I have a love hate (but mostly hate) relationship with my land line. I really don’t want to get rid of it because I don’t always have cell phone service in my house and I don’t want to miss any important calls (and with my luck, the day I turned off the land line, I would get one of those important calls).

To help with my problem, I started looking into VoIP services. I’m sure that everyone has heard of Vonage. If you have cable, I’m sure at one point in time the company has tried to sell you on its digital telephone package (which is simply VoIP). There are many more providers than just this handful though.

After a brief Google search for VoIP providers, I found some really good deals out there. Most were cheaper than Vonage’s $24.95 a month.

You can choose what provider you want by the features you want. If you have friends or family outside the United States, then make sure you pick a plan that offers free calling to international numbers. Sometimes you can find services that offer calling for free to the UK and Europe.  Most providers offer free calling to Canada and Mexico.

There are also some providers that offer a reduced price for service, but it requires you to leave your computer on all the time. The Magic Jack is the most popular form of that. I wouldn’t use one because I don’t want to have to leave my computer on for days and days at a time, and like I said before, the one time I have to restart my computer, I’m sure I’d miss the call I was waiting for.

I just feel like no matter what you pick, if you have a high speed internet connection, you can definitely save money with a VoIP service versus a traditional phone line. You just have to make sure that your connection is reliable and always on. Also, don’t forget, if you have DSL you may not be able to get rid of your land line.

Don’t even get me started on the Google Voice fiasco that just happened and landed Apple in some hot water with the FCC….

Now the iphone application store has rejected a new application because the application allows the reading of the Karma Sutra. It is to be noted that the book reader Eucalyptus does not come with any books, but the K.S. is available for download onto devices and could be read at another time.

Whether it be the fact that Apple’s development team may decide that your application isn’t good enough for their devices or good enough to be released to their “cloud,” there are different places for software developers to go to have their programs viewed by many.

Apple has also been thinking of releasing a “net book” also. I suppose the net book would run like net books that run on Windows or Linux and are just able to run simple programs or surf the internet. Apple would undoubtedly make a net book that would be impossible to make programs for and far less powerful than any of the current mac books that are out there today.

The mac/pc commercials make me so mad because the pc just gives up when “the Megan” asks for a computer that doesn’t have software issues like crashing or viruses. Well guess what “Megan,” Mac’s have all those same problems too. As a matter of fact, I have been on a Mac many times in the past and gotten their version of a blue screen of death. I mean the iMac may have been the worst personal computer I have ever used, however there are so many people who think that the Macintosh name and product line is the best thing that has ever happened to the computer industry.

Whatever the reason, I think that people will enjoy PC’s and Windows mobile, Android, WebOS, and Symbian phones for much longer once the novelty of the iPhone wears off (like everyone knows it will).

PowerPoint has been around for 25 years now, and while it was first geared toward people who had to present in business meetings and salespeople, the program has now become synonymous with anyone who has to give a presentation of any kind; no matter if you’re a salesperson or a 4th grader.

Over the past few years in college, I gave numerous presentations and PowerPoint presentations were not only expected, but required for all of them. However, after reading the expressions on people’s faces while giving presentations over the past few presentations I’ve discovered something: no one cares.

Perhaps it’s just presentations that people don’t want to go to, perhaps it’s the fact that PowerPoint slides often have too much information on a slide. Whatever the reason, I believe that it’s time for people to start coming up with more creative ways of giving presentations.

I think, especially for those in more creative fields, there should be requirements that they have to give presentations that are far more creative than a PowerPoint presentation; and no, I don’t mean passing out candy or throwing t-shirts at the audience. Marketing professionals are expected to be some of the most creative people in the business school and they’re giving the same presentations as accounting majors, something is wrong there.

Another problem I have with PowerPoint presentations is that the audience has become numb to the presentations. They have taught an entire generation how to stop paying attention. They have also taught that same generation how to rely so heavily on one program.

In the corporate world, people often turn something that can be said in two to five minutes into a 20 minute presentation because they feel as if they need to have the visual aid of a PowerPoint presentation. What a waste of time.

A year or so ago I couldn’t see the point in using Twitter. I often called it stupid and pointless, now I update my Twitter at least 5 times a week with pointless things about how my day went. I have downloaded programs just so I can update my Twitter and also installed plugins for my Firefox browser to update my Twitter, it’s not an obsession just yet, but I’m trying to get into it.

Twitter has actually become kind of useful to those who are trying to save some money also. Companies like Sears, Fiji Water, and Gold’s Gym are looking to be your friend on popular social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. They are even offering discounts and side deals for those who follow them on Twitter or add them as a friend on Facebook.

Last week, for example, Fiji Water used its Twitter feed to tell followers about a 40%-off sale on bottled water purchased through the brand’s web site. Subsequent updates dropped the discount by a few percentage points until the promotion expired. Meanwhile, The Melting Pot chain is offering a free chocolate fondue — worth $16 — to Facebook users who try the company’s free application to match up their friends. (For more current deals, see charts below.)

Fifty nine of the top 100 online retailers have accounts on the social networking websites.

