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Posts By mistical

Customer loyalty means nothing to T-Mobile

I really wish that customer loyalty meant at least a little or more to T-Mobile or any other company for that matter. While this post will be directed towards T-Mobile, I already know that 99.8% of other companies out there do not care about customer loyalty either, and most, if not all, should.

Why is there not some type of loyalty program or something similar to existing customers that have been around for say more than 6+ or 8+ years at T-Mobile? I have personally been a loyal customer of theirs; since I have always loved T-Mobile for that matter too, for over 8 years now. I have I never been with another carrier, and I hope to never especially the death star AT&T. Which I am glad they pulled out of the merger! :)

I am a huge tech geek I guess you would say. I normally happen to pick a phone that will last me more than 2 years not just because of the horrible decisions cell phone companies make for a customer to only be able to upgrade your phone every 2 years with contract renewals. However, in my case, a newer and better phone has since come out that I absolutely want but do not necessary need per say. That phone is the Samsung Galaxy S2 and on T-Mobile it is called the “Hercules.”

I would honestly love to see some type of loyalty program exist to where maybe you could upgrade your phone, with a renewal contract, every year once you have been with them for an x amount of years that they would decide rather it be 4, 6, or even over 8 in my case. Could this program have other perks? Sure, why not, I mean you are showing a company that you are indeed loyal to them already, would it be that hard to offer you more than they would a newer customer? I know some people might say, they are just a company, what makes them feel they have to reward you for your loyalty? I am sure anyone could argue back and forth on this all day, but in the end all that should really matter to them is that you are giving them your money rather than you giving another carrier money instead of them.

Every time I see a great new deal for T-Mobile, it is almost always just for new customers more than half the time, and the other half of the time for existing customers you can only get it if you are eligible for an upgrade. This is just wrong and should not be the case for long time customers. I do understand why in its current state but also 2 years is just a long time in today’s world.

The phone I currently have is the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant and I bought it Day-1 at the T-Mobile store on July 15th, 2010. I absolutely love this phone, the problem? No official updates, period. There also seems to be none coming out out the foreseeable either. Before this phone I bought the T-Mobile G1 about a month after its release and used it up until the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant.

But with that said on no official updates, you can still get the latest Android version (or almost latest sometimes) over at the XDA Developers forums because of the great community of developers working together to still bring us updates for all our Vibrant phones. There are some developers right now, one in particular by neobuddy, already providing a Android 4.0 rom (ICS Passion) to the Vibrant. It is still a work in progress and while I have not personally tested it yet, has had for the most part great feedback from the community. I am waiting for another release or two post 8.0 until I flash mine but at the moment, it seems like it is really stable to use now.

I just wish there were plans to bring an official update to our Vibrant. Now why will they not provide an update? Simple answer, because T-Mobile considers it an ancient phone, so why provide an update when they longer support or sell it. They would rather you pay, likely more money too, to get the latest and greatest phone instead. They make money that way.

I still want the Samsung Galaxy S II (S2) “Hercules” branded T-Mobile phone though, even when I do get Android 4.0 on my Vibrant because of the latest hardware inside of it such as the 8.0 MP camera, flash, front facing camera, screen size, and so forth inside of it.

Do you feel as if T-Mobile should have some type of loyalty program? If so, why? What would you love to see them offer in such a program?

Update 12/13/2011: Samsung has stated that we will not be getting Android 4.0 on any Galaxy S phone because of TouchWiz as well as the Galaxy Tab. Source: CNET and other many sites.

Another disappointing Bears season

Well after today’s disappointing loss to the Broncos; or rather Team Tebow depending on how you want to look at it, there goes the rest of the season for us Bears fans. We should have easily won this game 10-7 if it was not for Marion Barber’s fucking screw up in the 4th quarter running too close to the sideline for the Bronco’s to push him out of bounds to stop the clock. Then he further cost us the game in overtime when a Bronco player force fumbled the ball on him while he was carrying it to what could have been some great yardage.

It all started to go downhill for the Bears after we lost Cutler and especially when we lost Knox due to their injuries. We were having a pretty good season when Cutler was playing great along with Knox and others while we had a 5 win streak going until the injuries to them.

Hanie has not been able to play as great as the Bears team and us fans have hoped for. Though do not let it sound like this is all Hanie’s fault, because it is not just his. Plus you need to know, as most do already, this is his first time playing with exception to the last game in the 2011 season and starting in the NFL. He did not have enough time to prepare for this and I wish we would have had another Quarterback to fall on and use. If you want to blame anyone, as most do, I would probably start with the coaches such as Lovie Smith and Mike Martz.

Well anyways, as always a Bears fan, I can only hope that the 2012-13 season will be much better for us.

Trion and RIFT fail at donating to Child’s Play charity

So today I learned that Trion; the developers of the mmorpg game called RIFT, is donating $1 to Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play charity for every RIFT digital upgrade purchased between December 9th through 11th.

