TURDUCKEN PROJECT

I am commissioning a TURDUCKEN (Turkey + Duck + Chicken)… A multi-bird roast. Basically it’s a small bird (chicken) stuffed in a medium (duck) bird stuffed in a bigger (turkey) bird.

I don’t have the cooking prowess to make one myself so I have sent out email to my friends. Fortunately some have already pledge their iron chef ability or support for this poultry rich endeavor.

Aside from more cooks and chefs I need to find a proper turducken recipe. So if you want to join this project or have a turducken recipe that you think we should try get in touch shoot me a tweet, DM, or Email.

I’ve also made a googlewave for this project I think this is the 1st real use for wave in my life at least.

Sun Fix Your Broadband Speeds!!!

I have yet to make a call to sun broadband (not in the mood to make my
blood boil) to complain but soon my kiddies soon...

Test Date: Nov 24, 2009 4:20:12 PM
Connection Type: Cellular

Download: 65 kbps
Upload: 101 kbps
Ping: 2022 ms

A detailed image for this result can be found here:

http://www.speedtest.net/iphone/18160362.png

http://bit.ly/bnycastro

There’s A Vaccine For That…

Now that people are properly scared of the swine flu and of course cervical cancer. Big pharma is now set to bring out vaccines for all sorts of shit including: smoking, obesity, other forms of cancer.

THE CERVICAL CANCER VACCINE SUPPOSEDLY PROTECTS AGAINST 4 OUT OF 7 TYPES OF HPV BUT IT IS UNCLEAR IF A) THE PROTECTION IS LONG TERM B) THERE ARE ANY LONG TERM SIDE EFFECTS.

Getting regular checkups is better than getting an unproven fast tracked vaccine. This is not proper prevention and protection.

I have been seeing billboards and tv adverts about the cervical cancer vaccine and I think it is irresponsible for celebs to promote this.

VACCINES ARE BEING MADE OUT TO BE THE END ALL AND BE ALL OF HEALTH CARE. GET A VACCINE SO YOU DON’T NEED TO SEE A DOCTOR OR BE CAREFUL ABOUT YOUR LIFESTYLE? I THINK THIS IS TOTAL BS.

What I don’t want to see is making vaccination mandatory.

SUN Slow Down…

It seems that my 3G speeds with Sun’s Call & Surf Unlimited have begun to crawl significantly. During the 1st week I was getting 1Mb to 800Kb per sec. right now I am getting 80 to 100Kb, still usable but it is really really slow. I theorize (yes that was a nod to Fringe’s Walter) that it might be a case of more people getting on their network because they do offer the cheapest mobile broadband service as of this blog post.

As with any cellular service YMMV.

Well the sad thing about this is that I have a little over 11 months with this contract. I do hope service improves over time.

WindowsMobile Marketplace

If you’re are still using WindowsMobile 6.1 (or even 6.0) you’ll be happy to know that WindowsMobile Marketplace is now available for download and use.

Head over to http://mp.windowsphone.com on your device to get the cab file.

You need a Windows Live ID to use the store.

Gotchas: Apps from the store are installed to main memory.

While it’s nice that 6.0 and 6.1 users will be able to get and use the store. It really makes no sense to me why it seems to be restricted to the US. I cannot add a credit card meaning I cannot buy any apps.

I hope Microsoft fixes this in the near future. Hey you are supposed to be a global company! Open up the marketplace!

While this is a step in the right direction this definitely needs more work.

Beancurd (my digital dog)

Tried playing ngmoco’s TouchPet Dogs (it’s a Nintendogs clone me thinks)… here is Beancurd, it’s supposed to be a German Shepherd :P

Loren is a Loser

Saw this on my Facebook feed & it's regarding Legarda running as
Villar's running mate. I think this sums up how I feel about the
"unusual" tandem pretty acurately.

"Loren anti erap nung impeachment pero runningmate ni FPJ, anti villar
last year pero ngayon running mate nya ang labo di ba? Kalikasan mo
muka mo plastik!" -@zalveen

Since Villar's campaign HQ is beside our home I suspect I will be
hearing this harpy's voice soon enough. Bleh!

