simsbox.net

Last month I got out of my Sprint contract early.  Now this is really my first time shopping around for phone service.  Because of my poor/lack-of reception in my house, my provider options are limited to GSM networks like T-Mobile and AT&T.  Well I narrowed my choices down to an iPhone or AT&T Tilt ($150 from Amazon.com), both are with AT&T service.  The Tilt has Windows Mobile 6, GPS, WiFi, SD, full keyboard, and touchscreen but has video driver issues.  The iPhone ($399 from apple/at&t) has an amazing UI and great media capabilities, but has a locked down OS and hard drive, virtual keyboard, and a slower data plan.  AT&T in general has high priced plans, but I am willing to pay a little extra for the better phone/service capabilities.

The downside to both these phones (and all new phones) is of course the required two year contract.  In fact, most cell phone companies require you to sign a contract even if you don’t need a new phone.   What other industry requires you to sign a two-year contract?  This really hurt me with Sprint.   They had me sign a two year contract just to get off of my parents family plan and keep my number.  When I moved, I found that I had little to no reception in my house.  Since I don’t have and don’t want a land-line, this made life difficult.  If I left Sprint early I would have to pay a $200 fee.  Good thing that loophole came along when it did.

Another reason I don’t want to sign a contract is that the cell-phone industry is rapidly changing.  Sure, new technology is always around the corner, but with phones running Google’s Android OS coming later this year, or even a 3G iPhone with a developer SDK.   It’s all still up in the air at this point, so this is worst time to get locked into any phone or service.

Then I saw T-Mobile’s Flex Pay NO contract option.  You can sign up with any of their regular plans and features (including data), pay the same monthly fee, but there is NO contract.  As far as I know, no other company offers this.  You don’t get any discount on a new phone, but you can usually find the phone you want on eBay for not much more than the phone company’s discounted price.

I ended up using my wife’s spare T-Mobile Shadow, a Windows Mobile 6 slide phone with a XT9 SureType (2 characters per button) keyboard, nice bright screen, SD card slot, and a decent dashboard UI.  No touch screen, but I’ve found that it’s not really needed.  Even if I had to buy it myself, it’s only $50-$100 more on eBay than T-Mobile’s subsidized price.  As for the plan, I got the basic $30 plan and added the $5.99 T-MobileWeb T-Zones option, which after changing some proxy settings, you can get unlimited web access (EDGE is only worth six bucks IMO).

So a new phone, cheap monthy fee, and NO CONTRACT.  I pre-pay each month, can change my plan or drop it at any time.  If I want the latest and greatest phone that requires a contract, that option is still open to me at any time.  If I have to move or something, I’m not stuck paying for a phone I can’t use.  If a better deal comes along I can jump on it.  All of this because I’m not in a contract.  Don’t get put in cell phone jail.

Last month, Sprint sent out a postcard to it’s customers detailing a change in fees.  This is a ticket to getting out of your contract with Sprint, or perhaps a better deal!  According to the terms and conditions:

If a change we make to the Agreement is material and has a material adverse effect on Services under your Term Commitment, you may terminate each line of Service materially affected without incurring an Early Termination Fee only if you: (a) call us within 30 days after the effective date of the change; and (b) specifically advise us that you wish to cancel Services because of a material change to the Agreement that we have made. If you do not cancel Service within 30 days of the change, an Early Termination Fee will apply if you terminate Services before the end of any applicable Term Commitment.

So there it is in black and white.  The fees were changed, so you can terminate without incurring ETF.  The fact that the contract was changed at all should be enough, but Sprint will require you to wait till you get your bill with these new fees on it.  When you get your January bill, call Sprint retentions at 1-877-766-7697.  Say that you are calling to have your service cancelled due to the recent changes in fees and that your bill was effected.  They will ask if there is anything they can do and here is where you can ask for a new phone or lower rate, or maybe even get a SERO plan.  If you really want to cancel say so and they will confirm by making a note on your account.  Make sure you get the phone rep’s id.  Now when you port your number elsewhere, you can call Sprint back to have them waive the ETF fee that they will most likely charge you.  Just make sure you get out of Sprint within 30 days of your latest bill.

I am leaving Sprint because I don’t get service in my house.  If it wasn’t for that, I would stay with them because they have the best plan prices by far and a decent phone selection.  I will probably be switching to AT&T, for a Tilt with 3G or maybe an iPhone.  Stay tuned…

Jesslyn won a Zune (30GB) a few months ago, and I finally got around to playing with it.  It has a large screen and can play video, so I searched and searched for a way to get a DVD onto it.  After trying out a ton of programs, I finally found a combination that works consistently.  It is not just a one-click process, it takes a few hours, and you will temporarily need at least 5-10GB of free harddrive space… but it works and it won’t cost you anything.  These steps should also work for a video iPod.

