Boingo has a great wireless network for Wi-Fi access around the world.  If you’re on the road they seem to be a pretty good alternative to paying on a site-by-site basis, and it is even a decent price often just for a daily.  Well, it seems that they are pretty keen on getting more subscribers on their monthly plan rather than holding out for the daily subscribers, so they’ve cut their subscription pricing drastically, from $21.95/month to $9.95 for folks joining up now.

The key is to use promo code UNL01090USD0 when you are signing up.

Originally noted here.  Thanks!

UPDATE: Three caveats about this offer.  First is that it expires July 31st. Second is that the “unlimited monthly usage” is actually 3,000 minutes/month.  So don’t leave it logged on overnight at the hotel and you should be fine.  Third is that it is only good in North America; global roaming will cost you per minute.

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We are now on day 5 of the iPhone madness, and it appears that Apple is having some major issues keeping the thing in stock.

None of the AT&T stores in my area have received any new shipments since their initial batch, and I’ve been hearing similar reports from others. One even heard that Apple told them not to hold their breath waiting for a new box of iPhones and that in-store orders would take up to 3 weeks to ship.

Even the Apple stores themselves barely see any new shipments. Yesterday I was told the tale of someone who waited in line for 4 hours, only to be told they were out of phones (doesn’t anyone at Apple count the people in line and compare it with their inventory?).

The only stores that seem to be able to keep getting restocked are the flagship stores. They’d better fix this soon, or people are going to be mighty disappointed, especially if this turns into the new Nintendo Wii.

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The newest iPhone software added a much needed feature; push email. And at the same time, Apple introduced their own push mail service; MobileMe.

The Apple version costs $99 for a year, but today I’ll show you a free alternative that is, in my opinion even better.

Mail2Web is a well established hosting provider that has been offering free Exchange accounts for years. I’ve been a very satisfied customer (with my Windows Mobile phone) for ages.

Their free Mail2Web Live service offers a basic Exchange push service with your own @mail2web.com address. You can forward your existing email to this address, or use their service to pull your own email into their system. The free service is ad supported and everything you send has your mail2web.com address in the “from field”.

For just $4.95 a month you can upgrade to Mail2Web personal; this allows you to use your own email address and access the service through Outlook Web Access. For just $59.40 you get a service that is essentially the same as MobileMe, but with TRUE push features.

You get a full 30 day money back guarantee and no setup fee is charged!

Update: I’ve been a little harsh on MobileMe, as commenter TivoBoy points out, there is a lot more to the Apple service than just Email.

Mail2Web exchange solutions

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After numerous delays, the first MSI Wind netbooks seem to be shipping. Gizmodo got their hands on one, and have already posted a brief review.

According to the review, it’s everything the Eee should have been.

In short; $499 gets you a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, a 10″ display, 1GB ram and an 80GB drive. The price drops $100 if you select Linux.

Source: Gizmodo MSI Wind review

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Over the past few days I’ve been keeping an eye on the inventory pages on Apple.com. This handy service shows which Apple stores have the new iPhone in stock, and which models are actually on the shelf.

One thing I’ve constantly seen is that the 16GB iPhone sold out almost everywhere, in both colors (with the black version selling out first).

When Apple introduced the first generation iPhone, they started with a 4GB and 8GB version, and just like now, the larger one was the biggest seller. Just 2 months after its introduction, the 4GB version was discontinued. due to lack of customer interest.

So I have to wonder whether Apple really learned from their mistake? Of whether they are doing this on purpose? Sure, they had to make some concessions to keep that magical $199 price point, but they could have anticipated that demand for the larger one would massive. Of course, knowing Apple, this is all part of their grand scheme. Either way, it’s pretty crappy because a lot of people walk into an Apple store and when faced with just one choice of iPhone (8GB), they’ll decide they don’t want to spend another 4 hours in line and pick the one they didn’t really want. That’s dedication for ya!

My guess is that in 2 months Apple will discontinue the 8GB 3G iPhone, and that by December we’ll see a new 32GB version show up. Just in time for Christmas…

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The ride is officially over. This weekend Sprint put an end to their fantastic SERO mobile plans. SERO was intended for employees and their friends and family. Back in 2006 someone discovered a way for anyone to signup for these plans, and Sprint apparently loved the new signups enough that they kept the loophole open. Until yesterday.

The new employee referral plan starts at $59.95 and includes the same things as the current plan, but adds unlimited TV, GPS, Blackberry and music. But it is only open to people who actually have access to a Sprint employee account (and the last three digits of their account ID).

The good news is that current Sprint SERO subscribers will be able to stay on their plan, but any changes, including upgrading your phone will force you onto the new plan.

I’m undecided about the whole thing. On the one hand it was great of Sprint to keep this open for so long, but to change it and shut it down will only hurt them in the long run. They generated a lot of goodwill with this, and to remove it on the same weekend AT&T introduced the new iPhone seems pretty stupid.

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Blackberry owners, pay attention! If you want to make your device look a little more exciting, then check out the free themes over at Blackberrythemes.co.uk.

These premium themes used to be available for purchase only, but because of an upcoming new release of the theme maker software, he’s giving away all his theme packages for free! There are some pretty decent looking themes available, but you’ll need an 88XX or 83XX Blackberry to install them. Once downloaded, unzip the theme, then simply point your desktop manager to the directory where you unzipped the files.

You’ll then be able to select the theme from the “themes” menu option in your setup screen.

Source: Blackberrythemes.co.uk (via Berryreview)

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My deal of the day is the Magellan 4040 GPS unit. This text to speech enabled GPS system has built in Bluetooth (for making hands free calls), as well as a fairly decent database with 1.5 million points of interest (this unit can be “hacked” to add an additional 5.5 million points of interest).

The unit is refurbished, which means it was returned to Magellan who then clean it up, replace anything necessary and repackage it. Unfortunately Amazon do not mention what kind of warranty is included.

Product page: Amazon.com

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The AT&T store is just across from this T-mobile kiosk, and had at least 100 people in line. And the Apple store above them had over 200 people in line. Must suck to watch that all day long.

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This evening I decided to check out my closest AT&T corporate store. The first indication something was wrong was the total calm and serenity inside. In the store were 9 reps and myself. People have either given up on the prospect of scoring an iPhone tonight, or they are just too tired to leave the house in this 90 degree weather.

Of course, they were out of iPhones, but when pressed how long it would take to get one, the guy acted pretty weird. At first he told me it would be 5–7 business days.

Then when I let him know I wanted 4 new lines (I bluffed), he let slip that he’d have more tomorrow morning. Of course, I dug even deeper asking what time they’d be delivered. And then he screwed up; he told me they already had them in the back, but that he couldn’t sell them yet.

Seems like Apple and AT&T took lessons at the “Bestbuy school for artificial Wii shortages”. Sleazy.

Update: The Boy Genius Report already reported on this: AT&T stores are getting daily allotments, so most stores will indeed already have their Saturday iPhones in stock today, with the Sunday ones arriving tomorrow. Still a pretty poor way of doing business.To tell customers TODAY that they are out of stock and that they need to order now and wait a week but then go ahead and sell them tomorrow to other customers is just pathetic.

FWIW; he says that AT&T stores will be getting between 20 and 150 iPhones, with most Apple stores receiving at least 2000!

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