Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with phone

Mobiles & Calling Cards - can they live happily ever after?

Tbola — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:28:04 -0800

Is there a way to make using my calling card with my mobile phone suck less? I have a Blackberry 8800, but I think this question is fairly generic to any mobile phone with an address book.
Here goes. I am supposed to use a calling card for all of my long distance calls.
So that means I need to dial the calling card 1-800 number, enter my account number, enter my PIN number, and then, finally enter in the number that I'm calling.
Is there a way I can automate any of this?
My knowledge of how to use the phone pretty much consists of: find entry in address book, highlight it, hit SEND.
I don't know if it's possible to call one number, then while still on that call, send more digits from the address book.
Basically, I don't want to have to write down the number I really want to call, then get out my card, punch in all of those digits, then punch in the number I've just written down.
Call me the opposite of old-fashioned, but if I have to break out a pen and paper for a number that's already in my address book, I feel like we've made an evolutionary misstep somewhere along the way.
Please help.

No One In This House Goes To Your School-- Stop Calling Me!

saveyoursanity — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:49:29 -0800

Getting non-harassing but repeated misdirected phone calls on a cell: help! The set up: My father has a cell phone which is under my account. He receives repeated automated phone calls from a junior high in the area. (So far he's gotten 10 or so, and it's only going to get worse because the school year just started.) No one in the house is attending this junior high.

The phone company says they can't block the calls. I've spoken to the junior high twice so far and they say that they will take him off their list, but he keeps getting these phone calls.

I don't want to sue them or anything but maybe they haven't bothered to take the number off because they don't think it really matters; if there's legal reason not to annoy us then that might provide some incentive.

Short of changing his number, is there anything we can do to get the school to stop freaking calling!?

(We're in Iowa, by the way, and changing his number would be a giant hassle & expensive since we have a lot of family out of the country who would have to be notified.)

Best international/world cell phone options?

gfroese — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:45:48 -0800

I live in Canada and will be traveling to India (one month) Nepal (two weeks) and Thailand (one week). I would like to call or text home to Canada, check e-mails and google maps, and make some local calls (India only). What are my best options for a cell phone??

get me online!

ouchitburns — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:58:41 -0800

What cell phone plan should I take in BC, Canada? I am about to enter into a new contract and want a phone that I can also use to do email

I am incredibly confused as to the options for Canadians. All I want is to be able to either visit gmail.com or use some sort of outlook type program to send and receive emails. A bonus would be being able to use wikipedia or google.

When I talk to the customer service agents, they talk to me about portals and things that I should understand but don't.

Help!

Automatic Phone Dialing Game

jackround — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:44:06 -0800

Automatic phone dialing game: Is there a product or software application that will automatically dial the next number after one hangs up with the current number? This is a personal efficiency-oriented question. Thanks!

Best UK prepaid mobile service?

singingfish — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:01:44 -0800

My family is going to be in the UK for a month. What's the best prepaid mobile phone deal (we're bringing our own phones)? 3 is out as my wife's phone is not 3G, otherwise which is the best value?

Want iPhone WiFi Capability Despite Verizon Customer

imjustsaying — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:18:18 -0800

Can I get a cell phone from Verizon (or which will work with Verizon) that is Wi-Fi Internet and email access capable without signing up for Verizon's own internet/email access plan? If so, can I do it for less than a bazillion dollars? I was really impressed recently when a friend with an iPhone visited and was able to access the web and his email accounts here by logging on to my Wi-Fi network instead of having to use AT&T's service, to which he does subscribe.

I have no iPhone lust, but would really like to be able to log into Wi-Fi networks and access the web and email without signing up for Verizon's plan.

...preferably with a device which gives me a halfway decent web experience, like the iPhone.

Displaying system time on Blackberry

downing street memo — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:58:44 -0800

How can I display the exact system time on my Blackberry? To make a long story short, I'm doing a bit of personal experimentation that will require me to know the exact time (hours:minutes:seconds) that something occurs. I don't wear a watch, so I want to use my Blackberry to get the time instead. But I can't find a way to display that information.

