I live in Cyprus for many years now. It is a beautiful little island in Mediterranean Sea. It features warm weather for most of the year, sea, very kind and hospital people, plenty of jobs in IT industry, good food and plenty of alcohol, stable currency, and more. It’s really a nice place to live if you can handle small towns and villages. It’s also a great place to raise the kids.
Not much happens here. It is a quiet and simple place. Yet, when something happens or when I write about it, I post it to Cyprus category.
Cyprus Mail reports:
Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu has invited president Nicos Anastasiades to attend the Deep Purple concert in the north together, as part of the confidence building measures.
Now we are talking! Two hours of head banging together will do more to united Cyprus than the last 40 years of talking.
Cyprus Mail reader asks an interesting question:
Having just read your article on the Cyprus Airways pilots’ legal action against the board, I cannot believe their audacity.
They talk about how the board should remove excess staff. There are 71 pilots for a fleet of six aircraft. That is an amazing amount of pilots for such a small fleet. That is the equivalent of 10 crews per aircraft, when normally an airline would have four, possibly five crews per aircraft, especially with such a small route structure. Why so many pilots?
No wonder the airline cannot make a profit.
I wonder how many people actually know the following:
Today the European Parliament voted to end roaming charges by Christmas 2015, as part of a wider vote in support to the Commission’s proposed regulation for a “Connected Continent” (telecoms single market)*.
Cyprus Mail reports:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has instituted visa-free travel for the 13 remaining EU member states, including Cyprus.
The newly exempted countries are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The visa-free travel became effective on Saturday.
Not that I am planning a trip any time soon, but it’s good to know.
Last week I’ve got a new phone. Thanks to my good friend Michael I now have the Nexus 4. It’s an excellent device and I am enjoying it a lot, but this post is not about the phone (yet). This post is about how I nearly fell into a catch 22 situation.
My previous phone – Google Nexus – uses the regular SIM card. The new phone uses the Micro SIM. So I’ve visited the office of Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CYTA) where a really nice lady exchanged my old SIM for the new one – all free and in less than 15 minutes. The old SIM was deactivated immediately and I rushed home, excited for the new toy.
When Nexus 4 booted up it asked me for my Gmail credentials, in order to synchronize my settings, contacts, and apps. The tricky bit was that I have 2-step verification enabled on my account. That’s where after I enter my credentials on a new device I also need to confirm them with a numeric code, which is sent to me from Google via either an SMS or a voice call. It’s a handy security feature until you can’t really use your phone yet – it is being activated. So, no activation until I get an SMS and no SMS until I activate.
A short panic attack later I remembered that Google allowed for a backup phone number just for cases like this. I however never entered the backup number into the settings. The idiot that I am.
Will I be allowed to enter the backup number now, when I cannot receive the code? Gladly – YES! I was saved! But it taught me the important lesson (once again) that backups are priceless.