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Preparing Your Phone for Global Use

dead SIM
Image by Yaisog Bonegnasher via Flickr

Back in October, we discussed some of the thoughts we were having regarding smartphone use abroad. Now we’re back to talk about how it played out.

We’re Verizon customers, and Verizon Wireless is a CDMA carrier. The majority of the world uses GSM. One of the things about GSM versus CDMA is that GSM uses a SIM card. SIM, or Subscriber Identity Module. The SIM card is tied to the network, as opposed to the phone itself. You can thus move the card in between phones, and thus the number. There is a CDMA equivalent, but it is not currently used in the United States. SIM cards are also used on the LTE network that Verizon used

This was surprisingly easy, but you can’t do it at a store. We tried. You have to call Verizon Global Support(1-800-711-8300), as opposed to regular tech support. They will allow one unlocking per line every ten months, as long as you have been a customer in good standing for at least sixty days. We unlocked multiple global phones, even ones not being brought along, as long as we were on the phone with them. To ensure this works, have a SIM card ready to test before you leave. We used a $5 Telestrial Passport Lite to do this.

AT&T is apparently not as cooperative. You can always buy a fully unlocked phone, but that will be at an increased price.

There are other options to be aware of. If you frequently switch between countries and providers, there is such a thing as a dual SIM adapter, which would allow installation of two SIMs at once. We have yet to try one of these, but it is said you can switch them in software, with an Android phone. There are also card adapters that will, if put inline with a SIM card will allow it to work on a locked phone.

Now that your phone can be used anywhere, you need to start researching options in the country you wish to travel to. If you go there frequently, it makes sense to have a contract. But if this is an infrequent trip, such as a few times a year, or a one-off, you can visit PrePaidGSM.net for some advice. Their forums and pages provide a chance for you to get firsthand advice and experience.

From all the research we did, it seems that the best move is to try and secure a SIM card locally after arrival. There are companies that will provide international cards, or will provide international cards, but they often offer less favorable deals, or at an increased cost. Most international airports nowadays have shops that sell prepaid SIMs and will set it up for you.

If data is more important to you than voice, then you can always turn off the radio in your phone and use wifi only. Although finding wifi hotspots may also be an issue, depending on where you are.

What have you done in the past to maintain your need for cell?

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Published on December 9, 2011
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Why are People Against the Kindle Fire?

Amazon Kindle Fire in the Box
Image by IslesPunkFan via Flickr

Last week, we picked up a Kindle Fire. It was a ‘gift’ for an older relative. But, in the name of ‘configuring’ it, we played with it for three days before delivering it. The Kindle Fire is a great device. We’re not sure why tech writers are coming out against it left and right.

The Kindle Fire is a solid device, solid enough it doesn’t really need a case. It has two small speakers, a headphone jack, a USB connector, and a power button. Simple and good. The headphone jack allegedly supports an external microphone, although the Appstore is not aware that it is sound capable.

The Amazon Appstore offers a good selection of apps, but not everything. We could live without the Android Market, although we paid for a lot of apps there we want to use. But we immediately side-loaded Gmail and the Google Services Framework, which can be installed without root access. If you are a Google mail user, apps or gmail, the Gmail app is superior to most third-party email apps, as it is customized.

The fact that the Amazon Video app is not available in the Appstore for non-Fire use is a mistake on Amazon’s part. Even if it is just for the streaming part, and not offline store and play. We tried downloading a few things, and see this as a great feature, if you are willing to buy.

In the end, handing it to an older relative, we preloaded it with Gmail, with dozens of Kindle books, with music, by hooking it into the Amazon account. We also loaded up some of their favorite apps from their cell phone. And while it is limited compared to their phone, the bigger screen makes it easier for them to read and do related surfing and apps. And it plays Wordfeud wonderfully…and if that is what you want…it’s great.

The one big annoyance is the carousel in the launcher. Visually it is pleasant, but anything you do ends up in this carousel and you can’t customize or remove it. Better off installing a ‘real’ Launcher.

Not everyone wants or needs a fully featured tablet. You can live without GPS, bluetooth, etc, if they aren’t things you need in daily life, and be perfectly happy.

