Sell Phones

In my ongoing series Rage Against the Machine, I explore my love/hate relationship with technology. In this post I discuss how we made our own "BOGO free" mobile phones deal.

I was way overdue for a new mobile phone. My Google Nexus S Android smartphone was over two and half years old, it had outlived it's update lifespan and was definitely acting its age. I was waiting until my wife's phone plan expired in mid August of this year because we had never been on a plan together, I wanted to save some money being on a shared plain and be on the same phone hardware cycle as her. My wife had a iPhone 4, which is two generations older than the current iPhone. It was time we both upgraded.

black and white Samsung Galaxy S4

My dream phone was the current Google Nexus phone, the Nexus 4. It is sold on the Google Play store unlocked. Unlocked phones are pricey because they aren't tied to any carrier who can subsidize the cost of the phone when you subscribe to one of their plans. I love the Nexus phones because they come with the latest version of the Android OS, are the first phones to get Android updates and because it's sold unlocked directly by Google there is no carrier branding or preloaded apps. But my wife talked me into getting the Samsung Galaxy S4 on T-Mobile from Costco. They sells phones and plans on all the major carriers and were selling the S4 for $100 with a two year contract. The S4 comes with the newest version of Android available to locked phones, 4.2.2, which is only one version older than the newest available, 4.3. We chose T-Mobile because they were the only carrier with unlimited talk, text, and data. Overall we got a good deal. We bought his and hers phones-a black one for me and a white one for her.

Then we had to figure out what to do with our old phones. We could recycle them, let them become toys for our boys or sell them. I figured if they were worth anything we should get some money for them. I was surprised at the value of our old, outdated phones. We sold the iPhone for $75 on Gazelle.com and sold the Nexus 4 on USell.com for $42. Both websites turned out to be legit and no hassle. You tell them what phone you have and rate the condition, then they give you the estimate. If you accept they send you a free shipping kit. After they receive the phone they review its condition. If they accept they send you the payment. Between the two sell transactions we recouped the cost of one S4. Essentially we made our own "buy one get one free" deal. It worked out pretty well.

Happy Raging Against the Machine

In my ongoing series Rage Against the Machine, I explore my love/hate relationship with technology. This installment is in the love category. My wife's Macbook laptop recently died. I've seen how this scenario plays out-and the outcome is usually bad. She took it to the local Mac store for a quick and dirty (and also free) diagnosis. The genius said it needed a new hard drive. We had some Amazon credit and ordered a new HDD for the laptop. Low and behold replacing the hard drive fixed the computer! My wife was back in business. She didn't lose much since our important files are stored on an external hard drive. The OS and applications needed to be re-installed, but that was it. Happy ending.

I'm a Google junkie. I use almost all their cloud apps and I even have some of their Nexus hardware - a Nexus S smartphone. When they released details about their new 7" tablet - the Nexus 7 - I pre-ordered immediately. I actually ordered two. I can't have any gadget without my wife also wanting one. :) Two Nexus 7 tablets cost less than one iPad, so it was a no brainer. It's better than the Kindle Fire in my opinion - Nexus 7 has Bluetooth, Kindle Fire doesn't. It's supposed to ship in mid-July, which is now, but no word yet. The anticipation is killing me.

Don't Call It a Comeback

As I've detailed in previous posts, I was having a very challenging 2011. I say "was" because the second half of the year is turning out to be great. Three things have shaped the rebound.

The first thing is I won a charity poker tournament. The charity proceeds went to a relative of a poker league player that needed a kidney transplant. The top four players, me included, "chopped" the pot. "Chopping" is a poker term for splitting the pot. I made over three times my money. There were 40 players in the tournament. I then went on to win in my league nine days later. I also won a league game a month earlier. I hope my hot streak continues as I'm playing in two more charity tournaments in October and November.

