Database Users

Cheap GPRS

Hi there,
I was recently shocked with my O2 phone bill due to GPRS charges, until May the GPRS was totally free on my account and I was spending a small fortune's worth on it, now I'm afraid to connect through GPRS as last month's bill topped £140, I only usually spend £40!!
Does anyone know of a way to make GPRS cheaper other than speaking to the operator, being an O2 Online customer I am only allowed a bolt-on for 8 megabytes!, I could use that in 2 days!!
I know WM5 has a built in compressor in IE but it's not as good as OperaMini.
Is there any tricks to trimming off that price?
Thanks guys
Terry

Migrate to the T-Mobile web n walk tariff?

T-Mobiles Web & Walk Pro with 2 GB download allowance, only 10 quid inc vat.

If you are stuck with a contract time remaining - you may be better paying the rest of the contract off and switching to the Tmobile a web and walk one.
If you need to stay with O2 for some reason (like they would not be happy porting the number of someone paying that much a month!) you could try disabling graphics as that makes your usage plummet and unless it is something you really need graphics for (like maps) then you dont really notice any inconvenience.
If you do need graphics then try...
http://portal.onspeed.com/
It works by connecting via a proxy that is sending compressed data to your phone. When you tell them what phone you have it also reduces picture resolution to match the screen, as a compressed 800x600 image is about 5 times larger than the same 320x240 that your screen could show. Obviously your phone needs to run code to decompress the data, but it is meant to drop data usage fairly substantially and as your are receiving the data at the same speed it effectively decreases the time it takes a page to load.
It costs £20 for a year - however there is a "free" trial running currently which costs 50p for two weeks - so I guess a minud point that a company runs a free offer you need to pay for.
If you are a quidco member you can get a 1/3 off this, which even makes it viable to join quidco if you are not - as it would pay your years membership and £1.60 into your paypal account so you could then get all their other refunds for a year.

Thanks guys, that all looks great, I've only recently renewed my contract with O2 so I'll look into the cost of paying them off, 2gb per month sounds amazing from T-Mobile and well worth the hassle!
Cheers
Terry

Selling my XDA Mini S (UK)

Just received a free upgrade from O2 - it's an XDA Mini S.
Decided however that I might as well it - already got a perfectly good phone, and whilst the XDA Mini S is superb (much much better than it's predecessors) - I'm not really gone use it.
So - anyone want to buy it ? Comes with an extra belt case, and a Martin Fields Screen Protector (already installed by myself). Boxed, with all supplied accessories, manuals, software etc.
Will also supply the receipt in case of any warranty problems.
Looking for £225 - UK sales only. PayPal, BACS, Cash or cheque acceptable.
Got 100% positive eBay feedback over 120+ transactions - so I'm genuine.
Pls email me ([email protected]) or PM me here.
Thanks
Mark

Thats a lot of pennies mate for
a) Something that cost you nothing. (Not really a bargain)
b) Something that has just been blown away by the Hermes
It's a shame cos I have one of these Wizards and I love it. I had a perfectly good phone before my ppc but I wouldn't expect too much from that price me old mukka. :roll:

Jerry-S said:
Thats a lot of pennies mate for
a) Something that cost you nothing. (Not really a bargain)
b) Something that has just been blown away by the Hermes
It's a shame cos I have one of these Wizards and I love it. I had a perfectly good phone before my ppc but I wouldn't expect too much from that price me old mukka. :roll:
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I agree it's been blown away by Hermes but disagree that it cost him nothing! It cost him 12 months at £35 a month or whatever - that ain't free. If you don't take a subsidised / free handset you cna negotiate line rental down to as little as £10/month. So it ain't 'free'...
Richard

So make me a (sensible) offer
£225 appears to be the closing price on good old eBay - but it is hassle etc (advertising, fees) - so would prefer to deal privately.
There's always someone who will buy it - I'm just trying to negate the possibility of being 'scammed' by someone on eBay (doesn't matter how hard you try - someone always chances their luck).
Thanks
Mark