Anyone have any ideas?

Life Expectancy Of A Cell Phone Battery

Mckoan1 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:27:13 -0800

Could someone give me a rough estimate on how long I can expect my cell phone battery to last. I am sure there is a wide variance, but I am just looking for an average life expectancy. I use it every day and charge it in the evening. I use it approximately 3 hours a week. Thanks in advance.

Cheap call-forwarding or voice-mail-only or recorded-message-only services to point phone numbers to?

tunesmith — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:30:35 -0800

I'm thinking of switching phone services, as I often do. It's such a hassle to keep porting phone numbers (LNP), or, actually switching phone numbers. My particular situation is that I have two phone numbers of Vonage, and one on my iPhone - I want to keep the iPhone but dump Vonage while keeping the numbers - I want to try Skype, but they don't let you port phone numbers in. What's a cheap way to keep these phone numbers? More specifically, I'm curious about the following: a) A cheap/free service for forwarding a phone number. No phone line, no voice mail, no recorded message, it just forwards to another number. Especially if you can port an existing phone number to it. I tried signing up for Grand Central but they're not letting me in (rumor has it they will be supporting LNP in the future). (Does someone have an invite?)

b) A cheap/free service for porting it in and hooking it up to a voice mailbox. I've heard rumors of being able to do this with t-mobile somehow...??

c) A cheap/free service for porting it in and hooking it up to a recorded message (no voice mail) that will tell people what other phone number they should call.

d) Heck... possible to port multiple numbers to the same iPhone? Especially if I can tell which number was dialed.

Any creative ideas appreciated.

TelecommuterFilter: Please help me find the perfect landline phone for talking to the mothership!

browse — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:15:49 -0800

TelecommuterFilter: Please help me find the perfect landline phone for talking to the mothership! I work from home for a big tech company. I'm looking for the ideal telephone to use for dialing into meetings.

My criteria:
It needs to have a wired handset, for optimal sound quality.
It should have a speakerphone with adjustable volume and a mute button.
It should have a port for a headset, so I can pace around the room.
I don't need multi-line support, or an answering machine, or CallerID.

Pre-paid phone in us

radsqd — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:48:36 -0800

Pre-paid phone in us Iam with verizon wireless and absolutely tired of paying $40/month for 450 minutes , no text when I rarely go above 200 minutes

Simply I want maybe 200 minutes with 200 txt included for less than $25/month. This is prolly better with a prepaid phone.
Give me your reviews on virgin mobile, at&t pay as you go service
does virgin charge for roaming?

Bonus: If the phone can be used as an mp3 player with a sd card slot

Time travel with an iPhone

griffey — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:00:01 -0800

How do I deal with new iPhone calendaring weirdness? Bonus difficulty: live in one timezone, work in another. I'm having not so much fun figuring out how to deal with my Exchange calendaring issues on my new iPhone 3G. I'm syncing using an Exchange server, but here's the issue: I live in Central Time, but work in Eastern. The server is in eastern time, while my phone roams from one to the other as I go to and from work.

Here's what I've been able to see so far:

Create an event for 1pm on my iPhone while in Central time: event stays at 1pm even when I cross the timeline on the phone, but shows up for 2pm on Outlook on my computer.

Create an event for 1pm on my Outlook PC while at work in Eastern Time: syncs to my iPhone (which is ALSO IN EASTERN TIME) at 12pm (noon).

It's like my phone is permanently on Central time, and my computer is obviously on Eastern, and everything is crossing wires as they sync. The phone is currently set to automatically set time/date, but I tried setting it manually to Eastern and it didn't change anything.

I didn't have this problem with my last phone (windows mobile), so I'm sure it's the iPhone trying to fix things for me...but how the heck to I stop this behavior?

Everything else (email and contacts) are syncing beautifully. The phone, in every other respect, is marvelous and wonderful.

Creative solutions welcome!

