Category: Tech

iPhone 6 & The Death Star

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Ever since Apple announced the new iPhone I’ve been stressing out about the whole upgrade process.

iPhone6

I’ve waited three long years to upgrade because I wasn’t looking forward to having to buy all new power cords and backup batteries after Apple switched to the lightning cable (god forbid they just go with micro USB like everyone else). The iPhone 5 didn’t impress me all that much so I thought I’d milk another year out of my 4S before getting a new phone. Of course the last six months have been torture because I have to charge my battery twice a day and the phone just seems super slow and overall annoying. So this new phone is long overdue!

So why am I stressing out? Because I’m currently on a unlimited data plan that AT&T no longer offers and tried to sneakily take away from me three years ago when I upgraded from the iPhone 3GS to the 4S. After going round and round with their shitty customer service and doing lots of Googling, I learned that if I upgraded my phone through Apple I could keep my unlimited data plan and my 200 texts for $5 per month plan without any hiccups. The only thing that sucked is I never ended up doing anything with my old 3GS which now sits in a drawer somewhere.

I did a little researching today and this time around I won’t be so lucky. AT&T made it very clear on their website that in order to retain any discounts (we get 15% through Joe’s employer) you cannot opt for a 2 year contract. Instead you have to get something called AT&T Next where you pay for your phone in monthly installments. On top of that, if I were to try and stick with my old plan, I’d have to pay an additional $40 per month as a “line fee” whereas I pay $9.99 now.

All these changes are so aggravating because no matter which one I choose the end result is I’m going to be paying more per month after I upgrade than I was paying before. Right now our bill is just under $125 after all taxes and fees.

I ended up putting my options with AT&T into an Excel spreadsheet so I could compare them. I wasn’t entirely happy with the result, so I started looking at other carriers. Joe’s phone is on contract through July of next year but most of the carriers pay you to break the contract so I wasn’t too worried about that.

Unfortunately, after far too much research, I came to the conclusion we’re best off staying with the death star because Verizon is too expensive (we’d end up paying $150+ per month) and I wouldn’t be able to access any data while on a phone call through T-Mobile & Sprint (although their rates are a more reasonable $120-$130 per month).

So AT&T it is. *sigh*

This is my upgrade plan, which, if I have the time, I will execute tomorrow as long as I’m able to do it online:

1) Order the iPhone 6 64GB = $300 (or I guess $12.50 per month for 24 months with their stupid options)

2) Sign up for the AT&T Next 18 plan which will allow me to upgrade again in 18 months (and is cheaper than doing the 12 month option)

3) Sign up for the 10GB Mobile share plan = $100 plus $15 per month per phone. Total = $130 per month before taxes, fees, and our discount

4) Trade-in my 4S, which from what I’ve been reading will net me $200 if I do it through AT&T

I’m not too happy about my cell plan going up in price but based on my research I can’t stop it unless I never upgrade my phone. I guess the plus side is I will join the rest of the world and have unlimited texting instead of having to use chat programs and Google voice to make sure I don’t go over 200 texts every month.

Also, I won’t have to stress next time I upgrade about losing my unlimited plan. There’s something really weird psychologically about wanting to hang onto it. It’s not like I’m using tons of data every month. In fact, I use just under 2GB on average and Joe uses less than 1GB. The only time we go over that is when traveling and using GPS. A 10GB plan is definitely overkill, but AT&T kind of forces your hand. See, I don’t want to go down to 4GB as we might go over. And their 6GB shared plan costs exactly the same as the 10GB plan because all plans under 10GB include a $25 monthly fee per device whereas it drops to $15 for 10GB plans and over. Sneaky bastards! There’s a reason they’re called the death star.

Oh, and I don’t know if I like how they make your pay for your phone. Sure, you can upgrade after 12 or 18 months and your monthly fee goes away for that device, and starts again for whatever new device you choose, but you also don’t actually own any of the phones. You don’t keep them, you don’t get money for trading them in, you’re basically leasing them. I don’t really care for that at all. But I did the math and with the shitty $40 per month fee for doing a contract, plus a $40 activation fee (which is “waived” if you get pick AT&T Next) you end up paying $210 more over a 24-month period which is pretty much what you’d get back for trading in your old phone after 2 years anyway. So it’s difficult to say which option is better. I guess if you upgraded less than every two years you might want to buy the phone outright and pay the extra monthly fees, but when you do upgrade by that point your phone will be pretty useless as a trade-in. Sooo… I don’t know. I just don’t know!

