The Websolace

Now here’s an interesting one.

I accientally threw my N95 out of a moving car and surprisingly it’s still working, but due to my being OCD, I cannot bare to use it without looking at the scratches every now and then………… so I had to resort to use the only working phone in the house –the iPhone!

You may know me as a big hater of the iPhone and yes nothing much has changed. I still don’t understand why people like the iPhone.

Unlike my other post I really have used an iPhone now (more than a week now I believe) and guess what… MAKES NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL.

Let’s get down to the basics shall we?

With the iPhone you get these preinstalled applications:

• Phone - for access to calls and contacts, with the new firmware there’s also a separate application called Contacts
• SMS
• Safari - it’s web browser
• Mail - for e-mail
• Calendar
• Photos/Camera
• Calculator
• Clock
• Notes
• Youtube/Stocks/Maps/Weather/iTunes/AppStore - web powered applications
• .. and of course, it’s an iPod too!

I FAIL to see the desirability of it’s features for it’s price and overmarketed hype. It DOESN’T have anything any phone made in 2007 or to be specific, 2006 doesn’t already have. Multi-touch? Cool but seriously a failed implementation.

To give you an indepth review of this device let’s go through some of the applications listed above:

Phone - Horribly designed user interface, especially when using the iPhone with one hand you’ll find yourself in an uncomfortable position to hold it as you’re going to rely on your thumb to go through your Favorites, Recents, Contacts, Keypad and Voicemail, depending on the size of your hand, may tilt the iPhone in a way that it’s liable to drop. On another note, Favorites was a nice idea to implement on a phone lacking speed dialing.

Additionally I did have problems in this part. Synchronizing with Outlook was a breeze, too bad it had to go wrong in some areas. It doesn’t sync all your contacts as they appear in Outlook. For example, on my best friend’s contact profile I have both her US and local number stored. They’re neaty defined as both Mobile Phones, in my best understanding, in the iPhone you can have a contact with two or more mobile phones. So yeah, if you were like me you probably wouldn’t worry about anything not synchronizing well, well.. you would be wrong too! It appears as though whatever was responsble for synching my contacts (iTunes) MAGICALLY picked only one of the two numbers. So here I am in the Philippines not noticing all this time that I’m actually texting her US number who now belongs to some pissed off guy receiving gibberish text messages from another country. FAIL.

SMS - Someone finally got it right! Whoever created SMS probably had one way messaging in mind, sorta like how paging works. Hence why most mobile phones handle SMSes by having multiple threads of messages, even if it’s from the same person. The iPhone handles SMSes like instant messaging, best of all it has timestamps and will properly place any delayed messages in their proper chronological order to avoid further confusion when your mobile network is clogging up. What sucks? Well is that it doesn’t handle archiving like our IM clients do. I personally like having a copy of conversations for future blackma….reference. In fact I have about 400,000 or more probably worth of text messages backed up from my N95.

Over the past few days I’ve come to realize that I have to stop bashing the iPhone because I can’t text with one hand or that I may never find my way around it without looking because of the lack of buttons. I’ve made my peace with touch screen devices……. I’m STILL ANNOYED AT THE IPHONE THOUGH. WHY CAN’T I TURN OFF THE SPELL CHECKER? Why? WHY? It’s EVIL. For really long messages I find myself with more than fifty unnecessary taps at my Taglish message compositions. MAN I’D LOVE TO GET RID OF THIS PHONE JUST BECAUSE OF THAT. How ignorant is Apple? They’re releasing this phone to other countries which are not necessarily English speaking too!

Safari - Someone.. got it right again. Safari has to be where the iPhone shines, in fact, you can happily avoid the iPhone and just get the iTouch just for the browser. It’s fast and the multi-touch interface really shines here the best. It feels fluid to use and FAMILIAR. Good job Apple, good job.

