Tech Tips and Reviews
We are trying to find the connection in all of these text messages that everyone seems to be getting. So we are checking to see if certain phone companies are either compromised or selling our phone numbers out to the next bidder.
[poll id=”28″]
No need for any personal information. Just who is the carrier you are using when you get the spam invites to bogus contests?
CashForChristmas.net is the latest spam to go around. This one came to me later in teh day than normal. No idea who is handing my cell phone number out to cell phone text message scammers/spammers
donnacindy479@CashForChristmas.net : Please enter 8939 here to claim your prize from last week’s entry www.CashForChristmas.net
CashForChristmas.net
and this image is what I got when I tried to leave,CashForChristmas.net While using Firefox browser.
CashForChristmas.net.scam
When I selected “Leave page” I got redirected to a penny bid/auction site. When I clicked “leave page” again, it finally let me go. but I had a background pop up that was on “target.freegiftcardtoday.com”
It was a bit scarier on Internet Explorer. So I left fast and didn’t get screen shot. but that dang “blink doink” sound Explorer makes when you get pop ups startled me.
From what I can guess, they get your email address by having you put this information in on their site, and they sell your email address off to some advertising company willing to spam you for the rest of your life. Of course, since you confirmed it’s a real email address . Do nothing with that website other than warn others of CashForChristmas.net’s risk to you and your privacy.
CashForChristmas.net does not have a prize and CashForChristmas.net does not have a winner.
do not go to CashForChristmas.net . they will give you nothing.
Notice the other messages about scam text messages on here and You will see that nothing changes between all of the sites this guy puts up.
CashForChristmas.net redirects you to
http://111.67.203.41/targob/
Poll trying to see if certain phone companies are selling our data
Have you received a text message from Getting XmasTarget.Com? Are you wondering if this Getting XmasTarget.Com is a cam?
The message reads:
My name is Justin. You contact is on the third place, Your X-mas code for http://xmastarget.com?HCBHJKAHEF is (and then some random 4 digit number)
The people who send these text messages are just expecting you to type in your special code and it will tell you that your code is valid, then the website will redirect you to a page to type in your email. your email address will then be sold to hundreds and hundreds of spam websites. Bad news.. no prize no gift. Read the message again, you won nothing. They do not say you won. They do not owe you anything, you willingly gave your email address to a spam broker (I shall coin that phrase!!!). The poor broken English should be the first clue. In his earlier scam text messages, he said less and it was easier to fall for. but now… Now he said a whole sentence.. Sorta.
The like button at the bottom of the page, the count never changes across all of the sites they use this thing on. It’s complete utter crap. best use of this is to share it with someone you hate and let them spam themselves to death. Also notice at the bottom of their page it says ” clicking continue you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy”. Which of course is written in some almost unnoticeable text color.
Highlights of User Agreement
1.These businesses may include providers of direct marketing services and applications, including lookup and reference, data enhancement, suppression and validation and email marketing. For example, if you express interest in a particular product or service, you may be contacted by telephone regarding that particular product or service. prizecenterdirect.us collects minimal demographic and personally identifiable information from many users. This information is aggregated and analyzed to help us tailor future offers and to help our marketing partners and advertising agencies understand the demographics of our customers in order to evaluate the potential effectiveness and profitability of doing business with us. Part of our business model involves sharing personally identifiable information, such as name and address, with third-party marketing concerns.
2.All information provided to prizecenterdirect.us by the users of this site may be used to support our suppression, validation and enhancement services to other marketing companies, advertising agencies, compilers and data companies.
XmasTarget.Com website that the text message spam wants you to visit.
Notice the other messages about scam text messages on here and You will see that nothing changes between all of the sites this guy puts up.
I am sorry to inform you but your cell phone number has been compromised and this dude has it and will continue to send you text messages. EVERY SINGLE DAY.
These messages break out between Thanksgiving and New Year, every year. This is the time when you are most likely to be gullible enough to think you have some special Christmas/New Year luck. And you might want to win back your expenses of the holiday season, in one hit.
Do not share that website on facebook. or we will have an epidemic of spam. and uncontrollable fury of 1996-1999 spam.
Hopefully after the holidays are over, this will subside.
