Category: Cell Phone

You have the wrong number!

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell PhoneLeave a comment

wrong number

You know how maddening it is when you get a new phone with a new phone number and people keep calling you because they still think their friend has that number, but they don’t because they lost it when they stopped paying for their phone.  I have been going crazy since mid-December when I got my new HTC One V from Virgin Mobile.

They don’t call me everyday, but sometimes they do, and it’s always a recording in Spanish.  Since I don’t speak Spanish, I could never figure out what the recording said.  When the recording ended, the phone would go dead.  I didn’t spend too much time waiting for that to happen because it was a long speech every time.

I called the phone number and got a person and asked who they were and they told me they were a school.  I told them what happened and they said they were sorry and they would fix it.  Weeks went by and I continued getting these phone calls every few days, mostly in the evenings, and sometimes twice a day, one right after the other.  I would just hang up and deal with it, and it wasn’t as annoying in the beginning as it was toward the end when I was ripping what hair I had left out of my head.

I called them another 2 or 3 times sometimes almost yelling because I was so frustrated.  They explained that it was an automated system and that they were searching for my phone number, and of course I had to give them my name and number so they could search and call me when they found it and removed it.

The phone rang at 6:30am on Monday morning and woke me out of a dead sleep.  I was FU-RI-OUS!  I tried going back to sleep, but I just lay there fully awake for the next couple of hours.  I didn’t call them until the next day because I didn’t want to end up being too angry and yelling.  After all, it isn’t their fault this is happening, it’s the fault of whoever owned my number previously who never called the school to give them a change of phone number.  When I did call, they already knew it was me before I even told them.  They told me that they have been working hard to find my number and would call me.  I wasn’t angry, in fact I was laughing and I had a smile on my face.

I did figure out how to block that automated number from calling me.  I had to add them to my address book and then hit block, but that only keeps me from hearing the phone ring.  The recording leaves a message so the phone still chimes when I have new voice mail.

The phone rang at 9:20am this morning and it was the school, but it was a live human and not a recording.  They were calling me to tell me that they found my number and were able to remove it from their system successfully, they told me that if I got another call to just call them back and they will find out why.  I can’t tell you how happy I was to receive that phone call.  I was laughing and I had an ear to ear smile.

I got my phone on December 23rd 2012 and today is February 5th 2013.  Why did it take so long to get my number out of their system?  Well, I really don’t care, I am just glad that it is out and I never have to hear recordings in Spanish again.  That is until I have to get a new phone number again.  I better do what I can to keep this phone number lol.

Kinivo BTH220 Bluetooth Stereo Headphone

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell Phone, Cycling, Diet, Exercise, Products I LikeLeave a comment

 

Kinivo BTH220 Bluetooth Stereo Headphone

My new headphones arrived today and I am beyond excited about them.  At first they didn’t fit me and I was ready to throw in the towel and pack them back up to ship back to where they came from, but I gave them another chance and now they fit me like a glove.

I watched a few YouTube reviews which I know I shouldn’t do because they almost always put the product down and compare them to higher end products, but these were okay and gave it a high rating for its price.  One guy said there was a bit of space where sound escapes or whatever, and that is true, it’s not air tight, but when have headphones ever been air tight?  Who cares!

I did call myself on the phone so I could see if I could hear it ring and I did and it answered like it was supposed to when I pushed the button.  So cool!  That’s the issue I had with my other phone when I was riding my bike.  It would be in my camelbak and I couldn’t get to it in time because I’d have to pull over and take the camelbak off and find it and by then the person hung up or was leaving a message.  Sometimes I’d have it in my pocket in my shorts, but it gets uncomfortable in there and I’m always afraid the phone will drop out as I’m riding and I will never even know.  Nobody ever calls me except for my partner, but he is why I have a cell phone, so if I’m out exercising on my bike, he will be able to get in touch with me, or if I have an accident I can call either him or 911 depending on the severity of the accident.

I activated the voice dialing feature and it asked me to choose between the voice dialer that came with the phone or Robin which is an Android’s Siri challenger (it’s free in the Google Play store).  I chose to use Robin by default because the voice dialer that came with the phone sucks.  It never recognizes what I say.  If I say “Call Home” it calls my friend Ruth lol.  At least Robin understands me.

The sound quality is actually amazing.  I pressed the button once and it automatically started playing music that I had on my phone.  I thought I would have to load the music but I didn’t.  It’s more amazing than I thought it would be.  I press the button once to start and stop the music and when it starts back up again, it continues where it left off.  I loaded Noom to begin an exercise and it started, but I could barely hear the voice talking, which is actually fine by me because I don’t want to hear how fast I’m going or how many calories I’m burning.  Surprise me!  I’m actually going to mute that during workouts.

The headphones are very good and I am so glad I bought them.  They are definitely going to come in handy when I begin cycling this Spring as my cardio to help me lose weight.  I normally ride 22 or 23 miles per day which is a bit much for some, but it’s enough for me.  It’s not too much, I could go more but I just don’t want to.  Obviously I haven’t tried them to receive a phone call on the bike because the bike is missing a back tube, but I will find out in a couple of months and I will try to remember to update this post.