Photos/Camera - Browsing through photos is mediocre; zooming in photos is fun though. The camera….. well.. we all know megapixels don’t matter. If you didn’t … to quickly explain and debunk the whole megapixel myth.. well, megapixels is simply a measurement of how big (literally) the image is going to be. Like VGA for example translates to a resolution of 640×480 or 0.3 megapixels. Where did I get that 0.3? Well 0.3 actually means 300,000 pixels… by multiplying 640 and 480! Image quality is found somewhere else and on many factors. The iPhone.. does *again*… mediocre at this. Actually, it fails. If the iPhone came out about two years early it would have been great, but in this day and age where it’s competitors are giving digital cameras a run for their money …. phone cameras shouldn’t BE just phone cameras.

Youtube/Stocks/Maps/Weather/iTunes/AppStore - Youtube is nice, I love being able to watch videos over a wireless network without a computer, the search functionality works like a charm. As for the other applications they really don’t cater much to me at all. Stocks is a nice attempt to lure businessmen on using this phone though, but… still fails!

iPod - Works like a charm. Sadly the phone itself somewhat fails at it’s implementation. One huge problem I have with it is that I can’t change songs while the iPhone is in my pocket. I know you can probably get an external remote for it but I’m just saying, you can’t… this is another feature best left for the tactile response of something awesome called buttons. Oh yeah, album view or whatever it’s called.. gets boring after a while. No pracitcal use other than brag rights on how clean your music library is.

Overall.. what do I have to say about the iPhone?

Sucks, stay away from it. The only good thing about this phone is an game not bundled with it.. and it’s called aMaze!. By the way, when you get one, ditch AppStore and jailbreak it. It’s easy. Ask me how!

Oh by the way, I went to Nokia Care and it’s going to take about a month for the parts to come from Singapore. SO yeah.. about three more weeks with this thing.

I don’t write a lot of these days; I don’t write at all.

There has to be a spark and from that a flame until a fire starts, then I get typing –this is that part.

No matter how profound the topic is, I believe I’m of credible source. You see I’m almost never sad and with that, I oppose the popularly said phrase.. I do.. I do have a smile behind every frown. So let me share, please, give this post a few minutes. I guarantee once the ideas settle, you will come back and agree.

1. Do what you wanna do

If smoking and drinking make you happy, then flourish on that. Criminal life sounds nice? Go on a murderous rampage or rob a bank. I don’t believe that we’re all destined to be locked under society’s norm to dictate what we’re supposed to be and how we should act. If you wanna be emo, then.. go sit in a corner and be happy.

2. Remove all negavity

This is simple as it gets, remove all bad elements from your life; specifically, what you perceive as wrong. You don’t like people who don’t like smokers? Don’t hang out with them. Flock with your own kind and see who you really are. This applies to everything really. If you’re practicing being manly and feel uncomfortable being around the color pink then redesign your room and burn the Barbies. Sometimes we just live life with these things that pull us down which we don’t notice at all.

3. Find your passion

It could be an obessesion or it could be a fetish, it doesn’t matter. Some have recently discovered their love of photography with the recent price cuts and development of prosumer DSLRs. Everyone has a passion, there’s potential in all of us waiting to be unleashed in a form of activity or love for something.

4. Have one real friend

Truth be told, we humans are just predictable. We’re all liars and we connive. How do you find that real friend? Easy. Know one friend you can’t lose and whom you know who can’t lose you either. How do you find that kind of friend? You know too much about each other, be dangerously close, enough to realize how important the other one is. In a better view of things; have someone who’s not a lover you can share everything to. We need that.

5. Reflect

Not necessarily regret. Just ponder on the things you have done. This way, you create paths and routes for self progression. You may have been proud of yourself and may have things to redeem for, but you know what you did and there’s a long road ahead for correction and salvation.

6. Stop worrying

Of all the possible secrets, this one will hit you the most. STOP WORRYING. Always keep in mind that life is temporary and the worst possible thing that could happen is death. Yes, I’m subtlely talking about ignorance and somewhat, a refresh of number 2 (which is Remove all negativity). Remember what the Dalai Lama said in Seven Years in Tibet? Whether or not he said it for real, it makes too much sense. We have a saying in Tibet: If a problem can be solved there is no use worrying about it. If it can’t be solved, worrying will do no good. No more truth to it than that.

