That may be exactly what I need. Thanks, Gris.

how do people like Virgin's service/coverage/etc.?

Coverage has been fine for me except for national parks (where coverage is often spotty to nil for Verizon and/or AT&T as well) or really remote areas. Virgin is run on the Sprint network. I mostly use the phone for email and FB/Twitter so I can't really report on using other apps or the browser.

I currently have just a dumb phone. I text rarely enough that paying $.20 per is not yet a problem, but I see where it would certainly be useful to be able to text more. I'm considering a phone upgrade but remain leery as my current bill is below $40 every month, and I'd rather not double it [or more] if I can avoid it.

My Virgin monthly bill is a total of $37ish for the $35/month plan that gives unlimited data and texting and 300 minutes of talk. I think it's only more than $35 because I'm in California and there's tax. But you don't have all those fees and taxes that are normally tacked on to contract plans.

I had to buy my phone upfront, but because I was actually saving $15/month vs my flip phone, my BB paid for itself within a year (and I finally had data and texting). Plus, that was the phone I had liked at AT&T anyway.

Kristen - when my 3GS died, I switched from AT&T to Verizon. In terms of coverage, it has been a HUGE improvement. With AT&T calls dropped all the time, and I literally could not make or receive a call inside my house without it dropping. It's been nearly a year since I switched to Verizon, and I've had maybe a dozen calls drop - most of those were because the *other* party was on AT&T.

The "Share Everything" plans are kind of a PITA. My whole immediate family is going to join one plan - it won't save anyone huge amounts of money, but it should save us all a little and I won't have to worry about voice or text overages any more. I never use over 1G data/month, so we'll have 4G data with three smart phones (my two siblings will be getting smart phones for the first time) and two dumb phones to start, to see how it'll work. My bill will drop only $10 or so, but again - worth it to not worry about text & voice overages.

The Verizon website does kind of suck, but chatting with a rep can usually get you the info you want.

I think Credo runs on the Sprint network as well, for what that's worth.

My experience with Virgin has been the same as megan's, to add another data point. I need a new phone, but I'm doubtful about switching away from Virgin to an unknown.

I don't make a lot of calls, but haven't had a problem with my Verizon iPhone in LA. It's been trouble-free for 18 mos, but I have the unlimited plan.

My sister has been with Credo for ages and likes it fine. I'm not sure what her usage is like, though.

I've only run into coverage issues in Crescent City, CA with Verizon and I don't know of a single phone carrier that really works there. I've had no problems anywhere else including, oddly, national parks.

I find that AT&T, moreso than Verizon or the others, gets massively bogged down when you're in a crowd. I don't know if that's because they have more users, or a worse network, or too many iPhones or what, but if I'm somewhere crowded (outlet mall, Pride, a game) there's no chance in hell I have signal or ability to call, text, or use the web. Which can be very frustrating.

I had this problem on Verizon at the Daytona 500. I could get things through but it was certainly slower than usual on the two days when the actual big race crowd was there. We were on a rain delay and I assume everyone with access to a phone was trying to use it. Anytime we weren't at full capacity, it worked fine.

The iPad struggled a few times on AT&T with middling crowds. Probably they had more users and were quicker to find the limits of the network.

I only use my cell, so coverage and accessibility are my key points. Certainly I pay more than I probably could for my service plan. I just expect it to work.

I had trouble once with my Virgin phone at Dragoncon, when I would get texts on a several-hour delay. Only once, though, out of three or four times. And that's fifty-thousand people concentrated in a small area.

Is there a way in Outlook 2007 to set different hours for different days of the week? (I work 8-4 MTW and 9-5 ThF.)