Question and Answers

A couple of folks took the time to IM me this evening through the meebome widget, but unfortunately I was watching Hero and didn't see the IMs. On a sidenote, Hero and I are forming a Lost-like love/hate relationship, the cliff hanger every week is killing me I'm going to have to stop watching until the DVDs come out. But that isn't the point is it.

The first question was:
"All i get is the number of text message[s]. Is there a way to show how many minutes are left?"

The quick answer is yup, there is. The long answer is there are two ways to do that. First, if you move your mouse over the extension and leave it there for a few seconds a display will come up with more detailed information about your account, including the remaining anytime minutes for the month. The other option is to right-click on the extension and go to the Preferences. Once you get there, choose "Minutes" from the "Display in status bar" drop down. Once the extension is refreshed your minutes should be displayed.

The second question was:
"...having a problem with it not refreshing w/ the new/correct info..."
The reason for this is that the extension will only check automatically once every 10 minutes so we don't bombard Cingular with unnecessary requests. If you want it to update right when you look at it, you can right-click on the extension and choose "Refresh." That will force it to refresh and ignore the lastChecked date.

Hope that helps, post up if that did (or didn't) answer you questions. Sorry I missed you.

All in the Family (Plan)

I've had a number of people post comments and email me directly asking about support for family plans. Given the number of people asking about it, I'm going to make it one of the top 2 or 3 things I do when I start working on new features again (January). Which means, if it can be done reasonably, it'll get done.

In the meantime, I'd love some ideas from you guys about how the display of family plans would go. Would that be a third option in the prefs (anytime, text, family)? Would you like to see something like 243 Anytime Minutes Remaining/562 Family Plan Minutes Remaining (243/562 in non-verbose mode)? Those are my first two thoughts. I don't have a family, you know orphaned at 3 and all (not true even a little, I have a hugely supportive Mom and Dad, and a brother who's alright too). But I do not have a family plan. So, your suggestions for the usability would go a long way.

Lifehackers

Thanks to the folks over at Lifehacker for the post today. I've been reading Lifehacker for a while now and always like to see the tips and tricks they suggest. I took a peep at my site stats this afternoon and was shocked to see quite a spike from the 10-20 hits a day I usually get. Thanks for coming by Lifehackers, let me know if you see something you like :-).

Cingular's Website

I can't log in to Cingular's website. When I try to, it kicks me back to the login screen without an error message. So, if you're getting the "Could not login to Cingular" message from the extension check Cingular's website to see what's going on there.

Anyone else having the same login problems or is it just me?