Finally Got My Gingerbread

Finally manage to upgrade my Galaxy Ace to Gingerbread 2.3.4. For all of Samsung's boasting of the ability to upgrade their phones with their Kies PC suite, turns out it only works for phones bought from Singtel (Another reason to consider switching to the red umbrella). Made a big complaint to Samsung and their answer is ask me to go down to their service centre to do the upgrade. Huh... Siow, waste of time.

Luckily, some dudes over at HardwareZone forum found a trick to switch the phone from M1 or Starhub to Singtel, allowing the upgrade to happen. Only downside is the process will factory default the phone. So I did that and got my Gingerbread, lost quite a few data (Dammit) and have to reconfigure everything again (Shit...). The phone looks more responsive now, but will monitor the battery usage for any improvements. 

I don't know about Singtel phones, but according to those who did upgrading through the service centre, their M1 or Starhub phones are factory default. Feels like it's a way to turn off users from getting new firmware. I hope this is the first and last time I am upgrading this phone. Restoring and re-configuring it can be a drag. 

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

RIP: Steve Jobs

It came as both shocking and surprised when news of Steve Jobs passing away was announced, especially one day after the announcement of the iPhone 4GS. When I first saw the news, I thought is this some kind of sick joke. Then the news start flowing in... I believe the internet will be flooded by tributes about the man by now, so I shall try not to add anymore to that statistic and keep my thoughts about him simple here.

Hate him or love him, you got to agree that this guy more or less recreate how the way we live. Never an inventor, more like someone who take other's ideas, improving and simplifying it and making it user friendly. Removing all the geeky or technical stuff, so that anyone who is clueless in tech stuff can pick up the gadgets and use it without much problem. "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas," Jobs said in an interview for the 1996 PBS series "Triumph of the Nerds." Most important of all for me, he make it look cool to own an Apple product. 

Recent events have indicate Steve's health has been detoriating. Stepping down as CEO of Apple and handling of the role to Tim Cook, as his choosen successor, is the most obvious hint. But the world never expect it to come this fast. There is a suspicion in me that the release of the iPhone 4GS is sort of a parting gift to Apple charismatic leader. A dedication to the person who transform the company into the today's  leading brand. As my colleague put it, iPhone 4GS stands for iPhone 4(for) Steve. 

How Apple will march on from now is unknown, but the world will miss the "one more thing" phrase from the annual Apple MacWorld Conference. You can find out about Jobs from his Stanford commencement speech from 2005 here.

Where is the iPhone 5?

 

Where is my iPhone 5?

Update: Wake up this morning and found out that Apple visionary founder, Steve Jobs, have just passed away. How irony that he passed away right after iPhone 4GS was announced.

So much for the long wait. After all the speculations and delays, we more or less got back the same thing. If you still don't get what am I hinting at, I am talking about the release of the iPhone 5 iPhone 4GS. Yes, there is no iPhone 5, just 4GS. Looks the same externally without minor upgrades internally, making many to feel that the S in 4GS might stand for Same. Oh... Siri too. Are we that brainless that we need a phone to advice us what to do? 

The new iPhone makes me wonder, has Apple start to slacken? Are they moving down the usual path? The path where once a company becomes too successful, they start to be less innovative and make minor upgrades to keep the business going? Just look at Motorola, they once riding on the waves of their successful Razr phones. But their lack of effort to come out with better products, concentrating on little changes in every new releases, led to their downfall. Motorola is still around, but no longer the No. 2 mobile phones maker in the world. Just making phones using OTHER people's platform. 

I say for all the secrecy Apple like to have on their new products, this time it backfires on them. Nevertheless, the iPhone 4GS will still be a hot seller. As for me, I'm at a crossroad of whether should I upgrade to iPhone 4GS when my contract ends next March or wait for iPhone 5, if it will ever come out, and continue to use my Galaxy Ace. 

IBM Reveal First Generation of Skynet

IBM today reveal a CPU that mimics the human brain. First we have the BigDog, now this. Life mimics friction? When the CPU gets self-aware, will it be the beginning of the end of mankind? Or the next evolution?

