Michelle’s Carpet Bag

Since the unexpected disconnection of my cell phone early in June, I’ve been suffering from a lack of on-demand data access. The constant email drip I was accustomed to is long gone, as well as the anytime, anywhere web access. Moving overseas is a lengthy and difficult process, with the result that I haven’t yet been able to sign a new phone contract. Instead, I’ve had to make due with prepaid cards.

I didn’t think this would be so difficult since I have a Blackberry Bold, which has wifi capabilities. Imagine my frustration when I discovered that prepaid cards don’t allow this functionality to work – thoroughly annoying since the hardware exists and I specifically bought this phone & had it unlocked for that reason.

How is it possible that this practice is viewed as ok? Why should I have to buy wireless data coverage in order to connect to my own broadband network at home? The two should be completely disjointed. To make matters worse, I can’t buy a data plan with a prepaid account. I have to sign a 2-year contract, something I am not ready to commit to until I have settled down somewhere.

I can’t be the only person with this problem. I will eventually sign up for a data plan, but in the meantime I want to be able to use Google Voice while I’m in range of my wireless network. The T-Mobile system of not allowing the hardware in my phone to function properly is technologically senseless and frustrating. If anyone has worked out a solution, by all means post it.

My first experience with woot.com was a huge success. The quad-core PC I ordered prior to my arrival in TX was a wise purchase. I was finally able to break it out of the box last night and was very pleased with the result.

Thanks to twitter (I know I use that phrase way too often), I was made aware of a daily offering that was exactly what I was looking for. @sbourke’s recommendation was all I needed. Sitting in the backseat on the M25 at the time, I managed to create an account and place my order via my blackberry. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into having never used the site before, but I’m glad I made the purchase. I had been planning on building my own PC, but the price of the system I wanted was a little high.

Along came woot. A refurbished HP machine with all the power I need and none of the extra expense. I’m duly impressed with the performance of the AMD X4 9550 quad-core coupled with 6 GB of RAM. The Vista experience is like night and day in comparison to my previous dual core processor. It’s so good, in fact, that I momentarily considered not replacing it with Ubuntu. That moment didn’t last long.