Old plaster walls yield no WiFi & little cell signal

Many of the places I lived in west Texas as a child had provisions for keeping chickens. I would never have thought of this problem back then. But, those places NEVER had plaster walls; they only had the wire in chicken coops.

"Take Back the Beep" Campaign

Frustrated by the time it takes to access your cell recorded messages left by others? Well, then, this article may allow you to vent and possibly affect how the phone carriers are doing business in that regard. The author, NYTimes writer David Pogue, tells of the obscene profits generated by all of us waiting 15 seconds or more to gain access to our messages or leave messages on another's service. Check it out!

Comments welcomed.

G-g-g-Google Phone? Going App and other news

Since we re-upped our 2-year sentence, er term of service with Verizon in December of 2007, we're out of this fray for a few more months. But, I've been following with some interest all the dust flying and dirt flung in the redesign and technology laid bare in the mobile phone industry doings of late. This new upstart (and I use the term rightly) sounds like it might have a leg up on competitors.

I know everyone isn't at all interested in using their phones for more than phone calls to family and friends (of course the old saw of "well, I only have it for emergency use on the road" has been laid to waste for all those having seen less than about 70-80 summers on this planet), so I offer this link and chance to comment open only for those who DO use their phones for more than the wire-line equivalent.

What really brought this to my attention was an off-the-cuff comment by a person that the killer app for this phone might be to use the camera to read bar codes put in front of the lens, then process the bar code, then look on-line for other local (or remote) retailers' prices to allow comparison shopping wherever bar codes are in the clear.

What say? The comment line is open.