How to Keep Your Unlimited Data on Verizon

So it is no big surprise that the most valuable cell phone data plan that you can have now is an old grandfathered unlimited data plan. With "Share Everything" Plans, Verizon wants you to think that a tiny bucket of data shared amongst a couple of lines is a really great plan. On the onset you might even appear to save some money. However, as more people get onto LTE phones like the Apple iPhone 5 or the Galaxy S 4 and off of the Verizon's antiquated and slow 3G network, people are going to realize something that I've known for a long time already; having super fast internet on your phone is really awesome. The problem is, I don't know anyone that saved money on the new plans AND didn't have to change their browsing habits. Shutting your phone off when you get close to your data limits, or hunting down free WiFi isn't exactly something that the sales rep at Verizon tells you when you first sign up for the new plans. There is a way to save your Verizon unlimited data though and it isn't that hard.

Saving your Verizon Unlimited Data involves a couple of things. Either you pay the full price of a new phone, buy one used, or use my trick. Those are  your only three options.

Buying a new phone off contract means you go to Verizon and pay the $650 or MORE for a new phone. Nothing affects your contract since you are not having Verizon paying the majority of your phone off for you. The same applies if you go and buy an used phone off of eBay or swappa.com. As long as Verizon isn't paying off part of your phone your contract isn't affected at all, and you keep your unlimited data.

You can get a new phone on Verizon, pay the cheaper on contract price and keep your unlimited data, and here's how.

Infinite Lives in Candy Crush Saga

Just don't patch in my cheats for Candy Crush

Does Candy Crush Saga have you wanting to kill kittens and set fire to orphanages? Well there's a quick and dirty way to get your fill of lives in Candy Crush Saga! Read on to find out a couple of ways to extend your playing session in Candy Crush Saga.

Candy Crush is by and large a very addicting game, and it is currently the number one game on Facebook, Android and iOS. Hahaha, I actually don't know that for a fact, but I do know that this is one of the most played games that I have seen in quite some time. I am totally hooked and that says a lot; I am kinda a snob when it comes to games.

So what makes Candy Crush so appealing to so many people? Well for one, it is simple. Just match up three of the same candies. There are also just a couple of different ways to play the game. You can pop squares until they are free of "jelly." You can also pop squares until fruit makes its way down from the top of the screen out of the bottom of the screen. Sometimes there are both fruit and jellies, but the basic game play revolves around those two points.

The game is also beautiful, the artwork is very unique, and there is a crap ton of people playing it. No wonder the game is so popular but there is one thing that you know deep down, but you didn't want to admit it:

Candy Crush is totally not fair!!!

The game cheats, and you know it. There is no guarantee that when you start a match that you can solve it. Have you had the game shuffle the board on you when you run out of moves? Yeah, me too.

Anyway there are a couple of ways to cheat the lives in Candy Crush, and you don't have to spend a dime to do it. Here's what works:

1. Play on Facebook at your computer or laptop.
• When you play on your phone, and run out of lives, you can hop onto your laptop and play there too. The game syncs your progress, but not your lives. You can use up your lives on one device like your phone, then go right to your computer and you will have 5 lives waiting there for you. Neat huh?
2. Delete the app and reload it.
• Yep you read that right. The game stores your progress on the central server, not your lives. In other words, the game knows where you are in the world, what level you are on. The game relies on the phone to keep track of the lives you have.  I imagine that this was done to help with the server load. It would require another data point to keep track of, and every time you lost a life, or gained one the server would be pinged. Multiply that by all the people playing the game and you can see why they didn't design this in. So when you delete your app you are clearing the info on the phone end, it might take a couple of minutes to redownload and link back to your FaceBook account, but it might be easier to do than:
3. Set your phone's clock ahead to trick the program into giving you lives.

• The app is just looking for 30 minutes to pass and it gives you a life. It relies on your phone's clock to tell it when to spit out a life. If you go into your phone's settings menu and manually set the time, you can get lives all day long. Just make sure that you uncheck 'use network time' and set the right time when you finish up playing.

[Review] OtterBox Defender Case for the iPhone 5

It seems like I am finally getting off my ass and writing more these days, first things I have to do is get these OtterBox reviews out of the way. If you read the previous sentence again, you will notice that I said OtterBox reviews. As in more than one. That's because I posted one on AndroidDoes for the Samsung Galaxy S III. So my review of the OtterBox Defender for the Samsung Galaxy S III is on AndroidDoes and I actually have an extra one to give away. So head on over and enter!  Now on to the good stuff.

DropBox and Mailbox Team up to make the ultimate box

So here's the deal, the biggest thing that I miss from Android is the robust way that Android handles GMail. Gone are the labels, and most of the things that makes GMail so awesome. Now, the lastest version of GMail on iOS and in fact all of the Google apps on iOS are pretty awesome. However, since most of the contact that I make with my "official job" as a senior editor at AndroidDoes is through GMail, I've been looking for a more robust email solution on iOS.

