Watch Cliffy B and some friends demo GoW3 at E3:

If that doesn’t sell you on the experience and get your pumped for April 2011… I just don’t know what will.

So you are probably seeing a lot of people posting something about liking Olive Garden and how they are getting a $100 Gift Card from Olive Garden for simply following a few steps on a site called “http://eat-for-free-at-og.com/”

Now here’s the thing, it’s not actually a scam, but it certainly is NOT free. Why do I say it isn’t free? Because I can read, and here are the details as they actually work out.

First you are told there are three easy steps:

1. Click the “Like” button
2. Click the “Share” button
3. Click the “Claim” button

This is when the “free” part of this whole deal breaks down. You have already done the most damage at this point because you have announced to all of Facebook that you are easily duped because you don’t read the fine print as poorly designed sites like http://eat-for-free-at-og.com/

So here is what happens when you click on the “Claim” button you are sent to “amazingfreerewards.com” which is a great name since there is NOTHING free on their site. Ever.

Amazingfreerewards.com is a spam house that dupes you into either buying junk for a “free” prize, or (and more likely) gathering your email information so they can sell it to third parties to advertise and fill your inbox with junk mail (that isn’t technically spam because you have given full permission for them and anyone they choose to use your email address for advertising purposes).

Let’s look at the fine print shall we:

You must participate in and satisfy a total of 8 Sponsor Offers as follows:
Page 1: 2 offers
Page 2: 2 offers
Page 3: 4 offers
To satisfy the requirements for the Free $100 Olive Garden Gift Card, you must participate in the above-stated number of offers for each page (participating in offers in excess of those stated above for a given page does not reduce the number of offers in which you must participate on the other pages), and you must complete each of the Sponsor Offers pages listed above.
Please note Sponsor offers may require you to sample and/or purchase products of interest and/or take other actions such as applying for or obtaining a loan or extension of credit (including credit cards), transferring a balance, or similar steps. In order to remain eligible for your gift, you must complete all of the sponsor offers that require you to sample and purchase products of interest within 180 days of signing up for our service.

It couldn’t be more straight forward than that. You must satisfy 2 of the offers on Page 1. Let’s see what they are:

• Netflix (free-ish)
• Miracle Whites Trial – your credit card will be charged only $1.00 plus $3.95 S&P (non-refundable) — Then the auto renew your “membership” at a price of $69.22/month (good luck canceling)
• Absolute Green Tea — Free Trial with $4.95 S&H — (buried on another Terms and Conditions page) If you do not cancel by calling 1-866-762-0945 within the Trial Period, the credit card you provided at signup will be charged $79.93 for the Product you received during the Trial Period.

I think you get the picture. To complete any two of those offers you are looking at at least $70/month if not more! Not worth a $100 Olive Garden card.

So let’s all agree to not partake in this scam, and maybe instead let’s call the owner of the site, a one Rachel Johnson who is registered for the domain at 121 6Th Ave Apt2, Altoona, PA 16602 — You can call her at (814) 201-2184… I think to be fair we should all call late at night, just so she knows we really hate these sorts of scams.

Enjoy your weekend!

I personally user Tmobile, and over the last few days (about a week) I am more glad than ever that I am on Tmobile when I see what other carriers are doing to their data plans. The idea of getting more and more restrictive with bandwidth is absurd. Every day prices for broadband services for the home drop, just look at your local providers. Every day we lay more and more fiber in this land to make the broadband cheaper and easier to access. In countries outside the US broadband is not just available but it is kicking butt and taking names.

This isn’t limited to just the land lines either, oh no this includes the mobile broadband. However, here in the states we seem to be taking the wrong direction to how we treat wireless broadband. Instead of making it more affordable and unlimited companies seem to be wanting to limit its use by charging more and more for less and less.

First Verizon’s CEO Lowell McAdam announced they are going to be moving toward “buckets”:

So the model to me going forward is I expect that people will have realistically four or five or six devices that they have to connect to the network, and it may be as many as 20. And so I think you’re much more into the mode of instead of a device and a price plan, you are into let me buy a bucket of megabytes and I will use them any way I want.

Now McAdams goes on to say that he actually views data plans as the future of the company and that voice will be a matter of grandfathered plans by 2012 as Verizon expects to have all plans be purely data and use VoIP as the means for voice calls. Not a terrible way to look at the future, and he is probably right.

Then today I see that AT&T is coming out with new data plans, however the sad truth is they are getting rid of unlimited plans! Basically the announcement says this:

• 200MB for $15/month
• 2GB for $25/month
• Tether for $20 on top of the 2GB plan so $45 total

This all seems horrible to me and I can’t fathom what is making these guys look in the direction they are. I know that providing cellular services isn’t cheap or easy, but I really feel like AT&T and Verizon are looking to squeeze money out of people now. Especially when you see companies like T-Mobile and Sprint offering unlimited data plans for around $30.

I think it most unfortunate that people who are with AT&T and Verizon, will be going with AT&T and Verizon won’t really care that they are being screwed, but only because they don’t really know what is happening.

Frankly I see this as yet another opportunity for the Tmobile and Sprint teams to rally around the unlimited data plans, and push hard. Make a stab at more business under their belts. Perhaps Tmobile will see these moves from their biggest competitors and really lean on their HSPA+ rollouts and get their service on par with speeds that AT&T is offering, and then hammer them with the unlimited bandwidth.

I really see the future of computing as being wireless, instead of hunting down hot spots we are just using the connections we have via our wireless companies. The current plans these clowns are working on however, would suggest they don’t really want things to go that way, which is completely silly as it’s been proven time and time again that data transfer is easier, cheaper and more reliable than current voice technologies.

If you are an AT&T or Verizon customer, now is the time to voice your opinions and let them know how you really feel about data plans, and why you think they are making grave mistakes!