Consumer electronics shopping

Don't let Interdiscount & Fust blind you with their colorful & attractive vocher. They are pretty expensive except their occasionally sales.

For shopping online, using this website to compare prices:
www.toppreise.ch

For anyone in Zuerich, there are a few online sellers with retail stores so you don't have to pay postage charge & don't have to use Credit Card.
http://www.digitec.ch : Amazing prices, expecially for Ipod.
http://shop.computer-trade.ch/catalog/index.php Very near UNI & ETH, haven't bought from this yet but the price for USB card reader, USB Hub is among the cheapest.

If you don't want to buy online, go to MediaMarkt (Dietlikon, Dietikon, Sihlcity). They don't have catalog online but have pretty much everything in store.

For ETH students, you can buy laptop through Neptun project, only limited types are available but the price is amazingly attractive. However, Neptun project only opens its shopping windows twice a year, before the semester starts.
http://www.neptun.ethz.ch

Hmm, there is also a shop for student in ETHZ. The price is clearly better than Interdiscount or Fust but can't not beat digitec above:
http://ssd.ethz.ch

Day pass (Tagskarte Gemeinde)

With this pass with a price of 30-35CHF, you can travel the whole Switzerland for 24 hours. It's valid for bus, tram, boat, train but not the private train to the mountains such as Pilatus. There is no need for a Halb-tax card to buy this Flexipass.

For this Flexipass, you have to book at the gemeinde or commune where you live or nearby about 2 weeks before, then pick it up.

A few gemeinde's website offering this Flexipass:
- All: http://www.tageskarte-gemeinde.ch/
- Birmensdorf: http://www.birmensdorf.ch/de/verwaltung/gareservation/
- Martingy: http://martigny.ch/pdf/cartes_journalieres_cff.pdf

Note:
Flexipass is different from the Day Card (Tageskarten) offered by the SBB. Day Card costs you 56CHF and requires you to have a Halb-tax card. The link to the Day Card is below:
http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/reisemarkt/billette/tageskarten.htm
Recently, Migros introduces a Family Day Pass (2 adults & 2 children) for 99CHF. A Halb-tax card is not required to buy this day pass.
http://www.migros.ch/

TV & radio tax

Just wanna clear a bit on TV license, it seems to be quite complicated and not many foreigners can understand correctly.

For TV, there are two kinds of money you have to pay:
- TV cable fee (connection fee): normally included in the Nebenkostet of the rented accommodation. About 22 CHF/month. You have to pay this no matter what you use TV or not
- TV license (content fee): you have to pay this if you have a TV. The cost is about 25CHF/month. The organization responsible to this is Billag (www.billag.ch).

The equivalent to TV license is radio license, about 13CHF/month.

Things that make you to pay TV or radio license:
- a TV for sure, or a computer with TV tuner or computer with subscription to TV streaming service (Cablecom)
- any radio receiving device such as radio player, radio controlled clock, mobile phone with FM function etc.

How to pay the TV & license fee:
- You can register at www.billag.ch and pay quarterly.
- Or wait until a Billag man knocks at your door and asks you whether you have a TV :D You might have to pay back dated from the day you moved in and a fine of 80CHF though they claim it's up to 5000CHF (so damn scary).

Link
http://www.international.ethz.ch/living_zh/TV.html

Electricity

When you move to a new appartment, you have to register for electricity. If you already have an account, just have to move the address but if you are new, you have to go to:

- www.ewz.ch for City Zuerich
- www.ekz.ch for areas outside City Zurich but still belong to Zuerich canton.

When you move out or leave the country, you also have to call for changing address or closing your account as well.

First post

I had a lot of troubles starting life in Zurich. There are many things seeming to be hideous to foreigners who don't know German here. Thus, I hope this one helps.

Hmm, forgot to add that my experience is more useful for a student or postdoc rather than a working person.