Fabienne

Ah, I thought that statement sounded less than ecstatic, but if you're happy, I am happy too. However, being called a "hipster"? Gad, what the heck did I ever do to you? :) Oh, and that cartoon above forgot to mention, Android phone is for pr0n. (har har har). But srsly, I love a good phone, and I use just about every function on a phone. My problem is I want the darned thing to work. This is my current gripe with my Blackberry, it works but so badly that I don't use what I have on there because it's such a pain in the neck. Androids are great, they can do a lot of stuff beside pr0n (just joking). I have seen them in action and heard owners praise them. I have also heard a lot of folks getting very upset about lack of apps (even though there are thousands of them in the app store for Android), and the spotty quality of the apps (if it's going to be open then open isn't always good), fusses with data plan limits, discontent with what people bought in terms of the quality of the phone over time (I know someone who ended up detesting the way the screen on the Blaze felt...go figure). I want a good looking and good feeling phone which works, apps that work and are not an arm and a leg (like they are on BB), a bunch of extras like camera/video and such which actually work (unlike half of the time with BB--ahem) a customer service which actually helps you out if you have a problem, yea and I want it in white (I'm allowed, I'm a girl). I admire anyone with the know how and patience to use a phone you have to program. I am sure that is the only way to get exactly what you want. Is it efficient? Well, it very well might be in the long run, but you have to spend a lot of time getting it to the way you want it. At this point, I think my time is better spent on other things and I would just like to pay the .99 for a good app and let it work for me instead of feeling that I am working for it.

Things, they are so complex now. I must study what has been said regarding the OS's and phones themselves. I was looking through some of the offerings by some of the carriers. There should be a price war starting about now, is there in your opinion? I concentrated on Cincinnati Bell, just for purposes of understanding. They have (as their "big important models" i.e. 3G which involves a data plan, natch) the Blaze (at $299 unsubsidized price), Blackberry Bold 9700 at $499 unsubz), Nexus One ($529 unsubz), and several others which are not so famous which are going from an average of $149 unsubz to a whopping $499 for a Pharos (which I had not heard about). Looks like you can pay anything (comparing unsubz to make all things equal) from $529-$149 for an android-type phone. Any idea of where the price is going to go from there? Just curious.

Ah, so you are telling me that each one of the carriers has their own take on Android OS? In that case, why is there such a crush when HTC comes out with one new phone, then there is another crush when HTC come out with another? This seems to be a monthly event. Do those phones use different parts or functions of the Android OS? For instance, I think there was an HTC Invincible, then there was the EVO, now there is the X. What gives? I remember that everyone on the planet was aquivver over the Invincible, then as soon as it came out no one was talking about it because they were falling all over themselves because the EVO was going to come out. Now everyone seems to be having fits waiting for the X.

Update, I just got a phone call from a CinBell exec whose job it is to fix consumer problems like mine. They didn't get what I was driving at in my e-mail. I complained that the 1-800 number didn't work when you were out of town and trying to use their .10/min feature with the dial up. I was told it was discontinued (after 1.5 days of phone calls to the Philippines). The website still showed it was a feature of Cincinnati Bell, even after a week it shows you can still use it. The exec told me that was a problem and said she would look into it and get back with me. I think it's an anomaly but it looks real bad in this day and age of "let 'em eat cake" corporate management.

Ohhhh, boo hoo. I am telling myself to wait for the white one. So, that is what I am going to do. I keep on hearing how good the new 4 is. And if Cincinnatus is complaining about the speed at which the new smartphones are emerging, then it is a real concern. I was just hearing about the android X and a lot of folks are talking about their android, etc. What's the deal? Do new androids only come out with one particular feature on them and then everyone goes mad for them. Then one month later another version of it comes out with a new name but this time it does what the previous one does but adds on "big deal" feature, so everyone has to get one of them, and so on? That's what it sounds like.

Yea, I live in Mt. Lookout and the land line equipment was put in by Watson, Edison's assistant. They have been good about coming out and fixing things, I hope that continues.

Uh, I already did that, my friend. When I had to problem with the 1-800 no on the road I called their support line at about 4:30 on June 18th. They promised to call me back in about 2 hrs with an answer to my question. They never did. The next day I called them again at 8:30 a.m. and finally got my answer at 3:30 p.m. The answer was "no". This was from Philippines. So, I know first hand what you are talking about an am not going to be repeating the experience any time soon. You can't call them, and they are the phone company. How ironic!

I want to get other opinions on this. I used to think that Cincinnati Bell was a great company. I have been with them since I got to Our Fair City and no complaints. Then around March/April 2010 it seems like they have done an about face. The guys in the store used to be very friendly and put a lot of effort into helping you with your problems. Now they are more paranoid and interested in enforcing the rules. Case in point, I was leaving town and wanted to know about tethering my phone. I was going to be using a tether plan just at the time of my billing date. The CinBell guy said that would make my tethering bill double! I was spanning my billing date and even though I was only wanting to use tethering for 3 days, I would have to pay twice. I asked if I could change my billing date. No, absolutely not. If I wanted to tether over that date, I paid double, no exceptions. OK, if I couldn't tether I would use the 1-800 number to get on line for $.10/minute. But it didn't work. I called the help line and it took them 1 1/2 days to get back with me and tell me that the 1-800 number was now canceled/discontinued. It is still showing on the website. How would you know it was discontinued? In the Phone Store, there have been a couple of scary instances where customers got upset and started yelling and/or declaring what they wanted very loudly and were ejected. That is not a good thing, and it's wasn't necessarily Cincinnati Bell's fault but going into their Hyde Park store, you have a tendency to keep your eyes open in case someone gets out of hand. Has there been some fundamental shift here, or have I just run into a patch of odd/bad service?

