"World's Thinnest" phone from Samsung

Motorola's RAZR has been stripped off the title as the World's thinnest phone by Samsung with it's SGH-X820, which is about 6.9mm think (or should I say thin?). It's as thin as the iPod nano. Though thin, it packs a lot on feature, like the 2 MP camera, MP3 playback, Bluetooth and the now-becoming-a-standard on Samsung phones the TV-out port. I saw a lady the other day sporting a Samsung phone (not this one though) and I thought it was already pretty thin, so I thought. Anyways, I'm very interested in getting one, what holds me back is the UI of the phones, oh and it's too bright for me, anyways, maybe, just for the sake of owning one, why not.

Why the iPod is still the Best Portable Media Player for me.

A lot of Portable Media Players out there are trying their best to beat the iPod from it's current place as the No. 1 Music Player in the world but always falls short. Why? Well, aside from the stigma that the iPod gives the owner and the closest that it gives the owner to the prestige that owning an Apple product gives, practical-wise, it all boils down to the ease of use of the system. I have yet to see a portable music player that can compare with the iPod's ease of use. No minute buttons, no tiny screen, it's simple and it's simple. Want to choose a song? Just thumb through the playlist, and click the center button and the music is playing. Still not satisfied, even when in the pocket, one could maneuver to the next song or put the whole system in stand-by with just one hand even without looking at it. That's how easy it is.

Notebook PC Battery life

A lot of new "affordable" notebook PC's are popping-up in the market today, though the specs of these computers are comparable with most high-end ones, most have one drawback in my opinion, the battery life. Most of them has only 2 hours operating time. What do you think you could do in 2 hours time? Just when you're getting to enjoy your work then poof, there goes the low battery alarm. It's unfortunate that a lot of establishments are becoming hotspots, meaning the use of a mobile computer has more meaning in these times. 

"3" logo on Globe's Phone

Looks like Globe messed up when they were looking for a picture of one of their 3G capable Sony Ericsson phones. At this site, you'll see that the Sony Ericsson K608 has 3's logo right smack on the screen.

Globe 3G video call -- it works!

It's been almost a week since Globe launched their 3G with HSDPA service and I was able to test the video call part just today. The call went flawlessly, I pulled up the number of my wife on my Sony Ericsson K600i, pressed call and it got connected. The good thing is, I didn't have to use any wired or wireless headset because the voice quality was great! The video was smooth but a bit pixelated though features on my wife's face was recognizeable. The only drawback is, the signal is not a wide as SMART'S yet. Oh well, I will just have to wait for it to widen.

Opera Browser's Text to Voice is very useful!

While writing this blog, I am listening to an article from Inq7.net. Yup, listening, I am using Opera Browser's built-in text to voice feature. It's very easy to use, open a web page, highlight the sentence or paragraph you want voiced out and right click, choose speak and it will read out to you the articles. Though monotonous, the voice is ok, and understandable. Not like other text to voice features of other softwares, this one simply works. One good way to multi-task if you're going to ask me.

The New Mac Commercials

The New Mac Commercials are hilarious! It's straight to the point, no going aroung bushes (somehow I find that fascinating). Simply put, I'm a PC and here's what I can do, and I'm a Mac and here's what I can do. But then again, it appeals to the young generation, to individual users, do you think it will appeal to corporate/enterprise clients? Well, perhaps not, but then again, the ones hadling IT in the corporate world are in the younger generation, so, it's a bit logical, since these are the people who's going to work with these machines, then those in the higher ups would be listening to the IT guy's recommendation on what to get. And since the Mac is one stable machine, well, you get what I mean!

Firefox vs. Camino

I may not be a Computer Engineer nor a Software Developer, but I don't need to be one to notice the difference in loading time and refresh times between Firefox and Camino in my iBook. This I know, that both are developed by the same people from Mozilla.org. I wonder why? Well, if you like you can try it yourself. Since I've downloaded both, I've been using Camino more often than Firefox, but then again, I'm using both more often than Safari, OS X's native browser. Then again, I would rather use Safari than Internet Explorer anytime, not that I'm afrain someone will go in my iBook maliciously, but one can never be too careful.

