Saving Companies Thousands. Be One!

In Japan there is a cell phone culture called Ketai Culture. They have several things on their cell phones that we would not normally consider as a normal option. Some phones have pedometers, crime prevention buzzers, and many other things. The culture is so intense over there  that half of their top selling books are written on cell phones and many are read on phones as well.

I wanted to mention QR Codes. What is a QR Code? It is very similar to a bar-code, but when you take a picture of it, the QR Code will direct you to a URL. In Japan many movie posters have them (which direct you to the movies website or viral site), grocery items have them, and even business cards will direct you to the company or employees website.

If our tech/cell phone culture continues to boom here, I think this is something that Americans will start taking more advantage of. Imagine, being able to research almost everything you see, just by taking a picture of the QR Code. That would be awesome! They are currently testing it out in San Francisco where the QR Code will direct you to a Citysearch website for restaurants and shops. It seems like San Francisco is the spot for all the awesome stuff to be tested.

Many customers that walk through our doors day in and day out ask for a phone that is tough or rugged. People need the toughness for different reasons; they are in a line of work where the phone could get damaged, they are very hard on their phone, their phone is prone to more clumsiness than others, or they have a small child. I personally think the most dangerous is children.

We are seeing more phone manufacturers listen to this need and make military spec phones. And there are other great companies like Otterbox which has made my Blackberry 8830 “Baby Proof”. Now both options are great for durability and toughness, but I really feel that a 3rd party case like the Otterbox will protect your phone more.

There are great military spec phones that are on the market, or still available to order. One of the phones I recommend the most is the Sanyo 7050. Sanyos are normally known for their durability and great reception, but adding some rubberized casing and covers in choice places, really elevates it beyond most phones. Verizon has the Casio G’Zone phones which are great, and I have known a lot of customers that have had great results with them. Sprint IDEN (Walkie-Talkie) phones are usually know for durability, and the new Sprint “NDC” phones look to follow in their footsteps.

The point is do not be afraid to ask for what you want. Durability and strength does not have to be ugly in phones and Motorola, Samsung, and LG are all starting to make more durable and better looking phones. And if you are like me and NEED a Blackberry the folks at Otterbox have you covered, or visit and of our locations and pick one up.

As many of you know we are CRAZY for Blackberry devices. They are really well made products and have a really intuitive interface that is extremely efficient. We feel most business customers could save an hour a day with a Blackberry and we wanted to let you know about some shortcuts that should make it a little easier.

Something I didn’t know how to do was calling a number like 1-800-GOOG-411. Sure, I can look at a regular phone and find GOOG is 4664, but I do not always have one right in front of me. With the Blackberry I can hold the ALT button down and type GOOG. When I dial it will automatically place the numbers in for me. Another cool thing I have learned is when you are in your pictures you can type N to go the next picture, P for previous, I to zoom in, O to zoom out, and R to rotate.

There are so many shortcuts it is crazy. A couple other things that are really awesome; You can press the spacebar twice to insert a period and automatically capitalize the next letter. I find when I am on my desktop I space twice at the end of a sentence wishing it would do this for me.  The last cool tip I will leave you with is when you are typing an e-mail address press the spacebar to add the @ sign and press again to add the period for the .net or .com.  Any questions contact us.

I was reading an article on one of my favorite tech blogs Gizmodo and they were taking a poll on whether you love, hate, or do not care about push e-mail. For those of you who do not know what push e-mail is, it is basically your phone retrieving e-mails from the server for you. The results are what I thought; 40% love (whether they use it a lot or not), about 20% feel they need to stay on top of things, 20% do not need, and about 20% hate.

When it comes to push e-mail Blackberry is still the king. They did a side by side comparison with the iphone and it takes the iphone approximately 5 times longer to receive their e-mails. Now I am currently on an Exchange Server hosted by Rackspace, and I only get my work e-mails on my Blackberry. It can be very annoying if you have G-Mail or Yahoo Mail, because the push e-mail may deliver 30 spam messages at 4 in the morning ( I know because it happened to me and my wife was not happy).