Loren is a loser in the ethics department. I hope she is a loser in
the polls as well.

http://bit.ly/bnycastro

Is the Treo Dead?

There was a time not so long ago that when you said Treo it meant a smartphone and when you said smartphone it meant a Treo. Well those days are no more palm seems to have killed the brand already.

I like my Treo Pro it doesn't have the best specs but it is no slouch either. Also I love the qwerty bar form factor. This is actually my 2nd Treo I had owned the Treo 750 before. This year palm went live with their new operating system called WebOS with it their flagship device name Pre and now they have the Pixi. Both devices have yet to reach Asia though.

With the release of their new OS and new devices palm has said that it will not make windowsmobile devices anymore.

The Treo Pro is not getting WM6.5 nor has the GSM version received any rom updates. I think they have EOL'd it prematurely it would have been nice to atleast get 1 ROM update. Somehow this saddens me the Treo was a pretty strong brand but I guess I can understand why palm is dropping it (for now atleast) from their roster. It has carried palm and windowsmobile os and I suspect they wanted to start clean with webOS. Avoid confusing the masses.

TBH I was excited about the Pre and webOS but it is taking too damn long for it to get released in our region. I have since bought an iPhone 3GS to complement my Treo Pro. WebOS seems nice but it looks like it needs to grow a bit more.

And so this post is dedicated to the Treo brand. Farewell.

Unsolicited Advice to Microsoft & the WM7 Team

I have been using WindowsMobile since 2001 back then it was called pocketpc. WindowsMobile is one of the most versatile and powerful OS out there but it always gets a bad rep in the consumer's mind. TBH it does have a higher learning curve and most people get lost using the OS but once you master it, it is a joy to use.

I think Microsoft dropped the ball on this one. To me they never took the mobile market that they were leading in seriously. When palmOS went away to die WM became the premier smartphone OS but Microsoft got cocky and now that other modern mobile OS are in play they have become a less and less popular platform. WM is very dated. It needs a refresh. They need to make it approriate for today's smartphone market. Here's some unsolicited advice from a WM fanboi.

#1 scrap standard concentrate on professional. You don't need two flavors of the same OS.

#2 be strict with hardware requirements. We do not need underpowered devices that will mess up WM's already faltering image. We don't need 8 different resolutions pick 1 or 2 if necessary. This will make it easier for devs to make apps and strengthen the 3rd party app ecosystem. This will also help #4

#3 UI should be simple, clean and be finger, stylus, keyboard friendly (all 3). The less taps needed the better. The UI should be good enough that OEMs don't need to put a shell over it. Shiny is nice but I want something fast and efficient.

#4 bypass carriers and Manufacturers and provide free or paid updates directly. It will be tough with all the different hardware configurations but you need to get this done. Roll out fixes and features at least every 6 months.

#5 Integration: zune and xbox should be on the OS. Media and gaming are important for the consumer market.

#6 multi-tasking should be better. Consider adding a limit of 3 user run apps not including the native applications of course.

#7 stop changing names it confuses people.

Microsoft and the WM team certainly have their work cut-out for them WM7 should slay or they might not be able to grab the consumer market again and might be relegated to an enterprise OS. I wouldn't want that, WM may not be the prettiest OS out there but it sure is powerful.

It is WindowsMobile's time in the wilderness. I am hoping WM comes back better than ever.

Unlimited Data, I like I like!

If you follow my blog or twitter (shameless plug FTW!), you know that I have recently got an unlimited data plan for my 3GS. As always I have taken the SIM only approach and managed to get the lockout period reduced to 1 year instead of the standard 2 years that most Philippine operators stick to. I got Call & Surf Unlimited from Sun Cellular. Which is 999/month Unlimited data, unlimited calls & SMS sun-to-sun. Pretty good deal especially if you are a city dweller and have a lot of contacts who use Sun.

The upside of having an unlimited data plan is I get to be connected all the time and anywhere (reception and coverage permitting, YMMV). In the case of Sun, it’s Metro Manila and major cities. The rep says you drop down to an 2G (read: GPRS) speed when their 3G is not available. I have not had the opportunity to road test this outside Metro Manila yet.