What's better than Merlin PBX?

StickyCarpet — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:10:15 -0800

Small business phone system. Surely there must be something better than Merlin/PBX? I just disconnected the giant mass of dirty old PBX gear (partially) installed by some passive aggressive slob, who seemed to think he was getting a job for life with his probably dumpster-dived putty colored "technology."

I ran four long phone extension cords directly from the four lines in, to four phones, sitting on four desks. So now at least we are not losing business today.

Crisis averted, but where do I go from here? I'd like a system that can scale up to maybe 50 lines, starting with the four I have. Surely there must be some paradigm-redefining solution that doesn't involve ancient putty colored gear with attendant neck beards.

Getting fired on Monday, how should I handle it?

blackout — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:21:23 -0800

I've come to understand from co-workers as well as things that have gone on this past week, that I will be getting fired on Monday. How should I handle it? Much more after the jump. So here's a rundown of what's happened.
A few months ago, my boss sat me down and had a conversation with me about not answering my phone (and when I say my phone, I mean my cell phone, that I pay the bill for) when he calls. Sometimes I would go three to five days of not answering the phone when he called. Now I never did it out of spite, it just happened. Now keep in mind that I only get paid for billable time with customers (kinda like a lawyer I guess), I don't get paid when I'm home at 10pm when he calls sometimes nor do I get paid when I'm siting in the office in between customers scheduled times when he calls.
My thinking is that because I don't get paid to answer the phone there should be times when I don't have to answer it or return his call right away, especially those times when I'm not in the office, have the day off, or it's outside of normal business hours. I don't think many people would argue with me on that train of thought.
Well after he sat me down about the issue of me not answering my phone when he calls, I said I would do better at answering my phone. I left the meeting with him seeming much happier as I am his best and most valuable employee (out of three).
Fast forward a few months, and things with the business have slowed down quite a bit, to the point where the last time I worked was this past Tuesday (the 8th) for one hour. The rest of the time I've been [in essence] off, because I have no scheduled appointments with customers. Now with this time off, I've been doing a lot of things to keep myself busy (riding a motorcycle I just bought, exploring the city I moved to in Sept. that I haven't had a chance to because I've been working so much, and hanging out with a girl I meet), which most of the time keeps me from answering my phone [when anyone calls]. I just looked at my phone and he called me a total of 7 times since Tuesday, all of the missed calls [I didn't answer]. He never leaves a voice mail, never sends a text about what the calls about. I've tried to return his calls 4 times in the same time frame, every time I get his voice mail (where I leave a message "Hey *boss name*, it's *my name* just returning your call."), which is somewhat ironic I think.
Now come Friday while speaking to a coworker I'm told that the boss is pissed at me and I need to get in touch with him (this conversation was at 11:30pm which is in my opinion too late to call my boss), so the next day I call him a total of 7 times and send him 1 text message, all of which are never responded to (because at this point, he's already made up his mind to fire me). That evening (Sat. the 12th) I drive down to my office around 7pm, as that's where my motorcycle is stored, because I was gonna go for a ride. I get to the office and my key no longer works. He's changed the locks.
At this point it's clear to me that I'm fired, but the boss has never said anything to me, I've just been putting things together from what another coworker has been saying and he's not saying much, trying to stay out of the middle of it all.
The boss told this coworker to tell me that there is a "mandatory meeting 9am Monday", where I presume he will fire me.
Now to the questions is, how do I handle this? I don't really care about the job, it doesn't bother me to lose it. Honestly I think the whole situation is rather comical. I already have a new job in the works lined up more money, being my own boss, etc.
I've not been paid for the last two weeks (we get paid weekly and he's failed to pay me). I want to make sure I get my pay as well as all my belongings.
How should I react to the boss when he fires me? Should I be mad or should I just make it clear that I don't give a hoot? Should I give him a peace of my mind for having sub par equipment and putting my life at risk? Should I even let him finish if he starts to dig into me, or should I just says "Write my checks while I get my personal belongs."
I've never been fired before and honestly I can't think of a better first firing situation, I'm just looking for the best way I can handle it.