Many small and medium businesses out there thrive because they can stay on top of their customers needs. Push e-mail really helps that. If you have another device it can be very draining on the battery life since it is constantly trying to retrieve the info. The Blackberry servers deliver the info to your phone. If you have not tried a Blackberry try one out. If you are a business owner take The Smartphone Challenge and see what an extra hour of productivity a day can do for you!

I recently read on Crackberry that mobile users pay an average of 15.9% tax on their cell phone bills. This is a super huge amount. As a retailer we want to take care of our customers and give them a close approximation for their bill, but with mobile taxes rising so much it is hard to do. We know every penny counts now and we would like to help you save money.

Sometimes we get started on a plan that is not the best for us and we stay with it for years because we do not know of any better options. It is so hard to go to your carriers website and wade through the pages and pages of information you do not need to find what you need. Not only that, but there are other things that can save you money based on your mobile habits. Let us take a look at your bill, tell us your habits and let us show you an immediate savings! If you call 411, save your money and call 1-800-GOOG-411. There are so many ways to save out there its crazy.

We save companies thousands, that is what we pride ourselves in. We also pride ourselves in taking care of our customers like nobody else and saving our customers money. If you have any questions contact us, or if you are in the area visit one of our stores and let us help you out.

I grew up in El Paso, so naturally many of my friends and acquaintances live there. Well like many other people have done, I finally left the nest. I was so concerned to not lose my phone numbers I gave my wife the task of writing down all the numbers I had in my phone and her phone onto one big list. There has to be an easier way right? The good news is there is.

Depending on what phone and carrier you have you have a few options. Some of you that read this know I have a Blackberry with Exchange provided by Rackspace. Even though all my contacts stay in my Outlook, I like to back my data up using Desktop Mananger. This will keep all my contacts, games, ringers, and so on in a safe place. I also have Sprint which offers a wireless contact backup. When you enter a new contact into your phone it will synchronize with an online account you could retrieve later if needed. Verizon offers a version of it called Backup Assistant. ATT also offers their own flavor of the product.

So, I think doing this saves a lot of headaches and a lot of time. Not only that, but you have the peace of mind knowing your numbers will be there when you need them. It does not matter if you are a CEO of a huge business or my grandma this are useful services. So check it out and as always if you have any questions let us know.

I get asked a question that seems simple enough quite often, “Why can’t I use my (current carrier’s cell phone) with my new (cell phone carrier’s) account?” The answer is fairly simple; cell phone manufacturers make certain phones for certain carriers. Now that may sound strange, but most carriers use a different signal which means they need a different internal radio to pick up that signal.

There are a few other things some carriers do to prevent this from happening. One thins some carriers do is pay manufacturers a certain amount to money to have a specific phone exclusively. There are some phones that most carriers have like the Blackberry Pearl which not only have different radios, but have different software to create different user interfaces.

There is something you can do called unlocking a phone, which basically is when you a get a Verizon phone for example and reprogam it to work with Sprint. This in theory is a good idea and works really well for some, although there are a few issues with this method. The main issue may be losing the functionality of services the phone offers like GPS, Music Store, TV, and games. The reason you may not use them is because the Verizon software is designed to work with their applications and when you start using it on a different carrier you lose compatibility. So if you are in the market for a new phone, do your research and really find what you are looking for, or you could contact us and we will make a recommendation based on your needs.

I was thinking about what new technology or application could make our lives better? There are so many things out there and we like to tell you about the latest and greatest. Today I wanted to change it up and give you some advice on porting your number.  Porting does not mean you are close to the water it is when you take your number from one carrier to another.

Having been in the wireless industry for some time I have come to realize this is not the easiest process a customer could go through. There are things that happen that delay the process from 2 hours to 2 months ( I am not exaggerating). Most carriers need the same group of information;

• Account Number
• Telephone Number
• Name and Billing Address
• Passwords
• Full SSN

All the listed information has to match with the information your current carrier has. If your name is Alex Johnson and your carrier has you as Alx Johnson make sure that is made clear to the company you are going to.  I am hesitant to give my SSN out to people, but to ensure the port process goes smoothly it will be necessarry. Also, many people do not want to leave their home phone because they want to keep their number, it is your right to keep your number. So if you need any other help let us know!