SuperJason’s Personal Blog

Just after getting out of my 2 year contract with Verizon, I switched to Sprint.  Sure, they’re evil too, but I wanted a new phone (as did Melissa).  They’re also slightly cheaper for their 1400 minute family plan (with my discount through work).

We both got a Sanyo Katana.  My Katana is black, and Melissa’s is pink.  She no longer has a reason to complain that her phone isn’t as good as mine.

I got 2 Katana’s for $50 after rebate total.  It was a BOGO deal. 

So you’re probably wondering why I chose the Katana.  I had it narrowed down to that one, or the Samsung A900M.  On paper, the Samsung was much more impressive.  It was very similar to the phone I have now (a Motorola e815).  The Katana is missing a lot of features, like full bluetooth (but my headset works fine), a video camera, better interface, EVDO, etc.  However, the Katana has better voice quality, signal strength, and battery life.  I’ve had a Sanyo phone before, and I know that’s the case.  The general consensus on the Internet is that Sanyo usually isn’t beat in those categories.  So far, I’m really liking it.  The quality is great.  I haven’t had a chance to try it out in the places that I had reception problems before.

When I really thought about it, I mostly use my phone for….talking!  Yeah that’s right!  Maybe that’s the most important feature to look for in a phone. 

I was concerned with losing Verizons network (although the guys following me around were annoying), but from what I can gather, Sprint allows you to roam on Verizons network.  That means that my coverage should be similar or better in theory.

This new phone is about half as thick as the old e815, but at the same time it feels more solid.  I definitely recommend it to someone looking for a good all-around phone.

When I went to the Sprint store, I actually didn’t intend on making a purchase.  I didn’t think I could get my discount, and I didn’t know how it would work with the Verizon billing cycle.  It turned out that there were no problems, so I went ahead, and it took about an hour for my service to kick in and and my number to get ported over.

I had to call Verizon to get my account number, and they asked why on earth I would be canceling their amazing service!  I told them that Sprint was giving me free phones, a better price, and now my nights start at 7pm.  Verizon gave up.  They didn’t even try to match the offer.  I just don’t understand these companies.  I have to switch providers every 2 years to get a good deal, and they’re always shocked at the end of the deal.

If you know my number, be sure to give me a call soon, so I make sure I want to keep this phone, otherwise it’s going back within the 30 day return policy. 

I called Verizon last night with a mission.  To get out of my 2 year contract without paying an early termination fee.  They raised their cost of text messages from $.10 to $.15, which admittedly doesn’t have a big effect on me.  According to my contract, if they make a change that has a “material, adverse” effect on me, I can call them within 60 days of the notice of the change, and cancel the contract without an early termination fee.

When I called, the first rep told me flat out that it wasn’t an “adverse” effect, because I only used 2 text messages in 3 months.  I explained that I had a 2 year contract, and there was no way of telling how many text messages I would send in the future.  After getting shot down, I asked to speak to his supervisor.  He basically gave me the same lame excuses.

I then asked why this paragraph was in the contract.  He could not tell me why.  He kept trying to turn me down, but I kept asking why it was in there.  I then proceeded to ask him what kind of change would constitute a “material, adverse” effect.  He said that would happen if my bill went up, or my minutes went down.  Yeah right, not buying it.

I kept insisting that I needed to get out of my contract NOW, because after the 60 days, I had no recourse.  He really had no answer to that, and went ahead and canceled the contract.

I’m now on the same plan, but I can switch providers at any time that I like.  I’m still researching what I want to do…
 

A friend from work, Dan sent me a very interesting picture, which gives a good overview of the current world of software  I think it does a fairly decent job of showing who’s fighting, who’s winning, and who’s stalled.

 Click on the image for the full version:

I read a really interesting interview.  It was an interview with Joel Spolsky, who is co-owner of Fog Creek Software.  I've been a long time reader of his work.  He's an excellent writer (unlike myself), and he's been very successful.  If there is anyone that I'm trying to emulate in the software world, it would be him.  His most successful products have been FogBugz and Copilot.com, of which I have purchased both.

I love reading stories about how successful companies started.  I'd like to think that I'll be able to duplicate their success one day.

Here are some things I found interesting about the interview:
"I think we started making $5,000 to $10,000 a month selling that".  He goes on to say that they doubled their profits every year since they started.  That means they're making somewhere between $80,000 and $160,000 per month after 5 years!  That's some nice geometric growth, and the appeal of writing software that you can sell unlimited times.

"The biggest mistake that we consistently made is that we kept getting all kinds of interesting marketing ideas".  He tried numerous marketing strategies that people will say are REQUIRED.  I know that a lot of people say that you're product will go nowhere if you don't market it correctly.  That's probably true in some cases, but it might not be as many as you think.  It might not be as powerful as you think.  Sure, Pepsi needs to spend a small fortune keeping their beverage fresh in your mind.  Good software can often sell itself.  That's awesome.  He goes on an explains further.  "Every minute, every developer hour we spent on any one of these crazy things—although they had some marginal return on the work that we put into them—was nothing compared to just making a better version of the product and releasing it."  Excellent point.  Not only would I rather spend time making my product better, that will probably be the best marketing strategy!  I really hope he's right on this one, and I think he is.

"Things that to us are basic: Aeron chairs; private offices with doors that close for every programmer; letting programmers report to other programmers, so that your boss will understand you. We had 4 weeks of vacation and another week of holidays, which you can move I think. For the consulting business, we had a rule that you fly first class and that you never be away from home on a weekend."  I've seen companies that just have a sea of cubes, and say that it helps communication.  There are also businesses like Microsoft that insist on an office for every developer.  I agree with Joel on this one again.  Sure, the communication is easy, but it's TOO easy.  I can easily interrupt the people working around me, even when I shouldn't.  It should take some effort, which would make me more inclined to just figure it out and not bother anyone.  As a developer it's optimal to stay "in the zone".

"My goal is to build a company where I can take much more significant ideas—where I can say, "Golly, backup software is really, really terrible. It's awful for all kinds of reasons. Let's make good backup software." That's a big project. I want to have the organization that I don't have yet where, when we get those ideas, we can produce the products."  I've thought the same thing.  Right now I don't have the resources to act on my good ideas, but I hope that some day I will.  There are an endless supply of bad pieces of software out there.  There is an endless supply of people banging their heads, not understanding why the software isn't designed right.  These are all opportunities.

"Don't start a company unless you can convince one other person to go along with you. If you don't have two people (or I would even say three) that you've convinced to devote their lives to doing this, it's just going to be a different thing."  This is new to me.  It makes perfect sense.

And now for the sad one.  "But because they never really take the leap and quit their job, they can give up their dream at any time. And 99.9 percent of them will actually give up their dream."  This one is sad, and it's sort of driving me to not be in the majority.  There has got to be a way to make this a reality.