Tag: phone

Pokemon(ed) out

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

Well it seems in less than a week we have seen and read so much about Pokemon, we are now sick of the app.
All of the Memes of people with their find on the toilet, or in a wineglass. And all of the creepy van pictures with spray painted signs saying “Pokemon inside” blah blah blah.
We’ve all heard the 60 year old news anchor pretend to be turning off his Pokemon-go app, and we know darn well he doesn’t care about that game.
We’ve heard our local radio hosts yammering on endlessly about their kids getting out of the house finally.
We get it, the game requires you to walk to the end of your street. You did it once and have been posting memes about all of the walking you have been doing for the past six days. We get it…
We’ve seen the Pokemon pop up in weird locations that make us wonder “how’d they know the dimensions of this exact location???”. come on. You have your camera on. It asked you for permission. You can’t be that ignorant can you?
Here’s the permissions, Don’t worry it’s short and no big words.

Version 0.29.0 can access:
In-app purchases
Identity
find accounts on the device
Contacts
find accounts on the device
Location
approximate location (network-based)
precise location (GPS and network-based)
Photos/Media/Files
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
read the contents of your USB storage
Storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
read the contents of your USB storage
Camera
take pictures and videos
Other
receive data from Internet
control vibration
access Bluetooth settings
use accounts on the device
prevent device from sleeping
view network connections
pair with Bluetooth devices
full network access

It was a short chuckle the first time we all saw the beat up van with “Pokemon inside” then we saw the cleaner but solid white kidnapper van, then the guy “it puts the lotion on it’s skin” and the plethora of clowns. This game is creepier than what we were scared of with facebook. Did you sign in using your Facebook account? because that would be 1000Xs creepier.
That’s enough.
The game has no high moment just a constant “meh” with no climax.

It seems that Pokemon is pretty much for those who ignore simple reality, or children too young to know what their privacy is worth.
And they don’t even care that you can’t battle people. The whole concept of the cartoon the game is based on is battling with your Pokemon. The whole concewpt of the cards that were played with was to battle with your Pokemon.

Your typical pokemon players

Your typical pokemon players


Pokemon-Go away. Please stop promoting this dead horse.

pokemon-goaway

Cricket Wireless Mass Outages

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Share this page to help get the word out
Yes Cricket users you have no signal.
People are reporting outages to the Cricket network across the country on a website called ” isdownrightnow.net”
If you just go to the site and search for Cricket, and when you find the page for reporting outages, just sit there and hit refresh and look at all of the people reporting in they have an outage, and look at where they are reporting from.

Doesn’t look like Cricket to AT&T switching is going all that smooth.

the Cricket website is also going in and out and forcing you to re-log in. The amount of time you stay logged in is about 1/5th the amount of time it takes for Cricket’s website to accept your password.

From New York to Texas to California, all of Cricket cell phone serviceis down.
Nation wide cell phone outages.
since 4pm Central, Cricket has been out of service. No calls in or out. If you call your voicemail from another phone, you can log in and check your voice mails. You can even delete them. Nothing much after that. Your phone will still show that you have voicemails that have not been deleted or heard.

Odd that this happens right after TeamViewer gets hacked then Myspace gets hacked.
Share this page to help get the word out.

How To Block The Spam on Your Cricket Phone

Posted onAuthorTruXter2 Comments

Since the new Privacy Policy change at Cricket , they have allowed us to opt out of the advertisement types. Such as; web browser spam, and text message notifications.
We here at TruXter Tech decided to run through them all and opt ourselves out of them all. Here’s how we did it.

To opt out of “Relevant advertising” Click here

To opt out of advertisements on your phone based on your usage and locations Click Here

Phone Spam Opt Out

Phone Spam Opt Out

More Addvertisers to opt out from Click Here

You have opted out of relevant advertising on your mobile device.

You have opted out of relevant advertising on your mobile device.

To unsubscribe from Cricket’s Email spam Click Here

Federal Do Not Call list Click Here

To stop getting mail from Cricket and their affiliates Click Here

To Opt out of Cricket Text Messages Click Here

Opt Out Cricket Text Messages

Opt Out Cricket Text Messages

Is Computer Technology in a Slump?