I highly recommend these bluetooth headphones.  Mind you, I base my opinion on wearing them for 10 minutes so this isn’t really a review at all, it’s more of a hey it was awesome for the first 10 minutes, you should try it.

If you do have a pair of these, please do me a favor and comment and tell me how you like them and what you use them for.

Update: I wanted to give an update on these since I’ve had them for a week.  The instructions say to charge it fully, then let it drain completely, then charge it again and drain it again.  Holy crap, that is taking forever to do because the battery seems to go on forever.  I’ve already drained it once and that took at least 3 days to do.  I’m on day 2 of trying to drain the battery for the second time.  The way I’m doing it is to just play music all night long.  Well, it has an 8-hour battery right?  Well, 8 hours pass and it’s still going strong.  I use it the whole day and then play music all night again and it’s STILL going.

One of my concerns when I bought these headphones was that it wasn’t going to last my 2-3 hour bike rides, well that’s out the window because I could probably ride for 3 days straight before the battery died lol.  So no worries there for me now.  That’s actually a relief.  The box says 150 hour standby time and 8 hour talk time, so I’m just guessing that if you don’t use them too often, don’t expect to have to charge them more than once or twice a week, if that.  These are damn good headphones in my opinion.  So worth the $30 I paid.

Oh and one more thing.  The sound is AMAZING!  What is it that the annoying reality celebs say?  AMAZEBALLS?  Well, that it is.  The sound is so awesome and you don’t lose quality from that space between the headphone and your ear.  The headphones seem to be a bit stretched out more than it was when I first opened the package.  It goes back to being small, so it’s stretchy I guess lol.  Stretchy hard plastic.  Yeah.

I was watching a YouTube video with Karl Pfeiffer (Ghost Hunters Academy and Ghost Hunters International) and his voice sounds perfect.  It’s not too loud, it’s not too low, it’s exactly the way it should be.  Before I couldn’t watch his videos because the volume on my monitor sucks, same with my Chromebook.  I can finally hear him with these headphones.

Oh I was told in video reviews that you can fold it and put it in the little pouch that they included with the headphones, but they don’t recommend doing that because the plastic gets too loose when you try to fold it.  It stops snapping into place in other words.  So I’m going to take their word for it and keep them open at all times and never store them in the bag.  I’d rather they be in plain sight anyway.

That’s all for now.

Fun With My New Phone

On By Michel McDonaldIn Android, Cell Phone, Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

htconev Santa (or as I like him call him, me) gave me an awesome present for Christmas.  My first smart cell phone, a HTC ONE V Android from Virgin Mobile.  My previous phone was a Samsung T401G from Net10 which did absolutely nothing other than texting and making calls.  It did have games and internet, but they both sucked.

This new phone is better than my previous cell phones.  It’s not a high-end phone, but it is to me since I’ve never had a smart phone before.

cruiseSo far I have earned 11,067 Viggle points which I will keep earning and saving up to buy something very expensive.  They have a few cool items like a Kindle Fire, an iPod Touch and an Apple TV.  My partner doesn’t have internet on his TV and he has an iPhone, so perhaps he would appreciate the Apple TV.  I earned the 11K points in just 2 weeks, so can you imagine how many more I will earn by Christmas 2013?

They have one reward in there that is worth 4 million points which is a 4 or 5 night Caribbean, Europe or Bermuda cruise aboard a Royal Caribbean International ship.  Can you imagine winning a cruise just from watching TV?  I have never in my life been on a cruise and I have always wanted to.  I think it would be fun and I could take pictures and video with my new phone and post them daily lol.

I have many apps for losing weight which I haven’t really used because they are for cycling and walking and it’s been too cold (as you can see from the weather on the phone image above).  I will take advantage of them in the spring.  Actually, I may uninstall them because I found one that will do the work of all of them, it’s called Noom and it has a GPS and logs my walk, run, jog, cycling etc.  It’s free, but if I pay for it then it will do more.  One thing I love about it is that I can scan the bar code of the food (box, obviously) I eat so I don’t have to find it manually.  I also have a food scale to keep me honest lol.

There are reading apps like the Kindle and Nook apps as well as Aldiko, but I don’t think I will use it too often because it’s killer on the eyes.  I much prefer reading on my Nook WiFi when I do read because it’s e-ink.

I’ve been playing a few games like Megapolis and The Sims FreePlay and Tetris.  I like games that you play with your finger, but my fingers are too fat so I have a stylus to poke the screen with.

I love how it takes pictures and video.  Pictures are widescreen which is basically 4×6 which my other digital cameras never did.  Not that I ever have pictures developed, but if I did want to have a picture developed, I won’t lose anything when it converts the pic to 4×6.  I love that it has a flash which I also can use with video which again isn’t something my camcorder can do since I don’t have a flash for it.  I also love that I can take a picture and then post it directly to Facebook and Twitter without any steps.  Screenshots too.  I learned that just by pressing the power and the home button, it will take a screenshot which I can share in emails, Facebook and Twitter.