fluffcat1 said:
I agree it's been blown away by Hermes but disagree that it cost him nothing! It cost him 12 months at £35 a month or whatever - that ain't free. If you don't take a subsidised / free handset you cna negotiate line rental down to as little as £10/month. So it ain't 'free'...
Richard
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Sorry to sound like I'm splitting hairs on this, but I really have gotta have my say, ha ha ha.
All I really want to say is that someone looking to buy a contract free phone would probably wait and pay a little more for the Hermes.
As far as the "Per month" tariff is concerned, Mark is going to have that anyway. He couldn't use the £225 to get out of the contract and as he says, he has a perfectly good phone which he will continue to use, assumedly on the existing / continued tariff he was on before.
This was obviously Mark's choice to stay on with O2 and as a result agrees to be bound to a 12 month contract anyway. Therefore, factoring the yearly tariff into a sale isn't really valid, surely.
LOL
Sorry, I really sound like I want to pi$$ on someones bonfire, but thats really not the case, just stating an opinion.
Just as an extra note, I upgraded with O2 to a wizard for free, the cost to a new contract was only £50 then.
A fortnight later when my other half could upgrade, she went from Nokia to a Motorola something or other but didn't like it. She returned it and stayed with the Nokia. O2 gave her £100 instead. (Credit or as a payment back to her.)

Just to add Mark, good luck with the sale, I just thought I'd stick my two penne'th in LOL.
I agree if you can make a bit of cash then go for it, I just think it could be a little late with a newer, faster model now available.

Cut the Guy some slack.........
............These phones are £400+ on Expandsys sim free. [So this one may well be locked to O2 but we can either accept that or fix it!!]
The rest of us got them 'free' when signing up to a contract of some description.
You're not forced to buy if you don't want to !!
Jus my 2c

When does the hermes start shipping?

fr4gm0nk3y said:
When does the hermes start shipping?
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As far as I can tell, between now and October/November depending on where you are.

Herald VS G1

Im really thinking of selling my Wing and getting me a G1
The thing that hold me back the most is that there is no A2DP support.
Overall how do you guys think the G1 measures up to the Wing ? Are we still gonna be able to use the G1 with the proxy or gonna have to pay for a data plan?
Edit: I just went through the preorder process and it requires you to pick a data plan, you think you can cancel that after you get your phone ?
I really wonna get me the G1 because its suppose to be a way faster processor, 3D graphics acceleration and a GPS but i also use my phone on a daily frame to play Music though my BT headphones. So that's a major setback for me having to be wired :/ Im probably still gonna get it regardless. I just wonna see what you guys think.

hey gizzy,
i would wait until you know more about the G1 and Android. At the moment there are still to much questions. The data plan the bluetooth problem. Wait until its out in the USA! Than you know more! Or stay with your Wing, like me, and hope that there is a way to get Android for it soon.

Iven if there is i really like the GPS and accelerometer, and the faster processor. I was actually ready to sell my wing to a friend at school n preorder the G1. But i saw that a data plan is required and taht kinda stopped me.

The G1 is sick. I sold my Wing a few weeks ago to get money for it. I pre-ordered it yesterday and will have it on the 22nd of October hopefully. The phone is gonna be great. You can't expect it to have everything though. No phone will. Just look at what it does have and what the possibilities are.

GiZZy said:
Iven if there is i really like the GPS and accelerometer, and the faster processor. I was actually ready to sell my wing to a friend at school n preorder the G1. But i saw that a data plan is required and taht kinda stopped me.
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Why did the data plan stop you from pre-ordering it? What kind of plan do you have now? Like what do you pay for x amount of minutes and what do you have for a data and text plan?

currently im ona family plan with 300 min ( but everyone i talk to is T-Mo is at most we use 10 mins lol )and a special offer from about 4 years ago with 300 txt messages, and Unlimited Pucture messages and Unlimited T-Zones ( i use the proxy ) for $2.99 so paying $25 per month now will be a bit much. Im on a family plan with my parents and dont have a job atm so i try to keep the cost down. for the phone id pay myself my sellign my wing but the montly price will add up.

This is the problem I'm having I'm new here myself and trying to pick between the G1 and the Wing. More then likely I'll go with the G1 but I'm just worried about how well it will mod. Only time will tell though I guess.

Its open source so supposibely everything about it should be able to be modified. I wonder if XTC Devs will support is, it'd br great, i dont wonna have to look for another great modding community. it IS and HTC phone so my guess is it will be supported but it'll be a bog change for most developers ( imo )

i highly doubt the 5.99 proxy will still work, and once you order the phone you CANNOT cancel the order, you can either refuse to sign for it or sign for it and return it to t-mo @
National Return Center (NRC)
210 Wiley Road
LaGrange, GA 30240
i still have my wing but it's a little beat up, i ordered the G1 today after i saw that they changed the whole 1GB throttle down policy.

why?
GiZZy said:
Im really thinking of selling my Wing and getting me a G1...I really wonna get me the G1 because its suppose to be a way faster processor, 3D graphics acceleration and a GPS
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Why not get one of the great new Windows Mobile phones coming out that fit that description (Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Xperia X1, Touch HD, etc.)?

