How to Ship to Yourself Abroad: Does Any U.S. Bank Allow an International Address?

by Alan on August 25, 2011

I’m an iPhone 4 user.  And whether you’re a fan of this brand or loyal to another smart phone and OS, you can understand my frustration at not being able to use my pricey—and useful—toy while living abroad.  Well, I solved that problem with a little piece of nifty technology (i.e. the Gevey Ultra SIM), but in the process discovered a common challenge that I had previously been unaware of: U.S. banks are not keen on allowing international home addresses.  This wouldn’t really matter save for the common requirement from U.S. online merchants that your credit card billing address must match you shipping address (this seems to be especially true when shipping internationally if the package/company is of U.S. origin).

Now, for those of you who might be living abroad in Europe this problem is easily circumvented by purchasing locally.  And in many other places you can simply get an account at an international bank with both U.S. and local branches wherever you are.  But when you’re in a country like Bolivia that has limited product choices locally and no U.S. banks currently operating domestically, the seemingly small requirement of a matching billing and shipping address can become a big challenge.  See how I solved it after the break and let us know what your experience has been!  [click to continue…]

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Review of Livescribe Pen – for Interviews and Fieldnotes

by Louise on July 18, 2011

The Livescribe Echo Pen: Happy Recording!

This post is a review of how the Livescribe Pen can be useful to social scientists recording formal interviews and informal conversations in the field. Essentially, it is a pen that records what you hear and what your write – and it syncs the two together! You can upload the audio and the graphic files to your computer (Mac or Windows) or share it with email, Google Docs, Facebook, Evernote, or another mobile device. On your computer, your handwritten notes are searchable and you can click on any part of the page and the audio will “jump” to that spot of the conversation and playback the sound. And finally, they have new hardware and software to facilitate transcriptions. For more information and video tutorials, see www.livescribe.com. [click to continue…]

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Introduction to GIS for Social Scientists

by David on May 6, 2011

This is the first screencast in a series meant to provide an introduction to geographic information systems. It is primarily intended for social scientists, but should be relevant to anyone with an interest in GIS. The screencast was originally produced for and posted on Placing Culture.

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Avoid ATM and Credit Card Charges during International Field Work

March 10, 2011

If you are like me, you dread dealing with your finances while abroad.  The ATM fees (from your bank and the owner of the ATM), credit card fees, and unfavorable foreign exchange rates feel like usury (in Bolivia they even add fees directly to your bill before a credit card is charged).  Combined with the [...]

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Call for Good Ideas

October 10, 2010

AnthroHacker is looking for good ideas for post topics.  We’re also interested in any suggestions on what you would like to see in our site design and services. Finally, we’d like to hear from you if you think you should be the next great contributor on AnthroHacker. To get things started, a couple of us [...]

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How Best to Clean Your Water in the Field

October 9, 2010

I recently wrote up my notes (to share with a fellow graduate student) on how I chose between various personal water filtering options for a field school and fieldwork this summer. Please find them below. I hope this is helpful to others as well. After spending a few hours comparing prices and reviews on the [...]

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