ForcaTech Blog

Repeat after me:  No unlimited data plan with Verizon is a good thing. This is what Verizon is going to be  trying to convince all of their mind controlled zombies customers come September 8th–maybe.

Verizon will have a new classification of phone beginning in a week as well–”Enhanced Multimedia Phones”. Those phones will be required to pay for either the $9.99 or $19.99 per month data plans–much like how the red giant requires Blackberry devices to have a data plan.

What constitutes a phone being described as an Enhanced Multimedia Phone you ask? It has to have an HTML Web browser, EV-DO Rev. A, a QWERTY keypad, and it must launch on or after September 8th. If it doesn’t meet ALL of those requirements then it doesn’t qualify and won’t have the data plan forced upon it.

While the Omnia 2 doesn’t classify as a EMP we probably still won’t be seeing it until after this data plan switch. And what about the unlimited data plans? Will they be available for other phones? We sure hope so but it sounds like it has been thrown out the window. This will be a good change for people who occasionally check their email or browse every now and then but for power users who are constantly on the internet or who tether their phone to their laptop for internet this could be really expensive if the unlimited plan is completely done away with. [BGR]

We have all been there. Your friends, co-workers and acquaintances find out that you know about computers and you instantly know everything about anything with a power cord. Not that most of us mind. Personally I enjoy helping over the phone when I can–even if that is only so that I can call in a favor later!

The guys over at xkcd hit the nail right on the head with this one. I was hesitant to post this image for job security purposes for every tech support agent out there but from my experience with professional tech support this chart probably won’t mean much to you anyways.

For the rest of you, never call me again–just kidding(but not really).

So you have downloaded a legit RC of Windows 7 from Microsoft–sorry free release candidates went offline last night–or you have purchased your copy from Microsoft directly but don’t want to enter the activation key yet? You can easily extend your trial period by entering a single command into the command prompt.

Open up your command prompt and type in “slmgr -rearm”. This will extend your trial period to 30 days. As soon as those 30 days run up you can do it again.

Microsoft is allowing you to do this 3 times for a total of 120 days. The same trick worked in Vista and it looks like M$ has decided to leave it in Windows 7.

Those of you who are avid Pandora users have no doubt had all of your hopes and dreams crushed recently. Pandora is now forcing Pandora One down your throat heavily advertising for their paid subscription service Pandora One. While I agree it is a little more than annoying that we Pandora members, who have been listening to the site since it first started up, are now limited to 40 hours a month; however, I can understand that they have their own costs to cover.

In the past you were also able to just go to pandora and listen without an account. Now you have to register and login to listen to music so that they can track your every move limit everyone to 40 hours.

I thought I would beat the system and create another account when I initially ran out of my 40 hours, but no dice. Pandora not only limits your account but also limits each computer.

You will notice a new drop down when you first sign up for Pandora One. One of the cool features of upgrading is the slim “Pandora Mini”. Its basically just takes everything off the web page except for the center area where the music is.

As soon as you get to 30-35 hours you will begin to notice a bar at the top of the screen warning you that you are about to run out of sweet, free listening time. Once you hit 40 hours BOOM. You’re done.

If you want to continue listening you have to pay $0.99 for the next month or $36/year to upgrade to Pandora One.

With Pandora One you also get a slim yet spiffy Pandora desktop application that allows you to listen to Pandora without a need to use your browser at all. This, in and of itself, is really cool. If you have a firefox update, accidentally close your whole browser instead of that one tab or have no reason to have a browser window open you can still listen to your  music uninterrupted. Whenever the next song comes on there is a little overlay that pops up in the top right corner of your screen to let you see the Artist, Song, Album, and Album cover.

You also get high quality streaming audio. Instead of the 128Kbps default you have the option of listening to 192Kbps instead. We tested this feature out on some $10 cheap desktop speakers and also on a higher end setup and on both we could tell a quality difference when switching between the two. It obviously wasn’t as noticeable with the cheaper speakers so if you don’t have a nice audio set up this wouldn’t be a selling point for Pandora One.

When you upgrade you also have the option to apply custom skins to your in-browser Pandora. Which is cool, but again, not a selling point.

