1. Be careful of the silent “extension” – Here’s the scenario.  You call your carrier with the intent of upgrading and end up making a few minor adjustments to your existing plan.  (eg. Adding text messaging or increasing your voice mail or data plan) When doing so, make sure your carrier doesn’t extend your contract by another 2-3 years.  Customers usually get a rude awakening at a later date, when they discover that was the case and still have months if not years left on that extended contract.
2. Loyalty will only get you so much – Highlighting the fact that you have been a good client for 10 years doesn’t mean what you think it should.  From the carrier’s perspective what it really means, is that, you’re less likely to leave.  Statistically they know this and that’s why the deals for long time customers, never quite stack up to the deals being offered to newcomers, so, don’t lead with this as your trump card.
3. Don’t say no to a contract to spite the man and end up hurting yourself – Here’s a scenario we see much too often.   Client purchases an iPhone outright and then discovers it doesn’t work with one of the newer carriers.  Okay, no big deal, until they also realize that the plan only offerings aren’t as good as the offers on subsidized deals on a 3yr contract.   Making matters worse, they end on a cell phone plan that is horrible, with, less overall features and for example, 100MB of data.  100MB of data on an iPhone, is like winning a Ferrari with a limiter set to a max speed of 40KM an hour.  In the end, the client is out of pocket upfront by $500-$700 or more and with the higher monthly costs over the same period there is no benefit of giving up your hard earned cash.  Some will argue that their freedom was worth every penny and maybe they’re rich enough to do so, but you paid for that right.  So, that’s the reality of the cell phone game today, and of course, I hope it changes – soon -, but as they say, don’t bite off your nose to spite your face.
4. Bite your tongue and make good notes - Do NOT get into a pissing match with any carrier representatives, despite your frustrations. Put yourself in their shoes, would you budge if someone was calling you every name in the book to save $5 or get some feature for FREE?  Furthermore, once they make their notes in the system, it becomes exponentially harder to get them to go against each other so, stay cool and make good notes of all conversations.  In the end, you don’t want to have to rely on their word against yours, despite the fact that they can record calls.  So keep track of dates/times and representatives you spoke to, as well as get the details – confirmed and reconfirmed.
5. Make your business work for you - If you own a business you should never be paying for your cell phones personally. In addition to tax write offs and other benefits, business cell phone plans tend to have more incentives and more value overall.  Examples include, bill credits to cover existing termination fees, cheaper phones and other feature and promotional incentives that are richer than regular consumer cell phone deals.  The more devices you have in your business the more difficult it can be to make the comparisons and an informed decision, so let our team help you reduce your cell phone bill.

Lastly, do your homework.  This may seem obvious but we realize how confusing things can be and simplifying the whole cell phone experience was the main reasons we created myCELLmyTERMS.  So either get some help from our team, especially if you have a business with several users, or do the research first on our site before making that call.  Also remember, the iPhone and other market leading smartphones are really computers and they costs more than some big screen TV’s today, so either you buy it outright ($500+) and search for a good plan, or save your cash, get a better plan and take the subsidized pricing with the contract (sometimes as low as $50).  When it comes to plans and features, know your usage profile currently and if upgrading to a smart phone understand how much data you need.

Are you feeling like just a number?

The average smart phone customer plan looks similar to this – $55 per month for 150-200 mins, Evenings & Weekends @ 6pm, Unlimited Text Messaging and 500MB – 1GB Data.

There are three main elements of a wireless plan – Voice, Text and Data.

1. VOICE – Voice service is the backbone of cell phone service, but today you still only get 200 mins of talk time (i.e. calls made or received) per month. That’s an average of 10 mins a day of talk time during regular daytime/working hours. (i.e. Daytime Hours and Anytime Minutes are the same thing and with EW@6pm you have unlimited calling after 6PM).
2. TEXT – People forget, but the reason SMS really took off was to avoid making expensive calls during daytime hours. With only 200 mins that’s still the case, so texting is still a money saver, especially for parents with teenagers.
3. DATA – We’ve become insatiable data users and the whole world is becoming more and more plugged in, so, the more data you can get the better. That’s easier said than done, unfortunately, and the bigger the data plan, the bigger the chunk out of your wallet. With 500MB of data if you do the wrong things you can go over on your bill, but you pay for 500MB of data, whether you use it or not. The average cell phone user uses 150MB of data per month, a mere 30% of their data plan, so let’s get smarter.

