燭光晚會

地鐵上遇到不少去維園參加五三五集會的人，有穿着帶標語的上衣的沉默的成年人，也有身披黑衣興高采烈的少年人，一時之間不知該作何想。

3G mobile surfing solution in France – Orange Mobicarte “Internet Max”

I am currently in France.  And since my stay in France this time will last for more than two weeks (April/May 2012), I had explored about 3G surfing on mobile phones. I thought I would record my solution here and perhaps someone might find it helpful some day.

Of course, I didn't invent a solution. Rather, I followed what is said on this webpage -

http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2011/07/unlimited-mobile-3g-internet-data-in-paris-on-my-android-phone.html (this guy’s writing is quite interesting by the way)

The only things that I have to add are -

1. It didn't seem possible to get the Orange Mobicarte sim card at the CDG airport. I had a few hours to spare waiting for my train so I walked around the airport train station and a couple of terminals (2A and 2F) and could not find any Orange shop. You can get SFR and other sim cards as well as Mobicarte credits at the Relays, though. Actually when I asked if they had a Mobicarte sim card a shop assistant tried to sell me another brand (“You want a sim card? This is a sim card. Orange? No Orange.”).

2. I got the Mobicarte sim card from the first Orange shop in Aix-en-Provence I came across (there are a lot of these shops in this and other cities). There was one English-speaking shop assistant so communication was relatively smooth (this was very good luck). Because I was a foreigner the shop assistant let me test a dummy sim card to see if my phone could receive the signal. Then he did the registration (he made up some info such as my address) and activated the sim card for me. The startup kit cost 9.9 euros and included the sim card and credit of 5 euros which could be used for phone calls and SMS. I then had to buy and activate the "Internet Max" option - mobile surfing on cell phone for 9 euros per month. So I had to top up some more for the plan (I bought 10 euros and got credit of 12 euros to be used in one month). The shop assistant told me that “Internet Max” covered data of 500 MB per month, not unlimited data. I asked the clerk to handle the purchase of the internet plan for me. He tried but then realised it was not possible until my registration got through to the main system or something, which would take up to 2 days. He did tell me how to do it step by step, which was more or less as described in the webpage above.

3. My attempts to purchase the internet plan kept being denied until about 8 am the next morning (a wait for about 15 hours). After the successful selection of the “Internet Max”, option (it was option 4), I was told by the phone message that the activation of the plan could take up to 48 hours. But by noon that day I found that 9 euros had been deducted from my credit balance so I reckoned that the plan was good to use. That was about 19 hours after the purchase of the sim card, which was far better than the maximum waiting time of 96 hours/4 days. I am now surfing quite happily and it feels great.

4. The confirmation SMS on the subscription of the internet plan did not come until about 1130 the next day.

5. I didn't knew it but changing the sim card has not affected the use of whatsapp messaging at all. There was no need to uninstall/reinstall/reconfigure/reset the app in my phone.

I hope the above info would be useful for someone.

Aix-en-Provence (中文叫甚麽？)

城市小小，
噴泉處處，
精緻美麗懶洋洋。
涼風習習，
陽光猛烈，
正好度假。
找一個清靜小廣場，
喝一杯冰凍大啤酒，
嘗試講法語。
侍應聽得懂，
Très bien。

無常

因工作認識一位教授，年紀不小，但還蠻有活力，他在二月一個研討會上的總結還歷歷在目。上星期二開會時他只說了一句話，我抬頭看他只覺得他的眼袋比平常還大，好像有點疲倦。豈料昨天收到老闆的短訊說他過世了，驚訝得叫了起來。人生到底無常啊。

但弟弟說無須驚訝：這回事人人有份，永不落空。

八達通

在一個相當意料之外的卡片夾子找到我的陳年個人八達通卡。卡的生效日期是1999年11月，上面竟然還有一幅已經面目模糊的照片。啊，彷如隔世。

心想不知這卡還能不能用，拿到港鐵站去嘟一嘟，才知道裏面竟然還有130元，於是一次過把這餘額用完了，然後打算把這卡的自動增值中介轉到一家有1%現金回贈的銀行，再次重用這卡。

QR Code vs Aztec Code

這是我在二月發給余小姐的電郵：

Do you know anything about those square barcodes?  I know close to nothing about them, except that they can contain useful information and can be handy if you have the right device.  So after I got my Android cell phone I installed a very well-appraised code reader called QR Droid in my phone and I thought I was equipped. 

