Google Play Gift Cards SUCK!

[Update] See updated addendum at end of article.

If you buy Google Play gift cards with the expectation that you can buy a Nexus 7 tablet or other products from the Google Play store, DON’T BUY THE GIFT CARDS!

Why?  Because you CAN’T buy things like a Nexus 7 tablet.  I just purchased 10 $25 gift cards for a total of $250 to buy my son’s Christmas present… a Google Nexus 7 tablet.  As anyone can clearly see, the Nexus 7 tablet is front and center on the Google Play store home page.

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The gift cards say nowhere that you can’t use your store credit from gift cards to buy tablets.  Here’s what the actual gift cards look like:

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If you can’t read the text on the back of that card, here it is:

Get music, movies, books, Android apps and more on Google Play. Purchase and enjoy your content on both the web and your Android phone/tablet.

To redeem on the web:

  1. Go to play.google.com/redeem.
  2. Scratch label off of card & enter code.
  3. Start shopping – your gift card value will be added to your Google Play balance.

To redeem on an Android phone/tablet:

  1. Launch Google Play Store app on your Android phone or tablet.
  2. Select Redeem.
  3. Scratch label off of card & enter code.
  4. Start shopping – your gift card value will be added to your Google Play balance.

Terms & Conditions

Use of card subject to additional terms and privacy policy: play.google.com/about/card-terms.html. Valid only for users 13+ years of age and resident of U.S. Redemption requires Google Wallet account and internet access. Limits may apply to redemption and use. No fees or expiration dates applicable to this card. Card may be used for purchases of eligible items on Google Play only. Any refunded amount will be credited back to your Google Play balance for future use under same terms. Card is not redeemable for cash or other cards; not reloadable or refundable; cannot be combined with other non-Google Play balances in your Google Wallet account, resold, exchanged or transferred for value (except as required by law). Once card is purchased, risk of loss and title for card passes to purchaser. Google Payment Corp. and its affiliates disclaim all express or implied warranties as to the Google Play card and Google Play. For assistance or to view your Google Play card balance, visit support.google.com/googleplay/card-help. To speak to customer care call us at 1-855-466-4438. Issued and © 2012 by Google Payment Corp. All rights reserved.

As is clearly seen, there’s nothing on here to inform a gift card purchaser, while they’re still in the store, that you can’t use it to buy tablets.

To top it all off, there’s no way to get refunds from these cards.  What the hell and I going to do with $250 credit in the play store?  In 2.5 years in the play store, I’ve spent a total of about $25.  At that rate, it’ll take me 10 years to use up that credit, and I put this credit on my son’s account so that his tablet would arrive already set up with his account.  What’s worse is this was what I had budgeted for my son’s “big” Christmas gift.  Now that money is tied up in a useless place.  I’m not Google… Piles of money don’t just show up in my checking account every night.

[Update] I just got off the phone with a representative at the Google Play store.  He knew what I was going to complain about just as I started.  He was very sympathetic with my position and said he’s aware that this is a HUGE problem!  They’re getting LOTS of calls with this same issue.  He also said there’s absolutely nothing, whatsoever, that he, nor even his supervisors can do.  He felt incredibly bad and said he’s taking the contact information of everyone that calls with this problem so he can contact us as soon as this situation changes.  He said they (his peers) have been complaining up the chain about this problem to no avail.

So, my problem still remains completely unresolved and all my money tied up in their store.

Did I help you?  Can you help me now?

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Don’t spend $100 on an HDMI 3D cable

If you go to an electronics store like BestBuy or HHGregg for a cable to play 3D content, they’ll try to sell you a high end HDMI cable for a ridiculously high price.

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They’ll tell you you HAVE to have it to watch 3D content because HD 3D content uses too much bandwidth for the cheap HDMI cables to handle.  3D HDMI cables are rated at 10.2Gb/s (10.2 billion bits per seconds).

IT’S NOT TRUE!

[GARD]

At least, not for the cheap ones that claim they can do 3D… or more specifically, these low cost 3D HDMI cables DO work.  I just verified it with my own 3D equipment.  The picture below is an affiliate hyperlink directly to the product on Amazon.