The second thing is that I got a new job. I know what your thinking, "didn't you just get a new job in June after being unemployed for a few months?" Yes. Back in June, I got a job with a defense contractor working on a contract with the Postal Service (USPS). If you watch the news, you know that the USPS is having major financial trouble. Their fiscal year ends September 30th and the contract was up for renewal. I was doubtful since every financial transaction was being scrutinized. The wife and I were concerned if I would be out of a job just a few months after being unemployed for 4+ months earlier in the year. I had other concerns as well. I was using outdated software and there wasn't much work to do. This job was not good for my career. At most it was a stop gap. At the same time, a company I interviewed with back in March contacted me about the same position. I never heard back from them after the March interview. It seems that they were having a hard time finding a senior ColdFusion developer. They went back to review all the resumes they had obtained and contacted me in September to see if I was still interested. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. The position offered me an opportunity to get into object-oriented programming using current technology and software that was new to me. It would be a positive challenge that would be good for my career. I was offered the position and happily accepted. And it turned out to be in the same general area of DC as the USPS job, so my commute would be the same. It was lucrative as well.

The third thing is the most exciting-Jennifer is pregnant! Shock Jr. number two is on the way. She is due May 18. We go from double coverage to man-to-man. Keep up with the family and the coming attraction at the Shock Family Circus blog.

Rage Against the Green Machine

In my ongoing series Rage Against the Machine, I explore my love/hate relationship with technology. Earlier this year I detailed our string of technology mishaps. Two of those dead devices are headed for the recycle bin-the HTPC and my XP laptop. Since going to computer heaven, their carcasses have been taking up much needed space in the closet. I didn't want to just throw them away. That's not the proper method of disposal. Having finally stripped them of their vital parts-hard drive, optical drive, RAM, peripheral cards-I took them to Best Buy to have them recycled. Good riddance to the HTPC, it was more trouble than it was worth. Hopefully it's second life will serve a greater purpose. My "bachelor laptop", so named since it was the computer I bought for myself after I lost custody of my previous computer in my divorce to my first wife, will be missed. It was the first laptop I ever owned. Maybe both machines will be recycled into playground equipment or for use in prosthetic limbs.

Google Music vs Amazon Cloud Drive [UPDATED]

UPDATE 6/6/11 @ 11:30am EDT - Google Music is limited to 20,000 songs.

I received my Google Music invitation this morning and immediately signed up. Google Music is a cloud based music service. Once you upload your music files they are accessible from any internet connected computer. There is also a Android app for smartphones and tablets. Amazon also has a cloud music service called Cloud Player. The files are kept in the Cloud Drive. It also has an Android app. I signed up for it when it first became available a couple of months ago. Although the overall concept is awesome - the ability to access your music 24/7 from any web-enabled device without having to access a hard drive and making the storage of music on your iPod or smartphone obsolete - the two services are a bit different.

Amazon Cloud Drive allows for storing all types of files. You get 5GB of free storage, and if you buy an album from the Amazon digital music store, you get an upgrade to 20GB free for one year from date of purchase. You can purchase additional storage at $1 a GB up to 1k. The cloud drive is separate from the cloud player. However, they are linked-your music files stored in your cloud drive are accessible in the cloud player. Amazon wants you to purchase from their digital music store and the incentive is music purchased from it doesn't count against your storage space, which is nice. The cloud player allows for all digital music store purchases to automatically be saved to your cloud drive so you can listen immediately after purchase. One disadvantage is that new music not purchased from the mp3 store is not automatically added to the cloud drive. You have to upload it manually. In order to upload music to the cloud, the free "Amazon MP3 Uploader" app has to be installed on your computer. The cloud drive and player are free. All you need is an Amazon account.

Google Music is currently in beta and invite only, but should be available to all Google users in a few months. It's very similar to the Amazon service but with three key differences. First, Google has free but limited storage of music files. The limit is 20,000 songs. Although there is a limit, it is substantial. I doubt there are many people with a digital music collection containing greater than 20k songs. Second, Google doesn't have a digital music store. Third, Google's service is platform independent and allows for automatic upload of music files from Windows Media Player or iTunes, so whenever you buy new music, it's automatically added to Google Music. It's part of the Google suite of cloud apps so if you have a Google account, you're good to go.