DarrenUtd said:
Why not get one of the great new Windows Mobile phones coming out that fit that description (Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Xperia X1, Touch HD, etc.)?
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$$$
Getting a G1 is pretty cheap compared to getting any of the higher end Windows Mobile phones. It looks like it's going to be a great phone. It has its shortcomings, but since it's open source, I'd imagine they'd fix the issues quickly and expand into all kinds of features.

agreed.
oh and gizzy, didnt you hear that there will be an update for the g1 to add support for A2DP?

There will be many updated for the G1. It's only just beginning, lol. The phone is gonna be insane.
GiZZy said:
currently im ona family plan with 300 min ( but everyone i talk to is T-Mo is at most we use 10 mins lol )and a special offer from about 4 years ago with 300 txt messages, and Unlimited Pucture messages and Unlimited T-Zones ( i use the proxy ) for $2.99 so paying $25 per month now will be a bit much. Im on a family plan with my parents and dont have a job atm so i try to keep the cost down. for the phone id pay myself my sellign my wing but the montly price will add up.
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I guess I see what you're saying if you pay so little a month. Me personally, i'm comfortable with paying $100 or less a month. I had Nextel last year and paid $95 a month for basically nothing. I had a highly overpriced plan which was like 400 minutes for.. $65-70 maybe? All I know is it was ridiculous compared to what I pay now. That and I had an unlimited text plan. So compare $95 a month with a Nextel phone that does nothing compared to having a Wing smartphone for $75-85 a month that can do a LOT of ****. I guess that's why I don't mind paying what i'll pay.

so the A2DP support is software related or are they gonna introduce it with a completely new phone ?
Yeah the proce is pretty cheap for what it does =]
I dont know maybe i'll be able to talk my parents about getting the data plan, he just changed phoen companies and everything to try to bring the monthly expenses down.

GiZZy said:
so the A2DP support is software related or are they gonna introduce it with a completely new phone ?
Yeah the proce is pretty cheap for what it does =]
I dont know maybe i'll be able to talk my parents about getting the data plan, he just changed phoen companies and everything to try to bring the monthly expenses down.
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Click to collapse
As long as it has bluetooth, it's only software related. The Tmobile MDA (HTC Wizard) that I had originally didn't have A2DP, either. But with a ROM update, it suddenly did.

Oh thats cool, then i guess the only thing thats stopping me now is the data plan.

My friend is kinda in the same boat with the A2DP. I told him just to turn his wing into a music phone until the update is released. You would be crazy not to get it. The possibilities with the GPS and open source are going to be awsome.

Yeah it will be, and there will be many fun apps utilizing the accelerometer. yeah my wing is my media phone, i got 3GB of music alone on it. I dont have an ipod or anything but y do i even need one =] Well ive seen some pretty good apps even now and when its released the market will be swarming. probably within a week of its release most things will be fixed. I wonder if i can get it and then just cancel the data plain if the 25/month doesn't fly w/ my parents.

What exactly are the prices for the plans? Are they that expensive? Right now I pay 93 dollars a month for my current plan and services.
Good thing I have a friend willing to buy my Wing for 280. That is a good price no?
Damn open source... oh the possibilities...
You think that when the G1 comes out that it's OS can be ported and correctly configured to work with other phones?

the plan itelf is not expensive, 25 a month for the data plan, but im on a familly plan with my parents so in dependant on what they say, im selling my wing for 200 or so, the keypad is all pealed off so im just trying to cover the cost for the G1

Tmo USA G1 Tethering?

Has anyone ever got in trouble because you went over Tmo bandwidth cap? I know it was a big issues when G1 first come out about 10gb cap/month limit.
I was wondering if anyone ever went over the cap limit? if so, what happen? I heard rumors that Tmo will lower the downstream speed to those individuals for the first offense, and then cancel your contract and service for future offense.
The reason I'm asking is because I use my rooted G1 as my main internet source for the past 3 weeks or so because my aunt doesn't want to pay for DSL anymore. I got 3G on my area and on good days I usually get about 750 kbps on my laptop, fast enough to pass by some free time. Lately, I been doing some heavy audio streaming and even downloading TV shows from torrent using my G1.