“There’s definitely a business advantage to having a presence there,” says Tim Ross, principal of Kendall Ross, a Seattle-based retail branding firm. “It’s free, targeted advertising.”

If you want to add a company as a friend think about this before you do; you’re giving the company access to your profile so you need to make sure you’re aware of the privacy settings that the site offers so you can limit how much personal information the company can see.

You can track coupons that are posted on Twitter at CouponTweet.com and CheapTweet.com

I think that using Twitter as a marketing tool for a company right now is pretty valuable. I can definitely see where it comes in handy for some companies that might be hurting right now for business or who just want to get their name out. I like the idea of getting coupons and deals from being friends with companies on the social networking sites.

Some companies I don’t quite understand why they would have a Twitter and use it frequently is places like my bank, which updates its Twitter account with birth announcements and promotion announcements. It’s a regional bank and I don’t know one person who works there, so why would I want to follow them just to see who is getting a promotion or having a baby?

Your life is currently a jumbled mess. You can no longer figure out what time you need to feed your cat because of your busy lifestyle. So, you decide to go pick yourself up a netbook and a smartphone thinking that life will get less complicated. Well, my friend, I believe that life may just get a bit more complex with that many electronic devices hanging around…unless you can utilize them properly.

Speaking from experience, I currently own a full size laptop, a netbook, and a Palm Pre and I use them all but it has taken me just about a year to figure out how to utilize them all to get the most out of owning each electronic.

I’ll start with the smallest: The Smartphone. In my honest opinion, everyone could use a smartphone. I think they’re great for doing just about anything you could possibly need. With a data plan, anytime you need to find anything the internet it is only a few clicks away. I basically use my phone to schedule my days and surf the internet…oh and make phone calls. I just decided that if you’re going to carry a small device to make calls and text during office meetings, then why shouldn’t it also surf the internet and have a good scheduler?

Secondly, I think having a laptop (or other personal computer) is important…vital even. In our “connected” society, having a full sized computer is imperative in most cases. There are so many things that you can do with a full sized computer that the smartphone can’t do, like (until recently) copy and paste. Multitasking on a personal computer is a breeze. Also, at least I find it to be true, it is so much faster and easier to type and find things on the internet with the computer. If I have my phone in my pocket, but am only a room away from my computer, I am going to get up and go search with my computer.

So, that’s when I get to the netbook. For months, my netbook laid lifelessly to the right of my laptop, plugged in and just sitting there. I’m sure that you’ve noticed by now that my life revolves around staying constantly connected. So, how did I finally begin utilizing the netbook with my phone and laptop always around? When my laptop started acting up badly (I can’t unplug it without it immediately losing power), I started traveling with my netbook. Now, I carry it everywhere. Even when I’m sitting at my desk with my laptop open, I typically leave my netbook on and on a site like Facebook with another instant messaging program open. This makes it easier for anyone who needs to get in touch with me to get in touch with me.

I think it’s all a balancing act between the three if you own them and you have to figure out if they are necessary for you.

Computers are tricky for the most part. In the past 10 years, every single computer except the one I am currently typing on has had a hard drive crash. Even my fourth generation iPod had a hard drive failure recently that led up to me buying a new iPod.

Getting a hard drive recovered after a crash is important to a lot of people. The first laptop I had crashed with all of my pictures and music files on it. I was never able to recover a lot of that because it was expensive to get data on a crashed hard drive recovered. There are, however, companies out there that offer hard drive recovery at low price flat rates, like DTI Data Recovery.

If I would have known that it was possible (and a little less expensive than I first thought) to get my files recovered from the failed hard drive, then maybe I would still have pictures of my dogs when they were puppies along with vacations that Chris and I took to St. Louis and Atlanta in 2005 and 2006. However, now it is too late for me because that hard drive is long gone (meaning I threw it away).

According to their website:

DTI Data Recovery is offering a FREE Backup Solution called MFT Save. It is a Remote Restore Point MFT Save that uploads the NTFS Master File Table Record safely to our secure servers. It is a Full version Freeware program.

All software we sell on our site was developed by us. We have a class 100 clean room. Not many data recovery companies in the US actually have a clean room so this is a big deal.

There are places in my town that offer hard drive recovery, but none that I have seen offer a clean room of any kind and they don’t guarantee that they can get the lost files off the drive. Worse than that, if they can’t get the files off the drive, they will tell you that then just basically throw the drive away.

Sure, this is something that could have been fixed by maintaining a backup of all of my files then (which I do now) but, then I didn’t think a hard drive failure would happen to that drive or if it did, I would know well in advance and be able to back anything up before it happened. Otherwise I would not have had to seek out hard drive repair in the first place.

There could soon be a ban on texting while driving going through to the states from the national government. If the states do not impose the ban, then they may lose highway funds.