What the hell?

jumbotron08 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:31:27 -0800

Why don't any drugs work for me? I'm on like my 800th muscle relaxant/sleeping pill and they (all of the pills I've tried etc) still no no noticeable effect on me.

I even took 3 cyclobenzaprine 10 mg tablets or flexedril tablets. That's 3 times the recommended fucking dosage and I don't even feel sleepy. What the hell?

Seriously. It seems like this problem is related to every pill I take too (for anything), more than half of them just don't work at all. Is it possible to have a resistance to a ton of drugs? Is this some kind of medical condition? What is going on?!

How do I cancel my contract with Verizon?

afx114 — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:54:37 -0800

How do I cancel my contract with Verizon before my contract is up? I would like to terminate my contract with Verizon and am willing to pay the $175 early termination fee, but I'd like to transfer my phone number to my new provider. How do I go about doing this? Do I simply sign up with the new provider, they transfer my number for me, and Verizon sends me a bill after the fact? Or do I need to contact Verizon first?

I have changed providers before and it was no problem, but the contract throws a wrench in my plan. I'm just looking for the quickest/easiest/painless way to do this.

Faster Tethered Internet

Gideon — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:58:24 -0800

My cable company is taking their sweet time setting up my internet so I'm in a new house in a new place without anything but a tethered 2g net connection. I'm on AT&T's Edge network and it's just ridiculously slow. How can I make this faster? I'm using mobile versions of sites whenever possible, and using Adblock plus and flashblock Firefox add-ons to help cut some of the drek, but I'm sure there are probably other ways to make this process speedier. Any suggestions from the MiFi community?

What's the best phone OS for me?

abkadefgee — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:37:14 -0800

Which mobile phone OS will work the best for my needs and can be easily expanded with free software? I'm looking at a new smartphone purchase and want to choose the phone that has the best OS for my needs. I want to run Skype on the phone for the occasional cheap voice call through SkypeOut and I want to be able to continue loading my phone with free software and features.

Of the OSes I know of, including Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile 6, and Palm, which support the most and best free software and applications? Which has the most active community? There's a lot out there for Palm, but is that community dying off? What are some examples of apps you use on those OSes?

I know that similar questions may have been asked in the past, but this is a case where I think the answer could have changed quite a bit over time.

Is there a fair prepaid cell phone plan on the market?

tangyraspberry — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:50:28 -0800

Can anyone suggest a good prepaid cell phone plan? I find I need a cell phone only once every couple of weeks but don't want to get tied down to an annual contract.

Gimme gimme gimme an iPhone after midnight

fishmasta — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:19:11 -0800

How simple is it for an at&t member switch to an iPhone if he's not the account holder? So I want to get a 3G iPhone when they launch in a couple of weeks. Right now, I'm an AT&T subscriber but not under contract as two years have passed since I last upgraded my phone. The account, which I've had for 5 years now, is in my father's name even though I've always been the only person on the account. Whenever I first signed up when I was 18, they said it'd have to be under his name because I had no credit history at that point. When I go to buy an iPhone and switch to an iPhone service plan, will it cause any problem that I'm not the main account holder? I don't see why it'd matter as long as I'm paying, but I don't really trust cell providers to make things easy.

P.S. Is this something that should be done at an AT&T store or would an Apple Store be an option?

I just called to say, WTF? A phone call from a 4-digit number?

Unicorn on the cob — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:22:39 -0800

I recently have gotten a bunch of cell phone calls from non-phone numbers. WTF is going on? Okay, by non-phone-numbers, I mean, my phone rings, I look down, and I have seen, so far, the following:

9491221
1113
9491220

Also, I get a lot of "no name" or "new call" calls recently, too. Disclaimer: the credit companies are calling me to get me to pay an ex roommate's debt; I recently sent them all her contact info, so I can't tell if she has put me on some kind of spam list. I also get credit calls for my ex-husband and my mother (yes, I am surrounded by irresponsible people).

