10 Time Tested Tips For Traveling With

Traveling with toddlers can be torture.

New sights and sounds can be overwhelming to a young child and vacation excitement can quickly turn into temper tantrums if you’re not prepared.

Here are 10 parent-practiced tips to help make traveling with toddlers fun.

1. Choose a family-friendly destination. Skip the crowded tourist destinations and opt instead for a locale that is accustomed to having kids around.

2. Safety first! Always make sure your child’s car seat is properly secured. Also, use a removable window shade to help block the sun.

3. Pack entertainment. “Best bets for entertaining your child in the car and hotel room include favorite books, games and toys,” says Nancy Wolpert of Nickelodeon Home Entertainment. For all-inclusive entertainment, she recommends two new DVDs that feature a collection of kids’ favorite TV shows. “The Nick Picks and Nick Jr. Favorites DVDs will keep them entertained for hours,” Wolpert promises.

4. Plan rest stops. If you’re driving, break up the monotony by stopping every couple of hours (or more frequently if necessary). Kids need to stretch out after being cooped up in a car for a while. Consider bringing along a ball to kick or throw around during these breaks.

5. Be flexible. Set realistic expectations and let your child soak up the experience at his or her own pace. You might want to limit your activities to one a day. Otherwise, you could wind up with an over-stimulated toddler.

6. Bring water and plenty of snacks. Fruit, granola bars, mini juice cartons and small boxes of cereal make for great, healthy snacks.

7. Bring a beloved item. A blankie or cuddly toy will help your toddler feel safe and secure. Be sure to have a replacement on hand, too. It will save you some heartache should the original get lost.

8. Start and end your day early. Kids are at their best in the morning, so plan accordingly.

9. Stick to your routine. Eating, napping and playing at the same time each day may be all your child needs to feel comfortable in a new environment.

10. Take lots of pictures. They’re only young once, so enjoy every moment! – NU

Pattaya Over Payers

Many foreign tourists make the mistake of paying too much for anything and everything when they go to Thailand. This especially holds true in Pattaya.

The main problem is that they tend to compare the prices of hotels, food, drink and anything else to what it costs back in their hometown. This can be costly for you and for the rest of the tourists. Just because you are on vacation and are a bit loose with your money, don’t just give away.

Let me explain.

Let’s say you go out for a seafood dinner and the total for dinner and drinks is $20. You think to yourself that this would cost at least $50 back home. So, you try to compensate by leaving a $5 or $10 tip. Big mistake.

The bellhop carries your bags to your room and tells you how to operate everything in your room. You appreciate this, and compare it to hotels you have been to on business trips, and tip the kid $5. Another mistake.

You meet a girl at a bar and she agrees to go home with you. You spend the night with her and when she gets ready to go in the morning, you tip her the same price you do back home. This is going to be 3 or 4 times the going rate.

What happens now is that all these people start expecting these kinds of tips. Prices start to skyrocket, and the city that used to be the best place in the world for a vacation, will soon be ruined.

You may think to yourself, big deal. I am just one guy on vacation and I can spend whatever I want. It is my vacation. You will just wind up ruining it for everyone else.

The smart thing to do is to hang out at some of the Pattaya forums a month or two before you go and find out what the going rates are. And then, don’t overpay. Otherwise, you will be, in the words of one forum poster, a Lame Dupe Over Payer, or LDOP.

Think about it. You wouldn’t pay $50 for something you know you can get for $20 back home, would you? So, why do it in Pattaya? I am not cheap, but I can’t see paying more than I have to.

If you keep paying more and more, everyone will expect more and more. The consumers need to control the prices refuse to pay inflated prices. Eventually, they will figure it out and lower their expectations.

Keep in mind that Thailand’s average wage is about $6 per day. Giving someone a tip equal to a day’s pay is ridiculous. Check the prices before you go and don’t compare prices to back home. You are not back home. You are in Pattaya.

7 Tips For Travel Trips

We love taking trips, whether it’s a short road trip, or a longer trip by air to some distant exotic place. But all too often we fail to plan for our trip and the result is frustration and annoyance.

1. For road trips, get the right maps and plan your route thoroughly. Everything won’t go exactly to plan, but at least you’ll have much fewer nasty surprises.

2. Never, ever make a joke about bombs or terrorists near security at an airport. Many people have jokingly mentioned they have a small bomb in their case as their luggage is being inspected. Later at the police station they deeply regretted their stupidity.

3. Be immediately suspicious in airports, railway or bus stations when someone bumps into you. It may be a pickpocket. Also be aware if something is spilled on you, or a spot on your clothing is pointed out to you. These things are designed to distract your attention from what is really going on: the theft of your valuables.

4. While cruises make planning easy with their all in charges, there is likely to be many extra items that you should budget for. These include, taxes, surcharges and fees, tipping, drinks, some shore excursions, shopping purchases, etc.