Here are 5 apps that can help you save on your cell phone bills

#	Application	Description
5		Onavo This is this is the first app you need to install – now, and it’s also FREE – by the way. Onavo, compresses the data that you use on your cell phone, by lowering the amount of data that you receive, thereby shrinking the data that you would have used and therefore extending your usage.  So in other words, because of Onavo’s fancy data compression technology, you get to do more with your data plan.  From a technology standpoint, Onavo is a middle man taking any data requests I make, routing it through their servers and compressing it before sending it back to me. Assuming you went over on your data plan by 20% (i.e. 100MB) that would cost you an extra $5 per month if you are local or $300 if you used the same data while roaming. Based on my usage with Onavo, which I run at all times, I can save myself approximately 10MB-15MB per day or 300MB – 450MB per month, so you can see how valuable this app is already and who knows, with the reduced data usage it may also be saving you some battery as well. Onavo is available for the iPhone and Android at the moment with a Windows Version soon to come.
4		Zerofone Zerofone is an easy-to-use VOIP app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that lets you make and receive calls over WiFi or 3G. Why this app makes the list, is because the quality is good, it’s fully integrated with iOS and most importantly you can save on your cell plan minutes. That’s the name of the game, right?   With ZeroFone you can make unlimited calls to anyone via Wi-Fi or 3G and ZeroFone to ZeroFone calls are free.  By using Wi-Fi you can avoid roaming charges when travelling and with a $10 subscription package you can make this part of your bill management strategy and call landlines for unlimited talk time per month. ZeroFone also offers online phone numbers, which means having a local phone number in 40 cities worldwide, which can be quite attractive if you need to have a local presence to save your friends or family dialing long distance. If you have overage charges due to using up your anytime minutes that exceed $10 per month this app, with an unlimited package, in conjunction with a minor change in behaviour, can help you better manage your overage charges. Zerofone is only available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
3		Skype iPhone & Android Skype is probably one of the best known desktop applications and millions of people use it everyday to stay in touch with family and friends all over the world, so why not for mobile, right. Skype is another one of the VOIP applications and that’s great, but the best part about it is that you already have your friends and family on Skype already. No new app to install and no invitations to send your peeps to join you anywhere new to make it work. In an exactly the same way as on your computer, Skype can always be on to make or receive calls anytime, via Wi-Fi or your carrier’s network and Skype-Skype calls are always free. You can also Instant Message your contacts and make global calls to land line numbers if you have some credits in your account (i.e. SkypeOut credits) You can also get an Online Local number with Skype and your friends without Skype can call you like a normal number.  On top of that you can select where you want that local number to be, that being the real value for many. Skype mobile is available on the iPhone and Android platform only at the moment.
2		BudPhone Bud Phone is another application for your smart phone that will give you free long distance in several cities across Canada and it just might be your new found buddy. Bud Phone offers free calling to various cities across Canada so make sure you review the list but here is how it works.  For example if you lived in Toronto and travel to Montreal for whatever reason. While there you decide you want to call your buddy in Vancouver, Bud Phone will allow you to do this for free. The Bud Phone app will recognize your new location and offer you a list of cities.  Once you select Montreal the application will dial out from that local access number. Also note the application relies on GPS in order to locate the appropriate local access number thereby allowing you to make local calls from wherever you are before your call can get out to its destination. BudPhone is available for iPhone, BlackBerry and select Android devices.
1		Viber Viber is an application for iPhone and Android phones that lets you make free phone calls and send text messages to anyone who also has the application installed.  There are a number of apps available in this space that do basically the same thing like Whatsapp, or PingChat and iMessage but Viber takes the cake because it’s slick, well designed and works well. With Viber you can call or text any Viber user, anywhere in the world, for FREE. Viber integrates seamlessly with your existing address book and does not require a PIN or username. With Viber being used as a Group chat solution to keep in touch with your friends and reduce the number of SMS text messages you send and possibly pay for on a per text message. Viber is available for iPhone & Android.

