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| 12/25 |
| 2008/8/8-13 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:50820 Activity:nil |
8/8 Should I pwn/unlock my iPhone 3g? Anyone do this yet and regret it?
-scottyg
\_ pwn it. But don't upgrade to 2.0.1 firmware yet.
Do you want to customize your iPhone and put different icons on it? --oj
Do you want to customize your iPhone and put different icons on
it? --oj
\_ Too late on the upgrade...and yes I would like to customize it,
but more than just different icons. I was more interested in
running Python scripts or NES emulators. Thanks. -scottyg |
| 2008/7/22-28 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:50651 Activity:nil |
7/22 Anyone have success with the new iPhone or iPhone software? What are
your first impressions?
\_ Takes 5 seconds for your address book to startup. Really
pisses me off. Safari crashes on a bunch of web sites.
The map program hogs up power like hell. I turn off 3G
and that helps quite a bit. Overall the new shit isn't much
better than the old shit.
better than the old shit. -phuqU
\_ I got a new iphone. it's better than sex.
\_ No, seriously, I've heard a lot about buggy software, trouble in
the activation process, etc. -op
\_ I think you must be doing it wrong.
\_ I haven't had any problem with the phone itself. iTunes store craps
out every once in awhile. I think they are having problems with the
volume of downloads and DRM material that they have to deal with.
All in all I'm in love. -scottyg
k/21 motd boob guy do i have a video for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALl5RYIJuyk
\_ How does her shirt withstand the strain?
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/080723/009677802_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.jpg
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/080723/009677805_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.jpg
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/080723/009677823_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.jpg
\_ I upgraded my original iPhone to the 2.0 software last night. So
far I have had no problems and the vpn and exchange email features
work perfectly. I don't know about the activation process b/c my
iPhone is unlocked. |
| 2008/7/17-23 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:50605 Activity:nil |
7/16 Looking for iPhone 3G docking station that works with a case
on the phone. Docking stations today assume your iPhone
is always naked. Thanks. |
| 2008/7/16-23 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:50598 Activity:nil |
7/16 Love fobs? Or should I say, FOBs? Here's your chance to meet
FOBs via your iPhone. Just download the iFob application!
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=449803 |
| 2008/7/15-23 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple, Recreation/Media] UID:50585 Activity:nil |
7/15 David Lynch on watching movies on the iPhone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcNLEwf2pOw
\_ Truer words have never been spoken
\_ Well you know, OLD PEOPLE are STUPID. Never trust anyone
over 30. That sort of thing. Never been truer. |
| 2008/7/12-16 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:50546 Activity:nil |
7/11 iPhone applications no longer launch. Launch, wait 5 seconds,
go back to the main menu. What's going on? I tried rebooting,
reset data from Settings, etc. Argh!!!
\_ That happened to me after I restored by iPhone v1.0 backup to
my new v2.0 iPhone. I had to re-download the applications and
then they worked fine. --peterl |
| 2008/5/23-26 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:50041 Activity:nil 66%like:50037 |
5/23 The true cost of an iPhone:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ypxpov [engadget]
\_ Wow, that's old enough it doesn't even have the right prices
or storage capacities. (Not to mention the shady -15/month
they took off for all non iPhones.) -not a iphone user but
DAMN if that isn't a crappy chart. |
| 2008/5/23 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:50037 Activity:nil 66%like:50041 |
5/23 The true cost of an iPhone:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/26/how-does-the-iphone-stack-up-in-total-cost |
| 2008/3/6-7 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:49359 Activity:moderate |
3/6 im thinking of swithcing over completely to Vonage.
Wasn't Vonage about to be sued out of existence?
What happened with thta?
\_ While it's not bad enough to switch, my Vonage line quality is
bad enough that I would not recommend it. YMMV.
\_ Here's what I really want to do. I have my own cell phone. I have
groovy work iphone. I carry both. I want to transfer my cell
phone number to some Vonage like service, and call forward it to
work iphone. I want to cancel my personal cell plan. When I get
fired from work, I want to be able to easily forward it to another
future work cell phone plan.
\_ While it's not bad enought to switch, my Vonage line quality is bad enough
that I would not recommend it. YMMV.
\_ Try skype with a Skype-enabled cordless WiFi phone. |
| 2008/3/4-7 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:49328 Activity:nil |
3/4 I'm thinking of moving to a shack in Montana. Can I turn
my tmobile cell phone number somehow to Skype ?
\_ Yup
\_ Has anyone done this? Will they forward this to another
number?
\_ I recommend insulting your shack well.
\_ How do you insult a shack? Call it names on the motd???
\_ If you're going to move to an isolated shack, you probably want to
find a warmer place for it. |
| 2008/2/16-18 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:49165 Activity:moderate |
2/16 My Verizon contract is expiring soon (2 months) and I'm
debating whether to switch to AT&T or not, mostly because of
the nicer phones. Is there any big reason for me to remain
with Verizon, or a big reason not to make the switch? I know
Verizon claims they'll allow "outside" phones onto their network
this year, but I'm not sure that'll be as great as they make
it out to be. Thanks!
\_ AT&T sucks. I've heard verizon sucks slightly less than the
other sucky cell phone companies. I live in SF and it's a
small miracle if I can talk for over 5 minutes on the road or
in my house without dropping the call. And I have supposedly
a good phone (LG CU500)
\_ Thanks. but the Samsung Blackjack II looks so cool!
\_ Far more important than being able to talk on it.
\_ What, it's not easy to talk on?
\_ Not if it drops every 5 minutes as above.
\_ AT&T is the only carrier with the iPhone. 'nuff said. |
| 2008/1/14-18 [Computer/Companies/Apple, Consumer/CellPhone] UID:48938 Activity:low |
1/14 Anyone have an iPhone? Like it? Hate it? I'm thinking about getting
one for the sake of getting the latest freeway traffic info online
in order to optimize my commute.
\_ Getting an iPhone for that? I just use my cell phone that I got
free with my plan to browse http://traffic.511.org/homepage.gif
\_ Keep in mind Apple will announce products that will make the iPhone
obsolete tomorrow. (I actually don't know about that, but Macworld
is this week.)
\_ I bought an iPhone about a month after they came out, because I
didn't like my treo. I wasn't expecting much, but I'm very happy
with it. It's very 1.0, obvious stuff (like sync'ing notes, or
transmitting contacts) is not there. Go play with one in the
store to decide if it's for you. -- Marco |
| 2007/10/26 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:48457 Activity:nil |
10/26 I'd like to buy a Nokia 6301 (only available in europe), to use with
my T-Mobile HotSpot@home. It uses GSM (and WiFi). Will it work with
the US GSM frequencies, and is there a way I order one from europe? |
| 2007/8/22-27 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:47709 Activity:nil |
8/22 I'm sick of paying $70 a month for cell. what is cheapest
cell phone rate?
\_ T-Mobile prepaid is $100/year.
\_ For what kind of plan?
\_ If you don't use your phone all that much prepaid is a heck of
a lot cheaper. |
| 12/25 |
| 2007/7/18-19 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:47327 Activity:nil |
7/17 aspo is this you
http://tinyurl.com/37rz7s
More than 25 Sprint and Nextel handsets will receive loopt
functionality over the next few weeks with users looking at a
monthly fee of just $2.99 USD (plus standard charges) in order to
enjoy an even closer and more convenient relationship with
both their mobile and their friends.
\_ it's not -brain |
| 2007/7/11-12 [Computer/Companies/Apple, Consumer/CellPhone] UID:47258 Activity:nil |
7/11 iPhone: Will it blend?
http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=iphone
\_ It's impressive that the LCD is still lit after the first few
encounters with the blades. |
| 2007/7/6-10 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:47195 Activity:nil |
7/6 Sprint hate you
http://news.com.com/8300-10784_3-7-0.html?keyword=customer+service
\_ David Horowitz, where are you when we need you? |
| 2007/7/6-8 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:47184 Activity:nil |
7/5 URL name says all:
http://stupidiphonelady.com
\_ Uh, no. The young guy has all the time in the world and waited
12 hours to earn $800 (not bad), but maybe the stupid iphone
lady could earn much more than that in 12 hours. Granted she
couldn't buy more than 1 iPhone since she didn't read the rules,
but it sounds like she's wealthy enough to spend a lot of money to
not have to wait 12 excrutiating hours. It's no different than
seeing wealthy yuppies in Beverely Hills willing to pay $40 parking
tickets to buy $5 Pinkberry yogurt. Sounds like a win-win
situation to me |
| 2007/6/29-30 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:47119 Activity:nil |
6/29 For every single iPhone sold, Nokia/Motorola/LG/whoever
will sell 1000 or so phones. Why aren't they worth a gajillion
dollars? |
| 2007/6/29-30 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:47116 Activity:nil |
6/29 libs hate the iphone
http://twitter.com/anildash/statuses/126304372 |
| 2007/5/22-24 [Consumer/PDA, Consumer/CellPhone] UID:46721 Activity:low |
5/22 I'm thinking about getting a PDA phone, specifically the Treo. Is
there any reason to get the Treo with Windows (700wx) over the Palm
version (700p)?
\_ Windows Mobile sucks ass. inconsistent UI, crashy... just shit.
though running java apps on palmOS is a pain. --scotsman
\_ I have the Treo 650p, and I'm immensely happy with it and the OS.
Have heard horror stories of crashes, lack of connectivity with
the 700w.
\_ I'm also a happy 650 PalmOS owner, dreaming of an upgrade to
680. But if I personally were looking for a Windows based phone
I'd go with many of the other models that are faster and have
bigger keyboards and screens. Oh, and also built-in wifi.
\_ I've had my Treo 650 (Palm) from the day it came out and I am
very happy w/ it. The phone rarely crashes (common problem w/
Win version) and gets fairly good reception. There are hacks
that allow you to use a SDHC card w/ the 650 which is really
nice.
The three things that would make the Treo 650 perfect are (1)
sd based wifi support; (2) usb 2.0 support; and (3) iTunes
support/sync (which you can do manually w/ rsync).
I am seriously considering getting an iPhone b/c I think that
it will be even better than the Treo.
\_ I am not yet convinced re: Job's idea that mini-keyboards
are bad. I do a fair amount of typing on my treo and until
I get to try out the typing on the iPhone's screen, I will
stick with the treo. And whether or not third party apps
are allowed is still up in the air, no?
\_ I'm a kool-aid-drinking Mac-a-holic, and when the iPhone
was announced, I would have murdered for one. Now, though,
prohibition of 3rd party apps is pretty much a deal-killer
for me. I'll stick with my Treo 650 until Apple decides to
let people develop their own iPhone widgets. -!pp
\_ Have a Treo 680, and its pretty damn good.
\_ I'm surprised to see people saying things like the "phone rarely
crashes" and being happy with that. Phones should never 'crash'.
\_ Yes, phones should never crash. But as it is now, smartphones/
PDA phones do crash, and I haven't heard of one that *never*
crashes. Does that mean I want to wait until all bugs are
worked out? My Chatter Email client on my 650 says no. Will
that make the vendors think consumers are complacent and not
work on the problems? Probably to a degree. But as people
start choosing more reliable phones, hopefully manufacturers
will work on this area more. In a different light, phones
shouldn't drop conversations either. Do you have a wireless
phone? |
| 2007/4/27-5/1 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:46470 Activity:nil |
4/27 Anyone from the Beijing area here? My mother-in-law is on a trip
there. She bought a SIM card there and put it in her cell phone. She
said the number is 1XXXXXXXX (total 9 digits). What should I dial on
my home phone in order to call that number? I tried 011-86-1XXXXXXXX,
but I always got a tone that sounds like a busy signal. Thanks.
\_ Try removing the leading 1. Many include the long distance dialing
prefix like we would say 1-510-...
\_ If '1' is not the area code, do I need an area code before the
eight remaining digits?
\_ Don't use a cell phone if you are. Most cell providers require
that you activate international dialing. Try using Skype, if all
else fails.
\_ Telephone number in China are 8 digits (7 in the US).
Large cities have 2 digit area code, most other cities have
3 digit area code. So a normal phone in BJ would be
011-86-10-aaaa-bbbb. GSM cellphone usually have 3 digit
area code, so it's usually in the form
011-86-???-aaaa-bbbb. (??? being 138/136, etc). But some
cellphone (not GSM) uses local area code (Xiao-Ling-Tong).
Try 011-86-10-XXXX-XXXX (take the last 8 digit of the
number she gave you. If it's a real cellphone, it should
have 11 digits. |
| 2007/4/19-21 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:46379 Activity:low |
4/19 I've been on verizon for a few years now, and haven't had many problems,
but I don't like their selection of phones. I'm considering Cingular.
Does anyone have any significant pros/cons for a Verizon to Cingular
switch? Thanks.
\_ You can't ask anything about phone companies and expect a consistent
answer. It's like a game of the musical chair. Company A gives you
a better deal and advertise heavily for the time being till they
oversubscribe to get a higher margin, while company B is waiting for
company A to oversubscribe, etc etc. It goes on and on.
\_ If it's not broke don't fix it. -Verizon shareholder
\_ All the mobile companies seem to suck equally in the United States.
Ever make a cellphone call in Europe?
\_ No, but part of the reason I want to switch is to be
able to have a phone that works internationally (and
cingular offers such phones).
\_ keep in mind that the phones offered by Cingular while
compatible with Euro/Asian networks won't actually work
on them because they'll be locked on the Cingular
network. You'll need to either get it unlocked on the
black market or pay a premium to get an unlocked phone.
\_ Verizon also offers such phones, but you also have to
pay someone to unlock it.
\_ I just switched from T-Mobile to Verizon last December, and the
Samsung SCH-a930 I have now seems good. |
| 2007/4/19 [Consumer/CellPhone, Health] UID:46367 Activity:nil |
4/19 April 16, 2007 - Honey bees are dying off, and cell phones may be to blame. Bees have been disappearing in 24 states, and beekeepers estimate more than a qu\ arter of the country's 2.4 billion colonies have been affected. Previously, scientists thought dry weather or pesticides may have been the cause\ , but a new German study shows that radiation from cell phone signals disorients bees. "When bees are exposed to signals from cell phones, they can't find their way,"\ said Dr. George L. Carlo, chairman of the Safewireless Initiative. "It gets no n\ utrition and it consequently dies." |
| 2007/3/15-17 [Consumer/CellPhone, Reference/Law/Court] UID:45981 Activity:nil |
3/15 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/15/national/a072741D41.DTL Spann's father, Gary Spann, told The Sacramento Bee in 2005 his daughter routinely called the girl a "devil child," and she belonged to a cult that worshipped the late rapper Tupac Shakur as the reincarnation of the 16th century political philosopher Machiavelli. She also was upset because her daughter kept getting out of bed and interrupting a telephone conversation, according to the court filings. |
| 2006/11/28-12/15 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:45377 Activity:nil |
11/28 Free services for your cell phone:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/technology/23pogue.html
\_ This is pretty cool (and extremely useful) thanks! |
| 2006/11/6-7 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:45201 Activity:nil |
11/7 I don't know why this was deleted so reposting:
Thinking of switching from Verizon to Cingular. Mostly use in Mountain
View and sometimes Berkeley. Thoughts?
\_ Cingular is pretty good in the South Bay. I haven't had any problems
in the 4+ years I've been w/ AT&T and Cingular. One downside,
Cingular's unlimited data plan is (was?) pretty expensive. --ranga
\_ my boss in Santa Clara complains about GSM services, and he end
up getting a Verizon phone DESPITE he could really use a GSM
phone because he clock about 100,000 miles a year.
\_ Cingular is pretty good in the south bay. I've had AT&T Wireless
and Cingular for the last 4 years and haven't had any major issues.
The one drawback is that the unlimited data plan is (was?) quite
expensive. --ranga |
| 2006/11/3-4 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:45146 Activity:low 62%like:45115 |
11/3 It's here. Cell phone SMS spams. Anyone having problems? How do
you deal with it? I'm paying 10 cents/message. Spammers
need to die.
\_ With Sprint the nice lady offered to block text messages, so I did
\_ But that also blocks non-spam text messages from friends or
alert from your server, etc. What they need to do is stop
charging for received messages and charge/increase fee for
sending a message.
\_ Carry a pager.
\_ I went to my Sprint account page, and I can configure "ACCEPT
ALL" or "BLOCK ALL" except a list of phone numbers, e-mail
e-mail addresses, and domain names.
addresses, and domain names. |
| 2006/10/5-7 [Reference/BayArea, Consumer/CellPhone, Consumer/PDA] UID:44699 Activity:nil |
10/5 The World Can't Wait protest is outside the Federal Building in SF
right now. Pictures taken on treo through binocs here:
/csua/tmp/worldcantwait/
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~erikred/worldcantwait.html |
| 2006/9/28-10/1 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:44584 Activity:nil |
9/28 Leftist Bluetooth enabled watch:
http://tinyurl.com/m65kq (engadget.com) |
| 2006/9/27-28 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:44560 Activity:kinda low |
9/27 Left wing socialist T-Mobile ditches Catherine Zeta-Jones:
http://tinyurl.com/h245j (wsj.com)
\_ Darn it. She's why I switched to T-Mmobile!
\_ Down, peter.
\_ Hey, I didn't write that! But I might have. Catherine
Zeta-Jones is the hottest woman alive. --PeterM
\_ Who's the hottest dead one?
\_ Audrey Hepburn
\_ Salma Hayek is hotter. http://www.sekslaski.freehost.pl
/salma-hayek/salma-hayek.jpg
\_ Well, I see your point, but I still think that CZJ
is the hottest woman alive. Though, it's evident
that Salma has better taste in men. Michael Douglass
INDEED. |
| 2006/9/21-25 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:44489 Activity:kinda low |
9/21 Why is caller-id so expensive? $6.17 per month? Don't we have a
right to know who's calling us? It's like your ISP strips out
the From field of your email, and charge you half of your ISP
fee for that info. This is ridiculous. In the age where we
want to offer free wireless internet access to everyone
because it is 'essential', shouldn't phone service be free? Or
at least the freggin caller id?
\_ Caller-id is expensive the same reason why spammers don't quit,
and the same reason why Yahoo mail attaches an ad spam at the
end of the email-- because these things make $$$$$, duh! It's the
very much the same reason why you have to pay phone companies
$1.00 a month so that they don't list your name and phone number
on the yellowpage. Your right to privacy is not listed under the
US constitution, so companies will do whatever it is necessary
to increase profits.
\_ The right to (pursue and obtain) privacy is listed under the
California constitution (Article 1, section 1), however. And
no, I didn't have a point. -gm
\_ I predict that > 90% of consumers won't use landlines directly as
phonelines by 2020. I bet it's > 5% now.
\_ I guess this depends on if they can ever get 911 figured
out. The main reason I have a landline is for 911 and for
my security system.
\_ And for a Fax. Vonage really mangles those fax connections.
\- what's going to drive the numbers are the third world
people getting cell phones as their first phone ... they
dont have to wait for the possibly nationalized phone
companies slowly running lines.
\_ So the third world is starving and in need of endless
foreign aid but is going to drive the cell phone
industry? What is wrong with this picture?
\_ I went to my parents' old village in southern China
this year. It was the most rural place I've ever
been. And even peasant farmers there all had
Motorola RAZR's. You'd see towers all over the
farms. "Third World" does not automatically imply
starving and poor.
\_ How does a peasant farmer afford a $100-$200 cell
phone?
\_ You're making two assumptions here- that
peasant farmers are poor (again), and that
the phone costs $100-$200 everywhere. You
don't get out of the country much, do you?
\_ Doesn't 'peasant' imply 'poor'?
\_ Yeah it does but he won't answer anymore
because there is no way in hell a real
peasant farmer in China has a cell phone.
\_ The per capita income for China doesn't
seem to support cell phone purchase and
use. Since you are so much more worldly
and erudite I am please tell me how much
a Motorola RAZR costs in S.China and what
a S.Chinese peasant farmer's gross and net
per year are.
\_ It also seems reasonable that farmers
have a much greater need for cell phones
than most people, and might be willing
to spend a larger fraction of their income
on a cell phone than someone who works
indoors.
\_ There is a whole cottage industry in
India which consists of cell phone
owners who travel around and rent out
their phone by the minute to peasant
farmers.
\_ Building the infrastructure for cell phones costs
less than building the infrastructure for landline
phones.
\- you know i was going to reply to "what is
wrong with this picture" dumbass above
explaining about lagging vs leapfrogging but
then decided not to bother. but the e'ist comes
to the rescue making the same point in one of
this week's leaders:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_SJQQPVJ
[and additioaly emphasizing "cellphones are the
standrd example in this area]. |
| 2006/8/15-17 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:44011 Activity:nil |
8/15 Other than Nokia 8801 (a bit pricey at $650) are there any other
cell phone *currently* on the market with a steel shell? My old
Motorola is steel and I don't want to replace it with plastic
crap. I need a GSM phone. Thanks!
\_ No. -luddite |
| 2006/7/25-27 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:43801 Activity:nil |
7/25 I transferred my land # to my cellphone, and I get all the junk
calls on it too. Is there anything I can do?
\_ Have you signed up for the Do Not Call list, at donotcall.gov?
\_ If the junk calls you got were from auto-dialers, you can file
a complaint with FCC. Such calls are banned whether or not your
cell phone number is on the list. If the calls were from human,
you need to add your number to the list. See #10 in
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/dncalrt.htm -- !OP
\_ Bastards, I registered but it shows up as not
registered. So I registered again. Hopefully it'll work
better this time! |
| 2006/7/25-27 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:43798 Activity:nil |
7/25 Are recorded surveys exempt from the ban of auto-dialed unsolicited
calls to cell phone numbers? I just got a recorded survery on my cell
phone. Thx. |
| 2006/6/25-28 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:43494 Activity:nil |
6/25 My name just popped up on someone's caller id. I don't know
how that infomation was sent across, I thought the number would
be the only thing sent. It's a cell phone and shouldn't be listed,
any idea how that happened? --jwm
\_ they have been sending names via callerid pretty much from the
start. this includes cell phones. -shac
\_ Is there a way to prevent it? To just send the number?
