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Phone obsession
I my desire to get the new Samsung MM-A900 phone, I've been dutifully checking HowardForums and SprintUsers. I saw this morning that the phone was available on Sprint's website, so I ordered it. One poster reminded me that if you give Sprint your current phone number, they do weird things to your bill when buying a new phone. Basically, they post a credit for the amount they charge to your credit card to your account and then bill the phone to your account. Last time they did this, I got a major headache trying to figure out why my bill was screwed up. So, I didn't enter my Sprint number and hopefully I'll have the phone soon.One trick, however, is that the new phone is a Power Vision (fast data) phone, but I already have unlimited Vision, text messaging, and picture mail on my account. From what I've read, Sprint says you have to give up the free stuff and get a Power Vision plan. On the other side of the fence is people that say Sprint will just swap phones if you call them; further reading suggests that the call center has a different system than the stores and the stores can't do the swap without changing the plan. I'm not out to cheat Sprint, I just want to switch phones and have the same functionality I currently have. Is that too much to ask?The saga continues...
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Upgraded my server
Yesterday I received email that the OS my server was running (Fedora Core 3) was going to be put on legacy status and only security updates would be posted or something like that. Normally I don't like to do major upgrades on my server as I always spend tons of time futzing. However, in order to get bug fixes and such, I had to upgrade. So I followed the directions on upgrading to Fedora Core 4. It downloaded 420 MB of stuff, installed, and rebooted without a problem. I had to do a few minor tweaks to get MRTG working again as well as MySQL with PHP (old configuration file had to be removed), but other than that, things went smoothly. I got new versions of lots of stuff, but I'm not sure any of it will be all that helpful to me. At least I know that I'll be getting updates for awhile. (Fedora Core 3 has been out for about a year, so it was probably about time for me to upgrade.)
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Sprint Customer Service Needs Work
Yesterday, Sprint announced that the new cell phone I want, the Samsung MM-A900, was available for purchase at sprint.com and at their stores. Well, the phone isn't available online and calling them results in them not having a clue. I took a gamble and went out to another Sprint store today (the closest one is 10 minutes away and they had nothing yesterday, so I went 20 minutes away). I got to the store and found out that they had 2 phones (I basically had to dance around if I was a new subscriber/adding a line just to find out if they had the phone). Great, so maybe I could buy one. Unfortunately they would only sell it if I was a new subscriber or activated a new line as they have to meet quotas. So here I am a customer of 6 years that currently has 6 lines on Sprint and am paying $165 per month and they won't let me shell out $350 for a new phone (I'm not eligible for a rebate and I wouldn't take it as it would extend my contract). What kind of customer service is that? The guy at the store said if he had 10, he'd sell me one. My hope is that Radio Shack gets them tomorrow and I don't have to deal directly with Sprint. Why can't corporate headquarters make sure that phone stock is available when they make a press release and why can't they tell stores that they should try to keep customers? Customer service says that it is cheaper to keep a customer than to gain a new one.If I didn't have such a good plan with Sprint and we already have the phones, I'd almost consider switching. However, I'm sure customer service is pretty poor in the whole industry.
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Crappy Power Adapter
On my last trip, I forgot my power adapter for my PowerBook. Luckily it was a one day trip and where I went, someone loaned me one for the day. Since I didn't want to repeat that experience, I decided to purchase a second adapter. Apple's adapter is $80, so I looked at alternatives and found one by Kensington. A cool thing about this is that I could get different tips and charge my cell phone or my iPod (it came with the iPod tip). I ordered it from Buy.com and received it quickly (UPS ground shipping from them is 1 day due to their proximity). I opened up the adapter when I got it and plugged it in. The fit was just awful; extremely loose and then I found that if I turned the tip, it was no longer charging. To top it off, the Apple adapter has a green ring showing when it was charging; the Kenginston one had nothing. Luckily returns for Buy.com are simple; total time from delivery of adapter to being packaged up and ready to go back...about 20 minutes. Maybe I'm just too picky about what I buy, but for the $16 I saved overed buying the Apple adapter, it just isn't worth it to have a crappy product that I have no idea if it is charging without opening the computer and looking. I guess tomorrow is off to the Apple store to buy a second adapter like I should have done in the first place. Kensington used to make decent products; I'm not sure what happened here, but I'll steer clear of them in the future.