My last phone was okay for making calls, but this is perfect.  It has a speakerphone which only works by turning the phone upside down.  I don’t need to look at the screen while talking so that’s fine.  The 3G is great for internet.  My other phone had internet but it was a crap shoot.  It literally took 5 minutes to load a web page one time, and then it gave me a message that said there wasn’t enough memory, which means it didn’t really load the web page.  So I lost minutes and didn’t get anything in return.

My old phone is in good hands with someone I know.  It’s my partners late cousins life partner.  She had a cell phone, but she doesn’t have it anymore and she told me that this one is better than the other one anyway.  I feel sorry that she has to use it and not an Android, but it still works for phone calls and texting.  It’s not perfect, but it works.

I think I am too spoiled now lol.  I will get a ton more use out of this phone than my last which is a good thing.  I felt really guilty about buying it, but I don’t feel that way anymore.

My New HTC One V for Christmas

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell Phone, Christmas, Computer, Gadgets, Pictures, Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I got a brand new cell phone for Christmas thanks to IZEA paying me to blog and tweet.  I just love blogging and tweeting for money.  It’s not a very good living, but at least I get some cool things out of it.

It just so happened that when I got my new HTC One V from Virgin Mobile, my partner decided that he wanted to set his computer up and naturally his mouse and keyboard weren’t working, so I gave him mine which meant that I lost my computer.  So I’ve been using my new phone as a computer for a few days now.  I’m not used to using such a small screen so it takes getting used to.  I have my Chromebook, but the WiFi crashes after typing a few words.  I reset it to factory settings, but it still does it.  Resetting it helped make it faster because even clearing the cache and browsing history wasn’t speeding it up, but the WiFi problem still happens, which meant my phone is now my only means of being online.  I’m “borrowing” my keyboard and mouse for this lol.

So after a few days of using it, here are my impressions.  I read a few reviews and watched a dozen video reviews on YouTube before I committed to buying this phone just to make sure it was what I wanted.  Of course, I wanted a better one, but this was what I could afford that I could get before Christmas day.

I was under the impression that it had 4GB onboard, but when I went to install the Sims free play, it said I didn’t have enough room which told me that I only had 1GB available.  I figured I’d be okay until I could buy a MicroSD card, but apparently not.  I am using a 2GB MicroSD card from my previous phone, so that is working for now until I get my new 32GB MicroSD card.

I am very impressed with the performance compared to some of the reviews that I watched.  It’s not slow at all.  I mean, sometimes I have to wait for a page to load or a game to load, but I’m not spoiled with a faster cell phone since this is my very first smart phone so maybe I just don’t know the difference yet.  It is slow however when I am not at home on my WiFi.  We were at the movies yesterday and it took forever for Foursquare to load so I could check in.  It finally checked in by the time we got home.  So the 3G isn’t great so far, but it’s wonderful on our WiFi.  I will have to see how frustrated I am the next time we have a doctor’s appointment lol.

iphone folder screenshot The OS is pretty impressive, well to me anyway.  It has the big clock with the weather, then room for 8 icons underneath.  There are 2 screens to the left and 2 screens to the right.  I decided that I didn’t want a bunch of icons, so I downloaded the iPhone Style Folder app.  I tried another one that allows me to put the icons in folders, but it only allowed me to have one folder, which is not what I was looking for.  This is perfect for me.

Oh and by the way, I downloaded an app to take screenshots and it was nice enough to tell me that my phone already has a way of taking screenshots by simply pressing the power button and then the home button.  So that’s one less app that I have to worry about taking up room or putting a watermark on my screenshot.  The background image is of our Christmas tree btw.

Before I got the phone, I typed out a post about how to make money using your phone.  I installed those apps (as you can see from the folder in the image above) and here are my impressions so far.

1. iPinion was a pain to sign up on because it insisted that my email address was currently being used, but when I tried to get the password, it said that email address wasn’t even in their system lol.  I had to use another email address to sign up with and even then they didn’t have any surveys for me to fill out.  I’m not giving up on it just yet.

2. IconZoomer wants me to take pictures of things like what my fridge, coffee maker, my form of entertainment etc.  But they haven’t paid me in credits for any of the pictures I have taken.  They each say they have so many days left, so maybe when the question expires I might get credit.  If not, delete…

3. CheckPoints wants me to scan barcodes of products at the grocery store, but I am broke so there isn’t a reason for me to go to the grocery store.  I’ll do it when I get some money.  I don’t want to look suspicious if I go in, scan barcodes then leave LOL.

4. ShopKick wants me to go to the mall and walk into specific shops for points, that would be fine if I went to the mall all the time, but I don’t and I don’t think I would be willing to walk around just for this because of my back pain issues.  It’s fine for some people, but not everyone.

5. Cash King wants me to download apps, watch videos and fill out surveys.  I only get 1 video a day to watch so that’s not what I thought it would be.  I downloaded 1 app which is a game which I actually enjoy and it connects to Facebook and is a game people have been wanting me to play anyway.  They don’t have any surveys yet.

6. Viggle is a wonderful app.  All you do is turn on the TV and let Viggle hear what you are watching and you get points which you can use to buy stuff.  They mostly want me to watch college football games on ESPN so I turn it to ESPN and let it hear the game then I just wait for the next one.  They will give you credits for everything you watch, but specific shows they give you bonus points for.  I have almost 2,000 points after just 2 days.  It’s not going to take long to get some decide rewards if I continue to check in and watch videos everyday.

