So today was the day that Emma arrived on a one-way ticket to Seattle. There was drama this morning as snow was threatening to fall and I wouldn’t be able to get to the airport. Fortunately, we just ended up with flurries and some heavy rain.

After having some dinner and falling asleep watching a movie we were woken by a noise in the hallway “baamp baamp baamp”. Bleary eared, we pulled on some clothes and shuffled outside with all the other residents realizing it was the fire alarm.

The fire dept. turned up and checked out the alarm and gave it the all-clear. As we were walking back up, we heard the sound of running water outside and didn’t think much of it.

However, as we entered our apartment on the third level we realized something was not quite right. Here’s what we saw:

Yes – that is water coming out of the smoke detector and all the light fittings – it was even coming out of the wall outlets and light switches. I quickly raced downstairs to find somebody that could help us, while Emma and our hastily-met neighbor started putting out water receptacles and every towel we could find.

When I got downstairs, I met our upstairs neighbor in quite the same panic – their apartment was completely flooded. We grabbed the firemen just before they left and they came and shut off the water. It didn’t take us long to realize that we had quite a problem. Although nothing of ours got damaged, we had to move apartments so that they can clean it out.

So that the water drained properly and the roof wouldn’t collapse, the maintenance installed a new drain.

4 hours later, our apartment is empty and everything is dumped on the floor in a dry vacant apartment. Since we didn’t plan for this and it was too late to buy boxes, we had to move everything using suitcases. The Kirkland Fire Department were exceptionally helpful by moving our bulky furniture. It would’ve been a much longer effort without their help.

Ironically, when Emma arrived we had the conversation "Should I unpack tonight?". Thankfully she didn’t and it was easy to move her stuff.

So all in all, we’re safe, relatively dry, tired but in good spirits. We’ve met a lot more of our neighbors and are genuinely impressed with everybody’s willingness to help out. And in typically Aussie spirit, we had a laugh and toasted it all with a few beers.

It’s been 6 months since I jumped on a plane and moved 8,000 miles / 12,000 km across the ocean to Seattle.

Have I mentioned that I love this place? Seattle, Microsoft, etc. Forget the 8.5h of daylight that we’re getting at the moment and the fact that sunset is at 4.20 PM. Forget that it snowed on the weekend and almost every road in the state is frozen.

The thing that is really doing it for me over here is technology. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m at Microsoft, because I’m in America or because it’s just a good time in the release cycles – but I’ve had some “moments” lately where I just go “Wow! What a great feature” or “Wow! That was easy”. Here’s a few examples of some moments I’ve had.

Technology at work

Instant Messaging & Search: We’ve been having a few dogfooding problems lately and I thought “I wonder what the Exchange guys do? They’ve been dogfooding for years”. So I did a quick company-wide-intranet search (using Office SharePoint Server) and found the Exchange dogfood site. Within a few minutes I was on IM (using Office Communicator) to the guy who runs dogfooding for exchange. We setup a meeting and I’ve walked away with some great advice from another team who has been doing this for years.

Live meeting: Later on the same day I had a meeting with one of our early-adopter customers back in Australia. I started up Live Meeting and it automatically starts recording the session to the hosted service. Then I dialed-in to the phone conference on my Office Communicator phone. After a few minutes of catching up with William one of our UX guys dials in. To ensure that we get the best value out of our meetings we have an application that we bash notes into while the customer is showing us the product and what they’re trying to do with it. Once we’re ready to go, I hit a button in live meeting and a few minutes later we get an announcement “Anonymous participant has joined the conference”. This is the hosted live meeting service which recording the audio from the conference call along with the video of the customer demoing the product. After the meeting, the notes from all three us get logged and consolidated into the feedback collection system.

Technology out and about

I love being connected. I was at a concert last week and I moblogged a photo which then goes off to my twitter feed. Then I realized that my sister loves The Killers as well – so I started up Windows Live Messenger Mobile and IM’d her with “hey, guess where I am?”. She then jumped onto the Live Webcast and rocked out to the concert as well.

