Reinterating why I like the Mac

Why i like my iBook or perhaps all Macs, maybe because of OS X, focuses only on one reason, the immediate boot up. It's not techinically booting up since is just waking up from sleep. But it helps a lot. If I want to do something right away, I don't have to wait for a minute or two for my laptop to wake up. Windows notebooks have the same feature, it's called Hibernate, but it's not as fast the Mac OS does. This is the main reason I stay with Mac but other factors considered, I wouldn't turn my back completely on Windows.

Unboxing: HP iPAQ 512 Voice Messenger

I have a new toy, and it's in the form of the HP iPAQ 512 Voice Messenger. It's a Smartphone. Powered by Windows Mobile 6 with some HP additives.

I usually change phones in one or two year's time. I am also a solid Sony Ericsson fan (my very first Ericsson phone was an A1018). So why get a non-SE phone?

My current, er, "previous" phone sa a Sony Ericsson M600i, has UIQ for it's platform, white (goes with my iBook) and slim with of course the rocker thumboard. I had it for 6 months and I might say, I am well contented with it. Problem is, it doesn't have two functions that I want, a camera and WLAN (WiFi).

Then came the Sony Ericsson P1i. Of course, there's also the Nokia E61i, but I am not really a fan of Nokias (for the same reason that I don't like Windows Mobile, they're both SLOW and BUGGY!). Anyways, the P1i is still too expensive for my taste. I still have to convince myself to buy a phone worth more than a generic desktop PC or half a Flat Panel LCD 32" TV. Plus the fact that I'm looking for an OS (smartphone) that will accommodate my profession's applications (at the moment, only Palm has fulfilled that need).

Some will say, why not get a Treo or the latest Centro. Well, I've entertained both, then again, Palm handhelds still lack wireless (wifi) capabilities. I will grab a Palm phone right away (even if the OS is aging) once they have included WiFi capabilities on any of their products.

Now, why the iPaq line? Well, what really caught me was the price point. It's mid-range, with a very nice feature-set (I'm the type who wants to get the most out of a gadget). I also like how it looks like. The built (for having it for three days already) is solid. Although I'm afraid the paint will eventually erode as use becomes more frequent, especially the logos at the backside. The keys have good tactile feel, but coming from a thumboard, I had a difficult time re-adjusting to the one hand texting. Also, even if I don't have quite a big set of fingers, I often mis-press the adjacent keys.

The OS. Ok it's Windows Mobile 6. It looks good...on the Home Screen. But when you dig deep into the OS, it's a boring flat, no eye candy what so ever. Responsiveness? Nada! It's down there. Once I started to use multiple applications, the response is crawling. That's even after I closed all of the applications from the Task Manager. Also, multitasking, although available (since it's Windows Mobile), will definitely screw everything up. If for example, an application is open and a text message comes in, the processes will stop to almost to a hanging state. Heck this is the cause of most hangs with this phone.

The manual is not very helpful. It's more of a generalized user guide than a detailed one.

Let's go to the WiFi connectivity. It's supposed to be easy, but for some reason, I have a hard time connecting it to my network. It takes some time for it to get it's IP address. I also got a couple of errors with regards to DHCP. But once connected, everything is doing good. I have yet to try VOIP services on this phone. I used GIZMO settings.

Bluetooth? It has it, no problem with pairing with my Jabra headset. Though I experienced some problems with transferring contacts from my SE M600i in bulk to this phone. It did not accept it. Still on the process of test if file transfers (i.e. pictures, music, etc) from the iPaq 512 to another device.

Camera is so, so. Being it only a 1.5 MP shooter. It's mediocre. But it will do. I now am having a hard time looking for a FREE blogging client that will let me post the pictures I've taken to my blogger account.

The screen is ok, but not impressive. There will be some pixelations, but overall, it's ok.

So far, I have not experienced any problems with ActiveSync. It works! That's the surprising fact.