\_ From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID apparently
the phone co. does a db-lookup based on your phone number,
so it would have to be a phone co. feature to send only the
phone number to a caller ID device.
\_ This doesn't sound right to me. The cell providers
don't share the databases so it's the cell company
you should speak to about your outgoing cid setting.
\_ Were you calling the person's cell phone? If so, is your name
and cell phone number in their cell phone address book?
\_ No, I called a land line.
\_ A lot of phones have this as a configurable feature. Look at the
options menu for something to do with sending your information.
This may be an all-or-nothing, i.e., you may be able to send your
name and number or no ID at all.
\_ cingular/att recently sent me letter asking if I wanted to opt-out
of showing my name on caller-ID |
| 2006/5/1-4 [Consumer/CellPhone, Consumer/PDA] UID:42877 Activity:nil |
5/1 Rally in front of SF City Hall (pix from my Treo, looking through
binoculars):
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~erikred/protest01.jpg
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~erikred/protest02.jpg
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~erikred/protest03.jpg
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~erikred/protest04.jpg
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~erikred/protest05.jpg
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~erikred/protest06.jpg
\_ Is that today's communist/illegal immigrant rally?
\_ Yep.
\_ 06 doesn't exist
\_ Fixed.
\_ err.. May Day originated in Chicago, USA
\_ So? Most of the rallies were organized by ANSWER.
\_ You need to photoshop on some crosshairs to make these look even
creepier.
\_ Yeah. It's not going to put your mind at ease if I tell you I
work for the government, is it?
\_ Nah, the fact that you had to use (presumably your own)
binoculars and a Treo puts my mind at ease. If you'd whipped
out 8192x6144 pics of this stuff... _then_ I'd be worried.
\_ The Treo pictures were taken only to put your mind at ease.
\_ Cool thanks for the pictures. May I ask what your occupation
is at the City Hall?
\_ email me. Thnx. |
| 2006/4/22-25 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:42805 Activity:low |
4/22 Does anyone here in CA have either T-Mobile or Cingular GSM service?
If so, could you tell me where you are and how good the coverage
is there? Thanks. - ciyer
\_ Used to have sprint, switch to cingular. Sprint calls felt less
staticy, and Cingular sold me a phone that died just days after
the warrantee expired.
\_ My girlfriend has Cingular, and says it's "pretty good" if you're
in a populated area, but in my experience my Verizon phone gets
better coverage although it is more expensive.
\_ Cingular (on old AT&T network) south san jose and mountain view
works pretty well. I don't use my phone much, but I haven't had
any dropped calls I can think of.
\_ Cingular in downtown SF has been getting slowly better over the
past three years. It even works downstairs at BART stations,
and occasionally keeps calls going between the four main down-
town stations. My calls are usually dropped after 30-40 minutes,
though.
\- i have cingular att. i think it is pretty good. there
are occasional weird issues with voice mail notifications
being delayed, but the coverage is much better than the
att non-GSM i had before [which totally sucked]. --psb
\_ att non-gsm started sucking once they fired up their
gsm. Before this, I could get phone calls in the labs on
2nd floor soda.
\- i thought it sucked for some time before that but it
is possible my phone unit was having issues too.
\_ I had a Siemens S46 (TDMA+GSM) until recently, when
I discovered that the TDMA side was no longer able
to make calls, most likely due to Cingular's taking
over AT&T's accounts. So I bought an unlocked
Motorola V505. Shortly after, Cingular "upgraded"
my plan (+$5 and -100 minutes per month)... after
yelling at them on the phone for several minutes,
they gave me +200 minute/month. -- tsang (seattle)
\_ Tmobile - a company that pays their spokesperson $20 mil
yet is still more or less bankrupt. GSM - can't pass through
walls worth a crap. |
| 2006/3/29-4/1 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:42530 Activity:nil |
3/29 Any recommendations for a good Verizon phone? My 2-year contract
is up, and I'm looking for a new phone. I do not want the RAZR,
however. Thanks.
\_ While I'm not up on all their latest phones, I can say that
Motorola quality control seems to have gone in the shitter.
\_ Do you want a pda-phone? If so, you might want to consider
a Treo 650. I really like mine.
\_ Seconded. |
| 2006/3/1-4 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:42055 Activity:nil |
3/1 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060302/ap_on_hi_te/fake_caller_ids Caller ID is unreliable and not 100% accurate! This sucks. If it's not 100% accurate, it is completely useless. \_ Hello emarkp! KAIS MOTD is inaccurate, thus misleading and is therefore completely useless. Likewise, caller ID is inaccurate, thus misleading and is therefore completely useless. Good logic. \_ Umm, no. The usefulness of caller id is knowing who is calling me so I don't have to do the whole "hello, who is this" dance at the start of each call. If someone starts spoofing my friend's phone numbers that will suck, but until then just because it can be done, well, I really suspect anyone I know cares that much. |
| 2006/2/18-20 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:41921 Activity:nil |
2/18 Is it possible to have 2 cell phones with the same number? I want
to get a Treo, but I don't want to have to lug it around when I'm
not at work, so I'd like to use my current, smaller phone during
those other times. Would this be possible? Thanks.
\_ No, but most (all?) cell phone providers will let you change
between them from the website. I know Verizon does this.
\_ Of course it is. You need a GSM provider who'll issue you a
second chip. I don't know whether American ones do this, but
mine in Europe charges about $40 for it. -John
\_ I was going to suggest this too, but, like John, am uncertain if
American cell phone companies will do this. Some possible
alternatives:
* You may be okay swapping one sim card between two devices.
This will work with any GSM phone/provider (i.e. Cingular or
T-Mobile)
* There are services you can set up to allow one number to
simultaneously ring through to multiple other numbers. The
one caveat to this is that, without further machinations, your
outgoing caller id will be that of the particular phone you
are calling with, not your unified number.
-dans |
| 2006/2/4-7 [Consumer/CellPhone, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:41710 Activity:nil |
2/4 I am going to Europe for the first time since Cell phones became
ubiquitous. My understanding is that my American cell phone will
not work. Is there such a thing as a cheap, pre-paid phone that
one can use for just a week while in Europe? Do they suck? Where
would one buy such a thing? I'll be in France, a few miles outside
of Paris. Thanks.
\_ The appropriate unlocked GSM phone should work. You just need
to buy a local SIM card. I have a Mot v66 that I use just for
international travel.
\_ What he said. 1. Get an unlocked GSM phone that supports 900Mhz/
1800Mhz signal (Cingular & T-Mobile in the U.S. uses 850Mhz/1900Mhz
frequencies). Better yet, get a quad-band phones (that covers all
4 of the above). Motorola V220 comes to mind ($20 thru Cingular).
You can get the above for cheap from eBay.
2. When you get to Paris, buy a prepaid SIM card from companies like
Orange, France Telecom or Vodafone. You might also look in eBay to
see if someone would sell it to you before you leave the U.S. That
way you avoid the language barrier when dealing with French shop-
owner (in case you don't parlez francais) and knowing what your
French cellphone number is in advance (so you can give to your
wife/mistress/secretary, etc.) Lowest prepaid is about 15-20 Euro,
and incoming calls are free. Sign up for callback service to save
money, or a forwarded tollfree number that you can set to route
calls to your French cellphone. (http://www.telcan.net is what I use)
\_ I got a tri-band phone before I went to Spain. When I got
there, it didn't work. I had assumed it would just work in
Europe (with a proper sim card, of course). It turns out,
I needed to change a setting in the phone for it to work on
the European band. |
| 2006/2/1-3 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/SW/Security] UID:41652 Activity:low |
2/1 Dear old farts. What was the consumer end of telecomm like before
the 1983 divestiture of AT&T into 7 baby Bells, in terms of price
for consumers, sound quality, reliability, and service?
\_ Most of you youngin' were too young to remember this but back
then long distance calls were prohibitively expensive. On the
other hand, you didn't have tons of long distance carriers to
choose from each with confusing plans, and you didn't have to
worry about MCI or 1010220 or 1010-RIPOFF that exist today, each
ripping you off one way or another because you didn't read the
fine prints. The quality and reliability of service was CONSISTENT,
meaning it wasn't all that great by today's standards but at least
you knew that your line sucked as much as everyone elses. Nowadays
the quality varies so much (cell, landline, voip) that it's hard
to make an informed decision on choosing a good plan-- e.g. in
one year Cingular's great, but next year it'll be oversaturated
again. To sum up, I miss the accountability and consistency of
service in the old days. I miss not having to read 10 different
plans before choosing one. I miss the easy to read telephone
bills-- you ever read today's bills and see how confusing it
is? I wish that today's companies would offer more
accountability, more independent auditing of quality of service,
and above all else making plans and fine prints much clearer for
consumers to make informed decisions. -old man
\_ i thought it's just AT&T :p the quality and reliability was
pretty good in my experience. During Chinese New Year time,
however, I would have to keep dialing for hours at the time to
get the international phone call through. Long Distance phone
call was expensive. The most important thing, IMHO, is that there
isn't much innovation when AT&T dominated the phone landscape.
Call-waiting, call-forwarding, caller-ID, i think all these things
cames up *AFTER* the break up of AT&T.
- cant wait to see wave of innovation comes out after we
breaks up Microsoft
\_ Let's see how many units M$ can break up to: OS, browser and web
server, dev tools, games, office apps. Browser and web server
might need to break up further into two.
\_ I remember standing in line with my dad so he could get a phone.
You would rent your phone from AT&T, you didn't own it. I read
an article about little old ladies who have been paying the phone
rental fees for 20+ years because the phone companies never bothered
to tell them they can have their own phones for free now. It's
a not-insignificant revenue stream.
\_ I might be wrong, but from what I recall you could own a
phone or rent one. However, it was expensive to buy one
and most people rented.
\_ You could own a cheap one, but it voided out your AT&T service
agreement. If something happened, they would "check the line"
since your non-standard equipment might have caused the
problem. Since your agreement was now void, they could charge
you whatever and take care of it whenever they felt like.
Mmmm... Taste that monopoly goodness. Then AT&T figured they
could get around complaints and make money by selling AT&T
approved phones. Welcome Princess and Slimline phones!
\_ Cost of long-distance calls (let alone international calls) was
prohibitive. For a modern equivalent, cf. Japan's NTT five to
ten years ago, complete with phone renting, no competition.
\_ "So I feel like a real consumer fool about my money, and now
I have to feel like a fool about my phone, too. I liked it
better back when we all had to belong to the same Telephone
Company, and phones were phones -- black, heavy objects
that were routinely used in the movies as murder weapons
(try that with today's phones!). Also, they were
permanently attached to your house, and only highly trained
Telephone Company personnel could "install" them. This
involved attaching four wires, but the Telephone Company
always made it sound like brain surgery. It was part of the
mystique. When you called for your installation
appointment, the Telephone Company would say: "We will have
an installer in your area between the hours of 9
A.M. October 3 and the following spring. Will someone be at
home?" And you would say yes, if you wanted a phone. You
would stay at home, the anxious hours ticking by, and you
would wait for your Phone Man. It was as close as most
people came to experiencing what heroin addicts go through,
the difference being that heroin addicts have the option of
going to another supplier. Phone customer's didn't. They
feared the power of the Telephone Company.
I remember when I was in college, and my roommate Rob
somehow obtained a phone. It was a Hot Phone. Rob hooked it
up to our legal, wall-mounted phone with a long wire, which
gave us the capability of calling the pizza-delivery man
without getting up off the floor. This capability was
essential, many nights. But we lived in fear. Because we
knew we were breaking the rule -- not a local, state, or
federal rule, but a Telephone Company rule -- and that any
moment, agents of the Telephone Company, accompanied by
heavy black dogs, might burst through the door and seize
the Hot Phone and write our names down and we would never
be allowed to have phone service again. And the dogs would
seize our pizza." --Dave Barry |
| 2006/1/21-24 [Transportation/Car, Consumer/CellPhone] UID:41472 Activity:nil |
1/21 Cell phone+car accidents, a whole lot of 'em
http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/Drive-Now/accidents-1.html
\_ I saw a lecture about this at CNS 2004. Essentially, tuning the
radio while driving, talking on the cell phone while driving, and
driving while mildly intoxicated all have similar cognitive
impairment effects. This is true regardless of whether the
cell phone is "hands-free" or not. It's a matter of attentional
capacity being divided. Iirc, someone else did a study that showed
sleep deprivation has similar effects, as well.
\_ I hate cell phone drivers but at least with a phone, the
distraction stops once they hang up (if they do). If you're
drunk when you turn the key, you'll still be drunk when you
get home (or to the hospital).
\_ Drivers kill with cellphones, and people blame the phones.
They kill with alcohol, and people blame the alcohol. They
kill while eating, and people blame the food. They kill when
they have less than 20/20 vision, and they blame the vision.
When are people going to realize what the common denominator
here is? It's just not natural for all people of all ages
to have to operate a massive, dangerous machine just to
take part in society. Stop blaming the booze, the phones,
the food, and old people for being old, and go to the root
of the problem.
\_ Yah, seriously -- we should be killing the people. I mean,
honestly, what kind of careless twat drives 70mph on the
freeway then cries and moans about the cell phone? It's
all about the selfish selfcentered careless shitheads, and
their absurdly litiginous victims. |
| 2006/1/12-17 [Consumer/CellPhone, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:41359 Activity:nil |
1/12 Blogger buys Gen. Wesley Clark's phone records.
http://csua.org/u/elf
\_ http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-privacy05.html
Wider coverage. It's pointed out that criminals could buy phone
records of local cops to figure out who's snitching. Bad mo-jo. |
| 2005/12/20-22 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:41098 Activity:nil |
12/20 I have a Nokia 3220 (the one with rubber lights on the side).
Since it doesn't have Bluetooth built in, I bought the AD-5B
Bluetooth adapter which on the web site says is compatible
with 3220. I also bought a Bluetooth headset. Here is my
problem, after plugging in my AD-5B into the 3220, I pressed
the control key and the Bluetooth headset sync button, but
it wouldn't sync. According to the manual I should get a prompt
to enter the code (0000) but I don't even get the prompt. Why
is that?
\_ Plug in the AD-5B bluetooth adapter into your Nokia. The adapter
will blink green once, then blinking red every 5 seconds.
Press the control key on the bluetooth adapter once, it should
blink green every 1 second. Turn on your Nokia bluetooth headset.
Within 10 seconds, the adapter should have continuous green
light, meaning it found a device. At your key pad, press
0000#. Now you should see a Car sign on the phone, and the
adapter should blink green every 5 sec again. Congratulations,
you've turned your regular Nokia phone into a bluetooth phone!
Note that the adapter ONLY works with Nokia Bluetooth 1.1
headset. I've tried many other brands but they don't work. |
| 2005/12/19-20 [Consumer/CellPhone, Recreation/Media] UID:41074 Activity:high |
12/19 http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051217-074635-6362r So theaters want to allow cell phone blocking in theaters. Here's a better idea: throw the people who talk on their cell phones in theaters out. And allow responsible cell phone owners to receive emergency calls. \_ Wow -- you are the troll master! I bow before your trollish expertise! I've seldom seen so much traffic generated with such an innocuous post. \_ Sadly, I was serious, not trolling. \_ I think throwing someone out of a movie theater when they're not willing to give up their $10-15 is likely to be far more disruptive than a typical phone call. \_ Huh? What does that even mean? \_ how do you throw them out from the middle of a packed theater? \_ I think when calls are being blocked signs should be required saying so. I've been in several stores where they are obviously blocked and could've lost important calls. If they block signals they should be obligated to say so. \_ Sure. That seems pretty reasonable. \_ No it doesn't. I want to receive emergency calls. I set my phone to silent when I go to the movies, and I want to receive emergency calls. \_ Don't go to those theatres that block calls then. No one is forcing you to patronize those establishments. \_ Well, yes that's the point. If they don't want my business, I guess they won't get it. \_ If they want mine, they'll block your calls. Your emergency is my disturbance. I paid to be there to see a movie, not hear your conversation. If you are so important you can't be out of touch for 2 hours, don't go to the movies. Question: are these "emergency calls" from work? No one's work is that important. If you're a brain surgeon you can afford a nice home theatre. If you're some techie, they should hire more people and get an oncall rotation. \_ What if it's the babysitter calling you to let you know the kid's in an accident? \_ the babysitter should know where you are. At least this was how it was before cell phones. \_ I'm confused. Are you saying that there are some circumstances (babysitter/ accidental kid) where it's ok to interrupt a public event with a cell phone call? Or that since the babysitter should know the number of the venue, it's never ok? I can imagine it could be difficult to find a movie theatre employee to communicate an emergency if cell is blocked. Also, what happens if you make an unscheduled stop in a cell-blocking venue, or if you don't realize the venue is cell-blocking? \_ There was life before cell phones. If you make the decision to watch a movie you should be able to be incommunicado for that time. \_ There was also life before fire. Are you saying that there is no circumstance under which you would consider acceptible to interrupt a public venue with a cell phone call? \_ Give me an example. Whatever it is probably won't be helped by someone being notified in their movie, or else someone didn't plan properly. \_ Movie theatre, babysitter, accidental child. Let's even say accident serious enough for ambulance and hospital emergency room. Movie theatre number leads to voicemail (at best) or just infomercial (at worst). Is it ok to call the cell directly then? \_ I thought "accidental children" are what you MAKE at the [drive in] movie theater. \_ How would it help? Sure, leave a message in their cell voicemail. I don't care if people call the cell, I care if they answer it. I'm just saying blocking it wouldn't be a big deal. Honestly in that situation calling the parent RIGHT NOW would probably not even matter. Parent will go OMG and race over to hospital etc, who cares. I don't know why I'm discussing this though because I don't even care about this subject. Damn you motd! \_ If it were your child, would you want to take the call immediately, or would a message be good enough? If you have trouble imagining a child, what if a parent/sibling/other loved one had an accident? Would a message be good enough or would you want the call? Don't we all have children or other loved ones? You might find the question difficult because your position that no responsible would want to take a cell call in a theatre is untenable. What if you have a stroke, and you need emergency medical help? Do you want to wait for someone to find a land line or to find the theatre staff? Or would you want someone to call 911 on a cell? If you're this _/ neurotic about it, then either don't go to the movies or find a theater that doesn't block (if it should come to that). Making the rest of the theater suffer rude morons because of your hangups is stupid. Of course they'd WANT the call, that _/ is beside the point. They would have the choice not to go to the theater. How are you going to call while you are having a stroke? Just yell help. There should be plenty of other ways to get help. \_ Ob I said "want someone to call". Ob I also said "do you want to wait..." You realize you'r grasping because your position is not defendable. \_ Ob you kept adding to your post and I kept merging my reply. You realize you're stupid. \_ You realize that accidents and medical emergencies are by definition not likely to be predictable. You're still grasping because your position is still not defendable. \_ This reply is not relevant. Non-cell-phone communication is sufficient. QED. (I suppose you never fly because your precious cell phones have to be turned off.) \_ Quite the contrary. This directly addresses your repeated claim that "they would have the choice not to go". If they knew they were slated for an emergency, then they would have a choice. But accidents and emergencies are by definition not predictable. So you asked for a scenario, and I've given it. Are you saying that even under the 2 scenarioes I've described (accident to loved one and stroke), a cell phone call in the theatre is still not acceptable? \_ As a patron that doesn't give a shit about your problems, yes. I'm there to spend my $10 and have a good time, not listen to every doofus in the theater dealing with their 'emergencies'. \_ You mean you will be more annoyed than sympathetic if some- one in the theatre has a stroke? \_ I don't see that as likely enough to take seriously. \_ That's exactly what I am saying, yes. Well, to be more precise, the possible benefit is outweighed by the negatives. \_ OK. And I am sure everyone agrees with you. Let's just pray that you and yours are not accident prone. \_ I bet > 90% of the people in the theater agree that your emergencies are annoying. \_ Do you never travel to anywhere without cell phone coverage? \_ Often. But in those cases there is always someone (airline, hotel, office, etc.) who will be responsible for messages. \_ so you never like go hiking in a national park, or go biking or rafting? Right because if the world isn't _/ stopped and you notified, then your loved ones would die. How else are you gonna know to put on your supersuit and fly into orbit to divert the rogue asteroid? \_ You're saying because I couldn't instantenously fly home from Europe (let's say), I shouldn't want to drive across town to a hospital? \_ You'll do it when you find out. Chill. \_ And if the health of a loved one is at stake, would you want to go immediately or wait for the movie to be over? \_ Not everything revolves around what you want. \_ No, I am asking you. What would *you* want? And we're all "you", since all of us have loved ones. want? I wouldn't know, _/ seeing as how my cell was off, so I'd wait for the movie to be over. What is your job? Do you micromanage everything and never delegate any responsibility? \_ I asked what you would *want* to be able to do, not what you might be able to do. Why is this such a difficult question to answer? And I notice that you keep try- ing to this a professional responsiblity question, while I keep trying to ask questions about family and loved ones. Why try so hard to dodge a simple question? If it were your loved one who had an acci- dent, when do you *want* to be notified? [tick tock] Still no answer? Tsk tsk. Scared of answering the question, no? In any case, I have a meeting I have to take, so you're off the hook. Would you *want* to _/ get paid $20000/yr for no reason by the government? Quite honestly, I wouldn't want to be paid _/ $20k by the government. I make plenty on my own, and I am sure there are others who need the money more. To answer your question generally, the government does in fact give out money, and there are processes set up to determine if your have governmentally- approved need to qualify for the money. You don't understand the context of the question. It's an either/or thing. Would I want to know? yes. I also want not to be bothered by phones. I don't arrange my life such that being on instant's notice is important, and when it is I don't go to thtrs You keep saying that you are able to arrange _/ your life such that you don't have emergencies. You seem to not understand that by definition you cannot predict when an emergency will occur. So when an emergency occurs (when your child is hospitalized, to use the current example), you are willing to wait until you are out of the theatre to be notified. Can you predict when your child will be in an accident and require medical attention? You seem to claim you can, and you can therefore arrange your life around that event. I tend to believe you can never predict when an accident will happen, and therefore arranging to be available for one is impossible. But your position is clear, and your claims are consistent. (Though to be quite honest I don't believe in your claim one whit when an actual emergency does accur. YOu'll want that phone call and scramble out the theatre like everyone else). impossible. \_ now you're putting words in my mouth. just forget it. look, *I* am not the one who will adminster medical attention, comprende? \_ you can always hire a part-time personal secretary (kind of like a baby sitter) to stay outside the theatre with a cell phone in case there's an emergency. I mean isn't your child's life more important than the $40 per hour cost of hiring a personal cell phone answering messenger? In fact, I don't think you should even go out to watch a movie. It's mere entertainment. what if some drunk driver hit your car and kill you. Your kids would be left without a parent. Would you want your kids to lose a parent because of your selfish desire to watch a movie?! Also, why are you carrying a cell phone? Didn't you know that many people believe that they cause tumors? Do you want to die of cancer and leave your kids without a parent?! You motherfucking selfish bastard! Please answer the simple choice questions above. If you can't, please STFU! movie to be over. \_ You're an idiot. Just because medical emergencies are unpredictable doesn't mean you can't prepare for the worst. Stay home and let other theater-goers be, okay? \_ I didn't say I wanted to have a conversation in a theater. My phone is silent when I go to the movies. If it vibrates, I'll leave the theater to answer it. Pay attention kid. \_ I agree. Like it or not there ARE people who use the cell phone infrastructure to do emergency preparedness, and this is something the government wants. Cell phones are quite good at fullfilling these tasks while allowing freedom of movement. What will happen when a cell phone jammer blocks a call from someone say at a cafe right next to a theater? \_ Oh fuck! Good point! You might have to go OUTSIDE and make the call! Oh woe, woooooe! \_ Hell, what if you have a stroke while you're watching a movie? What additional damage will your body suffer while you're trying to find a land line if cell phones are blocked? \_ I've got an easier solution: kick out anyone who makes noise in the theater. Really, which is worse: a) someone whose phone is on vibrate, answers it, then TALKS on it b) someone whose phone rings, but they quickly silence it c) screaming kid d) non-stop yakkers See my point? \_ a) hit them with a bat, b) boot to the head for having it on in the first place, c) hit their parents with a bat, d) hit both of them with a bat. \_ You know.. that's not the solution to everything. What would you do if someone threw a ball at you? Huh? \_ CSUA bat uber alles! \_ The kid should be hit with a small bat so it will learn. \_ My personal opinion is that if you block cell phone signals, then you also need to not allow people to bring infants into the theater. Afterall, if a cell phone rings, most people can turn it off within seconds. Not so easy with a baby. I think that in the future, maybe they can have a system that will automatically turn everyone's cell phone to silent mode if they are in the theater. Restricting the signal might be the best solution in some ways, but that's unfortunate. People should just have the courtesy not to have a conversation (phone or to the person next to them) during a movie. \- i actually would be perfectly happy with the disruption of a movie to see the spectacle of somebody thrown out. in fact if that were a likely possibility, i would go to theathers so that were a likely possibility, i would go to theathers to see that and would feel disappointed if it didnt happen. in fact i think if it happened 5 times, that would be fine too. i dunno where marginal returns become negative. i realize this will never happen in amercica tho. i also wish a strong norm would evolve about how late you can save seats in a crowded theater. the problem of somebody tall sitting in front of you at the last min doesnt seem solvable. minute doesnt seem solvable. |
| 2005/12/4-11 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:40844 Activity:nil |
12/4 What's a good cell phone bluetooth headset to buy? |
| 2005/11/28-30 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/HW/Scanner] UID:40737 Activity:low |
11/28 Does anyone here have any experience with reading bar codes from
cell phone displays? Can be any encoding mechanism (semacode, etc.)