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Published on November 28, 2011
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Kindle Fire isn’t a Full Tablet, but the Price is Right

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 28: Amazon founder J...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Everyone wants to compare the Kindle Fire to the iPad, or some other tablet. The truth is…it isn’t comparable. But for those interested in owning a tablet, it is a good solid option at an affordable price.

The Fire runs a stripped down version of Android 2.3, but we predict that the hacking will commence immediately, and with the recent release of the Ice Cream Sandwich source code, someone will quickly enhance the software side of things.

We did not buy a Kindle Fire, but it might be a consideration as a gift. It is a great option as a media consumption device. Magazines, videos, music…all are customized around Amazon’s media offerings.

Whatever you can say about Amazon, they offer a good variety of media services, and if you pay for Amazon Prime($79/yr), you will not want for videos to watch, even if they are not current blockbusters, Amazon is committed to adding new content.

If we do get a Fire, we’ll have more on this. In the meantime, there are a lot of reviews out there. The bottom line, it is a good product for the price, and a great entry into the tablet world. If you are trying to compare it to an iPad, which is several hundred dollars more, the comparison is flawed.

We own a Nook Color, which we’ve hacked into a full fledged Android tablet. The new Nook Tablet is pretty much, except for the guts, identical to the old. It is the closest comparison to the Kindle Fire. To be honest, Amazon is offering a more integrated experience, but the Nook Tablet offers its own advantages.

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Published on November 15, 2011
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Adventures in Global Smartphone Travel – Call for Feedback

For use on the English Wikipedia page LG Ally
Image via Wikipedia

Recently, we started making plans to travel out of the country for the first time since most of us here at the Weneca Media Group got a smartphone.

Since that time, the advice given about smartphones(once you get one, it is hard to go back), has rung true. The idea of being without one and its instant data access wherever we go seems a strange one.

However, most of us have selected a CDMA carrier. Mostly Verizon, but Jere over at Android Buffet has a Sprint phone. The majority of the world uses GSM as its standard, rendering these phones useless. However, Verizon offers a limited series of global phones, including the Droid 2 Global and the Droid 3, both available in the Gadget Wisdom collection.

So, our conversation started with Verizon. Despite the fact Vodafone owns nearly half of Verizon, they do not offer a good deal on data. Signing up for a 50MB plan is $30.

Looking around at prepaidgsm.net, which summarizes rates around the world for prepaid gsm, there are better deals to be had. The downside is that you can’t keep your U.S. number, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

As a Verizon customer, we would need to unlock our Global phones. Verizon Global Tech Support advised they would unlock one phone every ten months for a customer in good standing. The phone would have had to have been on the account at some point. So, time to decide which phone is going overseas. Perhaps the one not being used in daily life…

If we wanted to chuck all data concerns out the window, Telestial offers inexpensive prepaid world SIM and prepaid phones, and can be purchased through Amazon. They offer both a U.S. and a U.K. phone number, with cards starting at $5. We may get one of these as a backup.

Our plan is to go for something decoupled from the phone for the U.S. issue, Skype. Skype offers a service called Skype-To-Go numbers. They will assign a number that will forward to an overseas number at your expense, which is significantly less than the cost of having same done by a phone company. You can even forward your normal or Google Voice number to this number, making it seamless for friends and business associates. It would also, if we set it up after arriving and purchasing a prepaid SIM card, allow us to use the cheap local plans, instead of other options.

What do you think? We haven’t done any of this yet, but what do you suggest?

Published on October 18, 2011
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Are Bookshelves No Longer for Books?

MUNICH, GERMANY - APRIL 02: Lars Dafnas, hea...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The LA Times questioned the future of paper books, based on the information that the classic Billy Bookcase is being redesigned. Next month, the shelf will be rereleased as a deeper shelf, meant to display decorative items, and is already pushing glass doors as an add-on.

Our perspective is probably interesting, as a previous Ikea redesign on the Billy Bookcase, which is over thirty years old, halted our expansion plans. We had invested in Billy with the idea we could gradually add to it. Unfortunately, they discontinued the color, if not the bookcase.

As for the fact that over ten percent of the population now has an E-Reader, we addressed the issue of gradually decluttering your space with an E-Reader. When we first brought in the Billy Bookcases some years ago, there were three of them. We’ve since eliminated one by gradually going digital. But there are some books that we will never get rid of.