Another notch in the positive side is the peace of mind of not having to worry on how long I am connected or how much data I have used. Globe has already started offering an unlimited data plan but it costs twice as much as Sun’s and we all know how much Globe’s network sucks for me at least. I am pretty sure that Smart will offer something soon if only to one up Globe. I am not sure if I am willing to take out a 2nd data plan for my SMART line as I am still smarting (pun intended) for their refusal to remove the International Roaming deposit bullshit that they have foisted on subscribers.

The downside of having unlimited data on the smallest operator are of course you don’t get the best coverage or reception (although in my use case it has been pretty solid so far). Another issue is battery life. We all know that a device will use more juice if it is on 3G and it will also use more power to try and latch on to a weaker signal. So I find that I am charging my 3GS more and more. I plan to do more testing on this theory by swapping out my Sun SIM to my TreoPro and checking if it too will experience the same level of battery drain. Not really all that scientific but hey that’s what I have hehe. I will do a follow up post on how that goes.

Something that I have been trying to do is to use the data connection (that I am already paying for!) as a dumb pipe so that I don’t get charged with inter-operator fees and such. Services like email and twitter are great for this but alas there are still too few people using them on a regular basis and on their mobile for these to be a real replacement to SMS or straight up voice calls.

Speedtest.net iPhone Result

Test Date: Nov 7, 2009 7:50:46 PM
Connection Type: Cellular

Download: 1288 kbps
Upload: 263 kbps
Ping: 2267 ms

A detailed image for this result can be found here:

http://www.speedtest.net/iphone/16880847.png

http://bit.ly/bnycastro

Christmas Wishlist

Christmas is right around the corner and if Santa subscribes to my blog this short list will help him decide what to give me. :P

1. Darth Vader Force FX Lightsaber
2. Windows 7 Home Premium
3. Star Wars Clone Wars Season 1 DVD or Blu-ray Box set
4. Sony PlayStation 3 Slim
5. Ultimate Vader Coffee Table Book (already ordered this and it’s already shipping)
6. HTC Touch Pro 2 (or HTC HD2)
7. STAR WARS x LEGO Death Star
8. STAR WARS x Ecko Boba Fett Hoodie or Storm Trooper.
9. Cash (PhP or USD accepted)
10. And of course WORLD PEACE (no christmas wishlist is complete without it!)

Sana totoo

You are about to come into great wealth

Get Your Own Fortune Now!

http://bit.ly/bnycastro

Tethering with iPhone OS 3.1.2 & blackra1n

I find it silly that a factory unlocked iPhone from Apple can’t do tethering if it is used with a non-partner SIM card and that we have to resort to jailbreaking to get features that should be enabled anyway.

While I was browsing tweets I saw that tethering has been fixed with AT&T using geohot’s blackra1n jailbreak system. Since I just got a plan with unlimited data tethering was very very very interesting for me.

The original instructions are here I got my mobileconfig file elsewhere because the Philippines and Sun Cellular are both not in the link provided.

Device:

iPhone 3GS (vanilla) OS 3.1.2

System:

Windows 7 Ultimate RC1 Build 7100

Operator:

Sun Cellular (APN: fbband)

1. On your PC, Go to: http://blackra1n.com/ and download the exe file
2. With your device connected shutdown iTunes (important)
3. Click on the file
4. Wait for the device to reboot and you are done  with the jailbreak
5. Reset Network Settings
6. Open blackra1n on the iPhone tap sn0w and wait for the process to be done.
7. 
8. Go to http://www.iphone-notes.de/mobileconfig/ and get (or create) the config file for your operator, download or send to your iphone and install
9. turn on tethering

I have not tried installing the other goodies included in the jailbreak (cydia or rock) because I find no need for them. I do need tethering and this fix seems to work (until the next update at least).

Just checked my cousin’s iPhone 3GS and it has tethering even without jailbreaking so if you are using a Globe issued device you do not need this.

 

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IF YOU SCREW UP YOUR DEVICE.