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

Sure computer technology is in a slump.
A slump created by the lazy and braggadocios.
The ignorant with money to burn, and the poor who want to look like they have money to burn.
It is now taboo to show people Technology you created from scratch. It makes you look poor and unworthy of honor. No longer do we feel the pride of learning new things and piecing together our ideas and things we learned, into one space to make the things we need.

We have built ourselves into a corner of ignorance.

We used to hack our phones to have web browsers they didn’t have before. We used to get our phones to surf the internet when no one even considered it useful. and we did it with phones that didn’t have a touch screen or a scroll wheel. We created our own mp3 players to suit our phones per model and we would burn that to a 3.5 disk or to a c.d. so we wouldn’t have to rebuild when we changed our phones, we’d just have to modify to work with the version of Symbian on the phone. but now, everything is right there for free with ads, or for sale. No one has to learn anymore. We just nod and smile when someone calls you stupid for not knowing about some app they just downloaded that does what you did 10 years ago, manually. And for god’s sake you can’t tell them this, or they will call you a hipster.

Tech trends are a shame.

All websites are starting to look the exact same crappy HTML 5 over simplified big buttons so people can use it better on their little phone displays that no one can compile a good Java or flash player for.

The days of complexity are gone.
Now are the days of “look, shiney and simple”
and complacency.

It is as if we have dumbed ourselves.

There was a time when software exceeded the abilities of hardware. Which caused the hardware makers to try harder. build better. To evolve.
But now the software makers aren’t trying to create the new.. the more bundled. the bigger deal to make people buy it.
They want to make it easy and super light weight, so you pay again to buy the other crap that used to be in the older version, one by one.

We have become the fat consumer.
And tech… The world for the outsiders… Became fashion-ware for the trendy.
where abilities and functionality no longer matter, just the name brand and brag-ability.
$10,000? Made by apple? Of course it has features functions and abilities that their $150 watch does not have.
In the day when we dreamed of that, we dreamt of hackability. The ability to mod that computer on your wrist to have your own functions to fit your own needs. Now you just download someone else’s idea (app) that best suits you and like it and show off what you downloaded.

We had our DVR. Our home entertainment center from a computer we built with a series of hard drives stacked together to burn our tv shows onto while we worked. With hundreds upon hundreds of function. Those are gone and now we have it in a “cloud” (some hairy dude’s server in his basement Shhhh) and we install an ap for some of the functions and Features with nothing to want to learn.

Are cell phone extended lenses worth buying?

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cameralens

Are you wondering if cell phone extended lenses are worth buying?
I was. So I bought one from eBay for just under $15.
8x Zoom is how the lens was labeled. Not so sure how they came up with that number.

Took forever for the extended lens (telescope) to arrive but when it did, first thing I did was run out and and take photos of local band in Houston playing at a local club. Since it was the band’s CD release party, I had high hopes of getting good photos for my website (TruXter.Org).
Of course the packaging says “Mobile phone telescope” and has a picture of what looks like a blackberry on the cover.
What came inside the package was an actual telescope about 3 inches long and about 3/4 inch wide. The actual lens is about the size of a dime. A mounting frame that is spring loaded with an adjustable plate that locks by the turn of a screw to make sure the lens mounts directly over the cell phone There was also a small cloth which we can assume is for cleaning the lens of the telescope.

Here’s a sample of the photos in a dark setting (I have saturation issues I need to work out)
Satci Butler
That photo was taken from about 20 feet away with zero zoom. The lady is Staci Butler from the Staci Butler Band

The next day, I took a trip to an place near Houston that has this old time feel to it and had hopes of taking some good pictures to share. Here’s a sample of the day time photos I took.
IMG_20150411_114650_116
That photo was taken from somewhere between 80-100 feet away, without using zoom.
Any photos taken under 20 feet just come out horrible. This is definitely not an extended camera lens and is clearly a telescope for cell phones. The further the object is, the better the picture turns out.
No matter what your iso setting is, the dark settings for your pictures don’t have as good of a chance as you would have just taking the lens off and getting closer.
The focus feature just blows out my cell phones auto-focus. I tried tapping screen first then manually focus. I tried manually focusing then tapping screen and manually focusing again. Nothing made the pictures any better. I got a whole lot of shaky images that looked like I over zoomed the digital zoom and the blew the image up to pretend it was optical zoom. It definitely is not optical zoom. That setting on the side of the telescope is just for focus.

