Random Detox » Tech

When Buying…

Flisha — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:52:33 +0000

When I’m looking for clearance laptops, I usually hit up an online site like PC Corner. MSI is a Taiwanese brand and known for being value for your money. Currently, there are some 10 inchers with selling for only Php10,000 (USD 230) which is such a steal!

Actually I was already won over by the variety of colors available. Show me a pink gadget and I’m an easy sell.

But seriously. The thing with these clearances, though, is they are probably slightly used or damaged. Some will have scratches, some will show signs of wear and tear. They are usually display units, and after being handled by many people over a few months (usually around 6 months), no one will buy them for full price anymore. These units may also come at a shorter period of warranty. So if you’re looking for a cheap laptop, make sure you know what you’re dealing with.

Doesn’t mean I won’t buy one, though. I have often heard that the value of a product drastically drops the second it is sold. Which means that most stores are really selling concepts rather than materials. Me being a cheapskate, I don’t buy ideas. I prefer simply to pay for tangible things.

Just need to be careful and considerate of all factors BEFORE buying anything, is all.

Tags: Gadgets

You Can Lose Your Phone, But Not Everything In It!

flish — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 08:01:00 +0000

This post brought to you by Sprint. All opinions are 100% mine.

I remember my first phone purchase a long, long time ago. It was a first-generation colored cellphone (yes, yes, I lived through the days when cellphone displays were – gasp! – black and white! or shades of grey.). It could take photos! It could play polyphonic ringtones! Joy!!!

Six months later I misplaced it. I think I left it in one of the stores downtown, as I was trying on new garments I must have forgotten it somewhere. I remembered that it wasn’t with me only minutes later but by that time it was too late, I tried to call my number but the phone had been turned off, and my first big purchase after college went down the drain.

My first panic was – my photos!!! Yes I had some – ummm – “private” moments – stored on that phone. That was the time of grainy scandals being Bluetooth-ed or even infrared-ed from one phone to another. And some were even being uploaded to the Internet. Yikes!!!

None of the photos I took resurfaced though. Haha – what did you think?! They weren’t really scandalous, so… Good thing, yeah??

Now if I only the Sprint TEP had been available to me that time…! What’s that, you ask??

The Sprint Total Equipment Protection App is an application that can locate your phone (if you’ve misplaced it), sync contacts (especially useful for me when I’ve got both a private and an office phone!), remote wipe all data off your phone (if – knock on wood – it gets stolen), lock your phone and even sound an alarm!

So useful! And it’s compatible with Android, Blackberry and select feature phones.

If you’re already a Sprint TEP customer, you can get the app for free! But act fast, because the offer is only up to the 30th of August.

Here’s the promo for Sprint TEP. Cute, eh?

If you’re a Sprint customer and not yet enrolled in TEP, plus it’s less than 30 days since activating your phone, you can add the Sprint TEP feature, available from August 1-30, 2011. View it as insurance! If your phone ever gets lost, stolen or damaged – hey you get a replacement, easy! You never know – it’s summer – you love the water – you love your phone, it’s only a matter of time.

TEP is $8.00 per month, but the Protection App is free. If you need to file a claim, a deductible of $50 or $100 is required. Hey, I didn’t say you’d get a free phone! To learn more, visit www.tepenroll.com.

Tags: Sprint, Tech

Trailer DOTA 2

Flisha — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:44:26 +0000

My Facebook friends are all flustered about the upcoming release of DOTA 2. I guess there really is reason to celebrate. From the new trailer, it looks like the installment of one of the most popular role playing games ever to see LAN play boasts better, smoother graphics. The details seem seamless. It also looks like there will be new abilities and new weapons in store for excited fanboys. Story-wise though, I don’t think there’es anything spectacular that Blizzard could add to an already magnificent plot. I wonder how much of an uproar this would cause. I will never forget the hoopla that surrounded the release of Starcraft 2.

Are you game for DOTA 2? Watch the trailer DOTA 2 below!

Tags: DOTA, Games

Sims Facebook

Flisha — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:18:53 +0000

I’ve never played a Facebook game before – or if I ever did it was probably just a few minutes and I got bored – but now comes the Sims on Facebook!

