The Phone Store http://www.thephonestoreinc.com Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:10:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en ThePhoneStoreInchttp://feedburner.google.com The Blackberry Tour……Finally http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/Rlkwke7V8OQ/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/06/the-blackberry-tourfinally/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:10:10 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=231 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "The Blackberry Tour……Finally", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/06/the-blackberry-tourfinally/" });]]> I am so happy. I have been following this device since it was codenamed the Niagara and now it has officially been announced. I have been a little bummed out because all the rumors led me to believe Verizon would get this device several months before Sprint. Thankfully Sprint surprised me and announced the Tour as well.

If you do not know what the tour is, it is RIM’s latest offering. Has a full HTML browser, 3.2 MP camera, DataViz (for Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and a slew of other features. It is a great looking device and is going to be a CDMA/GSM phone. Crackberry already has a review on the phone. So it was a hard 2 weeks knowing I had an upgrade and not knowing what to do with it. This announcement has helped me out, and I look forward to being the proud owner of a Blackberry Tour soon.

The official pricing should be $299 with $100 mail in rebate. Not too bad for what it is. If you have any questions contact us. You can always @reply me on Twitter @gizmoalex or @phonestore.

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]]> http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/06/the-blackberry-tourfinally/feed/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/06/the-blackberry-tourfinally/ If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/jsyeZylXAgE/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/if-loving-you-is-wrong-i-dont-want-to-be-right/#comments Fri, 29 May 2009 01:43:53 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=230 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/if-loving-you-is-wrong-i-dont-want-to-be-right/" });]]> Okay, it has been announced for a few months. I am eligible for an upgrade (with Sprint) and my inner Crackberry addict is really struggling against my inner “I want every new tech toy that comes out”. I feel committed to Blackberry. I started with the 8830 and now I have the 8330. I have not had it nearly as long as some other addicts, but I do love it just as much.

That “it” I am referring to is the Palm Pre. The coolest phone Sprint has hyped up in a long while. There has not been a really cool consumer type phone that has looked like it was going to live up to the hype since the Fusic. I know it was a few years ago, but it was pretty cool. So the Palm Pre is a touchscreen, slideout QWERTY, angel of a phone.

The Boy Genius has recently put his little paws on the phone and says it is a pretty solid choice. He did not write too much, but says the touchscreen is good. The only gripe he had was with the top row of keys on the QWERTY. I am a BB fan, a Windows 6.5 fan, the new WebOS fan, and an Android fan, It is hard to like all of these things, but relying heavily on e-mail keeps me glued to my BB. So a coin flip may determine whether I get the Pre or not. The other determining factor may be an announcement of another cool device (Blackberry Tour/Niagara) in the coming months. If you have any questions contact us or you can @message me on Twitter (@gizmoalex) or (@phonestore).

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]]> http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/if-loving-you-is-wrong-i-dont-want-to-be-right/feed/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/if-loving-you-is-wrong-i-dont-want-to-be-right/ Blackberry to the RESCUE!!! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/Q2BVQpZcypc/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/blackberry-to-the-rescue/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 18:04:35 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=229 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Blackberry to the RESCUE!!!", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/blackberry-to-the-rescue/" });]]> I love my Blackberry and there are not a lot of moments it is out of my hand. So I think sometimes, what can I put on my Blackberry to make it more productive?

One of my favorite apps is Viigo, as I have said before. It makes me more productive because it brings my favorite news to me. It is delivered in a nice clean little package. Now Viigo has movie times, sports scores, and podcasts (coming soon).

I have Sprint, and another super handy thing my Blackberry allows me to do is use my Phone as Modem. There are times when your internet connection may crash, and Blackberry to the RESCUE…… I just fire up my Sprint Smartview connection manager software, plug in my Blackberry, and start surfing the web again. This has literally saved me on numerous occasions when the old internet goes down. It lets me continue to help my customers (at work).

The last thing I really like and recommend everybody does on any phone they have with a memory card is put some portable applications on it. I love the website PortableApps.com. I use Firefox portable which lets me keep my bookmarks with me at all times, and it also lets me keep all my Firefox extensions which really lets me take my browser with me. I also highly recommend CC Cleaner portable, VLC Media Player, and ClamWin AntiVirus.

These few tips and tricks will hopefully help you love your Blackberry a little more than you already do. Hey who knows, maybe your Blackberry can come to somebodie’s rescue. If you have any questions direct message me on Twitter @gizmoalex or contact us.

