Prepaid Cellphone Services (update)

In July, I wrote about going PREPAID for my cellphone service - in which I mentioned T-Mobile Monthly 4G plan. IN the past several months, I have done quite an extensive research about available prepaid service, from just minutes and messages to all unlimited. This post is a highlight or summary of what I found and my recommendations.

Straight Talk

Straight Talk is probably providing the best value for prepaid phone service on the market right now in US - with $45 a month for unlimited voice, messages, and data*. This is probably my choice in January when I am done with my T-Mobile contract.

Straight Talk Wireless' parent company is TracFone Wireless - which is the largest prepaid service provide in US. TracFone mostly offers basic services such as voice only or voice and messages only. Straight Talk is different that it's main service is about unlimited* voice, messages, and data for $45 a month. The data part is not truly unlimited - it is 2-5GB with 3G speed with some restrictions such as data plan cannot be used to tether, cannot be used with BB service, no P2P, etc.

Straight Talk uses GSM bands from both T-Mobile and ATT. So what this means is that you can bring your own ATT-locked phone and asked for ATT-based SIM from Straight Talk or bringing your own T-Mobile-locked phone and ask for T-Mobile based SIM. If you have a T-Mobile based phone, you will get the T-Mobile 4G (HSDPA+) with Straight Talk. ATT will only give you 3G.

Using both bands also means larger selection of handsets. If you want to keep your Lumia 900 from ATT, you can. If you want to use the Galaxy S3 from T-Mobile, you can. If you want to use the new Nokia Lumia 920 from ATT, you can.  No need to unlock the device - just ask for specific SIM card based on the phone.

You can pay in advance for several months or even a year - which will give you some savings. For example, if you buy a year plan, it will cost you $495 (instead of 12 * $45).

There are instances where MMS won't work with Straight Talk. There is also a short configuration setting mads that you will need to do once the SIM is installed. Nothing hard or requires unlocking etc - see here.

T-Mobile

With T-Mobile, to get the similar package like Straight Talk, you will need to pay $60 per month. But T-Mobile provides more options - see my post about T-Mobile prepaid service here. The killer awesome deal from T-Mobile is the $30 per month (web only or from Walmart) which gives you 100 minutes, unlimited messages, and 5GB of data. This is actually perfect for me and would have gone for it except for the causes below.

T-Mobile coverages is quite lacking compared to ATT or Verizon. I go to several places in a year that my current T-Mobile phone do not get coverage at all - while my ATT friends get their 3G.

Secondly, T-Mobile handset selection is limited, especially compared to Straight Talk, which gives you the flexibility to choose handsets from BOTH ATT and T-Mobile.

Also, T-Mobile customer service has been awful for the past 2 years or so.

Virgin Mobile and Cricket Wireless

Virgin Mobile (running on Sprint network) probably provides the best pricing with $35 per month for 300 minutes, unlimited messages and data* (2.5 GB). This would have been the perfect plan for me. But then, to go unlimited everything, it would have cost you $55 - which is still more expensive than Straight Talk.

Cricket also has $45 a month for 1000 minutes with unlimited text and data (1GB). To get 2.5GB data, the cost is $65 per month. 

Virgin & Cricket also has very limited selection of phone (Sprint phones) - but it has the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S options. Secondly, Sprint's 3G (or 4G) is the slowest.

Others

Boost Mobile provides unlimited voice, text, and data for $50 per month, but like Straight Talk, if you pay several months in advance then you will get a discount.

Verizon provides the best coverage for 3G, but it is also the most expensive. It will cost you $50 per month for unlimited text, voice, and web* on a basic-dumb-phone. If you have a smartphone, it will cost you $80 per month.

ATT GoPhone costs $65 per month with 1GB of 3G data.

-- read more and comment ...

I am going PREPAID cellular plan ...

Currently, with T-Mobile, I am paying $49.99 family plan, which gives me 2 lines, 500 minutes, free T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls, free nights and weekends. I pay extra for my 5GB data plan ($25) and my wife is using the 200MB ($12). Plus another $4.99 for each messaging plan. So overall, I am paying around $100 per month. My family plan is an old plan (grandfathered), so I also get the full discount for new devices in I choose to extend the 2 year contract.

Now, my plan is not bad at all, $100 for 2 persons - it is actually considered to be quite awesome - since most my friends who have newer plans on T-Mobile (or other carriers) usually pay between $80 or more per person. So basically almost half of what most of my friends with smartphones are paying.

Now, let's consider the overall ownership cost over 2 years - since that is the length of the standard cellphone contract. If I pay $279 for each device (assuming Samsung Galaxy S3), add the monthly payment, over 2 years, I am paying about $2,950+. Of course, that is cheaper than my friends who is paying $110 per month for their family plan. But, I plan to reduce the overall cost some more. How? By going PREPAID!