Pretty sure t-mobile will get pissed about bittorrent
Stop torrenting, and they should leave you alone

i know...but I can't help it. I need to watch my shows. I dont have tivo and can't afford extra bill for the damn internet for the house.

ichigoismyhomie said:
i know...but I can't help it. I need to watch my shows. I dont have tivo and can't afford extra bill for the damn internet for the house.
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Click to collapse
use hulu.com it is completely legit and free streaming of shows and movies. ran by a tv station

Stop downloading so much, it makes the network slow for everyone else. If you do illegal activities on the phone I sure there will be some back lash. And if you keep this up they will make tethering against TOS, and you will ruin it for everyone.

is it possible to tehter on a tmobiile rc30 stock rom? and if so how?

Hate to be redundant, but I seriously hope that when T-mobile cracks down that they don't take out some poor guy who needs to ssh into a server and generates 10kb of traffic when they bust you for transferring multiple GB of bittorrent traffic.
The cost of bandwidth of a cell phone is VASTLY higher than over DSL or Cable. Radio bandwidth is a very limited commodity, and right now the networks barely have enough to serve their customers who just want to browse the web a little and watch the odd YouTube video (at low resolution).
If you have torrents seeding 24x7 you're going to use hundreds or thousands of times more bandwidth than an average user, and it is going to cause problems. Most likely you'll just get your service cut off (so then you'll be complaining about how you don't have DSL OR a cell phone). However, other possibilities include T-Mo blocking everything but port 80 and maybe 25. Please don't be the guy who does this to android...
Look, I'm all for net-neutrality and all that, and ISPs that have draconian filters need to be forced to remove them. However, you really can't compare a landline ISP that doesn't want you to do nothing more than web browse to a cell phone provider who wants you to stick to interactive use or otherwise low-bandwidth activities. Ditto for stuff like satellite-based internet. In these mediums bandwidth is genuinely limited.
If you need an analogy consider walking into a store every day and pocketing all the change in the "give/take a penny" bin. Sure, it is "free money," but you're basically ruining a community resource for even just the tiniest personal benefit. In you're case you're abusing what is likely a $60/month plan or so in order to avoid a $15/month DSL bill (give or take a few bucks).

Yeah cut it out. I heard that once you hit a data cap they drop you to edge speeds for the remainder of the month.
Don't ruin this for everyone. You'll live w/on your movies until you find another way.

ichigoismyhomie said:
i know...but I can't help it. I need to watch my shows.
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It's called growing up. I'm 25 and haven't had internet and TV in MY house for going on 2 years. Do you know what I have a lot of? Books. *gasp*
"I need to watch my shows! waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" *pout pout pout*
It's customers like you who are going to cause TMo to start throttling data usage so knock it off. Get a damn job and pay for an ISP yourself. What I quoted from you sounds like something my 8 year old would say.

uberingram said:
It's called growing up. I'm 25 and haven't had internet and TV in MY house for going on 2 years. Do you know what I have a lot of? Books. *gasp*
"I need to watch my shows! waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" *pout pout pout*
It's customers like you who are going to cause TMo to start throttling data usage so knock it off. Get a damn job and pay for an ISP yourself. What I quoted from you sounds like something my 8 year old would say.
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I could not agree more. There are people starving in this world, and you NEED your tv shows. That is one of the most pathetic things I have heard in awhile. Here is a novel, parsimonious idea, instead of watching tv, educate yourself. Education can go along way, at least far enough to make you realize what a stupid idea it is to pirate over your cell phone.

ichigoismyhomie said:
i know...but I can't help it. I need to watch my shows. I dont have tivo and can't afford extra bill for the damn internet for the house.
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i understand how you feel, i can't afford internet at all, and so i have to use my phone to do everything like help n00bs on here, when i got my tilt i had 3G and it was great, at&t had a 5GB cap and i went over it repeatedly with no repercussions, i never did more than 10GB on at&t so i seriously doubt i could do that on the edge network i have here with my G1. but from what the t-mo rep tols me the other day, after telling me that it was impossible to tether, and that there is no way to write a program for it, they just knock you down to edge speends for the rest of the month.
i also use the phone for my main source of internet but don't torrent, people that torrent ruin things and it makes everyone hate you.

