My Life With IT » Life

Longest Delay in Mobile Launch

WishBoNe — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:00:08 +0000

I have been anticipating Samsung Galaxy S. Ever since I tested it at Singtel’s pre-launch, I wanted to own it. It’s a pity that I missed the launch at Samsung’s launch event because of work. Therefore, I tested the mobile phone and love the anti-glare under the sun.

However, there has been a long delay at Starhub to launch due to the exclusive rights being extended by Singtel. It seems that by the time the phone is launched by Starhub (in Sept 2010), the fever to buy Samsung Galaxy S would have subsided, IMHO.

The phone itself is great. With the capabilities of Android and the thousands of growing applications in the Android Market, I am sure to find good ones for my uses. I would have thought that after the energetic drive with roadshows and special invitations, Samsung would have expanded to the rest of the telcos after the stipulated time.

It seems to be a growing trend for telcos to secure exclusive rights to sell the mobile phones for a while before being released to other telcos. A long delay isn’t what I would expect for this round. Unless other telcos have done the same thing before, then I wonder how the business law in monopoly works in Singapore.

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Game Trials by Big Fish Games

WishBoNe — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:17:23 +0000

Been testing out the following game trials since one hour should be enough to help me decide whether the following would be worth the purchase.

1 Penguin 100 Cases. Rather cute game with some story line thrown in. Puzzles vary from hidden objects to jigsaws and speed collection.

Fiction Fixers – Adventures in Wonderland. Looks like this might be a series of in future. Quite fun with 2 modes if I remember correctly; timed and adventure.

Explorer: Contraband Mystery. A game by National Geographic comes with facts about what National Geographic knows best.

Treasure Seekers: Enchanted Canvases. Beautiful graphics with various puzzles, hidden objects to play.

The Crop Circles Mystery. Love the graphics and upgrades available. With a map to choose from, the game play is rather flexible in a way.

After playing the trials, I know that the games that I like should really have different styles. Not easy since the game developers will have to crack their heads on how to keep people entertained and the game worth buying even if Big Fish Games offer the lowest price atUSD6.99 per game.

One hint, the Catch of The Week at Big Fish Games is something to look out for since it’s at USD2.99. Quite a steal.

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Portable Players Choices

WishBoNe — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:02:17 +0000

Decisions, decisions. Having decided that I would like to own a good portable player, I have been looking at the various options available, specifications and models. I liked the style and specifications of the following.

Sony Walkman NWZ-X1060 is one neat device. With a noise cancelling technology, way cool for me to listen while travelling. Price? A little steep when compared to the next device.

Creative Zen Fi 2 has a touch screen. With all the features I have in mind except for adding applications unlike the following. Price is half of the Sony Walkman above.

The popular iPod Touch by Apple. With all the features excluding radio. I don’t know if the new version will include radio or not. Just can’t remember. However, I can install any application. Cool, right? Seriously, I don’t know if I should wait for the new version that comes with a camera. I mean, I have a great camera and with built in camera for iPod Touch, I can’t upload the photos unless I subscribe to a data plan. Or, I can tether it to my mobile phone.

Now, the choice is to buy which one.

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PC Games Trials (Big Fish Games)

WishBoNe — Sat, 15 May 2010 01:41:44 +0000

Sometimes, I can’t help but try out some of the games in Big Fish Games. Been testing a few of the games that I felt were interesting.

Life Quest: A little like SIMS but without the awkward 3D since it’s a PC game. Interaction had to be fast since there’s competition, I don’t remember if there are 2 ways to play but speed is the key here.

Liong: The Lost Amulets: I like the mixture of hidden objects, find the difference and mahjong in this game. There’s also a wheel that will decide your next puzzle type.

Kuros: Beautiful graphics and charming music. A little hidden objects involved and puzzle. I like the fact that I can play at my own pace.

Plan it Green: A wonderful game about being environmental friendly with nuggets about each green movement facts and benefits.

Emerald City Confidential: Adventure with dialogues and detective work. I like.

Plant Tycoon: Grow plants in real time. If plants are combined correctly, the seeds can grow into something special with bonus. I’m attracted to the graphics mostly. In addition, time can be slowed. I forgot if it can be paused.

The plus points of being a member of Big Fish Games is that there are daily catches going at US$2.99 if you are in the club (free for 1st month).

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Cafe World Connection Lost When Serving Food

WishBoNe — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:42:50 +0000

Dear Cafe World Developers, thanks for giving me the opportunity to play.

I used to like playing Cafe World. I don’t scald myself. I don’t have to remove the clothes in the kitchen when some cooking is about to be done. I don’t have to do anything except click on the stove and my chef will do the magic. That was simple until there is this problem of constantly connection problem whenever I attempt to serve my food.

Loading can take from 30 seconds to 5 or 10 minutes. It uses up my RAM way too much at its whim. I am frustrated to say the least when I am supposed to be just spending 5 minutes in this game and move on to the next. When any game gives me the same problem despite many fans in the fan page stating the same problem, I am NOT a fan neither do I like the game anymore. I am using the Like function as it’s the only way to give feedback. That’s all.

I am so closing the cafe. It is trying my patience way too much with the repetitive lost connection when attempting to serve food. It’s a simple case of serving food. What is wrong with the connection?

