Answers and advice from a geek who knows stuff
If you own an iPhone 3G as I have for several months, then you’re probably used to a daily battery charging routine. Here are some tips to extend your battery life.
Question: How do I change the ring tone on my RAZR phone, and also how do I set a different ring tone for each of the contacts in my phone (so a different ring tone plays for each person in my address book)?
If a picture can tell a thousand words, then a video can be even more effective on your blog or website. You can add your favorite YouTube video to your blog by following these easy steps.
Most USB ports are located on the back side of your computer, and are about 5/8-inch wide and 1/4-inch tall. Here’s what it looks like…
Hi Ricky, I need to find an electrician near me in the Beaverton, Oregon area. Who do you recommend?
I recently posted a write up about how I used my Motorola Razr as a bluetooth modem for my laptop, which let me surf the web on the way to work each morning. Well, sort of… it was extremely slow! Remember how slow 28.8k dialup modems used to be? This setup was even slower, and dropped the connection ever few minutes.
And to make matters worse, I discovered during the second week that Cingular doesn’t actually allow their MediaNet plan to be used in this way. They officially require tethered internet traffic to use one of their “data plans”, which costs $59.99 a month for unlimited internet usage.
After insisting on a full refund from AT&T (after all, it was on the advice of their sales rep that I purchased the MediaNet plan in the first place), I upgraded to their unlimited data plan and bought a Sierra Wireless AirCard 875u (USB Data Card with broadband speeds).
I’m riding the bus home as I write this, using the Aircard to connect my laptop to the internet. It’s smoking fast!
I performed a speed test using http://www.speedtest.net, and registered about 1.8 Mbps download speeds (it’s rated at up to 3 Mbps). That’s faster than my company’s T1 LAN connection, and I don’t have to worry anymore about trying to find a wifi hotspot. It’s always connected, wherever there’s cell phone coverage.
Question: I traveled a lot in 2009 and am wondering if my rewards miles and hotel points will carry over into 2010?
Answer: Yes and No – Redeemable miles roll over but miles that were accrued towards elite status do NOT roll over.
The miles you accrued for redeeming flight rewards will carry over into the next year, and your elite/preferred status will also be retained through 2010. So you’ll be able to redeem miles for free tickets and will enjoy your flight status benefits throughout 2010.
However, you must earn enough elite qualifying miles on the program in 2010 to retain your preferred status into 2011 – and your elite point account balance will be reset to zero at the start of each new year.
So if you don’t fly as much this year in 2010, then you’ll lose your elite/preferred status for 2011.
Last year I racked up some decent frequent flier miles on the United Star Alliance program and also with Alaska Airlines (which includes Delta, and Northwest Airlines).
The elite qualifying miles I earned towards on United’s mileage plan in 2009 were reset to zero miles on Jan 1st, 2010. Meaning I’ll need to fly a full 50,000 miles to retain my Premier Executive status into 2011.
The same thing happened for Alaska, although it took a couple of weeks for the reset to happen (so initially I thought they were going to roll over the miles). That turned out to NOT be the case however, as you can see from the screen shot of my account balance showing that I’ll need to fly a full 20,000 miles to retain my MVP status into 2011.
