mykrocosm

Got a buzz in my pocket today from Virgin mobile. Turns out they’re increasing their SMS costs from 20c to 25c. It’s been two years since I got my phone, so I decided to check out the current offerings for a person who makes no calls and uses SMS exclusively. I’m not the most prolific texter either so I need a reasonable period in which to use up my credit.

Virgin : 25c per SMS as of Sep 01. Still 5c for Virgin 2 Virgin messages, but I’m not going to ask everyone in my address book who they’re with and even if I did, it wouldn’t make any difference. If I need to message someone, I’ll message them whether it’s 5c or 50c.

Vodafone : 25c per SMS. They’re really pushing these pre-paid monthly packages at the moment, $49 for $230 worth of calls, that sort of thing. Only catch is, when the month ends, so does all your credit. It doesn’t roll over. And there’s no way I burn through $49 worth of SMS’s in a month, let alone $230 worth.

Telstra : Are you f’g kidding?!? I did check them out just to be fair, and I saw absolutely nothing worth writing about. Their plans just suck, as usual. I bet most of their revenue comes from corporate mobiles. To paraphrase that old saw… Nobody ever got fired for buying Telstra.

Optus : Well, they have 4 different plans, including their famous ones where you can talk/SMS for free with other Optus phones, however you do have to read the fine print. These plans have a 60 day expiry and non-Optus phones attract a 25c SMS. However… Optus do have a standard pre-paid plan with no free Optus-to-Optus capabilities, but the SMS’s are 18c across the board and it has a 6 month expiry period. So your $30 charge up can go a really long way. I reckon this will be the one for me.

Unless, which is very likely, there’s a plan out there I’ve missed

So on Friday we’re hastily trying to shut down Far Cry on the big screen when one of the executives grabs the Windows Media remote and pushes the Start button. This of course sends the PC into a swapping frenzy as it tries to simultaneously load and unload some seriously chunky programs. Finally (after we’re seriously considering lunging for the wall switch) Far Cry disappears and the Media Centre appears.

The executives have a little play with the system, and conclude that the demo video is a bit jerky. Having escaped the room by now I can only imagine what they might blame for this …

We decided to stay back this afternoon and admire the new HP Media Centre & Pioneer plasma TV that recently appeared in the office. We put Far Cry into the drive, and quickly established that FPS gaming on this setup is not a good idea for several reasons :

1. The Media Centre’s video card is a bit underpowered
(it’s a PCI Express card but at the bottom end of the market)

2. The huge screen can actually cause motion sickness

3. The wireless keyboard/mouse are not responsive enough

4. And last but not least, two senior executives WILL choose to walk in at that exact moment!