this is my soliloquy...
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nothing much to update except for the new themes and applications i have installed on my E71. Google Maps is significantly better than Nokia Maps. Mobbler’s also pretty good. Mobbler is also an application from Google.
the only thing i’m not too happy about it is it’s UI. in my opinion, mystrands has a better UI than Mobbler but Mobbler’s pretty easy to use.
went shopping this afternoon. got the E71 instead of the iPhone. so far so good. i like the size. it will take some getting used to but i’ll manage.
in fact, i’m currently blogging this post from my mobile. The keypad’s pretty small and the QWERTY layout on a cellphone would definitely take me awhile to get comfortable with but i’m not complaining.
“Web design is as much a service industry as brain surgery. Allowing a customer to dictate and micromanage the procedure will have similar results. Something will end up fucking retarded. – megasean“
i have a brand new browser and i am loving it so far. go google!
to date, i am using google mail, google calendar and google documents. now i am on a new google browser and it’s seriously looking pretty good. so far, performance wise, i have no comments as i haven’t exactly tried opening that many tabs yet. too early in the morning for me to play around with tabs.
anyway, will be giving Chrome a whirl before making it my default browser.
i want a smartphone. no doubt the iPhone is a pretty smart one but the fact that it really cannot do much in terms of file sharing leaves me at a dead end. i want some form of document editing too. i know the Nokia E71 has the office suite and it also has adobe reader.
i have been wanting the iPhone ever since it had been unveiled last year. i got myself an iPod Touch just because it looks and functions almost like the iPhone. however, the longer i wait, the more i had time to think. just what is it that i want out of a phone?
if all i want out of a phone is just to call someone and/or send sms, i can get by with any phone. i don’t really need the phone to play media because i already have an iPod. i don’t need a camera phone because i already have a camera. or had one. no idea what happened to my digital camera but it just wouldn’t take pictures any more. so now that i have eliminated the media player and camera from the phone’s function, it turns out that the iPhone has lost pretty much quite a bit of it’s appeal.
it can go online. so can the E71. the only thing the iPhone has going for it is pretty much its look. and the screen. form wise, E71 is about the same size and the same monoblock shape as the iPhone. the iPhone is less complicated than the E71 in terms of navigation and usability but the iPhone seems like it has a host of problems like for example, syncing issues.
the phone i will be getting will mainly function as a PDA and therefore, if the iPhone were to keep losing my data and all that, there’s no reason for me to get it. another reason for me to get the iPhone is also the mobileme thingy. so far though, all i’ve used mobileme for is just to sync my calendars.
ho hum. what should i do? what should i get?
the iPhone is being launched in Singapore on the 22nd of August by Singtel. Singtel has provided new plans tailored for the iPhone but guess what? the plans aren’t that great.
here’s some comparisons of the price plans.
the iFlexi Value has free incoming voice calls. it also has 200mins of free outgoing calls and 500 free sms. it also has 1GB of free data and all day free incoming calls. with this plan, an 8GB iPhone will cost $348 and the 16GB will cost $508. the price plan will cost $56 a month.
on the other hand, the iTwo value has 300mins free outgoing calls, free incoming calls all day and 500 sms. it doesn’t have a data plan and it costs $48.15 a month. the iPhone prices cost the same as on the iFlexi Value plan. however, by adding a Broadband on Mobile 1000 plan, i will add a 50GB data plan to the iTwo Value for only a further $22.42 a month. that will make the total bundle cost $70.50. however, since new signups for the broadband mobile has a 30% discount for the first year, the first year total per month is only about $61.
i’ll be taking the iTwo value with the broadband on mobile 1000. more value for money as i am sure i will use alot of the data. GPS maps and IM on the go. not to mention youtube while on the train?
currently trying out wubi. it’s interesting. imagine, having ubuntu on your pc without having to do the hassles of partitioning and all that. just nice for me to try it and all. if i need to uninstall it, it’s as easy as just uninstalling a windows program.
oh yes. for anyone who has subscribed to MobileMe, there’s a present from Apple! a free month has been added to everyone’s account. for someone who’s a trial subscriber, this is a plus point. i’ve just started to try out MobileMe and while there’s site outages, i wasn’t really inconvenienced by it.
i’m sort of resigned to the fact that just maybe, Apple has some problem with the huge demand and all that. a few hours of shortages wouldn’t kill me so i just kind of shrugged it off. now that there’s a free month however, i can’t help feeling that Apple’s really set the benchmark there.
i wrote about how a few months back, i kind of bricked my iPod Touch. wasn’t doing anything with it except updating the firmware via iTunes when it suddenly wouldn’t respond. that happened one week after i got the Touch. when i sent it to Apple Care at Cineleisure, what they did was to give me a new one and said that it was Apple’s policy to exchange a new one if the defective product is brought in within a certain period of time after buying it.
these are one of the few reasons why i am an Apple fan even though i have yet to own a single macbook. although, would buying a macbook for my brother qualify me as a macbook owner? heh.