It reminds me of Microsoft’s Digital Lifestyle video (remember the one with the music from Magneta Lane – Girl From Mars?). The technology is here now and I’m loving it.

Your Digital Lifestyle: Girl from Mars

Technology at home

Netflix is a video-on-demand service. With the recent Xbox 360 update, you can now stream movies via the Xbox. All you do is start the Netflix application via the menus and choose a movie from your queue – it’s amazingly simple.

Other news

Emma gets here tomorrow (!!). Her Employment Authorization card came through this week. And we’re off to Leavenworth for a White Christmas. Checkout the time-lapse web cam.

That’s all for now! Happy holidays.

For the last two weeks I’ve been back ‘home’ in Australia. The purpose of the trip was to attend two weddings of friends and family. The first wedding was for Adrian and Lauren the day after I flew in. The weather couldn’t have been better for an outdoor wedding in the rose gardens at Old Parliament House. I thought I had adjusted well to the jetlag by staying up quite late in the days before I left – however, by midnight at the reception (5AM Seattle time) I wasn’t faring too well.

The second wedding was for Sara and Tim who got married at The Chapel in Gold Creek Village. It was a fantastic venue and once again, the weather turned out beautifully for their Friday afternoon wedding. My photos don’t even compare to the photos from the official photographer, Kelly Tunney. She has posted a select few of them on her blog for all to see. A great way to share photos quickly with the friends and family, as well as increase her exposure.

In my down-time I had a great opportunity to wander around town and catch up with my own friends and family for lunches, dinners and beers. Since I’ve been out of the country for almost 6 months – coming back gave me a unique opportunity to spot trends and differences between America and Australia. Here are the major things I’ve noticed:

Things I didn’t miss from the USA:

• Tipping. As an Australian, tipping is the exception rather than the rule. The reason is that we have higher wages in the services industries, so tipping isn’t required to supplement income.
• Imperial measurements (gallons, feet, miles, inches, letter, etc..). Bring on the metrics.
• Substandard food. I don’t know whether it’s the places I’ve been going to or what – but compared to Australian food, it’s just bland. Although there’s fruit and vegetables available – they don’t taste anything like the Aussie equivalents.

Things I did miss from the USA (Australia can learn from):

• You can pay for anything by credit/debit card. No minimum transactions, no transaction fees. Accepted everywhere from vending machines to coffee shops.
• Internet access. AT&T is 3.5G, cheap, unlimited and un-censored. Cable internet is fast, cheap and has no download quotas.
• Shops have longer opening hours. Supermarkets & Pharmacies are open 24 hours. Retail shops are open 10AM-9PM.
• You can buy beer & wine in the supermarket. No separate checkout. This is slowly changing in Australia too.

Things I really enjoyed in Australia:

• Coffee. I’m not a regular coffee drinker any more – but I couldn’t resist the temptation of a good Australian coffee. I found a great new organic coffee shop – As Nature Intended on Marcus Clarke St, Canberra. Great coffee, breakfast, ambience and service – I’ll miss this place.
• Food. Since I was catching up with a lot of friends, I went to quite a few different cafes. My favorite place to eat in Canberra is still Debacle on Mort St, Braddon. They do amazing pizzas and have a huge selection of local and imported beers on tap. The ambience is loud and friendly without being rowdy.
• Family & Friends. It goes without saying that I enjoyed spending time with them. It’ll be some time before I get to see them again, as we have no definite plans on when we will return to Australia.

So now it’s back home to Seattle to enjoy the Thanksgiving long weekend and the lead up to Christmas.

I’ve always wondered if the area I grew up in (Weston Creek) was particularly special when it comes to computers & the Internet. I know quite a few people that I went through school with who now work in the IT industry.

A paragraph in this article last month especially piqued my interest: Forget inner-city life: Weston Creek is the place to be

More than half of Weston Creek homes 55 per cent had broadband access, which put the suburb among the top 5 per cent of districts on a national basis.

