Cingular, Sprint, Verizon keystroke Cheat Sheet

I recently saw a post about this and was ranter intrigued.The latest , complete list of money saving keystrokes that carriers don’t want you to know. Get Refunds for dropped calls.

Verizon
1) Skip Voicemail intro: press *
2) Check anytime minutes: dial #646 and Send
3) While listening to a message press: 1 to Rewind, 2 to Pause, 3 to Fast Forward, 4 to Slower, 5 to go Envelope Info (date/time), 6 to go Faster After listening, 4 to Replay, 7 to Delete, 9 to Save, 0 for Help.
4) Check Your Balance: dial #BAL and Send
5) Make A Payment: #PMT and Send
6) Check The Number of Text Messages and kilobyte usage: dial #DATA and Send
7) Contact Customer Service: dial *611 and Send
Verizon Minutes used Firefox Extension

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Cingular
1) Skip Voicemail intro: press *
2) Check anytime minutes: dial *646#
3) Delete a voice mail message: press 77
4) Save a voice mail message: press 99
5) To turn off the lady talks when people enter your voicemail: Call your voicemail and at the main menu dial 4272.

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Sprint
1) Skip Voicemail intro: press 1
2) Check anytime minutes: *4
3) Sprint Users can get credits for their dropped calls. Simply dial *2. Press 1. After the virtual representative prompts you say “credit for a dropped call” or “dropped call credit“. You can only redeem 20 dropped calls a month for a max credit of $10 (use this service only twice a day). 50 cents is added for each credited dropped call.

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tmobile
1) Skip Voicemail intro: press #
2) Check anytime minutes: dial #646#
3) Remaining minutes: dial #999#

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goog411
Free 411 calls. Just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

read more | digg story

Watch TV over the internet with Joost

One of the loudest buzzing apps of late is Joost, a TV-over-the-internet program (Windows and Mac) promising to bring a full-fledged, high quality television experience to your computer without the need for a capture card or any other hardware. All you need is an internet connection and a copy of Joost. Now I’ll let you know how Joost worked for me. I’ve been testing it for over 2 weeks now, and its a very neat app. However i think that the higher your bandwidth the better off you will be. Steaming media from joost took up 700-800 kBs constantly.

read more | digg story

Digital Video Essentials HD $10.89

Head over to buy.com to pick up a copy of Digital Video Essentials HD. Priced at $18.99 at buy.com is not a bad price at all, but we can do better. Add on the $10 off coupon for first time google checkout users, and you get this for $8.99 plus shipping: the grand total of 10.89 cents

http://www.buy.com/prod/digital-video-essentials-hd/q/loc/322/203043835.html

Google goes Free 411 Service

Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.

To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

Using this service, you can:

• search for a local business by name or category.
  You can say “Giovanni’s Pizzeria” or just “pizza”.
• get connected to the business, free of charge.
• get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
  Just say “text message”.

And it’s free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.

Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings.

Xbox 360 HD DVD Drive Exposes Volume ID

The hackers and crackers sure are persistent when it comes to the war on AACS encryption. This time the target was the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on. Geremia on Doom9 forums has started a thread on how he has obtained the Volume ID without AACS authentication. With the aid of others like Arnezami they have managed to patch the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on. The drive in question is the Toshiba SD-S802A or better known as the Xbox360 HD DVD Drive. Remember that recently AACS released a patch for WinDVD, HD DVD and BD players that caused a revocation to the keys used to decrypt HD DVD and BD disc. The update requires that you update your software/hardware or you will never be able to watch newly manufactured HD DVDs or Blu-Ray disc. While this patch isn’t vital yet for those that want to backup their HD DVD collection, it could soon provide the hackers as well as private individuals with the key needed to decrypt the newly manufactured HD DVDs or Blu-Ray disc.

Most people will want to know why this important. I have posted some common questions and answers to make more sense as to why this would benefit you.

Q. What does patching the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive do exactly for me?

A. Patching the HD DVD drive allows us to get the Volume ID of that disc when the disc is inserted in the the HD DVD drive without the need of a special key (called a Host Private Key).

