Visiting Malaysia from Uganda - VOA (Visa On Arrival) Checklist

I recently visited Malaysia and true, Ugandans are allowed VISA ON ARRIVAL (VOA) which is a period of 30 days and you get this at the airport immigration as soon as you arrive.

If you are Ugandan and are considering a similar trip, here are some of the things that you need to make sure are in check before you start your journey. This will make your life easy in the immigration office and you can be sure of a smooth VOA in Malaysia.

1. Valid Passport - This is obvious but make sure your passport has at least more than 3 months before date of expiry.

2. International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis showing that you have taken the yellow fever shot. If you are in Kampala you can get this at "The Surgery Ltd", or you can take the shot at the Entebbe airport clinic for 120,000 UGX, but make sure you have enough time before check in time. This is very important and without any doubt they will ask you for this.

3. A return ticket showing that you will be out of Malaysia before the 30 days expire. A return flight ticket will cost you about 1,000 USD.

4. Get a travel insurance, this will cost you about 50 dollars. you can buy travel insurance online or go the the local travel insurance agent.

5. A Hotel booking showing where you will be staying during your stay in Malaysia. If you are a guest invited by someone living in Malaysia, make sure you have an Invitation letter from your host showing clearly their contact details and residential address.

6. Cash, yes cash, they will ask you to show them some cash to demonstrate that you can take care of your stay in Malaysia. even if you have a sponsor who is going to pay your living expenses, make sure you carry some cash. At least 500 USD. it doesn't matter if you have carried you money on a VISA debit/credit card. Make sure you withdrawal and have some cash in your pocket. This is very important.

7. Smile to the immigration officer and pray that he/she is not having a bad day :-) otherwise, have fun in Malaysia. The capital Kuala Lumpur is beautiful and has a fun night life.

Your Techie Guy at Petronas Twin Towers, KL

 

OnAir internet with Emirates - Thank God for technology

Am aboard Emirates flight EK342, Dubai to Kuala Lumpur, date is 1st march 2017 and am pleased to say that I posted this using there onAir WiFi internet hotspot. I got 10Mbs free valid for 2 hours, and with an extra dollar, you can get 500Mbs.

Wow, this is so amazing and am happy to have leaved through a this generation where you can stay connected within the skys.

And oh, we are cruising the Airbus A380

Swift Funds Transfer To Customer's Account in Housing Finance Bank Uganda LTD

Looking to receive money from an overseas bank account or employer to your Housing Finance Bank local account in Uganda?
Simply provide the details below to your sponsor/employer:

Housing Finance Bank Uganda

I Can Ping But I Can Not Browse - What's wrong with my Internet?

Summary: 

For the biggest part that i have worked in the ISP industry, this is by far the most common complaint from the customers, so today i have decided to write a brief guide line on how to troubleshoot this problem from the client side and possibly resolve it yourself without having to engage the service provider.

Problem or Goal:

You can ping a public IP in the internet for example 4.2.2.2 but can't browse a website for example www.tagsaleuganda.com in your browser.

if you open your CMD terminal and run this test:
1. Ping any public IP, for example 4.2.2.2 you get replies, meaning your connectivity up to layer 3 (refer to the OSI model) is ok.

Opening CMD

Pinging a public IP returns replies, meaning connectivity is OK.

2. The challenge is when you ping a domain name for example; ping www.tagsaleuganda.com
Ideally this should also work if the domain is valid, it should be able to resolve the domain to an IP and you should be able to get replies on the CMD, that is for a good connection.

This is a good ping to a domain name and good DNS resolution of domain to IP

3. But for this case where a customer is able to ping the internet (in 1 above) but can't browse a page on the internet, usually the second test (2 above) will fail, you will get request timed out and the domain will fail to resolve into an IP.

Cause:

Most likely you have a DNS issue, check to make sure the DNS settings are properly configured in your router or PC. 

Solution:

Ask your service provider for the DNS settings, if the DNS is statically configured, make sure you have entered the right DNS IP.
If you don't know which DNS to use, you can configure your router or computer to use the public DNS(s), for example the google public DNS IP: 8.8.8.8

Problem Solved?

Yes