I assumed this issues would be resolved with the iPhone 4. I was decidedly wrong. If anything, the frequency of problems has increased to an annoying degree. My bottom line: The iPhone 4 isn’t worth getting married to AT&T for another two years. No chance.

So, I’m currently rockin’ my old 3G (but won’t update to the iOS 4.0+). I’m going to sit on the sidelines, free of any contract from AT&T, pay on a monthly basis and watch the market. The Internet is buzzing about other iPhone carriers so that is where I’m going to focus my attention. I may give the Verizon Droid HTC Incredible a spin but aren’t sure. Rumor has it T-Mobile may get the iPhone before Verizon? We’ll see. Verizon iPhone in January next year? Possibly but I’m not holding my breath.

Apple has also said it will accept returns from iPhone 4 owners who don’t want their phone any longer. This situation and that offer represent a unique confluence in the smart phone market — something that provides an unusual “out” of a standard two-year contract. Since owning the iPhone 4, I’ve encountered a few dropped calls, calls going directly to voice mail, and weak signal strength. I do enjoy the capability of the phone as a device but when I need it to access the Internet or actually use it as a phone, I sometimes run into issues.

Thus, I would describe myself as someone who is seriously looking to jump ship and leave the Apple camp. With this purchase and subsequent offered return, owners of the iPhone 4 can stroll back into an Apple store, return the phone and opt-out of the two-year AT&T contract with little hassle and certainly no early termination fee. That is something to ponder if you, like myself, are considering a move to an HTC Android.

I purchased my iPhone 4 around 3pm local time. The sales rep “activated” the phone using a Mac in the store, then told me there were some issues with phone activation but it shouldn’t be much of an issue. I left the store with my old iPhone 3G still working and my new iPhone 4 without service.

About 20 minutes after leaving the store, my old iPhone 3G lost service. I figured, “Ah, the network is transitioning from the old to the new phone.” However, three hours later, still no service on either phone. I was in the proverbial cone of silence!

I searched online and found some tweets from other people saying they had no service either. I noted one particular tweet from hwatkins which suggested people without service should call AT&T at 866-895-1099. I called.

I spoke with Lisa, a nice gal who, after 25 minutes of researching, said she could not find any issues and passed me to tech support. Tech support specialist Jennifer went right to the heart of the issue and had me remove the SIM card from the right side of the phone and read that SIM number to her. She asked me to replace the SIM card back in the phone. As soon as I did, the phone activated and I was back in business.  She claimed not to have done anything with the network but simply reinserting the SIM was the fix.

One small note: Jennifer asked me to use the SIM removal tool which, “should have come in the box.” I looked but found no tool She recommended any narrow tipped device and suggested a paper clip. I used the paper clip but it was tedious and not exactly simple. Use the paper clip at your own risk.

I recently had troubles with my main hard drive and decided to do some research into finding a replacement. I’ve read about SSDs and how quickly they read and write information but was hesitant. I’ve read some reports indicating SSD setup is a hassle, non-intuitive, and one had better know what they are doing before jumping in. I decided to jump in anyway.

After replacing an ailing hard drive with the Intel X25 G2, I’ve been blown away. I’m so completely impressed with this tech that I swear I will never build a system again without an SSD as the primary OS and application drive. Sure, I have a second drive for large files like music, downloads, gaming, and related good but my primary applications all reside on the SSD.

Now my system boots up in probably 15 seconds instead of 30. My desktop loads with 5 seconds, including all my MR programs. Before, I’d hear my hard drive chugging along, trying to read and load all those resident programs but no longer. Everything loads within seconds, and I hear no drive complaining. The SSD is a difference maker and if you’re considering jumping and doing a poor-man’s upgrade, this is the fastest way to see a significant upgrade in day-to-day performance.

1. Highlight and copy the following text (CTRL-C):
   GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
2. Right-click on your Windows 7 desktop (any version) and highlight New then Folder.
3. A folder will appear on the desktop called New folder but notice the folder name is highlighted.
4. Now simply CTRL-V to paste the GodMode text into the new folder name. The new name looks long and funky but fear not, the next step fixes it.
5. Hit the Enter key and watch the folder icon be replaced with the control panel icon. You’re done.