Weston Creek was ranked the 16th most liveable community [in Australia], ahead of Tuggeranong (30th), Woden Valley (36th), Belconnen (44th), Gungahlin (45th), South Canberra (57th) and North Canberra (146th).

This all comes from the BankWest Quality of Life Index 2008 which has this to say about broadband internet access nationally:

Forty percent of households across Australia have a broadband internet connection with connection rates varying from 69% to 2%. There are 54 LGAs where at least 50% of households have a broadband internet connection. Twenty-two of these LGAs [local authority areas] are in Sydney.

69% of households in Ku-ring-gai in Sydney have a broadband internet connection, the highest proportion in Australia. This was followed by Peppermint Grove (67%) in Perth and Willoughby (65%) in Sydney.

How does that compare to the United States? The Leichtman Research Group, Inc.’s Q2 2008 research notes say:

57% of US households (at the time of the survey) subscribed to a broadband service – compared to 20% just four years ago

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It’s been over a month since my last post and next weekend will mark 2 months since I arrived here, so I think it’s time I do a bit of a brain dump.

The question I seem to be getting a lot lately is “So, how do you like it over here?” and since about my first week here my answer has been “I’m loving it“. Even though Em isn’t over here yet, furniture hasn’t arrived yet, I’m sleeping on an airbed, I don’t have a credit score, I don’t have a driver’s license - it’s still great.

One of the reasons I wanted to move overseas was to get out of my comfort zone and personally “grow” a bit by experiencing a new environment. Well that has certainly worked and I feel very revived, stimulated, refreshed and energised. To pack up everything in two months and move was the right decision.

Highlights

Internet Access Rocks!

Unlimited, cheap, fast & plentiful. Australia really is a backwater in the Internet access story. Even mobile Internet rocks.

Weather

I know that this will look very different 6 months from now, but Seattle’s summer is the best kept secret. The weather for the past week has been absolutely gorgeous!

Events

I have no idea whether it’s a year-round thing or not - but in the last two months I’ve been to numerous picnics, BBQ’s, fireworks, concerts, etc. There seems to be some sort of festival or outdoor event on every weekend day. And even when there’s not - somebody is always having a BBQ at their place.

Microsoft Company Picnic	Microsoft Product Fair	4th of July Celebrations
Kirkland Summer Picnics	Seafair	Developer Division BBQ

Getting Outdoors

One of the things that I had kind of stopped doing back home was getting outdoors and going hiking, camping, etc. I’d become lazy & it was always “too hard”. Since I’m over here and there is so many things to do close by, I’ve started making the most of it. I bought a book of hikes in the area and they all look like great walks. It’s gerat while the weather is sunny but there will always be skiing in the winter.

Fishing with Chuck	Lake Chelan
Rattlesnake Ridge hike	Mountain Biking

People

Everybody knows what the stereotypical American is like - loud, obnoxious, narrow-minded, obese, etc. Well I can honestly say that Seattle (and the “Northwest”) is different. The people I’ve met & the friends I’ve made here - they rock. It seems that everybody is well educated, liberal minded, independent and friendly and/or they’re an Aussie.

Work

I’m really enjoying my job and the people I work with. The work is challenging enough that I have plenty to learn and important enough that I can make a difference. I’m also working with lots of different people and teams. Microsoft really is an amazing place to work - there’s so many resources available to you.

For instance when we had a server problem - we ended up getting the developer from the Windows team who wrote the memory management code to have a look and explain why our application was behaving how it was. I’m working on performance monitoring and a guy from another team who wrote a book on it sought me out and offered to help. Great stuff. It’s also scary at the same time - because if you run into a problem that the product group can’t fix, it’s not like you can call up CSS and get it escalated - the buck stops here.

Food

Food was one of the things that I was most worried about in moving over here. It turns out that it’s not all that bad and my eating habits have stayed much the same. There’s plenty of fruit and vegetables around which makes it easy to stay healthy. There’s also a cafeteria in each building that sells discounted fresh & healthy cooked meals - the menu is different every day and I haven’t been disappointed with a meal yet.