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I ordered 6 or so of these and they work on all of my HDMI equipment, including the 3D DVD player connected to my 3D TV.  The work on all of my HDMI equipment, including the following:  all links are affiliate links to Amazon.com

image Sharp 70″ 1080p 3D LED Smart TV with FREE 3D Glasses
image Roku 2 XS 1080p Streaming Player
image LG 42CS560 42-Inch 1080p 60Hz LCD HDTV
image Samsung BD-E5900 3D WiFi Blu-ray Disc Player (Black)
image NEW VIP 722K Dual Tuner HD DVR Dish Network
image Toshiba DR430 1080p Upconversion Progressive Scan DVD±RW Recorder w/USB & HDMI (Black)

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Review: Toshiba Satellite L775-S7309 Notebook PC

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Toshiba’s Satellite L775 Notebook PC is a great bang for the buck, so much so that I bought it myself.  I’ve avoided laptops for, well, forever, because for whatever laptop you could buy, you could by much more computing power in a desktop for the same money.  I’m a tech junkie and spend too much time browsing around stores like BestBuy.  Every time I’m there, I examine the notebooks and every time I’m sorely disappointed at the high prices and lack of power.  I’ve never found anything worth using under $800 or so.

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Finally, after years and years of browsing through the laptop aisle, I finally found a laptop with enough power and a low enough price, and, this one’s radically important for me, a high enough resolution (vertically) for me to personally get some programming done.

[Here’s my affiliate link to this notebook on Amazon]

So, let’s get into this PC’s specs:

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Feature Value
Screen Resolution 1920×1080
Screen Size 17.3″
Screen Aspect Ratio 16:9 Wide Screen
RAM 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz
CPU Intel Core i3-2330Mhz CPU, 2.20Ghz
Hard Drive 500GB
Mouse Touch Pad w/ Multi-Touch
Keyboard Full keyboard with full number keypad.
Ports 3 2.0 USB, 1 HDMI, 1 RJ11, 1 VGA, Power, Media Card reader
Optical Storage DVD +/-R/RW with LightScribe (The drive can print images on the label of your DVDs if you buy the right kind).

What’s Good about it?

The price vs. performance is the best I’ve found – ever.  With all of the specs above, I was able to get it for under $500.  And, all other notebooks I ran across with a vertical resolution over 1024 were nearly $1,000 or more.  With 4GB of RAM and a 500GB HD and a Dual Core processor, it’s plenty powerful enough for most anything I’d need for a computer on the go.  All I really needed was something with a decent screen size to remote control my home desktop, so power and hard drive space weren’t really all that important for me, but this one’s got enough to use it as an actual computer as opposed to just a remote terminal.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that the touch pad is a multi-touch pad.  Yes, you can pinch to zoom.  It has built in wireless networking (as should be expected by any modern laptop) and a full size, wide keyboard.

What’s NOT to like about it?

It gets HOT…. REALLY HOT!  If you put it on your lap, you left leg will burn.  You’ll get actual flesh burns.  Also, and I find this unacceptable (aside from the low price); where you rest your right palm while typing gets really hot too… hot enough to cause bodily damage.  They actually have warnings about these 2 hot spots.

The volume is pretty low.  You’ll have to turn it up to max for most things to hear it.  And, even though I mentioned the full size of the keyboard and the large screen as an advantage, it makes the whole unit pretty big… a little too big for a notebook, but if a compact size isn’t an issue for you, then this won’t be a problem.  It fits nicely in my notebook backpack.

Installed Software

It comes pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium.  They are also guilty of shoveling on lots of other software.  Here’s a list of some of it:

  • WildCoins games.  Lots of fairly decent games, including Pac-Man (you can NEVER go wrong with Pac-Man!)  imageBut, you’re given a handful of virtual coins and can play the games with your virtual coins, but when they’re used up, you’ll have to purchase the games(s) you want.  Also, if you run the game launcher, it’ll install an icon on your desktop EVERY TIME YOU RUN IT!  I like to keep my desktop slim on icons and this stupid thing keeps adding an icon on my desktop, against my will, without asking, without warning.  Shame on you WildCoins!  And shame on youToshiba for lowering your standards to allow this.
  • Corel LabelOnce – This app let’s you design labels to print directly onto your CDs and DVDs (if you buy the write kind of discs made for this).
  • Google Chrome
  • NetZero dial up software?  Really?  What centuryis this???
  • Skype – Not something I’d install for myself and easy enough to download if you want it.image
  • Toshiba utilities – Lots of Toshiba specific utilities, including making your own rebuild media discs.  This is inexcusable to NOT provide the Windows Media discs.  It would cost Toshiba maybe $1.  But since they didn’t it will cost YOU many hours of babysitting the computer while you’re burning DVDs, making many trashed “coasters” in the process.
  • Microsoft Office 2010 – Don’t get too excited… The filesare there, but if you don’t have an install key, you can’t use it.
  • There was some anti-virus demo app on it too… either McAfee or Norton… don’t know, don’t care.  I uninstalled it and installed Microsoft’s free “Security Essentials”.