Of course, the ban is directed at reducing the number of accidents and driver distraction as a result of texting while driving. The proposal was introduced after a series of tests showed the dangers of drivers who text while drive and take their eyes off the road to do so. One study that was released earlier this week found that when drivers of 18 wheelers texted while driving their collision risk was 23 times higher than when they were focused on the road. Reaching for a cell phone or dialing when driving increased their risk 6 times. The study, conducted by Virginia Tech, said that the results applied to all drivers and not just truckers.

So far, 14 states and the District of Columbia have banned texting while driving.

“The federal government ought to pass a law banning this dangerous and growing practice to protect the millions of Americans on our nation’s roads. It is a matter of public safety,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who was to unveil the legislation Wednesday along with Democrats Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina.

If the legislation were to pass, it would require states to ban texting or emailing while they were driving or the state could face losing 25% of their annual federal highway funding.

The ban would be fashioned after Congress’s required drunken driving ban.

States that have not already gone through and banned texting while driving will have two years to ban it following the passing of the legislation. It would ban drivers from texting while the car was moving and would not be enforced while the car was stopped.

Getting rid of clutter around your house can be one of the most annoying things to do. I know from experience that sometimes you just want to dump it to Goodwill or some other charity rather than trying to get anything for your stuff. However, some of the stuff in your house can be worth something.

There’s a rather new service out there called Listia that allows you to auction your stuff for free. In return, you can get points that can be used toward other things. So, in truth, it is kind of like eBay but you don’t have to send anyone any money and you can still get rid of things in your house that you may think is worthless.

The best part of the site is that there are plenty of auctions on the site right now that are offering items that are actually in high demand. How about an Amazon Kindle? Those sseem to be extremely popular and Chrismtas is just around the corner. You could bid on a Kindle with points that you get from “selling” things that you just have laying around your house that you no longer use.

One thing that I really enjoy about the site is that there are no fees, unlike eBay. Just a month or so ago, I decided tto try to sell a lot of things on eBay to raise some money to pay for a new iPod. The fees totaled to around $50 just to sell about $275 worth of stuff.

So, check it out if you’re looking for free stuff online or are a fan of free stuff in general.

It seems like every time I turn around someone is talking about cell phone reception problems. Either that, or they’re comparing one phone to another and the answer that usually comes out is that iPhone is amazing and nothing comes close (from the fans anyway).

However, there is one thing that the iPhone can’t seem to escape and that’s the shoddy reception and the dropped calls. Of course, you can always count on dropping some calls sometimes when you have a cell phone (when I was younger and first dealing with cell phones I had Voicestream, which is now T-Mobile, and I dropped calls so often I was convinced that the tower I was connecting to was on the back of a pickup truck driving down a bumpy road). But, how often should your phone be dropping calls?

Well, if you live in New York City and you have an iPhone, 30% is the norm according to an Apple Genius there. A post at Gizmodo told the story of how reader Manoj went to an Apple Store to try to figure out what was wrong with his iPhone and why it was dropping calls all the time.

It turned out that, after the Genius ran tests on the phone, his phone was dropping 22% of the calls it was making and receiving. This was after AT&T had told him that there was nothing wrong with his service; everything was ok on their end. The funny thing is, the Apple Genius told him that with his phone dropping 22% of its calls, it was still less than the average for the city. He said there was a dropped call rate of 30% on average. The Genius told the reader that his phone was fully functional and that, basically, it was AT&T’s fault that the calls continued to be dropped.

So, here’s my question. If other phones aren’t having a similar problem on the AT&T network in the city, then is it really an issue with the carrier or is it flaw with the phone. I’m leaning toward flaw with the phone personally. It also has seemed like the more advanced the technology is that the phone offers the worse the signal is. Prior to me purchasing the Palm Pre, I owned a Palm Centro and the service was always great. However, after getting the Pre, I barely got any signal in my house and Sprint had to send me an Airave.

Perhaps that’s what AT&T will have to start doing with its customers. AT&T has a new microcell thing out now; if they’re going to gouge their customers on plans and addons perhaps they should at least give them the thing that will actually help them get a signal in their home for free.

Gizmodo

Square Trade is a company that offers warranties on electronics. It is a third party service, but it has found something interesting over the past few years; One in 3 laptops fail within the first three years of operation and netbooks fail more frequently.

Only 1/3 of the failures are due to accidents…the other 2/3 are hardware malfunctions.

The best brands according to the report was Asus and Toshiba. The report said that fewer than 16% of the laptops had hardware malfunctions in the first 3 years.

The worst brand was HP, it had more than one in four laptops having a hardware failure within the first three years of ownership.

Square Trade also tested netbooks; it classified them as any laptop that cost less than $400. The study found that netbooks failed at a rate of 5.8% in the first year. When compared to entry level laptops’ rate of 4.7% in the first year, netbooks fail more frequently.

I have to say that for the most part, this has been true for all of the laptops I have had. I would, however, not consider Dell a “middle of the road” brand for me like the study found. I have had to replace parts on both of the Dell laptops I have had and the first Dell laptop I had (an Inspiron 5150) had this awful problem that caused the motherboard to short out.

This list has only made me want to make sure that I get some kind of warranty with my new computer purchase, not necessarily avoid one brand over another.