Sims was my most favorite PC game ever – I believe I played it even more than MMORPGs. The reason being it was never dependent on an Internet connection – and back in the 90s, my Internet connection was almost nothing! I loved playing with my Sims characters – my characters lasted months with me – just growing their skills and letting them buy everything and own so many things (loved the cheats!!) – and yes, watching them have sex with everyone. Hahahah! And sometimes I became evil and killed them. *Bows shamefully*

I even had celebrity Sims. You could download Sim skins from the Internet, so I could play with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. LOL. I also downloaded nude cheats and bought transparent showers. And watched them do the WOO-HOO. Hahaha.

Yes, I loved that game. So, if there’s anything that I am going to play on Facebook, it will probably be a Sims application. And I bring this up now, because the Sims is really coming to Facebook!! The Facebook application is called The Sims Social and you can access it here.

I am so excited! Hope there’s a possibility for customization. In the PC games, this was possible because you everything was run from your hard drive so you could just replace skins or create stuff and make them available. But if this is Facebook, they will be storing stuff on their own servers, right? So I am thinking you probably have to make do with whatever they make available.

Still, I am willing to try it just to see if I still find it as fun as all those years ago.

Tags: Sims Social, Tech

SMART Pasaload Facebook

Flisha — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 13:17:11 +0000

Next thing you know, there’ll be online auctions in Facebook!

SMART Communications has created a Facebook application for SMART Pasaload – or the process of sending moving phone credits from your phone to other mobile phones.

This is quite useful. I’m thinking, what if you’re going out of the country and you’re bringing your SMART phone, but it’s prepaid. If you run out of load, you could just log onto Facebook and load up! Or when it’s dead of the night and you’re in the province where there are no stores, let alone load booths, open at night, you could just fill up online! Yay for technology.

Here are the instructions to load up:

REGISTER YOUR MOBILE NUMBER
1. Go to the Smart PasaLoad Application on Facebook(http://apps.facebook.com/pasaload/)
2. Setup/Add your mobile number by clicking on Add My Number
- Add your cellphone number
- Wait for the confirmation key (SMS)
- Enter the confirmation key on the text box of the verification window
(Note: You will receive another SMS confirming the succesful registration of your mobile number)

From There, you can

ADD A CONTACT

1. Click on Add a Contact
- Enter First Name, Last Name and Mobile number
- You can also tag a Facebook friend when adding their contact number
(Note: An SMS confirmation will be sent to your mobile number each time you add a contact. Don’t worry, the message is free )

TO SEND

1. Drag a mobile number/entry from your numbers
2. Drag a mobile number/entry from your contacts and select the number to send
3. Select a Denomination to Send
4.Click Send to confirm

You can access the Facebook application from here.

You have to give it to them for being innovative and keeping up with the times.

Tags: Mobile Phones, smart communications

Nokia Sale December 4 70% Off [Christmas 2010]

Flisha — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:38:23 +0000

70% off, that is quite an amount! Yes, this is not a two-hour sale, but a whole day sale! On Saturday, December 4, 2010, Nokia will be having a holiday sale with all Nokia phones at 70% off!!! Below are the stores and prices. There are a lot of participating stores so be ready to rush to your nearest Nokia Store! (Mine is Greenbelt!)

Nokia 1280 – Php890
Nokia 1616 – Php990
Nokia C3 – Php4,990
Nokia 5230 – Php4,990
Nokia C5 – Php6,990
Nokia C6 – Php10,990

…and a lot more! Only one purchase per customer, and bring cash!

