OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[unknown lions fan]

Just let me know when you're in town Coop...

Pretty soon, we'll be up to about 10 breweries in GR. Voted Best Beer City in the US recently!

[Topweasel]

I was trying to figure that out as well. It *looked* like what I described, but I'll definitely check it out before changing my plan. Since I've been with them for 8 years, I'll have the option to keep my old plan.

I've been looking at the 45-50 dollar/mo no-contract plans with the tracfone types, and may go that way as well.

ULF watch out. When the change over comes, they will start forcing people to upgrade and change their plans with a new contract. No more getting Grandfathered in. The only way to keep your contract is to buy phones at off contract rate. This is why I moved quickly to get a new phone. Now I have 2 years before I have to worry about whether I want to buy a phone off contract.

[unknown lions fan]

ULF watch out. When the change over comes, they will start forcing people to upgrade and change their plans with a new contract. No more getting Grandfathered in. The only way to keep your contract is to buy phones at off contract rate. This is why I moved quickly to get a new phone. Now I have 2 years before I have to worry about whether I want to buy a phone off contract.

What "changeover" is that Topweasel? Something to do with 4G? And what is this changeover date?

[Topweasel]

What "changeover" is that Topweasel? Something to do with 4G? And what is this changeover date?

The 26th or 28th of this Month Verizon will be rolling out their "Shared everything plan".

From that point on they will no longer allowing people to grandfather plans in on renewed contracts.

When last year when they rolled out the tiered data for example, people could grandfather in their Unlimited. Even now you could renew your contract, keep unlimited, all the while upgrading from 3g to 4g.

Starting in about 2 weeks. All new extensions will be forced onto current plans. So for example if you have an unlimited plan (really only people who use between 2GB-5GB or more a month), you want to make sure you get your last 2 year agreement in before this period or after that you will be forced to pay full price ($600-$800) for your phones to keep the unlimited plan.

So until something changes if I want to update my Razr Maxx to something new, I have to basically choose between my data plan, or paying full price for a phone.

Edit: Now that I think of it, this doesn't just for smart phones and data plans. Consider this Verizon's way of resetting the books on accounts over the next two years. So even feature phones or dumb phone plans, if your plan no longer exists, you will be converted over to a currently available plan if you sign a new contract.

[Tony G]

BTW, On my old Droid I was way under a gig a month. Now that I'm using Audible on my Razr Maxx as well as using my music library through the moto-cloud (not real name) tool, I am approaching 2-3 GB a month. 4G enables a much higher data usage rate. It is nice being able to access half a terrabyte of music from my phone though.

[nhwbrooklyn]

BTW, On my old Droid I was way under a gig a month. Now that I'm using Audible on my Razr Maxx as well as using my music library through the moto-cloud (not real name) tool, I am approaching 2-3 GB a month. 4G enables a much higher data usage rate. It is nice being able to access half a terrabyte of music from my phone though.

Switch to spotify and download your "offline" playlists. Data drain over.

[Tony G]

How does that eliminate the data drain? I get hit for the songs as they stream, right?

[Topweasel]

How does that eliminate the data drain? I get hit for the songs as they stream, right?

Wifi's. If Spotify or whatever you are using downloads the songs at work or home, you aren't downloading them on 4g as much. My biggest issue is Netflix/Hulu. The higher data rate equals higher rez which means that now it's nearly a gig an hour. Went from 2GB-3GB a month to that in 2 weeks even though I am watching Netflix on my phone only a tenth as much.

[Tony G]

Ah, I see. My main use of the phone's music is at work. We can't use our work wireless because they don't like the bandwidth use. I don't get hit for use at home on my system now. I've got a 32 gb card in it and will bump it to 64 GB which still makes it a good ipad replacement. I just like having my whole library available to me.

[nhwbrooklyn]

Yeah Spotify streams but you can choose to download a playlist which means you can play it without using your data (which also means you don't need to be in a service area for your data to play that playlist).

[Malto Marko]

Ah, I see. My main use of the phone's music is at work. We can't use our work wireless because they don't like the bandwidth use. I don't get hit for use at home on my system now. I've got a 32 gb card in it and will bump it to 64 GB which still makes it a good ipad replacement. I just like having my whole library available to me.

Do you take all of your clothes with you when you go on vacation?

Just sayin you can divy up the library for a good mix with several distinct themes.

[Tony G]

I know, but it's much nicer to be able to access 570 GB of music than 32

[The Ken]

I know, but it's much nicer to be able to access 570 GB of music than 32

just use an online storage system and store it up on the cloud, cheap fairly safe space is limited by your checkbook but again cheap, and you can get to it from about any device.

[Malto Marko]

I need a bit of help here.

Someone told me this morning the name of this new technology but I forgot what it is called.

It is for use on smartphones and there is a square that looks like a maze, you scan or take a picture of it with your smartphone and it sends you to a website that gives more info about an item.

Seems to me he called it Q 4 but I have not been able to google that successfully.

[Tony G]

close, it's QR

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=appinventor.ai_progetto2003.SCAN&hl=en