Do you think these companies purposely try to make it appear that their pricing is simple when really it’s not? I most certainly do! And honestly, I’m sick of thinking about it. I may just wait until next week when everything dies down and I can go to an AT&T store and ask a billion questions. Or maybe I’ll just execute my original plan and be done with it. After a certain point the money “saved” isn’t even worth it if I’m going to spend tons of time trying to make a decision.

Texting

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Why are text messaging packages so expensive? Trick question – everyone knows the answer is because the phone company wants to make an insane profit, as texts cost them next to nothing, and nearly everyone wants to be able to text so they will buy the unlimited plan. We’re grandfathered into a plan that’s no longer available – 200 texts per month for $5. There is only one other option through AT&T and it’s unlimited texting for $20. Oh how I wish we could afford that (scratch that because even if we could afford it I refuse to increase my monthly $122 bill by an additional $30) because it’s so annoying trying to make sure I don’t exceed the limit every month.

I end up using three different texting apps which is annoying. I’ve got the regular messaging app that I use for my friends who have iPhones since iMessages don’t count as SMS texts, I’ve got Google Voice for texts between me and my brother and sister in law, and then I have a third “free text” app to keep in touch with Joe. The reason I don’t use Google Voice for all other texting is because their app seriously sucks ass. It breaks texts up into separate conversations, it doesn’t always alert me when a text comes in, and I often have to exist the conversation and re-enter it to clear out the notification once it does.

As for the other text program, I’ve gone through a few recently because the one I was perfectly satisfied with for the past year, WhatsApp, decided to mysteriously stop working one day. None of the texts I send to Joe ever went through after the one day when it stopped working and no amount of uninstalling and reinstalling made a difference. So I moved onto IMO but that one started behaving strangely as well and wouldn’t always alert me of an incoming text. We tried going back to an older program from a couple of years ago, Text Plus, but the notifications on it was spotty as well.

For now we’re sold on eBuddy XMS. The interface is clean and it always alerts us of incoming messages. As a bonus, I can log into the app via my web browser and send Joe texts from there when I’m sitting in front of the computer instead of having to type on my phone’s keyboard (which I suck at and will never master) and all his responses go to both the web version and my phone so I can see them if I walk away or shut down the computer. My only complaint is that I can’t use the text alert noise with the app, or shut off the noise it makes when I first enter the app to look at a new message. But considering all that went wrong with the other apps that is small potatoes. I just hope this app doesn’t decide to mysteriously stop working one day too because we’re running out of options (Trillian, which we also tried, was the worst. We couldn’t even see one another online even though we were both logged in).

By the way, if anyone knows of an app that works well with Google Voice please let me know. I’ve tried a few with no success. The notifications wouldn’t work at all. What good is a texting app that doesn’t notify you of a new text?

Weight Loss, Recipes, Broken Toes, and Computers

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My computer is finally back online after having to reinstall Windows a second time within two days. The first time Windows Explorer kept crashing whenever I’d access the Quick Launch toolbar so this time around I didn’t bother setting it up. I’m trying to get used to using the “pin to start menu” option since the end result is essentially the same.

I’ve made it under the 130 lb mark! I actually made it over a week ago but didn’t want to post until I was sure it wasn’t a fluke. I’m down about 5 lbs since leaving my job. I’d like to lose another 10 lbs before pool weather comes around.

I’ve been trying new recipes lately that I find on Pinterest which is my new obsession. I could browse pins for hours! I tried a banana bread recipe yesterday which sucked but today I had success with three new recipes: Nutella brownies, broccoli cheese rice casserole, and cheeseburger macaroni. The brownies are super rich, plus they cost a lot to make from scratch, so I’ll probably stick to the box mixes even though they came out good. The casserole was frickin delicious, and the cheeseburger Mac was really good with a nice spicy kick to it.

I broke my little toe today; the middle one on my left foot. After I was done working out I pulled down my shorts and “kicked” them off, slamming my foot into the dresser in the process. Ouch! I’ve never had a broken bone before but Joe is convinced it’s broken based on how it looks compared to broken toe examples online. All I know is it hurts like hell and makes me limp but it’s not going to stop me from going to IKEA tomorrow because I’ve been looking forward to it and I really need a new garbage can for the master bathroom (the old one cracked in half).