Source

In the small town where I was relocated to my junior year of high school, there was a record store. At first it was a Sam Goody store, but then it became a FYE. Now it may likely become another hole in the wall, like the millions of other strip mall stores that have gone out of business over the past year or so.

Trans World Entertainment said that it will close 125 FYE stores by the end of the holiday season. The one area that it said it would spare is the Albany, New York area.

The company has not released a list of the stores that are scheduled to close.

I will say that if the store in the town I’m talking about closes, it is a pretty sad day for me. That was the store I purchased my first Flickerstick CD in (and while they are no where near the most famous band ever, they are still my favorite, 10 years later. This is also the store I bought my first Maroon5 CD in, before Harder to Breathe was a huge hit on the radio). If that FYE store goes out of business, there are a lot of memories that will go with the store.

565 stores will remain on the Trans World list. However, most of the stores will likely run at bare minimum like most of the stores do these days. It is hard for a record shop to compete with a store like Wal-Mart or, in bigger towns, Best Buy, Hot Topic, etc.

The only reason I think that Hot Topic is a competitor is because of the merchandise that the store carries.

I hope that Trans World can recover its losses and not have to close so many stores. It really sucks to see a lot of record stores closing. Where else can you by albums by bands that don’t exist outside top 40 radio?  A lot of independent record stores have also had to close thier doors over the past few years due to the serious decline in record sales.

In a act only a crazy, but extremely wealthy, old man would decide to use, Rupert Murdoch has announced that he wants to make his websites invisible to Google’s search engine.

Why would anyone want to do that? After all, if someone has never discovered the site, the best way to obtain that reader is through a search engine. Well, he doesn’t see it that way. He said, “If they’re just search people, they don’t suddenly become loyal readers.”

However, in my opinion, having someone be able to find your site through search is the best way to GET new readers and if someone is reading your site that’s better than them not reading your site, right? Plus, how is someone going to become a loyal reader if they don’t know about the site? I always thought the best way that sites become popular is because they are able to be searched for.

I have a list of websites I read everyday; many of them are websites I searched for.

Murdoch is also planning on doing something that has really failed to “take off” in the past; he wants to put his news sites behind a “subscription wall.” His reasoning behind this move is that websites as well as blogs don’t earn “serious money.” He currently has this in place at the Wall Street Journal; at the site you can read the first couple of paragraphs of an article but if you want to read more, you have to be a subscriber. Typically, the same article or something with similar content can be found by searching through Google or some other search engine for free.

He did say that he feels that the same “search engine people” are the ones who “steal” stories from his sites. He said, “they just take them.”

This man really underestimates the power of Google and other search engines. I also think that he is too stubborn to realize when he’s made a mistake. What I mean by that is when his plan fails to work, he won’t go back to the way things were. He will keep his “news” sites subscription based where very few people will read it and the sites will quickly fall in every ranking.

Tonight I started noticing new Verizon wireless commercials featuring the “there’s a map for that” motto. The first (pictured above) is a take on Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’s Island of Misfit Toys. There, the iPhone is sent to the island, not because it is a bad device, but because it’s power and abilities are crippled by the AT&T Network.

The second:

The Third:

As you can see they are all geared toward Christmas and the holiday season.

I find them to be quite festive and actually in good taste; they aren’t attacking the iPhone but the actual AT&T Network. Expect to see a lot of them in the coming weeks.

I am not a huge fan of Offerpal, it likely has something to do with the fact that I, at one point in time, enjoyed playing Farmville. In order to earn “farm cash” you had to either fill out surveys or give the game money. The last time I tried to fill out the surveys (no, I never gave them my cell phone number or anything except for an email address I use for spam anyway) I waited and waited and never got the “farm cash” I was promised. Since that day, I haven’t played Farmville.

This practice has made a lot of people on the site angry, including editor at TechCrunch Michael Arrington, who has gone after the CEO of Offerpal to get some explanation about the company’s ethics.

Facebook posted in its blog about its ad policies and how it polices ads on the site.

The blog said, “Our policies are clear. If you’re an ad network and don’t comply with them, you are doing a disservice to your customers, and you should expect your business opportunities on Facebook to cease. The underlying issues here are bigger than ads. They’re about building an experience that users will want to come back to …no spam, no surprises.”

I completely agree with Facebook here, but I do believe that it should do something to keep spammy ad networks off the site (otherwise it will begin to look less like Facebook and start getting a reputation more along the lines of Myspace). Myspace is full of spammy ads that Facebook, so far, has steered clear of for the most part.

The ad networks used to get the “premiums” in the games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. are all pretty spammy and unless someone really knows what they’re doing when they “sign up” for an “offer” or fill out some kind of quiz, then they could end up being charged for the premium services on their cell phones or other ways.

AT&T is taking the “there’s a map for that ads” to heart, I suppose. Just a few weeks after the ads started showing up all over the television, AT&T has sued Verizon Wireless for the ads.

The suit says that the ads are misleading and can lead a customer to believe that AT&T has large coverage gaps. The truth is, the ads show the 3G coverage gaps and Verizon puts that in large letters at the bottom of the map when AT&T’s map and Verizon’s map are put side by side in the ad.

