The Beanster Blog

Here is a dumb Samsung (Android) bug.  Device = Samsung Galaxy S3 If you check-in to your Cathay Pacific flight via the CX Mobile App or their site using Samsung browser (or Chrome) you get to send a link of your mobile boarding pass to an email address. When you click this link instead of displaying your mobile boarding pass it tries to load itself to wallet (?). Searching for Google wallet in PlayStore yields nothing my dad has a Philippine account, and it appears Google wallet is not available. So you cannot view or download your boarding pass on a Samsung device??? The link should not be automatic. It should not try to download the boarding pass if the wallet app isn’t even installed. In iOS the mobile boarding pass is shown and the user has the option to add it to passbook or not.  As a workaround I emailed the link from S3 to 5S, I was able to open and view the link on Safari Mobile. I took a screenshot and emailed him the file. For some odd reason ...

New from @ NextLevelGuys ! FLY EasyShot - Remote shutter for iOS / Android - PhP 1,800.00 http:// fb.me/3u07GAWGY  

Aquinobot - a person who blindly or mindlessly supports and/or defends President BS Aquino.

Straight from the telco's mouth (er... Email address) So 11 months in with SMART and LTE is still not available for both my home and work locations. Globe is worse so I have to stay with SMART for now.

I have an old Huawei E160 3G USB Modem from Globe. Which has already been sim unlocked. Works well enough on Windows 7 but had issues with it on OSX Mavericks. Well here is how you fix that. 1. Download the ZIP file  http://1drv.ms/1iF4fMM 2. Unzip 3. Install huawei_universal_425_05.pkg to your OSX machine 4. Open Network and add your connection 5. Connect to the interwebs!!! 6. BTW you can also install the bundled app (usually a branded version of Huawei's Mobile Connect) from your 3G USB stick and use that if you don't want to manually input the settings.

Got a response from SMART within two (2) days of sending my email complaint  not bad response time really. The content of the response while polite contained no apology from SMART. SMART Customer Care did admit that the two (2) different staff, from (2) different wireless center branches lying to a customer are lapses on their end. (no shit, sherlock), also got the standard promise that my complaint has been forwarded to the concerned group. and standard thanks for reporting it in. If you have experienced problems with SMART staff I do recommend you write in. This way SMART becomes aware of the situation and they can train their staff better. I am attaching the polite and standard response below: ============================================== Dear Vincent, Good day. We understand your frustration and appreciate your transparency.  Your feedback has been forwarded to the concerned group as it is important to us.  Rest assured that  Smart  is exertin...

Find My iPhone (or iPod or iPad or Mac) is baked into iOS / OSX. It’s a great way to locate your device if you’ve misplaced it or if it get’s stolen. In this post I will show you how to turn it ON. Settings > Privacy Location Services Make sure Location Services is ON. You can turn off location services access per app but make sure Location Services itself is ON Scroll to the very bottom of the list and make sure Find my iPhone is ON as well Go back to Settings this time select iCloud   Scroll to Find My iPhone and make sure it’s turned ON In iOS 7, Find My iPhone is beefed up and hopefully makes it harder for thieves to erase and sell your device. Find my iPhone works via Location Services (GPS) for the location and Internet (Cellular data or WiFi) for the commands sent to the device it’d be a good idea to have both on. You CANNOT locate your iPhone if Location Services are OFF. With the Find My iPhone App or using iCloud.com (on a desktop browser) You can loc...

eBooks: Kindle vs iBooks. Price = for some reason Kindle books have a USD 2 markup for non-US residents. Point goes to iBooks Accessibility = Kindle wins this hands-down it's on most platforms. iBooks is locked to Apple, some iBooks require an iPad, not sure if it will work on iBooks OSX. Enhanced Ebooks = On Kindle, I sent a sample to my iPhone but got an error when trying to play audio. App told me to re-download, did it twice no luck - not sure if this is because it's a sample. Could not send sample of iBooks because I don't have an iPad,  there is no option to send sample to iBooks OSX. I am leaning towards getting all 3 enhanced ebooks making of original trilogy star wars on Kindle.