On the plus side, there is an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of their page. On the downside, that link leads to a dead a page.
Poll trying to see if certain phone companies are selling our data
Google is purchasing Mototolla Mobility for $12.5 b
That’s right. Google is buying a cell phone company.
Now maybe Google can deliver what they hinted we would get with android, to begin with.
Anyone remember the hint that if Google sold you a phone for dirt cheap, they could bundle it with ads?
I mean imagine buying a brand new phone for $5 or something cheap, and paying a monthly fee of $5-$10 as long as you get video ads and text ads and picture ads sent to your phone on a regular basis. GPS always on and you getting local discounts and deals.
Does this mean that Android phone will become a bit more reliable? does this mean that some some Android phone willl have better o/s implementation and optimization? Or is that against the law?
Let’s see if Google delivers.
News Source for the purchase
Why not optimize for Mobile
because mobile devices need to evolve and become more compatible with today’s standards. Why would we roll back our current knowledge and technology to be more compatible with the hardware that is half hearted and incomplete but being sold as new technology just because it is touch screen?
Touch screen is many years old and a fail attempt back in the day. Nothing new is going on with touch screen to make it any better than it was 12 years ago. If we have to make our websites have a special section just for certain mobile devices, then the manufacturers of said mobile devices need to get with the times.
The longer we cater to the needs of the hardware manufacturers, the longer we will be stuck in this rut of no evolution.
Time and time again I have to warn you, that software should always exceed the hardware, and hardware manufacturers need to get off their rump and advance or stay on the porch and call their junk beta and prototype and quit pawning it off as current technology and finished product.
There is no reason that I should create a website m.truxtertech.com .
If you are on a mobile browser and can not see this website then your mobile browser sucks and need to get one that works. Try Opera moni browser.
Do you have bad reception with your phone like I do? Do you have issues getting a signal without holding your phone high above your head? Looking for a signal boost? Maybe this will help
We have all seen the ads for the sticker you are supposed to slap on to your battery and it looks kind of like a transformers logo, or the grid on a motherboard, and that sticker is supposed to increase your signal. The sticker usually sells for somewhere between a dollar and ten dollars.
Well. One day I got curious about alternative cell phone signal boosters.
There is the wifi antenna in my old busted up Toshiba laptop. The laptops wifi connector seems about the same size as what is in the cell phone for the external antenna.
but then. Then there is the ultimate hidden right under your nose out in the public jumping in your lap laughing at you, solution. Go buy a cd or dvd from walmart. Crack the case open and pull out the security tag. Peel it into the thin strip that has the motherboard grid looking thing on it. Take a bag tie and peel the outer strip off of it to expose the metal inside. Snip the stripped wire in 1/4.Take a small paneling nail and wrap the wire strip around that nail tightly but leave about 1/8cm sticking straight from one end. poke a pinhole in the security tag grip. Slide straight piece of the coiled sire though the security tag, from under side, then bend the newly exposed wire flat. lower your new device into the hole where the external antenna connects on your phone. Make sure the new spring of wire wraps around the antenna adapter. push all of the way down. Now either glue the new antenna down, or thin tape it, or hold it in place with the battery cover for your phone.
May not give you any reception, may increase your reception by quite a bit. For me, my signal never drops under one bar, in places where I was not getting a signal at all. and my phone usually can place calls with no signal.
Make Shift Antenna
I will have to try the wifi antenna and get back to you on whether it fits, or if the antenna even helps the signal or messes it up. but that will be another post. Will try and remember to link the two.
I love my little cricket phone, but since I am by a major radio tower, It is hard for me to get a signal, heck half the time my wifi is out for my comcast . It’s not comcast’s fault or Cricket’s fault at all. There is lots of disturbance in the area. LOTS.
Oh and one more thing, MAKE SURE THE SECURITY TAG IS DEACTIVATED!! You do not want to get tackled while walking out of Walmart or some other store, just after you shoved your hand in your pocket.
And now for an Android Device. In fact, a ZIO cell phone from Sanyo.
I just took a wire and untwined the metal fibers to get one metal fiber about 10 inches long and made a squiggle, then taped the metal wire to the inside of the battery backing. This actually helped stop the call drops and the internet connection is a considerable bit stronger.