I’ve also become addicted to yogurt over here. I don’t know whether it’s the Phenylalanine or the nifty upside-down-cup containers that they come in - but I’m really enjoying them. What’s even better is that you can buy them in an 18-pack from CostCo

Current Relocation Status

• Moved into a great apartment in Kirkland
• Got some new furniture
• Bought a new car
• Got my SSN
• Emma got her E3-D visa approved
• Passed my practical driving test
• Got cable installed
• Went Riding with the Ducks and saw the houseboat from Sleepless in Seattle
• Saw the Fremont Troll from 10 Things I Hate About You.
• Did the adults-only version of the Seattle Underworld tour

Overall I’m really enjoying it over here - I feel very comfortable and I sometimes forget that I’m in a “foreign country”.

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This weekend I was lucky enough to be invited out for a bit of a day walk with some people from work. Unfortunately most of my outdoors gear is still in transit. This meant that I had to do a quick dash down to the local camping gear store (REI) to pick up some hiking boots amongst other things. I ended up with a nice pair of Asolo’s.

View the photos on flickr.

Although the weather was fine when we left town, we hit lots of fog and drizzle on the highway to our starting point. It didn’t look like it was going to be too pleasant but we made a start anyway. It turns out that the weather wasn’t too bad at all - no wind, not too cold, a little sunshine at times.

After a challenging climb up the snow covered ridge we eventually made it to our lunch spot.

What it is supposed to look like	What we saw

The hardest bit for me was communicating distance and measurements. I ended up setting my GPS to feet/miles just so that the other’s could understand what I was saying It’s also good practice for me to do the conversions.

It was a great walk and we were all quite amused comparing some of the differences between Australia and America. They’re also considering training to attempt the summit of Mt. Rainier next year - I’m in!

The first thing I did after the 20+ hours of travelling via CBR-SYD-SFO-SEA was get in a hire car and start driving. Here’s some advice for others doing the same.

Before you travel

You should go to your local Australian Automobile Association office (NRMA, RACV, RACQ, etc) and purchase an International Driving Permit (IDP). You don’t need to be a member, but you’ll sometimes get a discount if you are. Just present your valid driver’s license, give them a passport-sized photo and they’ll give you the permit.

Although an IDP is not technically required to drive in the USA, rental car companies may require it. (The Avis I went to didn’t.)

Before you drive

When I got to the hire car, I took some time to familiarise myself with it.

• How do I adjust the seat?
• What side are the indicators on?
• Where’s the park brake?
• How do I turn the lights on?

Driving

Before leaving Australia, I had a catch up with Rocky. His advice on driving was this:

It’s easy. Driving on the opposite side of the road isn’t a big deal. It doesn’t take very long for something in your brain to flip and it becomes normal.

Then came the scary bit. I drove out of the parking space and my mind got a bit frazzled - it felt very strange to be on the opposite side of the car, on the opposite side of the road. But then I came to my first intersection and followed another car through it. That’s when my brain flipped and I’ve haven’t been on the wrong side of the road yet!

Turning right / left

The second moment when something else in my brain flipped was on my first right turn at a traffic light. It felt a bit weird turning in that direction and hugging the kerb (just like turning left back home) - but now it feels normal.

The third moment was turning left at traffic lights. Once again, it felt weird traversing an intersection on the opposite side, but now it’s normal.

When sitting at intersections, I now find myself thinking about what line (like in racing) I’m doing to take and where I want to end up.

Right turn on red after stopping

In Australia they have selected intersections signposted with “turn left on red after stopping”. In the States they have a similar rule. You can turn right at any intersection after stopping unless otherwise signposted. Similarly, if you wait at the intersection, the light will eventually turn green anyway. I learnt this one through observation and somebody beeping their horn at me

Always give way to pedestrians

In Australia, people often stand on the kerb or footpath and wait for a gap in the traffic so that they can cross. In the States, the traffic will generally stop for the pedestrian - regardless of whether it’s at a crossing or not. Pedestrians are worshipped.

