How much is your monthly phone bill? I’m sure everyone has a different answer to that one, but the biggest mistake is to think that the more calls you make, the higher your phone bill. The reason this may not be true is because companies like Net10 actually have plans where you can pay a fixed amount a month and use your phone as much as you like. In the case of Net10, they have an “Unlimited Minutes, Text and Web” for $50 a month. That’s right, it’s an “All you can eat” plan which means your cost is capped at $50 regardless of how much you use your phone.

I hadn’t come across Net10 before, but it’s nice to read about them and hear a testimonial from a Real NET10 customer which really outlines some great reasons why the company is used. I love the fact, for example, that you can pick up a phone for as low as $15, just add credit and off you go. They have excellent coverage across the U.S. and also provide long distance calls to around 75 countries. In fact, here are 10 good reasons to switch to Net10:

All in all, it looks like a great package and an good choice if you’re looking for a prepaid phone provider. Can out this Cute NET10 commercial if you want to learn more.

Having a passion for technology means that I do get through my fair share of phones. And every now and again, one comes up that makes me stop what I’m doing and want to learn more. That’s exactly what happened when I saw this ad for the LG Optimus 7

Ok, it’s based in a fairy-tale world, but it does give you a flavour of some of the functionality of the phone. It’s running Windows Mobile 7, the latest  mobile Operating System, which already promises some great stuff (especially if you’re already tied into the whole Zune/XBox ecosystem). But it also adds a number of LG specific enhancements including a great Voice to Text feature and the ability to talk to other devices wirelessly. The specification of the phone is pretty good too, with oodles of memory, a large bright screen and a battery that promises to keep the phone going for a decent amount of time.

If you want to learn more, you can find more information down at their Facebook page: LG Optimus 7

I came across a press release today announcing 32Gb microSD cards. Here’s the blurb from the release

The 32GB microSD card, developed this month, stacks eight 32Gb NAND components and a card controller. The industry’s highest capacity, production-ready microSD card is enabled by the use of Samsung’s advanced 30-nm class 32Gb NAND flash memory technology. Previously, the highest density microSD card in production had a 16GB capacity and was based on 40nm-class 16Gb NAND. The new 32GB card is 1mm-thick. The portion of the card that is inserted into a handset measures just 0.7 mm in height.

I don’t know how many of you out there have made their careers in micro-chip design, but the reality is that most of us tend to feel the effect of this industry. I think it’s just great that technology develops at the rate it is at the moment, there’s something new to look forward to every day!

In the meantime, I need to start thinking about upgrading my microSD card

You can Follow me on Twitter for more updates on what I’m doing

The question is, what do you do with your Christmas gadgets?

Nifty I thought. Check it out

The reality is that you authentication schemes need to match the asset that they’re protecting, and balance that off against the hassle users need to go through to acquire access. It’s an ongoing debate we have at work, about how tightly systems should be secured or how open they should be. It’s all a matter of risk at the end of the day.

One of my favourite plugins for FireFox used to be one called FasterFox. Here’s what it does:

• Prefetch Links
  Dynamic speed increases can be obtained with Fasterfox’s unique prefetching mechanism, which recycles idle bandwidth by silently loading and caching all of the links on the page you are browsing.
• Tweak Network
  Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.
• Page Load Timer
  A millisecond accurate page load timer tests the effectiveness of your settings.
• Block Popups
  A popup blocker for popups initiated by Flash plug-ins is also included.

I liked the prefetch, but that wasn’t my favourite feature. The plugin added a timer at the bottom of the browser to show the load time for the page. It’s an awesome feature which I really miss, and I haven’t found a plugin that does the same thing. Maybe I should just buy myself an IWC Pilot to make up for the loss

Unfortunately the plugin only works up to FireFox v2 and I’m not on v3.1 Beta 2 .. I wish they would update it

So, where are you Only Network readers based then ?

(p.s. it also lets you generate some pretty comprehensive analytics about how your content is being shared)