Now the digital upgrade; which there are just only 2 of them, costs $10 each and don’t actually offer much of an “upgrade” to your gameplay no matter which digital upgrade you go with. Which is why Trion fails at donating for this charity event especially with their advertisement of “‘Tis the Season for Giving” and just wants users to give them more money for really nothing yet alone a measly dollar to the Child’s Play charity when it would never hurt them to give more. These 2 upgrades detailed below do not effect ones RIFT playing over another without it in anyway if they would have decided to give more than just $1.

Collector’s Edition only offers an Ancient Tartagon mount (you can buy the same similar different coller, a collector’s satchel that offers a backpack of 24 slots and a Bogling wastrel companion which to be honest, majority of the gamers rarely ever use companions and they are only just for show.

Ashes of History Edition only offers a Spindrel mount (spider mount) which you rarely ever see anyone using anymore other than the first week it was released, a personal banker that has a cooldown of 2 hours (really?) and is only useful every now and again when you’re not at the Sanctum or Meridian such as in a raid, dungeon or event, and lastly a faction tabard which is just another useless chest wardrobe of many already that you rarely see people using too.

You’re telling me that Trion can’t at least give $5 of the $10 spent from a customer to give to the Child’s Play charity? What a joke, and they say it is the season for giving, sigh. You might as well donate straight to Child’s Play yourself if you want to donate.

Source: ‘Tis the Season for Giving – Child’s Play Digital Upgrade Weekend | RIFT Digital Upgrades

SW:TOR finally gets a release date!

BioWare has finally announced that December 20th, 2011 Star Wars: The Old Republic will be released.

Here are the monthly subscription fees, each copy comes with 1 free month:

  • 1 Month Subscription: $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99)
  • 3 Month Subscription: $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
  • 6 Month Subscription: $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

Are you excited for SW:TOR? I have been for a few months now, though lately I have heard bad things about it from those that have been part of the beta, so I hope it turns out to be great on the final build and so further after for each patch. Especially the PVP aspect of the game, not that I dislike PVE at all.

Source: Launch Date for STAR WARS: The Old Republic Announced

What would you do with 100 Drobos?

I know what I would be able to do, and that is backup my raw captures in 720p uncompressed from video games in for location and achievement guides and walkthroughs. Ideally, 100 drobos, with at least 1TB each would allow me to to be able to back that up as well as the compressed footage, for quite a long time.

So what would you end up doing with 100 Drobos?

The Hangover Part II Review

I’ve been meaning to write my review on The Hangover Part II since after seeing the movie the night it came out when I went and saw it with my girlfriend, Jordan and my brother, Mike.

Let me first say that I’m a huge fan of the first film, I have literally watched it over 1,000 times easily, and will continue to over the course of my life. :) This will of course continue with this second movie as well. I would feel the same with any more as well, which is why I would LOVE to do at least 1 more. If they were to do a third one, which I really hope they do, it needs to be based on Alan (Zach Galifianakis). I would hope we could finally see more of Doug (Justin Bartha) too.

Back to my review though, it was awesome! I absolutely loved it and every moment of it. It’s hard for me to dislike a movie though, sure some movies mess up with sequels and there will be people that actually hated this one or will say “it’s the same as the first one” but they don’t get it at the same time it seems. The first movie will always be the best, that’s what you loved. I loved the first one as well as the fact that it was in Las Vegas, which just one of the best places you could ever visit. But that doesn’t mean I disliked/hate this sequel, not at all.

There are a lot of great moments and laughs in this one compared to the first too. You can sometimes guess what is going to happen next, but sometimes not at all or guessed wrong. They really tried to make sure that you wouldn’t guess what was going to happen or where Teddy was. They even poked fun at and made sure to check the rooftop of where they ended up in Bangkok first too. That was hilarious.

Overall, this is a must movie to see if you enjoy these types of films, comedy, etc. Especially if you enjoyed the first Hangover, I don’t see how this second one could disappoint you. It’s just another movie, this time a sequel. The industry writes and directs terrible movies all the time (comedy and not), this is not one of those nor close.

Disappointed with the Razer Onza

So today is the day where I no longer use the Razer Onza yet alone any other future Razer product.

I preordered the Onza the minute it was made available for preorder back in January 2011. I had been waiting to play with it for over a year since it was announced. It was finally shipped to me just over 2 months ago. I loved it at first, but will not even bother to love it anymore. Read on as to why.

I was actually told to contact Min-Liang Tan on Twitter via email, the CEO of Razer, week ago about my issues with the Onza. I was actually going to email a lot of what I said below in an email to them, but decided not to. Why? Because I do not feel as if these issues have been fixed, not only does my brother’s controller and girlfriends have the same issues but people online around forums and other comments elsewhere have reported the same issues as mine or similar. Plus I would be without the controller for who knows how long aside from using the main Xbox 360 controller.

Now that that has been said, I will get to the main reasons why I am disappointed with the Razer Onza, Razer and just overall think the product is terrible to purchase.