I'm mainly interested in whether most cell phones allow reading with
conventional laser scanners or require some sort of weird optical
contrast <DEAD>scanner--mticket.net<DEAD> is an example of how this is done, but
I haven't been able to figure out the actual scanning tech. -John
\_ I've been curious about this myself. Could you try it using
a CueCat and various cell phones?
\_ I got some info back from mticket--apparently an "optical
scanner" like what http://www.trinitymobile.co.uk have will work well,
he said that "laser scanners have difficulty reading from 100%
of mobile phones", which makes sense. -John
\_ you are trying to read a barcode off a cell phone display? most
barcode has specified size. And I am not sure a "laser scanner" is
necessary to read a barcode. Cell phone in Japan and Korea can
read 2D barcode using built-in cameras. No laser there.
\_ That wasn't the question--I know there are apps that can read
barcode contents (including 2D bar codes) via cellphone
cameras. 2D codes allow more condensed encoding of info than
1D--that's most of what you use for e-tickets. I've found some
infos and apparently cell phone displays have problems with
red light in barcode light scanners--if you only use green
light, it seems to work fine. Also, there are optical pattern
contrast scanners which do this--if anyone is curious about
it, I'll gladly share. -John
\_ You are talking about two things here. Optical recognization
off the cell phone display being one, barcode being another.
Due to rigid specification of barcode, I am not sure
reading barcode off a cell phone display can be done or not.
Optical recognization off the cell phone display seems to be
a completely different subject, eventhough my instinct
wasn't able to find an application for it yet. Exactly
what are you trying to achieve? kngharv
\_ I know they're 2 different things. I am trying to read
a 1D or 2D barcode off a cell phone display. My conclusion
is that there are two ways of doing it--"optical" scanners
and laser scanners. The point being that the laser
scanners do not work well with red light. You _can_
read a bar code via optical recognition. This is used
for a lot of purposes, including concert and train tickets
(just introduced for trains here). I'm trying to do it
for user authentication at non-networked PCs. -John |
| 2005/10/19-21 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:40194 Activity:low |
10/19 Hi I'm a cell phone idiot and I need clarification. I've been
told there are 3 major frequencies out there, 850, 1800, and 1900.
Which ones are CDMA, TDMA, and PCS? Thanks. -cell idiot
\_ those are all cdma
\_ those are all GSM too... 850/1900 in US and 900/1800 worldwide
\_ Um, ok. So inter networking-speak, the frequency is like the
physical, and GSM are like the data-link or network
layer? What about PCS, what is that?
\_ It's like the datalink, network and, with the advent of
data, the transport layer. PCS is as John has mentioned.
\_ CDMA is a blanket term for a bunch of cell protocols commonly used
in the US and, I think, Korea--"code division multiple access" just
means that multiple signals can occupy the same channel. GSM is
used in most of the rest of the world (from the Groupe Speciale
Mobile that designed it), also a mobile protocol that uses 4
frequencies (see pp.) I believe it uses TDMA ('t' = 'time'). PCS
means "personal communications services" and is a marketing term
for bundled mobile services--it can use CDMA or GSM. It would help
to know if you are just curious or looking to buy a phone/service,
and if so, what you want to do with it. -John
\_ Maybe GSM would be more popular in the U.S. if they changed
the name to "freedom protocol".
\_ cdma is used in US (verizon, sprintpcs), China (china unicom),
Japan (KDDI) and other places. I think for the bands, say
\_ Brazil (Vivo)
around 1800, each company get a band close to 1800, but their
bands don't overlap (eg. sprintpcs and verizon and tmobile
and cingular each has its band around 1800). they may use
different protocols for their assigned/owned band.
\_ the confusing thing is there is also a older "TDMA" protocol,
still used by US Cellular. Both GSM and "TDMA" uses TDMA
(time division - each call gets a time slice) as its
underlying way of dividing up a frequency band. CDMA is a
more complex and theoretically superior way of dividing up
the band. I believe part of the reason why China Unicom
selected CDMA is because PRC pushed it to use it, since
experience gained with CDMA could be applied to military
use.
\_ Sure, it was just a quick "wireless for dummies" overview.
Some of the older TDMA in the US is a holdover from the days
of real "cellular" telephony. -John
\_ Sure, it was just a quick "wireless for dummies" overview.
Some of the older TDMA in the US is a holdover from the days
of real "cellular" telephony. -John
\_ What do you mean by "real \"cellular\" telephony"?
\_ What do you mean by "real \"cellular\" telephony"?
\_ I thought I recalled reading that a TDMA variant was
used for carphones, but now I'm not sure. -John
\_ http://www.thetravelinsider.info/roadwarriorcontent/quadbandphones.htm
may be useful |
| 2005/10/18-21 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:40168 Activity:nil |
10/18 Regarding cell phone plans: If someone knows that he will be going
over his allotted minutes (a couple hundred minutes over), are there
any alternatives to just paying the $0.40/min overtime penalty?
Just in case, I use Sprint PCS and the excess usage will probably
only be for the current month.
\_ A few years ago, AT&T let me switch to a higher-priced plan
retroactive to the beginning of the month. I ended up keeping
the new plan; I don't know if they would have let me switch back.
\_ what about switching your plan to the fair-and-flexible via the
online account mgmt? it might need up to a month to kick in,
dunno. also need a 2-yr contract w/sprint for fair-and-flexible,
dunno if that includes switching back to free&clear inside that.
\_ Some companies will let you buy batches of minutes with a
discount. Some may let you switch your plan immediately
but may possibly extend your contract. Ask. |
| 2005/10/7-9 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:40010 Activity:nil |
10/7 An excellent web site showing you GSM coverage in the US.
I'm very surprised that T-Mobile has a much better coverage
in the US than Cingular, even as people claim that Cingular
has a better coverage in metro areas.
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_us.shtml
\_ Add Cingular and AT+T together. -tom
\_ Hmm, even after doing so, I still see plenty of blank spots
all over the Midwest. I have a 1900Mhz-only (ancient) cellphone
that seems to perform very well in the inner East Bay, while my
850/1900 Mhz phone seems to have inferior reception. Could it
be because my 850/1900 constantly force itself to communicate
with the 850Mhz tower (which is a rarity) while my 1900Mhz-only
is happily interacting with the abundance of 1900Mhz towers?
(just guessing) Both phones are through AT&T Wireless - jthoms
[formatd]
\_ it has nothing to do with 850 Mhz capability.
\_ The Cingular=better reception argument doesn't really mean wider
coverage. The addition of 850MHz band from the AT&T merger gave it
better building penetration. 850MHz signals penetrate buildings
better. I had virtually no trouble with T-mobile when I was
outside. It was the fact that I had no reception in my office that
forced me to switch to Cingular. I now have full bars in my office.
\_ someone who are better at physics need to help me out there.
I thought higher the frequency, better the penetration, but
at the cost of having a much shorter range per tower.
that seems to perform very well in the inner East Bay, while my 850/1900
Mhz phone seems to have inferior reception. Could it be because my
850/1900 constantly force itself to communicate with the 850Mhz
tower (which is a rarity) while my 1900Mhz-only is happily interacting
with the abundance of 1900Mhz towers? (just guessing) Both phones are
through AT&T Wireless - jthoms |
| 2005/9/27-28 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:39885 Activity:nil |
9/27 I want to unlock my Motorola GSM phone. Can anyone recommend
some place in SF that can do this? Thanks.
\_ Are you T-mobile? I had my phone unlocked at a T-mobile store
gratis. Did it just once, but I've heard from other people that
T-mobile will do this for customers in good standing. YMMV, of
course.
\_ I am -- they said they'd unlock it after 90 days, but I'd like
to use the phone with my provider back home before those 90
days are up.
\_ If you don't get any recommendations, try searching on craigslist.
Just enter your phone model and you should see dozens of ads
advertising unlock service.
\_ I hear the 90 days thing is just a "for typical customer requests"
policy. Just explain your situation, that you are leaving the
country prior to those 90 days and INSIST on having the phone
unlocked. Escalate enough, and someone will unlock it for you. |
| 2005/9/21 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:39793 Activity:kinda low |
9/21 Anyone have T-Mobile? How's their coverage? They look like a much
better deal than, say, Verizon.
\_ I have sprint, T-mobile, and AT&T/Cingular (don't ask), and
T-mobile seems to be be the best of the 3, coverage wise. However
T-mobile's internet/GPRS coverage appears to be the suck ; I can
get online *maybe* 10% of the time time.
\_ T-Mobile coverage is fine outdoors, but some areas, like
inside buildings on Berkeley campus and parts of Daly City are
non-existant. T-mobile's GPRS does suck more than other Sprint
or Cingular.
\_ I had Verizon, then AT&T, then T-Mobile. I found Verizon the best
in terms of coverage. AT&T is better at my workplace in Foster
City, but T-Mobile is better at my home in Fremont. |
| 2005/9/21 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:39790 Activity:low |
9/21 The company I work at has a pretty decent additional price drop on
this phone: http://tinyurl.com/8ou8w
Any general thoughts? I am currently a Verzion customer and was
wondering if anyone had any relevent thoughts on Sprint. I currently
have the option of extending my current contract with Verizon and
getting another cheapo free phone or go to Sprint. So my general
questions are the following:
1. Sprint... customer service?
2. General nastiness and stupid clauseness of their plans?
3. I'm not an active follower of the cell phone market. How reasonable
are their rates and plans?
4. I know the phone is new, but any thoughts on that general type of
device? Will I end up just getting screwed by a plan that makes
me pay to use the features of the phone?
5. Anything else?
- jvarga, actually asking for advice on the motd
\_ my personal experience:
customer service - good
signal clarity and coverage - below average
\_ I answered regarding t-mobile above. I loved Sprint in all aspect
except for its lack of reception in Berkeley and building
penetration. Coverage anywhere else have been great for me. |
| 2005/9/12-14 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:39646 Activity:moderate |
9/12 I'm going to be in Spain and Morocco and I'm considering
getting a GSM phone to use while I'm there. I've heard
it's best to buy the phone in the US and then get a sim
card for the phone there (or maybe off of ebay while still
here). So, can I just get any GSM phone (assuming it uses
the same frequencies as they use in Europe), or are some
of them somehow not going to be compatible with the service
providers in Spain or Morocco? Would I be better off going
to an independent cell phone store, or buying something off
of ebay? I basically just want the cheapest possible phone
that will work.
\_ Dear Aaron, I'm not so sure asking technical question on motd
is such a good idea anymore. Over the years, it's turned into
a freeper libper trolling ground. There are other good place
to post these types of questions, just google them.
\_ p0wn3d
\_ You'll want a quadband phone or a tri-band phone with at
least the 900MHz frequency and those phones are usually
never cheap. Expect to spend $150 or more depending on
what you're willing to shell for a phone. Go to
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/operators.html
to get information on local calling cards.
\_ the frequencies between Europe and NA are different, so you will
need to get a world phone. Also, you need an unlocked phone- a
phone that is not locked to a particular carrier. My parents
went to China and got a GSM Motorola phone dirt cheap there.
\_ Right. I understand I need to get a phone that has the right
frequencies, and of course it has to be unlocked. Suppose
I get any old phone that has the right frequency and is
unlocked and then I go to some store in Spain to buy a sim
card. Do I need to be concerned that I will have somehow
gotten a phone that's not compatible with the sim cards they
sell in Spain (or at a particular store), or is this not an
issue? Also, how much is dirt cheap? $10? -op
\_ couple things:
1. look for so-called tri-band phone. Rest of the world
uses 900Mhz/1800Mhz, USA uses 1900Mhz cuz military refused
to release the 1800Mhz band for civilian uses.
2. If the phone is unlocked, then, any SIM card will do.
you won't encounter any compatibility issue.
3. Phone cost about the same around the world. Motorola /
Nokia if anything, cost a bit more than the develped
Nation... excpt that there isn't much channel to buy
phones retail in developed nation.
4. Phone actually cost a lot more than you think. The
price you see is the subsidized price. If you are going
to buy a phone at retail, you are looking at $300-400
for a mid-ranged phone. A good phone (e.g. high end
SonyEricssion) is going to cost you $600-700 or more.
5. I bought a dirt-cheap tri-band phone for my parents.
The phone I got was Nokia 3100 (newer version is 3120).
It cost about $80 USD. Unless you are willing to buy some
Chinese made phone (Bird, TCL), you are looking at
$80-100 for a Nokia/Motorola phone.
email me for detail kngharv
\_ I found one on ebay for $35. I'm not talking about
the latest and greatest. Just some piece of junk
that works.
\_ i posted more info, but someone censored it again.
email me for more questions. I would be very
careful about $35 phone, as one can sell battery
for that price alone.
\_ Plenty of people sell old phones for below
$50. Probably stolen, though. :) -John
\_ It could have been found in Lousiana
recently.
\_ Cell phones do not, in general, float,
and react poorly to immersion. My Nokia
6130 took a drenching at Song Kran in
Thailand, and had a cute little aquarium
in the display. Still made calls when I
dried it, though. -John
\_ My Motorola StarTac fell into the
Fox River, IL, and after a few days
of drying, came alive again.
\_ again, I've posted this before but someone
censored it. I would avoid used phone because
it is the battery which tend to show its age.
A typically used 2 year old phone will not
able to withstand 1 day of normal usage even
at the full charge. And the cost of a
replacement Li-Ion battery will destory any
of the savings you are trying to do.
-- been there, done that.
\- You should ask one of the professors studying wireless and
cellular netowrking which phone to buy.
\_ won't they just forward your e-mail to a grad student,
who does all the work anyway?
\_ I only approach my profs with PROPERLY SPELLED QUESTIONS.
\_ Get a prepaid SIM card. Telefonica mobile, Movistar and I believe
T-Mobile and a few others do this in Spain, and if you don't intend
to call for hours, that should be fine for Morocco too. Do some
research on Spanish GSM providers, and send them a mail to ask if
you can get a card at the airport. If you've got the unlocked 3-
or 4-band GSM phone, it'll fit in there. -John
\ What John said. Since I'm going to Spain too, here's what I did:
For SIM Card, Amena is the cheapest I found. This guy from eBay (whom
I've dealt with) got a bunch: http://stores.ebay.com/Phone-Call
I paid around $25 for 12 Euro worth of starting balance. Remember that
incoming calls in Europe and Asia are FREE (on European and Asian cell
Sometimes (not UK). _/
numbers, of course) - so you may sign up for a callback service
(<DEAD>kallback.com<DEAD> comes to mind) to save money. Read up on how it
works (it's not as difficult as it sound).
For cellphone, since you want barebone stuff, I just bought this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5807241582 An oldie
but goodie Sony Ericsson T28World, UNLOCKED. (so any SIM card would work
in it.
If you miss this bid, don't worry, he's got more to sell, just find more
items under his name. DO NOT get into a bidding war on this phone.
Bid for the starting price ($9.99) and let yourself lose (since some
eBay schmuck will trump you on the last minute). Wait for an hour or so
and you'll get a second-chance offer for the last price you bid. (in this
case, $9.99, plus $12.95 s+h plus 8.25% tax). |
| 2005/8/8-11 [Industry/Jobs, Consumer/CellPhone, Industry/Startup] UID:39054 Activity:nil |
8/9 Work with Anthony and Brian! Again! We have yet another position
open, this time as a BREW developer doing pretty interesting cell
phone applications/server side support for pretty interesting cell
phone applications. Startup in Emeryville with VC. -aspo |
| 2005/7/17-19 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:38667 Activity:nil |
7/17 Speaking of T-Mobile, is anybody else experiencing a phone outage?
\_ No, but I've noticed that the quality of Verizon has been sucking
a lot lately. My 2 year old contract is up and I thought about
getting something cheaper since Verizon has always been more
expensive. However, it seems like ALL the plans nowadays START
at $40, and with a 8-9 dollar tax, it is just... sad. |
| 2005/7/12-13 [Finance/Shopping, Consumer/CellPhone] UID:38547 Activity:nil |
7/11 It was only 2 years ago when I had a $29.99/month wireless plan with
300 any time minute and unlimited incoming and night&wknd. My contract
is up and I can't find a $29.99/month plan anymore. The cheapest I can
find is $39.99 plus $7 tax, which jacks up the price to almost
$50/month. Cell phones used to be cheap, what's going on???
\_ Last December I signed up for a T-mobile plan for two phones, five
lines, everything free for one year after rebates.
\_ Because cell phone companies know that after you have been hooked
into having a cell phone, you can no longer live without out. At
least your SO and friends will pressure you to always have one.
That's why companies were willing to offer these money-losing plans.
\_ Back then competition was hardcore and AT&T sold a lot of cheap
contracts forcing others to follow. With buyouts, there isn't as
much competition and those still in the biz have to make up the
money lost making those before mentioned acquisitions. The best
way to game the system now is to abuse the "friends and family"
plans that allow unlimited time within their company . |
| 2005/7/11-13 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:38542 Activity:nil |
7/11 Sick of dropped calls while you're driving? Want to boost your
cell phone signal by 50db? Now you can!
http://www.sigmaauto.com/autodax/mobileamp.php |
| 2005/6/16-20 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:38164 Activity:nil |
6/16 Is there a way to screw a telemarketer who calls your cellphone?
The bozos recorded a message. Thanks.
\_ I would hope so. It's illegal to make telemarketing calls to
cell phones, isn't it?
\_ Yes, I would hope so too, because it is illegal. I've
googled this with no result... Help?
\_ No, it became legal June 1st. Thank the Republicans in
Congress. There is some kind of no-call list you can
put your cell phone number on.
\_ As far as I can tell, you are wrong, calling
cellphones is illegal:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/04/dnc.htm
Have you got a reference for your assertion that it
is legal?
\_ There was an email forward that was going around
a while ago (that was mostly inaccurate) that
may have given that impression:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp
\_ I got a different version of the e-mail that didn't
mention Republicans. |
| 2005/5/22-25 [Consumer/CellPhone, Politics/Domestic/911] UID:37798 Activity:low |
5/20 At $20-30 a month (plus the VoIP box), why would anyone use
VoIP? I can get regular phone service for only $15/month.