Participating Stores:
Nokia Concept Store Mall of Asia
Nokia Store SM Manila
Nokia Store Greenbelt 1
Nokia Store Gateway
Nokia Store Robinsons Manila
Nokia Store Bonifacio High Street
Nokia Concept Store Robinsons Galleria
Nokia Store SM Megamall
Nokia Store Podium
Nokia Store Rockwell
Nokia Store Digital Exchange
Nokia Store Trinoma
Nokia Store SM North Edsa
Nokia Store Tomas Morato
Nokia Store SM Fairview
Nokia Store SM Southmall
Nokia Store Alabang Town Center
Nokia Store SM Pampanga
Nokia Store Dagupan
Nokia Store SM Tarlac
Nokia Store SM Sta Rosa
Nokia Store SM Batangas
Nokia Store SM Taytay
Nokia Store Tacloban City
Nokia Concept Store SM Cebu
Nokia Store Ayala Center Cebu
Nokia Store SM Iloilo
Nokia Store SM Bacolod
Nokia Store SM Davao
Nokia Store Gaisano Davao
Nokia Store Limketkai Cagayan de Oro
Nokia Store KCC General Santos

The next question is… which one of these stores will be least filled with people on December 4???

Tags: Holidays, Nokia, Tech

Cherry Mobile Phones

Flisha — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:58:36 +0000

Cherry Mobile is quite the breakout brand in mobile phones. It’s stylish, full-featured and best of all, inexpensive. It’s even dual-SIM. No wonder everybody’s been raving about it!

Below are the new dual SIM phones sold by Cherry Mobile.

Cherry M35 Integra (Php 5690)

Cherry D50 Inertia (Php 3690)

Cherry D20 Life (Php 2990)

Cherry S11 Blade (Php 2690)

Currently, Cherry Mobile is running the Dobleng Kasiyahan promo. That means you buy one, you take one! This runs from May 28 to July 18, 2010 so get your Cherry mobile phones now!

Cherry Mobile Combo Number One: P1 + P1 = P1790 (Save Php200)

Cherry Mobile Combo Number Two: P1 + 1602 = 1990 (Save Php200)

Cherry Mobile Combo Number Three: 1800 + 1800 = Php 2290 (Save Php290)

Cherry Mobile Combo Number Four: 1602 + D15 Dual SIM = Php 2990 (Save Php200)

Cherry Mobile’s cheapest phones are the Cherry Mobile P1 which is only Php999, and the Cherry Mobile D15, only Php1999. They also have QWERTY phones, such as the Cherry Mobile Q3 (Php2990) and the Cherry Mobile Q3i (Php2890). Both are dual SIM.

Cherry Mobile also has touch screen phones, and these are the Cherry Mobile T80 (Php6990), the Cherry Mobile G5 (Php6990) and the Cherry Mobile Eclipse (Php9999). Amazingly, Cherry Mobile even carries phones with analog TV! These are Cherry Mobile Q6 (Php4790), Cherry Mobile Q7 (Php5890), Cherry Mobile Q8 (Php5990), Cherry Mobile Q9 (Php5990) and Cherry Mobile G7 (Php4990).

© Flisha for Random Detox, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: analog tv, Cherry Mobile, d50, dual sim phones, g5, g7, m35, Mobile Phones, p1, q3, q6, q7, q8, q9, t80, touch screen

Tags: analog tv, Cherry Mobile, d50, dual sim phones, g5, g7, m35, Mobile Phones, Mobile Phones, p1, q3, q6, q7, q8, q9, t80, touch screen

Replace Treo Housing

Flisha — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 14:54:31 +0000

Cracked your Palm Treo? That’s really too bad. But you can always replace it! Find a reliable place on the Internet where you can buy the housing, then get to tinkering!

Prepare your new Treo housing!

Now remove the stylus, your memcard, and your SIM card from your phone.

Then remove the battery.

With a screwdriver, remove all seven screws so you can pry your phone apart.

When the screws are gone, pull apart your phone.

Ready to transfer, yeah?

Disconnect the ribbon cable from the internal circuit board next.

Flip over the main board, and you will see the LCD screen and the keyboard. Remove the cable connecting the board to the LCD. The board is now all disconnected.

Now, remove the screws connecting the keypad to the cover.

Now you can replace the cover! Put the board into the new housing and reconnect the cables.

Transfer the speaker and LCD screen to the new unit. Put the two pieces together, and screw the back cover in place.

There you go!

If you are looking to replace the screen on your Treo, follow the instructions below.

Tags: Gadgets, Mobile Phones, treo

Smartbro Surf TV

Flisha — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:17:43 +0000

You don’t have a PC? How about a TV? Yes? Then turn your TV into a PC by using Smartbro Surf TV!