7. Watch Seven Years in Tibet

(with no real relation to the movie) Speak your mind. I know of no words coming out sharper than from an untangled mind. Yes they can be harsh and brute, but they are pure. Speak from your mind, heart and soul. A lover is easily won by the unadulterated words of the heart and no opposition is cut worse from sentences than from a furious mind and lastly, no truer from the soul itself.

8. Mix a little ignorance to what other people think of you

Whether or not you’re in or out of society, particularly for those who are in.. make it known. Nothing more that pains us regularly than what people regard us as. Learn to accept the things people throw at you in a matter that you filter out what you don’t wanna hear. Accept imperfectness for absolution to take place; guard your ego and be self righteously knowing of who you are.

9. Be yourself

There’s not much happiness in roleplaying throughout your whole life. Come out of the closet. We’re all vulnerable, we’re all idiots and we’re all in it together. There’s no one better in the whole world to know you but yourself. Don’t deny who you really are. I know you’ve read or heard this a million times from a million others, but have you really paid attention and meditated on it? Who are you? Do others perceive you different than you see yourself? You can’t truly be happy under a mask.

10. Know that you’re happy

Happiness… is a choice. Just by delcaring your happiness you have won over sorrow. Be proactive and smile, there should be more of that to go around. JUST BE HAPPY.

Lastly, there’s one that’s too important to mention but shouldn’t be from the list. The quintesence of happiness; the epitome of smile and by popular saying, it makes the world revolve.

Love, find love, know love, be in love.

The list is originally meant to complemented, it’s important that you have someone to be happy with.

You’ll have your Disney ending; a happily ever after.

Wow, what a title and yes this is real.

You see (you can skip this part if you’re eager to make that call fast) I have a sister and a brother who are both living somewhere else now; Japan and America respectively. I have a G-Flex 3500 Globe subscription and that’s not even enough for my local calls not to mention when the international fees are added! Globe and Smart (not sure with other networks) both charge forty cents ($.40 USD) a minute for calls to the US which is roughly sixteen pesos ($1 USD = 40 PHP conversion), it may not look expensive but when you pill up all the five-ten minute calls you’d come up with a four digit to a five digit bill for international alone.

For so long I’ve been wanting to cut that in half without cutting them out.

I have a solution!

How do you make five peso calls to the US?

Okay, the five peso calls are only for Globe subscribers but Smart subscribers get to save too.

What do you need?

• 3G phone (explained later)
• Globe SIM (preferred)
• Skype account with Skypeout
• Fring
• Credit card

1. Get yourself a Skype account if you didn’t already have one here.

2. Top up that Skype account with Skypeout which enables your Skype account to call outside (PC to landline/cellphone) anywhere in the world. It costs $10 which is awesome partnered with their cheap rates, take note that countries differ (Calls to the US are $0.02 per minute which gives you more than 600 minutes worth of calls to the US with $10 and 100+ to Japan which is $0.154). From this point on you’re actually able to make eight centavos per minute calls to the US. You can also check their other promos here.

3. Install Fring on your 3G mobile phone. Alternatively, you can use any other Skype client which works for you. I chose Fring because it’s feature rich as it can also run as a background process (even main) on my phone.

4. For Globe subscribers, if you haven’t already, text TIME to 1111 to activate time based mobile internet access. What this does basically is change how you’re billed for acccessing the internet through your mobile. By default you pay per kilobyte you download, by texting this you’re requesting that you be billed five pesos per fifteen minutes you surf or access the internet wirelessly regardless of how much bandwidth you use. You should receive a confirmation text within an hour.

4. Login to Fring on your mobile using Globe 3G which now costs only five pesos per fifteen minutes compared to Smart’s ten pesos per thirty minutes. This is where the five peso calls really come in; you see through Globe 3G and your Skypeout account. You pay five pesos for mobile internet access for fifteen minutes which in most cases is even more than enough for one call, you maybe using up your Skypeout account but with $0.02 USD or 0.8 PHP rates it’s disregardable. That $10 will last you a very long time not unless you really religiously call the US, either way I still saved you a ton of money!