But bang for the buck, there is plenty good use for the telescope lens. I just currently haven’t much purpose in it. Not saying I won’t because I certainly will be looking for a good reason to use it. but fact is, this will not make you a better photographer.

Full review score of the Extended telescope lens for a cell phone.
Function: 7/10
Durability: 8/10
Look: 10/10
Value: 10/10
Useability: 3/10
Total score: 7/10

Does Simple Mobile block Cricket Pictures?

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

cricket_androidOkay, first encounter of this so i have to know if others are experiencing the same issue.
I have been sending pictures with my cricket phone to a female friend of mine who is using Simple Mobile and she has not been responding to them. So i ask her why she doesn’t respond and she says she never got them. She is sure it is cricket messing up. So I test sending her pictures with my work phone which is on Verizon and the pictures send fine. Next I send pictures from my Cricket phone to my Verizon phone and from Verizon phone to my Cricket phone and all goes well. Yet not one picture received to the Simple Mobile network.

From what i see all sms text messages transfer fine and fast but to send a picture from Cricket to simple mobile, no go.

Now understand that I am on the version of Cricket that uses the AT&T GSM sim card, not the old Cricket with no sim card (except 4g) using CDMA network.

So if you are experiencing or not experiencing this please respond below so I get a grip on what is happening.

 

 

**Update**
I contacted Cricket and this is the tip they gave me to check my my APN settings to verify i am connected correctly. Sadly I am connected correctly. but nonetheless

Cricket Help:  I will send you the APN settings , but this will work just for Cricket devices
Cricket Helps:  Tap Settings > Mobile Networks (or Mobile Data) > Access Point Names > New APN (may have to tap Menu button to see this option).
Enter the following APN info:
Name: Internet
APN: ndo
Proxy: Not Set
Port: Not Set
Username: Not Set
Password: Not Set
Server: Not Set
MMSC: http://mmsc.aiowireless.net MMS
Proxy: proxy.aiowireless.net
MMS Port: 80
MCC: 310
MNC: 150
Authentication type: Not Set
APN type: default,mms,fota,hipri,supl
Note: on the above APN type be sure to enter it exactly as it is listed& don’t include any spaces!
Tap Save for the new APN.
Go back one screen to the APN list and tap the dot to enable this APN.
Reboot the device.
Test data and MMS.

Nope, did not work.

Cricket’s ZTE Sonata 4G One Month Review

Posted onAuthorTech Review Man8 Comments

My one month review of the Sonata 4G from ZTE from Cricket. Aka z740g

Battery – 1785 mAh
Processor – 1.4 GHz Dual-Core Qualcomm® MSM8230
RAM – 1 GB
ROM – 4 GB
Camera – 5 MP (backside only, No front camera)
Resolution – 480×800
OS – Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean)

Preface
So Cricket’s parent company got sold to AT&T and everyone who was on Cricket’s CDMA signal has to switch over to AT&T’s GSM phones. I was on the edge about moving from my Samsung Galaxy Admire II. I knew that we still had 5 months before we would have to make the switch, decided to just go right ahead and not wait until the last minute. I made the change.For more on the Cricket AT&T AIO Merger.
I shopped for the best processor, lowest cost, most storage fastest boot/reboot.

My budget (this is the budget tech review website so deal with it) was to spend between $80-$150. My total cost was $75.78 that covered the phone and my first month on the Cricket/AT&T GSM network.
First app I noticed was a task manager that none of my previous Android phones had, without me having to root the Sonata. Next thing I found is I can move apps to the SD to save storage space on the phone, and yes completely without having to root the phone.

