Recently Telus and Bell have informed their users that they will now be charging for incoming text messages. Not only will people be charged the usual fee for outgoing messages, but now person receiving the text message will also be charged. It seems very strange. This would be akin to someone calling you and you getting charged for the call even if you do not want to talk to the person at the other end of the line.

This is clearly a blatant money grab by these two large cell phone companies to squeeze extra cash out of their existing customers. Of course, customers are usually locked into some sort of contract and can not escape without a huge penalty. Can the cell phone companies can implement this fee on existing contracts? It seems like they are going to try.

There has been a huge outcry from the cell phone user community. Petitions and class action lawsuits are being used to try to stop these extra charges from coming into effect.

This doesn`t currently affect myself as I use Virgin Canada as my mobile provider. However, it still concerns me that Bell and Telus can get away with it.

I would suggest that the best way to fight back is to take your number and move to a competitor that doesn`t charge for incoming text messages. Virgin Mobile, SaskTel, Rogers and others currently don`t charge for incoming text messages.

Vote with your freedom of choice and move away from the Bell and Telus at your next opportunity. You would think large companies would focus on customer service rather than implementing outrages cash squeezing strategies on their loyal customers.

This strategy does not seem new to Bell. Currently, we have Bell ExpressVu as our satellite television provider. We are already charged a large amount for our monthly satellite subscription. However, that`s clearly not enough for Bell as they have implemented an $3 ‘Digital Service Fee’. An easy to implement fee that add millions to their bottom line each month; at the expense of their customers.

As consumers we have the power to choose. We really need to make a conscious choice to do business with companies that have good customer service while ignoring those who choose to alienate their existing customer base.

When my last cellular phone contract expired, the search started for a better way to stay connected. The amount cell phone companies charge for services seem outrageous to me. All those little extras really add up. Personally, I don`t use my phone for voice communications a lot, but I do like to check emails and stay on the web when away from home.

The best bang for my cellular buck came at Virgin Mobile Canada. Currently, with their prepaid phone, there are no fees for many of the extras. Voicemail is free and their is no monthly system access fees or 911 fees. There are a handful of plan options for prepaid, and all seem fairly reasonable. The best bet for myself was the basic 30 cents per minute charge.

Unlimited web browsing was the clincher. For only $7 per month I get unlimited browsing on my phone. This means often times I don`t spend more than $15 in an entire month, including both voice and data.

By adding a large top up of $100 into the cellular account, my top up lasts a whole year. I will definitely spend $100 in a year on my calls and web services, however it will still be a lot less than what I previously spent on my contracted cell phone service. My savings will still be around $200 per year by going with Virgin prepaid.

Another necessity was having good cellular coverage. Being from rural Saskatchewan, it was necessary to stay on the SaskTel network to have good coverage throughout the province. Virgin has an agreement with Bell which uses SaskTel as it`s coverage provider in Saskatchewan. Bell and it`s affiliates still have by far the largest cellular network within Canada.

Buying the phone outright was an added upfront cost to going prepaid for cellular service. My Samsung M510 phone was reasonably priced at $150.

Virgin has a decent online method of adding funds and checking your account. Their customer service support is also decent. Virgin has recently launched a monthly postpaid plan also, but I will be sticking with my prepaid service for now.

If you are tired of overpaying for many of the features you want on your cell phone, check out Virgin Mobile Canada.

It has been almost a month since Vista SP1 was released. The Windows Update on my Gateway computer was not indicating anything about SP1 being available. I did a lot of research including Microsoft`s site. The article indicated that most likely it was the audio driver not being compatible.

Information was buried on the IDT site, explaining that if the driver is uninstalled from the Programs and Features area, SP1 will become available.

I uninstalled the my IDT audio driver, gave my computer a reboot, ran Windows update twice and surprise there was SP1.

I let Windows Update do its SP1 update (which took about 40 minutes). Then when everything appeared normal again, I went back to the Intel site (see the previous article), and reinstalled the IDT audio drivers.

Gateway and Microsoft support were once again less than helpful. I hope this article helps others facing a similar Vista SP1 issue.

Late last year, we purchased a new Gateway GM5457H and took the leap into Windows Vista. We haven`t had many issues with it at all. One thing that did bother us was the lack of updated drivers for the motherboard (sound card, modem, etc.) on the Gateway support site.

After some research we found that the Intel Desktop Board D945GCL is virtually identical to Gateway`s ‘Council Bluffs’. Intel has updated drivers that work perfectly on our machine. I would not recommend downloading the BIOS itself from the Intel site. Stick to the Gateway site for that.

The one thing that really perturbed us was the lack of a mixer in the antiquated sound card drivers found on the Gateway site. Now we have a fresh IDT sound driver that works very well, including mixer, from the Intel site. Our hunch is that the new driver will never show up on the Gateway support site.

Other gateway machines that use Intel based motherboards likely have a matching board at Intel. If you dig around a bit on the Gateway site you can likely find a hint to the board and track it down from there. The first part of the BIOS name (even thought we don`t recommend using the Intel one on a Gateway computer) is exactly the same for our machine – CF94510J on both sites.

So we hope at least one other Gateway owner who is frustrated with the lack of up to date support from Gateway finds drivers that work for them from Intel.

On a recent vacation to the Canadian Maritime provinces Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR) data recovery software proved itself to me, without a doubt.

It was our third night on vacation. We were just settling down for the night, and I was fooling around with our digital camera. My muscle memory that controlled formatting the memory card was stronger than my tired mind could control. In a split-second, I had deleted over a hundred pictures from our trip.

After some anxious moments, my rational thinking kicked in. I figured that since the ‘format’ occurred so quickly the photographs were not really deleted. My assumption was correct. Photographs will not normally be completely destroyed until they are overwritten when you take more pictures.

After using ZAR on our laptop, along with a quickly purchased memory card reader, we had all our snapshots back. The best part is that ZAR is free for digital camera image recovery. The licenced ZAR tool performs recovery on damaged or deleted files from a variety of situations.

Bookmark the Zero Assumption Recovery website now, so you don’t panic trying to find it if you ever get that sinking feeling I had.