4-Way stop signs

Mitch has spoken about these before. These are mostly what Americans have instead of round-a-bouts. The rule is that everybody must stop and the first to arrive is the first to move off.

My Advice

The best bit of advice I can give is:

• Take your time,
• Be observant,
• Follow other people!

The best way I’ve found to learn is to drive a little bit slower and follow other people through intersections. It helps you get used to being on the opposite side and you learn different things. It’s also useful for speed control. If you’re not sure what the speed limit is, just travel the same as everybody else.

Other

Some other things that I’ve noticed:

• Most cars automatically lock the doors once you put it in gear, or get above a certain speed. (strange??)
• If you park illegally, there’s a high chance you’ll get clamped & towed. Especially around apartment complexes, etc.
• Everything has a drive-through option. There’s drive-through banks, take-away, coffee, post offices, etc.
• When I’m a passenger, I always go to the wrong side of the car. This habit will be hard to break.

After I get my Social Security Number (SSN), I can sit the written knowledge driving test for Washington State. It’s 25 multiple-choice questions and you need to get 20 correct to pass. Then after the knowledge test is the driving test.

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This is the first post in a series of my experience in relocating to America. Standard disclaimers apply - your situation is probably different, this is for informational purposes only, seek professional advice.

To work in the USA as a foreign citizen you more than likely need a visa. Also, if you’re travelling from Australia to Canada via a US airport - you still need a visa. There’s no notion of being “in-transit”.

For Australian citizens there’s three common visa options (among others):

1. Visa waiver program
2. H1-B visa
3. E-3 visa

Visa Waiver Program

The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) enables nationals of certain countries, including Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K., to travel to the United States for transit only, tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa, if certain requirements are met.

If you’re visiting the States and attending a conference, backpacking, etc - this is probably the (non)visa that you will go across on. How do you get one? In the first couple of hours of your flight from Australia the flight attendants will walk around the plane handing out these green or white I-94 Nonimmigrant Arrival/Departure Record forms. Ask for the green one - it’s the visa waiver form. Fill it out and present it to the US Customs & Border Security officer at your destination.

You cannot extend the time on the Visa Waiver Program. The 90 days also includes any time spent in Canada, Mexico and adjacent Islands. Therefore you cannot cross the border into these areas and then return for another 90 days. You can however ask for re-entry on the Visa Waiver Program if you have left the Continent.

Important: From August 1, 2008 you will be able to voluntarily apply online for the VWP before your travel. It’s anticipated that this online pre-application will be mandatory from January 12, 2009. See the ETSA website for more details.

H1-B Visa

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States. It allows U.S. employers to employ foreign guest workers skilled in specialty occupations - regardless of whether qualified U.S. citizens or residents are available to fill these jobs. The foreign worker must possess at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. H-1B work-authorization is strictly limited to employment by the sponsoring employer - except that many H-1B work for bodyshops who then place them with third party employers.

This is the “catch-all” working visa and there is a fixed number of them available each financial year. Currently that’s 65,000 and the quota was filled in April 2008 for FY 2009. So if you’re looking to get one of these visas, the earliest you can hope for is to start July 1, 2010. But even then, it’s a very tight game & a lottery (~50% chance in FY 2008):

For FY 2008, the entire quota was exhausted before the end of the first day on which applications were accepted, April 2. Under USCIS rules, the 123,480 petitions received were subject to the cap were pooled, and then 65,000 of these were selected at random for further processing.

Spouses cannot work under this visa. H-1B’s spouse who generally come on H-4 (dependent visa) cannot work in the United States. Some of them wait in queue for years to get their own H-1Bs.

You can apply for permanent residency (a green card) while working on an H-1B visa.

E-3 and E-3D (dependent) Visa for Australians

The E-3 visa is a United States visa for which only citizens of Australia are eligible. It was created by an Act of the United States Congress as a result of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) in 2005.

This is great news for Australians looking to work in the US. All that is required is a job offer - so that means you have to get the job before you go over. It doesn’t require a employer to submit a petition. However, they must obtain a Labor Condition Application (LCA) from the Department of Labor. This is essentially a form that says that they’re not employing you as cheap labor and you’ll get paid what an equivalent citizen would. It can be submitted online and mine took 1-2 weeks to process.

