MxMining

One of the first things you'll notice after spending some time in Mexico is the outrageous charges for local and long distance telephone communication.

The expense adds up really fast if you're keeping regular contact with your office or partners outside of Mexico, but there's a couple of ways to keep the costs reasonable.

Of course there's the internet and email which is the best choice when you need to send documents or the communication requirements are not time sensitive. You'll find that most hotels in the metropolitan areas will have internet access and even some hotels in the

All the technology out there and it's still hard to find the perfect GPS for exploration projects. Right now I use a Trimble Juno ST with third party software called GPSTuner for GPS functions. When I purchased the Juno ST it seemed to be the ideal device for me to carry out in the field even though it was not the most ruggedly built GPS.

I bought my Juno ST when they first hit the market which was about two years ago, at that time it was right up there on the cutting edge of technology. I know the market has changed a lot in the past two years - new standards and devices have come out since then so I've kept a close eye on what's available in the GPS marketplace.

My perfect GPS would have these qualities:

• Rugged Weatherproof Design - to endure tough Mexican terrain.
• Window Mobile Operating System - for lots of available software.
• PDA or Handheld Computer Capabilities - to do more work.
• Expandable Memory Slot - for storing more stuff.
• Bluetooth Enabled - it's just an easier way to pass files around.
• Touch Screen - rapid data entry and less fumbling around with keys.

and the last, hardest part of the order to fulfill...