Battery Life

Of course, no mobile device review is complete without talking about battery life.  Toshiba has pre-installed some software to maximize and monitor your battery and your enabled features.  It will dim your screen, slow down the CPU, stop spinning the hard drive, etc… to reduce power consumption.  It’ll even give you a score of green leaves (a little annoying if you’re not a tree hugger), and a real time graph showing power usage so you can tune things to get a good balance of performance vs. battery usage.

Conclusion

I’ll end this review where I started it.  This is the best value vs. performance notebook I’ve ever seen… so much so that I bought it… I’m even writing this review with it.  Let’s put it this way, on a 5 star scale, ALL prior notebooks I’ve run across would never score more than 2.5 because of the ridiculously high prices and unusable low screen resolutions.  This is the first one I give a higher score to.  I’ll give it 4 stars out of 5.  If it weren’t for the painful heating and lack of install media, I’d give it a full 5 stars.

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[Here’s my affiliate link again to this notebook on Amazon]  (I don’t provide affiliate links to products I don’t use myself or that I don’t want myself.  This is one I definitely use myself).

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Review: Acer All-In-One AZ3731-UR21P Touch Screen Computer

 

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I’ve recently downgraded this system from 4 stars down to 2 stars.  Check back soon for WHY.

The most prominent feature of this PC is that it has a Multi-Touch monitor!  Yes!  You can control the PC by touching the screen!  The next most prominent feature is how inexpensive this was.  The ENTIRE set up was cheaper than most touch screen monitors.  I mean, the whole PC, monitor, keyboard, mouse, software, EVERYTHING was cheaper than a single touch screen with no PC or anything else.  This PC retails for $649 at the time of this writing.

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I bought this for my daughter for Christmas 2011.  She was at the house when UPS dropped it off, so it was no longer a surprise, so we went ahead and opened it and gave it to her (no sense in wasting 30 days of a 90 day return warranty!)

Note, the actual warranty is a 1 year, limited warranty.

Note that we’ve had about a month and a half experience with this at the time of this writing.  So, let’s get started:

Unboxing

It came in one box about 4 feet wide, 2 feet tall, and 8 inches thick.  There was a box with the mouse and keyboard in it and there was the computer between two large Styrofoam protectors and wrapped in a cushy bag.  The keyboard and mouse are wireless and came with a tiny USB receiver.

Note that this is an all-in-one PC.  That means the monitor and the PC are one piece of hardware.  Just as the picture indicates, you’ll have 3 items on your desk.  The PC, keyboard, and mouse.  That’s it, which was nice not having tons of cables and junk to mess with.

Hooking it up

This was, by FAR, the easiest set up of a desktop PC I’ve ever had!  There’s only ONE cable!  ONE!  And that’s the power cable.  I plugged in the wireless receiver to a USB port on the right side of the monitor.  I pulled the tab from the battery compartment on the mouse and turned on the mouse.  I added the provided batteries to they keyboard (2 AAA) and I plugged in the power cable.

When I turned it on, it recognized the wireless keyboard and mouse and booted into the Windows 7 Home Premium desktop.  I created my admin account and my daughter’s user account.  It found my wireless network and I entered the credentials and was online in seconds.

That’s it!  DONE!  And it’s nice having only ONE cable!  I can’t express now nice that is!  Really!  Look at MY cable set up on my own PC (Note:  This is NOT the cables of the Acer PC in this review… This is to show how bad things can be without the Acer PC in this review!!!)

image

And this is AFTER a MAJOR clean up!  This is as good as it gets with my PC!

ShovelWare/CrapWare

“ShovelWare” or “CrapWare” is crap software that computer makers like to load up your new PC with.  Most of it is usually trial software for anti-virus software, games, and utilities.  Most of it is usually CRAP!  Many times it slows down the booting of your PC and interferes with the performance while using it.