For most people, while e-readers may mean a slowdown in the purchase of paper books, it does not mean a complete elimination. For one, too many materials aren’t available electronically. E-Books are not transferable, nor can you buy them cheap used. Thus there are limits to their utility and we doubt they’ll ever completely go away, and we don’t want them to. Our prediction is that the publishing industry will migrate to a print-on-demand model. There may still be trade paperbacks printed, but if you want a copy of the majority of books, they will print it on request.

As we write this, we paused at this moment to turn around and look at the Billy behind and wonder about the future. The Billy we got rid of, we did add in a smaller bookcase which is filled with movies. Is the future visual and audio entertainment, over the written word? Maybe books of all kinds are on the way out.

If they aren’t, will we read on e-ink screens? Tablets?

Many people prefer a dedicated e-reader not just because e-ink screens tend to be less harsh on the eyes than LCDs, but because they have the same distraction-free nature as books. They aren’t designed for multiple streams of information. They allow you to focus on the book.

There are many kinds of people in this world. We all have different needs. Some are better with audio, some better visually…the newest generation has been conditioned to learn best with multimedia. There will always be demand for printed material, even as things change.

But that’s us. What do you think?

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Published on September 11, 2011
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Making a Decision on Music

Music guitar
Image by doug88888 via Flickr

Recently, Google, Apple, and Amazon all got into the Cloud Music business. We tried Google and Amazon out, and decided on a lesser known service called Moozone. Moozone natively supports Ogg Vorbis, a format we use, and it even supports true Ogg streaming at up to 500kbps.

Lesser known companies often have the chance to offer features that would not work in the mainstream. Google Music supports Ogg, but it encodes it to MP3.

It offers the same advantage as Amazon…namely that you can buy songs and the storage will be provided for them at no extra charge. But unlike Amazon’s service, which is rental based, Moozone allows you to buy storage at a flat rate.

Moozone has problems though. It was launched in beta in 2009, released an Android app in January of 2010. At the same time, Moozone signed with MediaNet in order to provide additional music sales. In the last year, there has been little change though, and Amazon, Google, Apple, etc have all launched cloud music storage.

While we appreciate the resources that a large corporation can put behind a service, smaller companies can offer attractive niche features. Take MP3tunes, started by the man behind MP3.com, which got sued out of existence. It offers an open API, support on a variety of hardware devices, etc.

We love to support the underdog, and we’re hoping we didn’t gamble on the wrong company. Either way, never put all your horses in one basket.

 

 

Published on July 31, 2011
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Amazon Partners with AT&T to Offer Kindle 3G for $139

Kindles at The Unquiet Library
Image by theunquietlibrary via Flickr

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We love the Kindle. And it continues to get less expensive. There have been predictions that a new Kindle will come before the end of the year, that the Kindle will go sub $100, that Kindles will come free with Amazon Prime, etc.

But Amazon launched the Kindle 3G with Special Offers, sponsored by AT&T for $139. That is the same price we paid for a Kindle Wi-Fi last year, so we bought one.

Many have complained about the Special Offers, but they are nonobtrusive. And, global 3G data for life is a useful thing to have. Of course, we have a smartphone, but it has a monthly fee for data. Any tablet would have a monthly fee for data. The Kindle is not for games(although it has some great simple ones). The Kindle is for reading. But some reading, for example, news, is best delivered whereever you happen to be without need to hunt for an internet connection.

Conversely, there is a value to disconnecting and focusing on one thing, rather than switching. Multitasking, some say, is preventing us from giving proper focus to any one item.

Argue as you might, but the Kindle has a place in our society. And we’ve already taken advantage of our first special offer…a book for a buck.

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Published on July 15, 2011
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Switching From Dropbox to Wuala

Image representing Wuala as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

We were once a big booster of Dropbox. But recent events have caused us to doubt them. On July 1st, Dropbox revised their policies. This was in response to a well publicized authentication breach where, for several hours, access to accounts was permitted without valid passwords. This followed the realization that despite assurances, Dropbox employees can access your data, but only to the extent that they need to(or so they say).

Does this mean we doubt the sincerity of the company? No more than any other company. But we’ve decided to move on…to Wuala. Wuala is a secure online storage service that provides many more features than Dropbox, if less supported.

