will my Australian memory stick work in European PC's?
 

Hi I hope this isn't a silly question. was just about to put all my accomodation confirmation emails and other websites I will need etc on my memory stick to take to Europe. I hope I can use it at internet cafes and the hotels we are staying at? will I encounter any problems? I think I have heard also that European keyboards are quite different from Australian keyboards. if they are how do they differ?
thanks

Your memory stick will work exactly the same way with an european computer than with an australian one.
There is not such thing as an european keyboard : you have german, french, italian, english, russian, grekk .... keyboard.
They all differ in the keys layout, in the charset available (for instance french use more characters than english) and even in the alphabet (greek or cyrillic) for some

I'm Assuming you don't mean the Sony Memory Stick and are talking about something you plug into a USB port

You might find that the USB ports are disabled so whilst you can physically connect your memory stick you may not be able to read or write from it.

Why don't you just use something like Hotmail / Yahoo & send yourself emails with your itinerary?

As for layouts of keyboards see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout

Just to add also have your confirmation emails and the like sent to a Hotmail / Yahoo account then you are guaranteed access to them - and you don't have to worry about losing your memory stick

Keyboards are arranged according to frequency of use of letters. For instance, "qwertyuiop" (English) or "azertyuiop" (French).

Most internet cafés (at least in Paris) offer either a French or an English keyboard. I have a French keyboard on my laptop, although I am EMT. If there are no English keyboards available, you will have no problem using a French keyboard, although it may slow you down a bit at first.

thanks for your answers yes I see what you mean may not be able to use the USB Port everywhere. we do not have a hotmail or yahoo account. we had thought of just going onto our internet providers site and getting our emails. but our children whom are staying home will be using this same one to check emails from us. have been wondering how this was all going to work. so should we set up hotmail or yahoo? I don't think these cost anything do they? how easy is it to do?
thanks

Most keyboards are arranged to SLOW DOWN the typing speed.

This is because the original typewriters were prone to jamming if you typed too fast

Takes about 5 minutes to set up a hotmail / yahoo account.

in windows you can change the keyboard layout to whatever region you wish. this ability should be enabled in most internet cafes. refer to windows help to see how to do this.

obviously, this assumes that you know the layout of your home keyboard as the physical keyboard labels will still be french (or whatever).

If you have webmail access to your existing mail account with your existing ISP (and I should think any ISP worth its salt should have such a facility), then you shouldn't also need a Yahoo or hotmail, easy though they are to set up. You could always have one as a back-up as well, of course, and yes, hotmail is free.

I can't offhand think of a reason shy you couldn't send emails from your current account to itself - might be worth trying now, just to make sure (but you'd better agree with your children how you'll entitle the different emails so you both know what to look out for).

Each internet café has its own policy about uploading and downloading files. I've certainly been able to use the USB card-reader for my digital camera to upload pictures from an internet café to flickr, and I've used it as an emergency filestore for non-picture files as well.

But I'd rely on my existing ISP's webmail, with a backup.

thanks Patrick I have just now set up a Yahoo account. this way we will have a back up and I can put all my addresses in there as well. I do now check our home emails from work so I now I can do it. thanks for advice appreciated

Just a few thoughts here:

64kerry, if all you need are copies of confirmation emails, and you don't want to carry printed copies, you could burn them to a cd-rom for your trip.

Most IPs allow you to have more than one email address. If you are sharing your account with your children, it would make sense for them to have separate email addresses.

If you can't read your emails from the web while traveling, get a new IP.

alanRow, your comment about qwerty keyboards being designed to slow down the typing speed piqued my curiousity. A short history of the qwerty keyboard can be found at http://www.tactuskeyboard.com/history.htm.

When I said IP, of course I meant ISP, or Internet Service Provider

If you read email on your home computer using Outlook or Outlook Express, your emails are downloaded from the web site. So if your children are at home using the computer and email, you will not be able to read email at your ISP's online site; it will have been downloaded. So, yes, a hotmail or Yahoo account is good for travel. I also use mine for anything I buy over the Internet. That keeps out all the ads from my regular email. (Though, I must say, I enjoy getting regular emails from SNCF.)

I carry a flash memory stick with me (mostly for photo backup), although I would worry if it had personal details stored on it as I think losing a memory stick is a greater risk than data being obtained from a hacked Email account.

What I have dome before is set up an Email client on a pen drive that I can use to access my Regular accounts for reading later on a laptop.

Mimar - actually you can change that setting so that messages go to your email program (Outlook or whatever) and also remain on the mail server.

Hi 64,

I haven't found an internet cafe or hotel that will allow people to stick their media into the machines.

You can access your email from anywhere at www.web2mail.com.

You need to know your popmail server for sending and receiving.

Your ISP will tell you what it is if you can't find it.

((I))

I'd be worried that the memory stick gets infected from the computer