PC Magazine defines it as:

“Refers to the many “extra” programs pre-installed on some PCs that offer little value (they are “shoveled” in without regard to quality). Also called “crapware,” shovelware is geared to first-time buyers, who think they are getting more for their money. The term first appeared in the mid-1990s when tons of shareware programs were copied onto CD-ROMs and advertised in magazines or sold at computer flea markets.

UrbanDictionary.com defines it as:

“an array of haphazard software emphasizing quantity rather than quality

This shit is totally half-assed. Who assembled this shovelware?

This computer is no exception.  I won’t list the junk that’s on there, but there’s plenty of it.  I uninstalled all that had no redeeming value.

What’s Unique, Software-wise?

It is nicely configured for touch capability with oversized title bars and buttons on the title bars of all windows (easily user configurable since the early 1990’s, BTW).  It has an icon in the upper-right on the desktop.  When you touch it, it slides out a touch interface for several touch programs and settings.  It’s pretty nice.  BTW, if you haven’t tried Google Earth with a multi-touch monitor, you’re missing out on life!

There’s a touch, video keyboard to and you can even use it to log into Windows.  It works well.

Windows Paint, which is not an awesome paint program by any measure, works very well with touch, and even with multi-touch.  Let’s go ahead and define multi-touch.  That’s the type of touch interface that can respond to multiple touches at the same time, as opposed to touch screens, like the older Windows Mobile phones (and most others in the pre iPhone era) that could only recognize ONE touch point on the screen at a time.

Specs

I won’t repeat all the specs here.  If you want a full spec sheet, click here for it on Acer’s web site.

In short, it has:

  • 64bit Windows 7 Home Premium
  • Intel Pentium E6700 Dual-core 64bit 3.2Ghz processor.
  • 4GB RAM (you can max it to 8GB)
  • 1TB Hard Drive, 5400RPM
  • DVD-RAM/+-R/+-RW optical drive.
  • Full HD monitor (1920×1080)
  • Full Multi-Touch capability on that monitor.
  • Gigabit Wired Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n wireless.
  • WebCam built into top of monitor, like a notebook, with mic.
  • 6 USB 2.0 ports.

 

Performance

I didn’t run any benchmark tests on it, but it is plenty fast from my own, personal testing and I’m an overclocking geek with a QuadCore CPU on my own desktop (NOT THIS COMPUTER that I’m reviewing!)  Games and graphics software and the whole user experience is very zippy.  I noticed no lags on anything important.

Problems?

  • Sliding your finger across the screen to say, drag a window is kind of difficult at times as your finger tends to be kind of sticky on a slick surface and bounces, losing contact.
  • There appears to be a membrane in front of the monitor made of a thin, flexible plastic and it seems to NOT be attached and almost wrinkles while sliding your finger across the screen.

Conclusion

My daughter is highly pleased with it and spends an awful lot of time on it both browsing the web and using the paint software.  I also installed several other graphics programs for her as she is a bit of an artist.  I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of set up and the fact that there’s only ONE cable!  That just astonishes me!  The performance is great.  The multi-touch screen is awesome.  It comes with plenty of RAM and hard drive space, and the low price is fairly shocking considering what all you get.  I’ve always been pleased with Acer hardware.  They tend to have the best bang for the buck and they didn’t disappoint with this computer.

My daughter, who uses it much more than me says she’s “really likes it” and the only problem is the touch on smaller items is difficult to touch the right thing.

I’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

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The only thing holding it back is the shovelware and the wrinkly film on the touch screen.

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Check out my 3rd article on Chris Pirillo’s Lockergnome.com

imageI’ve been asked by Chris Pirillo to write some articles for his web site Lockergnome.com. This is my third article. It talks about the pros and cons of the new Windows 8 app store.

Windows 8 App Store:  What You Need To Know

If you haven’t heard of Chris Pirillo (and shame on you, if you’re a techie and haven’t), he used to host the TV show “Call for Help” on TechTV and lots of other cool stuff. You can follow him on Google+ here:

Follow Chris Pirillo on Google+

For that matter, you can follow ME on Google+ here:

Follow ME on Google+

I’ll be writing some more for Lockergnome.com, so check back here and I’ll post the links as they’re posted. I’ll also be announcing them on Google+.

Check out my 2nd article on Chris Pirillo’s Lockergnome.com

imageI’ve been asked by Chris Pirillo to write some articles for his web site Lockergnome.com. This is my second article.  It describes how to save money and protect yourself online when making purchases with a credit card.