Sucky Wednesday

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Well, it seems the hard drive in my not yet three year old computer is failing, and by that I mean it has pretty much failed and I will be lucky if I can retrieve the data I hadn’t yet backed up from it. Surprisingly, I’m not freaking out too much. It is what it is.

When I turned on my computer yesterday and heard the repeating clacking noise coming from the tower I knew right away things were not good. I logged off, rebooted just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke, then shut down. I went online to hunt for an affordable replacement which I found at NewEgg for $70. The drive should be here on Monday so in the meantime I’m relegated to getting my Internet fix via my iPad and iPhone. It’s not horrible, but it really is easier using an actual computer for everything other than casual web surfing. I can’t edit or post any photos taken with my SLR, track our finances (I use Excel), and some content just can’t be viewed on a mobile device (someone explain to me the reasoning behind certain YouTube videos being blocked on mobile devices – these days that seriously hinders the number of views you’re going to get). Many apps for services aren’t fully functional (I’m looking at you, Facebook, although you are getting better) making an actual computer a necessity instead of an option. In other words we still have a long way to go before we can forgo buying actual computers or laptops altogether. I would like my next computer to actually be a laptop but I can wait a couple of years to make the switch since by then my desktop will be really outdated.

In other sucky news, we received a letter from our mortgage company yesterday letting us know that as of February 15th they will no longer be our mortgage company because they are bankrupt. The letter was dated February 6th and stated all payments made after the 15th need to go to the new company. Since I had a payment pending for the 20th I logged into my account to cancel it. I then went to the URL provided for the new mortgage company only to be presented with a “coming soon” page. Are you kidding me!!?!? You give people less than 10 days’ notice and the new company doesn’t even have a functional website to make a payment? Wow. I feel like we’re in for some real headaches with these clowns. If I wasn’t currently unemployed I’d be shopping for a new mortgage company.

E-mail Clients

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Perhaps I need to get with the times or something but I’ve always enjoyed using Yahoo for e-mail verses gmail even though I have accounts with both. In fact, I have far too many email accounts and it’s staring to get to me. I recently contemplated trying to consolidate accounts but I do like having my accounts separated as follows:

  • Account for immediate family which I also use for most websites I sign up at
  • Account for friends and colleagues (since I’ve never used my work email address for personal matters)
  • Account for recruiters and job hunting/applications
  • Account for my photo site
  • Account for selling stuff on Craigslist
  • Misc accounts on gmail when I contemplating switching to their more robust service

One of the main reasons I’ve hesitated to really use my gmail accounts is I heard what is deleted isn’t really gone from the servers. Of course that could hold true for Yahoo as well but I was comfortable just leaving everything with Yahoo until recently when they updated their mail yet again. Now when I type a message there’s this huge delay between what I’ve typed and what appears on screen. Even worse is half the time what I’ve type doesn’t appear at all. How frustrating!

Today I went on a hunt to find an email client I could use to manage all my email accounts and came across Mozilla Thunderbird. It’s a bit early for a final verdict, but I do like a lot of things about it and some things are just annoying.

First, the things I like –

  • It supports multiple email accounts (and I can add a column called “Account” so I am constantly aware of which account I’m in when browsing messages).
  • I can set it up as IMAP so all the email is retained on the server but use the interface to “clean up” my folders.
  • Composing an email does away with that hellish delay I get when trying to write an email directly in yahoo mail.

Now the things I don’t like –

  • It errors out more than not when trying to access and download new mail. This is a fundamental action so it’s perplexing to me why this continues to happen.
  • There isn’t a way, from what I can tell thus far, to use a master inbox for all email accounts so you’re not constantly switching back and forth as new messages come in.
  • Whenever I click on an email account it insists on expanding the account so I see all the underlying folders which means I can’t see all the other email accounts at a quick glance.

I did install an extension called QuickFolders that I used to create short-cuts to each account’s inbox, but you’d think there would be a better way to manage multiple accounts. I am willing to bet the majority of people use more than one email address on a daily basis.

So if anyone can recommend a better email client to manager multiple accounts I’m all ears.