I got my iPhone 5 a couple of weeks, maybe even a whole month after Mailbox was released on iTunes. Mailbox is supposed to be a revolutionary way to handle email, the whole point of the app is to get your email to zero. It allows you to parse the email that needs to be attended to now and snooze the email that can be handled later on. I was intrigued and went to sign up and boom I was in. Only problem is I was over 750,000 in line.

So the Mailbox team is doing a smart thing, only allowing so many people in the gates at a time, preventing server problems and ensuring that the people that are using the app are having a really good experience. It's not like we are paying for the app, it is totally free and right now they are only messing with GMail.

So today the Mailbox team announced that they are teaming up with Dropbox to help with the scaling issues that they are experiencing. What a great way to get the servers scaled up than to team up with Dropbox!

Well I am excited. I am getting to that point where I consider myself to be halfway there in the queue. I am 329,040 in line with 211,827 people behind me.

Here is a link to the Mailbox app.

Listen to David Bowie's New Album now for free

David Bowie isn't one of my favorite singers, but I do recognize that the man is a legend. It has been ten years since his last album.  Mr. Bowie has stuck a deal with Apple that allows anyone that has iTunes to listen to his new album, The Next Day, the whole album before it releases on March 12th.

This is a pretty interesting move, and one that I hopes catches on. There's something really special about this move, and I wish that more of the artists that I listen to follow suit. Anyway here's the link to listen to the album.


Also, if you purchase anything at Amazon.com using the ad below, I earn a couple of pennies and at this point, pennies really help!

This is going to get me in trouble

I started a couple of years ago with an iPod Touch, but sold it to pay the power bill. 

Then I got an iMac.

Then the 3rd gen iMac.

Now I've had the iPhone 5 for three days. 

There's been a billion articles written about the iOS vs Android back and forth, this vs that -- blah blah blah. For me the ONLY reason to switch was to see if the iPhone picked up better than the S3. The S3 has been a PITA since I got it the Jelly Bean update, dropping LTE and 3G, shaky connections and worst of all, the mobile hotspot didn't work worth a flip. I reset the phone almost weekly, tried flashing different radios on it, flashed a couple of ROMs on it to try and see if there was some magic combination of ROM and radios that would work for me. Nothing worked. Verizon did everything they could, even upgraded the equipment at the tower I use at home (it was scheduled to be upgraded anyway, they just did it faster.) Nothing worked, I was sent 3 different S3s, and even got an Ausrion replacement S3 that was refurbished in the USA. Nothing worked. 

My wife's Razr Maxx had this really bad thing where it wouldn't hold LTE even though the S3 was chugging along with a 4-5 bars of LTE. It would drop to 3G and sometimes 1X, flipping around like crazy, but the hotspot worked since she was on ICS and not Jelly Bean. This problem is well documented on the Razr line and maybe the Jelly Bean update would fix that. 

I'm sick of the bullshit. I've tried and tried to make this work, but I need my phone to have LTE, and have a good enough hotspot connection that I can get my schoolwork and such done. 

Anyway, you know how this story is going to turn out. I got the iPhone 5. I don't have any problems with reception. My hotspot works great and it even seems to work better than on Android since my iMac does USB tethering natively and the iPad works great off the iPhone hotspot too. 

My phone needed to have a strong connection, and I suspect that there is something going on with Android and CDMA that isn't playing nice when in a somewhat fringe area of coverage. For whatever reason, the iPhone just works for where I live and I have to live with that.

I'm not an Android fanboy, and I'm not an Apple apologist. Apple has conducted a hack and slash campaign of litigation that I personally find disgusting. I still have the Razr Maxx and I hope to get it updated to JB through WiFi. Hopefully I will get into the soak test. I still have my Nexus 7 and quite possibly will have this tablet until it just won't run anything anymore, I love my N7.

If I need to spell this out for you, I will. Android has a serious problem when it comes to carriers and OEMs mucking up the code. Android comes out clean, fast and for the most part problem-free. Some will argue that 4.2.1 was a clusterfuck, and it was but 4.2.2 has fixed most of what I had issues with. My Nexus 7 is pure Android. It works wonderful, I love the thing. I imagine that the Nexus 4 is a lot like the  Nexus 7, but I am tied to Verizon and I can't up and leave the only carrier that has LTE where I live. My last experience with a Nexus phone was the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. What a clusterfuck that was, thanks Verizon. 

So the only way to get a pure OEM experience, which is very important to me is to get a newer Android phone, and root and unlock the bootloader, and install an ASOP ROM, which voids your warranty. Or go to the one company that sticks a middle finger up at Big Red and get an iPhone. 

So what does this mean? Do I lose my Android Cred since I have an iPhone? Maybe. Maybe I love technology and need to know that my phone is going to work, and be updated in a timely manner. That's why I got a Nexus 7, updates right from the el Google. To be clear what drive a wedge between me and Android is Verizon. Carriers suck and they need to stop putting custom skins on stuff, this goes to OEMs and fuckWiz and Sense and all the other LG cartoon skins. It needs to stop.