The Winner: Google Music by a narrow margin.

P.S. Apple has a cloud based music service coming out on June 6 called iCloud.

Related articles

• Google Music vs. Amazon Cloud Drive (readwriteweb.com)
• [Deathmatch] Google Music Beta Vs. Amazon Cloud Player (androidpolice.com)

Rage Against the Machine, pt. 6 "Mishaps"

In my RATM series, I've chronicled my love/hate relationship with technology. In this latest installment, I'll recount our season of technology mishaps. It all started when I cracked Jennifer's Mac screen. Fletch grabbed for the plug and as I quickly yanked it away, it fell from my small girl hands and onto the computer screen. Fletch was involved in the next mishap as well. Jennifer had her purse teetering on the edge of the kitchen counter. His extremely curious nature made him reach for it, pulling the purse off the counter and her phone and iPod touch into the dog's water bowl. It gets worse.

As I walked through the door after attending a Redskins game (which they lost - no big surprise!), Jennifer had the look of dread on her face. "I've got some bad news. The TV blew up!" I looked at the blank black screen and hung my head. After five years (a short lifespan for a TV) my first generation plasma went dark-permanently. Show's over.

A few days later my trusty Windows XP laptop started acting funny. It wouldn't boot up. While it lived much longer than expected, the end was very sudden. There were no signs of problems. It went from working to not in a matter of a few hours. It must have caught a virus! Ha, pun intended.

To add insult to injury, the home theater computer, the one that started the rage, died again. I say again because the replacement motherboard crashed and burned. That computer was jinxed. I wasn't going to spend another $300 to fix it. Our reason for buying the HTPC was to save money by getting rid of cable TV. Turns out we've spent nearly the amount we would have spent on cable TV fixing and maintaining the computer. Stupid technology.

Everything worked out in the end. We got the Mac screen repaired. Jennifer successfully dried out her phone using rice. However she wasn't as successful with the iPod Touch. The screen was permanently damaged so we replaced it for half price. We bought a bigger and better TV. We had a 50" Vizio plasma and upgraded to a 55" Samsung LCD. I replaced my laptop with a sweet Gateway netbook. And we sucked it up and subscribed to cable television (no premium channels though). Hello high def on every channel!

Here's hoping the tech mishaps are behind us. They have to be since we've replaced everything. :)

Rage Against the Machine pt. 5 - Wireless Printing [UPDATED]

We bought a new wireless printer, an Epson Artisan 800. It replaces our Epson Stylus RX580. In our current setup, the printer is upstairs in the office and we use our laptops in the living room. Every time we wanted to print, we had to walk upstairs and plug the printer into the computer. Now we can print from anywhere in the house. A "green" feature is automatic double-sided printing. We use half as much paper. Epson's ultra hi-def photo printers print professional quality pictures on glossy photo paper. I was impressed with the quality of our first Epson printer so when I got a sweet deal on the the Artisan model, I knew I was getting a quality machine for the money.

Rage Against the Machine, pt. 4.5

This post is long overdue, but with the holidays and travel, I'm finally getting around to posting it. After a week of running the computer "Hot Rod" style, we got around to playing a DVD. After about 30 seconds, the playback froze. I then tried another movie and the same thing happened. Before the motherboard replacement movies played back without issues. I thought it was the video playback software, so I attempted to upgrade the OEM software. Due to the fact that motherboard was a replacement and each board has it's own unique ID, the OEM software didn't recognize my computer as the computer it was originally installed on. Frustrated, I downloaded a 3rd party video player, ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum figuring that would solve the problem. But it didn't. Playback froze using it as well. I took the computer back to Micro Center for rework. After some thorough troubleshooting, it was found that the port on the motherboard which the optical drive was connected to was bad. The replacement motherboard was a lemon! The replacement motherboard was again replaced this time at no cost, just the time without the computer. Third boards a charm I hope. Disc playback now works without error. We are back to enjoying some sweet Blu-ray movies. The HTPC is now fully functional again. Keep your fingers crossed!