AT&T is also looking into getting a temporary restraining order against Verizon for the ads. It is claiming that the ads has caused the company to lose market share.

I would say that AT&T needs to shut up and instead of fighting the claims, do something that actually fixes their network. Every time I read about AT&T, it is bad. Usually, no one has anything good to say about AT&T’s network and the only reason that the company is number 2 in the United States is because it was able to get iPhone exclusivity.

The map of AT&T’s 3G coverage is accurate. There isn’t a lot of 3G coverage across the country and a lot of times, it is slow. It really hasn’t done a lot in the past few years to increase the amount of coverage or speed either. While you can get AT&T coverage in areas that aren’t on the map, the 3G coverage isn’t great…or even good in my opinion. Sprint has more 3G coverage. I think the only company that has as little coverage as AT&T is T-Mobile.

An analyst at Citigroup is calling for the company to buy into Motorola as well as sell stocks in Palm and RIM (the makers of Blackberry devices).

Jim Suva says that the release of Motorola’s Droid on the Verizon network will end up spelling trouble for the other makers, even with Palm coming out with the Pixie in about two weeks. Even Research in Motion has a new device coming out, the Storm 2, but it just isn’t drumming up the kind of noise that the Droid is.

Something else no one should forget is that Motorola is releasing several Android handsets in the next few months. It is all pretty impressive when you think that people were talking about Motorola’s handset division going out of business.

The Citigroup analyst said yesterday that Motorola is a “buy” instead of a “hold” and that the Droid handset is “compelling.”

I am not sure what else he is looking at, but right now there are more HTC handsets on the market running Android than Motorola handsets.

After the analyst made his announcement, RIM and Palm both closed down for the day and Motorola closed up. Obviously this kind of analyst announcement has a large effect on the stocks for both of these companies.

I think Palm may be able to come back from losing, but the problem is (at least in my opinion from a consumer point of view) that the WebOS operating system was not ready for prime time when it was released and it has taken some time to get it ready.

As a lot of people know, Adobe is working on getting Flash out for mobile phones, which would open up a whole new world of mobile entertainment (cell phones wouldn’t be held to only third party apps like YouTube, but could actually go to sites like Hulu to watch television shows).

There is, however, a war brewing between Adobe and Apple. While cell phones and the iPhone have never been able to play anything that is Flash based, Adobe has gone and added a new error screen that pertains directly to the iPhone and Apple.

The error message says “Apple restricts the use of technologies required by products like Flash player. Until Apple eliminates these restrictions, Adobe cannot provide Flash Player for the iPhone or iPod Touch.”

I am guessing that Adobe’s idea when it posted this was to get users angry enough to contact Apple about Flash not being supported. The only thing I can think of that could maybe get users even more angry than saying that Apple is at fault is to say which devices do allow Flash.

I am actually looking forward to having Flash on my Palm Pre, although now it doesn’t look like I will be getting it at all on my iPod Touch.

Source

Target will be starting mobile phone sales inside its stores. While most retail stores such as Target and Walmart and even Best Buy offer mobile phone sales, the way that Target is going to be selling mobile phones will be a bit different than others do.

Target will be outsourcing its mobile phone sales to Radio Shack. Because of this, Radio Shack will be opening up kiosks inside the store. Any consumer will be able to buy the same brands they can get other places. They will have T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless.

According to the article, you won’t be able to buy Sprint phones at the kiosks, but I can’t see that holding because Sprint has always been one of the main carriers that sold at Radio Shack stores.

This could be a good idea for smaller retailers; however Target is a pretty big store with a large retail footprint. Target has the ability to sell and the room to sell the phones and plans, but I suppose that they have felt as though this would be the best way to do it and would benefit everyone in the deal.

There wasn’t a lot of information released about the deal between Target and Radio Shack. However, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles, California said that Kiosk Operations (a subsidiary of Radio Shack that will be operating the kiosks inside the Target stores) is likely paying Target for the ability to operate In its stores. He said that it is likely for the company to pay between $30,000 and $40,000 per year for retail rent. It is likely that Kiosk Operations will also be paying Target a small amount of its sales, which is probably going to be less than 10 percent.

Source

Are you being ripped off by an online company?

Question:

In 2006, AOL announced that it would stop charging for @aol.com email addresses. Since then most of the customers have been switched to the free service, however there are still a few less internet savvy users out there that are paying for email service that is supposed to be free; many of them not even noticing.

This is just one example of how people are being ripped off every day from online companies. Are you being ripped off? How about someone you know?

Answer:

While I am not currently being ripped off by AOL’s shady business practice of continually billing someone for something that is free, I think I might know someone who is. And all I have to say is: If this person is paying for this service than he/she is less internet savvy than I could have ever imagined and he/she deserves it.

Other than that, I am not currently being ripped off by any online company to my knowledge. There was a time a few years ago, however, that “someone” I know was being ripped off by a company who cheated him out of a couple hundred dollars…he has not seen that money to this day.

