Lessons From Verizon

I took advantage of some holiday / vacation time to get into Verizon and renew my cell phone contract, and want to share some points of interest about this experience.

I learned that there are Verizon owned stores and then there are Verizon authorized dealerships. As we all know, when you sign a contract with Verizon, there are the early termination fees for cancelling your contract. What I didn't know was that when you sign with an authorized dealership, not only are you signing a contract with Verizon, but also with that dealership. So, if you ever have to cancel your contract early, you will be charged the early termination fee from Verizon, but you may also be charged by the dealership as well. Double Whammy!

Another reason to go direct to the Verizon owned store is that the customer service is much better. They greeted me at the door, helped me register my arrival on their kiosk and allowed me to browse for a few minutes before my name was called to meet with someone. When we arrived at the authorized dealership, we waited for 15 minutes in the store and not once were we approached by anyone to even say "Hey we're kind of busy, but I see you and I'll help you as soon as I can."

I learned that cell phones need to have patches or upgrades installed just like computers. So if you find your cell phone not working as smoothly as it once did, check to see about getting an upgrade installed.

I rediscovered that deciding on a ring tone is one of the most stressful events in life. I now rank it above deciding on a user name and password for your email account. After hours of endless searching, browsing, listening and stressing I made my selections.

When you call me - Theme from Magnum PI

When my wife calls me - Angel by Aerosmith

My New Friend Dizzler

I've been a fan of music on the Internet since Napster in the mid 90's. Of course the plight to find music online in segments longer than 30 second samples has been one of ups and downs. When I saw them arresting some grandma who's grandson downloaded music to her computer off of Kazaa, I decided it would be best to find alternative sources. While those "issues" have been resolved, now it's not free.

I started using Launch for quite some time and still go back there. I like it because it easily sorts music by genre on it's stations and allows for some good customization of your personal music choices. Even though Yahoo now owns it and muddied it up a bit, I still use it.

Later I jumped to Pandora and liked it because it was easier to set up and manage than Launch was. and gave me a better random exposure to new music that I might like.

Then there are the actual radio stations that broadcast live via Internet. These are good, but the traffic reports from New Jersey aren't real relevant to me.

Finally, just yesterday I came across a new one. This one has some real teeth and goes beyond just music. It covers video, games and live radio as well as music. Dizzler is a free web based application that searches for online streaming media that you can use through it's player.

It allows you to create a play list of your favorites and will cycle through them all for you. While it's maybe not the best way to listen to music like you would a radio station it is great to listen to songs you have stuck in your head, but don't want to buy from iTunes.

It also offers a business application. I'm not exactly sure how it works yet, but I've got ideas on how to integrate pod casting into a player on a website using Dizzler.

So check it out and give me your thoughts on where you get your music.

Google Street View is Watching

We all think we're good people. We know we have little things about us that we'd like to change, but they are secret and no one really knows about them anyway, so what's the big deal right?

Well, Google Maps has a new feature where in some locations you can get an actual street view of what it looks like. Called Google Street View, I think this is a great idea, but it gets me thinking of Big Brother a little bit. Here's how it works.

Sure these are just random pictures taken by a car driving down the street, but are you sure that every moment of every second of your life you were behaving in a way that you would want the whole world to see and then blog about?

Here are a few links to GSV that I think might drive my point home a little.
970 OFarrell St, San Francisco, CA 94109, USA - just exactly what are those two guys looking at?

172 bush street san jose ca - The movie wasn't that great.

Telegraph Ave & Dwight WayBerkeley, CA 94704 - No one will ever know I'm taking 2 breaks this afternoon.

Google Headquarters1600 Amphitheatre PkwyMountain View, CA 94043 - This is not from America's Most Wanted.

While somewhat amusing, GSV has raised some legitamate questions in my mind. Like is this legal or an invasion of privacy? Read more about that here.

