In late September, I had decide to drop Ooma. There was nothing wrong with the service, but since all of my telephone numbers do not ring the Ooma phone, it was becoming a waste of money. When I had Ooma, I had the premiere plan which was $10 + another $10 for taxes on something that is free. With the regards to dropping Ooma, I now rely on my Callcentric Account for all of my home phone lines including my primary home telephone number (begins with =1 855), and all of my international numbers. With that in mind, I will be saving $20 per month, and have one less service that I will have to deal with. Right now, all of my telephone services are either with my cellular provider (1 telephone number) or Callcentric (the other numbers). This will simplify things, and make life a little easier. Read more “Dropped Ooma”
Category: Life
Dropped Skype
I have finally decided to completely drop the usage of Skype. There were only 2 people that had any sort of communication with me, and I notified both of them that I will be dropping Skype. I also gave them my IM Resource Site (https://im.fsp.contact) for other options in communicating with me. Neither of them have as of yet decided to reach out to me. Even if they don’t want to provide their telephone number to me, I support Telegram which can be used without disclosing your telephone number.
The reason I dropped Skype was because I was getting too many scammers trying to waste my time with “I Love You – give me money” scams. So far, the SPAM in Telegram has been minimal. I do not miss Skype, and it has not been a good application for the past few years. With that said, I will likely not go back to Skype ever again – considering it as a service that continues to degrade as time goes on. I am guessing there are many legitimate people who are thinking the same way as I do. With that vicious cycle, I don’t see Skype ever recovering.
Why I’ll Never Use TextNow!
For those outside of the US, you might not know what TextNow is. To keep things simple, it is an app/service. You get a free US number that must be used at least once a month. They can also send you a SIM card to get “essential” data for free. So, in some degree, you can get a free phone number, and free cellular service. So why won’t I ever use it? Well, there are a couple of reasons.
No eSIM
There is no eSIM capabilities. Most mid-range or better phones are dual SIM with a nano-SIM, and an eSIM. Let’s assume that you have a work cellular line, and you have to use your physical SIM card slot for the work line. Well, this will mean you would have to have another phone. Now, I am not in favor of having your “work” and “personal” lines in one phone, but that is not the belief for everyone. Some people just want to carry one phone especially if that phone is a higher end phone. I have the iPhone 14 Pro Max (US Version). So what does that mean – no SIM slot at all. Both of my SIMs are eSIM only. There is no nano-SIM option. This started with all iPhones 14+ (US Model). Because of that, anyone with an iPhone 14 or better simply can not use TextNow. Read more “Why I’ll Never Use TextNow!”
Soon to Drop Skype
I have been a glutton for punishment. I have used Skype off and on for years, and every time I use it, it has been a disappointment. Almost everyone that contacted me were scammers, or otherwise insincere people. There is one person which I known for years on Skype, but I rarely communicate with her any longer. This is disappointing as Skype used to be a good service. However, as you can see, my perception of Skype has changed dramatically. I do have Skype installed on my PC, and on my phone. The app on the phone is just to let me know if someone sent me a message. When I reply, it is exclusively on the PC.
Read more “Soon to Drop Skype”
Back With Ooma
About 10 days ago at time of writing this post (204-June-16), I have decided to sign up with Ooma again. The reason for this was to have a phone line that I could use if for some reason my cellular phone was not working. I have my old system which consist of the Ooma Telo (ATA and DECT base station, 1 DECT adapter, and 2 phones). All of these are being put to the same use as before, and even had an incoming call (wrong number). I have a 60 day trial of Ooma Premiere even though this not a new system. I intend on keeping the Premiere service when my trial expires. Since I already owned the hardware, I didn’t have to purchase anything new, although setting up an old system was more trouble than good. I will get into that later. I have used it to make phone calls out on my Ooma system which call quality was good. I still usually rely on my cellular phone. Read more “Back With Ooma”
Dropped Stamps.com
Earlier this month, I have chosen to drop Stamps.com. This is because the service was becoming too buggy. I had to log in with Brave Web Browser, and then even so – the printing was buggy. With that in mind, I have chosen to cancel my account with them. This was not something I took lightly. I liked the concept of the service, and felt it worth the price. However, with the issues I had, and the fact there is no desktop Mac application made things all the worse Read more “Dropped Stamps.com”
Dropped LibreOffice
I really wanted to like it, and I was hoping for the best. However, LibreOffice didn’t seem to want to work well on my system. This is despite that my computer is using Apple’s M1 chip, and has 16GB of memory. The big problem was that the cursor couldn’t keep up with my typing. I am no professional typist, but the office suite just couldn’t keep up. There is no blame with the system as the problem only arose with LibreOffice. Read more “Dropped LibreOffice”
Switching to LibreOffice
On 24th of January, 2024, I have chosen to switch to LibreOffice. The choice for this is pretty simple, and that is cross platform compatibility. Any document that I would be writing and editing on a regular basis will be saved as an .odt file. Files that will not be edited in the future (such as letters to correspondences) will be exported to .pdf file. With that being said, LibreOffice seems to make it easy for exporting to .pdf files. I have yet to try this out, but will do so later in the day. Read more “Switching to LibreOffice”
Dropped sn.fsp.contact
Earlier this morning, I dropped sn.fsp.contact. The reason of this choice was simple. I am not on Facebook, Instagram, MySpace, or most other networks. I have an About.me page, and I have a Twitter account. The About.me page rarely gets any updates, and technically not a social network. As for Twitter, I use it mainly with businesses I am associated with, but could probably write more on that network than what I already do. With that in mind, I didn’t see a point in having an entire subdomain dedicated to Twitter. I also don’t see me joining any other social networks, so it would have likely been just Twitter. Read more “Dropped sn.fsp.contact”
RIP iPod Touch
A few days ago, my last iPod touch has started to act badly. After a number of ways to try to extend it, I decided that nothing will work. I was able to reset the iPod so none of my personal files should be on the iPod. However, this has a significant issue that I am now using my iMac to play my music library. Thankfully, the music will continue to play when the PC is in sleep mode. This makes life easier as I can have the screen off, and just play the music. One good note is that the iMac has an 3.5mm audio jack for speakers. I am using the old speakers from the iPod for the computer. This is because it is cheaper to replace a pair of desk speakers, than the integrated speakers in the iMac. Read more “RIP iPod Touch”