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]]> http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/blackberry-to-the-rescue/feed/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/blackberry-to-the-rescue/ Boost Mobile SMS http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/C0ROTNQ_Ogk/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/boost-mobile-sms/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 16:22:30 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=228 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Boost Mobile SMS", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/boost-mobile-sms/" });]]> Hi guys, long time no see :) I hope you enjoyed the vacation because you will be getting a lot more of me. I wanted to touch on an issue we have been having. SMS messages have been delayed and at times they do not go through at all with Boost Mobile.

This is a good thing and a bad thing. It is good because the product and pricing is so great, the good people over at Boost have had a hard time keeping up with the demand. It is bad because some messages may not be going through in a timely manner. Boost Mobile is aware of the issue and they are working on resolving it as soon as possible.

They have given a window of May 7th. So for those of you who have Boost hang tight, help is on the way. Also, Boost’s really awesome QWERTY Phone is coming very soon. If you have any questions you can direct message @gizmoalex on Twitter or you can contact us.

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]]> http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/boost-mobile-sms/feed/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/05/boost-mobile-sms/ The World Needs to Know!!! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/YJnTFylgHmA/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/the-world-needs-to-know/#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:51:10 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=226 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "The World Needs to Know!!!", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/the-world-needs-to-know/" });]]> Sorry for the late night post, but this is something I thought I posted before, but apparently I have not. There are some BBs and other Smartphones that have their MMS disabled. This means you can’t send a regular picture mail, you have to send it to an e-mail address.

She is playing Guitar Hero with painted nails.

I do not know about you, but there are some people I know that do not have e-mail addresses, but that would still like pictures of my beautiful Guitar Hero playing daughter. There is a way to send an “e-mail” straight to a person’s phone. Here are the codes:

Sprint : MDN@pm.sprint.com
Verizon : MDN@vzwpix.com
Cingular : MDN@mms.mycingular.com
US Cellular : MDN@mms.uscc.net
T-Mobile : MDN@tmomail.net
Nextel : MDN@messaging.nextel.com
Alltel : MDN@message.alltel.com
AT&T : MDN@mms.att.net
Boost Mobile : MDN@myboostmobile.com
Virgin Mobile : MDN@vmobl.com

I will update this as soon as possible with Cricket/Leap Wireless and I will make sure it still works for the new Boost Unlimited. Other than that if you have any questions please feel free to contact us, or if you use Twitter direct message @gizmoalex or @phonestore.

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]]> http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/the-world-needs-to-know/feed/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/the-world-needs-to-know/ Pandora Radio FTW http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/5VAmbfhbd1k/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/pandora-radio-ftw/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:37:36 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=225 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Pandora Radio FTW", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/pandora-radio-ftw/" });]]> Ok, a few weeks/months ago I wrote about Slacker Radio coming to the Blackberry. I have been using Slacker and setting all my Blackberry customers up with it. Now comes Pandora, Pandora is a similar music streaming station.

When you log into Pandora the first time it asks you if you have an account (which I do) or if you are a new customer. You can set up your settings from here. I entered my e-mail address and password and pretty much hit the ground running. It had a list of my previously created stations (Bubblegum Oldies, where did that come from?). It has a pretty slick interface and seems to be very responsive.

I am on Sprint’s 3G network and after selecting my song it loaded very very fast. The main screen shows you the Album Art, Song’s Title and Album. There is a spot where you can “Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down” the song. This will play it more often, or stop playing it. You can also skip, I skipped twice before I didn’t want to try anymore (Creep Acoustic Version). The actual website only lets you skip 3 times an hour.

So if you like music and you have a Blackberry get this application. There are great alternatives like IHeartRadio which is really awesome because it lets you listen to some local radio stations. Slacker is awesome because it lets you cache your stations and listen when you are off network. Also, Slacker is only available for the Bold, Curve, and Pearl series phones. If you have any questions please contact us, or Direct Message @gizmoalex or @phonestore on Twitter.

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]]> http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/pandora-radio-ftw/feed/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/pandora-radio-ftw/ Contxts http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/TX-7noD6qIw/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/contxts/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:20:01 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=224 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Contxts", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/contxts/" });]]> Thanks to Twitter, I heard about a service called Contxts. It is a really simple idea, that seems to work pretty well the last few days I have been using it. It is a service that allows you to cut down on your paper business cards, and allows you to have somebody receive your contact info on their phone via text.

For example, I set my Username as gizmoalex, when you text gizmoalex to 50500 it will send you my contact info. You can set it up as you wish, but I have my name, mobile, work number, title, etc. Now would be a great time to do it, I just set my wife up, and because we are early adopters her username “Laura” has not been taken yet.

There is a spot where you can enter your Twitter or Linkedin accounts, among other social networking websites. It is a cool service, it is a free service, and it is a great way to make sure everybody gets your contact info. I do not know how many business cards I have lost, but I guarantee my phone is not something I tend to lose (often). If you have any questions contact us, or you can Direct Message @gizmoalex or @phonestore on Twitter.