• The visa isn’t subject to the H1-B quota, there is a separate quota of 10,000 each fiscal year (which has not been reached yet)
• The visa is valid for a maximum of 2 years with unlimited renewals (unlike the H1-B visa)
• You can change employers. A new LCA is required and the gap must be less than 10 days between jobs.
• You can’t apply for permanent residency (a green card). It is a non-immigrant visa.

Spouses can work under this visa! But they must apply for an Employment Authorization Document (Form I-765) through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). This process takes 3-4 months for filing and to issue the EAD card. It is not limited to a speciality occupation either - it could be any position.

Applying for an E-3 visa

It’s best to refer to the official documentation (FAQ & How to Apply), but I’ll give you an overview.

1. Get a job offer from your future employer
2. They will need to submit an LCA
3. Once the LCA is approved and you have a copy of it:
4. Fill out an application & book an interview at a US Consulate
5. Attend the interview and leave your passport with them
6. Your passport gets returned in the mail

Booking an interview

This is where the fun begins. Even though there is a US Embassy in Canberra and all the documentation is on a website called canberra.usembassy.gov - you can’t do a non-immigrant visa interview in Canberra. You must go to a consulate in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth or another overseas post.

You can check what the wait times are for each of the consulates. When I applied, the wait time was 10 days for a Sydney appointment and 2 days for a Melbourne appointment. Sydney is currently 7 and Melbourne 17.

The visa appointment booking website is an outsourced government system. It’s called VisaPoint (FAQ). To book an appointment you need to purchase a USD$14 PIN to gain access to the website (cost recovery).

Once you start the process the first question is “which city are you from?” which really means “which consulate do you want to interview at?”, because it really doesn’t matter which consulate you go to.

The next question is “Do you have an approved LCA?”. If you answer “No”, your application ends and you’re booted out.

Then it goes through and asks you for passport numbers, previous US entry/exit dates, etc. Eventually at the end you get to see the available interview appointments for the consulate you picked at step 1.

Note: From what I could tell, all the interview slots in Sydney and Melbourne were between 7.00 AM and 10.00 AM with the later ones filling up first. Which means that you may have to make an overnight stay to get there in time. I flew out on the 6AM flight from Canberra and just made the 9.30 one after being delayed by fog. It would’ve been impossible for me to get fly in for a Melbourne interview without staying overnight. You can only book an interview up to ~30 days in advance.

At the interview

After arriving at the consulate and passing through security screening (x-ray + metal detector - much like an airport), you take your seat in the queue to get checked by the first consulate official. Their job seems to be to make sure have brought all the appropriate papers with you. In the case of Sydney, you then go upstairs to the actual consulate and through another metal detector.

Once inside the consulate, grab a ticket from the ticket machine and wait for your number to get called. The first person will take all your documents off you and ask you to sit down. Then a few moments later another counter calls you up - they take your fingerprints, photo and ask you a few questions and ask you to sit down again. Then a few minutes later the third counter calls you up. They verify your employer, degree and ask you the “are you a criminal?” questions again. Then in my case they said “Ok, that’s approved, it’ll be in the post tomorrow - Thanks!”.

This is where I was left wondering… “What about all this original documentation you asked me to bring along?” Academic transcripts, certificates, etc. “No, it’s fine - it’s all been approved”. So I think that the whole process is pre-approved online and the interview is merely a formality.

In my case I left them with a pre-paid Express Post Platinum satchel and my passport arrived back in Canberra at 11AM the following day. Pretty quick!

The visa sticker

Now that you have your passport back in your possession with your visa sticker, you can go ahead and book flights. This is what the visa sticker looks like.

At the US Border

Just like if you were to enter on the Visa Waiver Program, you’re still required to fill out and present an I-94 Nonimmigrant Arrival/Departure Record forms. When the flight attendants hand them out on the plane - ask for a white one.

