a OtzarStock.com staff Blog

Virgin Mobile has this unbelievable plan of unlimited data & text and 300 minutes for just $25 a month. w/o a contract.

Like all “too good to be true” things, If by chance it is true, it doesn’t stay so for long, so they announced today that prices will be hiked up to $35/month. While still the lowest price in the USA to the best of my knowledge, it doesnt have to be that way…

Virgin Mobile will not up prices for current customers!

Even better, You can still open an account until July 19, and your price will stay @ $25/month.

Just thought I will give you guys a heads up.

Link to Virgin Mobile News Release

Its rarely that I get excited over something, but now I really am. I really think that this plugin takes wordpress to a new level all by itself. I was always thinking of something like this, now its finally here.

The plugin provides a simple drag and drop Loop and Query builder. Its not really the “Drag and Drop” that gets me excited, since I dont have a problem to get dirty with the code, its the possibility of changing the loop without changing the actual template files! No fear of upgrading the theme anymore (except when you make more serious changes, but that’s normal and acceptable). its the possibility too save loops and reuse them in different templates.

Now that’s separation of content and design that I can believe in.

check out the soon to be released WordPress plugin LoopBuddy.

http://pluginbuddy.com/loopbuddy-preview/

I must admit, I am a “Steve Jobs keynote” junkie. I am not very proud of it, I am no Apple fan at all, I never owned anything apple in my life, and still, I love watching his keynotes,  like few things else.

So I am just trying to watch this latest Steve Jobs keynote, but QuickTime is the crappiest piece of software I encountered in the last few years. I will dare to say it,  its even worse than Internet Explorer 5.

When I paused it, I was unable to restart it, So I had to start again from the beginning, But there is no way to move the timeline at all! So I wasn’t able to forward to the point I was before I paused, and  neither was I able to replay a misunderstood sentence.

I tried different machines, different browsers, including Apple’s own Safari, I even reinstalled QuickTime, but to no avail.

My only option now is to re watch again from the beginning, which I am not going to do. a quick Google search revealed that its not an isolated incident, Its the rule rather than the exception.

With all their awesomeness, which admittedly, sometimes borders with perfection, stuff like this shows you that they have their fair share of  flaws.

You should read it for yourself, its interesting and sad, especially for entrepreneurs, the typical path, dreams, hope, trying to figure it all out, and then, the cold reality.
http://blog.xmarks.com/?p=1886
But hey, it doesn’t seem over to me, it seems that they have some hope that this excellent letter will generate some serious money, or even better, some serious attention, it seems like a last minute effort, and a very clever one at that.
Still, I will consider making a pledge, and you should too, its one of the best services I use every day, its reliable and simple, I will miss it a lot.
They truly deserve another chance!

There have been plenty of rumors and wishful thinking, now we have solid proof.

Look at the picture, there is an empty spot with the word “Android” in it, no model info or any other details though.

This is hosted on cellmania.com a company that obviously  maintains virgin mobile’s web infrastructure , according to its About Us page “Cellmania drives mobile ecosystems for mobile operators, infrastructure providers and content owners.” On its front page it lists Sprint (Virgin’s mother company) as its customer.

So yeah, this is very exciting,  just imagine an Android phone with unlimited 3G Data for just $25/month and no contract… YES!

(I just hope they don’t hike the monthly price for Android owners, as it would use more data than dumb phones.(they currently charge additional $10/month for Black Berry)

Android on Virgin Mobile

It seems like we have a new cellphone carrier on our hands. well, not exactly,  they call it a “virtual carrier” (piggybacking on someones network). But still due the lack of competition in the US, it’s quite exciting.

So I just received this offer from Phonebooth (btw they offer a great free alternative to Google voice) about a unlimited  69/month plan.

It seems to be post paid (contract required) on the sprint network.

The only android phone they offer is a Hero, for  $149, which is last year technology, and could be found online (with a Sprint contract) for just about $40.

While you can get better prices with some prepaid companies, they do not offer android phones.

I know about the  Boost  Mobile Motorola  i1, but being on the iDEN network, with data speeds slower than dial up, its not even worth mentioning.

While the phone is not that exciting, I still like the way prices are going, that is down!

Phonebooth Mobile Hero

Hello, My name is Joey. I joined OtzarStock in ’09 as part of the web development team.

Sometimes we have some geeky stuff on our minds that we must unload, in order to get back to work, so we decided on opening this blog to share whats on our minds with our fantastic community.

Talk to ye soon.