Posts Tagged darth mobilus
The Root! The Root! The Root is on Fire!
Posted by Craig in general interest, grab bag on August 25th, 2009
I spent about sixty minutes last night rooting my T-Mobile G1 and it (so far) has been an unqualified success. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, I’ll explain.
The G1 is the first mobile phone to use the Google Android OS (operating system). The good news is that Android is open source and developers are free to to write whatever kind of apps they want for it. The bad news is that T-Mobile takes the OS and adds a bunch of junk to it and then releases updates for it in their own sweet time. Very similar to what Dell does with Windows. When you buy a computer from Dell, you get a Windows OS but it is a Dell modified version. That way you get all those annoying programs on your desktop when you start it up for the first time.
Rooting is the process of replacing the version of Android on a phone with a different version . There are all sorts of available versions from a number of different people with names like JesusFreke, The Dude’s Cupcake and Haykuro Builds. Some are highly volatile and not good for everyday phone use. Others are quite stable and provide an expanded group of features not available with the stock OS.
It’s a bit risky and if anything goes wrong you can’t go crying to T-mobile, you have to turn to the online community for help. But I am now liberated from the control of T-Mobile, setting up my phone the way I want and there is something to be said for that. It really isn’t any harder than upgrading the OS on a computer. If you are so inclined, I suggest you give it a try.
Interestingly enough, my wife wouldn’t let me near her phone. Chicken.
Schooled in the ways of the Force – Darth Mobilus
Posted by Craig in small business life on June 4th, 2009
Our mobile phone service provider, who for fear of additional reprisals I will call Darth Mobilus, is quite possibly the most inefficient and disorganized service providor in the history of telecommunications.
We recently upgraded our phones and service plan and every bill since then has required a minimum of two hours of my time to straighten out. On our last bill they overcharged us to the tune of $180.00. When confronted with the charges, they were unable to offer a satisfactory explanation of said charges and refunded them all. I was given a new, correct total which I promptly paid. Three days later I received a text message saying my account was past due in the amount of $34.00. When I called to complain, they said that several credits that were supposed to be applied, were in fact not applied, and that they would put a hold on the past due notice for seven days to give the credits time to hit.
Today I received another message saying that I was past due. Again, I called and the woman in financial services apologized profusely, said I had $57.00 in credits that had not been applied and offered to transfer me to Room 101 where everything would be taken care of. The CSR from Room 101 promptly told me that I had no credits floating around waiting to hit, but that she would be happy to credit me for the $34.00 as a token of her immense affection for me and my continued patronage. When I asked her about the $57.00 credit I had and who would get to spend the $23.00 difference, she said “there are no credits.”
She actually tried to use the Jedi Mind Trick on me. ”I’m a Troydarian,” I replied, “mind tricks don’t work on me, only money.” She did not get it. Or she got it and her training in the dark arts is better than I anticipated. Fearing she might actually be able to force choke me through the phone, I said thanks and hung up.
Maybe I should have gone with a Jabba the Hutt quote instead of Watto. Until the next bill….
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