Rage Against the Machine, pt. 4 - "Hotrod Style"

From Toxic Shock Syndrome

Part 4 of my love/hate relationship with technology series "Rage Against The Machine" is about the motherboard of my home theatre computer, a.k.a. HTPC. The computer started acting funny. It would lock up and not start up. I even got a few BSoDs and a WSoD, which I didn't know existed. I did some research and determined it was a hardware issue. I've successfully diagnosed and fixed software issues, but this was my first foray into hardware errors. I know it's hard to believe but I've never had a computer crash on me before. Knock on wood. I probably could have fixed it myself, but this is our entertainment system and I didn't want to screw it up permanently. I took it to my local computer repair shop and got the motherboard replaced. Total repair cost was $360. I'm embarrassed by that price. I could have saved myself some money by doing it myself. There's always next time.

The computer repair dude said that he's seen a lot of the small profile computers have heat related issues. The motherboard just burned out. I decided to run the computer without a case a.k.a. "hotrod style". Only time will tell how that works out. The HTPC is almost year and a half old and I've had more problems with it than I've had with any other computer. The build quality is just poor. But because consumers demand cheaper computers then we get what we get. You just buy the product, take care of it and hope for the best.

12 Outdated Technology Terms That You Shouldn't Use During An Interview

I ran across this article that I found interesting. If you know any of these words, then you need a refresher course in technology "buzzwords". Don't put any of these words on your resume. I used to commute with my neighbor before my office moved in July. He and I would sit on the subway and make a game of trying to use outdated tech words in our conversations. My favorite is "information superhighway". See #12 in the article. :0) We found it hard to use "searching" instead of "Googling".

Landlines Are Losing Popularity

I read an article in the newspaper about the slow death of landline phones. According to a CDC study released Wednesday, about 20% of US households use only mobile phones. Our household is one of them. For the first time, the number of US households opting for only mobile phones outnumbers those that just have traditional landlines, 17%, in a high tech shift accelerated by the recession. That ratio has changed starkly in recent years: In the first six months of 2003, just 3% of households were wireless only, while 43% stuck to landlines. Fifteen percent of households have both landlines and mobile phones, but rarely take calls on the landlines. Seems like a big waste of money. Our household hasn't had a landline since 2002. I know two people that don't have a mobile phone. It seems like an outdated way to live, but who am I to judge?

Online Sociability Fatigue

They've finally put a name on it. Online sociability fatigue is when people who are in constant contact through social networks, e.g. Twitter and Facebook, but who feel conflicted about it and need a break. The numbers are small-7%-the number of Americans the Pew Internet & American Life Project classifies as "ambivalent networkers". OSF is not just being felt by those people who have lived a good portion of their life without the internet. It's being felt by some of the very young people who've helped drive the growth of social networking.

I'm conflicted about OSF. On one hand I'm happy this is a page four headline in the newspaper and that the issue has finally been brought up. On the other hand, now that it has been identified, more people might admit to having OSF and it will become another "health" condition and pharmaceutical companies will start making pills to treat it or psychologists will start treating people for it. Seriously I don't even know how people have time to stay in constant online contact with their "friends". I don't think people need to know that much about my life. I don't particularly want them to know. Studies have shown that our brains crave networking, both online and off-line, but differentiate between the quality of the interactions. A good conversation with a good friend is much more life-affirming than a quick stream-of-consciousness, abbreviated, emoticon filled message in a tweet that anyone can read. How valuable is that?