By using these apps the real aim is to better manage your bills or even reduce your bills in any of the three areas, voice, text or data and with a few changes to your usage style you can definitely save some money. So remember to take advantage of Wi-Fi whenever you can, make sure you understand how much data you use or need and start saving today on your cell phone bills.

Still not convinced, here are 5 reasons why SOPA needs to die…

1. It Kills Free Speech

The act is so broad that if you have a link that points to copyrighted content posted by a user making a point about something completely unrelated, your website can be shut down. YouTube would shut down tomorrow, it won’t be able to exist because it would be in constant violation, not because of YouTube but because there may be 1 person in the multitude of people who post videos with copyright content. Wikipedia would cease to exist because its links to a website that has questionable content. Even myCELLmyTERMS would be subject to these same rules based on an innocent link posted by one of our users.

2. It does NOT Stop Piracy

This is a case of anti-piracy theater, where ordinary people like you and me get caught in the web. Real pirates are so sophisticated that if you shut them down, they are back up in hours and have several ways at their disposal at getting around road blocks. This acts affect us more than it affects them.

3.  It puts the power back in the hands of the 1%

The people who benefit the so called content providers, like the Movie studios, Cable companies, Record labels would dictate which websites can survive and which should be shut down. Now why would we want to give them so much power to dictate how we live our lives. The Internet is a domain for everyone and its the one place where everyone has a voice.

4. SOPA affects other countries too, even Canada

This proposed law would give the US Government such broad powers that they can damage websites outside of the US like Canada. Since most Canadian websites are managed by a registry in the US, this bill directly affects us. The US Government would have the ability to demand that US domain registrars block sites which it may deem in violation and the process of blocking these sites will affect almost every single website connected those domains – in essence blacking out the rest of the Internet based on the US Government’s fancy.

5.  We would lose our right to protest in anonymity

SOPA is against, rather prohibits, the use of tools to get around any blocks put up by the US Government. Incidentally, these same tools allow activists and protesters from countries like North Korea or Syria to protest freely without being discovered. Banning these tools has the unwanted effect of limiting protest against injustice around the world.

Still not convinced, then check out Wikipedia’s protest against SOPA and show your support for this movement.

So you’re contemplating the jump from BlackBerry to iPhone and wondering what you should expect. Having done the same thing a few months ago, I wanted to share my experience and help you save some time getting your iPhone set up to suit your needs.  You’ve already heard how great the iPhone is, so instead of preaching more of the same, I thought this blog would be more helpful if I highlighted a few of the challenges with making the switch or, a few things you may want to consider before making the switch.

Email on the iPhone versus the BlackBerry

The email experience on a BlackBerry is superior to the iPhone.  Yes, I said it and despite having switched months ago, I still reach for my phone occasionally when I hear the unmistakable BlackBerry email chime.  The whole premise of checking email doesn’t exist on a BlackBerry and RIM’s push email functionality means that you never have to check your email.  On the iPhone you can have your email accounts set up to check periodically – (every 15 mins, 30 mins, or hour) -, but it just isn’t the same thing.

So, if email is a critical part of your professional life or the BlackBerry has been a part of your cell phone DNA for years, this seemingly simple difference will take some getting use to.  On the other hand, cell phones have evolved way beyond simple email messaging devices and the other many advantages of the iPhone outweigh this drawback.