Q. How would flashing my 360 HD DVD drive benefit me?

A. If in several weeks when the new discs are released that contain new Volume IDs, this may be one of the few ways to get the Volume ID which is needed to decrypt/backup your discs.

Q. Do i need to patch my HD DVD drive now?

A. No, but when the new HD DVD disc are released you could patch your drive to obtain the new Volume ID to make backups like before.

Update.

It appears that XT5 has released a application that allows the Volume ID to be read without the need to rewrite the firmware. This would mean that anyone could simply plug in the HD DVD drive and obtain the Volume ID from any HD DVD without the hassle of flashing it. Good work XT5

Source Doom9

Xbox 360: now with H.264, MPEG-4, PlaysForSure

Microsoft has snuck in some great new additions to the upcoming Spring Dashboard release. Beginning the week of May 7, 2007, the Xbox 360 Spring Update will provide Xbox 360 owners worldwide with access to Windows Live Messenger features, broadening the communication options on the Xbox Live social network. Including the ability to streaming MPEG-4 Part 2 video support Up to 8 Mbps, H.264 up to 15Mbps, and PlaysForSure WMV videos (and, as we understand it, PlaysForSure audio as well). You may not even notice all the new features, but they are all designed to enhance your Xbox Live experience.

Some of the other features in this upgrade include:

• The name of game in tray is now displayed in the dashboard.
• When the user is in the dashboard and an Xbox 360 game is in the console then the name of the game is displayed in the tray icon of the dashboard. If the user highlights the tray icon then achievements and gamer score are displayed for that game based on the signed in user. Xbox1 games show the name and image of the game.
• Integrated support for the new Xbox 360 text input device. Note that this device includes a new wired headset.
• Playback progress bar indicates download completion.
• Switchable aspect ratio now available during video playback (Auto to Letterbox, Zoom, Stretch, Native).
• Player and friends lists now quickly show session presence information for quick identification of users that are joinable.
• H.264 video support: Up to 15 Mbps, Baseline, Main, and High (up to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.
• Added MPEG-4 Part 2 video support: Up to 8 Mbps, Simple Profile with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles.

AT&T gives you ‘Free HD Programming for a Year’

AT&T Inc. announced an offer for access to a market-leading lineup of HD programming at no cost for 12 months to qualifying new video customers within AT&T’s traditional 22-state service area. New subscribers to AT&T U-verse(SM) TV service, where it is available, or to DIRECTV(R) Service, and AT&T DISH Network(TM) service (which is offered through Echostar) who mail in the required redemption forms, are eligible. AT&T offers more than 25 channels of HD programming through its AT&T U-verse TV service (where available) and up to 31 HD channels through AT&T satellite video broadcast services, DIRECTV Service and AT&T | DISH Network service. These HD lineups include premium movies, sports, news, home and gardening, food, family programming, classic films and pay-per-view channels. The savings come out to about 240 dollars a year. This promotion through AT&T DISH Network is available now through May 31, 2007; through DIRECTV, the offer is available through June 26, 2007; and the AT&T U-verse TV offer is available now through June 30, 2007.

More details http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/04-03-2007/0004558557&EDATE=

HP is giving away a 50 inch plasma

More details later but HP is giving away a 50in plasma for a YouTube video contest

http://h30044.www3.hp.com/hptv/home/Default.aspx

Live Free or Die Hard: Die Hard 4 Tease released

At yahoo movies Die Hard 4 trailer has been released and boy is it sexy!

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/livefreeordiehard.html

Revision3 Updated Script for the XBMC to play the “Totally Rad Show”

For those who are fans of Diggnation and other shows put on by Revision3 then this is for you. Recently a new show with Alex Albrecht just was released. Since im a huge fan of watching the show from my Xbox with XBMC i looked for the updated script to play the “Totally Rad Show” by streaming. Unfortunately, the script is not updated on www.xbmcscripts.com. I took the liberty to update it to make it run the new show. Since i can not host the files here i will have to find another way to host them or lets hope that www.xbmcscripts.com takes it.