Camera
Disappointing that I didn’t notice there was no front facing camera. but if you need a selfie, you can do a shelfie. Just set the timer (click the gear in camera mode you will see it) and set the camera to 3,5,10 seconds and back up and pose. When done, crop the image.This works well with my case that came with a stand. but again, it takes a whole lot of pictures before you get one decent photo. A BUNCH OF PHOTOS.
Screenshot_2014-09-24-21-51-56
There was much more to learn. So I had to dig into the camera and see what it is capable of.
First 10 photos came out very poor.
I even tried a few of my best tricks. Like hold the phone braced firmly against a tree or a wall or rested on a table. Still blurry.
I tried a few changes in the setting but everything by default was set up to the best settings.
The zoom… the zoom was like the first issue of android. A slider bar at the bottom of the screen. No pinch zoom.
The video camera shoots at very high resolution and the slider zoom feature is great. but clunkier and has a bad focus rate as compared to pinch zoom cell phone cameras.
Do not shoot video footage of concerts. The audio is horrendous. The audio/noise filters (maybe???) seem to try too hard to cancel noise and you are left with what sounds like a concert in a wind storm. Here is a comparison of the Sonata ZTE Z740G camera verses iPhone 4s camera.

Actual phone function
Sounds are clear. When people speak you hear everything they say and no one ever asks you to repeat yourself. No chop in audio at all.

Video play back
This phone has the clearest video I have seen as of yet. Loads all sorts of sites and I didn’t have to load any apps to the phone. No plugins needed. Just right out of the box loading every video on Reddit and Facebook I would stumble into. There is a download button on one of the video players . This lets you watch and download a lot of different videos.

Web Browser
Web browser on the ZTE Sonata is frustratingly jumpy. Pages keep loading and jumping all over the place. I suggest you install Opera or Opera mini. Either will be fine and solve this jumping issue. Forget all of the other cell phone web browser. Opera is the king of cell phone web browsers.

Video Games
Have not yet found a game that will make this phone stutter. Every game plays well.

Video display
The screen frustrates me. You have only one angle to view from. Move too high up and you lose visibility. Move too far right and the screen gets white and fonts are hard to read. Move left and screen gets super dark.

Battery life
Ehh nothing special. battery drains just as fast as all of my other phones. You get around 8 hours of battery life if you don’t touch your Sonata. Play any games or browse Reddit or Facebook, you’ll be on the charger in under an hour, completely drained in 2 hours.

Resources
Not understanding this. The ZTE Sonata seems to not handle resources very well. I don’t see anything lagging or stuttering, but looking at the task manager, the Sonata seems to always be using more than half of it’s R.A.M., even if I go through the task manager tabs to disable applications.

Reception

The phone picks up a great signal and nearly never is without a signal. but this is AT&T so we are looking at dropped calls seemingly for no reason what-so-ever.

Function
Along with dropped calls, there is a constant need to reboot. Called Cricket and they told me to just pull the sim card out and replace it. Me being a person who has been on AT&T (who owns Cricket now) a few times, I know better than to do this. You will wear out that sim card pretty quick. The main trick is to get you to do a full shut down and take the battery out for a few seconds (go ahead and leave it out for about a minute) and replace the battery then reboot. This does it for you nearly every single time. No logic in taking the sim card out at all.

Final overall
IMHO this is a decent phone. Looks and feels like a strange knock off of the Samsung Galaxy Admire II.
ZTE_Sonata
The back button is in an unusual (sort of stupid) spot, unless you are left handed. In fact a few things about this phone would be beneficial to lefties. Like the power connector. If you are right handed and use the phone for wide screen while on the charger, the cable points straight up. So you are battling the power chord.
App shortcuts keep disappearing. Constantly. but they might just be the apps that have been moved to the sd card. and this could be during updates.

Review score of ZTE Sonata:
Cost: 10/10
Camera: 3/10
Display: 3/10
Video Playback: 10/10
Battery life: 7/10
Resource life: 5/10

Total Score of the ZTE Sonata: 6/10

 

 

**update**

Programs are crashing left and right. This thing loses wifi constantly. I get notifications of apps closing like every 20 minutes. I just turn the thing off when I am at work so I am not looking at phone every 3 minutes. There was an update about the same time the Starbucks app updated and everything crashed so I think it is an overall issue with the phone and whatever default programs are on it, one of them updated and is causing complications with other apps. because it isn’t just the Starbucks app crashing.