OK, all you bums, who got the iPhone? How long did you wait (or did you wimp out and have it sent to you). Anyone in Cincinnati? What was it like? Love it? Hate it? Meh? What's your opinion.

Is this the multi-tiered system that telecoms have wanted to install for years?

OK, it's possible! I am impressed. BUT, will it allow you to run all of your PC software. One thing which has kept me from investigating Apple for a computer is that I have several PC only pieces of software which are small, custom and crucial to my business and they are written for PC only. QBI lets me download my ZenCart shopping cart information directly into QuickBooks and I keep my formulae on a File Maker program which is held out as being "not MAC compatible" in bold letters on the front of the package. Alas, these are two lynch pins of my seamless computer e-commerce system. The idea is a great one, but I have a few reservations about trying it.

I have a PC. I don't think Snow Leopard is going to work on a PC, or am I wrong? All things are possible. :)

I have had a strange thing happening to me on one of my computers. I have a ASUS notebook and suddenly I started being hijacked when I search for something. I get on the internet and my home page starts up OK. Then I go off and try to search for something with Google and I get a list of things, I click on one of the links and I see "redirect" and a symbol which looks like "2" and then I get taken to a link farm. It is a different link farm every time. I have tried to change my search engines. I am in Firefox. This started happening last week. I have run all my spywear, malware, anti-virus stuff multiple times and it has not fixed the problem. This is getting pretty old. It doesn't effect my other computers, just this one. Any ideas? I suspect it is a virus in this computer which is undetected but how or what? Has anyone else gotten this thing?

Well, to refine the original question: I was going to purchase Tether and use it on my Blackberry. I went to their site and found a scary set of e-mails where a person tethered their phone and was presented with a very large bill by their local Bell company. They are really pissed about it all. Have any of you heard anything like this? Does Tether work for your computer with Cincinnati Bell or have you gotten a nasty surprise?

Yea, sad to say it is a monthly plan. It depends on you billing date, too. So, since I will span two billing months, I will be charged twice for 10 days worth of tethering. Phfffft.

I am with Cincinnati Bell. I am going to take a trip and I will be gone for 10 days. I have a business which I run over the internet and I like to stay connected. I thought about buying a month's worth of tethering from Cincinnati Bell. I will be gone from June 15-June 25. Our billing date is June 20. So, Cincinnati Bell would have to charge me two months worth of tethering instead of one because I would be using it before and after the billing date. No, they will not change my billing date. I thought the answer might be for me to buy Tether (used to be "Tetherberry") and use that. Does anyone know if that works on Cincinnati Bell Blackberry? Will Cincinnati Bell charge me out the ears for using it if they find out that I did? Or am I relatively safe on all fronts? Have any of you used Tether with Cincinnati Bell? How did it work? Thanks for any insights you have on this.

It looked pretty involved, right down to being able to put music with your video, stills, and other things. Now everyone can be a Cecil B. deMille.

No. But it's a nice high def sort of video which you can edit with the phone in a number of ways which I think is pretty advanced. I can take perfectly terrible video right now with my Blackberry, unrivaled for its bad quality except probably by my previous cellphone (a Nokia).

Well, I just found out that android is for porn. Who knew? Now I find out that anyone who doesn't have an iPhone4 is persona non grata. Gad, what a world we live in. Really got to toe the line...or else. I thought that the video part was really the filet mignon of it all. I would use mine for business and I do put up videos (and podcasts) and that would be great to have in one small device. I suppose that is my favorite part.

I am watching it now on Ars Technica and Jobs is telling everyone all about it.

That is a neat machine, I must say. The thing which keeps me from looking at it hard is the question of what do you need to do to run it at it's intended capacity? I mean, I am sure that if you want you can just do the usual stuff with it like make telephone calls (how quaint), run apps, get on the internet and send e-mails, text and annoy your friends with fart apps BUT you are talking about reprogramming parts of it, I am sure I could do it but...why? There might be a reason and I might just love dealing with assembly language if there is a reason to do that (just kidding about the assembly language). I am saying that with an open mind. I have not bought anything yet and probably won't until the smoke clears, so I want to explore fully. I really love to own a good smartphone to run my business and, yes, waste time and have fun as well. Now that you have had your N900 for a month longer or so, are you still as blown away by it as you were? There have been and will be a lot of competitors popping up from now until end of summer especially (like it or not iPhone does tend to attract competition), what are your views now?

Fed up with "smartphones" which don't have all the necessary features? Fret no more, my friends. <CENTER>The iTouchBerry! From FABECO!!!!!</CENTER ..AND, IF YOU ACT NOW: <CENTER>fabeco2</center>

Well, that was an eyeopener. Thank you for suggesting I do that. Fuse.net Download-4.43 mb/s upload-.81 mb/s mp3-10 sec video-1 min movie-24min Results > average Level 3 download-2.61 mb/s upload-3.27 mb/s ping-21 mp3-16 sec video-2 minutes movie-41 minutes Result< average Fuse is faster on the download, but slower on the upload. Looks like the pwn everything else. Oakiehigh or cincySal, how do you like Time Warner's service?

Well we did finally get rid of MSN, that was a struggle. The Current plug is actually a good deal faster than the Zoomtown we have so we are going to take a look at that set up (they offer a phone too). I think we will probably end up getting rid of Cincinnati Bell but we shall see about that ultimately. WE are going to end up with one high speed internet. Just arm wrestling about it now.

That is what it was! It is now $40/mo but it does not suck. I have used it and it's a lot better than it used to be.