Enjoy the goodness that is the GodMode folder in Windows 7. Interesting little Easter egg and something to remember. Want to thank Crapgame for giving me the heads up. Great widget.

I have an HP Media Server which is running out of space. As a network server, the system has four e-SATA drive bays and only one is full. I’m close to filling up that 750GB drive with backups and other goodies and realized I needed another drive for the new year. I check around Newegg, found a very nice drive, added it to my cart but waffled on the purchase…

Now, before adding it to my cart, I logged in to Newegg and then nosed around. When the drive was added, the shopping cart was associated with my account. The drive was $75 (for a Western Digital 750GB, 32MB cache monster) but I decided now is not the time. That was last night.

Today, I receive an email from Newegg saying there is an incomplete order in my cart and to “take advantage of this super saver deal!” No sure what was going on, I checked my cart and found the hard drive, previous listed at $75 was dropped to $60 with an “Instant Savings” coupon. Huh? Their software automatically created a savings, sent an email and, sure enough, I bought the drive.

The message? If you want to buy something from Newegg and want a better deal, get some stuff in your shopping cart (after logging in) and wait a day or two — see if you get a super saver deal as well.

Clearly I’ve been paying too much for my account and not using the minutes so I called AT&T and wanted to reduce my plan. Initially, the AT&T rep said when they lowered my plan, I would lose the entire roll-over balance. I had barely raised a fuss when the rep anticipated my concern and said she would take care of it. Sure enough, they changed my plan, and sent me verifiable information regarding their assurance I could keep my roll-over minutes. Conclusion: lower monthly plan and a pool of minutes to draw upon. AT&T has one moderately happy customer. Now if they could fix that 3G network.

I’ve been rockin’ a Apple Power Mac for about five years but that system is showing its age. I’ve already replaced the hard drive once, the CD tray doesn’t work, and, truth be told, it isn’t even an Intel CPU … it is the old G5. Yeah, it’s that old.

I’ve considered saving my pennies to buy an iMac (I don’t need a second tower, they are dreadfully expensive) but I want a large screen. The older iMac’s have either a 20″ or 24″ screen but I always drooled over the 30″ which is the holy grail of monitors; however, it is just too large. But Apple just released a stunning new product.

The new Apple iMac system comes with better than a 3 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM, a 1 TB hard drive (are you kidding??) and this all-in-one system comes wrapped around a gorgeous 27″ screen! Apple has always produced innovative products but this one has landed at a perfect time. My G5 is on its last legs, the iMac is incredible and has won me over. First thing I did was print out an image of the system and pinned it to my bulletin board. Can’t remember the last time I did that.

So, if you are looking for a new system and don’t want to mess with a PC, check out the Apple iMac with their revolutionary new screen size. I recommended an Apple iMac to a family member on the East Coast, and she loves it. Hard to deny just how good Apple products are.

For some reason, when I switched to Windows 7, my power management options didn’t seem to work; specifically the sleep option. Since installing Windows 7, the computer would sleep but when I tried to bring it out of sleep (by tapping the space bar), the monitor power button color would shift from orange (sleeping) to green (active video signal) but nothing would appear on screen. No prompt, no image, nothing. Frustrated, I looked around, searching the Internet for a fix but besides updating the BIOS, and a host of third party applications, nothing worked. When waking from sleep, I would be forced to reboot the system. At least that was until earlier today.

I was delving into the advanced functions for Windows 7 Power Management and found an obscure setting which resolved the wake-up-but-not-really problem.

Go to Control Panel, then Power Options and Change plan settings on whatever energy plan you’re using (balanced, power, etc.). That will bring up another window.

Now click on Change advanced power settings which will bring up the following window:

First, click on the Change settings that are currently unavailable and then change Require a password on wakeup setting from the default setting Yes to No. Click OK and your problems should be fixed. Let me know if it helps.