Verizon Wireless: In my mind, VZW is the clear leader in the industry if you are looking for solid coverage and options on your choice of cell platform (“Dumb” phone, Android, iPhone and WinMo). It will be rare that you don’t have the ability to make a phone call, barring being in a building that’s playing hell with their signal. The downside? VZW is not very innovative and there’s a serious lag between the time that a manufacturer releases a phone to the market and Verizon will launch it. Of course, there’s two sides to that coin. It take them forever to launch a phone, but that’s because they put it through rigorous before they will allow it on their network. They work very hard to ensure it will perform well and that their customers will not suffer. Now that they have finally launched the iPhone, I believe it’s only a matter of time before they crush the competition. The other downside to Verizon is that they use CDMA technology, which is not globally compatible and has fallbacks like the inability to support simultaneous voice and data usage.

Sprint: Sprint is a company focused on the “all you can eat” style plan. They hedge their bets on users that need a lot of usage capabilities (or *think* they need unlimited usage. They offer a very affordable “unlimited everything” plan. What’s the downside? Their coverage is fairly poor. Granted, it got better when Spring purchased Alltel/Nextel back in 2004, but they are still behind the game. Personally, I would suggest that their users look at their actual minute and data consumption. Do you really need unlimited or would you be better off with a more solid carrier with a “limited” plan that still offers all you need? Sprint uses the same CDMA technology as Verizon, so again, you’re limited to US coverage.

T-Mobile: With T-Mobile, you get a few awesome benefits. Their customer service is one of the best around. Also, this company really pushed innovation. They were the first to launch Android and look at how the platform has grown. They are consistently launching the latest and greatest devices. The downside with T-Mobile is again, coverage. T-Mobile does use GSM technology, so simultaneous voice and data do work. In addition, their phones can be used globally.

AT&T: I left these guys for last because it’s hard for me to be objective when discussing them. I have a problem with AT&T as a whole company. At one point, I would have said the primary benefit to them was the iPhone, however that’s no longer the case with VZW getting it on their network. They do use GSM, which is a good thing. Their coverage map is not as large as Verizon, but they are very clearly the number 2 in the country in terms of technical coverage. The problem is their network is so antiquated and overloaded with users and usage that it has become a huge liability. Dropping calls is not uncommon at all. Poor signal, you’re lucky to be a customer of theirs and not run into times when you can’t get signal. Overall, they are just very poor. I am convinced that had it not been for their long time exclusivity with the iPhone, they would have gone out of business ages ago.

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So, what sparked this post? Well, in recent news, it’s become known that AT&T is attempting to purchase T-Mobile for $39 billion. A clear statement by AT&T that they recognize that their network is a sore spot and that in order to stay afloat, they need to take drastic actions soon. Well, I have a big problem with the purchase of T-Mobile. First and foremost, it’s going to hurt the consumers and put a screeching halt to innovation in the industry. AT&T does not drive change. They don’t push manufacturers to keep producing new phones with new features. T-Mobile, however, does – and does a good job at it. Do you think that mindset would stay with T-Mobile upon purchase or would it get swallowed by AT&T? I think the latter. Second, it would make AT&T the only GSM carrier in the US, giving it a monopoly on that technology. There’s a reason we have anti-monopoly laws in this country. It hurts the market and it hurts the consumer. The only benefit is to the company.

Fortunately, the FCC has already unofficially stated there’s “no way” they would allow this merger to take place. Thank you FCC for watching out for the consumers. One of my best friends is very opposed to a big government with oversight over business among other things. I think this is a prime example of why the FCC and government regulation is needed. Consumers 1, AT&T 0.

My first experience could not have gone better. Setup took me about 3 minutes and I was online and streaming content from my Netflix account. Roku supports Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, and so much more. As I write this post, I am watching an HD movie from Netflix and it is as if I had the Bluray version instead of a stream. The quality is superb. Audio, perfect. Roku is continually providing software updates that are adding to their already long list of supported content. After 1 week of ownership, Roku Player gets 5 stars. So good, in fact, that I am considering dropping my cable TV and switching completely to Roku. My only feature request… support UPNP so I can utilize my TVersity server with the Roku!

Well, after a bit of googling I found the fix! Best part about it is that it’s quite simple to fix whether you have XP Pro or Home. Check it out at Code Retard. Hopefully this helps you as much as it did me.