Save Money and Protect Yourself with Your Online Purchases

If you haven’t heard of Chris Pirillo (and shame on you, if you’re a techie and haven’t), he used to host the TV show “Call for Help” on TechTV and lots of other cool stuff. You can follow him on Google+ here:

Follow Chris Pirillo on Google+

For that matter, you can follow ME on Google+ here:

Follow ME on Google+

I’ll be writing some more for Lockergnome.com, so check back here and I’ll post the links as they’re posted. I’ll also be announcing them on Google+.

Free Voice calls from your cell phone

 

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If you’re tired of outrageous fees for minutes on your cell phone, read on, I can tell you how to get you on your carrier’s cheapest plan and get unlimited minutes.  Read on…

 

Let me clarify:  After this, you’ll STILL have to pay a monthly fee to your cell phone provider.  This article instructs you how to make calls without using up your plans’ minutes!  Everyone clear on that?  Good.  Now, let’s get started!

What you’ll need:

Option 1:

  • A cell phone with the minimum plan that supports a “friends and family” or “faves” plan that let’s you add 1 or more phone numbers as always free calls to or from that (or those) number(s).
  • A free Google Voice account with a free telephone number.

Option 2 (doesn’t require friends and family plan):

 

How?

Instructions if you don’t have an Android or an iPhone (skip ahead to the “Android or iPhone” instructions if you have an Android phone):

Regular cell phone (NOT an Android and NOT an iPhone) (least preferable, but this still works):

  1. Call your cell phone service provider (Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc…) and ask them if they have a “friends and family” type service (different carriers call it different things.  Verizon calls it “friends and family”, T-Mobile calls it “My Faves”, and others may have different names and not all of them have it).  This service lets you set up one or more telephone numbers as always free calls.  This is so you can add your Mom or whomever you call most and those calls (either incoming or outgoing) will never use up your bank of allowed minutes.
    1. If you cell provider doesn’t offer this, stop now because this won’t work for you, unless you upgrade to an Android phone, then you can skip to the “Android Only Phone” instructions below.
    2. If your provider DOES offer this, you’ll need to add your Google Voice number to the plan (continue reading these steps for instructions on acquiring a free Google Voice number).
  2. Go to http://voice.google.com and either log into it with your existing Google account (if you have a GMail account, you have one) or create a new one.
  3. You’ll be prompted for a new phone number.  Follow the instructions and pick a phone number in the area code you prefer and pick a number you like.  If you have family in a different area code than your cell phone currently is, maybe choose a number in THEIR area code so they can call you free of charge to THEM.
  4. You will be prompted to have calls to that number forwarded to your cell phone.  Go ahead and enter your cell phone number.
    1. When prompted if you want to use Google Voice to replace your carrier’s voice-mail, I recommend to do this, but it’s not necessary for this free calls tutorial.
  5. Now, configure GV (Google Voice) to show YOUR Google Voice # instead of the incoming caller’s caller ID (this makes all incoming calls FREE via your “Friends and Family plan”)
    1. Click on the gears icon menu in the upper right of the web page (not your Browser’s wrench menu, which on Chrome, is just above the GV gears menu) and choose “Voice settings”.
      1. image
    2. Click the “Calls” tab, then select “Display my Google Voice number” by “Caller ID (incoming)”, then check the global spam filter, then click “Save changes”:
      1. image
      2. The other settings can be set to anything you like.
  6. Set you PIN (Personal Identification Number):
    1. Click on the “Voicemail & Text” tab.
    2. By the “Voicemail PIN” label, enter your PIN in both fields.
    3. Click “Save changes”
      1. image
  7. Now, call your cell phone provider (Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc…) and add your new Google Voice number to your “Friends and Family” plan (or the equivalent plan with your carrier).  Note that you MAY have to upgrade to a more expensive plan to get this if you’re on T-Mobile’s cheapest plan.  This will NOT be worth it if you never go over your minutes.  If you’d LIKE to have more minutes and not worry about it, then upgrading might be a good option.  You’ll have to weigh it yourself.
    1. I recommend you do NOT tell them that this is your Google voice number.  If they ask for a name to be associate with the number, just say “Home” or make something up.  That name is just for your reference later so you know who that number’s for.  Just don’t say “Google Voice”!
  8. Tell everyone you’ve changed your cell phone #.  Give them your new Google Voice #.
  9. When you make outgoing calls:
    1. Call your Google Voice # (this is necessary so that your carrier sees this outgoing call as one going to one of your “Friends and Family” numbers, making it a FREE CALL.
    2. When you hear the v-mail greeting, dial *.
    3. Enter your PIN (the one you created in step 6 above).
      1. Next, if you have new voicemail messages, you’ll have to either listen to them or hit 7 on each to mark as “read” (you can listen to them later via your phone or with your web browser).
    4. Enter 2 to place a call, then follow the instructions.