To each their own, but after assessing my needs (getting some stats from my bills for the last 6+ months), I think getting the Monthly 4G plan for $30 will be sufficient for me (and my wife). This plan will get me 5GB data, unlimited text and 100 minutes voice. So for both of us, that will be $60 per month - without contract. There is a drawback to this - that if I buy a new device, I have to pay full price without any discount. So that means $600 for Samsung Galaxy S3. So in short, no contract, I am paying cheaper per month, but paying 3+ times IF buying a new device. But what is the overall 2 years cost of ownership? Let's assume we both buy GS3 and paying $30 Monthly 4G plan - which totaling $2,640 - a saving of $300 over 2 years. It looks a small saving on paper, but in reality, it is actually a pretty good deal. Let's list down the benefit:

• No contract. Only pay as needed. So the potential saving here is actually larger. If I think for the next month that I will be in a WiFi bubble, I may switch to $10 pay as you go ans save some more. If I am traveling, I can switch back to the Monthly 4G etc. 
• In a contract deal, if I am not getting a new device once my contract is up - this means that I am giving free money to the carrier, since the cost of the phone is factored in the monthly bill. With no contract prepaid, I don't have that burden. This also means that if I elect to switch carrier or get a new cellphone/device, I don't have to wait until the contract is done.
• My wife data plan will get an upgrade, from 200MB per month to 5GB. Now, I am assuming that she needs that 5GB - if she does not (because of WiFi), she can switch to a cheaper pay-by-the-day based on usage.
• From 300 texts per month to unlimited texts. This is also assuming we need that. I mostly do not need it, but there is no plan with voice and data only. 
• If spending $100 or more in 1 year, get a Gold status, which means 15% more minutes and your minutes can be used for a full year (instead of the regular 90 days).
• No overages!

So overall, I am fairly convinced (for now) that the prepaid/Monthly 4G will save me some money but still fulfill my need for mobile communication.

T-Mobile also has Pay-As-You-Go plan (for voice prepaid) and Pay-By-The-Day plan (for use only when needed). Depending on your needs, these plans can potentially be cheaper than the Monthly 4G plan that I am planning to use.

 

 

Microsoft Windows engineer John Lam also has a similar story in his blog. 

-- read more and comment ...

Asking For Assistance While Minimizing Interruptions - How To Do It Well

It is always somewhat a dilemma when you have to interrupt somebody to ask him/her to help you. There is always a tension between the pressure or desire to solve your problems/issues/bugs and complete your task AND the realization that everybody has their own set of tasks to complete and you are just about to interrupt & tell them to drop what they are doing and focus their attention to help you.

Each person will have their own tendencies:

• Some will just be too shy or reluctant to seek help and just keep banging their heads and hope miraculously or by luck that they will be able to resolve it. Therefore some issues can just linger in the bug list unresolved or taking longer than necessary to be closed.
• Yet a different group of people will ask, discuss, and talk about their emerging problems/issues/bugs all the time with their colleague - and creating noise, constant interruptions, and annoying. 

We all know that the balance lies somewhere in between. We want to respect out friends/co-workers/colleague privacy, time, and work - while at the same time trying to find possible reasonable solutions or pointers in solving our issues.

This blog post is not about how long should you wait before asking question to others, but is about when you actually decided to ask somebody about your problem - and how to do it well.

One of the rule of thumb that I have heard and embrace is the 15 minutes rule - that if you encounter a problem and cannot solve it immediately, try to find some answers/pointers/hints on how to resolve it with all your might in approximately 15 minutes, and if you are still stuck, then get help from others. This works in theory but often what somebody does in that 15 minutes or so is just weird or not helpful at all. I have seen somebody basically just stare at their code up and down the screen and then declare a surrender. Or, hitting the same scenarios again and again, recompile, test with the same code again - which predictably yield the same errors/wrong results/problem as before. Some will Google their issue and read the search result and do nothing about what they read or just skim through the results.