And if I use Universal Lifeline, it's only $9/month. I just
don't see any compelling reasons to use VoIP. In addition
VoIP doesn't work when there's power outage, and if your
internet is hosed (which happens more frequently than phone),
then you're totally hosed.
\_ The VoIP box is free, dummy. You get a rebate for it if you
sign up for the service. Also, it takes five minutes to
setup a VoIP line. You have to pay about $75-$150 to setup
a phone line through Ma Bell and wait for them to install
the extra line.
\_ it's more compelling for long-distance call
\_ especially for international calling.
\_ Where can I get the rates for comparison?
\_ Well for me I would have to pay ~$59 for a phone with unlimited
long distance in WA. I dropped the unlimited long distance
and got vonage and I now have two lines which cost ~$45 total.
\_ any comment on quality, features, problems, etc?
\_ Can you please break down your prior phone cost ($59) to
stuff like basic service, carrier fee, FCC fee, tax, etc etc?
And then do the same with VoIP cost break down? I looked at the
following and they don't give me a break down and I'm afraid of
stupid catch they might put in the last minute like
"Special 911 Fee" or something like that. They NEVER tell you
these things when you sign up:
http://www.usa.att.com/callvantage/international/index.jsp?soac=64528
Also can you use a calling card on top of it? Thanks.
\_ I'm suppose to be paying only $29.99 for Verizon cell phone.
After I added text messaging ($2.99), 1000 extra minutes ($4.99),
it becomes ~$37. But my actual bill every month is $47. I don't
know what it is about cell phones but they have really weird
special fees and tax. Fuck phone companies.
\_ It is not the phone companies fault. It is the government.
\_ Yes and no: it's the govt.'s fault that the fees exist;
it's the cell phone co.'s decision whether to pass the
fees on to the user or not, and it's the cell phone co.
that's purposefully not tell you about those fees when
they advertise prices for their services. --erikred
\_ Have a look at Asterix--it's pretty stable, and a friend of
mine has it replacing his entire phone service--there are a lot
of VoIP nodes that are open. -John |
| 2005/4/24-26 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:37338 Activity:nil |
4/24 I have a Nokia 5190 with a SIM. Replacement battery will run me
$25. Can I simply transfer my SIM to a new GSM phone?
\_ If it's issued from the same network provider, then yes.
When they subsidize the phone, they lock the phone down
to one provider. You can unlock it but it will usually
cost you about $25. The nice thing about unlocking it
is that you can take it overseas (given that you have
the 900mhz and 1800mhz frequencies) and use a local
SIM calling card.
\_ You can download free software that will generate the unlock
codes for most nokia phones. Look in cell phone forums
(e.g. howard's forums, etc). |
| 2005/3/31-4/3 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:36989 Activity:nil |
3/30 For Treo 650 owners: I just installed shadowmite's bluetooth dialup
hack and it works great. Forget about paying for PdaNet. |
| 2005/3/10 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:36629 Activity:kinda low |
3/10 Finally a reason to write a cell phone virus: http://csua.org/u/bbw \_ Jenna Jameson has been selling moan tones for a while. |
| 2005/3/3-5 [Consumer/CellPhone, Consumer/PDA, Computer/SW/Security] UID:36517 Activity:nil |
3/3 Anyone know of a good stopwatch/timer that works on a Treo? I've
tried a few and they all seem to crash when I try to access any
of the menus. tia. |
| 2005/3/2-3 [Consumer/CellPhone, Consumer/PDA] UID:36476 Activity:low |
3/1 Any recommendations for a Treo 650 case? I was looking at one
named RhinoSkin, but I was wondering if there are better cases
on the market. tia.
\_ Maybe http://www.noreve.com has one--I bought my case for the
Archos Gmini 440 there and it's pretty nice. They seemed to
have some smartphone-type accessories. Also look at
http://www.treocentral.com Given that, does anyone know if
Palm has any plans to lower the price on the things anytime in
the near future? -John
\_ I have a Rhino Skin for my Palm Tungsten, it's turned out to
be quite durable. |
| 2005/2/5-7 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:36072 Activity:moderate |
2/4 Does anyone have a Treo600? I'm trying to decide if I should
go w/ the brand new flashy 650 or if the 600 would be sufficient
for grad student w/o a real need for BT. tia.
\_ I have a 600. I don't like the screen. The 650's is so much
better.
\_ I'm getting a 650. From what I understand from people who have
one, the only downsides are the crappy camera (but hey, who cares,
don't use it) and no wifi (ditto.) -John
\_ There's a hack that lets you use wifi. Checkout http://treocentral.com
or search on google for "Shadowmite"
\_ BT is the least of the differences between the 600 and 650. I
evaluated the 600 many, many times but could never justify the
price. It was kludgy and just "not quite there". But the 650
is amazing. I setup my personal email account to forward emails
to my sprint account so now I'm alerted immediately of new email,
which I can then retrieve. I can surf the web easily and quickly,
I can take pictures (still crappy, but better than most camera
phones), I can take video, I can record audio, I can use SD IO
for storage, GPS, etc, I can ssh into the csua and read the motd
in it's 80-wide format (requires good eyesight), it plays mp3's,
videos, you can play video games, etc, etc, etc. It's awesome.
The integration of all the components is great and it's very
easy to use, very intuitive. Check out http://treonauts.com
for more information. (Also, just in case you don't have
connectivity through 802.11b you can use BT for fast dial up
on your laptop).
\_ all treo650s ship w/ bt dialup disabled. I've heard that the
hack that enables it is very unstable.
\_ Check out the forums on http://treocentral.com for more on the
BT dial up.
\_ I'm probably going to go w/ Cingular. Is there a particular
plan that I should get? (I usually use less than 200 mins
a month, but I might use more w/ the 650 b/c it can connect
to the internet).
\_ I have a 600, and I like it quite a bit. If you're buying
new, get a 650. In my case, I can't justify the cost of a
650 because I bought my 600 when it was fairly newish. Your
minute usage should not be tied to your internet usage. Get
a flat rate all you can eat data plan, you'll be thankful for
it. -dans
\_ You can get unlimited data for something like $10 - $15
per month.
\_ I meant to ad that this is for Sprint. I don't know
about Cingular's bandwidth pricing. |
| 2005/2/3 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:36051 Activity:kinda low |
2/3 Don't dial your cell phone, jiggle it! (and the girl is kind of cute)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/ptech/02/03/shake.it.phone.ap
\_ Usually I consider jiggling my electronics to get them to work
a bad thing. |
| 2005/2/2 [Transportation/Car, Consumer/CellPhone] UID:36032 Activity:high |
2/2 What we need is a universal docking station on cars for
cellphones. You get into your car and put the cellphone on
the dock, then all calls will be put on the speaker and you
talk through the in-car mic. What ya think? Any progress being
made in this area? It can even be made automatic...
\_ As for the data connection, the standard is the Bluetooth headset
protocol. Good luck getting a standard for a physical holder. Cell
phones have way too much variability in size/shape for that to be
practical.
\_ not to mention the business reasons why this is doomed. Vendors
make a fortune selling add-ons for their particular brands of
phone. They want you to buy a new set every time you get a new
phone too. Good luck getting them to give up that business to
follow some standard.
\_ But eventually all these will settle down to a
standard. Do you still remember the time each cell
phone has its own proprietary headphone connector?
Once we have laws banning cellphone use in cars, you
bet some company will come up with something.
\_ They still have proprietary connectors. I can see everyone
supporting bluetooth, but when each phone comes with a
charger, there's not much incentive for the manufacturer to
standardize on a charger interface. Add to that the fact
that size and styling are competitive differentiators and
so manufactureres have a lot to lose by standardizing on
one physical shape for a dock. I think the best you can
do would be a velcro strap on dashboards.
\_ The point is not the dock or the charging interface, it's
the ability to automatically route the call to the 'car',
however its done, wirelessly or something, doesn't matter.
and similarily the ability to route calls to land lines
when you are home automatically. You bet there will be a
surge of interest when all the latest data on cellphone
brain cancer pops up in a few years.
\_ A lot of phones already have something like this,
it's called a *speakerphone*. I set my cell phone
in a cupholder, and if I get a call I can reach down
and push the speakerphone button, then be hands-free
for the conversation. |
| 2005/1/20 [Recreation/Dating, Consumer/CellPhone] UID:35817 Activity:high |
1/20 anyone get one of those share your minutes family cell
phone plans? was it worth it? is it better
than your family members just getting their
own goddamn plan? - danh
\_ it really depends on how much you and family use the minutes.
i'm on a 400 minute plan and can add on family members for $10,
which also gives me 100 extra minutes. i barely use half my minutes
a month, so it would probably be worth it for me. if you guys will
be constantly fighting for your minutes, then don't do it.
\_ For 4 years I was on a 125 anytime + 1000 off-peak/weekend plan
shared among three phones. Our total minutes were like 20 anytime
and 100 off-peak/weekend. We never got close to half the limit.
\_ My girlfriend has one with her family. Her sister uses way too many
minutes so my girlfriend is always worrying about going over.
Overall I think it's a good idea but you need to be wary of selfish
family members.
\_ It depends on your family usage. My wife and I don't use more than
400 minutes a month. It's mor worth it for us to have a family
plan. I paid $10 more for the secon line as opposed to another
$30+ plan.
\_ My mom and my brother have a shared plan and it worked out cheaper
(~ $20/mo) for them to share minutes than to get two separate plans.
I would have joined their plan, but I want to get a Treo650 and
cingular doesn't allow the Treo's on a shared plan :-( |
| 2005/1/17-18 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:35744 Activity:low |
1/17 Does anyone have experience with a cell phone retailer called Orange
Digital Land? I saw its newspaper ad saying they have a T-Mobile
plan when I can get two phones, five lines, everything free for one
year after rebates. It just sounds too good to be true. Is the store
trustworthy?
\_ If you sign up for 5 lines, I'm sure you can get 2 phones for free.
The lines are *not* free, although activation may be.
\_ I think the shop is simply using part of their "new customer"
comission to work the deal. You are basically getting a 5-line
family plan. The shop gets couple hundred dollars for each
new line they open. I did something similar before (switching
from Cingular to T-Mobile). I only switched 2 lines and got
2 new phones (around $250 retail each) for free. Oh, I didn't
use Orange Digital Land. I think all Chinese/Asian cell
companies are pretty much the same.
\_ So if I sign up and then cancel after one year, I get everything
for free, the retailer makes a little profit, while T-Mobile
loses money for the commission, phones and lines? Doesn't sound
like good business plan for T-Mobile.
\_ Are they offering this in the bay area now?
My sister did it last year, and my parents just did it
a couple weeks ago, but they are in LA.
\_ Yeah, the ad lists five store addresses, all here in the
Bay Area.
\_ That's pretty much it. It's the cost of acquiring a new
customer. Since most people don't change their carrier
on a regular basis, T-Mobile is hoping that you'll stay
for > 1 year. |
| 2005/1/11 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:35659 Activity:low |
1/10 Once a day I get a telephone call of some recodred message in Spanish.
I have no idea what they're saying other than the opening "Hola, es
Veronica..." What can I do to stop these calls?
\_ TeleZapper worked great for me.
\_ Caller ID is your friend. |
| 2005/1/6-8 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:35582 Activity:low |
1/6 Does anyone have Cingular? Does it offer Busy Forwarding (not Call
Forwarding) services? For AT&T it's *73 and for Verizon it's *92 but
I can't seem to find this info for Cingular. Thanks for any help.
\_ generally this is controlled from the phone w/ GSM by going
into the call-forwarding setup menu and adjusting the different
classes of forward. but I discovered that T-Mobile at least
has taken upon themselves to override this in the network because
too many newbies didn't realize they were screwing w/ the same
mechanism used to send callers to voicemail. so on T-Mobile
you have to call customer service and plead with them to change
forwarding rules for your GSM phone! (this is also why voicemail
shows as extra calls from your phone, and how they gouge you
for calls you DON'T answer while roaming internationally!)
\_ WHOA!!! So does this mean that we shouldn't switch to GSM
(Cingular/AT&T) yet? And that we should stick to CDMA (Verizon)
or TDMA (old AT&T)? |
| 2004/12/29-30 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:35466 Activity:low |
12/28 SF/Bay Area sodans, who are you using for cell phone service these
days? Is anyone actually happy with his service?(*) Is there any
particularly shiny cell phone hardware that you are fond of? My
incoming calls keep going straight to voicemail, message notifications
arrive hours, if not days, late, so I'd like to switch from
T-Mobile.(**) -dans
(*) Yes I realize that service quality varies wildly by location.
I'd still like to hear individual experiences.
(**) Yes I realize that there is effectively only one GSM carrier in
Northern California
\_ AT&T, cuz my family got this stupid deal on it. Have a
cheapie Samsung phone. Reception is okay, but the phone
sucks. AT&T voice mail sucks. I personally do not
recommend. I used to have T-Mobile and a motorola, got
decent reception, much better phone in terms of usage.
Whatever you do, if you get a clamshell model get one
with an external window to see who's calling you. The
samsung I have doesn't even have that. Very, very annoying.
\_ Try Verizon, I don't have it but haven't heard bad things. Except
they don't seem to have as good deals.
\_ I'm probably switching to Verizon (from AT&T) for the better
service within a couple of weeks. Too bad their phone selection
rather sucks compared to Cingular/AT&T or TMobile.
\_ I have verizon now and the service is good except inside
buildings. quality really degrades. no signal at bart in sf.
where as the cingular phone is great in sf bart. however,
cingular service cuts in and out everywhere. same shitty
service everywhere. verizon is only shitty inside buildings,
and of course the phone selection sux. depends what you need.
\_ That's really a 'YMMV' issue. Verizon uses a lower frequency
of radio waves than the others, so for technical reasons
should get better reception in buildings. I've had
comparatively pretty good reception in buildings, but some
places it just doesn't work. If you have weak reception on
top of a BART station, you'll have none inside one. OTOH I've
gotten a decent signal in some BART stations or large
buildings or elevators where everyone else gets nothing.
From my unscientific survey of the SFBA, Verizon is a bit
better than Cingular, and WAY batter than TMo, but there are
some exceptions.
\_ I currently have a Mot v60 and AT&T (not GSM). It is not bad,
and I have decent coverage pretty much everywhere in the bay
area. Sometimes I have problems inside lecture halls, but
this doesn't bother me too much b/c I don't really need cell
phone access during class.
In terms of shiny new cell phone hardware, I'm waiting for AT&T
to intro the Treo 650 so that I can get a Treo 600 at a reduced
price.
\_ Verizon is the coverage king, with Cingular second. Verizon is a
bit more expensive, and has a lousy phone selection. Sprint,
T-Mobile, and Nextel all have inferior networks. AT&T is part of
Cingular now. See also:
http://csua.com/Consumer/CellPhone
\_ not in the bay area now, but as someone who used GSM exclusively
in the US since about 1996 when coverage was very sparse, I
should point out that your coverage experience has a lot to do
w/ the specific phone model. there are short term network
problems w/ growth, where a cell is oversubscribed, but you can
usually complain and get that resolved. a sucky phone, however,
always sucks. i've had great luck w/ motorola phones w/ external
antenna where other folks' whiz bang phone showed no signal. |
| 2004/12/24-25 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:35425 Activity:nil |
12/23 Got my Samsung 193P today from http://jr.com. It's fine, no bad pixels. Only things I can complain about are that it can't elevate very much, the bezel could be not as wide, and there could be more buttons (the Viewsonic VP191b has all of these and 2 VGA ports + 1 DVI, but the refresh is only average - also, from the back the VP191b looks like a light pole, but from the front it's just better than the 193P in my opinion and just more functional). Bottom line ... after I get used to it, I'll probably like the 193P more, even though it's sitting on two books. |
| 2004/12/13-14 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:35268 Activity:low |
12/13 Motorola V220 vs. Nokia 3120 ... any recommedations?
\_ Nokia over Motorola any day. Motorola crashes a lot (software)
and the GUI is very clumsy (need to press a lot of buttons to
get something done).
\_ If you intend to use bluetooth on the thing, do some research.
Several Nokia models (6310 among them) have ass-quality bluetooth.
A Finnish colleague, whose wife works at Nokia, says to watch
out for the 6670, if it's not already out. -John |
| 2004/11/1 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:34499 Activity:high 61%like:34459 |
11/1 10/30 Why is my t-mobile reception so bad? Could it be the phone or
is t-mobile just worthless around here?
\_ T-mobile has the smallest network of the majors.
\_ Kind of depends where `here' is. T-mobile doesn't have any
towers in Northern California; they rent tower time from
Cingular. In case it's not clear, there is, effectively, only
one GSM carrier in northern California.
\_ My AT&T reception has been going to hell as of lately too.
\_ As of a few months ago Cingular users can use ATT towers and vice
versa. It's possible your area had lots on Cingular users and
not that many Cingular towers.
\- man why cant they make cell phones that have good signal ...
i dont care whether it can play tetris or surf the
WEEB or manage my stock portfolio. has anybody made a
phone that has signal strength as its only distinguishing
feature? now that i'd pay for.
\_ verizon. great signal, but aside from that, phones suck.
\- i meant a phone unit, not a service. surely something
can be done with antenna/amplification.
\_ Phones already have amplifiers, but amplifiers are
'dumb' and amplify both signal and noise. The SNR
is what really matters for a phone. To improve the
SNR you can add a phased antenna array, which will
massivly increase weight, power consumption and
cost, or you can use a high-gain antenna, which is
by necessity directional. A high-gain antenna would
be big, which is bad for a phone, and would depend
strongly on orientation, which is very bad for a
phone being moved around. The best compromise would
be a long straight antenna, which is not as big as a
dish, and has the only directional requirement that
it is upright. Most phones use antennas which are
about (8/7)*(1/2) wavelength long so they get optimum
performance when slightly off perfect vertical. |
| 2004/10/31-11/1 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:34475 Activity:nil |
10/31 Is there a web site somewhere that reports the current cell phone
tower sites, their frequencies, strengths, etc? I have Verizon
and it works everywhere EXCEPT where I live and I'm very upset.
I want to know what signal my phone uses (tdma? cdma? gsm?) and
what kind of carriers use what signals, and what kind of towers
are around the places I go to frequently. This way I'll be
able to make better purchasing decisions next time.
\_ If you have any Verizon phone from the last ~8 years, it uses CDMA
and is also capable of roaming onto Sprint's 'PCS' network, which is
also CDMA. Some Verizon phones (sold as 'tri-band') can also
recieve the old analog 'AMPS' signals, and so work better in areas
with poor signal. These phones are getting harder and harder to
find as the carriers move to 'all-digital' phones, which sounds like
a selling point but means less versatility, though lower cost of
manufacturing.
Actual tower locations are a closely guarded secret for reasons of
competition (though the excuse du-jour is 'anti-terrorism'). The
tower locations should all be on file with the FCC, but good luck
getting a look at them.
If you got your contract/phone less that 15 days ago, you can return
it and get out of your contract with no penalty. If not, see if
your phone is 'all-digital', and if it is, get a friend with a
tri-band Verizon phone to visit your house and see his signal.
On top of that, some phones just get better reception than others.
Tri-mode LGs are pretty good, as is the Nokia 6015i from what I've
heard. Good luck. - dgies |
| 2004/10/28-29 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:34421 Activity:high |
10/28 What's the best cell phone deal out there? Preferably not linked to
a mandatory 2 year contract?
\_ *sound of crickets chirping in the backgroud*
\_ er, what do you need and/or what do you want to pay? i.e. how many
minutes, long distance, national roaming etc.
\_ well, if you don't want a contract you have to go with prepaid, and
the best price/coverage deal is probably Cingular/ATT. The contract
length is linked to how much discount you get on your phone, so if
you're willing to take a 1-year contract, you can get a MUCH better
price/minute than if you went prepaid, but you'll get a better or
cheaper phone if you commit to 2 years.
\_ What's the best tool out there? Oh, and what's the best vehicle?
\_ if you work at a company that has some sort of sponsorship
agreement with a carrier, you can get a decent discount. |
| 2004/10/13-15 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:34112 Activity:nil |
10/13 EMF radiation paranoia time! Do you carry active cell phones in your
pocket? Do you take any steps to keep the phone the recommended
1.5 cm or whatever from your body? Do you use a "hands-free" ear
phone thing? If so are you aware of reports that those can act as
an antenna and transmit significantly more radiation into your head?
\_ No. Yes. Yes, a regular earphone adapter that transmits sound down
a wire. Yes, but not as much as a bluetooth handsfree thingie,
and nowhere near as much as the phone itself. |
| 2004/10/2-4 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:33885 Activity:kinda low |
10/2 I want to get a text message or have my cell phone ring when
Mt. St. Helens erupts. Any ideas how to do this?
\_ Perhaps you can use an RSS feed from one of the major news
organizations, coupled with a script to parse and send the message?
\_ google alerts? Of course the trouble with using google
for news is that there is the crawler lag. -- ilyas
\_ Tell your neurotic midwestern relatives who watch tv all the time
that you moved to Seattle, and give them your cell phone number.
Yes, I realize that Seattle is in no danger, but they won't.
\_ ask these guys to call you
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=2379524
\_ set up a script to monitor http://cnn.com for the appropriate headline.
then have it email your cell phone.
\_ Uh... why? Would finding out an hour later matter at all? |
| 2004/9/29-30 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:33834 Activity:moderate |
9/29 How do I temporarily block caller id when calling someone?
I want to stalk someone.
\_ And you've come to the right place. motd is full of stalkers.
\_ kchang isn't here anymore
\_ can someone please tell me about the kchang/lila love
affair and how it turned bitter?
\_ fact 1: kchang kept asking her out
fact 2: lila kept saying no
fact 3: they're both fond of each other. Case in
point: http://www.rootcellar.net/kchang
fact 4: kchang must be blind to want to go out with
with lila. Either that or he has some sort of
weird fetish.