This, obviously, adds extra steps and time to making outgoing calls, BUT THEY’RE FREE!  For incoming calls, you lose the caller ID information because it’ll always show your Google Voice #, BUT THEY’RE FREE!

 

Android or iPhone

If you have an Android or iPhone, this next set of instructions works better than the instructions above for non smartphones.  There’s an even better option for Android only phones.  For that, skip ahead to the “Android Only” section.

Follow instructions 1-8 above, but forget about step #9 above.  Since you’ve got an Android or iPhone (and I think this works for Blackberries too), do this:

  1. For Android, download GVMyNumber.  For iPhone, download this app.
    1. Why not use the official Google Voice app for Android?  Because it may not call the same number every time, making calls OUTSIDE of your FREE friends and family list!  This is probably a problem on iPhone too.  There may be an iPhone app like GVMyNumber that always calls your OWN Google Voice number.  If anyone knows of one, please leave comments at the bottom for our iPhone users.
  2. For GVMyNumber:
    1. Start the app and tap “Settings”.
    2. Tap “Google Voice Number” and enter your Google Voice Number, then “OK”.
    3. Tap “Google Voice PIN” and enter your PIN that you create in step 6 above, then “OK”.
    4. Now, when you place a call, you’ll be prompted if you want to use GVMyNumber or not.  If you’re calling during prime time and to a number not on your friends and family list AND not to a number that fits your carriers free numbers, let the app take over.  The call will take a little longer to go through because it’s going to call your GV number, enter your PIN, go through the menu and such to make your call, BUT IT’S FREE!

 

Android Only

If you have an Android phone, this may be the preferred method.  Note, however, that you can use THIS method as well as the method above in the “Android and iPhone” section.  I recommend installing GVMyVoice regardless.

What’s different about THIS set of instructions?  All the sections above make and receive calls via your cell providers voice calls.  Your cell provider is aware of the phone calls (maybe not the final destination).  They appear to your cell provider as a call to or from your GV phone number and they DO use your plans minutes UNLESS you have your GV # on your “Friends and Family” plan.  Your cell provider will log the call(s) and probably show them to you on your bill as minutes accumulated on your free calls.

THIS set of instructions doesn’t use your cell providers voice service AT ALL.  As far as your cell provider is concerned, with THIS set of instructions, you never place or receive call.  This is because you’re using your DATA PLAN instead.  These are VOIP (Voice Over IP (Internet Protocol)) calls.  In other words, it’s as if you’re using voice chat from one PC to another over the internet.  You’re not using the phone systems at all.  It’s all internet traffic as far as your cell provider is concerned.

Here’s now:
  1. Go to http://voice.google.com and either log into it with your existing Google account (if you have a GMail account, you have one) or create a new one.
  2. You’ll be prompted for a new phone number. Follow the instructions and pick a phone number in the area code you prefer and pick a number you like. If you have family in a different area code than your cell phone currently is, maybe choose a number in THEIR area code so they can call you free of charge to THEM.
  3. You will be prompted to have calls to that number forwarded to your cell phone.  DON’T DO THIS!
  4. Open the gears menu in the upper-right and choose “Voice Settings”
    1. image
  5. Click on the “Phones” tab, then uncheck everything except “Google chat”.  Make sure “Google chat” is checked.
    1. image
  6. Install the app Groove IP from the Android Market.  This app is not free, but for a one time fee of $4.99, it’s well worth it for unlimited free calls to and from your cell for life!
  7. Open the app, open the menu, and choose “Settings”.
  8. Tap on “User name” and enter your Google Voice account name that you use to log into your Google Voice account, then “OK”.
  9. Tap “Password” and enter your Google Voice account password that you use to log into your Google Voice account, then “OK”.
  10. Check ON “Allow 3G/4G calling”.  Read the notes on that option and decide if you really want this.  Almost certainly you DO!
  11. “Accept calls on answer”:  I recommend leaving this UNCHECKED so you can screen your incoming calls.
  12. Tap “Built in dialer preference”.  I recommend choosing “Ask every call”.  When you place a call using your phones standard dialer, Groove IP will intercept and ask if you want to use Groove IP for the call or let the call go through as a regular cell phone call that your carrier will handle.  If the call you’re making would be a free call through your carrier (nights and weekends or someone on your friends and family list, or with some carriers, calls to any mobile, or calls to other mobile users with the same carrier), you’ll want the call to be handled by your carrier.  It is more reliable and usually slightly better quality.
  13. Tap on “Call Filtering”.
    1. Tap “Exclusion Numbers”.  You’ll set up a list of number that should never use Groove IP for calls… Any phone number that’s always free, you should just call it normally without using Groove IP, especially other cell phones on your account (your spouses, your kids, on your same plan are almost always free calls).  In addition, if you REALLY want your other numbers on your plan excluded from Groove IP because even though it may be free for you to call them with Groove IP, it’s probably NOT free for them to RECEIVE them, because they’ll be receiving a call from your Google Voice #, NOT YOUR CELL PHONE NUMBER!, so your provider will NOT consider it a free call ON THEIR END!
      1. Enter all the phone numbers that are always free from your regular cell phone.  Separate each phone number with a comma.  Make sure you enter the area codes on all of them too.  Tap “OK” when done.
  14. Go back to the Groove IP main menu and scroll down to the bottom and tap “Miscellaneous”.
    1. Check ON “Autostart” so that this app starts when you power on your phone.

