a post. you can’t customize to dvd writer or built-in wireless here which kinda sucks.
and if you were to dig a bit deeper with bluetooth headsets in conjunction with skype that might pique some interest.
Skype is awesome, and should soon eliminate the need for even those cheap phone cards.
For free music, give http://www.limewire.com a try. The basic version is totally free and features an excellent range of tunes. Plus, unlike Kazaa, it doesn’t slow down your computer.
There’s absolutely no reason to buy a mac now until 2006. I was on the verge of buying a 20″ iMac when the Intel switch was reported on /. Now I’m definitely just going to wait until the new Pentium-M Powerbooks come out, or maybe go desktop. All depends on how well Ableton Live works on the PM-Powerbooks. It’ll be nice to dual-boot because there is a lot of cheminformatics stuff that I want to play with which only works under XP.
you’re right. i thought about holding off myself, but then went to the mac store… only 6-700k and a nice addition. looking forward to intel chips myself.
Off topic, but I was wondering if anyone could help clear up my extreme confusion with this. http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/.....index.html This survey somehow rates Seoul the 5th most expensive city in the world ahead of among others New York at 13. How is this possible. I have lived in Seoul and New York and New York is about twice as expensive to me. Can anyone imagine what methodology would have produced that? The best I can come up with part of their survey included an apartment of a certain number of square feet which doesn’t routinely exist in Seoul and hence is super expensive. Still this doesn’t make sense at all. Seoul is a cheap city. I spent no more then a million won a month outside of rent and that was with me going out quite a bit.
They take a list of items that an executive would buy in New York City, and they see how much it would cost for someone to obtain those things in other cities around the world. Yes, Seoul can be very cheap for some things, but for a lot of those harder-to-find items on the list (maybe including a sizable flat), they can be quite expensive. So the list of items may not be stuff you would want to buy.