T-Mobile 6 Month Web Booster - How far can you go ?

As previously noted, I'm in the last T-Mobile 6 month Internet booster I'll ever have.

A few days away from home in a hotel with broken Internet access (no DHCP on the router - a common problem with "guest" WiFi in hotels and elsewhere) and I used the T-Mobile 6 month Internet booster for tethering various media consuming devices.

When I went away I had used about 500MB in the month (so half of the 1GB "fair use policy" allowance).

The usage quickly went up, after 24 hours a couple of GB more had been used, half way through the following day the 80% of the FUP text came. About 6 hours later the "exceeded fair use policy" text arrived.

This seems to have triggered limited download and upload speeds of about 500kb/s (perhaps a quarter of what T-Mobile 3G can achieve in peak periods from my experience).

I'm now at 5.2GB used in the calendar month for £3.33.

This is why the offer had to end !

Stopping iOS updates and getting rid of downloaded but not installed updates

The following is a note derived from the following extremely useful post by SergZak at:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-9741


I don't want my iOS devices updated to iOS 10 as they work well at the moment and I've previously found Apple allow devices to be updated to a point at which their performance suffers.

To stop updates I've blocked mesu.apple.com using OpenDNS (which I use on my router).

I've also deleted the previously downloaded update by finding the iOS update app at:

Settings

General

Storage & iCloud Usage

Manage Storage. 

There I found the iOS update app. By tapping on the app I could delete the app.

Once again, many thanks SergZak !

The end of the T-Mobile 6MONTHWEB booster

Sadly the T-Mobile £20 for 6 months Internet data offer is ending (or has ended depending on when you read this).

Not much has been made of this but I happened across mention of it on the Thinkbroadband forums.

A further well targeted Google and the sad news was confirmed.

To ensure that nobody will buy it again the price has been doubled.

In a slight breach of copyright (I see it as review) but to ensure that this change isn't airbrushed out of mobile network history this is what EE (T-Mobile) have to say on the subject:

T-Mobile pay as you go price increase

Why we're increasing your prices

We know they’re not popular but we haven’t actually increased any of our rates since 2013, and in that time the costs of running our business have continued to rise. Our EE pay as you go rates are staying the same and you can buy packs of minutes, data and texts to get even better value.

Find out more about switching seamlessly to EE by visiting one of our stores or go to ee.co.uk/movetoee.

How will I know if my price is increasing?

All customers who are impacted by the price increase will be contacted. You will receive a minimum of 30 days' written notice (via text) notifying you before the increase takes place.

What the 2016 T-Mobile pay as you go price rises mean for you

From 10 October 2016 we’ll be making changes to the costs of some internet boosters on T-Mobile.

Please see below the new charges for your internet booster:

Internet Booster	Length	Before 10 Oct 2016	From 10 Oct 2016
Blackberry monthly data booster - Unlimited browsing	30 days	£5	£12
Standard monthly data booster - not Blackberry	30 days	£5	£12
Standard 6 month data booster - not Blackberry	6 months	£20	£40
Blackberry 6 month data booster	6 months	£20	£40

From:

http://ee.co.uk/help/add-ons-benefits-and-plans/price-plans-and-costs/t-mobile-price-plans/t-mobile-pay-as-you-go-price-increase

on 07/10/16

The excellent Money Saving Expert also covers the change:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/phones/2016/09/data-booster-prices-double-for-t-mobile-customers

The T-Mobile data offer was the best PAYG data offer for years (I guess I have been using it for more than 5 years) and I'm sorry to see it go. My "high score" was 2GB in a calendar month, not bad for £3.33 !

Having put £18 on the SIM to buy my last 6 Months of WEB perhaps I'll get a PAYG upgrade from Carphone Warehouse with the SIM as well before it goes in the bin.

The best offers now seem to the the EE 6GB/3 month offers which can be ebayed for less that £20 or the 3 3GB/3 months for about £10. I guess the market price of these will increase as the "6 Month Web" buyers go somewhere else.

T-Mobile "So long, and thanks for all the data"

The AOC i-Menu software

I have two AOC monitors, both of which are really good.

The older one has front panel controls, the newer one does not. Instead you are supposed to use an application which you install and that controls the monitor settings.

In many respects a good idea but not if you don't have the software. Sadly I didn't have the driver CD for the monitor.

The AOC website has the monitor "driver" file which is really a settings file that Windows uses.

After a bit of support assistance I was directed to the glossary page on the AOC website.

http://aoc-europe.com/en/content/glossary

This includes the key section:

i-Menu

Adjust your display settings with i-Menu software. Fine-tune luminosity, image setup, color temperature and more with a few simple clicks.

The "i-Menu software" is in blue and is a clickable link to a zip file download.

That contains the AOC i-Menu software as an exe installer. Click that and off you go.


The linked file can currently be found at:

http://aoc-europe.com/download/%252F%252Faoc-pim.s3.amazonaws.com%252FPublic%252FAOC%252FDrivers_Software_Manuals%252FSoftware%252Fi-Menu%252Fi-Menu-AOC4.3.1-setup.zip

Hope that helps someone.

Improved link:

aoc-pim.s3.amazonaws.com/Public/AOC/Drivers_Software_Manuals/Software/i-Menu/i-Menu-AOC4.3.1-setup.zip

The EE Power Bar (part 3)

It is with regret that I have to announce that the EE Power Bar has been recalled to meet its maker.

I had a text announcing a product recall.

Yes it had been getting hot when charging but it seemed OK.

I took it back to the store and handed it over. I was expecting a replacement but there was none.

Just a "compensation voucher" to spend at the EE shop.

A vague promise of a Power Bar at some indeterminate time in the future.

All in all, a sad end to the power bar saga.

And another thing......

Not content with breaking the music library, Apple have surpassed themselves by removing the "genius" playlist feature of iOS 8.4.

Yes, it often failed

Yes, It couldn't identify lots of my songs

But, when it worked it was quite good

And now it is gone.

Apple - FAIL !

iOS 8.4 and the vanishing music library "I went back to the iPod and my music was gone"

I like my iPod touch. I liked it enough to buy an iPhone once and I may again but in the meanwhile I have a reasonably new 32GB iPod touch with a fair amount of music on it.

Perhaps foolishly I upgraded to iOS 8.4.

The music icon had changed appearance. When I selected it, to misquote The Pretenders, my music was gone. All was left was the handful of iTunes purchases.

The 700 other songs, either downloads from amazon or CD rips and their associated covers were all gone.

Google was my friend, a re-sync with my macbook with the music library on it did the job of restoring my music again fine.

Fortunately even the iTunes 11.4 I have on my ageing MacBook was good enough.  I had a nasty feeling I might need a newer version.