After some experimentation and research, I found a simple fix. If you execute the following registry edit, you should be okay (it worked for me).

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.sql]
"PerceivedType"="text"
@="sqlwb.sql.9.0"

Error opening message store (MSEMS). Verify that the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is running and that you have the correct permissions to log on. (0x8004011d)

Even though you may be a Domain Admin or Enterprise Admin, you will still receive this. In fact, you are at a distinct disadvantage being in either of these groups. In order to run Exmerge, you must have “Send As” and “Receive As” rights on the Exchange Mailbox Store that holds the given users mailbox. Domain Admins and Enterprise Admins have implicit DENY policies in this.

Resolution:
1. Open “System Manager”.
2. Drill down to the applicable Mailbox Store.
3. Right click on the store and go to “Properties”.
4. On the “Security” tab, add your user and ensure “Receive As” and “Send As” are allowed.

This should resolve the issue. The other consequences of this is that any user you add here will be granted FULL control of all mailboxes within this store. Use with caution.

Error [0x0f0082] SYSPRP LaunchDll:Failure occurred while executing ‘C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer returned error code 2
Error [0x0f0070] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:An error occurred while running registry sysprep DLLs, halting sysprep
execution. dwRet = 2
Error [0x0f00a8] SYSPRP WinMain:Hit failure while processing sysprep cleanup providers; hr = 0×80070002

The problem is that there is not a “RunOnce” key in the following registry location:

hklm\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\

To resolve, simply add this key to the CurrentVersion folder and run sysprep again. Worked for me.

Some details have surfaced. The Motorola phone will be named “Droid” and according to reports, the release date seems to be October 30th. If this pans out to be true, have no fear… there will be quite a bit of review posts coming as I will be buying one that day! I cannot wait! More to come…

A while back, Microsoft silently installed an addon to the Firefox browser for .NET framework. It wasn’t something you could opt out of, it wasn’t something you were told about, and it is something that’s hard to remove. Now they’ve gone farther and caused enormous security flaws in FireFox with their latest spread of addons and have even admitted it, recommends uninstalling it.

Well, my first thought is yay Microsoft. Take a browser far more secure, far faster, and more feature rich than IE, and then try killing it. You guys rock! Sounds like a great plan for taking a browser that’s sure to overcome IE in market-share and expose it to the same flaws as IE, so IT Professionals will want to remove it from their networks. Here’s an idea – stay away from shit that isn’t yours. Let FireFox be and if they are better than you, deal with it. Here’s a thought — focus on putting out a good product that can beat FireFox fairly instead of focusing on bringing other browsers down to IE’s crappy level. What’s next? Sabotage Android so it sucks like Windows Mobile? Please… I beg of you… STAY AWAY FROM FIREFOX AND ANDROID!!!

To resolve this, give the user account that the scheduled task is running under “Read” and “Execute” rights to cmd.exe (Default: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe).

Historically speaking, AT&T has always had horrible service reception, dropped calls and customer service. Not to mention frequent billing mistakes that take months to fix if they ever do get fixed. I personally had to call the FCC and PUCO to file federal disputes with AT&T before they would resolve my billing problems. Blame the iPhone? Come on – you have GOT to be kidding me. The only thing keeping AT&T in business these days is that they managed an exclusive deal with the iPhone and the world love Apple and their cool toy.

If Verizon could get their hands on a deal with Apple for the iPhone, I would bet anything their service would remain high, their coverage would remain top notch, their customer support people would still care about getting whatever issue you are calling about fixed and they would still have the least number of dropped calls in the nation.

AT&T disables services on their network because they love having control over people. They disable VoIP over their network because they want people using their limited minutes instead of their unlimited data for phone calls to increase the chance for overage charges and more profits for their CEO. Their rate plans are higher because there is nothing anyone can do about it. Devote followers of the iPhone will pay anything to have it. When there is no competition in an industry, you can charge whatever you want and nobody can say a word about it. This is why our government has laws restricting monopolies.

Jared Newman, PC World and my loyal blog readers, I leave you with this… Don’t blame the phone, blame the network. When Verizon gets the iPhone and everyone with AT&T switches, we will see the effects on the network. I got $20 saying Verizon does it right and backs their phones with the network to support it.