To be able to ask for help well, I recommend doing the following:

1. It is important to know and understand the error message you are getting - if any. You should not go to somebody equipped with "it does not work". It is really bad when somebody comes to you and just say "it's broken" and when you ask "What's the error?" that person replies "don't know".
2. Do your own homework and reasonable research first. The 15 minutes above should be counted toward this. Trying possible scenarios and fixes, what works, what does not, noting them down, etc. Then communicate this to the person that you are seeking help from - so they don't have to waste their time in trying what you ave tried again. Bring screen shots, print out, examples, etc.
3. When you are about to interrupt people, I recommend asking whether the person has some time to spare or whether they are free at the moment. I know some of my friends to away from their desks during lunches precisely because of this reason - so they are not interrupted during lunch. It's a good practice to respect people's time and space - and asking beforehand whether they can be interrupted or not goes a long way.
4. If the problem is not that urgent, try email. Of course describing your problem in an email may take more time (screen shots, etc etc) and some times it is just not possible. But this also an alternative to get help from others without pressuring them to drop everything on their plate and solve yours.
5. When people allow you to interrupt them, then describe your context, settings, cases, and ask your question decisively and quickly. It's confusing when someone just storm to your cubicle and say "It's broken, does not work at all!". OK - so what do you want me to do?? Here is an example: "Bob, I have been getting some errors in ELMAH about 'null reference error'. From the trace, it seems to be coming from ProfileEdit.ascx - which uses a custom editor template for a textbox for a string value. If I use a regular textbox, it works fine, only when using the custom template then the error shows up. The custom template uses same validation rules - which I am not familiar with - and the calculated null values come from that line. Do you have any ideas or hints that will help me?"
6. At this point, we have to give them the freedom whether they want to respond now or later. Your colleague may say "Hm, let me look into it, I will let you know" - then we ought to thank him/her and leave, go back to our desk and do something else or do some more research. 
7. Also try to ask for help during non-peak time. I like to ask help early in the day or right after lunch, before my co-worker get into their working zone mode. Since he/she is not in their zone yet, then it becomes less of an interruption for my co-worker(s).  
8. If you have additional suggestions/recommendations, please post them in the comments!

I am not saying that I have been perfect in doing all these - far from it. So here are some of the mistakes or common error that I have done, or I have witnessed people did (if some of these describe you then You're Doing It Wrong!):

• Send an email to co-worker about a partially described problem, then coming to that co-worker's cubicle/office and asking "Have you read my email? What do you think?". Why is this annoying? Because it's redundant and also pressuring the co-worker to immediately see/solve your problem. If you are going to send an email, send a intelligent and good description of the problem and your question. A good analogy is like creating a question/post on a forum (or StackOverflow) and then wait! If it's urgent (which is usually not), then why send an email?
• Coming into co-worker's office/cubicle and saying "Can you come here real quick and check what I am doing wrong?" Why is this wrong in so many different levels? Because it shows an almost complete disrespect for the co-worker's attention/time/load - and expecting him/her to just drop whatever he/she is doing and solve my problem or help me. Plus, I am usually to lazy to do some research and try to articulate my problem to my co-worker - so bringing him/her to my workstation is just so much easier. 
• Coming into co-worker's office/cubicle, describing the problem and just stand there, fully expecting the other guy to help RIGHT NOW - even some times when he already said that "give me a minute".
• If you have additional scenarios, please post them in the comments!

Now, even if you follow all these recommendations - that does not mean your co-workers won't be mad at you and always help you with super-eagerness and save your life - I know I don't some times. But, the bottom line is that when you respect your co-workers' time, space, and attention (by minimizing interruptions), most of them will be more likely to return the favor and more willing to help you.

One exception to all of the above: if the issue at hand is URGENT (i.e. we pushing for production, crunch time, "server is down!", etc) - then all goes out the window and try to do whatever it takes to get the job done. But again, this is usually only occupies a small percentage of our work time and mostly preventable. 

Now, stop interrupting me!

-- read more and comment ...

Munchkin Strategy: Orc

An Orc card says this:

An orc who is hit with a curse can always choose to ignore the curse and lose a level instead - unless he's already at level 1.

When an orc fighting alone defeats a monster by more than 10, he goes up an extra level.

On the surface, these abilities seem to be superficial and not that powerful. Lose a level? What idiot prefers to do that instead of absorbing a curse? Extra level if defeating more than 10? Sounds either useless or extremely hard!

But, to a skilled Munchkin player, becoming an orc can be a powerful strategy in both early and late game.

-- read more and comment ...

Munchkin Strategy: Wizard

Munchkin is a card game, where you play a character in battling monsters in order to get to the winning level (level 10 for regular or 20 for EPIC). The game involves some luck (drawing cards), strategies, a good amount of persuasion, trash-talking, and bantering back-and-forth with other players. That combination makes the game a lot of fun, interactive, and can be played again and again without getting boring.

For more information about Munchkin, you can read their website: http://www.worldofmunchkin.com/

If you are familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, then Munchkin should be somewhat familiar to you - a funny version of D&D. It has races & classes, curses, combat strength, charms, potions, etc.

The rest of this post assumes that you are somewhat familiar with the game, basic rules, and its vocabularies - outlining a basic strategy to use if you are playing as a Wizard class.

-- read more and comment ...