That’s it.  Feel free to peruse the other options on Groove IP and fix to your likings.

Now, when you place calls, you can either use your phone’s standard dialer or open the Groove IP app and dial from there.  If you use the Groove IP dialer, you won’t be prompted if you want to use your cell provider for the call.  All calls will go over the internet as VOIP calls, except for those numbers in your exclusion list.

Incoming calls (as long as the person calling you dialed your Google Voice number and NOT your cell phone number) will trigger Groove IP to ring your phone.  You’ll answer the call with the Groove IP app (which will already be up, front, and center when an incoming Google voice call arrives).

Note that if someone calls your REAL cell phone number, your cell phone will ring normally and when you answer, it’s a NORMAL call that consumes minutes per your contract plan.  Incoming calls will NOT be free unless they’re to your Google Voice number.

Be sure to tell everyone (except those whose incoming calls are free anyway, like your spouse and kids on the same plan) that you’ve changed your cell phone number.  Give them your new Google Voice number.

Congrats!  You’re done!  And all of your incoming and outgoing cell phone calls should be ABSOLUTELY FREE! with the obvious exception of people calling your cell phone number instead of your Google Voice number.  You can easily just let those go to voicemail, then call them back with Groove IP and give them your new number so they’ll stop calling your old one that costs you money.

Caution!:

Since these are INTERNET based calls, the quality can be crappy sometimes.  In those cases, you can either wait until you’re in a wireless LAN spot, a 3G or better spot, or if it’s important that you make the call right then, just make a regular call and use up your minutes.  You should have an ample supply of minutes every month with your carrier’s cheapest plan though since the vast majority of your calls will be over the internet.

See this image? image_thumb26
You’ll find an actual working version of it at the bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends know about this printer scam.

Check back later for updates too

BTW, if you want an invite to Google Plus, e-mail me at image. That’s not a clickable e-mail address… It’s a picture to prevent spammers from easily scraping it. You’ll need to type that address, exactly as you see it, including the G and the + in front of the word “Invite”. I’d also appreciate you clicking the “+1” at the bottom of this post.

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Good Luck!

Don’t Buy Kodak ESP-3250 Printer

 

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Don’t buy those Kodak printers that claim they have the cheapest ink.  I made that mistake and now I’m paying for it.  I presume all current production Kodak printers do this now too.

Here’s why:

I don’t print in color, except in very very rare occasions.  I almost always tell it to print in draft and black and white only.

image

image

My black ink cartridge that came with the printer ran out of ink shortly after I bought the printer and I’ve been running on a full sized replacement since then that I had to buy separately.  I’ve not replaced the introductory color cartridge because I have no need for it.

When I just now tried to print a document, using the settings shown above, I got this error:

image

Notice, the ONLY option is to “Cancel Printing”.

On the printer, I get this:

image

(Error  Color ink cartridge needs replacing. Press OK. (Error code 3508)

If I press OK, it moves the print heads to where I can pull them out, but won’t print.

If I press the “Cancel” button on the printer, it just cancels the print job.