When you have the backing off of the phone, note the antenna addon connectors. Bring the ends of the wire as close to those points as you can get. This should help. Well it works for me.
signal boost on ZIO
This is your Budget Tech Tip
I have just 10 more months on my phone contract and then I am dropping it. I have been using my T-Mobile G1 from Google for about a year and half. I found myself adding packages to my plan and getting more and better add-ons every so many months. My phone bill has become so expensive, I almost can’t afford lunch while I am at work trying to pay my phone bill. but on a cool note, i have driving directions to any place in the world. I really do not travel and the GPS feature on my android phone drained my battery. So I would have to turn the GPS feature on and off. Some times that feature would hang, so I installed “advanced task killer” and found that I constantly had programs running. Now that I was using that I found myself turning something off with my phone so often, that one day while in the shower I didn’t like the smell of my soap so I almost clicked it like I could turn off the soap scent. Way too much.
Unlimited text messages for $15 a month, meanwhile I receive about 20-30 total. Internet for $35 a month meanwhile I get 28mbs at home on my pc and only pay $45 a month. I am always home and always on my computer. Why in the heck am I paying for this ?
My phone bill is set at $39 a month right now with everything turned off and before the what ever extra fees t-mobile adds which for some reason isn’t listed until you get the bill. It’s like 6-9 bucks.
After my phone contract expires, I am done with the cell phone. I don’t like having people able to locate me anywhere I am. I like the freedom to say ” did you leave a message on my answering machine?” that way I can be out in public and hitting on the near by women instead of clicking on my Facebook app posting about what a great time I am having, as apposed to actually having a good time.
why do we tell our-self that we need to have a barcode scanner in our phone to see how great of a deal we would be getting elsewhere? Do we really want to shop at 6 different places to buy 6 items instead of one place? The amount you save verses the value of your time. Don’t forget the extra taxes of separate transactions. Time is money that I only have a limited amount of. Done with letting someone else live off of me in payments of “What I think I need”. Sure as a single man you notice that it’s hard to get a woman’s attention when you have very little to share or show off. you can have shiny stuff, fine, but you don’t have to make endless payments that are beyond the rationality of it’s usability.
Time to stop buying what I do not need and focus on what I really need. Why am I buying stuff i don’t need and trying to simply the tiny useless junk????
HTC Thunderbolt Has kick stand for watching media
Runs on Android 2.2
HTC Thunderbolt is 4g
8mp camera
4.3 inch screen
480 x 800 pixels Resolution
Comes with 32 GB MicroSD card
Uses Sim Card for 4g LTE service under battery (Iphone for verizon does not currently have)
Allows for WIFI Use.
The HTC Thunderbolt looks a lot like the Iphone 3
Similar size to the Samsung fasinate, slightly larger screen. but full phone size is smaller.
HTC Thunder Bolt unboxing, brilliant looking cell phone. Huge screen for a phone and lots of great features including 4g.
Still using my htc g1. Been a great phone. Onboard memory storage sucks and battery life sucks, but the operating system works great and beat my other phones. Makes my moto and my blackberry look like calculators. The display is large and the keyboard is great for my thumbs.
Will be getting a new droid phone by december 2011, unsure wich one yet though.
How is the g2??? Anyone know?
What android phone is a good step up from the g1?
Posted via Android. Dont mind the typos. I’ll fix them later.
Quick punch of applications on my android phone that I love and enjoy. And a couple android apps that frustrate me.
WordPress – using the latest full install not an update but a full install of the wordpress app, it write now to write this post. Allows you to check statistics now. Excellent application for
MY phone
.
Facebook – some abilities are limited. Like notifications will minimize fb app and opens browser. Invites crash my fb app.
Twitter – nothing ever seems to work anymore.
Pandora radio – won’t let me sign in anymore via phone. Love the app, can’t use it.
Last.fm – works like a charm, perfect lil music app.
Advanced task killer- let’s you shut off running background programs. Battery saving app.
Opera browser – has very few limitations compared to basic default browser, but many more abilities than default. Looks sharp also.
All barcode scanners with 4+ rating, get em, all usefull.
I hate android alarm clocks. I can never make them go away.