uberingram said:
It's called growing up. I'm 25 and haven't had internet and TV in MY house for going on 2 years. Do you know what I have a lot of? Books. *gasp*
"I need to watch my shows! waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" *pout pout pout*
It's customers like you who are going to cause TMo to start throttling data usage so knock it off. Get a damn job and pay for an ISP yourself. What I quoted from you sounds like something my 8 year old would say.
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I'm so not gonna say anything.
Shaggy (41yrs old)

I think that maybe T-Mobile should charge additional per GB instead of putting a cap on. It should be about $2 per GB over (just an example). Which wouldn't be much for the average user... but for those who torrent it would definitly add up. However that would cause a change in the contract which T-Mobile reserves the right to do without notice. The would probably resort to such measures if everyone started doing this.

uberingram said:
It's called growing up. I'm 25 and haven't had internet and TV in MY house for going on 2 years. Do you know what I have a lot of? Books. *gasp*
"I need to watch my shows! waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" *pout pout pout*
It's customers like you who are going to cause TMo to start throttling data usage so knock it off. Get a damn job and pay for an ISP yourself. What I quoted from you sounds like something my 8 year old would say.
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Don't think you're better than anyone just because you don't watch TV. Oh wow you don't have internet or tv in your house ! Why are you on the internet now then? Go read a book, you're wasting bandwidth for the rest of us.

donutman said:
Don't think you're better than anyone just because you don't watch TV. Oh wow you don't have internet or tv in your house ! Why are you on the internet now then? Go read a book, you're wasting bandwidth for the rest of us.
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growing up... lol that's why he bought the G1.

Binary100100 said:
I think that maybe T-Mobile should charge additional per GB instead of putting a cap on. It should be about $2 per GB over (just an example). Which wouldn't be much for the average user... but for those who torrent it would definitly add up.
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Sounds fine to me. But they better make it possible to opt-out - I don't want some malfunctioning application to run up a $500 phone bill. If I hit a 10GB cap I'd rather they just cut me off.
Binary100100 said:
However that would cause a change in the contract which T-Mobile reserves the right to do without notice. The would probably resort to such measures if everyone started doing this.
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That would be wonderful! I just got a whole stack of phones at promotional pricing and a unilateral change in contract terms would be a material change that would get me out of my contract!
T-Mobile may not be required to give notice BEFORE changing the contract, but they certainly are required to tell you WHEN they change the contract. If the change is material to the terms of the contract you can refuse to accept the new terms, at which point they must either release you from the contract or continue service under the original terms. If they refused to do this and then tried to charge you a termination fee any court of law in the US would rule in your favor in a heartbeat (and they'd face a class action in no time). The whole point of contracts is that you agree to a set of terms and then you live by them - they can only be ammended by mutual consent. Anything written in the contract to the contrary is almost certainly unenforceable.
Sure, they might try to give you a hard time, but they would cave in. Just look at what happened when verizon decided to up some surcharge by 20 cents per month last year - lots of people argued it and got released from their contracts and continued month-to-month (with the freedom to leave at any time).
I doubt T-mobile would make a unilateral change like this anyway - the reason I signed up with them (besides the G1) is that they seemed to not have a reputation for some of the cheap shots some of the other companies pull.

look use rapidshare or megaupload that way theres no uploading but you still have to watch your limits (i use to go over 40gigs with my TYTN 2 on att and i thank god they never charged me be4 i was able to end my contract)

Slingplayer for android

Just a quick word to say that this app, which was released today on Google market, works (at least for me) on my unrooted Desire and using the Slingbox Classic. In the case of the latter this was not guarenteed to work for all system configurations. Yippee now I have world cup football at my fingertips!

30 bucks - why ? its free on the desktop.

Because people like OP are willing to pay $30 for it.
No offence, but I think $30 is daylight robbery for something like this. IMO the max amount I would be willing to pay for it is $10...

Given that SlingPlayer Mobile has always been a chargeable extra, and has always been priced at that level for other platforms (WinMo, iPhone etc), it came as absolutely no surprise to me to see the Android version being pitched at the same price point.
Regards,
Dave

I agree its somewhat expensive but I really appreciate its functionality. Also, according to this page (http://support.slingbox.com/get/KB-1000194.html) I think (but I accept its not clear for android market purchase) its a transferable license not only for android but for symbian, blackberry, etc. Therefore pay once get it for your current and future 'phones.

30 is crazy.....