\_ Lila is attractive in the photo of her with long
hair. Maybe she should give it another try.
\_ what about waner?
\_ *82 before dialing then umber
\_ I thought *67
\_ this only works from home phone? what about company
line that requires a 9 to dial out?
\_ Put a strong magnet next to the phone cord. That will disrupt the
caller-ID signal.
\_ this is bs.
\_ this seriously works. you should try it.
\_ Why would it work? The ID isn't generated from anything in
the caller's house. (Unless you mean putting a magnet next to
the callee's phone. But if you're there you're not merely
stalking anymore.)
\_ The magnet generates electromagnetic interference in the line
which disrupts the caller ID signal. |
| 2004/9/9 [Science/Disaster, Consumer/CellPhone, Recreation/Computer/Games] UID:33436 Activity:high |
9/9 Ali Rahimi's dumb retro phone thing makes it into the NY times
http://nytimes.com/2004/09/09/technology/circuits/09retr.html?8hpib
\_ The bluetooth model would be cooler without the cord.
\_ what's the csuamotd user id and password?
\_ Go Media Whores of the CSUA, Go!
\_ There's some dude in the UK who actually builds cell phones
into old handsets. Can't find the guy's page anymore,
though. They look pretty spiffy. -John |
| 2004/8/30-31 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:33218 Activity:nil |
8/30 A friend has recently moved from his signature pocketwatch to a
cellphone (since it's not much bitter than the pocketwatch and doesn't
require winding). I'd like to get him a pocketwatch-esque fob for his
cellphone. Any suggestions?
\_ Some cellphones have a little eyelet for putting on a string or the
like. If you friend's has this, you could put on a small keyring
and then attatch any fobs you like to that.
If there's no eyelet but there's a screw-off antenna, you could get
a tiny metal washer and put that around the antenna-phone junction
and then hang a fob off the washer, but that would be sub-optimal. |
| 2004/8/25 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:33128 Activity:high |
8/25 My theory on the two Russian planes: Rogue luggage handler, loaded
up both planes with cell-phone bombs. Called cell-phone bombs ~ 11pm.
I don't buy simultaneous equipment failure.
\_ WWIII and vodka
\_ Asked airport for altitude of ground, airport gave them the wrong
number.
\_ You mean altitude of the airport? How's that relevant?
\_ He means altitude of the ground below the plane.
\_ I believe the word you're looking for is "hypothesis."
\_ I believe the term you want is Crackpot Wingnut Conspiracy Theory
\_ That's Crackpot Wingnut Conspiracy HYPOTHESIS
\_ Take more English 1A, less CS. Thanks.
\_ Your theory assumes Russia has good cell phone coverage. -- misha.
\_ D'oh!
\_ Cell phones have alarm functions. No need to call.
\_ Then why not just an alarm clock trigger.
\_ You're right, that was used in the Spain bombings. |
| 2004/8/24-25 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:33101 Activity:kinda low |
8/24 Can anyone recommend a good, very SMALL cell phone + a provider
with a good nationwide plan? -eric
\_ What kind of bells and whistles do you need? How price-sensitive
are you?
\_ Bells and whistles are not necessary. Not too price sensitive.
\_ I am using the Samsung A530S from Verizon and I love it. It
is the smallest phone Verizon has. -ausman
\_ Best network = Verizon. I'm using a smallish old LG VX1. There
are smaller phones now. LGs tend to have very good RF performance.
\_ for GSM, motorola v66 is still one of the lightest and pretty
small world phones out there, and practically given away these days
with rebates. I liked T-Mobile for nationwide service when living
in Los Angeles. there are smaller GSM phones if you want to pay
top dollar, e.g. some tiny panasonics you can buy over the web.
use the phone finder at http://www.gsmarena.com and you can search by
weight and other features. |
| 2004/8/18-19 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:32997 Activity:very high |
8/18 Are there any cell phone shops in bay area that'll sell you
unlocked cellphones with a plan? Specifically, I'm looking to
purchase Nokia 6820 with TMobile.
\_ Yes. Recently there was even a store in San Mateo that was
offering a good discount on an unlocked T630 with activation
with TMobile. I don't remember the name unfortunately. It was
advertised in the paper. I think jwang found it and told me. -shac
\_ Most Chinese stores will unlock your phone for $10.
\_ What I'm wondering is if there are any stores that'll give me
a discount on the phone, since many Chinese stores are willing
to give better deals on phones relying on commision from the
service plan. -op
\_ Nokia phones are trivial to unlock. Search on howardforums.
\_ This isn't about unlocking, it's about buying a phone w/o
paying the full price. -op
\_ Pretty much anyplace you buy it with a plan will give you a
subsidized price. If you want it unlocked you'll either have
to do it yourself, or fins a place that will do it for some
small $$.
\_ Let me be more clear. 6820 is only offered by AT&T in US.
I want to use the phone with T-Mobile. As far as I know,
the carriers will not subsidize phones that aren't locked
into their own company. So the discount would have to be
from the reseller who makes commission on service
contracts. |
| 2004/8/13-15 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:32892 Activity:moderate |
8/13 periodic motd poll. Bay Area mobile phone companies
who do you use, do they suck/rule?
\_ Verizon: Great signal, lousy price and phone selection
Customer service is pretty good, and EV-DO (400kbit) service should
be rolled out around Christmas.
\_ Will it be a low flat fee like Sprint and T-Mobile? More info
please
\_ AT&T: Great phones, decent prices, signal is hit or miss.
New GSM system will give you whichever is the stronger of
AT&T or Cingular. Haven't seen the old Cingular GSM problem
yet where you couldn't get a line out. Old AT&T TDMA system
gets progressively worse and worse as they shift resources.
\_ Agreed. Also, their customer service is now back to average
after several months of being useless.
\_ Same here. Great phone, great price, lousy signal. Seems like
it's the opposite of Verizon.
\_ Any experience with T-Mobile in the Bay Area?
\_ Yeah, I used it for a year and switched back to Verizon.
I couldn't get a signal at all at the office in the
Financial District and had to stand on the porch to
make a phone call at home (in Noe Valley). -ausman
\_ My wife and I switched from AT&T TDMA to T-M early this year.
Great plans, nice phones, and pretty good coverage, we've
found (in the Berkeley area).
\_ How good is T-M coverage on campus? Specifically, around
Tolman? Thanks.
\_ seemed ok driving by on Hearst, but I'm not in that area
often. Can check next week if you like. It's so-so on
5th floor cory - mds |
| 2004/7/25-26 [Finance/CC, Consumer/CellPhone, Politics/Domestic] UID:32474 Activity:very high |
7/25 I've been on the National DoNotCall Registry for over a
year. I get a telemarketing call from T-Mobile, which I
have no relation with. As I understand it, they could be
fined $11,000 for that call. So why would they be calling
me? What are they thinking? Presumably, I'm not the only
one on the donotcall list that they are calling and there
will be numerous complaints.
\_ Because they bought your phone number from someone like a
credit card company who sold them your name and number as
a "bussiness contact" that you missed the little check box
to check to opt out of.
\_ Supposing that's the case, how would I determine which
credit card it is? In any case, I don't think this is the
case, because the woman who called didn't even know who she
was calling for. She only knew the number she was calling.
\_ I have tried to track the down my contact info several times
and gave up because most telemarketers either don't keep
that information or are not willing to give it to you.
I assume, this is because there are no laws that require
them to disclose this information. Maybe it is time to start
writing letters to your representatives about it. BTW, once
I have added myself to the do not call registry, I have stopped
being harassed by phone, but there still lots spam coming by
snail mail.
\_ Pansy liberal, always trying to get big government involved
in your problems.
\_ The woman who called you is some minimum wage slave who
knows nothing, and if she did know anything is probably
under orders to be as unhelpful as possible when it comes
to finding this shit out. Good luck figuring it out. I
bet it you wrote a threatening letter to the right people
you'd get an answer, the trick is figuring out who the
right people are.
\_ Somewhere in here there must be room to say the do-not-call
list has something to do with the US being a totalitarian state.
I can't figure out how but I know it can be done.
\_ Go to the donotcall web page and file a report. I don't think
they'll go after individual violations, but rather they will go
after a company that gets enough complaints against.
\_ Yeah, I already filed a complaint with them before I
even posted anything on here. -op |
| 2004/7/20-21 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:32386 Activity:moderate |
7/20 I want to sign up for a cell phone plan and end my home phone
service. Would my home phone number be transferable to my cell phone?
\_ Theoretically, but I'm nto sure you can transfer it to a prepaid.
Your words 'cell phone plan' suggest you don't mean prepaid, so it
should be possible. I think you start by telling your new cell
phone company you want to port from a landline. DO NOT cancel your
conventional service until it's all complete!
\_ I would never transfer my landline to a cell phone.
\_ Uh, OK, some people want to for obvious reasons.
\_ Is there a way to forward your landline to a cellphone number?
\_ The closest thing I know of is Cingular has a system where if you
are an SBC customer, you can plug your cell into a special
charger cradle at home and your cell calls will ring to your
home phone. Take the phone out of the cradle and your cell
number will ring on your cell phone. If you couple this with a
landline-to-cell port followed by a new landline, that would sort
of give you the same thing.
\_ I know for verizon i just dial *72number and it will do forward,
a very nice feature. Is there similar things for land line? ie,
I am going on vacation and just want to forward everything to
my cellphone... sbc. thx.
\_ sbc has a call forward service, you just need to pay.
\_ Did you check if your home will have good cell phone reception? My
cell phone work poorly in my home. |
| 2004/7/9-11 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:32197 Activity:high |
7/9 Poll, enter your favourite/least favourite cell phone brands:
Nokia: +6260 +8960 (love it!!!)
Motorola: ---T720i (hate it)
LG : Suprisingly good phones for not too much money.
Nokia : Stop making tiny candybar phones! Make some damn clamshells!
Motorola: t720 was a steaming turd, but most have very good RF.
Samsung: cheap, sturdy, long battery life, smallest flip phone
Panasonic: 3-yr-old TX210, Can store multiple numbers and one e-mail
addr under the same name entry. Has just the basic functions
that I need and no fancy stuff. LCD can switch between green
and amber manually as well as when it recognizes a caller ID,
which was cool back then. Ring tone is loud enough even
placed in a handbag. (My wife's Nokia isn't loud enough.)
Motorola phones used to be great in the mid 90s. Then they started
to suck a lot. Battery life sucks. GUI sucks. Everything sucks
about it. Typical American engineering. Buy Nokia.
\_ Motorola phones have been gaining some market share lately
after a long decline. The triplets (V300, V500, V600) seemed
to be selling well. Have you taken a second look lately?
I work at Motorola, but I do systems, not phones.
I still use my first phone, a clunky old cracked startac
with a broken antenna which once fell into a river. Ok,
it was in my pocket when I jumped into the river to pull
my canoe to shore. So, you can see I don't know too much
about phones, except what I read and heard.
\_ When is the V710 going to be released? -me and 1 million other
people with no life.
\_ no idea, but if you use service from verizon, sprintpcs,
china unicom or kddi (japan), and the service sucks,
it could be because I've been slacking off.
\_ I have verizon and have great service. I guess you
can call in sick next week.
\_ I've dropped my Nokia candybar phone too many times to count. It's
been stepped on, danced on, and juggled, and it still works. It's
the Volvo of cell-phones: boxy, but safe.
\_ Ditto here. My 6310 has taken worlds of abuse, and still works.
I miss usable bluetooth, though. -John
\_ the 8260 my gf had started failing all over. I started
scavenging my old 8260 to replace the speaker, screen, and
finally, the base unit itself. My gf is the ultimate test for
phone durability. The phone now has screen that goes away at
times as well as the speaker. But yeah, candybar style in
general seem sturdier. I doubt my sanyo clamshell will last
a month in her care.
\_ on the 82XX series, I found that slipping a small piece of
paper right above the screen seemed to fix the screen problem.
I love the Sanyo clamshell I just got so far, except for
small problem of dropped calls even with full signal.
Motorola: t720 was a steaming turd, but most have very good RF.
Samsung: cheap, sturdy, long battery life, smallest flip phone
Panasonic: 3-yr-old TX210, Can store multiple numbers and one e-mail
addr under the same name entry. Has just the basic functions
that I need and no fancy stuff. LCD can switch between green
and amber manually as well as when it recognizes a caller ID,
which was cool back then. Ring tone is loud enough even
placed in a handbag. (My wife's Nokia isn't loud enough.)
Motorola phones used to be great in the mid 90s. Then they started
to suck a lot. Battery life sucks. GUI sucks. Everything sucks
about it. Typical American engineering. Buy Nokia.
\_ Motorola phones have been gaining some market share lately
after a long decline. The triplets (V300, V500, V600) seemed
to be selling well. Have you taken a second look lately?
I work at Motorola, but I do systems, not phones.
I still use my first phone, a clunky old cracked startac
with a broken antenna which once fell into a river. Ok,
it was in my pocket when I jumped into the river to pull
my canoe to shore. So, you can see I don't know too much
about phones, except what I read and heard.
\_ When is the V710 going to be released? -me and 1 million other
people with no life.
\_ no idea, but if you use service from verizon, sprintpcs,
china unicom or kddi (japan), and the service sucks,
it could be because I've been slacking off.
\_ I have verizon and have great service. I guess you
can call in sick next week.
\_ I love my two motorola v66 models (wife uses older one),
though after almost 3 years the battery is starting to fade on
one. Wiating for them to top this model... maybe with upcoming
v1000. Why are all the phones getting HEAVIER?? lament...
\_ How are GUIs in LG and Samsung phones?
\_ Haven't tried LG, but samsung's is better than sanyo. But I have
yet to see any other company make gui even comparable to nokia.
\_ I dunno, there were quite a few things about my Motorola v120c
that I liked better than my Nokia 3160
\_ I have an old LG VX1. The GUI is a little clunky in some places
but not bad once you get the hang of it. It's also nice to be
able to silence the ringer without opening the phone. I've heard
they improved the GUI slightly with the VX4400 and VX6000, but
I haven't used one of those.
\_ I like the GUI in the Samsung. The keys are so small that some
times I hit the wrong one when I am browsing the net, and I
have very small hands for a guy. But other than that, it is
great I have a A530s.
\_ I really like my LG phones. You should take a look at them.
I had an old Nokia, their software (if you can even call it
at that) is crap. Too many features to be desired (call
with no caller id does not even record a time, no entry in
missed calls, so frustrating) I then tried a Motorola
phone, the 720 or something, its software leaves much to be
desired, it's not bad, but just doesn't feel nice, the
phone itself also feels kind of flimsy. Then I tried the
LG-6000, boy, its software is almost perfect. I've been
using it for 6 month now, and I can't really think of
anything to complain about. They seem to have thoroughly
designed every aspect of it, and it's very very nice. The
hardware is nice, the software is first rate. It's a lean,
mean phone that has everything you want in a phone. If you
are looking for a PDA/phone combo, it's not it, but if you
just want a good cell phone, this is it. You will not
regret it. When UI is done right, it becomes 2nd nature. |
| 2004/6/30 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:31087 Activity:nil |
6/30 Is it just me or it seems that the quality of cell phone has been
going down a lot?
\_ You mean the phone or the reception?
\_ Phones? I don't know. Coverage? I'd say it's improved. -verizon
\_ I think cell phones are getting so complicated that you can't use
most of the functions without reading a manual first.
\_ Some phones have better menus than others.
\_ It just you. Quality cell phone been same long time! |
| 2004/6/28 [Consumer/CellPhone, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:31044 Activity:nil |
6/28 Can you type the following in less than 44 seconds with all
punctuations correct?
"The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus
are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they
seldom attack a human."
Now try typing it on your cell phone.
http://csua.org/u/7yw (Yahoo! News) |
| 2004/6/21-22 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/SW] UID:30939 Activity:low |
6/21 I've never had a cell phone. My parents have Verizon Wireless and they
live in another state. Is it possible for me to add myself as another
line to their account and get a number with a local area code and just
pay them $20 a month? Is this a bad idea?
\_ Do area codes even matter anymore now? Most people I know just call
me with their cell phones (or company phone) and which area code
you're in doesn't make much of a difference to them.
\_ I might be possible now. I had a similar situation last year. AT&T
said that they were working on multi-area code family plans but
that they didn't have one available yet. I had to buy a separate
plan ~ $30/mo.
\_ How about this: Get on their plan with a number in their area code
then tell the cell phone company you're moving and want a new phone
number. Only wrinkle is if your company uses different frequencies
in different regions and your phone only covers one band. |
| 2004/3/29-30 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:12918 Activity:nil |
3/29 Is it typical for cellular providers to offer a waiver of activation
fees? Do you have to go to a local dealer to get a deal like that,
or what? Thanks.
\_ tmobile doesn't, but instead you can get huge rebates that cover
it and more instead. Search for tmobile on http://amazon.com.
\_ i've bought cell phones for friends and family from http://amazon.com
and http://letstalk.com. both offer great prices, but letstalk lets
you talk to a person. this is helpful if you want to do family
plans where you are transferring 2 numbers or other non-
standard business. they go back and forth on who offers better
deals.
\_ so in general, do you guys prefer getting service from local
dealers or online places, and why?
\_ Ob-I prefer getting service from yermom.
\_ http://attws.com Order online for waived activation fees
\_ one year or two year commitment? |
| 2004/3/21-23 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:12788 Activity:nil |
3/21 I have a lot of old cell phones. They are from 5 years old to
maybe 2 years old. I don't need them. Is there a charity or some
other good use for these? I am not sure if they can still be used.
They all have SPRINT logos on them, but the phones are made by
Motorola, Kyocera, and such. --dim
\_ when I worked at motorola, they collect old cell phones
for domestic abuse victims. don't know if it's this
organization (I am still using my first cell phone (a
clunky old startac)):
http://www.wirelessfoundation.org/DonateAPhone
Try a "donate a cell phone" google search for more
choices but I guess you know that already.
\_ http://accrc.org also takes used cell phones. The older ones are probably
scrap, but they'll dispose of them in an enviornmentally-correct
way for free.
\_ i dumped a couple of my old phones at a local verizon store.
they give you some tax writeoff and will redistribute them
to domestic abuse victims. |
| 2004/3/15-16 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:12678 Activity:kinda low |
3/15 I have Verizon and have been pretty happy with the service till
recently. I no longer have signal in my apartment, and I've verified
this with other Verizon customers in the apartment. I called
them up to fix up the cell/repeater but they said they don't have
any problem in my area. What to do now?
\_ Take your number and run, boy.
\_ What phone do you have? Has there been construction nearby?
\_ I have T720. I verified this with other Verizon Wireless
customers using other phone and they have the same
problem.
\_ OK, that phone's tri-mode, so that's not the problem.
Have you updated the prefered roaming list lately? To do
that, go somewhere with a strong digital signal and dial
*228 and follow the voice prompts to "Update your PRL".
Your phone should reboot when it's done. See if that
improves your signal.
Ooops I mean I have T720i. Not sure what the "i" means but
it must be something significant. Anyways I did update it
while talking to the cust rep and she said try that fro a few
days, and if still no luck I can change the phone for free.
But I seriously doubt it's the phone becuase I can use it
pretty much anywhere, AND I've confirmed with other Verizon
customers in the same building that they don't have service.
So... now sure what to do next.
\_ The T720i? On Verizon? That's a GSM phone. If you have a
GSM phone with Verizon it would go to roam all the time. If
you actually have a CDMA phone and your reception got a lot
worse recently, I'd blame either a new building between you
and the cell site. Or else a bunch of new Verizon customers
in your neighborhood are causing the cell site to 'breathe'. |
| 2004/2/10-11 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:29790 Activity:high |
2/10 Bluetooth phones are hackable:
http://news.com.com/2100-1009_3-5155927.html?tag=xlr8yourmac |
| 2004/2/6-7 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:12122 Activity:nil |
2/5 I use my cell phone only occasionally. Does anyone have any
recommendations for prepaid plans in the Bay Area? TIA.
\_ The cheapest prepaid (on a $/month basis) is AT&T. Most expensive,
by far is Verizon. -- Verizon non-prepaid user
\_ AT&T rocks...if you renew your acct with more minutes within
45 days, the remaining minutes roll over. The only thing bad
are the phones you get with this plan. This is a great plan if
you don't use a wireless phone much, but still need to use one
occassionally.
\_ Don't know if you care since you're going prepaid, but a number
of my friends had serious issues porting away from AT&T, and they
sold me a locked GSM phone without informing me that it was
locked. Consequently I don't do business with AT&T, and
discourage others from giving them money. Basically I don't
want to support a corrupt and dishonest phone company. ymmv.
- dans (Happy T-Mobile Customer) |
| 2004/1/20 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:11845 Activity:low |
1/19 T-Mobile coverage in the bay area. Good? No?
\_ T-Mobile uses GSM, so they have the exact same
coverage as Cingular(SBC/PacBell), and share the same
towers.
\_ I wish SprintPCS will have same coverage as
Verizon by virtue of both of them using CDMA.
\_ They each can roam onto each others networks, but I don't think
Verizon has any need. There's very few extra places they would
gain reach to, they'd be taking on a bunch of extra traffic at
a lower (to them) price per minute, and they'd nix their single
biggest competitive advantage, which is that their network is
better than everyone else's.
\_ tmobile piggybacks on cingular in some areas, but have
been deploying their own network on their own towers or
their own antennas on someone elses towers
\_ I'm clueless about cellphones. What provider and what type
(GSM vs CDMA) should I go for to have the best coverage (south
bay, SF and Berkeley) and not have a lot of roaming charges?
\_ Coverage is less dependent on technology and based more
on how much your provider is willing to spend on building
dense networks. Sprint sucks. Verizon and AT&T are relatively
good and Cingular tends to oversubscribe. I personally like
GSM because of the removable SIM card which allows you to
take your phone overseas and use a local calling card.
But just to summarize the local providers:
Sprint: CDMA
Verizon: CDMA
AT&T: GSM, non-GSM TDMA
TMobile: GSM
Cingular: GSM
Nextel: iDEN?