I mentioned last week that Verizon was coming out with ads that are directly targeting the iPhone through both the “Droid” ads that feature Android based phones as well as the “there’s a map for that” commercials. Well, I suppose that Verizon definitely does not want to burn its bridges with Apple. Yesterday Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that he (and Verizon) are still interested in getting the iPhone.

He said, “This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court. Obviously we would be interested if they thought it would make sense for them to have us as a partner.”

Next year, exclusivity between Apple’s iPhone and AT&T Wireless is supposed to be coming to a close. Apple does have the right to extend the exclusivity, but in my opinion, the company could make more with the device if it were on other networks. The only problem I see is that everyone will have an iPhone and other companies like Palm will be seriously harmed because customers who have not wanted to hop on the AT&T bandwagon won’t have to anymore to get the iPhone.

Then again, not everyone wants an iPhone.

It makes you wonder what the terms were in the first place for AT&T to get the exclusive rights to the iPhone. I know that Apple was interested in the carrier because unlike Verizon, it ran on GSM which makes it easy to produce one kind of phone for the whole world. There aren’t any carriers that run on the CDMA networks outside the United States and the only major companies that do here are Verizon and Sprint.

Only time will tell what will happen with the iPhone and other carriers. I would guess that it won’t move over to Sprint or Verizon until the companies have implemented their 4G coverage (which Sprint is working on quite vigorously).

A week or so ago, Wal-Mart and Amazon got in a pricing war over books. They were trying to see who could go the lowest on books and a few days ago Target joined in on the fun.

Wal-Mart is known for its uncanny way of squashing competition wherever it goes and now that it has stores in almost every market in the United States, it is going after other stores it may not have otherwise competed against.

The newest way that Wal-Mart is attacking a competitor is the introduction of a “Geek Squad” like home installation crew. It has confirmed that it has started a partnership with N.E.W. Customer Service Companies to offer in-home installation and setup for those who purchase their electronics at Wal Mart.

It is going to start quickly because Wal-Mart really wants to see the money that this kind of service can bring in for the holidays.

So, how much will this cost for the average consumer? Well, Wal-Mart is said to be offering prepaid plans on gift cards that range between $99 and $399. The services that will be available include television set up, wiring home theaters, wiring home networks and also preliminary consultation and a tutorial after the setup is complete (see, it does sound awfully like Geek Squad).

I find this to be beneficial to places that may have Wal-Marts but no Best Buys or other stores that offer installation of any kind. Where I live, we are limited to searching through the phone book to see if there is anyone who can wire a home theater system (and there really isn’t). Even to get someone to fix our garage door opener took a call to a larger town more than an hour away.

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Google said that it has reached a deal to show content and Tweets from Twitter though its searches. Marissa Mayer, the vice president of search products and user experience, said on Google’s website that the deal had been reached on the same day that Microsoft announced that Bing had come up with a similar deal with Twitter.

“We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months,” Mayer wrote.

Both of the search companies want to provide the kind of real time search results that Twitter and other social networking sties are using. Microsoft has gone a step further than Google by having a second agreement with Facebook. With that deal, financial terms were released and Microsoft will have a $240 million ownership stake in the company.

Real time search results are something that makes traditional search engines like Google and Yahoo interested. They don’t have real time search abilities and most sites have to be indexed before they can be searched. With real time search results, instant knowledge of an event can be sought. For example, if your Gmail account isn’t working, you can search on Twitter to see if you’re the only one experiencing the problem or if other people are having the same issue.

So, Google Voice is a really neat thing to use if you really don’t have a great calling plan or you like features like voice mail to be in your inbox like an email rather than having to go through every single voice mail on your headset.

Well, it turns out that that’s not always so great.

What’s the one thing that Google does really well? It seems like the company is pretty well known for its really popular search engine. The search engine on Google is integrated so well throughout Google’s other projects that it has actually been making private voice mails that people have left for other people on Google Voice search-able through the public search engine.

Luckily, it wasn’t long before someone at the company decided that they had to change this. All Google had to do was change the way it indexed sites to ensure voice mail transcripts would not find themselves in search results.

News reports about this spread all across the internet on Monday. By Tuesday night the issue was fixed. It turns out that the searches were pulling up voice mails and transcripts that people actually posted to be public, but nevertheless, Google wanted those search results to stay omitted.

Even though it was only a small snafu, it is still kind of worrisome for that day or so to think that people could have been searching through my voice mails. It really made me think for a minute about my Gmail account. This is my only email account right now and if someone could search through that, I would really be unhappy.

Apple was able to beat any expectations for the company’s fiscal fourth quarter. It was able to pull out a 46% profit jump.

The increase in profits was $1.82 per share or $1.67 billion total.

Analysts were expecting the company to have a gain of $1.42 per share earnings if there revenue would have been $9.2 billion, but the actual revenues came out and it was $9.87 billion.

Part of the reason for the high numbers was the increase in iPhone sales, which increased by 7% in the fourth quarter. It was able to sell 7.4 million units. It was also able to move 10.2 million iPods, which represented an 8% increase. In the way of computers, it sold 3.05 million Macs.