7. Staree is from IZEA and I will never question them, but… what the heck is this app for?  I have taken a few pictures and haven’t gotten any credits lol.  Maybe they will ask you to take pictures… who knows.

One of my favorite features of this phone is how it takes pictures and video.  This doesn’t do 4:3 like most cameras do, it does 16:9.  In fact, I have it set so it takes pictures that are 1280×768 which is the resolution of the wallpaper on my desktop computer.  Videos are 1280×720 which is the same resolution as my HDTV.  Also I am loving the flash lol.  I know it’s funny to hear but every digital camera I have ever had was missing one thing, the flash, so I am in heaven.  It also uses the light from the flash for video which is pretty cool.  My camcorder doesn’t have a light so now when I need to take video at night, I’ll be able to.  Not that I will have a reason, but you never know.

Here are some pictures I have taken with the camera on my new HTC One V.

So I think I will have a lot of fun with this new phone.  It is so much better than my other one and I love that I can post pictures directly to Facebook and Twitter and I can email pictures to myself instead of having to move them to the MicroSD card, then putting it in my printer to copy to the computer.  It sure takes out so many steps.  I also love the voice recognition.  I don’t mind typing, but I make tons of mistakes with the on screen keyboard.  Although, the voice recognition isn’t perfect, but it’s still better than typing.  Yep, this is going to be a beautiful friendship.

Oh and I gave my other phone to someone who really needed a cell phone so that makes me feel really good.

How to make money with your cell phone – 7 apps

On By Michel McDonaldIn Android, Cell Phone, Make Money3 Comments

AndroidMoney

I have been getting paid to blog for many years using various IZEA websites, such as PayPerPost, SocialSpark and Sponsored Tweets, which by the way is the only reason I was able to buy myself a brand new Android phone for Christmas.

Since I have a new HTC ONE V from Virgin Mobile coming, I figured I would see if I could use that to my advantage to make more money.  The blogging for money is fine, but it has taken a few months worth of blogging and tweeting just to make $80 to buy my new Android phone.  It’s good pay, but it doesn’t come by very easily.

Naturally the first thing I did was go to Google and typed “Make money with android phone” and I found a bunch of things.  IZEA used to have a cell phone app called WeRewards which rewarded you every time you checked in at a store like Target, Walmart, Subway etc. as long as you took a picture of yourself, your receipt, the product and/or the store sign while in the store or in the parking lot.  They closed that down so there is one less thing to talk about, but they did replace it with Staree.

Ok so here are the things I have found.

ipinion 1. iPinion and iPinion+

iPinion is the most sophisticated survey app ever built for smart phones. It has exciting survey questions including several image interaction types. Users can take surveys on the go and earn rewards.  iPinion is non-intrusive, fun to participate and professional.

They have 2 apps and they each got good ratings and reviews, but iPinion+ doesn’t have as many as the other.

iconzoomer 2. IconZoomer

Become Trendspotter at Iconzoomer and receive cash for your photos.

Shoot it – Send it – Earn it

Each week you’ll receive assignments of basic topics such as: “Show us what you are eating for dinner?” or “Show the shoes are you wearing today?”

Pretty straight forward.  They ask you to take a picture, you do and you get paid for it.  That seems pretty good and the ratings and reviews are very good.

checkpoints 3. CheckPoints

Scan barcodes for products like Coca-Cola, Dreyer’s and more in any store for instant rewards! As seen in the Washington Post, NY Times, USA Today and CNN, CheckPoints is the “App That Pays You Back” with free rewards, no matter where you are!

You are going to the store anyway, why not open this app while you are there and scanning barcodes for rewards?  It seems really easy.  This app got a lot of good ratings and reviews.

shopkick 4. ShopKick

This holiday shopping season, join the more than 4 million shopkick users who get rewarded for the shopping they already do. It’s like a rewards program—only better. You get rewarded just for walking into stores like Target, Macy’s, Best Buy, Old Navy, American Eagle and Crate & Barrel. Get even more kicks when you scan items and make purchases. Forget sales and coupons. You can find great discounts and deals in the app. It’s a magical experience, and it’s free.

This is very similar to CheckPoints in the sense that you get rewarded for scanning barcodes, but you also get rewarded merely for walking into a store without doing anything.  So you could basically just go to the mall and walk around with this app loaded and go into the stores that they have listed in the app and start window shopping and scanning barcodes.  They got some good ratings and some reviews.

SwagBucks5. SwagBucks Search Swidget & SwagBucks TV Mobile

The official app from Swagbucks. Earn rewards & prizes by searching on your Android device.

I haven’t had much experience with SwagBucks Search Swidget because when I have tried it, it hasn’t really given me too many rewards.  I think the only way to get your SwagBucks with that is by making a purchase from whatever website you are searching for.  Like if you search for Target and you make a purchase, you get SwagBucks for every dollar that you spend.