There are three core principles of Wuala:

  1. Security and privacy
  2. Bridging web and desktop
  3. Economic technology

In terms of security, Wuala offers client-side encryption, which means that the encryption is performed on one’s one computer. During the upload, data is split and stored in multiple locations. They promise that because your password is never transmitted, no one, including their employees, can see private files.

Wuala offers a desktop app for Windows, Mac and Linux, and mobile apps for iOS and Android. There is even a web version. You get 1GB for free, and you can gain additional storage by paying for it, trading your local storage for extra storage(more on that in a moment), or inviting friends to join Wuala.

Wuala offers both backup and synchronization options. Backup saves local files regularly into the Wuala Drive, at an interval of your choosing. The backup are read-only. Sync allows you to sync files and folders across multiple computers. Dropbox provides sync only.

If you want to pay for storage above the free 1GB, it is $29 a year for 10GB, $49 for 25GB, and so on. You can also trade for storage. You can trade up to 100GB on your computer in exchange for 100GB in the cloud. You get whatever you provide multiplied by your online time. You must be on for at least 4 hours a day. As they put it, this doesn’t give you extra storage, but you give up storage locally to gain it elsewhere, which has its advantages.

We’ve set up the Wuala client on our headless server to trade storage. It also resides on our desktop systems to sync our files. We have plans to expand the headless part, to generate backups of the entire Wuala sync and send it to a secondary backup site as well, but that is for the future. The Wuala client allows it to be mounted as an NFS partition for that purpose.

There is an Android client we have tested. It lacks many features of the Dropbox app, including directory download/sync/upload and support for the Android sharing functionality. Of course, the Wuala developers have acknowledge this as a desired feature, but there is no timetable for its implementation. If they are slow in doing so, there would be hope of a third-party app, however, the Wuala API is in Alpha and only supports GET requests. It has been in this state for over a year.

When it comes down to it, Wuala is not perfect. But it offers a more complete feature set than Dropbox, if a less mature API and Android client. But, like many things, it is a matter of what is more important to you.

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Published on July 5, 2011
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Barnes and Noble offers new Nook and Amazon Kindle 3G with Special Offers

Cover of "Kindle Wireless Reading Device,...
Cover via Amazon

 

Amazon has launched a Kindle 3G with Special Offers. The Kindle Wi-Fi with Special Offers has been their best-selling Kindle so far. The same discount of $25 off will be offered off of the regular Kindle 3G.

Barnes and Noble, meantime, released its new wi-fi only Nook, which will compete with the Kindle Wi-Fi. Unlike the Kindle, the Nook will offer a touch screen, a two month battery. It only offers one button, compared to the Kindle’s 38, with full mini keyboard.The device runs Android 2.1.

Barnes and Noble’s basic improvement over the Kindle 3, the current king of e-ink, is to eliminate the hardware keyboard in favor of a touchscreen to allow for a smaller device with the same screen. We look forward to seeing Amazon’s response, but this is a worthy competitor to the Kindle 3.

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Published on May 24, 2011
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Product Review: Charging High Amp USB devices

When we first started with the Motorola Droid, we discovered early on that despite it using a USB based charger, not every USB AC adapter would charge it. The Droid wants 0.85A and not every charger puts that out. The Nook Color we own is even worse, at 1.9A and a special USB cable with extra pins to carry the charge.

At home and on the go, we most often will bring more than one device, and were looking for a single device that had everything. We’d previously recommended the Belkin Travel USB surge protector, but it only supported .5A on each USB port…not enough for the demands of modern hardware. It is still a good design, but needs to be updated. The competive items we found have the same delivery problem.

Finally, we found an item that offers travel portability and delivers the 2A power needs for our devices. It is the IPAD-2USB High Power Slim AC Wall Plug, offering two USB ports with the charge levels we need.

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The power plug rotates and folds flat into the unit, making it perfect for travel and will allow it to be flush with a wall in the event you want to permanently mount it behind a piece of furniture. If you pair it with a small travel surge protector and/or a short extension cord, it will be usable in a variety of narrow or limited situations. It supports 220V, so it can be paired with a plug adapter to make it truly international.

Not everything is overly complicated. Sometimes, you just want something that works as advertised. This does everything we need it to.

Published on May 22, 2011
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