That’s the latest product that is on offer from SMART. It’s worth Php4500 – way cheaper than the cheapest desktop you can scrape together. It includes the Smartbro Surf TV box, a Smartbro Plugit, a keyboard and a mouse. The box has 4 USB ports so you can connect an external storage to the box if you want to download stuff.

You’ll be charged Php10 every 30 minutes worth of surfing, unless you already have an unlimited plan that’s worth Php999 per month. If prepaid, you can load your Plugit just like a normal SIM – via Pasaload or via a load card or via a Smart eloader.

You can read more about the product in the official website here.

For more inquiries, please call *1888 from your Smart cellphone or 02-672-7277 from your landline. To avail, visit any Smart Wireless Center, Smart accredited dealer or Agent.

© Flisha for Random Detox, 2010. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: smart wireless, smartbro, surf tv

Tags: Gadgets, smart wireless, smartbro, surf tv

Restaurant City Cheats and Tips

Flisha — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:11:04 +0000

Restaurant City is a popular Facebook flash game. It revolves around the concept of being a restaurant worker, be it a chef, a waiter or even the owner. It is also a social application, it allows the player to invite his/her friends into the game, by having them accept jobs in the restaurant. You can customize your restaurant when you gain profits, by buying decorations, furniture or equipment.

Your Facebook friends can have their own restaurants as well, and you can visit each others’ restaurants. You can even share or trade ingredients and help each other create unique menus.

This game was created by Playfish for Facebook, and here are some tips to help you play better.

Ingredients in Restaurant City

Every day you get a free ingredient. That is, if you log in. So make sure to play Restaurant City once a day to get your free ingredient. Secondly, answer the quizzes in your inbox. Every day, you get a question that you can opt to answer. If you get the answer correct, you’ll get another free ingredient. And lastly, you get an ingredient when visiting a friend’s restaurant for the first time. So, make a lot of friends on Facebook, get them to join Restaurant City, and you’ll have a steady stream of free ingredients.

Levelling Up in Restaurant City

It’s easy, playing equals levelling up in Restaurant City. Keeping your Restaurant City session open gains you GPs, or gourmet points. These are points for levelling up, so the longer you play, the faster you can level up. If you don’t feel like playing, just don’t log out. You can open another tab to do stuff, just stay inside Restaurant City to get your GPs.

Money

So you need money. Are there any trees around? Try shaking them. Money may not grow on trees but in Restaurant City, money falls off a tree when you shake it. Also, pick up some trash around your place. That’ll get you some dough as well.

Cheats

Haven’t found any, do tell if you have some Restaurant City cheats.

Have fun playing Restaurant City!

Tags: facebook, flash game, Games

Track a Cell Phone Location Now

Flisha — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:30:41 +0000

There are many ways to track your location using a cell phone. The most important thing to note is that you need a GPS tracker on your cell phone. Aside from that you should have a tracker application in your cell phone that uses the GPS chip to access a map and actually show you where you are.

Getting a GPS Chip on Your Cellphone. You can buy a GPS tracker and attach it to your cellphone. Or, the better alternative is to find a cellphone that already has a GPS chip in it. A cheap example is the Sony Ericsson K750i. It has a GPS attached to it already, all you have to do is find out how to use it.
Downloading GPS Tracking Software for Your Cellphone. Most good tracking software cost a pretty penny to be able to use. But if you’re nifty with code, you can create your own software to access maps like Google Maps. But I’m sure if you search online, there are a few free options.
Synching Your Computer to Your Cellphone. Lastly, it’s important that you can access the location of your cell phone via a remote computer. Or else, if you lose your cellphone, how else are you going to find it?

© Flisha for Random Detox, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Global Positioning System, GoogleMaps, Mobile Phones

Tags: Global Positioning System, GoogleMaps, Mobile Phones, Mobile Phones

Goodbye Geocities!

Flisha — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:00:11 +0000

I created my first website in 1999. That was the year the Internet was introduced to me. The very same year I fell in love with the Internet. I poured my heart out online through static pages. I drafted my HTML through Notepad. I crafted my graphics through downloaded image tools.