SwagBucks TV Mobile on the other hand is a bit different.  You load the app and you choose which type of videos you want to watch and you just sit there and watch videos for however long of a time you have to sit there watching videos I guess.  There are music videos and movie trailers.  It’s a novelty that does wear off and you don’t get that many SwagBucks, but it still counts.  You can’t just load the app and have it run all day and all night because you have to tap the X in the top right of the screen in between videos.

Note that 100 swag bucks is basically $1 so it is a good idea.

Added 8-14-2013

viggle 6. Viggle

Viggle. Check into your favorite shows and get rewarded. Viggle makes TV better.

Watch TV. Get Rewards. Check into your favorite TV shows with Viggle and you’ll get real rewards from brands like Best Buy, Burger King, Fandango, Old Navy and more.

Viggle can automatically identify the show you’re watching. You get Viggle points for every show you watch which you can redeem for real rewards or convert into charitable donations.

Some people are saying bad things about this, like the app doesn’t recognize the show they are watching so they have to type it in manually, and others are saying it doesn’t give you money, you get coupons.  I would say to check it out and if you only get $5 gift cards for Amazon, then at least you are getting something.  I mean who cares if you are getting coupons, it’s the same as cash when you go to use it and you end up saving money on things you already want to buy.  Also, if you feel generous you could give the money to charity.

Update: I can tell you that this is good and you do get real rewards because I got a $25 gift card for Barnes & Noble to buy ebooks.  I used it to buy the Hunger Games ebooks for my Nook.

staree 7. Staree

Use the Staree app to upload photos and videos to your Staree.com profile.

To request a Staree account, please visit our website at http://www.staree.com!

I am loyal to IZEA so I am only adding this because they are an awesome company that always pays you.  They are 100% legit.  I have signed up for Staree and have uploaded a couple of photos, but I don’t know how it really works yet.  But it’s still worth giving a shot.  I really wish they would bring WeReward back though.

erewards icon8. e-Rewards

e-Rewards Mobile is now available for Android- now you can answer surveys and earn Rewards on the go!

I have used e-Rewards for many years and I can say that it is a good tool for making money, although you don’t actually make money so much as you get rewarded for your surveys with gift cards.  Some rewards are better than others, but the only reward that I am interested in is $25 Game Stop gift cards.  They have changed their reward system since the last time I got a $25 gift card for Game Stop.  It used to be that I would have to do $50 worth of surveys to cash in for the $25 gift card, but now you have to do $75 worth, so they are basically charging you $50 to cash in on $25.  I feel that is a huge rip off, but it’s still a reward.

It would be nice if they offered better rewards.  Most of their rewards are for hotels or airline rewards or magazines.  I don’t travel or read magazines, so those rewards are useless.  It would be nice if they had Amazon and Barnes & Noble rewards.

Added 8-14-2013

So these are all of the apps that I plan on installing when I get my new HTC One V from Virgin Mobile.  If you know of any more or better apps for making money please let me know in the comments and I will add them.  These were just all I could find from doing my own research, but I am sure there are better apps out there.

Thank you to IZEA for allowing me to blog for products and websites and paying me for it.  Now I will hopefully be able to make more money from my phone so that I can afford the monthly fee and/or to buy some accessories for it lol.

My New Virgin Mobile Cell Phone

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell Phone, Gadgets, TechLeave a comment

Well I finally did it, I bought a new Android based cell phone from Virgin Mobile.  Well, I bought it from Amazon, but it is a Virgin Mobile phone.

We were at the mall today and they have a Best Buy mobile store where you can buy cell phones from all the different mobile companies, and they had the Virgin Mobile phones, but they were more than they are at the Virgin Mobile website.

Like take this phone, the HTC One V that I just bought on Amazon for example.  At the Best Buy store they were selling it for $149.99.  It’s on the Virgin Mobile website on sale for $99.99 and I told the clerk that.  He scanned the barcodes and he said nope, it’s $149.99.  I told him to check the Virgin Mobile website and he said it’s $149.99.  I knew it was a bad investment to buy it from there because I could have saved $50 by buying it online.  When we came home I checked and sure enough I was right, it was on sale for $99.99.

Before I made the commitment to buy it, I wanted to check with Amazon first to make sure I could get a better deal and it was on sale for $93.41.  So not only did I save money by buying it at home, but I saved nearly $60.  That’s good because I still have to buy the phone card to activate it which is another $35.

This isn’t the phone that I wanted, but it was the phone that I could afford to buy and sometimes we have to make sacrifices like this.  The reason I didn’t want this one was because it doesn’t have a front facing camera which means I can never video chat with it, but that’s why I have a webcam on my Netbook and my Desktop computer.  But it would have been nice to have the front facing camera for those times when I don’t have a mirror and I need to check to make sure I don’t have food on my face when I’m eating.  I know, I’m strange, but that does come in handy lol.  I’m sure the front facing camera wouldn’t be great for taking self pictures anyway since it is probably a 1MP camera and the regular camera on it is a 5MP.

Besides the front facing camera issue, I did like this phone in the reviews that I saw.  It doesn’t perform as great as the most expensive phones, but it does perform well, from what I’ve seen.  I will have to find out for myself.