\_ What about Japan?
\_ Cingular, DIE DIE DIE!!! Dropped calls (oversubscribe) in densely
populated place, and no signal in some suburbs. DIE DIE DIE!!!!!
I've tried AT&T (GSM) and it's the same shit. I've also tried AT&T
(TDMA) and it's pretty decent. Right now I'm using Verizon. Costs
a lot but it's worth it. |
| 2004/1/19 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:11827 Activity:nil |
1/18 If I have an AT&T Nokia GSM phone, can I use it in Japan? If
so, I assume that if someone in Japan wanted to reach me, they
would have to call my number in the US. But, can I replace
the SIM card and get temp service in Japan so that people in
Japan can reach me?
\_ Unfortunately, Japan uses a Japan-only protocol called UMTS
so your phone won't work there. Korea is also screwed up
in that they use CDMA. You have the U.S. to thank for that.
You can find out more info on each country at
http://www.attws.com/business/plans/international/disc_roaming.jhtml
\_ Then, there is China, who is trying to be different:
http://www.tdscdma-forum.org
\_ If you are in Japan, you are out of luck completley. Even if you
are traveling to GSM area such as China and Europe, you need to
make sure two things: 1. Your phone is so-called tri-band GSM
phone. The reason behind this is that everywhere else in the
world uses frequency 1800 MHZ, but here in USA, the military
occupied 1800 MHZ and not willing to release it. As result,
USA's GSM uses 1900 MHZ. Typically, you need to make sure your
GSM phone has ability to use 1900 MHZ (given, considered that you
bought in USA) and one of the frequencies: 1800 MHZ or 900 MHZ,
with 900 MHZ as remote second choice. Most tri-band phone uses
all three (1900/1800/900) frequencies.
2. Before you take off, call AT&T as ask them to unlock your
phone. Most of the GSM phones sold in USA are locked to a
specific carrier, thus, you won't able to use other SIM card.
They could easily unlock the phone by sending you some weir
SMS or something like that.
\_ No can do. AT&T refuses to provide the network unlock codes
because "AT&T works overseas". That's just AT&T bullshit.
You can get your phone unlocked at many Chinatown shops.
I got mine unlocked at the AT&T store in Cupertinio Village
for about $20. If you go with T-Mobile or Cingular, they'll
do it for you.
Then, it's just matter of buying a pre-paid SIM card at whatever
airport you arrived in. Very convenient.
-GSM/GPRS fan
\_ All this talk, but it won't work at all in Japan? -op
\_ No, it won't. The first response already answered your
question, but, since you are either illiterate or a
chowderhead (that's a technical term), I'll explain it in
simple terms you can understand. Of course, that still
won't help if the problem is the former. You can't use a
GSM phone in Japan for the same reason you can't use a GSM
phone with Verizon or Sprint service here in the US. The
hardware radio in your phone uses a different technology
that operates at a different frequency and uses a
different protocol compared to the hardware radio of a
Verizon or Sprint phone (various flavors of CDMA) or a
Japanese phone (UMTS). Get it? - wielder of the cluestick |
| 2003/11/28-12/1 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:11260 Activity:nil |
11/28 Cell phone experts: I have an old phone with verizon. Somebody
recently gave me a newer CDMA phone that was also with verizon.
Can I switch my number from my old phone to the new phone by myself?
Or do I need to go to verizon (and get charged a fee possibly?) I've
been playing around with this new phone to see if there's a change
number option. I'm not good at these gadgets. Thanks.
\_ Go to Verizon. - cell phone expert
\_ remove old sim card, insert in new phone?
\_ That's only for european phones.
\_ only works for GSM phone which is not being locked by
the carrier. AT&T and T-Mobile is known for locking its
phones. Cingular is starting to do the same thing
\_ You can either go to Verizon or just call up customer support
and they'll guide you through it. It only takes a few minutes,
and no, it doesn't cost. Look online for their 1-800 number.
\_ Go to Verizon. |
| 2003/11/25-26 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:11226 Activity:moderate |
11/25 Anyone used the Sony Ericsson T616 phone yet? I'm really tired of
the Motorola-style flip phones...
\_ While I don't really like motorola's phones, I do find flip phones
\_ While I don't really like motorola's phones, i do find flip phones
more comfortable to talk on, and find they give better audio quality
more comfortable to talk on, and find they give better audio quality
\_ The T616 suffers from horrible reception, at least much worse than
old v60i. Fun to play with, though, if you have a strong signal.
[format only because you had content]
\_ I have a T616 and I like it more and more. However, I don't use
any of the fancy features at the moment -- camera, GPRS, ringtones,
Java, bluetooth -- and in that respect it has exactly the same
utility to me as all my past, less-featurefull, Ericsson phones. --tobin
Some notes:
- The phone is tiny! fits in a shirt pocket, yet is comfortable
to use. This is perhaps one of the greatest selling points.
Most competing phones are incredibly bulky by comparison.
- The T616 will not work in Europe. The T610 does.
- The display is a bit difficult to read in direct sunlight.
- AT&T wireless coverage has been excellent everywhere I've been
*except* in Berkeley, where coverage in buildings is basically
non-existant. However, there is an antenna on Etcheverry hall,
so outdoor coverage on the campus is good. Along interstates
it's almost always full bars. Note however that TDMA coverage
(AT&T "Digital" as opposed to GSM) is vastly more widespread,
but is not supported by Ericsson phones (they typically cater
to the GSM market) but is [hopefully] going away, in favor of
GSM.
- Voice quality has been excellent everywhere where service has
been available. It seems to be an all-or-nothing thing.
- The menus are deeper than need be. It can take a lot of button
pushes to accomplish something.
- It can run Java programs that you download! I haven't tried this
yet, but it sounds like it could make the phone the best thing since
the TI-85.
\_ Is this just a troll to piss off HP calculator people
or are you really dumb enough to like the TI-85?
There's a name for calculators that don't use rpn:
"communist turd counters."
- A headset thingee is included, and works well.
- The built-in web browser is highly standards compliant (someone
I met from Opera ran all sorts of browser tests on my phone and
apparently the browser surpasses IE most of the time). However,
the whole web-browser-on-a-phone doesn't seem to have $8/month
worth of utility to me.
for the person on the other end because them mic is closer to you
for the person on the other end because the mic is closer to your
mouth. |
| 2003/11/16-17 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:11095 Activity:nil |
11/15 So I have AT&T wireless and the signal is far worse at my apt (in the
LA area) than it was a year ago. I called AT&T to ask about why
the service is worse than before. The representative explained
that they are probably increasing GSM in my area. And that because
the GSM signals are stronger, somehow the TDMA (or whatever the old
system is called) signals are weaker. So I asked her if they are
taking down the TDMA towers. She said no, but that the GSM makes the
TDMA weaker. I'm not an EE guy, but that doesn't make sense to me.
Am I missing something? Or was she just stupid? My thinking is
that the signal is crappy because there are too many users for a given
tower.
\_ Portable Wireless Numbers are coming Nov 24th. Wait until then
and threaten to leave to another service provider. They'll
probabbly try to get you to stay by offering you a free GSM
phone.
\_ They would never take down a tower, because they are expensive to
put up. They might, however reallocate some spectrum that was
formerly TDMA to GSM uses. The more users=worse signal argument
seems to most plausible, though.
\_ You too? My old tdma at&t phone isn't what it used to be either.
\_ I called AT&T again and this time was fortunate enough to
actually talk to someone intelligent. He thought that the
problem was that my phone was old. He was very confident that
the existence of GSM would have no affect on TDMA. I've had
the same phone for 5 or 6 years. The phones aren't that
expensive and the battery life will be much better than my old
phone. So I think I'll get a new phone before too long. -op
\_ Ever heard of a 'Preferred Roaming List'? Ask your operator
how to do a 'PRL Update'. This will make your phone aware of
towers that have been added since you bought the phone. You
should ideally update your phone's PRL every 3-6 months. It's
like getting a fresh routing table. If it's been 5-6 years I'm
not surprised your phone can't find a tower.
\_ When AT&T first started the GSM service, I know some people
were frustrated that the phones would try to hang on to a
poor GSM signal instead of switching to the stronger TDMA
network when available. Has anyone had good luck with the
AT&T GSM network of late in northern CA?
\_ I don't think GSM phones have TDMA capabilities. It
can't just switch off to a different mode on-the-fly.
If it did, that would be one damn expensive phone.
\_ why so? --knows nothing about phones
\_ The person I talked to at the time had one, it seemed
like the std... Didn't get the details, though.
\_ Verizon has the best coverage |
| 2003/11/14-15 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:11078 Activity:very high |
11/14 What's a good site for getting FREE (I say FREE) cell phone ring tones.
It could even be the kind you have to enter the notes by hand. Gracias.
\_ FOAD
\_ I'll second that. -mice
\_ for the love of god, don't use custom ring tones, okay?
\_ HEY MACARENA!
\_ If I owned a gun, you'd be dead.
\_ this little one's not worth the effort.
now, come, let me get you something...
\_ I have ten.
\_ All it takes is one.
\_ What, one for each finger? Go, Johnny Socko!
\_ Please die. Cell phones are annoying enough. Now we're going to
have another 100 million cell phone using idiots using the cell
as their only phone soon and each moron thinking they're special
unique with their obnoxious and tweaky ringtone set so loud it
wakes up the dead two BART cars over. Put it to rest.
\_ there are technical solutions to deal with assholes who use
cell phones, but then you become an asshole as well.
\_ Wow, I never know what's going to set you socially-retarded geeks off.
You know, I know how to set the ring volume to low. - o.p.
\_ *clap* Nice troll op. Nice follow up troll too.
\_ *we're* the social retards? you're the one who wants to annoy
everyone around you with a ring-tone.
\_ Here's the California Fight Song! Not free though.
http://csua.org/u/50e |
| 2003/10/28 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:10822 Activity:moderate |
10/27 What's the word on mobile telephone service in Berkeley? And GSM
versus TDMA?
\_ TDMA is old. All TDMA service is being upgraded to GSM. CDMA is
technologically superior but only used in the U.S., South Korea and
to some extent, Japan. I use Verizon and my only complaint is
price
to some extent, Japan. I use Verizon and my only complaint is price
\_ CDMA has countrywide coverage 1x (144k) in Japan by KDDI. CDMA
is also used in China (China Unicom).
\_ I thought GSM coverage in China is FAR MORE superior.
\_ You are right. CHU's CDMA coverage is good in many
areas but still spotty in say Guangzhou. It's a far newer
network (started building it less than 2 years ago) so
there should be improvements as it matures. CHU already
had a GSM network when it decided that it wanted a
overlapping CDMA one, probably due to government
influence to gain some experience with CDMA technologies
because of its military applicability. Another plus
is that a 2G CDMA system can be transitioned to 2.5G/3G
is also used in China (China Unicom).
\_ I thought GSM coverage in China is FAR MORE superior.
much more easily than a GSM to WCDMA transition.
\_ old AT&T wireless was TDMA, right? How is their new GSM system?
when it first came out people were really unhappy with it, has
it gotten better than their old TDMA system yet?
\_ TDMA and GSM are simliar technologies. I don't know about
you, but my experience of AT&T's TDMA in New York City
was hell on earth.
\_ I've had TDMA, AT&T in N Cal since 1998. It was pretty good till
I went to Southern Cal. Less coverage. Dropped calls. But then
again I traveled a lot in S Cal than I did in N Cal (where I stayed
mostly in one place, so that may be it, I don't know). At any rate
TDMA sucked in S Cal and I decided to switch to AT&T's G3 network,
which was GSM based, thinking that maybe coverage or quality
would be better. WRONG!!!!!!!!!! So I cancelled GSM and got
Verizon. Absolutely no complaint. Verizon is PCS+CDMA+Analog.
Ok I guess my only complaint with Verizon is the price, but you
really get what you'd pay for. BTW I would NOT do Cingular and
T-Mobile, they make AT&T look like really good carriers.
-ucla cs student
\_ What's PCS? I thought PCS is just a marketing term, or does
it refer to a frequency band?
\_ PCS is a marketing term which refers to CDMA operating at
1900MHz. Many Verizon phones can 'roam' onto Sprint's 1900MHz
network in the event that there's a hole in Verizon's coverage
It's also worth mentioning that 1900MHz signals do not
penetrate buildings as well as say, Verizon's 800MHz.
it gotten better than their old TDMA system yet?
T-Mobile, they make AT&T look like really good carriers.
-ucla cs student
\_ Frequencies do not "penetrate". They bounce. 800Mhz
bounces more easily than 1900Mhz, which require good
line of sight. -ucla student |
| 2003/10/24-26 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:10775 Activity:low |
10/24 Exactly how secure is CDMA? I'm asking because I do a lot of banking,
stock trade, etc via my cell phone and I'm wondering if land line
is more secure. I remember a while ago my friend showed me his
scanner which scanned in the 800-900Mhz and we heard a LOT of really
good stuff.
\_ Analog cells also use 800MHz. That's what you heard. I'm not sure
CDMA is truly secure, but it is scrambled enough to stymie Joe Shmoe
with a scanner.
\_ I think you need hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment
to descramble the signal, and you also have to be talking on your
cell phone near the thief with the equipment for many days (due to
the long code with a 42 day cycle time) before he can descramble
it unless he got really lucky. Then he still have to deal with the
encryptions.
cell phone near the thief with the equipment for many days
\_ Just wear your tinfoil hat.
\_ I don't think the CDMA standard has any real encryption built in.
The security you get from scrambling and spread spectrum parts
of CDMA are minimal. Specifically, you can lock in on a given
pseudo-noise sequence in time which is linear in the block
length. In summary, it's not that secure if someone wants to
to put the effort in to crack it and you could probably do it
with less than $30K of equipment.
\_ and if you have that level of knowledge and that much equipment
is it worth your time and risk to engage in petty fraud?
i doubt it.
\_ Sure it is. That's what criminal .orgs like the mob do. They
don't rake in millions on a few big scores. They mostly
engage in lots of little petty crimes despite what hollywood
would have you think. Reality is a lot more boring than TV.
\_ You're correct, but this is mainly true for payment-
before he can descramble it unless he got really lucky. Then he
still have to deal with the encryptions.
\_ Just wear your tinfoil hat.
would have you think. Reality is a lot more boring than TV.
related stuff (credit cards billing, etc.) -John |
| 2003/10/2-3 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:10432 Activity:nil |
10/2 What are LG phones, are they any good?
\_ LG used to be called 'Lucky Goldstar'. They now make all kinds of
electronics. I got an LG VX1 phone ~1 year ago. I'm quite happy
with it, although the phone book interface is a little awkward. I
heard they improved it on later models, though. |
| 2003/9/25 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:10320 Activity:nil |
9/25 What are some good Nokia tri-band phones? Want tri-band to maximize
coverage. ok thx.
\_ Nokia 3100 :p |
| 2003/9/16 [Politics/Domestic/California, Consumer/CellPhone, Politics/Domestic] UID:10207 Activity:kinda low |
9/15 What are good 17"/18" LCD displays? The viewsonics seem popular
and cheap. Any gotchas? Are 18" displays worth the $100-$200 premium
they're currently going for? -saarp
\_ Solarism
\_ Samsung
\_ You mean Samsuck? I have one. I also have a Viewsonic. And
I also have an Eizo. Samsuck has decent panel, but supporting
electronics is crap. Viewsonic's panel is not that great
(VX800) and the electronics is also hit or miss. Viewsonic
VE170 uses old technology panel, but otherwise, it's just fine.
I love my Eizo in every way. Conclusion is that I recommend
Eizo.
\_ Eizo? It's more popular in asia than over here right?
Haven't seen them around for some time.
\_ Eizo is part of Nanao Japan. They don't seem to care
about the "cheap is everything" consumer market. You
can really see the quality in these things. They're
somewhat expensive than others, but you get what you
pay for. Newegg has them cheaper than most others, but
you pay tax in CA.
Never seen them around for some time.
\_ There's only about 3 LCD manufacturers for the screen part. The
rest you'll have to compare the features vs price vs warrantee.
Find out what the dead pixel replacement policy is and if you
can live with 10 dead or semi dead pixels before it kicks in.
\_ I service other people's computers, so my experience is that
Viewsonics are very hit and miss. One customer had two consecutive
replacements fail on her (bad capacitor and a bad inverter). Other
customers have had similar problems. About half the installs never
report any problems. Perhaps this is a batch issue. Quality is
so-so (according to my eyes), not as vibrant as others I've seen.
Samsung, Sony, etc. seem to have less problems, but I've seen
failures on all brands at least once. LG-Phillips/Hitachi/Sharp
are the ones I know in terms of LCD manufaturers. LCD quality
AFAIK is dependent on batch. If they produce a good batch you
get a good vibrant screen. If you get a crappy batch you tend to
can live with 10 dead or semi dead pixels before it kicks in.
get washed out colors. YMMV. |
| 2003/9/12-14 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:10178 Activity:nil |
9/12 What are the pros/cons of using GSM vs. TDMA phones? Thinking about
Nokia 3560 vs. 6200 vs. 3595
\_ TDMA is on the way out in this country, being replaced with GSM
Buy a GSM phone over a TDMA one every time, although it might be
nice to get a phone that does both if you can find one.
OTOH, if you mean CDMA in stead of TDMA, that's another story
\_ cool thanks. How about COVERAGE? Which one has a better
coverage? The ones I've looked at have GSM/GPRS, whatever
GPRS means...
\_ Well, ask 10 different people about their cell service and you
will get 10 different answers. Also depends a lot on where
you plan to use it. GPRS=General Packet Radio Service, which
is the data service for GSM phones. I can tell you more -dgies
\_ GSM has been cracked, but being able to switch phones is cool.
\_ The GSM crack is not at all trivial to exploit. Probably only
worth worrying about if you think the CIA is out to kill you.
\_ You ALL think I'm paranoid!!!
\_ Which service providers are using TDMA these days?
\_ AT&T and Cingular have parts of their network using TDMA still
\_ I have found that the TDMA network (AT&T's) is far more
widespread and available than any of the current GSM
networks. If coverage is a must, TDMA. If not, I'd
see about finding something else. For example, when
I was in New Orleans for LISA in 2000, you could get
TDMA or AMPS coverage, but not GSM. Check up on the
coverage in areas you want to use your phone. --Jon
\_ only AT&T at the time was using TDMA. and they are moving
everything to GSM/GPRS themselves. So, I would say get a
GSM phone. It's a much more flexible technology platform.
Not that you would care much about the rest of the world,
but if you do, get one of those tri-band GSM phone, so next
time you go travel, you can go to their 7-11 and get those
pre-paid phone card and you are good to go.
-GSM fan
\_ Not as many countries have CDMA compared to GSM. Mostly
just US, China and Japan. Be that as it may, why is it
that these CDMA service providers don't come together so
that people's phones can roam in these three countries
at least?
\_ you forgot about Korea. GSM allow you to decouple
phone services from phone itself. All you need to do
is to change the sim card. With pre-paid SIM card
widely avaliable, GSM allow you to have the flexibility
to switch to a local service when you arrive there.
Same thing can not be said about CDMA.
\_ The point is the same can be done in CDMA. There
is nothing in CDMA that makes it more difficult
to do it vis-a-vis GSM.
\_ CDMA in Japan (and not inking deals with GSM) has been a way the\
Japanese have controlled their market for a long time. Until recently.... Even\
in Korea, if you want to use your GSM chip, you still need to rent a Korean pho\
ne and pay an extra surcharge on all calls (in & out).
\_ Largest carrier in Japan, NTT Docomo, doesn't even
use CDMA.
\ No, they use Imode, which is a completely different
protocol relying on large numbers of very small cells
(perfect for built-up urban environments like lots of
Japan.) They have been trying frantically to push Imode
in Europe for a while now--there was a pilot scheduled
with TMobile a while ago, but I don't think it ever got
anywhere. -John |
| 2003/7/23-27 [Computer/SW/Security, Consumer/CellPhone] UID:29119 Activity:high |
7/23 Anyone have any experience checking their soda email thru t-mobile's
"t-zones" service? I just got a new phone that I'm messing around
with and it seems pretty cool except for a couple glitches that I've
been calling tech support about and wondering if anyone's gotten it
to work right. thanks. - rory
\_ http://www.ntk.net/2003/07/25/dohbad.gif -John
\_ Who the heck came up with that name. "combination skin and oily
\_ you need an exfoliating mMode cleanser. - rory
\_ rory! I fantasize about giving you a bikini wax.
\_ WTF is going on here.
\_ Probably the same people who tried putting a computer store
in the old Weird Stuff building in Sunnyvale (across from the
old Fry's) and decided T-Zone was a much cooler name than
Technology Zone. Didn't last long.
T-zones let me check my email ANYWHERE!" -chialea
\_ I haven't had any luck, except through very basic SSH
access through my P800.
\_ and does anyone use the t-mobile internet (unlimited gprs for
19.99 on top of voice plan)? does it suck? --karlcz
\_ I think the rates have changed. I'm getting 1MB for 2.99,
and I can upgrade to unlimited bandwidth for $10.
\_ that is for t-zones WAP service. tmobile internet
lets you use your phone (or pcmcia card) as a gprs
network interface for your laptop, pda, etc.
\_ I know a couple people with t-mobile and they are angrier about
lock of service than even the cingular users I know. Data, voice,
neither seem to work worth a damn. No wonder if is so cheap.
\_ I heartily disagree... perhaps the problem is your friends'
phones? I recently switched to a Nokia 6610 (been using
t-mobile for a while) and service dramatically improved. I'm
almost never w/out connection. Plus, their customer service
is fantastic. extremely helpful phone people. I lost my
previous phone and was given a full month credit just because.
\_ out of curiosity where in bay area are you?
\_ Manhattan. heh
\_ I get full signal in mid-peninsula and south bay. But I haven't
tried east bay where my friend has almost no signals.