The butterfly and the Medusanity mask were pastels on paper, scanned and edited for my Medusanity portal.

I’m so gonna miss this space, these memories. I wish someone could save Geocities. I wish I could. Not just this one. But all of it. All of the world’s first foray into online expression. All of the glitter and the blinking. All the tables and the marquees. All the memories.

Goodbye Geocities. Goodbye.

(Hear my heart break into tiny little frames.)

My First Website

Tags: Blogging, GeoCities, Yahoo

Blogger Comment Preview Cuts Off Word Verification Box

Flisha — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:10:00 +0000

Stumbled upon a new Blogger issue today. I’d rolled out a few posts and my friend Heidee wanted to post a comment. Alas, she could not, because she could not find the word verification input box.

Here is the screenshot she sent:

As you can see, the verification word is visible but the rest of the comment box seems cut off.

I tried to duplicate her issue, but since I was logged in to Blogger, I was not asked for word verification. I logged out and tried commenting on my own blog, and was able to duplicate her issue on Firefox and IE. (My friend tried it in Safari as well and it’s broken as well.)

The cause of the issue is all too clear. Blogger is now showing a preview comment before the verification box, where before it was not. It seems that whomever approved this change did not test it out on the embedded-below-post comment forms, or failed to consider to increase the height of the pop-up word verification form, so that the input field is now inaccessible.

I thought to scour the web for a quick fix, but the issue seems fairly new. I found posts documenting the issue on Blogger Help here and here, logged July 10, 2009. So I doubt there’s already a fix. And since this is a Blogger issue, editing my template won’t help.

For now, I have disabled word verification on my comments. It makes me vulnerable to spam, but I have no other choice. If I revert to the default pop-up window comment form placement, my template might get messed up because I edited it before to get the embedded comment form to work.

For others encountering the same issue, you can do what I did, disable word verification. And if your blog is inundated with spam, then turn on comment moderation. The alternative is to switch from embedded comment form placement to full-page or pop-up comment form placement.

Hopefully Blogger fixes this issue fast.

P.S. Thanks for the heads up, Heids!

Tags: Blogger, Blogging

Twitterpated over Twitter

Flisha — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:38:00 +0000

“Why, don’t you know? They’re twitterpated.” whispered the owl.

My Twitter page looks so glum. It’s just one of the default Twitter backgrounds. My page looks so boring that even a couple of area rugs would spice it up.

My friends Jotie and Heidee haven’t been on Twitter that long but they’ve already updated their backgrounds!

And here I thought I was the twitterpated one! Hahaha. Wanna know what that means? Learn with Bambi!

Here’s a clip of when Bambi learns what twitterpated means. And if you don’t know, it means confused by affection or infatuation.

And we all know, Bambi got all twitterpated over Faline anyways. Here’s a cute mix I found on Youtube. Cheesy? Hahah. Oh but I love Bambi!

Anyway, back to Twitter. I am so glad I am starting to see friends on Twitter! I see Heidee, I see Chu. I see Raul, I see Jotie. And of course, don’t forget to follow me too!

Tags: Twitter

HP Pavilion Laptops Suck

Flisha — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:20:00 +0000

So. My HP Pavilion DV2000 (DV2315nr to be exact) is finally unresponsive. Again. After a full year since its motherboard was fully replaced by HP after I brought it in for repair because the video display would freeze or my computer would hang or it would not boot up – a myriad of problems!

Last year they said my motherboard was the problem so it had to be replaced. They didn’t get into specifics. But I’d done my research and I knew exactly what the problem was. My laptop was overheating.

At the time I thought I could cure it by purchasing a laptop cooler. And for the past year, my HP Pavilion laptop has been used with utmost care. Never runs without the laptop cooler, never lies on my lap but always on a cool, flat desk. And still, after one year, it’s right back where it was in May of 2008. Overheating, freezing, and finally, not booting up.

It even introduced new problems this time around! My wifi no longer works, my CD/DVD drive won’t burn or read any discs, and it won’t read any of my compact flash memory cards!