Steve Jobs had a statement,”We are thrilled to have sold mroe Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter. We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010.”

Hopefully one of those things in the pipeline for 2010 is the much rumored tablet. Many are expecting it to be a fully functional computer, but like an iPhone or iPod Touch. A tablet with the abilities of one of those would really change the game as far as computing is concerned. So far, touch screen computers haven’t taken off the way touch screen phones have; even though there are several companies out there who are putting a lot of development dollars into the touch screen technology for computers.

I am excited to see what Apple has coming out in the future because, even though other brands will be behind, it means that there is a new generation of computers and electronic gadgets coming out that can really (like I said in the previous paragraph) change things up. Watching advancements in technology is pretty exciting to me!

I like when a cellular carrier releases ads featuring the one phone that all of its hopes are riding on. Verizon hasn’t had the “it” phone for awhile. Last year it had the Blackberry Storm, but it really didn’t turn out the way everyone was hoping it would. This time around, ads have been spotted all across the airwaves about the “anti-iPhone” Motorola Droid.

This is what the ads say:

— “iDon’t have interchangeable batteries.”

— “iDon’t allow open development.”

— “iDon’t have a real keyboard.”

— “iDon’t take pictures in the dark.”

It finishes with the tagline, “Everything I don’t, Droid does.”

So, what is the Motorola Droid? It is a cell phone/smart phone that runs Google’s Android operating system. It features a touchscreen and a full qwerty keyboard. The Droid is the smartest Android phone out there and is as thin as the iPhone.

The Droid actually has a chance at success on Big Red because Android is an operating system that has had the time to get the bugs out, or at least most of the bugs out.

Another thing that this phone has going for it is the fact that it feels sturdy. From what I’ve read on websites like BoyGeniusReport and Engadget Mobile, this phone doesn’t feel plastic-y like the T-Mobile G1. I have no idea how it would compare against the HTC Hero that Sprint is carrying or the MyTouch3G that T-Mobile is now offering, but neither of those phones offer a full qwerty slide out keyboard.

I would really like to see this phone in action. It should be hitting stores in the next month or so. That means you may catch me in a Verizon store checking this phone out.

There are huge changes that have been happening in the way we all rent movies. Thanks to technology, rental stores are basically useless. Many people have been opting to use mail services such as NetFlix, rental kiosks such as RedBox, or video on demand services like what is now being offered through DVRs and cable services.

It’s strange because the change has happened so quickly. Just a few years ago, movie rental businesses were popping up like weeds across strip malls. In my town of less than 20,000 people, there are two Movie Galleries and a Blockbuster. Now, they are all hurting thanks to the two RedBox kiosks and one other rental kiosk that have found themselves in town.

Part of the reason that these types of movie rental locations have become so popular is their convenience, selection, and price. At just $1 per night, these choices are far cheaper than renting a movie at a Blockbuster, which can cost up to $5 for a rental of 3 nights.

These kiosks are really hurting Blockbuster and Movie Gallery. Movie Gallery owns Hollywood Video as well as Game Crazy and along with Blockbuster, it plans on closing several hundred stores beginning this fall.

Right now there are 15,000 RedBox kiosks nationwide and Christopher Goodrich, one of the spokesmen for the company, said that the company should have 22,000 running by the end of the year.

A research firm based in Port Washington, New York called NPD Group said that Redbox kiosks make up almost 20% of all movie rentals throughout the country. Netflix makes up 36% and brick and mortar stores like Blockbuster taking 45%.

I actually have a problem with Blockbuster and Movie Gallery because I often go in the store wanting one movie. Often, the store doesn’t have it because all the copies of the movie I want have been rented. So, instead, if I want to watch a movie I find myself paying a lot for a movie I really didn’t want to watch. When I go to a Redbox kiosk, if the kiosk doesn’t have the movie I want to watch, I don’t feel like I’ve wasted a trip because I usually have to run to Wal-Mart anyway.

Another thing that annoys me about Blockbuster and Movie Gallery stores is that it seems like if you want to rent an older movie, they cost the same to rent as a “new release.” Often, you can find these movies at the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. So, for the same price you were going to rent the movie for, you could own it.

I suppose we’ll see how things go for the brick and mortar movie rental places over the next few years.

On October 22nd, Microsoft will be releasing its newest operating system and everyone is waiting and hoping for the best. Windows 7 has been tested with mostly positive reviews, however a lot of people have low expectations following Microsoft’s release of Vista just a few years ago.

Roger Kay, an analyst and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates out of Wayland, Mass, said that the company’s reputation is reliant on the success of Windows 7.

Early reviews of the operating system have come out to be mostly positive. Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mossberg even went as far as to say that Windows 7 is “the best version of Windows Microsoft has produced.”

It can’t be much worse than Vista. When Vista came out, it was plagued by hardware and software issues regarding compatibility. Because of these problems, many businesses avoided implementing Vista in their offices and Microsoft had to continue supporting XP to keep these customers happy. Hopefully with Windows 7, Microsoft can get these customers to switch over to the new system.