  • 1st issue (big issue/main problem): The left joystick will always stop you from running in games. To be more specific, games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, where when the left joystick is clicked, this allows you to run. It is always a damn problem, usually a hit or miss each time you use it, for me, it has frequent use. I have tried disconnecting and reconnecting the controller to regain control of the left joystick but that does not work. The only time it starts to work right for a short while it when I have shut down the Xbox 360 and turned it back on.
  • 2nd issue (big issue/main problem): The right joystick (very rarely the left joystick) will sometimes physically get stuck in a position. The position it nearly always gets stuck in is towards the right and slightly downwards, think of it getting stuck around the 0 degree angle towards 320 degree. It actually gets stuck, it does not move back into position if I let go over the joystick.
    This does not happen on a constant basis but I can almost always get it to happen and it will normally happen about 6 times (guessing) over a course of around a 5 hour gaming session.

    • What happens in-game with this above, 2nd, issue?
      I use the controller for all games, but its main purpose is for each Call of Duty title online/multiplayer, right now it is Black Ops. When the right joystick gets stuck, it causes me to spin in the game until I physically remove the joystick from being stuck at that position.
  • 3rd issue (minor problem): The X button feels like it has begun to act like it has worn out when it is touched/pressed. It feels different when “touched/pressed” versus the other Y, B, A buttons that feel perfectly when pressed/touched. I hope this makes sense.
    It has not rendered the X button inoperable though, it still works just fine and the response time just does not feel the same anymore over the last 31 days of usage when pressed.
  • 4th issue (minor problem): After the first week of using the controller, the sticker on the back containing the serial number among other information has started to peel off. I have tried to stop this process from happening but with no luck. I definitely try to avoid touching that area but I do have big hands and I cannot just constantly think about making sure I am not touching it and have to play the game. How I use the controller is how I hold the controller too, so I cannot just easily change how I hold it, it should never start to peal off within the first week anyways.

    • I would personally suggest to avoid purchasing the Onza controller. I also do not see them fixing the above issues anytime soon, and even if they did, I am sure people like myself and others who have had these problems are screwed anyways.

    So with that said, what issues have you had with your Onza controller? Do you still use it? Please comment!

My Next Android Phone

I normally don’t upgrade to another phone until at least 2 years later. I always purchase I phone that will last me 2 to 3 years at a time but it is hard to pass up such a phone as the Galaxy S2.

This is likely going to be a pretty big upgrade in some ways, small in others, when compared to my current Galaxy S phone, the Vibrant. I just hope that Samsung can provide us with more frequent updates on the T-Mobile version than what they never did for the Vibrant.

Linksys WUSB600N v2 on a Hackintosh

I recently just put a cheap, but also great hackintosh system together while also dual-booting with Windows 7. It is my first hackintosh, however, not my first Mac.

This post will explain how to get the Linksys WUSB600N v2 to work with your Hackintosh build. There is just 1 minor problem that exists with this wireless usb device, and that you will have to replug it in each and everytime you either restart/boot or awake from sleep. Otherwise, I’ve had absolutely no other issues and no disconnects or slow speeds.

Real quick, here is my build specs for the hackintosh running Snow Leopard 10.6.6:
GIGABYTE GA-H55M-S2V Motherboard
Intel Core i3-550 Clarkdale 3.2GHz Processor
XFX nVidia GT240 1GB DDR5 Graphics Card
G.SKILL 4GB DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
Samsung Spinpoint F4 HD322GJ/U 320GB Hard Drive

Now you will first need to install the Mac drivers for an Ralink RT2870, which is what is inside of the Linksys WUSB600N v1 and v2 (version 2). You can grab those from downloading them at Ralink’s website.

Now as of this post, I am using driver version 3.0.3.0. These work great, I’ve heard of success with earlier drivers as well though I never tried those nor did I ever obtain links to them. If you are having any issues with later drivers after 3.0.3.0 then please contact me, I will be able to provide you with driver version 3.0.3.0 if you are unable to find them.

Once you have these installed, restart OS X.

Once you have restarted OS X, open Terminal. Follow and type the following commands correctly and then press the enter key after each line listed below.

cd /System/Library/Extensions

chmod -R 755 RT2870USBWirelessDriver.kext

chown -R 0:0 RT2870USBWirelessDriver.kext

cd

cd /System/Library/Extensions/RT2870USBWirelessDriver.kext/contents/

sudo nano info.plist

At this point, you will be asked your administrative password, type it in and continue the following:
Look for the following line below, you will find it faster by using the page down shortcut ctrl+v.

Linksys – RT2870 – 2

Then right under this key, find this line (integer)

<integer>113<integer>

Then change the value of 113 to 121.

<integer>121<integer>

That will be the only line you need to edit and touch in this. Now press the following keys to save what you just did.

ctrl + o

Make sure to use the exact same file name, info.plist, as it will already say. Then ctrl+x to exit out.
There are just 2 more fine steps and you will be able to use a wireless connection!

cd

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

Now restart your computer, as I said earlier, you will more than likely have to unplug and plug back in the Linksys WUSB600N device as well as each time you restart/boot or awake from sleep.

You will use Ralink’s Wireless Utility to connect to your network. Save a profile so you do not have to constantly keep typing your security key as well. You may close Wireless Utility once you are connected, you do not need to leave it open.

Special Thanks go out to aldeem over at InsanelyMac for most of this guide, and then myself for the rest of it and additional information.

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