i’ve just registered for a trial account with MobileMe. this promises to be interesting. it’s a 60 days trial account. good thing too. it would have cost me S$138.32 for a year’s subscription.
but seriously? it’s looking good.
just finished updating my iPod Touch’s firmware. finally!!! look at those apps! now i don’t really have an urgent need to get my iPhone.
this is what i got when i tried to update my iPod Touch’s firmware.
iTunes Store has been activated in Singapore!!! finally. now i can go upgrade my iPod Touch and download apps! yesh!
although i own this domain, i have never really used this domain apart from this blog. which actually means although i have administrator powers, i never really use them. i have no freaking idea how to do more then set up ftp access, subdomains, mysql databases and emails.
one of the reasons i seldom access my control panel is that i have no idea what the other functions are for. i’m freaking terrified of messing around with stuffs i don’t know. anyway, something happened last night that reinforced that.
so the fgb asked me to help him set up a subdomain for the purpose of testing out wordpress mu. i thought it was a simple matter and actually it was. i mean, ftp access, a subdomain and a mysql database for the wordpress mu. how hard could it be? it’s something i have to do even to set up this subdomain for my blog.
well. fgb asked if it was possible for me to enable him to create a sub subdomain. he then linked me a knowledge base article on what to do to enable it. it was simple. just open a support ticket with my webhost and that’s it.
simple yeah? and i screwed it up. haha! all i had to do was simple. get my hosting company to add
ServerAlias *.subdomain.soliloquy.us
on to my domain’s httpd.conf file. nothing else. instead, what i did was ask them to add
ServerAlias *.soliloquy.us
instead. this affected ALL my current subdomains, thereby killing this blog. i panicked for a while before realising what exactly was wrong. i then opened another support ticket to get things back the way it was before.
thankfully, it was easy to do so. heh. moral of the story? before messing around with what i don’t know, i will make sure to not only read the manual and documentations but to bloody understand what i am doing before even attempting. some stuffs you can get away by reading the FAQs midway into the procedure. some other stuffs can only be done once and if you screwed it up, that’s it. as an example…
rm -rf
never ever try that as root.
just realised that i have this nifty program in my Office 2007 suite. i can’t remember why i have never used this during my time in school. this will probably make me much more productive.
<>!*”#
^”`$$-
!*=@$_
%*<>~4
&[]../
|{,,SYSTEM HALTED
wanna know what this means? find out here!
heh. while Wireless@SG is a pretty good initiative, it really doesn’t impress me. for one thing, i have to keep logging in. why can’t it just remember my device or something like that? i’ll be using my iPod Touch to surf the web after having logged in. say i decide to put the iPod Touch to sleep while i check the bus guide. it may only take a minute or so but when i next wake my Touch, i’d have to log back on again. maybe it’s the way i’m using it that’s wrong. but seriously it sucks having to keep logging on the damn network every 5 minutes.
next. sometimes, my iPod Touch will inform me there’s Wireless@SG in the area. however, safari will be unable to open any page because “there’s no connection.” heh.
in my opinion, if Singapore wants to be an IT hub in the region, we really should go about making even our buses and mrts wifi enabled.
sometimes, i wonder if we want a feature on our handphones or gadget for the sake of the feature itself or because we need it. for example, my N73 is a 3g phone. it has the video call feature but honestly speaking, the only times i ever used it was when Jem and myself were playing with it for the very first time and when my parents were over in the Philippines last december.
once the 3g iPhone hits Singapore’s shore… i’ll be getting it. however, i do have to wonder if i’ll be getting the iPhone for the features or just for bragging rights?
was introduced to twitter more than 7 months back by Jem. however, as Jem was the only one i was ‘following’ at that time and he was my only ‘follower’, i didn’t really managed to make use of it. the one thing about social networking sites is that it’s practically useless if you and only one other person you know are using it.
that kinda changed a few hours ago. Rin msned me and he told me that a few other Apos are using it. people like himself, Cass, CZ, Doro, etc. now that i’m not ‘alone’ again, well… time to make use of it. first order of business? i went and googled for a widget for my blog. found a few and i decided to try out w of them.
wptwitter, myTwitter and Elegant Twitter Widget. all i can say for now is that each of them has it’s strengths. what i’m going to do is maybe to try and recode or write up a widget incorporating the best features of these 3. but of course, no promises.
i’ve told myself that i’m finally going to start working on redesigning my site’s layout but each day, i find myself playing games, playing the guitar, etc.
just got this game and damn! it’s good. having fun playing both the campaigns and the skirmish maps. only problem is that i have never ever won a single skirmish battle. it’s just too tough. but it’s fun.
for those people who doesn’t have a mac but would like to have something like expose, here’s a free program called OpenExpose. unlike in a mac where you can just click a hotkey, OpenExpose requires you to point your mouse to the top left corner of your screen. other than that, it’s pretty cool.
for Vista users, pressing the Win + tab will activate something that is similar to expose although it’s actually a glorified version of Alt + tab. here’s a program which mimics expose for Vista users. take note though that to use the program, one must be using the Aero theme.