I didn’t opt for the 1-day shipping for $18, instead I got the 2-day shipping for $10 which means I will get it on Monday, December 24th which means I will get it just in time for Christmas lol.  If I had gotten the free 5-day shipping, I’d have to wait until the end of next week.  I guess that would be ok to wait, but I don’t want to wait lol.

So yay, welcome to the year 2012/13 lol.  I have been using an old type of phone for such a long time that I won’t know what to do with myself.  I’ve never had an android phone so I’ve never known the joys of apps like the rest of the world does.

I will be giving my phone away to someone who needs it which means I will be getting a new phone number.  That kinda sucks but I wasn’t married to the one I have now anyway, I still don’t remember what the number is lol.

So until Monday…

My Net10 Phone Works

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell PhoneLeave a comment

Two weeks ago I bitched that my Net10 phone was rubbish and I would like to give an update on that issue.

Last year I bought my Net10 cell phone because my old T-Mobile phone had been disconnected for a long time because I just never used it.  It was an old phone I bought in 2002 and it wasn’t working anyway so I just let my service lapse.  I bought my new Net10 phone so that I could ride my bicycle for exercise without worrying about not having the ability to call 911 if I had to.

On December 1st Darrin bought me a $25 phone card for my phone.  I normally buy the $20 cards because they only have 200 minutes and the $25 card is a monthly plan with 750 minutes that don’t roll over.  I don’t use my phone enough to need that many minutes, but it was a nice gift and I accepted it.  I just assumed that I would keep the $25 plan so I wouldn’t have to worry about buying a card every month, I could just let Net10 charge me automatically with the plan.  Bad idea.

On January 1st, Net10 was supposed to charge my debit card, but they didn’t and I was unaware until January 3rd.  I went to make a phone call and my service was deactivated.  I went to the Net10 website and clicked reactivate which brought me to the menu to buy time.  I started up the $15 plan which is 200 minutes that don’t roll over.  I figured, if I am going to do a plan, I might as well go with the cheapest since I don’t use my phone that often, but that didn’t work because my phone never activated.

I called Net10 and told them what happened and they told me to wait 1 to 24 hours for it to activate, but it never did so I called them on the 5th.  They walked me through the process of reactivating the phone by going into the code entry mode.  I punched all these numbers in and did everything the guy told me to.  We were on the phone for a little over an hour and he came to the conclusion that my phone was the issue.  He sent me a new phone and told me that it will come with an envelope to send my phone back to them.  I wasn’t happy about that because I lost all of the games that I had bought for my phone.

I had to wait until Monday when the FedEx guy delivered my new phone.  I activated it, but I thought I must have done it wrong because it didn’t activate.  I waited an hour but nothing so I called them and they told me to wait 1 to 24 hours.  If after 24 hours it doesn’t come on then call them back, and I did.  They told me to wait an hour and if it isn’t working call back, which I did and the woman told me to wait another hour and I said no, I want my phone on NOW!  Not in 1 hour, not in 24 hours, I want it on NOW!  She walked me through the code entry bull again and it changed my phone number.  Now all of a sudden my phone number was gone, but she told me it was ok, it will go back to my phone number, but it didn’t so she told me that I needed a new SIM card.  UGH!

I had to wait for my new SIM card to arrive, when it came I called Net10 to activate it and they told me 1 hour.  I called back in an hour saying it’s not working, so they said 1 hour.  What the hell is up with them and 1 hour?  I was sick to my stomach and Darrin had called and said he wanted to go to dinner.  I didn’t want to go because I was too upset to eat, but he wanted to go so we went.

Saturday I called them as soon as I got up and I was on hold for 2 1/2 hours.  I got so tired of waiting so I just hung up and watched Grimm on Hulu since I missed it because we went out to eat.  I called them back and was lucky that I only had to wait 10 minutes.  I spoke to a guy for 90 minutes and he kept telling me that I need to buy a new phone card.  I kept explaining to him that I paid $15 and that was all I was willing to pay because why the hell should I keep buying phone cards if my phone isn’t working?  He tried my debit card and despite the fact that my bank had $400 in it, the card declined so I gave him my master card number and that also declined.  He told me that I need to call the bank and I told him absolutely not.  2 different cards from 2 different banks are not going to just decline when I know both accounts have money in them.  The problem isn’t me, it’s you.  He wanted to hang up on me because he didn’t know what to do and I told him to connect me with a supervisor.

I talked to a supervisor for at least 30 minutes and she couldn’t figure it out so she connected me with a tech person.  Um… aren’t they all supposed to be tech people?  I talked to him for another 30 minutes and he told me that there was an error with my account.  He told me he was going to personally try to fix it and if he does by that night he would call me, if not he would call me the next day.

This morning I woke up and tried my phone and it was still not working.  I went to the Net10 website and saw that the new and old phone were in my account so I called that direct number and was connected immediately.  I asked them if I bought a new phone card and entered it, would my phone work?  They said sure, go for it, so I did and it didn’t.  I called back and gave the guy the whole story from the beginning and he walked me through the code entry mode BS again with 3 different codes.  I gave him my phone card code and viola, time appeared on my new phone.

