My fiance actually turned me on to this tip. I had been complaining that sometimes the Storm wouldn’t rotate as fast as others. It wasn’t completely slow all the time, but it was just weird.
Try holding the Storm more vertical straight up and down rather than tilted. Then rotating it should be very snappy. Not sure why this works but it is an instant difference.
Enjoy!
What? No, that can’t be right… can it?
Back story: On Saturday my fiance and I went to Verizon to renew our contract. We had both been eying the Blackberry Storm since it’s release. We go in, sign up, get the phones with accessories and our data plan and are happily emailing, texting, and browsing the web all weekend. Monday, somewhere around noon, I get one of those annoying “you are eligible for a new / free phone” calls from “Roger” in “Wisconsin”. I am annoyed. I just got a new phone why are you calling me? Haven’t your systems in India synchronized with the US ones yet? This was over 48 hours ago. I told them I just signed up for a new two year. Hopefully they will leave me alone.
About 30 minutes later, another call. This time it was from Rosanne. I am pretty sure that was her real name too. I was talking to somebody in Verizon’s customer service department whom is apparently tasked with reviewing new accounts and making sure everything is okay (kudos to you for having QA/QC on your plans Verizon!). She asks if my phone is for corporate use. “No”. But you have a corporate plan. “Yes I know, it is for the discount program at work”.
It turns out that she wanted to save me money, and she did to the tune of $40 per month! Basically for somebody who is not a corporate user, doesn’t need to get email from an exchange server or have access to the intranet at work, the $45 per month Blackberry plan (hence forth, VZW BES) was not required. Instead, I should have the $30 per month plan (hence forth, VZW BIS). Now, the VZW BES is labeled on Verizon’s website as “Unlimited Data” while the BIS is just “Internet and Email”. I confirmed with the CSR at least 3, maybe 4 times that both plans included unlimited data (that is, until I suck down 5 gigs worth to my Storm!). She told me that they were (she did go and confirm some things either with a supervisor or the computer, and I was on hold for the 2 or 3 instances for no more than 45 seconds).
So BAM, right there switching the Blackberry plans saves me $30 a month over both lines with zero change in my service. I am not paying for things I won’t use now. This is awesome. Further more the CSR decides to check our minutes usage. We have a 700 minute share plan at this point, the smallest / cheapest they offer. We barely use 300 total peak minutes between the two of us. Turns out, there is an unadvertised “loyalty” plan that is used for “loyal customers” (and probably also for those threatening to leave VZW) that is a share plan of 550 minutes and is $10 per month less. As a bonus we have 500 additional minutes that is a “reserve” of sorts. If we do go over rather than getting billed the minutes come out of that reserve first. Cool eh?
So after 14 minutes and 3 seconds on the call, I am not saving $40 per month. How cool is that?
Then again, it wasn’t a PC World writer!
10 Things You Won’t See After the Recession
I actually agree with nearly everything on this list. Although, I really hope that the prediction of the demise of satellite radio doesn’t come true. I love it (even though, a little less since the merger… they ruined “The Beat 36″!). I have had it for almost 2 years now and I can’t stand the thought of going back to terrestrial radio. It is just horrid! I will be honest, I wouldn’t mind a small number of commercials if it helped keep it afloat. It doesn’t need to be 100% commercial free to keep me happy (and it isn’t right now anyway, a few channels do have commercials).
Palm has been on it’s way out since the Blackberry started getting into the market. It is just a better product. Don’t get me wrong, the Palm that I owned, I really liked. However, there were lots of things they could have done better. Especially when it was released with more than the “first round bugs”. Next month I am going to be saying hello to the Storm. It would have been an iPhone, but AT&T’s network sucks harder than… well, you can fill in the blank there.
Landlines? Come on. A fair number of people that I know already don’t have one. My Dad has been without a land line phone since 2002. I have been without one since 2003. This is interesting though. I think that most people will keep their landline for a lot longer than this author things. If people move, already have a cell phone, chances are likely they won’t get a landline at their new place. Most will keep it because they already have it. I am not too sure how many people have digital phone service with their cable.
Movie rental stores are closing up, and have been for a long time. Nobody rents movies in brick & mortar anymore. The few that are left will definitely be gone when this economic slump is over. I have already decided to ditch my cable TV for Netflix (no brainer! Save $35 bucks a month). It is going to be hard though. The final season of Battlestar Galactica starts in a few weeks. Maybe after that is over, THEN I will ditch the cable.
All start-ups without business plans should go away. Web 2.0 stuff is / was cool and I wish I had gotten in on it. I would have loved to make money tooling around with no REAL goal in sight. I have a feeling that those twitter folks might wish they had taken up Facebook on it’s offer and got out while the getting was good.
All in all, Mike nailed it. Good show.
I am still not renewing my PCW subscription… You know, money is tight and all.