1. Get the DVD onto your computer.  Download and install DVD Shrink (direct link to download). Insert your DVD into your DVD drive and click Open Disc to select it.  Wait a few minutes as DVD Shrink analyzes the disc.  Then click on Re-Author.  On the right, scroll down to the Main Movie listing.  These are the parts of the DVD that have the actual video (We dont need the menus, previews, etc).  Drag the Title you want (most DVD TV episodes will appear as individual Titles) under Main Movie into the Re-authored DVD list on the left.  Click on DVD above your Titles and on the right window click on the Compression Tab.  Uncheck any audio or subtitles you don’t need.  Go to Edit -> Preferences… Output Files tab.  Uncheck “Split VOB files into 1GB size chunks”, click OK.  Now click Backup!  Your video will be saved as a .VOB file. 
   What if DVD Shrink doesn’t work?  DVD Shrink is the most user-friendly option I have found, but sometimes it can’t get past some DVD encryptions.  If it fails, you may need to restart your computer to regain access to your DVD drive.  Install DVD Decryptor (direct link to download).  Run it and you will see a list of files on the right.  Hold down shift-key and select the series of large files that are named VTS_01_1.VOB, VTS_01_2.VOB, etc.  Go to Tools -> Settings… File Mode tab to change File Splitting to ”None”.  Click OK and then click the big green-arrow decrypt button in the lower left.
2. Convert VOB to mp4.  Ok, we now have the DVD decrypted to your hard drive as a single .VOB file.  We now need to convert it to a format that the Zune knows about.  For this we will use MediaCoder.  Download and install it.  When you run it, it annoyingly launches your web-browser, but hey whatever, it works.  Click Add to add the .VOB file that you just created.  The window on the lower left has a bunch of tabs to change various settings.  Click Audio tab and change the Encoder to FAAC, make sure MPEG4 is selected on the right.  On the Video tab the format should be H.264.  The Picture tab, set Resize to be 320 x 240 if the video is 4:3… if it’s a widescreen movie try a resolution that matches the original video aspect ratio… like 320×180.  Check “Display encoding frame” to get a preview of the video as it is being created.  Click Start at the top to start the encoding.  If the preview video doesn’t look right, you can hit Stop and adjust the settings again.
3. Send to Zune.  So now you have a Zune-software compatible mp4 video!  Connect your Zune and start up the Zune software.  Drag your mp4 video into your Video Collection, and then onto the Zune to start the sync.  While it is syncing, first the Zune software will convert it to wmv format and then transfer it to your Zune, so it may take a while.  But now you can enjoy your DVD anywhere, congratulations!
   What if Zune software said it was invalid?  When I made a 320×180 mp4 video, the Zune software say my video was invalid.  I’m not sure why it is invalid because it didn’t bother to tell me.  So, to solve this problem, we must convert it to a .wmv ourselves.  Download and install Windows Media Encoder 9.  Follow Microsoft’s instructions here to encode your video.  If you create a wmv file that conforms to their specifications, the Zune software wont have to do any conversion when it syncs, saving you some time.  Ideally we would just use Windows Media Encoder to encode our .VOB file in the first place, but WME crashes when I attempt to do… so we must convert to something else, like mp4, first.

Video technology is very buggy and different computers with different environments can have different results.  I am using Windows Vista, with an administrator account, and UAC turned off.  I’m sure many other programs might be better, but these were the only ones that would work for me on Vista.

It is amazing to me that there are so many portable devices out there with nice screens and huge hard drives, but a major lack of video content and absolutly no support for getting your existing video content onto your device.  They market these things to the average consumer, and make them think that they can take their favorite movie with them.  The reality is that it requires you to spend many frustrating hours of trial and error and/or money to buy additional software.  Hopefully my write up has helped you save some time, money, and headache.

Oh, and while I’m on the Zune… you can hack the registry to get windows explorer access to the hard drive, but you can only put files onto it if you trick the Zune software by starting a sync and then immediately closing it.  Gee, thanks for “protecting” me from myself Microsoft.  Because of this, I would not recommend the Zune to anyone.

I decided to put all my stupid-driver rants down in writing: http://www.simsbox.net/how-to-drive/. It is a work in progress.

And appropriately, I stumbled upon this cartoon about the dangers of driving too carefully:
A dyseducational road movie: Yes & No