My phone works and I have 30 days with 200 minutes.  That $15 card that I got never got put on my phone, but at this point I don’t really give a crap, I just want my phone to work and that’s all that matters.  My phone number is different, but I didn’t really give the number to too many people so it doesn’t matter.  All that matters is that my phone works and I will never do the plans again, I will just have to buy phone cards every month and deal with that.

I know what people are going to say, drop Net10… blah blah blah.  Look, I was already told on Google Plus that I should just drop Net10 and go with a reputable phone company, but what people don’t realize is, I can’t afford to pay a reputable phone company for their expensive prepaid service.  I hardly ever use my phone so I can’t afford to spend $50 or $100 a month for a phone I never use.  I can’t really afford $20 either, but that is the only way to keep my phone active.  As long as I keep up with buying phone cards, then I will be fine with what I have.

Now that is solved so I can go back to worrying about other things.

 

My Net10 Phone is Rubbish

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell Phone2 Comments

I have had my Samsung T401G Net10 cell phone since last summer when I started riding my bike. I bought it through the Net10 website as a refurbished phone and I only paid $25 for it. I also got a free $25 phone card so technically I got the phone for free. I chose this one because it’s the one that Darrin had. I’ll admit that I was a little jealous because all of a sudden he had a better cell phone than I had, although now he has an iPhone…

I have had issues with my phone from the very beginning. When I activated it, I had to go through a process of typing codes in the phone through the prepaid menu. I wasn’t sure if the issues were because it was a refurbished phone, but I didn’t care because when it finally worked I was able to make phone calls, and that’s all that mattered.

I started out with the $25 750 minutes monthly plan, but they failed to charge my debit card every month so I was forced to buy phone cards instead.  I have had to add minutes every month from their website. I wanted to do it directly from the phone, but their menu doesn’t offer the cheaper $20 phone card. You have to buy the $30 and up. I didn’t want to do that so I had to do it on the website.

Darrin bought me a phone card in the beginning of December and it was the $25 plan again. When you go with their plan, they are supposed to automatically charge the debit or credit card that is in your account, but they failed to do so and my phone was deactivated. I tried to reactivate it by getting the $15 200 minute monthly plan, but it didn’t accept it for some reason so I had to call them.

I was on the phone with Net10 yesterday for 90 minutes. They walked me through a very tedious process of pressing codes in the prepaid menu like I had to do when I first got the phone, but that didn’t work. The operator I spoke with had reactivated the phone and added my minutes with the 30 days, but unfortunately my phone itself never reactivated. So he said that my phone was not working and that he would send me another one and then I’d have to return my faulty one back to them with a prepaid envelope.

When I asked him why they didn’t automatically charge my credit card for the monthly service on the first, he replied that it was the phones fault. Um, isn’t that the responsibility of the website, not the phone?  My plan was in their system, so they should have automatically charged my credit card $25 on the first of the month.  They didn’t and now it’s the phones fault?

It doesn’t matter, I am going to keep all of the minutes that are still on my phone from last months plan, get 200 minutes from the $15 I paid for the day before yesterday and then in another month I will just go back to the $25 750 minutes plan. If they don’t charge me automatically, I will just have to make sure that I am keeping up with it by going to the website.  It’s a schlep but what else can I do?

I noticed that they are now selling android phones, the LG Optimus Net and Q. The Q just has a slide-out keyboard and it’s about $20 more. I am not too happy with their service because I rarely have more than 2 or 3 bars and when I am downloading games, it always gets interrupted and I have to start over. Maybe because it’s a faulty phone though (that was said with a hint of sarcasm).

That’s another thing, I had spent a lot of my minutes buying games. I have 8 games that I paid for and now I will lose them because my new phone isn’t going to have them. I think I would be more pissed if I had paid for those with actual money, but considering I will be getting all of my minutes back from last month, I think I can either buy them again with my minutes, or just not worry about it because I never even played them.  If I had the android phone then I think it would be more worth my time playing games than it is with this crappy phone.

I will have to wait 3-5 days for my replacement phone so I will be out a phone until then.  It sucks, but there is nothing I can do about it.  I only ever use it for texting with Darrin so it doesn’t really matter because he can just email with his fancy schmancy iPhone 4S lol.

I want to upgrade to the LG Optimus Net this summer for my birthday because I can use my wi-fi to use the internet with it when I’m at home.  When I am out on the bike trail this summer, I will be able to make twitter and Facebook updates.  I couldn’t do that with my current phone because it didn’t store my long difficult passwords and I could never remember what they were to log in every time I wanted to update.  Also, an Android phone has apps like the WeReward app and the QR code scanner.  Not that I really need to scan QR codes, but it would be nice to have that option.

It’s funny, I rarely ever use my cell phone, but I am being tortured by not having it to play with.

Games on my Samsung T-401G with Net10

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell Phone, Games2 Comments

When I needed to buy a new cell phone, it wasn’t for playing games on, it was for those emergency phone calls while I was riding my bicycle, which by the way I never had, an emergency that is.  So I wasn’t buying it for games since I have a PSP, games on my desktop, games on my CR-48 netbook and even my Nook has games.  I’m good on games, I don’t need another gaming device.