Rush and get yourself a Mac

There is a very reliable rumor that Apple will be releasing the MacBook, the replacement for the iBook this coming May 9, 2006. This means that distributors and resellers alike are most likely to drop their prices on their current inventories. Local reseller Ynzal Marketing is holding a SUMMER DEAL PROMO, where a 12" iBook G4 which normally sells from P61,980 can be acquired for as low as P53,980 and it comes with FREE Airborne Access account. Hurry up and grab one Mac now, oh don't worry, it's not as difficult as it looks, it's actually pretty easy as long as you don't scare yourself that much, heck I don't think one would get scared with the eye-candy looks of the Mac OS X. Anyways, you can reach Ynzal thru telephone numbers: 413-7575 or 4137578-79

Flyakite OSx

I've installed Flyakit OSX in my notebook PC and it's great. Although there will be some Mac enthusiasts that would give bad comments on one pretending to ba another, heck I don't care, as long as I'm liking what I'm seeing. Anyways, Flyakite OSX is an emulation software that will change the look and feel of a Windows machine into more like a Mac machine. Pretty helpful to those who are planning to shift to the Mac, but still not ready to plunge on the new system yet. It will also add fun to those who are not familiar with the software and seeing something not windows on a supposed windows machine. So far, even up to the startup and beachball icon is or should I say looks authentic. Try it out, you can always revert back to the windows look anytime, just uninstall the application and you're back to the windows world. Oh before I forget, remember that this is just an emulation software, meaning, it just coats the windows better looking icons and whatnot, meaning, it's still windows at the bottom and that it's still prone to virus and worm attacks. Enjoy and have fun!

Opera Mini 2.0

Opera Mini 2.0 is out. In fact I've already downloaded and installed it in my phone. Ever since Opera released the Mini version of their famous Opera browser, I've used it most of the times instead of the WAP browser of my SE K600i. What I liked about the Opera Mini is the speed and how it renders HTML web pages into something that is viewable in my phone's small screen. Because the rendering/conversion happens in the Opera servers, it uses very little of my phone's resources and the file size of the webpages are reduced thus minimizing my GPRS charges. Pretty cool huh! The new version corrects the previous flaw, unable to download files from any website, now, one can download and store the files in any JAVA capable phone.

Google Calendar

I've been using Google Calendar for a couple of weeks now and I'm enjoying it. Adding an event is very easy. With it's "Quick Add" feature, one doesn't have to fill boxes, just type the event in a sentence in the box with all the details inside (e.g. Meeting with John tomorrow in the Mall at 7pm) and it will post your event in the calendar in no time. Now don't you think that's easy?

Yahoo! Widgets are better!...at the moment!

At the moment, I've been using both Yahoo! widgets and of course the Dashboard widgets in Mac OS Tiger. So far, I find the Yahoo! Widgets better than the one from Tiger. The widgets for Mac is not as exciting as those from Yahoo! The Radio widgets from Yahoo! are more diverse while those for the Mac is soooo limited. I may be wrong 5 months from now, but as of the moment, my bet is with Yahoo!

The Start of Change

Today I finally took the plunge in changing the wallpaper in the desktop of my iBook! Wish me luck!

An Apple Store/Distributor with Not so Many Accessories

I dropped by the MacCentral (or so I think), the store in Digital Exchange in Glorietta that claims to be an Apple products reseller, but they don't even have stocks of the screen protector for the iBook G4. Well, I would presume that other stores would have a wider range of accessories. 

Globe WIZ

For the very first time since I susbscribed to Globe's World Pass, I am able to use my World Pass account in a Hotspot, specifically here in COFFEE BEAN & TEA LEAF at the CONVERGYS BLDG. in the Republic of Makati. You might ask what the hell is the big fuss about it, a lot of people are doing it anyway. Yeah I know, that's why I'm making a big deal from it, because this is the first time that I will be able to use a service that I have been paying for almost a year now. Before, perhaps 5 months back, I tried to use it at the Starbucks in the ABS-CBN compund in Quezon City, but I keep on getting the denied access prompt. When I called the technical hotline then, they told me that they can find nothing wrong with my settings, and perhaps I could try it again, and here I am, after soooo many months, trying it again. Good don't you think?