Pain In My Ace

Unless you are planning to buy their top end flagship mobile phones, don't ever consider Samsung brand. Their low and mid-tier product totally sucks big time. Build is crap and support is total non-existent. I recently a Samsun Galaxy Ace as my iPhone 3G is slowing to a halt due to IOS4 (Thanks Steve Jobs, great idea of forcing iPhone 3G owners to buy your new iPhones). Turns out it's a totally different set of nightmare, maybe slightly worse. The battery life of the Galaxy Ace is downright horrible. X-p

Imagine this, I went home at 7pm with my phone fully charged. Once I got home, I left it on my desk until next morning. In the morning, it shows battery level is less than1 20%! WTF! What is it doing at night? Share its idle power over the internet to do folding calculations? A check on the net shows that I'm not the only one experiencing this. And damn Samsung don't even bother to look into it Android Gingerbread has been out for so long and there is no update of the Ace to it. So far, only Samsung Galaxy S phones have this upgrade.

This is not the first time I have experience poorly design phones from Samsung. My father-in-law used to own one that SMS to the wrong people even though the input contact name is correct. -_-" And when I brought the phone back for service, they don't have a software fix for it. Major FUBAR! This is my last time getting a Samsung phone. Once iPhone 5 is out and my bloody M1 contract is up (that's another pain), I am switching to Singtel and back to become Steve Job's bitch.

Too Small Also No Good

Whoever the creators/designers are, why do they want to create the Micro-USB connector? It is so damn difficult to connect to a Micro-USB port. I recently changed to the Samsung Galaxy Ace Android phone after my patience ran out on my iPhone 3G (yes the one without the S) sluggish performance with IOS4. The problem now is Samsung handphone uses the Micro-USB connectors which is damn difficult to plug in. I always end up trying to figure the orientation and alignment. Yeah, I am that stupid. Yes, it's small and slim but at least they should make it in such that there is a clear distinguish between either side mah. I am so afraid that one day I will damage the connector.

When Is The Bus Coming?

One of the first app I download on my iPhone is the SG NextBus. It uses the SBS Iris NextBus system to tell us the arrival time of various buses at a particular bus stop. As it gets more and more popular, similar apps sprang up to follow its success.

Lately, all such apps are unable to work. Turns out SBS has installed a measure to prevent automated scripts from grabbing the bus timing info from their system. For this, I have thanked SBS or Comfort Delgro. Firstly, you gave us a lousy website that only allows us to check for one bus service at one bus stop. When people devise a more efficient way to make use of this, you block them from accessing it, forcing us to use your new but poorly written app. Rather than upgrading your server hardware to handle the increased load, you went with the bully way by blocking and rejecting without reason requests to access the database. Once again, you have shown us what a world class public transport service you are.

Oh, between using your new crap that you called SBS Transit Iris app and going back to waiting for the bus without knowing when it is coming, I am choosing the latter.

Another Doomsday Event?

First it was the Y2K bug, then the asteriod hitting our planet. Lately the popular one is the catastrophic environmental changes. Meet the latest end of the world scenario. With all communication channels gone, you will have *hold breath*... no access to Facebook. That definitely will bring fear to some people. ;)

Under One Roof

Came across Google Reader through one of my colleague. Blind me, where have I been all these time? It allows subscriptions to all your favorite websites and update itself automatically with the latest entries. So rather than going to each website to check, you just need to log into Google Reader and everything is under one roof. How convenient.

Speaking of under one roof, iMerlion introduce another great app (I'm a sucker for iPhone apps), NewsApp Singapore. Much like Google Reader, it combines the feeds for Zaobao, Channelnews Asia, Today, the Straits Times and the Business Times. So rather have multiple apps for each news house, one will do. One apps to rule them all!

iPhone App Helps to Arrest of Thief

I am installing and activating Find My Phone app as we speak. Link

Updated: Find My Phone only works on iPhone 4. -_-"

Police have arrested a serial snatch thief following a crucial lead provided by an iPhone application.

The thief had snatched a 36-year-old woman's iPhone in the early hours of Sunday morning along Lim Liak Street, in the Tiong Bahru area.

Police was able to trace the stolen phone via an iPhone application called "Find My iPhone". The application allowed the missing iPhone to be located on a map.

With this important lead, officers were able to establish the identity of the suspect and he was arrested on Monday in Outram Road.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspect is also believed to be responsible for several other snatch theft cases in the Tiong Bahru and Kim Tian estates.

Police said the suspect, an 18-year-old Malaysian man, will be charged in court on Wednesday.