However, there are times when I’m sitting in a waiting room bored out of my mind and Sudoku on my cell phone just isn’t doing it for me.  My phone also has another game called JumpBoy which is really difficult to play.

We went to the doctor’s office on Thursday and while I was waiting I decided that I wanted to buy a game from the game store on my phone.  I bought Lego Batman.  I have Lego Batman for PSP but I wanted to see how it played on the cell phone.  It was $4.99 or 49 minutes and I had plenty of minutes that I never used so I bought it with my minutes.

It starts to download and it gets to about 82% and I lose my connection because the Net10 service really sucks here in Bakersfield.  I never have a full strength signal so it wasn’t shocking to me that this would happen, although I wasn’t thinking about it at the time.

I tried to download it 4 more times and I got a message telling me that I have downloaded it too many times.  What?  I have attempted to download it but I haven’t successfully downloaded it.

When we came home I tried to download it again, not to download it but to get the phone number that is listed in the message.  I called the number and went through the menu and they told me to email support@gameloft.com.  I sent them an email telling them what happened and they emailed me the next day.  I am very glad that I’m a patient person.

They gave me a link to download the game again so I tried it 3 times at home and it still didn’t work so I rode my bike to the mall and tried it there.  2 more times and no go because I downloaded it too many times.

I email support again telling them what happened and I get another email within 24 hours telling me that there was a glitch in the game download file and offered me a new game.  I don’t know what to do so I log into gameloft on my cell phone and this is what I see.

I had to crop it and I added the :p face and the “lame!” lol.  Notice my signal strength?  That is normal for my phone.  Half the time I have 2 bars and the other half of the time I have no bars.

At this point I don’t know what else to do so I went to the gameloft website and I don’t really see anything I want so I just told them in the email that I wanted Green Farm.

So I get the email from them today with the link for Green Farm and tried to download it 3 times at home with no success.  I went to the store because the signal is stronger there but for some reason when I tried to download it, it got halfway then said I had no signal.  Even though it still showed that my signal was strong, 5 bars.

WTF!

I go home and think, I only have 1 more shot at this, I think what I’ll do is download it with my netbook then email it to myself.  No problem right?  So that’s exactly what I did.  I emailed it to myself then connected to my email account on the phone and I downloaded it and it worked.  It got to 100% and then it installed.  I’ve been playing it for like 20 minutes and it plays great.

Unfortunately I still cannot access the gameloft site through my phone and in fact, there are links missing in the browser to connect to gmail and to connect to weather and what not, not like I use those but still.

So I think this game is the last game I will buy for my phone.  If I had this difficult of a time downloading Lego Batman and Green Farm then I’m done.  If I had better cell phone service then I think it would be worth it to try it again but until that day comes I think I’ll just stick with using my PSP to play video games with.  Well, besides being able to play Green Farm on my phone lol.

I don’t blame GameLoft, heck I don’t even blame my phone for what happened to me.  I blame Net10 for having such crappy service.  Come on Net10, give me a better signal here will ya?  I am so sick of this crappy signal.  I can’t count how many times I wanted to throw my phone against the wall.  If it weren’t for the fact that it’s an $80 phone I would have.

Dirty Text Message

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell Phone, Joke, TechLeave a comment

Darrin was at work the other day and his phone gave him that text message ring.  It’s 1 little ring with a vibrate so it doesn’t say “answer me” just that “you got a text”.  Unfortunately, he got it while he was helping a customer and since he is new to having a cell phone, he doesn’t know the difference in the rings.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and saw the message on the screen and pushed the appropriate button and downloaded the text.  This is what he saw:

FWD:FW: Fw: New Message

“Ricky has broken his leg and his buddy Mick comes over to see him. Mick says, “How you doin?” “Ricky says, “Okay, but do me a favor mate, run upstairs and get me slippers, me feet are freezing.” Mick goes upstairs and sees Ricky’s gorgeous 19-year-old twin daughters lying on the bed naked. He says, “Your dad sent me up here to have sex with both of you.” They say, “Prove it.” Mick shouts downstairs, “Ricky, both of em?” Ricky shouts back, “Of course both of em, What’s the point of f***in one?”

First of all, Darrin barely has a sense of humor and second, he just bought the phone so his phone number is brand new so he can kind of understand that people are going to be getting the wrong number but wouldn’t you think you would have your friends correct phone number in your contact list?

Darrin called that phone number up and when the voice mail picked up he starts screaming into the phone saying (I’m not quoting him) that this sexual lesbian pornographic text message was sent to his 10-year-old daughter blah blah blah.

The point he was trying to make was that this message could have gone to a child instead of an adult.  Basically saying, get the right number from now on or you’re gonna be in big trouble.  He threatened to call the cops but that was just to put the fear of god into them.

My point for blogging about this is that if you are going to send text messages to people, whether they are clean or not, make sure you got the right number because you could end up sending nude pictures to the wrong person, next time it could go to a FBI agent or a child.  Either way, you could end up going to jail because it is illegal to send nude images in emails and I’m sure, in text emails over the phone, especially to children.

Note that I blurred out the certain body parts and faces of the women in the image above and I cleaned up the “f-word” so it doesn’t offend.