BlackBerry’s Physical Keyboard versus Apple’s Virtual Keyboard

BlackBerry has long touted the advantages of its QWERTY keyboards and five years ago that was all we knew. While yesterday’s power user may still be use to the keyboard for sending emails, BBM messages or whatever, the physical keyboard comes at the expense of a bigger screen, unless you happen to be a BB 9800 or BB 9900 user.  As a former BlackBerry Torch user myself, I never used my slider keyboard and the virtual keyboard on the Torch can be frustrating at times. A simple email can be a miserable experience just based on where the global language button is positioned with the inadvertent messages in Chinese, Japanese or some other language, and the auto correction/suggestion is lacking at times.  Apple on the other hand has perfected the virtual keyboard in my opinion.  The keyboard is sensitive and responsive and the auto correction/suggestion is simply amazing, so there is no need to concentrate on where you click on the screen as long as you are in the general area, you somehow get it right.  All in all, the iPhone’s virtual keyboard is close to perfection and simply the best virtual keyboard of all the smart phones in market today.

Getting your contacts on your iPhone

Chances are, if you are a long time BlackBerry professional user your contacts are all in MS Outlook.  I personally had over 500 contacts in MS Outlook and in order to take advantage of the Apple’s Address Book and therefore have your contacts native to the iPhone 4S you have to move your contacts over. This became the biggest hassle of getting set up on the iPhone, because you can’t simply export your contacts from MS Outlook to Address Book.  So in order to do this you need:

1. Export your contacts in CSV format from MS outlook
2. Install Thunderbird (a free email client) on your PC and import your CSV file into Thunderbird. Ensure that your contacts are imported correctly (i.e correct number of records and the data looks fine)
3. Export your CSV file from Thunderbird as a LDIF file. (It must be an LDIF file)
4. Now you can import the LDIF file of your contacts into Address Book on your Mac PC.

This process can be a little quirky once importing to Address Book and may require some additional time finessing the fields of information imported for each contact.  With a little patience and good luck, at the end of this exercise you will have your full list of contacts on the iPhone and any updates that you do should be done within Address Book as opposed to MS Outlook, or you’ll have to repeat the entire process. Of course, if you didn’t have your contacts in MS Outlook you can just enter them on your iPhone directly if you have time to burn, or if you happen to be a Google App user, you can install Google Sync and sync your outlook contacts to Google’s cloud and from there to your iPhone.

Adding signatures for multiple mailboxes

On the iPhone 4S it’s easy to set up multiple mailboxes for your email, however, the main challenge you will discover is not being able to have multiple signatures for each of the those mailboxes.  In other words, you can only have one signature for all of your outgoing mailboxes.   If your in tune with life as an iPhone user then your first thought will be, “there must be an app for that?”  A quick search of the Appstore for “multiple mail signatures” yields a few results with very average ratings, but a new addition called MailSig by Ziximo appears to offer some promise.  Also, here are 5 iPhone Apps that you didn’t know you want, but can’t live without.

So what’s the scoop?

The iPhone is a lifestyle. Let me repeat that, the iPhone is a lifestyle. It’s your iPod for your music, it’s your camera that takes better pictures than the BlackBerry, it’s your window into a world of apps that can almost do anything you dream of and the overall user experience is superior to the BlackBerry as a result of all of these things plus plenty more.  So, until RIM get’s their act together and really ups the ante with some new devices, making the switch to the iPhone is an easy decision.

If you’re in market for a new iPhone, take advantage of myCELLmyTERMS and compare iphone plans to find the best cell phone deal.

Are you feeling like just a number?

Last year we were inundated with negatives news about RIM and the BlackBerry, and while that was the case there are still 75 million BlackBerry subscribers and many die hard Blackberry users and enthusiast who can’t live without their BlackBerry cellphone. Even Barack Obama is on the BlackBerry bandwagon, so for all those who say BlackBerry is dead, there will likely be 75 million objections. The truth is BlackBerry has a niche and fills a specific purpose while other phones like the iPhone and Android fill another need altogether.

If you are big on messaging then the BlackBerry is for you and if you are big on other stuff like apps, cool features, and love the infinite discovery of being connected to a marketplace of apps then Android and Apple fill that need. To get a good sense of what I’m talking about take a look at this video done by the New York times (with a cameo from 50 cent) showing these 2 perspectives.

Now the BlackBerry is still number 1 in Canada and many other countries like the UK, Indonesia and the Caribbean to name a few. The reason is that the  BlackBerry is good at doing what’s its good at – messaging and its significantly cheaper than the iPhone. Here are the key pros and cons for the BlackBerry today:

I don’t expect to settle this debate in this blog, but one thing is for certain, the BlackBerry has its fit and so do  Android/iPhone cell phones.