I tried googling with no luck; any idea what's going on? Is there any way to block these... whatever the hell the ares from calling me? I'm afraid to answer and nobody EVER leaves a message.

I have had my number on the Do Not Call registry since January of 2006.

Help Me Survive Windows Mobile 5!

Gideon — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:56:01 -0800

While waiting for the new iPhone, I sold my old one. Now I'm back on a Cingular (HTC) 8125 with Windows Mobile 5 (it can't be upgraded to 6!) And I want to make the best of it without spending any money. I'm on a Mac, so I need to figure out the best way to deal with that, too. I've learned to hate the device, unfortunately. Compared to the iPhone it's slow, clunky and insanely frustrating to use. But, I'm using it for the next two weeks and I need to find ways to make it work without pulling out what is left of my hair.

I'm on an iMac, and have Outlook in parallels but don't use it. Right now I'm using Plaxo to sync my contacts into Outlook and then to the phone, but the calendar isn't working at all (something on Plaxo's end.) So at least my contacts are working. I'd like a way to sync my calendar/tasks. I had MarkSpace Missing Sync but with the upgrade to Leopard it no longer works and don't want to pay for the upgrade.

I've installed PointUI which certainly makes the primary movements on the device nicer.

What else can I do to make this more pleasant? Other programs you'd suggest? Any free way to sync my data directly from OSX or a clever way to keep Outlook in Parallels and my iCal synced?

Thanks for all the help!

P.S. I'll find my phone. Who took my phone.

Drexen — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:44:32 -0800

UK phone fraud: Someone stole my phone and rang up £3000 of calls to Nigeria. The phone company says it's my fault for not keeping tabs on the phone and I have to pay it. Is there anything I can do? I'm with O2. I got the phone with my 12-month contract but hadn't been using it, because I preferred the usability of my old Pay-As-You-Go Nokia... so when the new phone went missing on 18th May I didn't notice. I made a call on 18th (Sunday) and then the thief started making calls on 19th, continuing until 23rd May. In that time they made 60 hours of calls, some to Nigerian numbers, some to UK mobiles and landlines.

I discovered what had happened last night when I got a notice that O2 had tried to take £3,042.86 out of my account (it bounced, because I don't have the money). I called them up for advice and they told me I was liable for the whole amount as "we expect customers to contact us as soon as they realise their phone has been stolen," and that I'd have to pay it back within 6 months. The best they could do was refer me to a debt collection agency who would offer longer payback terms with less to pay per month. I told them I'd have to talk to the police before I committed to anything like that.

I phoned the police, who took the details and said they'd pass them on to the phone investigation team. However, the operator seemed pretty ambivalent about whether they'd give me a crime reference number as "the question is, why didn't you notice the phone was missing?" At this point I thought the phone must have been taken around the start of June and told her as such. Now they're supposed to get back to me in the next 72 hours.

After that I phoned O2 again to ask them to send me a list of calls, and to check whether they'd barred the phone, which they had. I checked my statement online and saw the details about the calls that I listed above.

So: Is there anything I can do about this? Am I really liable for this fraud? Surely it wouldn't be the case if this was a credit card. Is there some regulating body I can complain to? Should I talk to a lawyer? Just refuse to pay up? Or am I screwed? I can barely afford this, and that's assuming they give me a long payment term without much extra interest to pay.

What Non-Blackberry Phone Can Sync Subfolders?

nokry56 — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:41:38 -0800

Can you recommend a phone that will sync Exchange sub-folders? Getting a BES isn't an option. A phone on AT&T Wireless is preferred. I work for a small business as the IT support guy. The CFO wants to get a new phone to replace his 3 year old Treo. The one thing he wants his phone to do is sync Exchange sub-folders so that as emails come in he can file them.

We don't have the money for a BES so blackberries are out of the question. Do Windows Mobile phones sync sub-folders? Any other phones you can recommend?