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Won 3 Premium Themes from WPLuxe and WPNow

WishBoNe — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:52:33 +0000

I love premium themes! Thanks to WPLuxe contest, I have won 3 spanking new themes for my sites. The sites that I have updated and still need some troubleshooting are:

A Mind of My Own

Foo Thoughts

My Life with IT

Therefore, all the sites need some time to let me see what is causing the issue of display alignments. I love the themes and will have to change the logos to my site names.

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Web Browsers Keep Crashing

WishBoNe — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 12:55:33 +0000

I don’t know what’s the deal. Cafe World or Facebook seems to be crashing the web browser for no reason. I tried Flock and it was unable to keep within the flock. I tried Firefox and the fox couldn’t take the weight. What does it take for the system to load properly or is it my Windows Vista needs defragment or it needs a format?

I don’t know what I can work with anymore since the system is unstable in my laptop. Either Cafe World takes its own sweet time to load and eat up the RAM like it loves mutton a lot or it loads fine and just crash the browsers. Look, it’s a simple thing. The laptop should be able to take the load. Just keep the browsers smooth and I just do my business and everybody’s happy. Deal?

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HTC Legend 1st Impression

WishBoNe — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:12:26 +0000

M1 and HTC organised an Android workshop recently and I went for it in hopes of winning a $500 discount voucher. Alas, twice, I didn’t get it. However, I did get to play with a demo set that the promoters were going around. It feels a little like iPhone with the screen being draggable. That’s where the resemblance ends.

There are so many applications that are free in Android market for Singapore that I had the urge to get one since Omnia has been getting senile lately. I haven’t formatted it yet since I dislike having to re-install software every few months. A good mobile phone should be working fine as long as it is fine. I am discounting the fact that I don’t delete SMS, install and uninstall occasional software to see which are the interesting ones like tracking distance, weather, Latitude (which failed to load since Omnia kept stoning away each time I loaded it despite me installing in the HDD), etc.

What I dislike is that the restriction of installing applications only in ROM. That’s not enough for my 1001 needs! There’s a slot for memory cards and OS should be able to allow installation in the memory cards since the ROM has limited space. Now I wonder if I will truly install the 30, 000 applications that Android market has.

HTC Legend is a piece of art since the aluminum is sculpted as a whole. The guy even dropped the phone twice to show that it is still working well. The battery didn’t pop out since the back is covered and I don’t have to worry about cutting a call off suddenly. I love the optical trackball option as the finger on the screen can activate programmes accidentally like what Omnia often does when I’m dragging PockeTwit. I’m afraid that by comparing Omnia with HTC Legend, it’s unfair since Omnia came out quite early and has a miserly 94MB in ROM that often screams at me to remove programmes or clear the SMS.

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How To Turn Off People

WishBoNe — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:50:43 +0000

Online, it’s pretty easy to turn off people since the words on the screen are emotionless. Nobody really knows what you are saying unless they see and hear. With the rise of Facebook and Twitter, it seems that these two popular media have been taken to be a medium for abuse. Maybe abuse is a strong word to use but it’s really easy how to turn off people from sites or from you such that you have a strong repelling personality.

Steps to annoy people

Blast out “Come to my site!” on every single site you visit.
Constantly send the same email every other day to a lot of recipients you have absolutely no relationship with in the first place.
Place lots of advertisements every other 2 lines.
Lots of popups every page of your site.
Keep urging people to visit your site at Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.

The above steps may just be something that will make people puke at the sight of your name. I haven’t tried it since I have no time to do all of those steps. I rather spend my time amusing myself with the actual productivity of learning something useful even if I have no chance at this point in time to use a 3rd language. No, it isn’t related to IT even.

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Using Facebook and It’s Various Applications

WishBoNe — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:10:45 +0000

Facebook is such a hot site that even hackers want a piece of the pie. Having been using Facebook for a while, I find that there are people who are very good at maximising the use to promote their sites while I have been just using it for other things. Youtube has a long list of how to make use of Facebook. Check out the videos here.

Personally, I have encountered being added by total strangers just because some of my friends are friends with them. It’s even a higher activity level if there are guys adding females and I have seen a few requests with guys having more than 1000 female profiles added. I wonder if those guys do know of them or they are just collectors. I even had one who is out to snag a girlfriend by constantly sending requests for contacting me on a more personal level than just using Facebook’s messages. My avatar? It’s a cartoonised version that doesn’t look remotely like me either.

ProBlogger has a problem with adding strangers and is now limiting the friends list to just real people he knows or has interest in continuing the contacting. While adding friends seems to be showing off the power of your network, I know that there are some I’ve added without knowing them at a personal level and there are some I added just because I was playing certain games and the larger network in the games applications, I have, I have a faster way to progress up the games faster.

Ultimately, I got tired of playing the games since being games, they tend to be repetitive after a while. The games developers have been hard at work trying to add new features to the games every few months just to keep up with the interest. That said, I know why I didn’t choose my career in the games industry. That will kill my brain cells in just a few months.

There are so many applications in Facebook to help promote websites and one of the application I’m using is called Network Blogs. It’s rather simple and much like Technorati in a way. Just a few conditions for it to showcase your blog posts; there must be more than 5 followers and for more tracking, more than 20 followers for the most frequented followers.

To me, Facebook is a tool. A tool that can be used up to the individual’s imagination. It’s a neutral tool just like the Internet. It’s the humans who choose to do what to use the tools for, like what a knife is being used for.

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