If convicted he could be jailed for up to 7 years and caned.

Police said a Court Order will be sought to remand him for further investigations

Boston Dynamics Big Dog

Shared by Seck Tien on Facebook, the Big Dog from Boston Dynamics. Moves exactly like a real animal. Scary...

Things I Learn Today: Disconnect to Connect

This video (thanks to MrBrown) hold so true. The popularity of the smartphones especially the iPhone made us lose our human touch. I saw it first hand during a department lunch with my colleagues. Everyone is just staring at their iPhone. Time to put that phone down. You may realize there is a person beside you.

P.S. Does not apply when you are attending to super duper boring meetings ;P

ParkAlert on iPhone

I just love iPhone apps. Not the games, but more of the useful utilities that helps to make my life easier or lazier, depending on how you see it. The latest one I have (announced on iMerlion) is something I believe every Singaporean drivers will like.

ParkAlert is a simple app that alert drivers on their iPhones when other users report seeing a parking warden in the area. But this does not mean that you can take advantage of the app and park without any coupons. Got money to buy car yet not willing to spend 50 cents for one coupon? (though I behave like this sometimes, one of those I Can You Cannot situation ^_^).

ParkAlert is free for now. So hurry, grab it now

IOS 4.1: Runs Faster For iPhone 3G

It's about time Apple look into their IOS 4 software that cause my iPhone 3G performance to slow down to a snail pace. I hope the upcoming IOS4.1 to be released on 8 Sept will meet what they claims. Was contemplating whether to factory default my phone in hope that it will resolve the lagging problem. Now I will just bare with it for a few more days.

Updated (13 Sept 2010): Just restore and update my iPhone 3G to IOS4.1. No hair pulling incidents occur. Still did not fix the black patch over some of my camera taken photos. Performance seems to be smoother & faster. Maybe it is just my imagination. Will keep monitoring.

Memory Loss Due to iPhone

Overhead on the radio the other day that a reason that our memory is getting poorer due to our over-reliance on technology. I have to agree especially as I am finding my memory is getting poorer and poorer. I have been storing a lot of info in my phone and as my memory gets poorer. With my memory degrading, I relied more of my phone and computer to keep track of the things I need to remember. The situation has worsened when I got the iPhone. Hence, the more forgetful I becomes, the more I store on my phone, which makes me even more forgetful. I believe this does not apply to me only and with the rising popularity of the smart phones, more people will end up like me. Think I will become senile before I hit 60.

Honda U3-X Personal Mobility Prototype

Hats off to Honda for their innovation and ingenuity, but this will only make us lazier. Sooner or later, we will be like those people in the movie, Wall-E

I Am Paraguay Supporter Now.

According to some, this should be the correct way to hold the new iPhone 4, to solve the signal loss issue. Some even claim this position BOOST the signal.

FYI, The lady is Lingerie model Larissa Riquelme, who pledged to run naked through the streets “with my body painted with the colors of Paraguay” if Paraguay wins the World Cup. I am a Paraguay fan now. ;)

iPad Killer?

Damn the Chinese are fast in the way they counterfeit other people's product. Behold! The new iPed.

No Apps For iPhone in M1 AppStore?

M1 recently rolled out a new site, M1 AppStore, for its customers to access applications available on various operating platforms. So I went to the site and take a look if there are any interesting apps for my iPhone. Use the search feature on the site to run a search for iPhone and I got this message - "Sorry, there are currently no applications available for your handset." -_-"

Further checking shows that they have apps for iPhone. A typical case of the system testers not doing their job thoroughly. They should not release the news if the site is not ready in the first place. Given the number of apps they have for iPhone, I stick back to Apple Appstore.

Movie Tempt Me To Get A Macbook

Just finish watching a Swedish movie, The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo, based on the best selling book of the same name. Quite a nice suspense thriller. Beat the typical slash and hack plotless movies coming out of Hollywood these days.

Anyway, Apple should pay the movie producers for advertising their Macbook Pro in the movie. Every character in the movie owns a Macbook Pro and the movie has many scenes of using the notebook, from editing photos, surfing the net to writing a document and even for hacking purpose. Really makes you want to go out and get one yourself. This is not help by the fact that my sister-in-law just bought a macbook and the constant problems I have with my PC.

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