Of course Microsoft has a lot riding on the success of this operating system, but like I said before, many people have low expectations for it because in their opinions, anything is better than Vista. As a matter of fact, I still use XP on my laptops. Then again, I usually like to make sure that (when it comes to a computer operating system) other people have a chance to really make sure it works with everything before I upgrade or move to the new OS. Being an early adopter isn’t always the best thing to be and I’m glad that I didn’t upgrade to Vista when it came out and still haven’t. I’m not too sure that Vista would even work on my old laptop.

What do you think about Microsoft’s new operating system? Did you get a chance to test it out when the company opened up the testing to the public? Did it work with all of your gadgets and software?

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While HP has stayed on the top of computer sales once again, Acer is moving up the ladder. The company has become the second place PC seller in the world in the third quarter; beating out Dell.

Acer now has 12.4% market share according to the research firm Gartner. Sales have increased 23.6% when compared to the same time last year; it shipped 12.4 million computers in the third quarter 2009. Dell only managed to shop 10.3 million in the third quarter. Dell actually showed a 6.7% decrease when compared to the same time last year.

Selling 16.1 million PCs, HP has remained on top and has increased 9% over the last year and still has a 18.4% market share.

Lenovo came in fourth with a 7.4% market share and sold 6.8 million computers.

Overall, I am actually impressed with computer sales over the past year. One would think that computer sales would have fallen flat in the recession as people would have just stuck with what they had versus upgrading to something else. Perhaps Acer has been helped by their line of netbooks. The AspireOne is one of the most popular netbooks out there right now. I personally liked everything about the Aspire One except for the fact that the touchpad mouse buttons were on either side of the mouse versus directly under the touchpad like my full sized Dell notebook.

Netbooks really have started a craze. I see more and more of them everyday it seems. I actually don’t travel with my big laptop anymore. This probably has something to do with the computer’s inability to function without a power cord. For some reason my computer starts to go crazy or just turns off whenever it feels like it. This is the second power issue that I’ve had with a Dell computer. The first one I had wouldn’t even charge the battery after the computer was about 2 years old. My most recent laptop is actually 3 years old now and works pretty good except for the power issue.

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It seems that ever since AT&T and Apple blocked a Google Voice app for the iPhone, Google and AT&T have been at each other’s throats. They are nit picking each other apart at this point. First, it was Google who said it wasn’t fair for AT&T to block its Google Voice application and now AT&T is coming back saying that Google should have to play by all the same rules that regular carriers do in regards to making phone calls.

Right now, Google Voice goes unregulated by the FCC and doesn’t have to follow some of the rules that the other carriers have. Some of the ones that AT&T is getting so worked up about is that Google doesn’t connect some rural calls because the calls are expensive to connect.

Google said that the free Internet call forwarding service it has is not a telecom company like AT&T. Instead, it is an internet application that uses the user’s existing phone number and therefore it should be subject to the rules of traditional land line carriers. Google went on to say that the only reason it blocks calls in some rural ares is because the calls are expensive and that “traffic pumpers” route calls through there to increase their revenues.

In my opinion, this is a fairly entertaining battle to watch between the two companies. AT&T and Google are both huge companies in their own right, but until now they really have just been working in their own space and not interfering with each other’s work. Now, they are starting to step on one another’s toes and it’s becoming an issue for both of them.

I can’t wait to see how this one turns out in the next few weeks. The FCC is going to be introducing some new net neutrality rules next week.

Wal-Mart is getting in on the prepaid craze. With AT&T offering a unlimited talk and text plan for $60 per month, someone had to come around and step up their game.

Wal-Mart is starting up it’s own “Straight Talk” service that will ride off of TracFone’s service. The service starts at just $30 per month and a user can get unlimited talk, text AND DATA for $45 per month.

The service goes on sale starting October 18th. It will offer not only nationwide coverage, but it will also offer unlimited 411 usage.

Of course, like most other prepaid carriers, the phone options will be quite limited. You won’t see any cutting edge phones avaiable for purchase on any of these types of services. That probably has something to do with how cheap the plans plus data are. If everyone had an iPhone or another more advanced phone on the plan, then it would eat data and Wal-Mart would likely be losing money. However, with the not-as-advanced phones, these are great options for text-happy teenagers.

With prepaid plans like these popping up, I can definitely see post paid plans taking a hit. These aren’t just regional plans, they are nationwide plans with great coverage. For example AT&T is one of the only carriers that have coverage at my parent’s house in rural Mississippi. I was completely in the dark when I had T-Mobile and went to visit them.

I would like to see more competition with post-paid plans because that’s where the more desirable phones are. That’s what I’m after in the end…I want good coverage and a great phone for a reasonable price. That’s why I’m with Sprint. The price really overcame the company’s phone selection and the coverage is awesome when compared to the T-Mobile phone I had previously.

Would you switch from your post paid plan to a prepaid plan to get in on the deals? How about you prepaid plan people…How do you like your service? How much does a more advanced phone matter to you?