And then I bought some tickets from Trenitalia and they came with such square codes.  I pointed my phone at them but no they could not be deciphered.  I was frustrated and did not know what to do.  So I could not get anything out of those codes.  End of story.

It was not until much later that I recalled a feature of the QR code (ie squares at three corners).  And the codes on the train tickets had three squares at the centre!!  It had never occurred to me that there were different types of codes that looked alike!  Those codes with three squares at the centre are called aztec codes and are common in Europe (QR code was developed in Japan).  So now I will have to find a software that can decipher different types of codes.

對 aztec codes 仍然沒有辦法，網上有免費的 Android 程式可解讀 aztec codes，但卻要求用家提供手機裏的個人資料。我不想提供這些資料，故問題無法解決。。。

在香港買國內高鐵車票

有一位年輕的舊同事突然（即昨天）興起想在復活節遊武漢，但發覺無法在網上購買高鐵車票（有各種各樣包括信用卡的問題），若在中旅社買票又要最少十天前預訂，出發前三天才會有通知是否有車票。大概無計可施，以短訊問我可有辦法。

我當然沒有辦法。不過盡人事替他隨便找找網上流傳的解決方案，找到一家賣高鐵車票的售票處，讓他去試試。90分鐘後他報告：搞掂。

這售票處似乎也不算人所共知，如果有需要在香港買大陸火車票，不妨一試。資料如下：
中國鐵路(香港)
地址：九龍紅磡港鐵站G14號鋪
查詢電話：2264 1314
購票手續費：視乎行程而定

SNCF車票

三月初在SNCF的網頁用信用卡買法國火車票，屢試屢敗，十分忐忑，相當煩惱。

十天前終於順利在網上買到所需的火車票，放下心頭大石。車票的價錢不算差，雖然有些班車稍遲，但可接受。 之前用 VISA 卡買票交易失敗，估計與那張卡沒有 VISA 驗證功能有關。我覺得 VISA 驗證是很複雜、讓人非常煩惱的一回事。於是最後索性用 AE 卡買，反而沒事。 當然 AE 卡手續費和兌換費較昂貴，又沒有晶片，不能在當地取票，要郵遞到我家。但 AE 卡科技落後，不搞甚麽驗證，反而沒那麽麻煩。

今天收到從巴黎寄來的三封信。同一個交易買的三張火車票，SNCF要分別以三封郵件寄來，真是不惜工本。在Trenitalia買的意大利火車票幾乎全都是電子票，省時省錢又方便（就算不是電子票也可以用密碼在當地取票），偏偏法國不愛這套。如選在法國取票又要以信用卡的晶片為證，AE沒有晶片（就算有我也沒信心晶片不會有問題），車票只好郵遞囉。幸好郵遞順利。

巨人

昨晚花了超過四個小時終於在電視上把巨人(Giant)看完了，記憶中這可是第一次能看完喔。從來都覺得 James Dean 的角色難以明白，這次好歹看完了，仍然覺得難以理解。至於這樣嗎?如此癡人，教人太難過了。

瘋了

我今天下班時在地鐵月台阻止一個男人吃東西。雖然以前也曾因同樣原因厲聲斥責一個中學生，可這次是一個成年人啊。但那是個沒用的男人，邊跟我説話邊跑，只懂反問我：你是職員嗎，我進閘了嗎，我上車了嗎。我一一如實回答，邊說邊想他要是打我那怎麼辦。我大概是瘋了。