How to keep in touch with friends and family on the other side of the world - useful tips, tools and websites

Six steps for keeping in touch with friends and family on the other side of the world

1. Get Organised

Firstly, in order to keep in touch with people on the other side of the world, you need to be organised. Ensure contacts are up-to-date, including mobile, work, home numbers, email addresses, instant messaging, Skype. Encourage your friends to get online. If they are already online, find out what tools they are using.

2. Windows of opportunity

Time zone differences will mean that there are only specific periods in the day when you are likely to be able to contact people, or when they will be able to contact you.

For example, the time difference between Melbourne, Australia and the UK is currently +11hrs. Assuming you and your friends need their beauty sleep before going to work, you plan not to call each other after 10pm local time. The windows of opportunity are then

• 8-10pm (UK) = 7-9am (Australia)
• 7-11am (UK) = 6-10pm (Australia)

Once British Summer Time starts the time difference will be +9hrs (as Australian Summer Time has ended). The window of opportunity is just

• 7am-1pm (UK) = 4-10pm (Australia)
• or a quick call at 10pm (UK) = 7am (Australia)
  

Another opportunity is on Friday night (UK time) - if you know your friend has been out late and may be awake beyond the usual time, this also opens the possibility for a highly entertaining drunken conversation, although only one of you is likely to be drunk, the other could be having breakfast :o) I don't recommend drinking regularly in two time zones, unless you have the constitution of an ox and a boss with no sense of smell!

Daylight saving times vary from one country to another. Generally, UK and Australian times switch on the same days (end of March, end of October). This year the Australian government has extended daylight saving by a few days until the end of the Commonwealth Games.

3. Try to plan ahead

Instant messaging is great, it connects you quickly to your mates when they are online. Sometimes though it pays to plan ahead and get a richer experience. For example, your friends in the UK are planning to get together on a Friday evening and return later to a mate's house. If you know in advance, you can plan to be online at the same time and chat with the group. You could also invite other mates who are in different locations and have a conference call. It can be like being in the same room, especially if your conversation is broadcast with speakers and you have a webcam connected.

4. Skype

Skpye is probably the most useful software for keeping in touch - free calls to Skype users, video calls and conference calls. Very simple and free to use. All you need is a laptop or PC and something to talk/listen such as a headset, USB phone or built-in speakers and microphone. You can also buy credits for SkypeOut, which lets you call normal phone numbers for a very cheap rate (about 1.8 Euro cents per minute) to most local and international destinations. For technophobes and others who do not use Skype, they can still call you very cheaply. A service called SkypeIn (30 Euros per year) allows you to buy a local phone number which routes through to your Skype account. If you are offline, it has an answering service. For example, if your family live in London and you live in Australia, set up a SkypeIn number with a 020 London prefix and your relatives can call you for the cost of a local London call, which would save them lots of money.

5. Instant Messaging (IM)

There are lots of popular IM programs (MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, ICQ, AIM, IRC) and you will find your friends use a variety of them. Trying to convince all of them to use the same program is a fool's errand. Better to find out which services your friends use and set up an account with each of the providers. You can then manage (aggregate) all these services using a single program called Trillian - login once to all IM clients, see who is online, chat with friends and to set your status for all IM systems with a single click. Unfortunately it does not include some of the specialised features of each IM client, such as nudges and winks in MSN, but they are really not the reason you use these programs, right?

If you are at work and cannot install programs, visit Meebo http://www24.meebo.com/ - it allows you to login to your favourite IM, has your contact or buddy list and you can have multiple chat windows - it all works within a webpage and there is no software to install, just don't tell the IT department ;o)

6. Collaboration tools

Here are a few other tools I have found which aid online collaboration and make using the internet a more social and enriching experience.

• del.icio.us - stores your bookmarks, you give each one with multiple tags which are like keywords. You can send your bookmarks to other users and all del.icio.us users' bookmarks are publicly available and searchable (mine are in theb tag cloud at the bottom right of this page) - and your favourite websites are accessible to you, wherever you are in the world. del.icio.us can be a very useful alternative search engine, to find things that other people like. There is also a plug-in for Internet Explorer and an extension for Firefox, which makes tagging links very quick and simple. Personally I would recommend Firefox as a far superior web browser and there are loads of cool extensions to enrich your internet experience.
• Flickr - photosharing website which uses tags to classify your pictures, it makes is very easy to upload and share your favourite pics…you can notify friends when you have uploaded new photos.
• Setting up your own weblog (blog) is also a good way to communicate with friends, sharing thoughts on a particular subject or highlighting interesting things you have seen or done. My earlier post Getting the blogging tools right discusses how I set up this blog, with no coding and minimal web know-how.

I'm also looking at some new tools for personal file sharing to simplify sharing larger files, such as home movies (and anything else you care to mention) between friends, without the need to installing software. When these are more fully tested I'll update this post with some details.

I hope this list is useful to you and welcome your thoughts and comments.