Leon’s Blog

About 3 years ago I switched my cellular service from Cingular to Verizon Wireless because I was very unhappy with the customer service from Cingular. I continued to hear that Cingular and now AT&T were always scoring very low when it came to customer service. Especially last year after the rollout of the iPhone caused many customers to have to wait an unacceptable amount of time to get their phones activated. Well, apparently, AT&T is finally doing something about it.

About 6 months ago I switched back to AT&T because I wanted the AT&T Tilt phone and I also received a discount from my work, which lowered my monthly phone bill about $30 compared to Verizon Wireless. Of course I was very concerned about the customer service, but from the very first day when I purchased my new AT&T Tilt phone I received nothing but outstanding customer service. My new phone was activated in 5 minutes and another 5 minutes later I was synchronized with my works exchange server. I had all my contacts, emails, and calendar appointments available on my phone 10 minutes after purchasing it. Kudos to Mikey, the AT&T rep that helped me out.

Fast forward a couple of months. I was leaving the states to go to Mexico for a week and wanted my phone setup for international roaming. So I called AT&T customer service and asked to have my phone activated to work in Mexico. The rep had me setup in under 5 minutes. Wow. I couldn’t believe how quick and friendly customer service was. Unfortunately, when I got back from Mexico and recieved my phone bill I noticed the charges were way too high. ‘Here we go’, I thought. I just knew that when I called customer service I was going to get a hard time.

Once again, I called the customer service number and quickly reached an operator after pressing 0 twice to get through the automated system. I explained the situation and the AT&T rep immediately apologized and said that they made the mistake when they setup the account for international roaming. I should have received the discounted rates instead of being charged the full rate. She credited my account for the difference and asked if there was anything else she could do. Nope. I was once again extremely pleased with the quick and friendly service.

Two months later my bill comes in and again I see additional roaming charges from my Mexico trip for $12.30 on my bill. I called customer service and once again explained my situation. The rep told me that the charges were posted to my account very late from the carrier in Mexico. As soon as I mentioned that I had a similar problem 2 months earlier he quickly stated that it was not a problem and that he would correct the charges. A minute later he credited my account $20 for all my troubles. THAT IS CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! I never complained and never expected anything like that. I was thoroughly surprised. Good Job AT&T. I hope you keep up the GREAT customer service. Thank You.

ATT Wireless Customer Service: 1-800-331-0500

I purchased the SlingMedia Slingbox just over a year ago and it has already saved me enough money to pay for itself. At first I planned to watch my local sports teams while I was on the road or on vacation from my laptop. Then it happened. My brother called me to let me know he would not be able to come over to watch the pay-per-view fight at my house and would have to pay to watch the fight at his house. Slingbox to the rescue!

Why and How I use my Slingbox?

I use my SlingBox to watch TV (mostly sports and sci-fi) on my laptop in my home office because I have no TV in my office.
I also enjoy watching the local news, or local sports like the Miami Dolphins when I am out of town.
Read my previous post on how I even use my slingbox to watch TV by my Pool and Spa.
How about watching pay-per-view movies on the road or at a friends house. My brother was able to save on the cost of ordering a pay-per-view boxing match by watching the fight via my slingbox on his computer, which is connected to his 50″ TV at his house. How cool is that? (Keep in mind Slingbox only allows one connection at a time) But this idea caught on quickly and I figured that I could pay back the cost of my slingbox after just a few pay-per-view shows by sharing or slinging it with friends and family.
Whenever I want or need to have access to a TV channel around the house or even outside with wireless wifi I can have it setup in seconds with my laptop.
And now that I can sling to my Treo phone I can watch TV anywhere and anytime I want! And it’s pretty great!

I’m not alone!

Kenric saved $54.95 with a slingbox a few weeks ago. Read his other great ideas on saving money with a slingbox.
Read how others are Slinging Around the World.
And don’t miss the Sling Community Forum to learn more about the slingbox.

Join the sling community and buy your very own Slingbox.

Sling Media’s Slingbox can be purchased at most major electronics stores such as: Circuit City, Best Buy, CompUSA, Amazon.com, SlingMedia.com, Walmart, Target, Office Depot, etc…

Slingbox Reviews:

• CNET - Editor’s Review
• Engadget - Great Pictures
• LiveDigitally - Debut Review
• Nino.Mobile
• Seopher
• Sprenzy - Slingbox Shopping Sprenzy Review
• Treocentral - #1 resource for the Treo Smartphone
• YouTube Review from BuyTV:
  

Take the Poll and leave a Comment.

What do you think about controlling your TV from anywhere in the world?