It did not come with a real charger, but instead, it has an USB adapter which is plugged into an electric socket and a USB cable is used to attach and charge the phone.

Voice Messenger:
This phone is being touted as a Voice Messenger. Meaning, a lot of functions can be started/used just by using voice. And what's nice about it is, it does not need any training. If I want to call Rob in my contacts, all I have to do is say "CALL Rob at MOBILE" then it will ask you to confirm. Pretty neat! I can also read back text messages (but with how Filipinos text, a simple message can take a long time to read out).

UPDATE: email set-up is a breeze in this phone. Email is integrated with the messaging client, together with the text messaging. Setting up an email through the built-in wizard was so easy that I was getting emails from my Gmail, Hotmail and believe it or not, Yahoo! Mail in less than a minute of entering the required data.

I have a rough time configuring my email client on my SE M600i a while back. Though I got it to work on the Sony Ericsson phone, configuration is not as easy as this one. Also, what's so surprising is that, I am now able to get Yahoo! Mail on this phone, even if my Yahoo! account does not have POP3 access.

The first thing I did was to enter my email address, then the second part was the wizard auto-checking for available configurations for the email, then it asked for, of course the log in details and the frequency of pulling email from the servers. And that's it! Email on the go.

Overall: I think I will still use the phone, but majority of the reason relies on the presence of Wireless access. But I don't think this will last me a year before I get a new phone. Oh and did I tell you that this is my very first WINDOWS MOBILE device. Yes it is.

Safari on Windows Faster than Firefox but...

Safari on Windows is really fast in loading wedpages than Firefox but, initial load of websites (right after opening Safari) is longer, way too longer than Firefox. After everything has loaded up and I go to other pages, it's a snap.

New Yahoo Mail Out of Beta, now with Text Messaging

Yahoo! has brought the new mail interface out of beta and it now includes the capability to send SMS (text) messages to mobile phones. At present, only four countries are included to have text messaging included in their Yahoo! mail, Philippines, US, India (I think) and Canada (or is it Australia). Will update if I have my facts straight already hehehe.

Globelines Down

Yesterday, when I got home, I wasn't able to connect to the internet. When I checked my modem (PROLINK Hurricane 9300G) the internet light was not on. So I did the routing on-off cycle to no avail. Then I decided to call Globelines. The guy told me that the modem is syncing with their servers, and that the problem is on my end, meaning the modem. He said he will send someone to look at the problem today. While awake I desperately tried to do the cycle but that LED internet light did not light up. So I accepted the fact that they might replace the modem.

This morning, it's more of a withdrawal symptom than anything else, I turned on the modem hoping the internet LED would light up, lo and behold, it did!

I'm wondering, perhaps the problem was not on my side, but there really was a problem with the Globelines network and the guy that I talked to did know it yet. Perhaps I'm one of the lucky ones that get good service from the company, although I think there are more dissatisfied customers with PLDT.

Nonetheless, I did not report that my internet is ok now, it's better for their people to check on the devices.

What's the use of PIM applications on the Desktop?

There are instances that one will need a PIM (Personal Information Manager) application in his/her lifetime and there are lots of them out there. In fact, there's one in every phone that comes out today, and perhaps there's one in your desktop or notebook installed.

Outlook is one of the most commonly used, especially in the enterprise arena. But there are people that use it even at home to help them organize schedules and events.

Nonetheless, with the advent of broadband connections and the widening coverage. The penetration to homes has increased, and the point is, it is the time to look at web-based applications, this time web-based PIMs. One advantage is that, it does not occupy a big space in the hard drive, and being on a remote server, it does not need that much processing power, meaning, the processing power can now be used for some other work.

Instead of opening multiple applications at the same time (e.g. web browser and PIM application), one has to do is to open only one, the browser. And with the popularity of tabbed-browsing it is not hard to shuffle thru different websites.

Try for example what Google has to offer. It has Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Photos. All under one account.