Telecom Rebirth

Verizon Wireless just emailed me to let me know that a new bill has been issued on my account. Unfortunately, the bill is wrong.

I took a look at it an was appalled to see that they have overcharged me several hundred dollars. Mistakes like this really bother me, so I immediately sent them an email via their website:

My bill is wrong. I returned the mifi device to the store last monthand canceled the second line. I'm not paying the bill. I'm upset about this.

Since they've made the mistake once, I decided not to take my chances and called up and requested customer service. I spoke with someone who was trying to be helpful but I was not in the mood to do their job for them, so instead I requested they submit a trouble ticket and do the work themselves.

For the first time in the two years I've lived in Bethesda, Maryland, my Verizon Wireless mobile phone is unable to get a signal. My Droid X just has a red circle with a slash through it.

What's going on? Verizon Wireless has been the one service which hasn't let me down while I've lived here, and that really bugs me.

Anyone else experiencing this problem of no wireless service?

My Verizon Mobile

After a few days with my new Droid X, I was notified that an update was available for the "My Verizon Mobile" application.

I updated it, and until today I kept getting "Your mobile number could not be validated, please try again".

I usually would just give up, but today I kept trying to launch it and it finally opened up. Its actually not a bad little app - I used it to change my plan today and it seems to be working fine.

Audible Ringtones Broken by Enabling Smart Profile / Put Phone Face Down to Switch to Vibrate

Ringtones on my Droid X no longer work and the phone will only vibrate for incoming calls, and I was able to confirm that this at the Motorola website, where a page reads:

"If you activated either of your smart profile settings "Double tap to silence" or "Face down to vibrate" from the Sound and display settings menu, your audible ringtones might be come disabled and your handset will only vibrate. This behavior will be corrected in an upcoming software release. If you activated the smart profile and your ringtones are no longer working, you can try this workaround or ultimately, you may will need to perform a factory data reset to clear your handset and restore factory defaut settings back to your phone."

That is incredibly lame!! I tried the workaround several times and it did not work.

I read a lot of forum threads about this and tried several different fixes, and FINALLY I was able to get my ringtones back.

These are the two most common fixes I read about:

Call Phone, Flip Over and Back Without Answering, Hang Up, Then Call Back Fix

Courtesy of "Cutenoob" and Motorola support: 1. Make sure that the "Smart Profile: Face Down" feature is enabled. 2. Hold the phone face up in your palm. 3. Call yourself from another phone. 4. As the phone is vibrating, DO NOT ANSWER. 5. Still holding the phone, flip the phone face down as it vibrates. 6. Then, flip the phone back over so that it's facing up. 7. End the call from the phone you are calling from.

Call Phone, Answer, Hold to Ear, Lay Flat, Wait for Vibrate, Hang Up, Then Call Back Fix

Courtest of "Matt" from Motorola:

1. Get into another voice call. Call yourself from another phone if you need to, but you can do it on your next incoming call, too.
2. Answer the phone.
3. Trigger the proximity sensor by putting the X to your ear during in the call, or by covering the top right corner of the face of the phone with your hand. The phone face should go black. Once it has turned black, that's enough. It doesn't have to stay blacked out any longer.
4. Now, put the X on its back so that the TOP of the phone is level - the screen is level. That means you can't use the table and just lay the phone down, because the camera hump will keep the phone from being level on the front.
5. When you hit that "flat front" sweet spot, you will feel a short vibrator pulse. This means the ringer is back on. You can now end the call (from either side of the call).

In my experience, neither of these were working, so I un-installed every application I had installed, then re-calibrated the compass (which took awhile, and at first I didn't click the re-calibrate button before spinning the phone on each axis).

After that, I tried again, it still didn't work, but then I turned the phone off, then on again, repeated the answer method, and it worked!

Ugh, I am looking forward to Froyo!

This, in my humble opinion, is just another obnoxious junk phone caller randomly phishing for suckers!

Dear Subscriber:

Wanted to let you know you were just left a 0:25 long message (number 14)
in mailbox 7816952060 from "Red Lodge    MT" <4064263277>, on Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 01:46:21 PM so you might want to check it when you get a chance.  Thanks!

No thanks, please don't call back.

After a tough decision making process, I said goodbye to the Novatel MiFi 2200. It was definitely a nice product, but given that with the Motorola Droid X I can get 2GB of 3G Mobile Hotspot action, it was a "no-brainer".

So, after a $35 "re-stocking" fee, I was free of the next two-year commitment and $40 / month for a measly 250MB of bandwidth.

Certainly, the Droid X's 3G Mobile Hotspot will run down its battery, so I'll have to keep it tethered to my laptop, which will in turn run down my laptop's battery.