Learning Cell Phones

Interested to learn that on Verizon you can activate any cell phone on any line by simply dialing *228 on the phone you want to activate and entering the phone number to put it on and the account billing PIN. Makes it easy! You could keep your old phone as a backup and activate it at will. There's a pretty useful feature that escapes most users.

So now I am using my part-fish phone with continued amazement, because it is more capable in addition to being more submersible...

Swimming with the Fishes -- Three Weeks! ...

A call comes in last night asking if I lost a cell phone. Well, yes I did... while biking to the local country club [to scavenge lost balls]. The phone rang on that ride so I knew I still had it two miles from home, but didn't notice it missing until the 8 mile turnaround. That was three weeks ago, and every nice day since then I've been retracing the six miles of that route finding nothing but more golf balls. I had ads in Craig's List and notified the lost and found at the club. I finally was resigned that some kid probably found it and decided to dissect it for educational purposes -- something that I might have done as a kid. Finally, I replaced it with a $35 Pixi Plus not trusting myself with a $400 like-kind replacement.

Now, this caller had news that his daughter found it a few days ago at the bottom of a stream that I cross at about the three-mile-mark. I knew the bridge and stream he was referencing, but that meant that the phone fell from its case on the bike on the bridge, landed in the water and sat immersed in that stream for three weeks! Huh? Well they placed it in a box of rice to dry it out and charged it up. IT WORKED. They brought up the owner's ID and got my main phone number. So a kid did indeed find it in that stream, but was responsible enough to apply proper electronics resuscitation and find the owner.

So I pick it up from their house across from the stream, and incredibly found that everything seemed to work. The only evidence of its excursion: a little discoloration on the back, and a couble of tiny dents in the screen protector. Functionally, it seems perfect. How far this goes beyond my wildest dreams! The enduro champ of all this: the Verizon HTC Incredible. They might want to change its name to the Indestructible or the Impenetrable or the iSubmersible. :-)

Cell Phone Service on the Cheap

Too good to be true? I intend to find out... Cell service on the Verizon towers, for $2.50 per month for 100 minutes of talk time over a four month period. At this price you should turn off the phone's wireless data function, but still use the WiFi service in its place. Pretty amazing if it works.

Buy a no-contract Palm Pixi Plus at Amazon for $37. [Prices will fluctuate. I have since seen this up to $50]

http://www.amazon.com/Palm-Pixi-Plus-Verizon-Phone/dp/B004IPAC10/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318619488&sr=8-1

Activate it on PagePlus on the prepaid $10 for 100 minute for 4 months plan after turning off the wireless data feature.

http://www.pagepluscellular.com/default.aspx

The result is a nearly-full-fundtion smartphone, with a good selection of apps. Voice coverage is Verizon.
Data works on WiFi only.