Wow. When you’re just looking at a monthly bill, you really don’t stop to think about how much you’re paying over the term of the phone contract. When you run out to buy that Nexus One and it’s gleaming in your sweaty little palms, just try to remember the bottom line as shown in this great graphic from BillShrink.
Find the best cell phone plans and more graphics at BillShrink.com
Captured at 1/1 11:11
Happy New Year to everyone from the folks at GadgetMETER. GadgetMETER is now officially 1 year old and I am proud of what we’ve accomplished in that time.
One of my New Years resolution consists of simplifying my online and offline lifestyle.
Now, if you are wondering how this screenshot is appropriate for this post. Well, I just happen to look at my iPhone at exactly 1/1 11:11pm so I quickly captured it. The background is a picture of Monica Belluci on my jail broken iPhone. Pretty cool huh? It must be a sign because I see it as a way to reset our tech lifestyle and look back at what’s really important: family, friend (true friends, not the persons you don’t know on your Facebook), health, and the environment. Today, we have way too many distractions in our life that really clouds our judgetment on what’s really important. Let’s take time to get rid of online and offline baggage and welcome the New Year!
So I propose this New Years Challenge for you.
Google Phone
The rumors of the upcoming Google Phone has been laid to rest. Here is a screenshot of the Google Phone running Android 2.1 operating system. It is a Google branded phone but built by HTC. It is expected to be available as unlocked GSM in early 2010 on both AT&T and T-Mobile. Google apparently had a lot of influence on how the phone should be designed and operate since it is essentially their brand.
This comes only a few months after Verizon’s successful launch of their iPhone competitor Droid which also runs Android but version 2.0. Seems like iPhone competitors are coming out before the release of the next generation iPhone 4G which will be a bloodbath.
Via TechCrunch
Yesterday I thought I had found the desk of my dreams. But it was not to be since this desk featuring Han Solo frozen in carbonite is just a one off custom job, not ever to be sold commercially to all of us envious Star Wars nerds.
But I have to say, this desk was done right. I especially love the glowing panel legs. I imagine that if Solo had ended up as a prize for the Emperor instead of Jabba, this is exactly what would have been done with him.
The only thing that would make it better would be if the access panels on the front actually came out and acted as drawers (everything for me has to be functional… I don’t know why).
While I was still lusting after the Han Solo desk I came across yet another welcome Star Wars item, though admittedly not on anywhere near as grand a scale (but hey, at least I can actually buy these)…
Star Wars cellphone alert charms! I love phone charms, an obsession I picked up in Japan (those guys are NUTZ with phone charms, seriously). These might be a little too cumbersome to actually connect to your phone, but there are plenty of other places they could go. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
These little light up do-dads respond to frequencies emitted by your cell phone (only for 800-1600 MHz GSM network handsets). So you can leave your phone on silent, in your bag, and these little guys will light up and spin around when it goes off.
Neat. Sadly I don’t think there is one with Boba Fette, but for use uber-nerds there is one with a Dalek!
Can be bought from Thinkgeek.com for about $10, batteries included
Google Voice Quick Reference
Google Voice is really quite an amazing service with a lot of features – for free. Granted if you have a smart phone with browser or near a computer to manage your calls. For those of you still sticking to your dinosaur phone lacking an Internet browser, this Google Voice Quick Reference is for you. Just print it out and put it into your pocket. I didn’t even know some of these features were available such as conversation recording. Managing Google Voice features is now whole lot faster.
Via TechCrunch
I don’t want to get my hopes up. I was so disappointed by the Palm Pre and I was not terribly impressed with iPhone 3.0 But I watched the promo vid for Google’s Android 2.0…
And I gotta say that I’m liking what I’m seeing. Oh please dear lord don’t let me be disappointed yet again. I gotta renew my two year ball-and-chain with the iPhone in July 2010, and it’s probably going to come down to a choice between iPhone 4G running OS4.x and an Android phone running Cupcake Eclaire 2.x. And I really really really wanna choose the Android OS because I’m getting pretty sick of the Apple monolith.
I think I’ve downloaded roughly 200 apps since I’ve owned the iPhone. I’ve paid for probably 40%-50% of those, maybe more, I’m not sure cause the App Store makes it so easy to buy junk you don’t need. Of those apps, I use maybe 10 on a regular basis. Maybe. Might be as few as 5, depending on how you define regular use. So it makes absolutely no difference to me that Apple has 100K apps in the store. I’m never going to know about 99% of those apps, and of the ones I do know about, I’ll want to try maybe 5% of them. And here’s where the sheer inertia of Apple’s store comes into play. Too many choices that people will never ever find out about. It’s like going to the local convenience store and standing in front of the drinks fridges. You have 50 kinds of ice tea, 90 kinds of soda, 30 different bottled waters – how many of those choices do you actually consider or even know about?
Transfer Your Mobile Number to Google Voice
I’ve been using Google Voice since it was owned by Grand Central. It is a great platform for managing free calls, SMS, and contacts with intelligence. Now Google Voice lets you port your mobile number from your carrier to Google as well. This way, your voicemail is accessible from the cloud. By allowing Google Voice to manage my voicemail, it solves my issue with AT&T which prevents me from receiving voicemail notifications. Once you receive a voicemail, you can be alerted a number of ways by transcribed email or SMS text messages.
Google Voice can let you have a single phone number that automatically rings to your mobile, work, home and other phones based on rules and settings. For example, calls from your kids will ring all numbers while office related contacts only ring your work number.
The process to move your carrier number to Google Voice requires a few steps. However, it is very worth it in the end.
Via TechCrunch
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