When you get to the US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) officer you’ll need to show three things:

1. Passport (with visa sticker attached)
2. I-94 Card
3. Your Labor Condition Application (LCA) documentation

They’ll hopefully check that everything matches up, attach the bottom of the I-94 to a page in your passport & stamp it. This card is very important! Your employer will need a photocopy of it on your first day of work to submit with a Form I-9. Before leaving - make sure that the expiration date on the white card matches the expiry on your visa. Otherwise you could be in a situation where your visa is valid, but you’re expected to have left the country.

Then you & your employer are required for fill out a Form I-9 and submit before close of business on your first day of work.

Congratulations! You’ve made it!

Applying for an E-3D (Spousal) visa

This can be very confusing if they are not attending the same interview as the principal applicant. Here’s what I’ve learnt:

• The official embassy FAQ says that E-3D applicants don’t need to be present at the E-3 applicant’s interview.
• The VisaPoint website gives you a stern red warning: “All dependent applicants must be present at the primary applicant’s interview.” Who do you believe?
• Although the VisaPoint FAQ says “you may schedule an appointment for yourself and up to four immediate family members who reside in the same household using the same PIN” - it’s only for one appointment total.
• If the E-3D applicant can’t attend the same interview as the E-3 applicant, you have to purchase a second PIN and make a separate appointment.
• When you make the second appointment, the system doesn’t cater for E-3D applicants. So you must answer “Yes” to the “Do you have an LCA?” question to continue. Then on the main application page it asks you to select visa type - you should to select E-3 here. EPIC FAIL.
• If you need help or have questions, you can call the (also outsourced) consulate help line on a 1900 number at $2.75/minute or $11 pre-paid fixed price who read you the information off the website. EPIC FAIL.

My wife is still yet to go through this process, so that’ll be a future blog post to see if it worked or not

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Today was my second day as a full time blue badge Microsoft employee. After a day and a half of New Employee Orientation (NEO) & kool-aid drinking, we all got smart cards and CorpNet logons. One of the first things I did after inserting the Microsoft e-mail intravenous line was setup a new blog on MSDN.

Why three blogs?

http://OzGrant.com/ will be my personal blog. I’ll talk about the visa, relocation & cultural experiences of my time here. This will be one of the ways I’ll stay in touch with friends & family back home in Australia.

http://blogs.msdn.com/granth/ will be my work blog. A purely TFS/Microsoft focused blog.

http://moblog.OzGrant.com/ will be my photo blog. This is where I take photos using my phone and upload them to a blog - it’s a great way to share experiences.

What about all the old content?

Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere. All the existing content will remain where it is - just new technical content will go up on MSDN so as not to bore friends & family

However, feel free to stay subscribed to this blog - some of the future topics I want to cover are:

• Packing up a house for international relocation
• Getting a US E-3 Visa for Australians
• Getting a hire car, driving on the opposite side of the road & other driving hazards
• Grocery shopping & rewards cards
• Looking for rental accommodation
• Skype & SkypeIn for great communication back home

Visual Studio 2008 introduced a feature that detects where the current Team Foundation Server is online or offline when you start the IDE.

In the situation where your server is actually ONLINE, but you want to treat it LIKE it’s offline, you have a couple of options.

Option 1 - Use the ‘tfpt tweakui’ utility

You can edit the server setting and go offline.

• Close Visual Studio
• Download and install the latest Team Foundation Power Tools
• Start a Visual Studio Command Prompt
• Type: tfpt tweakui
• Open the server
• Check the [X] Server is offline checkbox
• Open Visual Studio

Option 2 - Yank the network cable before starting Visual Studio

Obviously the IDE won’t be able to contact the server, and will inform you that it is now offline.

Option 3 - Set a registry key

Create a *.reg file with the following text in it, and run it before starting Visual Studio.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\TeamFoundation\Servers\SERVERNAME]

"Offline"=dword:00000001

"AutoReconnect"=dword:00000000

When you want to go back online, you can either go to "File | Source Control | Go Online", or delete this registry key.