The camera is a bit better than I expected, there are tons of settings in the menu area, from iso to saturation to contrast setting. This camera is great really.
Dark settings ISO 1600
Bright settings ISO 60
Turn everything in the “image” section down to 1/3 or a tad bit less. Adjust accordingly with location and lighting.
sonata_camera_settings
Default image save file type is .png

Mycrk.it Text message

Posted onAuthorTruXter1 Comment

No way I would click a random link, so I took it to my pc and typed in the address from the text message. got a redirect to a legit page on Cricket’s website
which had this video in it.

as we all know, the company that owns cricket is called “leap Wireless” and the company that owns AIO is AT&T. and we all know that AT&T just purchased LEap Wireless, that is why the merger of AIO and Cricket is on going now.
Basically, Cricket people if you go in, you will need to change your plan.
Aio people, will not need to change their plan.

Knowing Aio and Cricket are now owned by AT&T…
Everytime I find a good cell company, AT&T buys them out. Eventually I have to go in and trade my phone for a phone compatible to their signal. and they always offer me “a great deal” where they give me a phone at the “same value” as my previous phone… which means that if I bought my phone in a discount sale at $29, they give me their current $29 phone.. Basically… I have to downgrade drastically because a smart company does not have a decent phone on sale at that time. or a voucher for $29 off of a phone, and all sales will be crap phone.

Count on that big ol brick phone being offered for the value of your current phone.

They have done this to me twice now.

My first phone was AT&T and it wasn’t even good enough to be a nokia brick. It had a metal antenna and couldn’t even play snake. AT&T charged me $120 for that phone. So I later found some off brand company local to my area that was offering new $175 nokia phones if we trade our AT&T phone and pay $25. or something close. so I pounced on it and grabbed one. one month later I am standing in line at AT&T trading my phone in because they merged with the company that stole me away. What did they give me? A phone the size of my shoe.
I couldn’t get a signal anywhere. I called and asked for help and repeatedly got told “hmm that’s odd, no one else is complaining, pay $85 with your insurance and you will get a replacement for that exact model phone”.  So I started looking for a new company. I found the one that had that blue alien with the football shaped head and a snorkel on top. Primco… Finally got my first flip phone. It was gold, made by audiovox. Pretty slick looking. Paid $29 for it. with in a year, AT&T bought them up and ……BAM… same stupid Nokia brick..

Here it is after 14 years of swearing I would never go back to AT&T…. They bought out Cricket.

Why Microsoft is pushing windows 8

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

Though the world would like to use windows 7 and continue running their computers the way they are used to , and continue being familiar with their desktops and computing atmosphere.

Microsoft will not let that be the option. they will pay all of the cnets and zdnets and mashables and verges to do reviews that say how fantastic some stupid function is.. like siri and it’s ability to misspell on apple products (dif company same tactics) . Bad pr is still pr.
They will make you want that one stupid tiny function so bad, you will settle for the assream the rest of the o/s has.. and it will be so idiotic, like mine sweep will have purple background… or something useless.

Why does Microsoft want to go this route? Why does Microsoft want to go the “apps’ route and touch screen and big puffy buttons?

because the apple and Microsoft court case where Microsoft had to prove they were not ripping off apple, and Microsoft was just a software company.. not a computer company. so the courts forced Microsoft to agree to never make computers.

Now Microsoft is in the telephone and tablet business.
When they bought Nokia, they confirmed it.
because they aren’t computers. They can’t make computers.. but they can make tablets.
as long as they don’t call them computers.

but this is just Microsoft rolling back to the windows 3.01 look. Minus Program manager.

Prescription Benifits spam scam text message

Posted onAuthorTruXter19 Comments

scam text message I received . I do not recommend that you call or text or even come close to responding to this.

 

Got a text today from 1-832-544-5761 saying

Your Pharmacy prescription benefits information. status aprovedbin: 900020 PC Claimne group:10349 Plan ID:Mimne Member#: 13741199 Present previous information to pharmacist for immediate service U.S. RXCard Customer Service 866-421-3247 Call Customer Service to request cards to be mailed

This is a scam text message do not call do not respond, you will be charged

Here is a phone site talking about the phone number they listed