Worst of all, it is out of warranty. So I am tearing my hair out. I am writing this blog post on my mom’s mini laptop. And by mini I mean the screen seems to be about only 5 inches in width and the keyboard is stressfully cramped. This sucks. Majorly sucks.

Last year, when I was researching about my HP problem, there were very few resources on the Internet. Very few people had the same problems as I did, and it was a good thing my laptop was still under warranty or else I would have had to buy a new one because replacing the motherboard of your laptop costs almost as much as buying a new laptop!

Now, though, do a search for “HP Pavilion problem” and no doubt you will find a whole lot of posts on video display and overheating problems – all the stuff I mentioned above! And it seems that it doesn’t even just cover the DV2000 line. It also affects DV6000 and DV9000 units.

Scouring for help on the web, it seems that there is a defective line of NVidia chips that are the reason for the overheating. Apparently they gave HP the wrong specs for the chip. So not only does HP suck, NVidia sucks too. (I have a GeForce 6150. If you do, you are in trouble too.) And Dell has the same chips, so they suck too.

This problem is so widespread that it seems HP is promising an extra year of warranty for the affected laptops. I will be taking my dead laptop to HP in June. It remains to be seen whether they will honor the warranty. But if they don’t, I have no idea what to do.

Commence despair.

P.S. Check here if your Dell is affected, here for your HP.

Tags: Tech

Automatically Twitter Your New Blog Posts

Flisha — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:58:00 +0000

Just discovered a new way to use Twitter*: automatically posting a link to my every new blog post.

All you need is an RSS feed (like this) and an account in Twitterfeed. Log in, and click on create a new feed. Choose your destination as Twitter, enter your Twitter login details, and then your RSS feed URL.

You can set how often Twitterfeed checks for new blog posts (least being once a day, at most 5 times every 30 minutes). You can deactivate the service anytime.

Twitterfeed can also post to identi.ca, custom laconica installations, HelloTxt and Ping.fm.

Follow me on Twitter!

*Or annoy your Twitter followers, depending on how you look at it.

Tags: Blogging, Tutorial, Twitter

Send Media from Phone to Web with ShoZu

Flisha — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:11:00 +0000

Technology is utterly amazing. These days I’m playing around with ShoZu, a mobile phone app that I’ve had on my Sony Ericsson W960i since last year, but I only got around to exploring it last week.

Basically, it finds images and videos in your phone and allows you to send them to different destinations like Facebook, Blogger, Twitpic, Multiply, Friendster, LiveJournal, Youtube, a random email address or wherever, really. (Maybe even your Slingbox one day.) ShoZu supports most blog and social networking sites in the Internet, so it’s really convenient to upload stuff from your phone to the web – instantly.

Let me show you how it works on my phone.

Once installed, the icon shows up in your Control Panel or your list of applications. Here I just made a shortcut to it on my desktop. (It’s the orange O.)

Open up ShoZu, and you’ll see this. It can save your phonebook to your ShoZu account so if ever your phone gets lost, you still have a backup of your contacts on the web. You can ZuCasts, which are feeds from your friends, meaning you can see what they have uploaded. To upload stuff yourself, select Share-It.

I see I have 40 files and 10 destinations. My files can be photos or videos, anything that I’ve taken using my camphone will show up here. Destinations means the places I can send my media to (set when I created my ShoZu account). For some reason, the Commens tab shows only comments I get from Flickr, but not the ones from Facebook or Twitpic. So, anyway, to upload something, I select All Files.

Now I can see all my latest photos and videos. I see I’ve already sent my Bulb of Garlic photo awhile ago. It has the orange ShoZu logo which means it’s been uploaded at least once already. (You can upload again, especially if you want to send to other destinations.) I can upload one photo at a time, or many at a time. I check the boxes of the photos I want to upload.

Of course, I don’t want my photos sent uncaptioned or untitled. So I select a photo, click on More >> Add Details. And I get to this spot, where I can add a title for my photo, and below, a description, and even tags.