Big Stress - Insignificant Product

3 years ago I fought to avoid getting a cell phone. I didn't need one and thought they were a vain display of how important people thought they were by insisting people needed instant access to them at any given time. Today, I carry two cell phones at all times. One of which has my calendar and email on it. I guess I'm a little hypocritical.

Increasing my vanity, I suddenly felt the urge to get a custom ring tone. Why? Well my brother in law got a new one which inspired my wife to get a new one, which made me feel like I should get one. Again with the vanity, I know.

Deciding on a ring tone has got to be one of the most difficult things to do in the world. The pressure and stress of identifying your life with a song that plays for maybe 10 seconds for the whole world to hear is just too much. It's that same feeling that you get when you are trying to come up with a good user name for an email account.

I finally decided to find a song that I would use only when my wife calls me. It had to be something good, so I settled on Hall & Oates' "Kiss on my list", but it wasn't available for download. So, I thought I'd get real funny and go with George Michael's "I want your sex", but better judgement stopped that pretty quick. Nothing seemed to do justice to what I wanted, so I sat up until 1:00 this morning stressing and searching Google for the right song. AAHHHH!!!

My conclusion is this, buying a stupid $1.99 ring tone should not be this involved and the company behind it all should come up with some way to make the process easier to help the victims like me maintain a certain level of vanity while lowering my stress. So, if anyone comes across a great tool, like an Internet quiz that helps associate the most appropriate ring tone for people, please pass it on. PLEASE!

Phantom Cell Phone Vibrations: It could be mental

I don't know how many times in a day I feel my right hip or left pant pocket to see if that sensation is my phone vibrating. I always knew somewhere in the back of my mind that I couldn't be the only one to have experienced this sensation and though the article is a little dated, it still proves my point. I'm not losing my mind.

The Columbia News Service reported that Phantom Cell phone Vibrations, or PCV's are quite common among cell phone users in their article, Who's calling? Is it your leg or your cell phone?

According to the article, there hasn't been any scientific research done to determine the cause, but the common thread among theories seems to be a psychological cause where we desire so much to be connected, or just want the phone to ring with important information that our mind actually tricks our body into feeling the vibrations we associate with these desires being fulfilled.

Personally, being the conspiracy theorist that I am, I'm quite sure that the frequency in which the phone transmits information is detectable by our bodies. After wearing a cell phone for a period of time our bodies begin to automatically respond to the frequency of an incoming call and we then subconsciously associate any similar frequency our body detects with a soon to be vibrating phone.

In reality, the government, probably the NSA, is conducting tests to determine the body's ability to detect such frequencies and will soon be imbedding microchips in our bodies via the flu vaccine so they can obtain mind control over the American population.

What's really sad is I wrote all that conspiracy theory stuff, then googled for mind control and came up with that site which already has the same theory. I'm not sure whether to be afraid that my theory could be true, or to be scared that I'm actually beginning to think like the crazies out there.

Be ware - If your leg starts vibrating, start looking up for stealth helicopters to come swooping in to capture you for more mind control experiments. Is that my phone or yours vibrating? Trust no one!

God Must Be a Mac User

There are certain monumental events in every one's life that are frozen like snapshots in your mind's eye. The moment your wife agreed to marry you, the birth of a child or buying your first house. I can distinctly look back and vividly remember such instances as if I was looking through the photo album of my life.

Last night I experienced yet another memory making event. No longer must I hang my head in embarrassment when I discuss computers. Now I can join the ranks of being a Mac user. Proud and confident am I. It is as if I approached the altar, knelt and surrendered all that I had been carrying on my shoulders alone. Struggling to make it through the day, every day. Wrapped in the bondage of cables and cords and wires that hindered my life, I turned over a new page in my life... No I tore the old pages from my old life and was given a new beginning through the purity of the sleek, gleaming white iMac, which arrived via UPS (Not Fed Ex thank you) to my doorstep last night after making the purchase on eBay last week.

Out with the old










In with the new

Glory Hallelujah - I've been set free.
If you want to learn more about accepting Mac as your computer click here.