It was just over one year ago when I bought my Slingmedia Slingbox and started streaming my TV shows in my house and over the Internet. However, it wasn’t until just last week that I was able to stream that same video to my phone. Yep, I can watch live TV shows on my phone. And since I have a ReplayTV unit (just like TIVO but better in my opinion) I can watch my prerecorded shows on my Treo also. The best part is I don’t have to pay for a monthly service like MobiTV. Once you own the slingbox and the slingplayer watching TV is free on your phone (minus the data service charges - I recommend the unlimited data plan)

Here are the steps to get the SlingPlayer Mobile for Palm OS to work on your Treo650 Smartphone:

1. Download the SlingPlayer Mobile for Palm on to your Treo650
2. Purchase and install the Kinoma Player 4 EX - This version comes with the Treo 700+, but not the Treo 650
   (The Kinoma Player contains the kinomaVideoMPEG4Lib.prc and the kinomaAACLib.prc codecs that are required by slingplayer to work)
3. Turn off Bluetooth on the Treo650 - This prevents the Treo 650 from locking up (VERY IMPORTANT - hopefully this will be corrected in future releases)
4. Launch the SlingPlayerMobile and add your slingbox to your directory and connect to it

Thats it!
Thanks to the SlingCommunity for the tips to get this working on the Treo 650.

The reception and clarity is obviously not as good as the newer phones which take advantage of the higher speed networks but it still does work great. Just read the posts on the SlingCommunity forum and see what others are saying. It has been a year in the making but I am finally happy that I can sling my TV to my phone anywhere at anytime.

What about you? Do you sling to your phone? Let me know by leaving a comment.

 

I am relatively new to blogging and noticed over the past few months several posts with the title “Speedlinking: and the Date“. I had an idea of what it meant but I was curious to find a definition. I did a search on Google for “What is Speedlinking?” and I was surprised to NOT find a clear definition in the results. Then I tried Google Blog search, Yahoo!’s search, Microsoft Live search and many other search engines and still none of them had any definitions that jumped out at me. So, here is my definition of Speedlinking.

Speedlinking:

• What is it?
  Speedlinking, aka linking, blog-linking, or linkblogging is the practice of writing a brief post with hyperlinks to favorite websites or blogs. Usually the post will contain anywhere from 3 to 5 links and each link will be accompanied by a one line description and a one line personal opinion.

• Why do it?
  Many bloggers use this technique to quickly share links to blogs or websites that they found useful or relevant that day or week with their readers.
  Basically, it is a way to bring the growing community of bloggers closer together.
  I have come across speedlink posts that have more than 50 links. However, it is not a good idea to post that many links at once because it will be considered information overload and your readers will just skip over all of them.

• Who is doing it?
  Darren Rowse at ProBlogger.net
  Gleb Reys at PerfectBlogger.com
  Aaron Brazell at Technosailor.com
  Andrew Wee at WhoIsAndrewWee.com
  Glenn Wolsey at GlennWolsey.com

• Is it Dangerous?
  Only if you go too fast by linking sites that are not worth reading. In that case your blog may find itself alone on the Internet superhighway.
  And if that happens who cares how fast or how much you speed link, no one will be there to see it.
  Make sure the sites you link to are relevant and worth the time to read.

Calling for help. Leave me a comment if you want to add to the definition or have come across the origin of the term Speedlinking. I would also like to know if there are other terms with a similar definition or if speedlinking has other meanings than the definition above. Thanks.

A few weeks ago a co-worker of mine noticed that I was remote controlling my home PC from my work PC. I was accessing a spreadsheet on my home PC that I needed for work. When I told him that I setup the software for free and that it does not have any monthly or yearly fees, he was very interested. He tried several different programs but with different degrees of satisfaction. So I told him I would provide him instructions on how to do it on my blog and here it is. Click here to skip to the instructions.

There are many programs out there that provide remote control software for your PC such as GoToMyPC. It is advertised all over the place. I know many people who use GoToMyPC and it is a life saver for them. However, I am here to tell you that there are FREE ways to get remote control software to work on your PC. And I am not talking about FREE for the first 30 days only. The FREE software is just as powerful, easy, and safe to setup and use. It is just like sitting in front of the other PC.

Here are a few things you can do with Remote Control software:

• Work on your office PC from home or vice versa.
• Control your home PC from anywhere in the world.
• Transfer Files from and to the Remote Controlled PC.
• Remote Control your PC from a handheld computer such as a Palm Treo. (I do this all the time)
• Provide remote PC support for family and friends (I do this all the time also - beats traveling to their house or walking them through problems over the phone)

What is UltraVNC?

UltraVNC is free software that is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. For a history of where VNC came from and how it works click here. UltraVNC allows you to virtually connect to another PC and remote control that PC over a network including the Internet. It is just like sitting in front of the other PC. If you do find this software useful donate to the developers by clicking on the button above so that they can continue to enhance the program and provide even more useful features in the future.

What is No-IP.com?

No-IP.com started out in 1999 by providing Dynamic DNS and web redirecting services using free domains they provided. Today their services have expanded to include email solutions, DNS registration, dynamic and static DNS services and much more. If you look closely you will notice that this blog is being hosted at leonmink.com/blog. This is my No-IP.com address and it is pointing to my home PC. You too can setup a blog on your home PC. But I will leave that to a future post.

You can find the updated Setup PC Remote Control page in the left banner under Pages.