Time to upload my Bananas photo. As you can see, the first button says Send to Twitpic. Since I love to use Twitpic, which automatically updates my Twitter, which then automatically updates my Plurk and Facebook accounts, I set it as my One-click photo site. (You can set this in your ShoZu account. Best to do it on a laptop instead of a mobile phone.) Anyways, this time I think I want to send this photo straight to my blog. So I click on More >> Send to other >> destination >> Google Blogger.

After some time… ta da!!! Here is my bananas post!

There it is up on my blog! ShoZu adds the posted by ShoZu graphic, which I don’t like, so when I have the time later on, I edit it out of my blog post. I didn’t add a description awhile ago, so this photo only has a title. But if I had, it would have been placed below my photo. Here is an example of my post of the Astoria Regency Pool.

And it’s that easy! Cool, huh?

P.S. ShoZu connects to Internet (duh) so you have to make sure you have Internet access on your phone. At home, I connect to my wifi router. And when I am outside, I make sure to visit wifi hotspots so I can upload my photos on the go.

Tags: ShoZu, Tech, Tutorial

Smart Bro Prepaid Now Smart Big Bro

Flisha — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:08:00 +0000

Hot on the heels of the Globe Visibility rebranding comes the newly minted “Smart Big Bro”, previously named Smart Bro Prepaid.

It has been repriced from P2500 to the lower price of P1995. It comes with free P100 worth of load (5 hours of Internet usage).

The device uses a 3G or HSDPA (high speed data packet access, if I remember my Network class lol) signal, whichever is available.

HSDPA speed is up to 2Mbps, but HSDPA is very limited in the Philippines. I don’t think it is even available outside of Manila (and even in Manila it is spotty at best), so other cities will probably just get 3G with a top speed of 384Kbps (or worse, GPRS).

Of course, published speed is never the same as actual speed. Actual speed depends on how strong the signal is in your area and how many users are tapping on that signal. If you want to know how fast 3G in your area is, try surfing the web using your cellphone (make sure it is on 3G and not GPRS). That’s the speed you get. If you want to know how fast GPRS is… well, I think dial-up is comparable to that.

Internet surfing on Smart Big Bro costs P10 for every 30 minutes. The kit comes with the USB wifi device and a Smart SIM which you can load up like regular SIMs, except this one will pay your Internet charges and not your phone bill.

Smart Big Bro is not available for international roaming so if you’re on your Sydney or Paris or Orlando vacations, you’re out of luck.

Tags: Manila, p1, Tech

dNeero on Twitter

Flisha — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:56:00 +0000

Remember dNeero? It pays you to complete surveys and post them on your blog. Well now they’re on Twitter (link) and you can earn even more by answering their Twitter questions.

Tags: Twitter

Globe Visibility Now Globe Tattoo

Flisha — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 08:50:00 +0000

Globe Broadband Prepaid Visibility has just rebranded itself as Globe Broadband Tattoo. With the rebranding also comes a reprice – the prepaid kit now only costs P1895, from the previous P2500.

The prepaid package comes with a USB modem, a SIM you can reload like regular SIMs (but it’s not for your phone, it’s to pay for your Internet hours) and a free five hours worth of Internet usage. Afterwards, every fifteen minutes costs P5.

I’ve been eagerly waiting for this drop since prepaid Internet became available a year or two ago. It started out at a steep price of P4500, and now at P1895, it’s practically a steal. The USB modem itself probably costs more than that!

Before buying the unit, though, consider first the network coverage of Globe. Not so wide a net, compared to Smart. However, Smart’s prepaid kit still sells for P2500. I’ve been told that Globe’s network is pretty strong in the city (of Zamboanga, where I am, currently). But I wonder how it performs outside of town (I live 5km away from the pueblo).

Nevertheless, I think that it’s a good buy. I have an unlimited plan at home, so I am planning to buy the Globe Visibility (sorry, Tattoo) kit for backup, whenever my main line fails or when I go flit to Manila or Dapitan or wherever. I think anybody with a laptop computer would definitely be needing this prepaid kit as well. (Or, if you can afford P1500 monthly, there’s a great unlimited postpaid plan too.)

Has anybody bought this yet, and what are your thoughts?

Tags: Manila, p1, Tech, Zamboanga