5. The most obvious thing to check on before setting off on a foreign trip is the state of the local weather where you are going. You don’t want to arrive in a tee shirt if it’s snowing, or in a fur coat if it’s in the 90s.

6. When travelling with children bring along recent photos of each one. If a child gets lost, the photo will prove invaluable in helping to locate the child again.

7. A trip to a theme park will suffer from a lack of careful planning. Some parks are so big that planning is essential. Get a list of all the rides and a map of the park, as well as opening and closing times, before setting off.

Google Glass

              Google Glass is a wearable computer with an optical head-mounted display (OHMD). It was developed by Google with the mission of producing a mass-market ubiquitous computer. Google Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format. Wearers communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands. Google Glass became officially available to the general public on May 15th, 2014, for a price of $1500. Before that users were required to receive invitations before they could try Google Glass.

                               

               Google provides four prescription frame choices for about $225.00 U.S. It is necessary to remove a small screw in order to move the Google Glass from one frame to another. Google entered in a partnership with the Italian eyewear company Luxottica, owners of the Ray-Ban, Oakley, and other brands, to offer additional frame designs. Google sold Google Glass in the USA from 15 April 2014 for a limited period of time for $1500.

Technical specifications

For the developer Explorer units:

• Android 4.0.4 and higher
• 640×360 Himax HX7309 LCoS display
• 5-megapixel camera, capable of 720p video recording
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
• Bluetooth
• 16GB storage (12 GB available)
• Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 SoC 1.2Ghz Dual(ARMv7)
• 682MB RAM
• 3 axis gyroscope
• 3 axis accelerometer
• 3 axis magnetometer (compass)
• Ambient light sensing and proximity sensor
• Bone conduction audio transducer

Applications:
                    Google Glass applications are free applications built by third-party developers. Glass also uses many existing Google applications, such as Google Now, Google Maps, Google+, and Gmail.

Third-party applications announced at South by Southwest (SXSW) include Evernote, Skitch, The New York Times, and Path.

On April 25, 2013, Google released the Mirror API, allowing developers to start making apps for Glass. In the terms of service, it is stated that developers may not put ads in their apps or charge fees; a Google representative told The Verge that this might change in the future.

Many developers and companies have built applications for Glass, including news apps, facial recognition, exercise, photo manipulation, translation, and sharing to social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter.

On May 16, 2013, Google announced the release of seven new apps, including reminders from Evernote, fashion news from Elle, and news alerts from CNN. Following Google's XE7 Glass Explorer Edition update in early July 2013, evidence of a "Glass Boutique", a store that will allow synchronization to Glass of Glassware and APKs, was noted.

Version XE8 made a debut for Google Glass on August 12, 2013. It brings an integrated video player with playback controls, the ability to post an update to Path, and lets users save notes to Evernote. Several other minute improvements include volume controls, improved voice recognition, and several new Google Now cards.

On November 19, 2013, Google unveiled its Glass Development Kit, showcasing a translation app Word Lens, a cooking app AllTheCooks, and an exercise app Strava among others as successful examples.

On May 15th, 2014, Google announced 3 news apps TripIt, FourSquare and OpenTable in order to entice travelers.

MyGlass:
              Google offers a companion Android and iOS app called MyGlass, which allows the user to configure and manage the device.

Voice activation:
                          Other than the touchpad, Google Glass can be controlled using "voice actions". To activate Glass, wearers tilt their heads 30° upward (which can be altered for preference) or tap the touchpad, and say "O.K., Glass." Once Glass is activated, wearers can say an action, such as "Take a picture", "Record a video", "Hangout with [person/Google+ circle]", "Google 'What year was Wikipedia founded?'", "Give me directions to the Eiffel Tower", and "Send a message to John" (many of these commands can be seen in a product video released in February 2013). For search results that are read back to the user, the voice response is relayed using bone conduction through a transducer that sits beside the ear, thereby rendering the sound almost inaudible to other people.

Download Google Talk

"Google Chat" redirects at this juncture. For the Google call call routing and voicemail service, predict Google Voice

Google Talk is an immediate messaging service with the purpose of provides both text and voice phone call. The immediate messaging service is colloquially common as "gtalk" or "gchat" to its users, although Google does not endorse this dub.

Google Talk is too the dub of the client applications previously accessible by Google to benefit from the service. Google Talk applications were on hand intended for Microsoft Windows (XP, Server 2003, Vista, and Windows 7), Android, BlackBerry, and Chrome OS operating systems. A Google Talk maze app had too been previously on hand intended for Android. Dressed in 2013, Google replaced Google Talk client software offerings with individuals of Google+ Hangouts.

Because the Google Talk servers communicate with clients using an unguarded protocol, Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol XMPP, the service can too be used with whichever other client with the purpose of wires XMPP. Such clients are on hand intended for a integer of operating systems not supported by the Google Talk client.

Click to download the Google Talk

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