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]]> http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/contxts/feed/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/contxts/ What is LTE? What is Wimax? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/DFeNpOyTooI/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/what-is-lte-what-is-wimax/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:34:18 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=221 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "What is LTE? What is Wimax?", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/what-is-lte-what-is-wimax/" });]]> I always was amazed to have internet on my phone. I think it was really cool, but not quite the work of “wizards”. I have come a long way from my older phone. I went after that to a few different phones, a Moto Q, Blackberry 8830, and the new (well not so new) love of my life my Blackberry Curve 8330.

Okay, so I have internet on my phone, so what? Before, my internet connection on my phone was used to only search for movie times and the default news on the home page. As time has gone on, I now use the internet on my phone to receive e-mails, settle late night bets via Google, and even check the status of my friends currently playing XBOX. The point is besides all those TinyTwitter and a billion other things I use the web for on my phone, it is still not where it will be in the future.

Verizon is one of the major carriers that have been testing for LTE and Sprint has being doing the Wimax/Xohm thing for some time. These technologies are going to make us even more connected. They are increasing the speed a whole lot. From what I understand right now you are lucky to peak at 1 Mbps and soon you should be able to multiply that by 15-20.

Think about it, our devices will have to obviously change to take advantage of this. Over the years they have already started getting bigger screens, keyboards, bigger built in memory. I would love to add a movie download to my Netflix Streaming Queue and watch it while I am waiting at the Dr.’s Office. I do not mean watch choppy video, I mean watch an HD stream. Will we all be carrying netbooks that have a built in ability to talk in a few years?

The exciting news is it is not just the biggest boy on the block doing this, Metro PCS apparently has plans to go the way of LTE, and if I had to place a few bucks on it I think Leap Wireless/Cricket may follow suit with the same technology. So I am excited to see this happen, I am excited to see where this might go, and how this will help us connect better as people. If you have any questions contact us, or you can always Tweet @gizmoalex or @phonestore.

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]]> http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/what-is-lte-what-is-wimax/feed/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/03/what-is-lte-what-is-wimax/ Palm Pre http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/A3Xvgk8lrmg/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/02/palm-pre/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:00:59 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=220 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Palm Pre", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/02/palm-pre/" });]]> The Palm Pre has been a phone I have been looking forward to since I heard it was announced. I really have been hearing cool things about it, and there are several videos which show off some of it’s features. One of The Phone Store’s close friends, Bernadette, is really a huge Palm fan and this is the phone she says she is most looking forward to….ever.

The Palm Pre is awesome and it has continued to impress me. They just announced Flash support for the Palm Pre. This is huge news since there can be Flash based videos or applications. This is the phone to look out for. As everybody knows, I love Blackberry. I am looking forward to the “Niagara”, but the Palm Pre could really change the game again. It should set a new standard on a business centric phone, having really cool consumer features. If you have any questions contact us. You can also Direct Tweet @gizmoalex or @phonestore. Also, the word on the street hints at a March/April release stay tuned.

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]]> http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/02/palm-pre/feed/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/02/palm-pre/ Twitter to the rescue http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePhoneStoreInc/~3/vP7nOfmISOw/ http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/01/twitter-to-the-rescue/#comments Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:05:40 +0000 admin http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/?p=218 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Twitter to the rescue", url: "http://www.thephonestoreinc.com/blog/2009/01/twitter-to-the-rescue/" });]]> We usually post some industry news or new applications (mostly for Blackberry). Today I want our post to be another way to find help for your phone, instead of searching “The Googles” for forums. There is a huge community of people that belong to Twitter. The great thing is some of these people are tech oriented, and many of them seem to be very nice.

Now on Twitter it seems like there are some people out there to solely promote their business. There are also great people like @johnmccrea from Plaxo that reach out to their customer base and address questions or issues they have regarding their product.

One fairly common link is many people that are on Twitter usually Tweet from their phones, and many are tech oriented. Just the other day, I found a cool case for my wife’s Blackberry Storm just by asking, “Does anybody know any good cases for the Storm?” This simple question gave me many opinions. The same rule applies. There are people out there asking, which phone should I get, or how do I (fill in the phone question here). Sure enough, the Twitter community usually comes to the rescue and responds.

For my phone, the Curve, I use an application called Twitterberry to update. You can download at http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry. There are other options as well for Blackberry. Gizmodo has provided a great battlemodo of Twitter apps for the iphone here. So if you have any questions you can contact us, or send me a message @gizmoalex, and I will respond as soon as I can.

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