Rage Against the Machine, pt 3

Part 3 of my love/hate relationship with technology series "Rage Against The Machine" is about the graphics card in the HTPC. Everything started out great. We had a computer controlling our home theater. We can watch blu-ray movies, TV, surf the information superhighway, watch TV on the internet, listen to our music collection and manage all our media-all with one box. The concept is brillant in it's simplicity. But computers are complex machines with minds of their own. About three weeks ago, the HTPC started making a loud buzzing sound. The sound was loud enough that it could be heard over the TV and music. I opened the case and found the sound coming from the graphics card fan. The HTPC has a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600GS graphic card. That little fan was making a lot of noise. I did some internet searching and found a HP forum thread with users that have the same graphics card experiencing the same issue. The users in the thread concluded that the fan bearings are not lubricated and wear out which causes it to make noise. The DIY solution is to put some lube in the bearings. It quiets the fan. I tried it and the sound reduced considerably. But the bearings were already worn out, so I got HP tech support to replace the graphics card. The computer is still under warranty, so it didn't cost me a thing. Before installing the replacement graphics card, I lubed the fan. I figured I wouldn't give the bearings a chance to wear out. Hopefully being proactive will prevent having to replace the graphics card a third time. If the fan goes out again, and the computer is still under warranty, I'll get another replacement. It's free, so why not? If it's out of warranty, I'll buy a different graphics card and call it day. I hate having to spend more money to make this computer work, but it is what it is.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Google rules the information superhighway. What started out as a no-frills search engine has blossomed into a dominate online software company. Their latest tool is Google Voice. Here's how it works:

With Google Voice, you get all your calls through a single number. Just add your other numbers to Google Voice and then make your own rules for how your phones ring. Click the Settings link on the right side of the page and click the Phones tab to change your phone settings and add the numbers you want to forward your calls to.

You can access and make calls from the phone and the Web, block annoying callers at will, and record custom greetings for different callers or groups of callers.

With Google Voice, you'll get all your voicemails in one place, saved for as long as you want. If you don't answer a call to your Google number, your callers will be sent to your Google voicemail. You can check messages by calling your Google number, by signing in to Google Voice, or by opting in to receive notifications.

You'll also get more handy features that work across all your phones:

-ListenIn as callers leave you a message
-Record calls on the fly so you never have to fumble for a pen again
-Switch phones mid-call without your caller knowing

Google bought out GrandCentral over a year and a half ago. I've had a GC phone number for a couple of years now. After the buyout, nobody heard from GrandCentral again. Google wasn't promoting it. GrandCentral users thought that Google had abandoned GC and left it for dead in March 2008, when the GC blog went dark. But a year later, here comes Google Voice. After Google rebranded GrandCentral into Google Voice, the existing GC users were offered to convert to Google Voice and be the first beta testers, before it is offered to other Google users. So far, so good.

Rage Against the Machine, pt. 2

This is the follow up to my Rage Against the Machine post about my fight against technology. I decided to keep the HTPC. None of the original bugs were resolved. I just found work arounds instead. The work around for the blu-ray discs not playing was to buy SlySoft's Any
DVD HD software. That software strips the HDCP copy protection from the BD discs. This allows the discs to play flawlessly on the computer. Turns out I think the problem is with the display's HDCP compatibility and not the computers. Both computers experienced the same issue but had different chip manufacturers (first was AMD, current is Intel) and video cards. A new bug has reared its ugly head with the HP BD/DVD player software. It no longer plays digital audio. In order to hear the movie, I have to set the player to stereo sound. I've Googled the issue and found others that have experienced the same problem, but no solutions. I think the bug stems from the latest player software version update. Of course, HP's customer service is no help. Their solution is always "restore the computer to the factory settings". That's a hassle and a waste of time.

The XM Radio plug in for Media Center worked great for a while, then just stopped playing. The work around is I just listen to XM via the online website. I think the reason it stopped working was either a Windows Vista or Media Center update.