Piracy!

Today I've encountered this issue again, perhaps it's very hard to ignore it as it is very rampant in the Philippines and in the world. Within one of the 3 Macintosh User's group forums, a member is contemplating of switching to the Mac OS from Windows, and one of the factors (actually 4th on his list) is the availability of pirated softwares for the Mac. He was very openly vocal to it that it earned him the ire of some senior members, most of them I know personally, and are "advocates" of legit softwares. My take on this is, I am not against those people who patronize pirated softwares, nor am I against the crackdown by the authorities thru the lobbying of the developers against those who sell and use these applications. But practicality-wise, for the consumer, since it's a cheaper alternative, then why not. What do I mean, for example, a legitimate Microsoft Office Suite, will cost around P15,000.00 while one can buy it for only P50.00 in the sidewalks (if you know where to look). See the difference? Another one, Video Compact Discs (VCDs), before an original VCD would cost around P500.00, but with the proliferation of pirated copies in the street the original discs now cost around P200.00, now that's a huge slash in the price don't you think? Now, it makes one wonder, how come, they could bring down the price to that level and yet before it was extremely expensive. Perhaps, the "pirates" now are becoming an open consideration when it comes to the affected industries. And what I'm talking about here are just those which one can buy, but with the increasing number in broadband users, the threat now has become more widened because accessibilty to cracked software in the internet has become as simple as looking at the sky.

Yahoo! Widgets for Mac

So I installed Yahoo! Widgets in my iBook hoping that I will find something that Dashboard can't do. Well I found out that the radio widget for 102.7 KIIS FM that I've installed in my VAIO notebook is not available for Macs. What a bummer really and I can't seem to find good radio stations both in widget form or in iTunes that will satisfy me.

IM with voice

Being a user of the world's only OS exlcusive to it's hardware, you would think that you're special. But being in such a niche market, being only the 5% percent of the computer users in the world, you're really in a disadvantaged position. Yeah, some applications maybe tailor-made for Mac users, and some may have spanking ways to launch or close or use a software, but there are also disappointments. I have been looking for IM clients with voice to use with the built-in mic in the iBook G4 but it's a futile attempt. Yahoo! has set aside the development of their famous Yahoo! Messenger for Macs. Thus OS X users are left with a barebones Yahoo! Messenger. The recently released beta version of GTalk from Google doesn't have any native support for Macs, one has to use a different IM client such as GAIM and sync to the google talk servers just to use the functionalities, which I could say is very nil. Yeah, there's PROTEUS which combines all these IM clients into one but it still lacks what's in Windows. Now I'm beginning to think that the glass is half empty when it comes to mac applications.

The Daet Project!

I've blogged about the surplus computers from Japan that my brother-in-law sent me a couple of months back. These are all AMD K-6's ranging from 400 to 500 MHz boxes. Well, by just upgrading the RAM and HDD I was able to make use of these old machines. One I made as a 24/7 torrent/download machine/server and one I set-up for the kids, totally stripped-down for their convenience. Then there's two of these machines set for my In-law's house in DAET, CAMARINES NORTE. I installed both machines to be used as an internet machine primarily, coupled with a DIGITEL Netvantage DSL subscription. I was afraid that only one would be useable online because they might not be able to afford a router at this time (and I do not intend to leave my Linksys WRT54GC Compact Wireless router here), fortunately though that the PROLINK Hurricane 9000 that came with the DIGITEL subscription is a Modem router without the router function disabled (how thoughtful of DIGITEL). But it only has one ethernet port and one USB port (the technician that installed it said that I have to call DIGITEL customer service to get hold of the USB drivers, fortunately I am resourceful enough to download the need drivers), so I plugged one box to the USB and the other with the ethernet cable, but when I tried it, the one attached to the ethernet port is not sending but can recieve data from the router, the NIC cards were in compatible size-wise, so I decided to switch their places and now, it's running smoothly.