International Travel with Verizon Wireless

I recently bought a Blackberry Tour and wanted to use it in the UK and Belgium. I had heard so many horror stories about incredibly large bills arriving after using one's phone overseas that I was very nervous. Well, it turned out that I didn't have to be nervous.

I used Verizon Wireless' global plan, and for a pro-rated cost of about $70/month I received unlimited international data (email and web surfing) and phone calls for .99/minute. I was away for about a week, so that cost me a bit over $16.00 plus a few bucks for some phone calls.

To avoid big phone call charges, I used skype a lot, both from my netbook and from my daughter's new ipod touch.

All in all, this potentially scary adventure resulted in fairly modest charges for everything I needed. I recommend the Tour and Verizon Wireless' global plan for your international travels.

Some footnotes:

1. You have to set up the global plan in advance of your trip. It just takes a phone call to Verizon's customer service center.
2. The global plan didn't work when I arrived in the UK. I had to call Verizon from my netbook to have them fix it. A minor "pain".
3. As I changed countries, I would often lose access to my wireless plan. By removing the battery and restarting the Blackberry, I was able to make things work again.

Saving Money with Verizon Wireless' Friends & Family

With the recent introduction by Verizon of their Friends & Family (F&F) program, there is an opportunity for considerable savings for people on plans over 1400 minutes. By choosing the right F&F numbers, you may be able to bring down your usage below the next lower threshhold, and save $20 or more per month.

The Verizon website has the information you need to perform the analysis involved in selecting your top 10 numbers. However, they don't make it easy. You have to download one spreadsheet for each cell phone number you have, you have to combine all that data for one or more months, and then you have to summarize by number called, and identify the numbers that account for the largest number of peak, plan minutes.

If you find this easy to do, please let me know!

If you find this daunting, we're introducing a service to do this for you. You simply follow a set of instructions (that are not quite simple, but are easy) for navigating the Verizon website. You send us the resulting data files, and we do the rest.

Soon after, you'll receive an email with the analysis of your cell phone usage and instructions on how to take best advantage of Verizon's F&F program and their various plans.

We're offering a free trial for the first 100 users. When it becomes available, you'll be able to get to it via the following link: http://save-money.tech.officelive.com/default.aspx

We look forward to seeing you at our site.

Netbooks - The MSI Wind U100

I recently purchased my first netbook - the MSI Wind. I chose it because of its low price ($309 at Best Buy), its 10" screen (the top end for a netbook), and relatively roomy keyboard (roomy for a netbook, that is). I strongly recommend it.

The pluses: The low price, 10" screen, and availability of all the basics were what attracted me to this netbook. It has the same atom processor as most others, has a 160GB hard drive, and comes with 1GB of RAM. I added 1GB of RAM by buying a $13 RAM module from Newegg (shipping included!). Now, it's faster than my main notebook, which is about 4 years old. It travels well and does everything I need it to do.

The minuses: Each time I switch to the netbook, it takes a little while to get used to the keyboard. The keyboard is small and has a few peculiarities, most annoyingly the reversal of postions between the CTRL and Fn keys in the lower left. Having a second computer comes with the challenge of keeping it sync'd with my main computer. I accomplish this for all uses except for Outlook, by using Windows Live Sync, which works great.

One other "minus" is that the documentation is limited and what exists on the web is hard to find. I found a good review and description at http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/msi-wind.aspx and some good product documentation download links from MSI at http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=manual&maincat_no=135&prod_no=1474

Other notes: There are a few applications that I don't want to put on the netbook, and for those I use LOGMEIN to access my main computer. This slows me down a bit, but saves me from buying and installing second copies of software, and makes that data a bit more secure by keeping it at home. I also carry around an encrypted copy of ROBOFORM portable on a thumb drive This way I don't have to sync another device, yet I still have the convenience of not having to rememberso many passwords.

I'll be updating this post as I learn more about this netbook. But, so far, I strongly recommend it.

Windows Live Sync - Keeping Your Computers in Sync

Microsoft recently replaced their FolderShare product with Windows Live Sync. These are free downloads that allow you to keep folders synchronized through the internet between computers. You can use them for pure backup by using a PC (a spare, the one used by your spouse, or even one used by a friend) to receive file changes from your primary PC. The updates are nearly instantaneous and run securely and encrypted in the background - there's nothing you have to do once you setup the software.

Live Sync is installed on each of your PC's. You can decide which folders should be shared, and where those shared folders should reside on each of your computers. Then, whenever two or more of your computers are online, Live Sync works in the background to synchronize your data.

Besides backup, you can use it for collaboration with a co-worker, file or photo sharing with a friend, or to make it easy to switch from your laptop to your desktop.

The only note of caution is that it does not synchronize PST files, so you cannot use it to keep your email, contacts, tasks, etc. synchronized on two installations of Outlook. But for your documents, spreadsheets, powerpoints, photos, and music, it's great.

Storing More TV Shows On Your DVR

I have a DVR from Time Warner. I like it a lot, but I don't like that some of my recorded shows get purged before I've had a chance to watch them. Time Warner doesn't offer any service or product to expand their DVR's.

Luckily, several companies offer DVR Expanders for various models of DVR's, like my Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300. I recently purchased Apricorn's DVR Expander with 500GB of storage (http://www.apricorn.com/product_detail.php?type=family&id=37), giving me over 280 additional hours of storage in low def. (They also offer 1 TB and 1.5 TB models, and I'm sure in a few months, they'll be bigger still.) For a bit over a $100 bucks, I greatly expanded my storage capabilties.

Setup took just a few minutes and was very straightforward due to the clear instructions Apricorn provided.

There's just one weird glitch that they don't tell you about on the website, but do tell you in the Quick Start Guide. While the DVR is recording to the expander, you can't fast forward or reverse - just play and pause. After the show is recorded and you're playing back, everything is normal, but while it's recording these functions don't work. Strange. A bit of a pain. But not enough of a problem to make me not want to recommend this product.

This is a well priced, simple to install, handy addition to your home entertainment center. I recommend it.