Some other perks that are worth the money–if you listen to 40hrs+ of Pandora each month–is that you have unlimited listening and no audio or visual ads. Your idle time out before it asks “are you still there?” is bumped up from 2 hours to 5 hours. As long as you skip a song, rate a song or click on anything else on the Pandora site you won’t timeout and will have uninterrupted music.

Honestly, there aren’t a ton of features available for Pandora One but if you are someone who listens to Pandora often then I say it is worth it. The desktop application is pretty slim but allows you to add new stations, select the one you want to listen to, rate, skip and adjust volume. The real selling point with Pandora One is if you run our of your 40 free hours. All of the other features are nice, but just perks to having the unlimited music and no ads.

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[UPDATE]: Users have been reporting that when using any build of Windows Mobile 6.5 they experience a time out after a few songs. No word as to what exactly is causing this–and we don’t have any other details and haven’t verified–but we have contacted Pandora support to see if they are aware and have started doing any kind of troubleshooting. This is definitely something wrong with WinMo 6.5 specifically since users who experience this problem can move back to 6.1 and the issue is resolved. It would be a smart move by Pandora to look into this and set a goal to get a work around  for their App finished around or before the unknown 6.5 release date. We will update you with any additional info.

When excitement was building around the initial release of the Nintendo Wii there were pictures circulating that had the Wii in a wide assortment of colors. Much to our dismay we have been stuck with white since release day.

Just recently news and pictures of a black Wii have been making their rounds. It is now confirmed that the black Wii will be released on August 1st…. in Japan ONLY!

Bummer for the rest of the World. Nintendo has said there are “no plans to have other colors of Wii in the U.S.”

It seems Dell has continued its recent marketing strategy. Last night 3 new LCD monitors appeared on the Dell website unannounced. The Dell ST2310 23″ LCD, Dell E2210 21.5″ LCD and Dell E2010 20″ LCD are now available from the Dell website for the very reasonably priced $230, $169 and $139.

The ST2310 is impressive with its 23″ 16:9 anti-glare LCD capable of full HD resolutions up to 1920 x 1080 at 60Hz with a dynamic contrast ratio of 50000:1. The monitor has HDMI, DVI and VGA ports but for some reason only comes packaged with a standard VGA cable–come on Dell!

As strange as it may seem for Verizon to do something like this as of the 16th they have started pushing out a new update for the Samsung Omnia i910 over the air.

The update has unblocked the GPS capabilities from the phone allowing 3rd party programs to utilize it. Hopefully this is opening the door for future devices to come unblocked from initial release and maybe–big MAYBE–one day we will get to see a phone come to Verizon with its own spiffy interface.

I would love to see the Omnia HD come to Verizon with the Symbian OS with TouchWiz 3D interface instead of Windows Mobile but I am probably asking too much.

For those unfamiliar with the Omnia HD click the link and watch the video. Briefly, it has a 360×640 pixel resolution screen with 16 million colors. The 8-megapixel camera that records 720p HD video is unheard of for a cell phone. Comes with 8 or 16GB built-in memory with an expansion slot that can take up to an additional 32GB. Features also include Wi-Fi, 7.2Mb HSDPA, GPS, HDMI, 8mpx camera, front facing camera for video conferencing and accelerometer. Record your HD home video and then instantly watch it on your HD TV via the HDMI port.

This is already out there and available in the UK but we have yet to see it in the US. When we do we will never have need of another cell phone.

Over 5 years now Google Apps has been a great solution for businesses. Up until now you have had the option of choosing from the $50/month or the free plainly laid in front of you. Now the free version of Google Apps is no where to be seen on the homepage.

Now a few years ago the homepage changed to be a huge ad for the paid version with one little link for the free version. But now…

As soon as you go to the homepage you are asked a new question…. Are you a Business IT Manager or School IT?  Hrm… lets go with business that will take us to the free vs paid options right?

Nope! You get to try Google Apps for free for 30 days after which you will begin to get billed the $50/user or you can try a 14-day demo.

So where do you go? With some searching through the Google interwebs you will eventually be able to find it but, we have done that for you!

Here you go — http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new