If I remove the color cartridge, then put it back in, it KNOWS it’s still empty and behaves the same way.

I contacted Kodak support via chat.  The final results from the tech support agent are:

  1. Even when you explicitly image tell it to use only black ink, it still uses color ink for the “grays”.
  2. There’s NO WAY to tell it to use JUST black ink.
  3. There’s NO WAY to make it print, at all, even if you’re just printing black, have PLENTY of black ink image, but ONE of your 5 color wells is empty.

So, my options are:

  1. Buy ink I don’t need and don’t want, throwing out probably about 90% of the original color ink that’s STILL IN THE CARTRIDGE in the color wells that were never used.
  2. Toss this POS and buy ink for one of my shelved printers that actually WILL print, even if the color is out, and heck, even if the black is out too… at least it’ll attempt it.
  3. Hack this oversized paperweight to trick it into thinking it’s got a full color cartridge.

On a related note, check back later for an article on how to hack your Kodak ESP 3250! Winking smile

BTW, Kodak’s main selling point of this line of printers is that they’ve got the cheapest ink, which is a lie.  I found ink just as cheap for other printers.

image

Here are TODAY’s prices for color ink at WalMart:

image

image

And, BTW, ink for inkjet printers is more expensive per gram than PLATINUM!  I have an acquaintance that actually cracked open one, weighed the ink, and was able to determine that by weight, the ink is considerably more expensive than an equivalent amount of platinum.

According to WolframAlpha, the current price of platinum is $1,716 per troy ounce.  Hmmm…  My acquaintance made the measurement about 5 years ago, and it looks like the price was about $1,100/oz then.  Maybe… just Maybe, platinum has become more expensive than printer ink… not quite sure.

image

[Update]  After I posted this I started searching for “kodak esp 3250 scam” and I found other people reporting the same thing, and worse:

BTW, if you want an invite to Google Plus, e-mail me at image.  That’s not a clickable e-mail address… It’s a picture to prevent spammers from easily scraping it.  You’ll need to type that address, exactly as you see it, including the G and the + in front of the word “Invite”.  I’d also appreciate you clicking the “+1” at the bottom of this post.
See this image? image_thumb26
You’ll find an actual working version of it at the bottom of this article. Please click the appropriate buttons in it to let your friends know about this printer scam.

Check back later for updates too

Click here to follow me on Google+.

Good Luck!

GE Money CareCredit card–DON’T GET IT!!!

Unless you’re in dire straits, I suggest you NOT get this GE Money CareCredit credit card offered by your doctor (or offered anywhere else).  You should know that their interest rates are the highest legally available.  You should ALWAYS check the interest rate on any line of credit you apply for and soundly reject those with abusive rates.  In mid 2011, a good rate is around 9%.  Most cards offer around 15%, which is not that great.  Anything over that should not even be considered.  Any offer over 18% deserves a speech from you to them about ethics and questioning them how they can sleep at night.  GE Money CareCredit is approaching THIRTY PERCENT!!!  This vastly surpasses the line of questionably ethical.  GE Money CareCredit is a huge rip off!

BTW, Pay off your debts!

And, while I’m on the subject of interest rates, call all your debtors and see if you can get a lower interest rate.  When you’re paying off your debts, pay the minimum on all of them, except your highest interest debt.  On that one, pay as much as you can possibly afford.  Sacrifice as much as you possibly can.  Cancel all magazine subs, downgrade your TV cable/satellite plan to the bare minimum (or even altogether and just watch over-the-air TV), if you still have a regular home phone system, drop it and just use your cell phone or convert it to a lower priced VOIP system (Lingo.com or Vonage.com).  Stop eating out.  Learn the sales patterns at your grocery store.  And, for the love of all that is good, use coupons!  Does your grocery store offer fuel points?  USE THEM!  All this gives you MORE MONEY to use to pay down your debts SOONER and the sooner you pay them off the LESS YOU PAY in interest over the course of the debt!  Stop using your credit cards unless it’s an emergency.

When that first, highest debt is paid off, take all the monthly money you WERE paying to that card and add it to what you’re already paying to the next highest card, until it’s paid off, then roll all that over to the next one, and so on, until all your debt is paid off.

Make sure your whole household is on board, ESPECIALLY your SPOUSE!  It makes all the difference in the world.  Make it a project that you’re both excited about (and you will be when you see your debt start to shrink)!

Good Luck!