\_ Update: alright, so I figured out the problem, but would like to
come up with a better solution. When I check my soda email with
my phone via POP3, it leaves all my msgs on the server but moves
them off the spool to a mailbox file named "mbox" in my home dir.
Usually I check my email with Outlook Express, which as far as I
can tell, just checkes for msgs on the spool. Is there any way
I can get these two different mail-checking methods to work
together? is this standard behavior?
\_ you have pop3 over ssl working with soda? i never got that
working
\_ I use pop3 over an ssh tunnel. ie, localhost:110 on my home
machine |
| 2003/7/9-10 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:28975 Activity:high |
7/9 How do I disable text messaging on my mobile? I'm receiving spams
regularly. Cingular customer service said they didn't know - after
putting me on hold for 18 minutes. Thanks.
\_ same question applies for Verizon
\_ http://vtext.com > TXT Dashboard > TXT Personalization > TXT Blocking |
| 2003/6/6-8 [Consumer/CellPhone, Finance/Investment] UID:28658 Activity:moderate |
6/6 You can keep your cell phone number if you switch carriers:
http://csua.org/u/35g (story.news.yahoo.com)
\_ Well, in November.
\_ This is the kind of crap you get when you let the government
meddle in the free market.
\_ There's an e-gap between the rich and poor. We need taxes on
hardware and software to fund a technofare program to train the
poor on these technologies so they won't be left behind. Free
cell phones and air time for the poor! Down with your VRWC to
oppress the poor by keeping cell phones from them!
\_ What does that have to do with cell phone number portability? |
| 2003/5/28 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:28567 Activity:nil |
5/27 Does anyone here have a TMobile cell phone plan? In general have
they been reliable for you?
\_ they use Cingular towers but have their own capacity |
| 2003/5/24-26 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:28543 Activity:nil |
5/24 Does anyone have anything good or bad to say regarding the
LG VX4400 or the Motorola T720 phone? Other than price
(the LG is $200, Motorola is $130), are they as equivalent
as they appear? Thanks.
\_ I doubt they are equivalent. For example, Motorola likes
to use their own DSP, which they can't get anyone else to
buy. Still, all the hot azn chics I met liked the T720.
- motorolan |
| 2003/3/27-28 [Consumer/CellPhone, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:27881 Activity:kinda low |
3/27 CDMA or GSM in Reconstructed Iraq?
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/2171271
Thoughts: It's noble that the US plans to use US funds to install
a wireless telephone system in Iraq. It galls the hell out of me
that we're now about to wrangle about whether we get licensing fees
for either the makers of CDMA or GSM. Proposal: Howzabout the
makers of whichever system they do install waive all licensing
fees for the next ten years as a token of appreciation for the
damage this war (and I mean from both sides) is inflicting on
the Iraqi people? --erikred
\_ Huh? Why should Qualcomm carry the burden? Or would they get
money from US taxpayers to make up for the licensing fees?
Make it phones from Motorola, infrastructure from Lucent, and
licensing fees for Qualcomm. Nothing for Siemens or Alcatel
or those Hans Blix type viking countries. Oh, nothing for
Nortel either.
\_ I wanna see Yahoo/SBC convince Iraqi citizens
to "upgrade"
\_ It gets harder and harder to believe this war is about
humanitarian reasons when the profit-vultures are already
trying to divide up the spoils.
\_ are you kidding me??? you actually thought this had
anything to do with "humanitarian reasons"???
\_ Do we really want to install wireless phone network there? In
Somalia, it was the wireless phone by which the warloads got wind of
our special forces' strike. Else they wouldn't be prepared and
there would've been fewer US casualties. |
| 2003/2/21-23 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:27487 Activity:high |
2/21 How to send personalized ringtone to Nokia GSM phone like 8390?
What ringtone format does 8390 accept?
\_ I think it's still a monophonic phone, just get Nokia Logomanager
crack it, and beam converted MIDI files via the IrDA port.
\_ Just FYI, in case this was accidental, correct English would be
"How would I send a personalized ringtone..."
\_ Racist!
\_ Yup. I hate whites, blacks, jews, austrailian aborigines,
Just FYI, in case this was accidental, _/
it's spelled "Australian."
\_ he(she) particulary hates all people that correct
him(her).
japanese and chinese and all related asians, American and
Indian Indians, Eskimos, and, by God, pretty much every
creature that goes on two legs except birds. I also hate
Catholics, Muslims, Protestants, athiests, agnostics,
animists, Buddhists, and pretty much every person with
any religious pretentions whatever. And in particular,
I hate you.
\_ Racist!
\_ Yep poster is bigotted KKK
\_ That's something I'd like to figure out, too. Certainly one
thing that didn't work was the old Nokia format (messages that
started with //SCKL...). -geordan
\_ dial 1800 NERDS R US
\_ All you fucking idiots with your stupid ring tones need to die.
One of the most annoying things about public transit is the endless
crap noise cluttering the air from every asshole who thinks he's
got such a kewl ringt0ne that we all need to hear it on high for
the entire 90 second play time. Death to ringtone idiots!
\_ Ditto. And turn the fuckin things off in restaurants,
or learn not to chatter on them. And at least please
keep your voice down in public. I know the US has crappy
mobile networks, but that doesn't mean you have to scream
for 10 minutes. -John
\_ If you have a Nokia, select "quiet" ring - you know the one that
sounds like a normal phone. Please. Do it for the children.
It's not good to expose the children to visceral manslaughter.
\_ No why can't the Mossad do something useful and kill non-standard
ringtone users?
\_ I think they have been but there's only just so much even Mossad
can do.
\_ a gift to you from the Mossad: a brand new Nokia 8390!
\_ "Hello, is dis Ali al-Akhbar?" "Yes, hello" "Are you
sure dis is Ali al-Akhbar?" "Yes, it is." "Are you
really really sure?" "YES WHY?" *BOOM*
\_ Is it the new exploding model? |
| 2003/1/4-5 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:26983 Activity:high |
1/3 Nextel, Verizon or Cingular? (for use in Berkeley, mainly)
\_ Verizon.
\_ Cingular coverage in berkeley sucks ass.
\_ I agree. Calling a Cingular phone is as useful
as calling up the voicemail directly.
\_ Cingular sucks ass, period.
\_ Has anyone here tried Metro PCS? |
| 2002/12/15-17 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:26821 Activity:high |
12/15 anyone uses ATT GSM? how's the reception in bay area compare
to cingular?
\_ I live in the south bay. My roommate has an ATT TDMA phone
and I have an ATT GSM phone. He gets 5 bars while I get 2 in
my apartment. For the most part, GSM's pretty good but I get
some crackling noises every once in a while. It's still
infinitely better than Sprint where I frequently got zero
reception and dropped calls. -Sony T68i user
\_ for me att gsm has better reception. i couldn't get a signal
in my house when i had cingular, but with att gsm i get 3/5 bars.
\_ which att plans/phones are gsm?
\_ how does it compare to at&t tdma?
\_ can someone explain the difference between GSM & TDMA? |
| 2002/10/2 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:26077 Activity:kinda low |
10/2 I saw a fluff news piece that was really pushing the sidekick
(sold by t-mobile). Now my wife wants one. Anyone know anything
about these?
\_ extensive Chronicle review: http://csua.org/u/359
\_ I want one but it said coming soon on the website.
\_ It's out. Coworker got one yesterday. |
| 2002/10/1-2 [Consumer/CellPhone, Consumer/PDA] UID:26070 Activity:kinda low |
10/1 Any opinion on Sony Ericsson t68i? Does anyone have it?
Any luck getting Bluetooth to work? How is AT&T service? Thanks.
\_ google group:alt.wireless.attws
\_ My friend has it bought a bluetooth headset and it works great.
He has three phone services cuz AT&T isn't great in the mountains. |
| 2002/9/30-10/1 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:26055 Activity:moderate |
9/30 Is it true that T-Mobile reception is as bad as Cingular? That's what
the Verizon sales rep was saying... TMobile is offering 1000 minutes
in San Diego for $40/mo...
\_ To clarify what the english-P people are trying to say below:
tmobile uses the cingular network so reception is *exactly* the
same.
\_ They share the same infrastructure / digital network.
\_ to elaborate, gsm:cingular::gprs:tmobile
\_ actually no.. they both are gsm.. gprs can be explained
as umm, data over gsm. and t-mobile is voicestream, and
has been around for a while, just now building out their
own infrastructure in california.
\_ I read in a tmobile for blackberry ad today that tmobile
is a trademark of Deutsche Telekom.
\_ The elaboration seems to imply that they are on different digital
networks (gsm vs gprs)... do they share the same transmitters?
\_ THat's not quite right. T-mobile is currently using Cingular's
towers for California area until they build their own.
\_ In other words, they suck. Where did you get this info?
\_ T-mobile rep. What the other writer is true, too. it is
known as VoiceStream in other parts of America and
Deutsche Telekom in Europe. Their capacity is better
than Cingular's - that is less mysteriously dropped
calls. But the coverage is the same - pretty bad in
some areas.
\_ Reformatted. -motd reformatd |
| 2002/9/10 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:25831 Activity:high |
9/9 Who makes the Cinema displays for Apple? --dim
\_ Didn't Apple sign a $100 Mil. Deal with Samsung? Think
they make the LCDs. -=Aubie
\_ I've read it's either LG or Samsung, but have no definite facts.
\_ we're so glad you showed up. |
| 2002/7/26-27 [Consumer/CellPhone, Industry/Startup] UID:25425 Activity:nil |
7/25 Donate your old cellphone: http://www.donateaphone.com \_ My company has a phone drive for this several months ago and \_ My company had a phone drive for this several months ago and collected more than a hundred phones. |
| 2002/6/23-24 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:25174 Activity:high |
6/23 Where did this brand of cell phones, Kyocera, come from? Is it new?
\_ Kyocera is a well-established Japanese company
\_ Qualcomm sold their handset unit to Kyocera a little over two
years ago. Cell phones have been sold under the Kyocera name
for a while now. -lcddave |
| 2002/5/24-26 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:24936 Activity:high |
5/24 best cellular provider in bay area?
\_ gsm: voicestream, otherwise at&t
\_ i thought voicestream hasn't started offering services in
the bay area. i agree with the at&t assessment though.
\_ verizon works well but is pricey
\_ not true. I have the $25 plan. It works great for my need.
100 peak and 3000 off-peak with home area covering northern
cal and Nevada. I will be on my third year with verizon.
\_ whatever you pick, make sure it is NOT cingular. it's a P.O.S.
\_ no Sprint either, also sucks.
\_ They all suck, but cingular sucks in bizarre and intriguing
ways. |
| 2002/3/14-15 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:24108 Activity:very high |
3/13 ok. My year long lease with verizon just expired. I'm shopping
around for new long distance cell phone carrier. Besides the
other variables I'm considering, there is customer service.
Any input on verizon, sprint, voicestream, etc? I'm doing my
homework, but just wanted to hear other stories. thanks.
\_ I have verizon since y2k and renewed it last year and recently
changed to $25 plan which is all I need since....my
gf has AT&T with free domestic long distance. AT&T network
and rate plans are comparable to verizon. Don't let Cingular
plans lure you. It sucks. Sprint sucked 4 years ago when
I had it. Don't know now.
\_ Unfortunately Sprint still sortof sucks. Here in Contra Costa
County, there are plenty of blind spot, esp. along I-680. I
have been an AT&T Wireless customer for 5 yrs and happy. Can't
comment much on Cingular although they're the only one that
provides GSM service, if you're into it. Verizon seems to be the
cream of the crop according to most people.
\_ Just last week I switched from Cingular to AT&T. With a 2 year
contract, you get 50% more minutes, which makes AT&T way better in
terms of price than any of the other players. Quality is also
quite good (way better than Sprint or Cingular).
\_ My wife had a Samsung SCH-210 phone under Verizon and the reception
around Downtown SF was very good. Now she has a Nokia 8260 under
AT&T and the reception at the same locations is noticeably worse.
Don't know if it's the phone or the network, but Nokia phones can't
be that bad.
\_ Nokia 8260 is bad in general. When my sister got hers, the
saleperson warned her that this model had many complaints from
his customers.
\_ I've had AT&T for about 1.5 years now. Service has been
consistently good. Reception was so-so with my old Nokia 8860.
The 8260 has the same internals as the 8860, but is cheaper to
produce. I now have an Ericsson R300LX, which has much better
reception. Don't get Cingular. They're WAY oversubscribed.
Ditto for Sprint (plus, Sprint network has lots of gaps).
Oh, yeah, Ericsson's usability engineers suck. UI on the Nokias
is MUCH better. -dans
\_ Anyone use Motorola phones? Are they any good?
\_ I use Motorola StarTac ST7797, which AT&T Wireless supports BUT
no longer resell (I bought one from E-Bay for under $50). I've
always liked it; was on ST7790 for 2 yrs until AT&T Wireless stop
supporting it. Verizon supports another version of the StarTac,
can't remember the model #. AT&T Wireless (if you decide to go
with them) would try to sell you the Motorola Talkabout, which is
a brick-looking thing that's kindof awkward. Reception on my old
ST7790 sucked but the ST7797 totally rocks! - jthoms
\_ if you don't need a local number, i've met people happy with
voicestream gsm they bought from the northwest. they are always
roaming but who cares if the price is right... i use cingular
and have found very even roaming coverage all over the US,
including chicago which was a dead spot for years. |
| 2002/1/7-8 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:23481 Activity:high |
1/7 Anyone has any good experience with website that allows one to
send SMS message? Please name a few...
\_ http://www.attws.com
\_ SMS in the US, or SMS in the civilized (well, the "Our cellular
phone system is standardized and doesn't use circa 1985 technology)
world? -dans
\_ SMS in US and Europe. Btw, I am using cingular network.
\_ So it breaks down like this: The US cell phone carriers use
different SMS standards so, generally speaking, it is
non-trivial to send an SMS across networks (i.e. AT&T
customer messages Cingular customer) in the US. At this
point, most of the US carriers provide web-based SMS gateways
to message their own customers. To the best of my knowledge,
there is no network-neutral SMS gateway in the US. Much of
the problem stems from the fact that most of the US carriers
implemented SMS messaging as a hack over their existing
half-baked text paging systems.
Totally different story in Europe. It's been a few months,
since I last looked, but there were several competing
web-based SMS gateways that could send to pretty much any
phone on the European GMS system. Most were charging a small
fee per message (~10 cents). Google should make it easy to
find specifics. -dans
\_ thanks for the detail explanation. interesting to
know the differnece between US and Europe.
\_ and cingular, at&t in western states, voicestream,
and more all operate GSM in the US (though on a
different frequency). they're also deploying
GSM/GPRS (GSM "3G") like mad. should be able to
message other GSM users worldwide from these
networks, but I don't use the messaging on mine so
I can't tell you for certain. search usenet for
any of those words in combination for lots of
lively discussions. |
| 2001/10/16-17 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:22757 Activity:high |
10/16 Comments on the quality of Cingular's coverage in the south and
east bay?
\_ starting in around March (around the time of the PacBell buyout)
service started really sucking... now it seems to be getting
better.
\_ beyond "it sucks hardcore"?
\_ that is being too kind. Expect to never have your phone ring.
Expect to never be able to get your messages. Expect to have
to try to call someone for an hour before you get through.
Complain and get... wait for it... FREE MINUTES! OH WOW.
\_ Too bad Cingular is the only one that works with Noika 8290.
\_ Are you one of those individuals who complain about every
wireless service, or does it really suck that bad?
\_ Ever since PacBell got bought by SBC and switched their name
to Cingular, it has been that bad. I, too, experience all
of the above mentioned problems. Cingular sucks ASS.
I've managed to get rebates by calling them up and complaining
about their service. I recommend all Cingular users to do the
same.
\_ I had Cel One for 5 years before changing to Cingular.
The only reason i switched was because CelOne had
terrible calling plans, service was reasonable.
Thought I could save money with Cingular since I was
making a lot of long distance phone calls.
Now I can't get signal either at home or at work, which
basically takes care of 99% of my normal use and I'm left
wondering why I have a celphone at all anymore.
\_ No, really cingular is crap. Everyone I know who has it
I have to call 4-5 times even to have a chance to get through
and I've watched them try to make calls. It is just pathetic.
Call. nope system busy. Call. nope system busy. Repeat
20 times.
\_ everyone agrees: Cingular sucks. so what's a good alternative in
terms of coverage? who's happy with their cell phone plan and
wants to tell us about it? |
| 2001/10/16-18 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:22756 Activity:high |
10/16 Best deal on a cell phone? I want a free phone and no charges for
incoming calls. Don't care about nationwide, roaming, etc.
\_ all cell plans charge you based on the minute. Incoming/outgoing
it doesn't matter.
\_ In the US this is true. It is different overseas.
\_ thank you mr pedantic. Go away.
\_ actually I think you can get free incoming calls with some
plan(s). I heard an ad for this on the radio. Dunno if it's
worth it.
\_ everyone agrees: Cingular sucks. so what's a good alternative in
terms of coverage? who's happy with their cell phone plan and
wants to tell us about it?
\_ Verizon works pretty well, but is pricey. -ausman
\_ AT&T is good. Plans are reasonable now. Verizon is pricey
but offer as good a coverage as AT&T. The voice quality is
better.
\_ I don't know about coverage area, but Verizon seems to provide
stronger signal in covered areas. I didn't know that until my
wife switched from Verizon to AT&T. She used to get good
connection with her Verizon phone in basements of buildings in
SF as well as in BART trains, but now she can't do that with her
AT&T phone. --- yuen
\_ What's wrong with Sprint? No one ever seems to mention them.
\_ Cheap but below average quality/coverage.
\_ Cheap but below average quality/coverage. Good customer
service. I work on some of their equipment, so blame me
if you get a disconnected call or no service.
\_ Quality of Sprint varies widely by location. I have
friends and relatives in various east-coast states who
have Sprint and don't have any problems. In the Bay Area,
Sprint sucks-- hard. Everyone I know with a Sprint phone
bitches constantly. -dans
\_ Sprint PCS has a multi-vendor approach for building
its network. That may be part of the reason for the
variation in quality and coverage.
\_ You want free incoming calls? Bwahhahahahahahahahahaha. Welcome
to the United States, land of the grossly inferior competing cell
phone standards. -dans
\_ I don't see how whether there are competing cell phone
standards is related to whether incoming calls are charged.
\_ The fact that incoming calls are universally charged in the
US is directly related to the fact that all the US cell
phone standards are grossly inferior to GSM (the cell phone
standard that the rest of the civilized world uses). This
is because virtually all of the US standards in use today
were developed in the early 80's and simply can't handle the
capacity that GSM can. The fact that we're still using
circa 1980 cell phone technologies is directly related to
the U.S. government's refusal to interfere with the
so-called "free market" that exists in the cellular space by
(gasp in horror) forcing the telcos to standardize! The
market isn't really free since every carrier needs to build
out it's own infrastructure, and this is prohibitively
expensive. So we have the situation that exists today: five
or six telcos carve up the profits, and all the customers
get inferior service from circa 1980 capacity networks. How
1337. -dans
\_ US cell phone networks and technology are not inferior
to GSM at all, just built up along a different technical
and business model. But paying for incoming calls is
pretty suck. -John
\_ You're paying for airtime - incoming outcoming is
irrelevent. What would suck is paying extra to call
someone because they have a cellular phone.
\_ Nah. China uses GSM almost exclusively (China Unicom
is just starting to build a CDMA network) but incoming
calls are still being charged. Also, how is CDMA
inferior to GSM? By all accounts CDMA is superior to
GSM technology-wise, which is the reason why all 3G
\_ I can understand why people hate being charged for
incoming calls, but I personally find it ok. Whether
incoming or outgoing, the call is going to occupy
bandwidth, so there is a cost to the service provider.
Also, from user's perspective, being reachable anywhere
is a mostly positively thing, and hence an added value.
If incoming calls are not charged, it likely would just
mean that they would charge more for outgoing calls.
This would be unfair for people who make a lot of
outgoing calls and receive few incoming calls. Charges
should be attributed to where cost is incurred and
where value is added.
standards are CDMA-based. GSM is only more prevalent
in the 2G space for the same reason windows is the
most common OS around. |
| 2001/9/15 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:22469 Activity:nil |
9/15 So does all the cell phone use on the hijacked flights prove the FAA
has been overreacting for years by banning cell phones? Or are they
going to claim that contributed to flight 93 crashing in PA? |
| 2001/6/2-7/20 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:21413 Activity:high |
6/01 Southwestern Bell buys Ameritech changes name to SBC than proceeds
to buy PacBell. BellAtlantic merged with Nynex and GTE and became
Verizon. Qwest buys USWest. Next, Cingular the combined wireless
assets of BellSouth and SBC- BellSouth's only major alliance:
Sprint ( long distance and wireless )
ATT ( long distance and wireless )
WorldCom ( MCI and others )
Can anyone make any sense of what is going on-- there is a defined
pattern and clearly something is going to happend to Bellsouth and
Sprint- they are basically the only guys still standing. -kinney
\_ It's called consolidation.
\_ It's called the "free market" choosing to form telecom cartels
by only buying from huge corporations, only to complain later.
\_ You're obviously too young to remember the true beginning, when
most of the above were part of AT&T, until it was slashed into
little bits by the Justice Dept. It's all just coming full
circle.
\_ to what end tho? do you think the gov't will be able to
regulate the monopoly?
\_ Go away kinney. |
| 2001/5/21 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:21306 Activity:very high |
5/18 My cell phone 1 yr. commitment runs out in a month. So what's the
best cell phone plan to get these days?
\_ I'm getting 1500 min/month almost anywhere in the bay area for
$49. AT&T.
\_ What's the night vs. weekend minute breakdown? do you have long-
distance? Where did you sign up for the plan? Thanks.
\_ 1500 anytime. 415/510/925/650/etc are all 'local' to me. I
can make LD calls but I have no idea what the charge is. I
don't use LD. I signed up at the local bestbuy.