I haven't determined the cause of the networked external hard drive connection dropping out but I think it's the driver & firmware of the Belkin network USB hub that the hard drive is connected to. The software works great on XP, but not so good on Vista. Customer reviews of the hardware confirm this. My laptop's OS is XP, the HTPC's and Chronic's laptop OS is Vista and both experience the same issues with the Belkin hardware that I don't experience on my laptops.

All in all it's been a challenging experience. There are some positives in this experiment. We cancelled cable TV. That's saving the fam around $90 a month. We receive great reception from the indoor HDTV antenna. I have it pointed out the window. The trick was opening the blinds to give the antenna a clear view. The local channels are in HD and the signal is strong 95% of the time. The shows we watch that aren't on local channels are either available on the internet or iTunes. So we don't miss a thing. Blu-ray movies rock. There is a noticable improvement in video quality from DVD to BD. We're adapting to our new home theatre set up. We'll either look back and laugh or my head will explode, whichever comes first.

Rage Against the Machine, pt. 1

I hate technology. That's right, you heard me. In our quest to streamline our expenses and make our financial lives more efficient, we've had some big wins and a spectacular loss. Technology is to blame for the loss. Before I get into the loss, let me tell you about our wins. It started last fall when we refinanced Chronic's car loan. That saved us $80 a month. Then I got rid of my car. Total savings $850 a month. I tweaked the car insurance. Total savings $40 a month. Chronic and I got a family cellphone plan where we share minutes. Total savings around $20 a month. The wife's gym membership expired, finally :0). Total savings $50 a month. Then we got greedy.

We became like Icarus. We flew too close to the sun. I had this brillant idea to drop cable tv. It is not our intention to stop watching television cold turkey just stop paying for the cable monopoly. I have a 50" plasma and intend to use it. Most shows are available on the internet or on DVD, so we wouldn't be missing anything. My idea was to buy a home theatre computer (HTPC) and an indoor antenna. My cousin successfully controls his home entertainment center with a HTPC. And he doesn't have cable. The HTPC i bought was an HP Pavilion Elite fully loaded with a high end AMD chip, 32bit Vista Home Premium which includes Windows Media Center that has a DVR, plus the computer had a high end graphics card, video card, audio card, huge harddrive, Blu-Ray DVD drive and a TV card. The up front cost was large, but the HTPC would pay for itself in a few months because we'd be saving $90 a month without cable tv. The indoor antenna can pick up the free over-the-air channels (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX) in high def. My hopes were high. I found a website all about HTPCs called missingremote.com. Armed with the knowledge I had gotten from missingremote.com and my cousins success story, I went at it like a bat out of hell. But I ran into some frustrating bugs. The XM Radio plugin for Media Center didn't work. No music played. I could listen to XM Online with no problem over the internet. I couldn't find a resolution on the internet. Then my music library would lock up during playback. All my music is on a networked harddrive, and I never had problems listening to music on our other computers. Then when we went to play our first Blu-Ray disc, it errored. I researched the error on the HP website and found that you can't playback Blu-Ray discs with an HDMI connection. It only works with a DVI connection. Well, my tv only has HDMI connections. And I didn't have a DVI to HDMI adapter. But I don't understand why Blu-Ray doesn't playback through HDMI on a computer. HDMI carrys a video and audio signal, where as DVI only carries the video signal. But the signal is the same. So it should work. There was no explanation as to why it works the way it does. My frustration reached the boiling point so I returned the computer.

I didn't want to be defeated by technology, so I scheduled a rematch. I ordered a new HTPC with an Intel chip (I read a couple of reviews where users had loads of trouble with an AMD Vista machine, but no trouble with an Intel Vista machine). I purchased a DVI to HDMI adapter. I downgraded the firmware on my network USB hub that my external harddrive plugs into. The recent firmware upgrade caused issues on Chronic's AMD Vista laptop. The downgrade fixed the issue. I hope it fixes the issue with the HTPC. The new machine is currently being built. Part 2 of this rant will be my experience with the Intel machine.