Because the content on mobile phones grew too big, it had to be moved to its own page, please consult Buying a Mobile Phone if you want to see the mobile stuff.
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[edit] The Great Firewall
Some sites are blocked when you access the internet from China. There are several workarounds to making sure that you can get to the sites you want. Similarly, several popular sites like ABC.com and MSN Video have checks where only certain restrictions on the range of IP addresses that can see content on their sites.
If you just want to view text and static images (like Wikipedia, for example), you should be able to use sites like www.proxify.com or other US based IP anonymizing services. However, the free versions of these sites typically block Flash and video streaming, in which case you have to buy a commercial product, like XeroBank or upgrade to the subscription version of Proxify.
Large multinationals appear to have some sort of license to proxy their traffic through Japan, and hence circumvent the firewall. Logistics on how to get a license to do this is not known at this time.
Firefox users: you're in for a treat. Anonymouser is a free Firefox plugin which allows you to easily open blocked sites (including Wikipedia and blogspot) with Anonymouse.org. The plugin gives you two new menu options when you right click a link--'Open with Anonymouser' and 'Open with Anonymouser in New Tab'. Sites opened with Anonymouser come with a small pop-up ad, but these can be taken care of with GreaseMonkey and some minor tweaking.
[edit] Desktop PC Tips
Careful! I pluged in my Dell that I had shipped from the US, assuming it had a powersupply capable of handling 220 volts. I was wrong, and fried my power supply which made a loud sound and smelled terrible. This has happened to friends of mine with hair dryers and electric toothbrushes, and shavers, so read the voltage on your appliances carefully.
High-end electronics can be hard to get if you are a computer enthusiast; if you need a good home computer upgrade and bring it with you versus trying to get one here (there are plenty of components available, just not all the high end ones).
If you live in Beijing, there is a freelance computer consultant named Gary (mobile:13810646373) who can help you find higher end computer parts. He makes house calls, and replaced my US power supply for 550RMB. He speaks great English.
[edit] Power Converters
First of all, the plugs in China have an, um, wierd shape. You can read more about it in this article on China Electrical Outlets. Its pretty easy to find an adapter at, for example, Walmart in Beijing (near Zhichun Lu subway station). If you are bringing any electronics to Beijing either be prepared to purchase a step down converter (220v to 110v), re-buy them in Beijing or better yet just have universal 110-240v power adapters for them. One of the best things I did was work through a company http://lcdpayless.com where they make replacement power supplies for many pieces of electrical equipment so I bought universal power adapters for my networking, VoIP and other electrical equipment so I can plug into China power directly versus having a step-down converter blow up on me.
If you need to buy a converter, the word in Chinese: Transformer - 变压器 (bianyaqi). Make sure to specify the wattage that you need if apropriate.
If you need converters delivered to your home or office you can call APC china 133-6666-7251 (cell). Prices are around 65rmb for 40 watt, 150rmb for 200w, 275rmb for 800 watt.
[edit] Chinese Language Related Software
Jason Frazier has created a software package that modifies your keyboard to be able to easily type tones on roman letters. If you are learning Chinese, this can be really helpful so that you can type tones easily. Instead of Ni3 Hao3, you can type nǐ hǎo! It's really useful, and if you are a Contributor it will help make your entries nicer.
Topics coming soon:
- Installing and using the IME on Windows
- Pleco Software for Palm and Windows
[edit] VOIP Phone Service
Get a VoIP phone and bring it with you—great for local calls to your home country.
There are many Skype phones available in the market. I know someone with the Belkin WiFi phone, and he’s quite happy with it. He lives in London, where there’s WiFi pretty much everywhere you go, which means he’s almost always online in Skype. My family has (I believe) the Philips VOIP841 (or maybe an older version of that) and their very happy with it too. As you probably know, you pay only the price of the phone - there are no monthly payments. The calls are either free (if you call another Skype user) or very cheap (I pay 2.1 cents per minute to call a US phone).
The best endorsement of it that I can give is that even though my internet connection at home is horrible (virtually impossible to stream any media from US web sites), Vonage calls are consistently high quality and it uses a regular phone, we just bought a cheap one here. I think it’s like $18/month. I’m not sure if that’s “decent”, but it’s nice that people stateside have a local number to call us on, more so than the other way around.
Vonage Unlimited = $27/month approx
Slingbox notes, coming soon!
I couldn't resist, here is the video of the Chinese farmer who makes robots!