Cyanogen Inc., is a newly created company that has been producing the slowly adopted, but somewhat popular CyanogenMod custom Android ROM. They just released a new app called the CyanogenMod Installer which will unlock the user’s boot loader, root their device, and flash CyanogenMod to their phone with almost zero extra effort. The app is free over the Google Play store and after downloading their free desktop software you can have a very user friendly, highly customizable version of Android. Continue reading
phones
6 posts
What’s your area code? Does it have a 1 or a 0 in the middle? That’s a proper area code. Due to a quirk in the brilliantly elegant Bell System switching design, all area codes had 1s or 0s in the center. That way, the system knew whether you were dialing an area code or a local exchange, which used to have beautiful names like WAverly-6 or LIncoln-2, back before you had to dial a bajillion digits to call your neighbor down the street.
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Yes, even your new iPhone 4S is going to be crappy within 3 minutes of you getting your dirty hands on it. The problem is people don’t wash their hands after going to the loo and you use your phone to entertain yourself while sitting on your porcelain throne. Then to top it all off you lie to researchers when they ask you if you washed your hands. Shame! Continue reading
Nicolaos Kantartzis, a 62-year old electrical engineer, has pleaded guilty to an ingenious crime.
Kantartzis owns approximately 160 pay-phones in Washington, D.C. and Maryland. As cell-phones rose in popularity, his profits declined and his business was losing money quickly. What to do? Continue reading
I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not the Android badass of the world. I haven’t rooted my phone. I use only the Android and Amazon markets. I do, however, find myself playing with my smartphone often. It’s possibly the most useful thing I own. Continue reading
Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) is how you make phone calls through your internet connection and is a common way of ditching traditional land line service. If you’re in the market for a VOIP solution or want to look at alternatives to your existing VOIP provider then this may be one option.
When I was looking for a VOIP solution I considered Ooma, Vonage, MagicJack and Comcast Voice. I wanted a low cost, high quality, reliable connection and did not have any need for international calling. I quickly ruled out MagicJack because it requires a computer be on at all times and that’s not very friendly to my power bill or the environment.
Vonage and Comcast offer a similar service for comparable prices. Comcast offers their Triple Play service which combines cable television, internet and phone service in one package, but for me the package includes a slower internet speed than I have with them now and I the package deal is only really attractive for the first year. Vonage seemed reasonable, but the monthly cost wasn’t better than Comcast.
The Ooma Telo
The voice quality sounds like a traditional land line and I only rarely hear digital artifacts on the line.
The other features that Ooma offers are all accessed through their web based portal. The portal gives access to listen to voicemail, see call logs and change settings. I subscribed to a community black list of known telemarketers and have entered a few numbers into a personal blacklist of my own. You have the choice of sending blacklisted numbers to voicemail or just having them go into the void.
In case my network goes down (we are talking about Comcast here) I enabled is call forwarding on outage. When there are network problems and the Ooma device is unable to get online then all calls are forwarded to the number of your choice. In my case I send them to my cell phone.
For voicemails I have them sent to my email as a mp3 attachment and can listen to them on my computer, cell phone, on the portal or directly on the Telo device.
Overall it’s been great and has saved me a lot of money.