\_ Mine too. Any suggestions? Any plans with free CA long distance for
~$30?
\_ if you're willing to only use your phone at night and weekend,
you can get unlimited local for $30 or unlimited nationwide
for $40 with Cingular
\_ quality-wise, AT&T (nee cell-one) is usually nearly as good as a
land line. Cingular also seems good, but no personal experience.
\_ My AT&T is land line quality... when I use land lines. My AT&T
cell doesn't come close but it's ok enough.
\_ Yes, quality may be good. However, TDMA means less bandwidth
compared to CDMA (SprintPCS, Verizon) resulting in higher prices.
\_ In theory that would be true. But Sprint is so thinly spread
out that the level of congestion you would find on a TDMA
network is better than Sprint.
\_ I am not sure if I understand you. You want your network
to be highly utilized right? If it isn't, the carrier will
usually reduce price to get more customers. From the
carrier's perspective, unused capacity is a total waste.
\_ I use sprintpcs $26 for 1500 minutes with nationwide long distance.
coverage and quality not very satisfactory but it' cheap.
\_ I had Sprint, CellOne (now AT&T), Pacbell (now Cingular), and
Verizon. I think AT&T is the best in terms of network coverage.
In terms of price and features, Cingular is probably best. Sprint
is the worse of all. Currently, I still have Verizon. They're
plan is pretty good. Again, it all depends on personal preferences.
Verizon offers a really good plan no roaming fee within 5 states
for a reasonable rate. Cingular often drop calls but otherwise,
offers really good plan and has very good voice quality.
\_ Cingular service in SF has quite noticably degraded in the
last two months.
\_ Often I get "all circuits are busy" when I call
my friend who has Cingular.
\_ Agreed... I had few problems for the past year, but have
had terrible quality and many dropped calls in the last
month.
\_ Me too.
\_ Call them up and they'll take $15 your bill. |
| 2001/1/2-3 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:20214 Activity:low |
1/2 anybody have a nokia 8260? I'm wondering if there is a way to change
the "Home" that appears on the screen. I want to put my name on it
instead. Any web sites on hacking nokia phones? Thanks.
\_ Make a profile and rename it. That's how it's done on the 8290.
\_ If its anything like the 6100 series, you won't be changing the
"Home" part--that's from your provider (vs ROAM), but you'll have
the name of the profile on the display as well. --sowings |
| 2000/9/30-10/1 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:19379 Activity:high |
9/30 AAPL down 50% loss in market value 9 Billion
ATT donw 50% 110B
WCOM down 50% 87B
Sprint down 60& 30 B
Intel down 40% 250B
MSFT down 50% 320B
Dell down 50% 80B
Lucent down 65% 180B
FATALITY. This was all very hush hush over the last coupla hours
yesterday... I wonder what monday will bring?
\_ liu kang wins!
yesterday... I wonder what monday will bring?
\_ short-term thinkers are long-term losers |
| 2000/4/27-29 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:18130 Activity:high |
4/27 There are plenty of companies making "hands-free" car cellphone
adapters. Are there any that have voice-activation as well ? As
in, just press a button, say "Dial XXX-YYYY" and then talk ?
-eric
\_ I have a Samsung that will record your voice, but it doesn't really
do voice recognition. It just compares a name you say to all
of the recordings (max 20) in its memory. -- mikeym
\_ even hands free using a cell phone in a car is bad. You still
aren't paying attention ot the road. And yes it is different than
holding a conversation with a passenger.
\_ bull sh*t - KnightRider
\_ I agree. It's very distracting to use a cell-phone
and drive. I park somewhere when I need to talk
on the phone. -- mikeym
\_ depends very much on the driver. one friend can hardly
chew gum and steer, while another can do a slalom while
shooting pop-up targets on the sidewalk and sequencing
the spark-plug firing on a toggle-board on his dash.
\_ I don't think that's the point. Even a very good driver
still drives worse when talking on a cell-phone. It's
normally not a big deal, but if you have to make a split-
second decision to avoid an accident, it might slow you
down just enough that you can't avoid it. -- mikeym
\_ Yup. That's why there's a law in France that
bans the use of cellphones while driving.
\_ I can't wait until the stupid cell phone using bastards
start getting tickets for that stupid shit. Pull over.
Nothing on your phone could be that important. Cell
phone users have similar accident rates to DUI's.
\_ OBGetaFuckingClue. DUIs kill 18,000 per year.
\_ your risk analysis is flawed. there are all sorts of
things that inhibit driving ability, and there is
more variance in the licensed driver population than
caused by the phone. stupid/unwise people should
stop being allowed to drive. i drive better w/ my
phone earbud than many do while doped up on their
cold medicine and/or antihistamines, for example.
\_ Actually, I've used a fully handsfree cellphone in a car with
voice recognition and find it's just like talking to a passenger,
since you only talk, don't need to look away from the road and
just have a conversation like that. So I assume this product does
not exist ... -eric
\_ actually it isn't the same thing. 1) when talking to a passenger
the passenger in the car is aware of the sitation around the
vehicle. They naturally stop talking when things look like
they might get hairy. 2) People tend to pay less attention to
the road when talking over a phone than when talking in person.
Hands free operation has nothing to do with it.
\_ When I am talking hands-free (never use the handset...)
and driving at the same time, sometimes I just say
"shut up i gotta drive" or some equivalent shorter
thing and let the person on the other end of the line
stew for a while. I don't think it's just like talking
with a passenger, but I try not to let passengers OR cell
phone conversants intrude on my conversation when I am
trying to drive. -brg |
| 2000/4/19-21 [Consumer/CellPhone, Consumer/PDA] UID:18049 Activity:low |
4/19 The programming crew is getting new 19" monitors. Any thoughts on
the following, or recommendations? Thanks ...
Eizo FX-D7 Mitsuibishi Diamond Pro 900u NEC FP 950
Iiyama VisionMaster Pro 450 MAG 800v LG 995E
\_ Liked my Iiyama until the tube went fitz and they didnt fix it
properly.
\_ Mag sucks. Get a Sony 400PS, excellent picture + reliable.
\_ i dont think they make the PS anymore.. the Sony G400
is much nicer than the 400PS ever was. -shac
\_ Though it isn't on the list, I have a viewsonic g790 that has
been excellent. The only caveat is that I have not had it all
that long, about 9 months.
\_ Do Eizo's still have syncing / settings problems? The old Nanaos
I've used tend to forget my prior custom settings when I change
resolutions.
\_ Cheap bastards. Don't settle for anything less than 21". |
| 1999/12/2-3 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:16991 Activity:kinda low |
12/2 What's the difference between Nokia 6160, 6162, 6192, and 6190?
They all look the same!
\_ Unfortunately, nobody can be told what the matrix is.
\_ 6162 and 6192 have the flip. All are functionally the same.
The 616X uses TDMA technology (specifically for CellularOne)
while 619x uses GSM technology (specifically for Pacbell).
\_ 619x (or is it 618x) can be used with CellularOne.
\_ 6185 works with Sprint PCS. No flip.
\_ No, 619x can only be used with Pac Bell, these are the
phones with smart chip . Only PacBell support smart chips.
\ WTF is a smart chip ?
\_ Yes. All other phones use Idiot Chips. |
| 1999/11/22-24 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:16937 Activity:low |
11/22 Any suggestions for good cellphone? A good carrier?
\_ Pacbell currently has a good promotional plan. $29.99 for 120
peak minutes and 1000 nights and weekend minutes plus a free Nokia
5190 phone. Good deal if you don't plan to travel to rural
places since Pacbell coverage isn't that good. CellularOne has
similar deal, too, but voice quality isn't as good as Pacbell and
voicemail is extra. However, the coverage is better.
\_ Nokia 8800 series...so now you can be as cool as Neo.
\_ $700 with activation makes the phone much less appealing
\_ Get one of the nokia 6100 series. they kick ass. 6190/6185 are
esp nice.
\_ the 6185 is pretty nice because you don't need a different
battery for vibrate
the useless parts of your brain for nearly infinite stoage! Be
\_ I love my 6150, except that 6100s have sort of high-ish
emissions in a lot of comparisons. -John
\_ Don't worry: living in Europe, you're already sterile and
have brain tumors forming. Enjoy your phone.
\_ Ether BrainTap(tm)(c)(R) from <DEAD>BrainBits.com<DEAD>. Get and send your
email and instant messages directly from your brain implant! Use
the useless parts of your brain for nearly infinite storage! Be
all that you can be! No OS required. Installation is free.
\_ Buy American. Buy Motorola.
\_ this is stupid. companies compete in a global marketplace.
i base my decisions on product quality and price, not
which multinational company is headquartered in the US. they
all use indigent southeast asian and mexican labor anyway.
do you think they give you a discount because you're a
citizen of the US? no, because THEY'RE not stupid. --aaron
\_ I'm not a citizen. I just live here, cause the money's
better.
\_ I thought they are designed and manufactured in Florida.
As for southeast asian and mexican labor, it's slave labor!
Unfair competition!!! Why is it that it was such a big
deal when Japanese car companies were gaining market share
share in the US, but not when Nokia is killing Motorola?
\_ Cars are american. Electronics are toys. I hate when
someone chops into the middle of something to reply. Just
add your comment. Sheesh. (waiting for some nimwit to
\_ NIM!
add a reply to each of this) I rebuilt aaron's comments
stronger, better, faster than before.
\_ i think american cars are very poorly designed. --aaron
\_ You also think American chics are poorly designed.
\_ but they're easy/cheap
\_ Go home!
\_ I'm also in the hunt for a phone, anyone use gte prepaid? Can you
use any phone you want? Anyone have a new StarTAC? How's the
battery life? any problems, commments, etc? The phone MUST vibrate
and have voicemail. Thanks.
\_ I have a PacBell wireless phone (the digital startac) and while
I get coverage in Soda hall (which other carriers dont seem to
provide), I am having trouble with my phone/service in that
if I walk around the building and pass through an area where I
do not have service and go back to my office, my phone sez that
it is in service, but when I call my phone from a land line, it
goes straight to my voicemail unless I turn my phone on and
off. Does anyone else also have this problem? Is this a problem
with the service or the phone? (PacBell customer care is of
no help - they think turning the phone off and on every 5
minutes is an acceptable thing to do).
\_ I get service in Soda Hall from CellOne on floors 4 and above.
Floors 3 and below are essentially subterranean. --Jon
\_ my old motorola 6000e has a menu option to control the frequency
of network searches. i believe they only transmit to the
network base on this interval when idle. you trade off network
reliability for battery life.
\_ I've tried that, it doesn't help. |
| 1999/5/23-25 [Consumer/CellPhone, Consumer/TV] UID:15859 Activity:nil |
5/23 What is the cheapest place on the net to buy a 19" Samsung TV? |
| 1999/1/26-29 [Consumer/CellPhone, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:15299 Activity:high |
1/26 Suggestions on a DLT/70 drive?
\_ Aren't they all made by one manufacturer then OEM'ed? -ax
\_ yes, they're made by quantum. Buy one, is my suggestion. -tom
\_ Make sure you get one with a GOOD FAN, DLT7000's have a tendency
to run hot. If you like DLT, right now, DLT2000XT is best for
price/performance. DLT7000s have great capacity, and a great
technology in general, but are a bit more expensive. DLT7000s
also contain backwards compatibility to the very first DLT model
only included in DEC workstations of old, thus it can take a while
for a DLT to load a tape. Those MIT-wits made pretty good
hardware---DLT (sold to Quantum), DECetherworks (sold to Intel),
DEC Raid (Used to be the best you could get), Alpha (off to Compaq),
and PCs with quality fans---but, they sucked at marketing.
BTW, DEC had a deal with Samsung to let Samsung manufacture
Alphas just before DEC got bought out... I guess that deal's off now.
Too bad. -mtbb (sorry for the long rant)
\_ Samsung was and AFAIK is still making Alphas which are coming
out of an Intel fab.
\_ Samsung manufactures Alphas. Intel also fabs Alphas for
Compaq. --PeterM
\_ there are actually some pretty interesting rumors
about why intel and samsung are fabbing alphas. the
truth is definitely out there.
\_ Rumors? DEC wanted to get rid of Fab7. It wasn't
making money. So they used their patent lawsuit
to force Intel to take the fab off their hands, AND
forced a requirement that Intel fab alphas for them
as part of the settlement. The FTC made DEC
find a second-source for alpha, since Intel wields
near-monopoly power, hence Samsung's architecture
license. Samsung is hoping to make money, but I
think it's been a big loss for them so far.
Compaq seems to have carried on the DEC tradition
of having really stupid marketing, so perhaps
Alpha will be dead by 2001, unless COMPAQ does
something quick.
--PeterM
\_ Not quite. The hot rumor was Compaq had been
interested in DEC from a couple years back, but
did not want to pick up the Fabs also. DEC got
rid of the fab specifically to facilitate a sale
marketting, you'll still see alphas out there.
to Compaq. Microsoft engineered the whole thing,
to create a Compaq/Samsung/Alpha competitor for
Intel/Pentium.
\_ Dead? Hardly. By 2001, they'll be pushing systems
with 1+ ghz. If you've got the money, you can't
beat a DEC system in the unix world. (And no, it
doesn't run Linux). Even with their lame
marketing, you'll still see alphas out there. Its
always been a high end niche. It'll stay that way.
\_ DEC has a tradition of making fine, quality hardware.
Their PCs had fans which never wore down/broke, stuff I
am sure Compaq will yank out right away and replace with
the standard cheap crap you see on most PCs today. The
problem has always been DEC never knew how to market their
products. Take DLT drives for example, when they intro-
duced the DLT2000/4000 models a couple years ago, the
product was so good, they grabbed up HUGE portions of
Exabyte's market. Problem was, they under-estimated
demand for their product, and without a means to increase
production soon enough, they sold the technology to
Quantum. Quantum has made a killing off the DLT line.
If Samsung & Compaq would get their acts together, they
could really take chunks of UNIX market from other UNIX
and even NT vendors. But, Compaq's put themselves in a
situation similar to IBM's, where they have too much stuff
to focus on doing well in one market. Compaq could really
exploit the Alpha chip if they didn't have to worry about
what Bill Gates might think, etc. In our workplace, we
have 4 Alpha 8400 servers (4 GB memory, 4+ CPUs, 100+ GB
of RAID, 4 SCSI busses / per server). Each server can
run up to 9 different SAP Instances. For the SAME AMOUNT
of money, you can get an HP server with maybe 2 crap CPUs,
a SCSI bus which only recognizes other HP hardware, up to
1 GB of main memory, and enuff other resources to handle
up to 3 SAP Instances if we're lucky. HP doesn't even
give you a decent monitor - they expect you to buy X terms
from them for even more $$$. What do you expect from
$tanfurdders? Unfortunately, it's all in the hands of
Compaq's shareholders now. -mtbb |
| 1999/1/12 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:15218 Activity:nil |
1/11 Does anyone know who sells either caller id boxes that will view
caller id blocked calls, or boxes that strip the privacy bit off
the call so a normal caller id will display it? an url
with comercialy available boxes, plans, or executeables would be
greatly appreciated. i know such boxes exist, and while its easy
to find technical data on caller id, i dont want to have to design
a box from scratch. thanx. -lafe
\_ Dumbshit, if someone went to the trouble to block caller id, you
could have a tiny shred of respect for their privacy. I know how
to do this but won't tell you. Do it yourself, scumbag. There's
no valid use for this.
\_ post your name, pussy.
\_ Yawn. Ok, here goes, "your name, pussy." How's that?
\_ idiot. If someone wants to hide their phone privacy, they
wouldn't be calling random people at home who they don't know.
\_ Who said at home? If the ID is blocked, don't answer. |
| 1998/11/22 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:14997 Activity:nil |
11/21 Would someone please email me the telephone number for the
missing link bike shop at the corner of university and shattuck?
please email to andrew.choi@gs.com. Thanks - android |
| 1998/9/30-10/2 [Consumer/CellPhone, Recreation/Sports] UID:14704 Activity:nil |
9/29 I understand that if you've bought season football tickets for CAL,
you get a coupon worth $100 towards a pacbell cell phone. Anyone
have that coupon and not planning on using it? If so, could I
have it? -- Marco |
| 1998/7/27-28 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:14403 Activity:high |
7/27 From ~kchang/.login:
if (-e .flag00) then
mv .flag00 .flag11
echo "kchang the super master logging into Soda..."
else if (-e .flag11) then
echo "Already logged in STUPID"
endif
set watch = (1 tom any joey any sameer any erickao any sandy any atom\
any kenyoung any tkm any android any junokim any ewen any tawei any\
chiapet any dpssage any conrad any chrisyep any chris any\
chris any jules any debbie any rchen any duyphun any jean any)
\_ Why does everyone always pick on kchang?
\_ Have you ever met him? If so, your questions will be answered
\_ I haven't but just witnessing his stupidity on soda is
enough to figure it out.
set watch = (1 tom any joey any sameer any erickao any sandy any atom\
any kenyoung any tkm any android any junokim any ewen any tawei any\
chiapet any dpssage any conrad any chrisyep any chris any\
chris any jules any debbie any rchen any duyphun any jean any)
\_ Should I be offended, or thankful, I'm not on this list?
\_ oh boy I'm his #1 stalkee. It's like being tops on the
speed dial! -tom
\_ Are any of these girls cute? Oh wait, this is CSUA...
\_ Well, since xtine is mentioned twice, kchang must really
have the hots for her |
| 1996/11/1 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:31980 Activity:nil |
10/30 The net sux after switching to sprint. Are there a lot of hosts on
sprint?
\_ One of the MIT guys in our netrek game last night told me that
most of his lag to Berkeley occurred at sprintnet in New York,
and that bbnplanet from MIT to NYC, and the net from NYC to here
wasn't bad. However, when I did a traceroute, most of the lag
I got to him was at MCI in Boston. Any ideas? -John
\_ routing packets to us was/is a bit screwy as the routing
change propogates to the rest of the world, it'll
settle down soon (and yes, the worst part of any
net connection will be sprintlink, because IT SUCKS!)
\_ Does Cal have a single T3 going to the outside world?
\_ UCB, UCD, UCSF, UCOP, & UCSC all share one DS3 (or
will very shortly once the transition is finished) to
Sprint's Stockton HUB - see http://ucb.net.announce and
http://ucb.net.discussion for more info
\_ gazillions - what does that have to do with anything?
\_ dumbass, this is the problem. I'm on BBNnet as do alot of
people in the bay area. If the BBNET-SPRINT connect is
bad, it might be better to just stick to bbn.
\_ The switch wasn't made to improve connectivity.
the switch was made because Sprintlink is MUCH MUCH
cheaper. Sprint is known to suck, but there's nothing
that we can do about it - BBNPlanet got rid of the
hugely discounted rates UCB was paying BARRnet.
(And yes, Sprint does have many more customers nationwide
than BARRnet ever did.)
\_ I thought we weren't switching til next week?
\_ The switch was announced as taking place Mon->Wed of
THIS week.
\_ Ahh..did they finished at around 3:00am?
i remember something being said about
that time..well..that woudl explain my 85%
packet loss at around that time :)
\_SPRINT SUCKS MAJOR DICK.. Traceroute reports >400ms hops
between Sprint and http://alter.net and then onto my ISDN ISP. |
| 1996/10/28 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:31965 Activity:nil |
10/26 from http://ucb.net.announce: dcns and ucop networking folk will be working with sprint and bbn planet next week to migrate ucb's internet connection from bbn planet to sprint. this work will begin at 0600 monday 10/28/96, and should be complete around 0300 wednesday 10/30/96. --jon A & S Electronic Publishing Inc (ITOUCHMYSELF-DOM) 626 Santa Monica Blvd. # 281 Santa Monica, CA 90401 US Domain Name: http://ITOUCHMYSELF.COM Administrative Contact, Billing Contact: Hostmaster (HOS187-ORG) ss@INTERNETGUY.COM (310) 914-7751 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: hostmaster (HOS188-ORG) hostmaster@DECADE.NET (818) 594-3951 Record last updated on 25-Oct-96. Record created on 16-Oct-96. Domain servers in listed order: http://HUGH.NETTEL.COM 198.245.19.66 http://NOMAD.NETTEL.COM 198.245.19.67 |
| 1996/7/8 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:31865 Activity:nil |
7/8 PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: caller id starts today. to check
your blocking status, call (800)386-0000. you may change your
caller id blocking preference for free until the end of 1996.
\_ You can forget about calling for pizza deliveries if you
have complete blocking. They get too many prank calls and
if they have caller ID, they won't deliver unless you give
out yer number. I know because I've delivered for Dominoes.
\_ This is incorrect. Even those with complete
blocking can "selectively" unblock (*82) - crebbs
\_ Congratulations on the great Dominoes job, but why can't
you just give a fake number? They never call me back to
verify.
\_ DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT MORON?
You can't "just give a fake number" via caller id.
\_ That's true, but can he make a prank call from a
pay phone? -yuen
\_ anyone not blocking completely? -jor
\_ i would have gone with the selective blocking if i still
had my own phone line. it doesn't really concern me.
why are you gung-ho about complete blocking?
just curious. --lila
\_ To preserve every American's GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to make
ANONYMOUS CRANK PHONE CALLS!!
We will _NOT_ be OPPRESSED!!
\_ that's why there's SELECTIVE blocking... that doesn't
explain why you'd want complete blocking.
\_ Because I don't want my name/number on a mailing list to be
sold to god-doesn't-even-know-who and it isn't anyone's damn
business who I call. Caller ID has nothing to do with
stopping crank calls. It is a mailing list creation device
for businesses, nothing more.
\_ uh, you can't block your number from 800, 888, or 900
numbers, which are the people who might be selling your
number in the first place. -tom
\_ Umm - how are they going to send mail to your phone number?
(Besides, one of those CD's with the complete phone
books of the US is much cheaper than recording caller-ids)
\_ Selective blocking is a piece 'o shit. I went for complete
blocking.
\_ You suck. Don't call me. |
| 12/25 |