Let me know what you think? Which smartphone do you prefer?

#	Application	Description
5		Dragon Dictate Dragon Dictate is a simple voice to text application that allows you to record text, tweet or email messages to whomever. This is especially useful when you want to send a quick note or email, so if you don’t have the new iPhone4S with Siri, you can make your iPhone 4 life a little easier with this app.
4		LastPass Manager If you work in IT, or any profession where you have too many passwords to worry about, this app is a must have. LastPass is a password manager for your web browser and your iPhone. Once you register and download the LastPass add-on to your browser (ex. FireFox, Chrome, IE, etc.) you simply create one master password for your LastPass Vault.  As you continue browsing the web and have to sign-in where ever, LastPass will ask you if you want to save your credentials to your vault. After doing this for a few hours/days and after installing the mobile app you will have access to your LastPass vault anywhere you go.  There is a cost associated with the LastPass mobile app of $1 per month, but for the peace of mind – it’s definitely worth it to have access to your passwords while on the go.  You can also store any passwords manually in your LastPass vault for easy reference including things like membership numbers, software licenses, or anything of the sort.
3		Battery Sense This app is simple and like its name says it just makes sense to have.  Here’s why?  With Battery Sense, you can see how much time you need to fully charge your iPhone, or how long your phone will last while using data, playing games, listening to music or watching videos.  A real life saver for those times where you are running low on battery juice but don’t quite know how much time you really have left to do whatever.  This is a great utility app to have in one of your app folders.
2		Soundhound This app is growing by leaps and bounds and not too long ago if someone was going to challenge the almighty Shazam, you would think they were crazy, but this app is the best music recognition app – PERIOD.  What makes this app special, is that you can also see the lyrics of the song you just discovered while it’s being played, so it’s great for singing along instead of mumbling or singing gibberish. It’s definitely worth paying for the professional version to get rid of the tiny ads that run across the top.
1		dJay No matter how big your iPhone is, in terms of storage, somehow we always seem to get bored of our own music. However, with dJay you can bring your music to life again by doing some professional disc jockeying with your music library.  For music lovers out there this app is a must have, for it’s ease of use, great design and realistic experience.  If you’ve played with turntables and mixed songs in the past, this app can do it. From scratching songs to setting loops or even using the auto mix feature dJay is one of my most frequently used apps now and once you get it expect a few hours of your life to zoom by, but I guarantee you will have some real fun.

So there you have it, let me know what you think about them in the comments section below and let your friends know on Facebook or Twitter or whatever.

None of us want to think about it but I have to wonder how many hands have I shook where the person was less than hand-wash friendly. You may be wondering “What kind of blog is this but as cellphones become more and more part of our daily lives (as if they aren’t already), you are going to hear more and more medical related research and studies come out.

Now most of us wash our hands after we go to the bathroom but how many us just splash, rinse or slightly soap. I blame ADD. All jokes aside, E Coli can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration and in some cases kidney failure. In July 2011 in Europe, there were 30 E Coli deaths and over 3000 related illnesses.For shit sakes, that’s a crappy way to go.Next time you go to your doctor’s notice, take a look at all the “wash your hands properly” signage. Now I’m not saying that this is just another step in us becoming germaphobes but logic is logic. How many of us refuse to touch washroom door handles with our bare hands? We grab a paper towel or something else. Logical right?!

Bottom line: All joking aside, wipe your cellphones down regularly and don’t skimp on the hand soap. Use wireless wipes for your cellphones and smartphones, or at least rub it against your shirt every once in awhile.

Maybe from now we should just fist bump each other and outlaw the handshake.

It’s been 2 – 3 years and you want to upgrade and get a better deal with your existing carrier or maybe you want to pay less and just get a better deal, either way, don’t make these common mistakes we all make when trying to get a deal with our existing carriers.  We know the process, we have to call or visit a store and negotiate a good deal for that new iPhone or Android or BlackBerry that we’ve had our eye on for a few months now.