You can still do this with Smart but it costs double as their time bracket is allocated at thirty minutes. I suggest getting a Globe SIM specifically for this, prepaid will do anyway at 50-100 PHP per sim pack.

What makes this cheap? I’d like to thank two technologies at work. VOIP and 3G.

VOIP - It stands for Voice over Internet Protocol which is fancy talk for a technology that allows digital phonecalls ergo it uses the internet to route calls anywhere in the world whether its destination is another computer, an analog phone or a mobile.

Don’t be confused, Skype is company that delivers VOIP solutions like Skypeout. It’s cheap because rather than travelling through analog phonelines, Skype uses peer to peer technology (research that on your on!) which lets Skype use it’s great big pool of users (their bandwidth, not actual phones!) to help hop phonecalls to their destination. Read more about Skype’s VOIP technology here.

3G - The third generation of mobile phone standards and technology. It is NOT synonymous to video calling as it is only a feature, be it, one of the most popular uses though. You can actually relate it somehow to it’s cousin WiFi who basically is a faster 3G network (bandwidth!) but with shorter range. First developed and implemented in Japan to say the least! 3G mixes in data transmission for uses such as surfing with broadband like speed on your phone, video calls, calling through the internet to make cheaper calls of course and more.

Yep, again, I saved you a ton of money didn’t I?!

Just so you know how geeky I am.

Fact, computers are so complex that I don’t know anyone who can map out their whole inner workings. Fact, women are so complex that any concrete understandings of them are lost within the borders of impossibility. So, in a way, they can be related to each other.

What if, your operating system of preference can be analogized to your girlfriend; of course, if you even have one. This is my take on it.

Linux - She’s your neighboring anti-social environmentalist. She preaches for the pseudo leftist movement, basically symbolizing teenage crisis. This is your clean teen slash emo, she has her principals mixed with a little cynical view of life. Anti-social how? Well it takes a level of eccentricity to really get to know her, although recently, has been going through theraphy. Now she kinda wants you to like her, of course, there still are requirements. Oh she’s user friendly alright, but she chooses who she befriends.

Macintosh - The cheerleader, often attracts the dumbest beings to-be.. otherwise known as the jocks. She rolls out her eye candy and it never fails to stimulate the minds of those who’re in badly need of substance. Constantly nags and always places herself on top of the foodchain. In some desperation, also the controversy starter where all the stories told in secret start. Everyone loves this girl and has been the inspiration of songs like Saving Jane’s Girl Next Door. Oh, did I mention that she enjoys making home movies?

Windows - If there were two movies that best describe her, it would probably be She’s All That with a mix of Ten Things I Hate About You. Windows is the girl that doesn’t fit in any category, well, at least she used to be a nerd but with newfound knowledge of cosmetics, there’s no telling who she caters to. Being the girl Macintoshes hate, good thing their numbers compensate for the hate wave with a hint of jealousy. The girl who leaves parties a little early, a sprout of the soccer mom and target practice for criticism that’s Windows and what else? She may very well be the boss you work for right now.

Looking down on a globe, the world is round, the water is blue and the land is green. True facts. Then you zoom in some more.. The world is beautiful, the water is pure and the land is fertile. Lastly, you hit reality. The world is screwed, the water is polluted and the land is scorched.

There is no lower level than where cynics stand. You idiots never appreciate my being “down to Earth”.

You see, I’ve always, always loved the villains. It’s spectacular to see someone go against the one thing you can never stop, and that’s where the idealist in me kicks in. No matter how omnipotent the protangonist is, Lex Luthor still managed to kill the opposition. Look at it this way, the bad guys are but a supplement for whatever good their wrong end fights against.

Cynics are beautiful, cynics die though but cynics are real. Everyone else wears make up, everyone else thinks they’re going to live forever for everyone else is delusional.