Archive for November, 2007

First Tracfone Problem

Saturday, November 24th, 2007

I’ve had a TracFone for almost a year now and have been completely happy with it. The only problem I had was that the phone I was using was not the filp-phone type; it had the buttons exposed on the front and when it was in my pocket the coins, ChapStick, and other loose items would depress the buttons. (A couple of times it pressed the right sequence of buttons and actually called someone from my phone book. Imagine my surprise when out of the blue I started hearing that person’s voice coming from my pocket!) I decided to upgrade to a better model, a slick Motorola flip phone that is based on their RAZR design (but lacks some of the RAZR’s high-end features, none of which I need).

After purchasing the new phone I called TracFone customer service to transfer my phone number and unused minutes to the new phone. I had read bad things about TracFone customer service, but other than the fact that I had to wait about 45 minutes on hold it went fine. The customer service guy was friendly and everything transfered smoothly. Well, almost everything.

I had purchased one of their “Double Minutes” cards for my old phone. A couple of days ago I added minutes to my new phone and did not receive double minutes! Not wanting to wait on hold I submitted a support request through their website asking why I did not receive my double minutes. Two days later and no response. Today I did some online research and it looks like the double minutes cards do not transfer under any circumstances. This means if you upgrade your phone or need to replace your phone for some other reason you can transfer your existing minutes, but double minutes on future purchases is gone.

I suppose this is a case of caveat emptor and the information regarding the double minutes not transferring is buried in the fine print somewhere, but even had I known this in advance I still would have upgraded my phone. The thing that bothers me is that I purchased $40 worth of additional minutes without knowing I wasn’t getting double minutes. If I had known I would have purchased the double minutes upgrade first. Live and learn.

Follow-up (11/26/07): I got an official answer from TracFone today! It says:

The Double Minute benefit may only be used once; it only applies to one TracFone cell phone and may not be transferred to another TracFone. This only applies for the life of a single phone. This can only be transferred in cases like technology exchanges (phone technology incompatible n the local area), defective phone (TracFone will send the replacement) and for TDMA migration cases. If you happen to purchase a new phone to replace your old phone, then the double minute plan will not be transferred.

Although this reads like it was cut-and-pasted from a FAQ, I could not find this information anywhere on their website.

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Marie Callender’s Feast Review

Friday, November 23rd, 2007

Thanksgiving was yesterday, which I celebrated with my parents and sister. My mom is getting to the point in her life where she doesn’t want to cook a huge meal, so we decided to go the Marie Callender’s Take-Home Feast route. We opted for the aptly-named Ultimate Whole Turkey Feast. Below is my assessment of dinner, with each element graded (in parenthesis) on a scale of 1 to 10.

  • Ordering: (10) You order over the phone and pay with a credit card when you order. The fellow I talked to was competent and polite.
  • Pickup: (10) They have a tent set up in the parking lot for you to claim your pre-paid bounty. Everything was exactly as ordered, and it came in a nice cardboard storage box that you can use for other things when you’re done. I remembered from when we had done this a couple of years ago that we ran out of stuffing, so I asked if I could purchase an extra side order of it. The guy gave me one for no charge. I tipped him the amount the extra side would have cost, and everybody was happy.
  • Turkey: (7) One thing you need to be aware of if you’re considering the Marie Callender’s Feast is that even though the food comes prepared you still need to heat it up; 2 1/2 hours was the recommended heating time for the turkey. It was reasonably tasty, not dry but not particularly juicy either. We were four big eaters and there was plenty left over.
  • Stuffing: (8) It was tasty, had a good selection of ingredients, and most importantly was not dry. It turns out the extra side of stuffing I asked for was not necessary, as the one included side was more than enough for the four of us.
  • Mashed Potatoes: (5) I was not crazy about the mashed potatoes. They were not very creamy and didn’t have a lot of taste.
  • Gravy: (5) It had a lot of flavor, but that flavor did not appeal to my palate. It was probably a personal-preference issue.
  • Yams: (2) The big disappointment. The yams were cut in squares and baked. They reminded me of those cubed “breakfast potatoes” but with harder skins. Sorry, I like my yams mushy and sweet. The only thing that saved them from me rating them a 1 was that they came with a sprinkle-on topping of brown sugar and dried cranberries, which gave this lame side dish its only taste.
  • Cornbread: (9) I love Marie Callender’s cornbread, which came deliciously complete with a side of honey butter.
  • Vegetables: (2) The other big disappointment. The vegetables were a mix of carrots and string beans that were tough and tasteless. I would have liked a better mix of vegetables and more pronounced seasoning.
  • Pumpkin Pie: (9) Marie Callender’s claim to fame is their pies. No disappointment here, other than the fact that I had to provide my own whipped cream.
  • Coffee: (10) This was the big surprise of the evening for me. The coffee was GREAT, a blended medium roast that was smooth and full of flavor. It came in a silver foil package with no marking, so I have no idea how to get more since Marie Callender’s apparently doesn’t sell their coffee packaged.

That’s it. I’m off to buy a new belt!

Posted in Consumerisms, Food & Drink | No Comments »

Edit with Photoshop…

Thursday, November 22nd, 2007

I have a right-click-context-menu shortcut for Photoshop that’s really handy. It allows you to right-click on any .jpg file and get an “Edit with Photoshop…” option conveniently located where you need it.

Note: The following requires modifying your computer’s system files. Although I’ve tested and use these modifications on my own computer, I’m not responsible for any damage to your computer that might arise as a result of attempting these modifications—proceed at your own risk!

  1. Open any folder (holding down the “start” key on your keyboard and hitting “e” is an easy shortcut).
  2. From the “Tools” menu choose “Folder Options…” then click the “File Types” tab.
  3. Scroll down and find the entry for “JPG.” (To make this quicker you can hit the “j” key on your keyboard to quickly jump down to the entries starting with “j.”)
  4. Click the “Advanced…” button, then click “New…”
  5. Under “Action:” enter: “Edit with Photoshop…” (without the quotes).
  6. Click the “Browse…” button and locate the “Photoshop.exe” application on your computer. It’s usually located at: “C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Photoshop.exe” (assuming you’re using the CS2 version of Photoshop; other versions will be in a differently-named folder obviously).
  7. Click “OK” three times to get out of all the dialog boxes.

Now find a .jpg file somewhere on your computer, right-click on it, and see the “Edit with Photoshop…” option right at the top! You can also choose “Preview” to open it in the Windows Picture Viewer, and from there you can right-click on the picture and choose “Edit with Photoshop…”

This second tip is optional, and is a little more tricky (and consequently has a greater danger of something going wrong if you make a mistake). It will remove the “Edit” and “Print” options from the context menu, which I prefer not to have since I never use these.

  1. Start the Registry Editor by clicking the “Start” menu, then choosing “Run…” and enter “regedit.”
  2. Navigate to the following key: “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\shell.”
  3. You may want to backup this key by right-clicking on the “shell” folder and choosing “Export.” If you save this key you can reinstall it should you ever need or wish to.
  4. Right-click on the “edit” folder and choose “Delete.” Click “Yes” to confirm. Repeat for the “print” folder.

Close the Registry Editor. Now you should be able to right-click on a .jpg file and see only “Preview” and “Edit with Photoshop…”

Posted in Geek Stuff | 1 Comment »