1. Speak to the right person

When you call your carrier the first person is usually a general client service rep and can help you with most things, fixing your bill, adding a feature etc, but they are not the person who can get you a real deal and do they do not have much leeway to give you much discounts. You need to speak to a retention rep.

So ask to speak to the right person – “may I speak to a retention rep, I not happy with my existing plan or phone”

When you get the retention rep verify “are you my retention rep?” then ask them to provide the best deal for the phone you want.

2. Go in Prepared

The only way to know that you are getting a fair deal is to know what’s in the market, so after you ask for the best deal know whether the response is actually a good deal.

The easiest way to do this is to do your research – leverage myCELLmyTERMS to get offers that are better than your existing plan and use this information to get a great deal.

So when your rep presents a plan you can confidently say that Carrier X is offering me a better deal can you match that.

3. Say that you are a loyal client

Loyalty is good in most cases, but saying that you are a client for 10 years means that you are less likely to leave even if the deal isn’t very good. A client who has been with another carrier a short time ago is more likely to be a flight risk than
someone with over 5 years with them – the result is that the less loyal customer ends up with a better deal. Don’t let this happen to you.

While this seems counter intuitive loyalty isn’t rewarded, new customers get better deals and customer who switch often are always ahead. So when negotiating with your carrier remember these common mistakes, and if after this process you aren’t happy, don’t be afraid to hangup and just walk away.

• Unimpressive sales numbers for the much anticipated Blackberry Playbook. After boasting to the masses “you have seen the rest, now see the best”, the playbook failed to garner any traction. With a heavy price point, users gravitated to the Apple iPad . The only reason why the Playbook sold roughly 1 million units was because they drastically lowered their prices (Ask friends and family that bought the Playbook for $100)
• With disappointing Q1 2011 earnings, RIM announced in July that it would cut nearly 2000 jobs  around the globe. We all know this was directly tied to sagging revenues.
• With product launch delays, OS issues, unimpressive tablet numbers and more and more smartphone users migrating to the iPhone and Android based devices, RIM saw its market value fall from $50 million to just under $8 billion dollars.
• RIM also saw its share price drop from as high as $70 to a low $12.90. A drop of nearly 70% from its yearly high is staggering. If that doesn’t cause investor panic, then I don’t know what will. Despite having a tonne of cash in reserve, the share price is what dictates investor faith.
• And if keeping up with Android and iPhone wasn’t reason enough, Blackberry announced that the BB Smartphone 10 “London” would not launch until the end of 2012. Really? With interest in BB devices fading, the last thing you need is nothing to look forward to.
•  In early October, we saw world wide service blackouts that affected millions of users around the globe. Twitter and Facebook were littered with messages of outrage from users and non-users alike, strengthening a case for people to switch smartphone providers. For years, one of RIM’s biggest advantages over its smartphone competitors was its system of Network Operating Centres, which power the company’s wireless email system and provide a direct link between the company and the BlackBerry Enterprise Software tools that organizations can install inside their IT departments to connect and run individual BlackBerry devices. This, no doubt, caused anger across the board. A chain reaction of events that eventually caused a further decline in share price.
• Why does RIM need 2 CEO’s? This was a much debated topic this year, with all the negative news surrounding the company. Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazardis run the show and with the stock price in a downward spiral, many have questioned the need for both. Another issue of piling on?
•  And who can forget the two drunk and belligerent executives on an Air Canada flight departing Toronto for Beijing but being forced to land in Vancouver, inconveniencing 320 +passengers and crew alike.  Days after the incident, the two were fired. Would this story have been such a big deal if these two weren’t high paid senior executive with RIM? Probably not. Another example piling on?

So what can we expect in 2012? Hopefully, we can see a clear strategy as to where RIM wants to go. Hopefully, we can see steps that move in the direction of innovation and not desperation. I for one like competition with competitive products. I like to be challenged with hard choice of “Which smartphone should I go with?”. One thing is for certain, 2012 could potentially be a make or break year for RIM.

What do you expect from RIM in 2012? Add your commenst below