So SMART data has been terrible lately (at home & at the office) for about a week now. I have been tweeting them and also sent in an email. I got their standard response: 1. Sorry 2. Restart your phone 3. Monitor Their twitter staff informed me there was no service interruption in my area. My bill is fully paid. I get better speed at the mall & some parts of EDSA so it's not my phone. So I have to say it's a network issue, are the new buildings along shaw messing up my reception? If so SMART should really add more cell-sites. I have mentioned in another post that it had been 10 months since they launched LTE and still I have no coverage at home or at the office. I have been monitoring their LTE coverage page  http://www1.smart.com.ph/Bro/lte/coverage  and it seems there have been no sites added in the past months that would benefit me. So my complaints have been sent via twitter and email, I am not sure when or if SMART will even add more cell-sites. My f...

Below is my letter sent to SMART to customercare@smart.com.ph dated today 26-October-2013 Saturday at 2:30PM. I have removed the SR number, my mobile and account number before posting this. ======== Dear SMART,  I do not appreciate being lied to.  Last June, when my 6 month contract with SMART ended I went to your Shangri-la branch because I wanted to downgrade or switch my Unlidata 1500 to an iPhone plan 999. I was informed this was not possible and that I had to stay on 1500 if I wanted Unlidata. I had no other option. It was the cheapest Unlidata plan they had. That's that.  24-October-2013, Thursday — I went to SMART Megamall because I wanted to complain about the lack of LTE coverage and inquire about a new line for work, and tried once again. Again I got the "you have no other plan to go to” speech. He explained that iPhone plan 999 was bundled with a phone and could not be applied to my plan unless I wanted to cancel my current plan and get a...

This is an embedded Microsoft Office document, powered by Office Web Apps .

Turn off your iPhone without the Power Button. You need to have Assistive Touch ON to be able to do this. Settings - General - Accessibility - Assistive Touch - ON

I'm currently working for a real-estate company which we are investors in. My official designation is assistant marketing manager, since I would like to save the starting company some money I am also taking on the duties of the IT department (which for now are very minor) for said company. The company can hire a full time IT guy when the need arises but for now kegaw ko na muna kung ano kaya. So I registered a domain with godaddy.com and used promo code REV10 to get a discount on the registration cost. For email hosting I decided to go with Microsoft's Outlook.com which is free (for now). I made a few email addresses for the meantime, limit is 50. Honestly I would have preferred Google Apps but since it is no longer a free service I went with outlook. I have a grandfathered-in account for Google Apps which I had linked to gibi.com.ph unfortunately the domain registration for that had expired and it is now being squatted on by some Koreans (according t...

iCloud Control Panel 3.0 is out and it supports Outlook 2013. You can use Apple Software Update to get it or grab it here http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1455 Remember to shutdown Outlook before setup After a few minutes you get this screen Now I have iCloud contacts, mail & tasks in Outlook 2013 (I don’t use iCloud Calendar, and photo stream)

Made a new tone: Sean Tyas & Giuseppe Ottaviani - Arcobaleno Classic Mix it's m4r so it should work with any iOS device and it's available here  http://gallery.mobile9.com/f/3558431/

Got a double digit result for a short while it's back to single digit speed now... -- Sent from Gmail Mobile

https://twitter.com/BBM/status/381577435122126848 Nothing is going right for Blackberry (BBRY)... They even fumbled their very late entry into the cross-platform messaging application wars. They are blaming it at the over 1 million downloads on an leaked android version of the BBM app. I think they were not prepared. I was able to download the app before the roll-out got "paused" and have been poking around with it. The first few (about 5x) I launched it I could not create a Blackberry ID. So I decided to create one on the computer via this site:  http://us.blackberry.com/bbid.html After a few more restarts of the app I was finally able to login and use it. BBM for iPhone relies on Blackberry's PIN system and DOES NOT auto-populate from your contacts lists like popular competitors: Whatsapp, Viber, WeChat, LINE, etc. This can be a plus if you want to insulate your mobile number from certain contacts. It is unclear when Blackberry will resume the ...

The iPhone 5 is no more, it will be replaced with the iPhone 5C (C is for color not cheap!) It will come in 2 capacities (16, 32Gb) and 5 colors (green, white, blue, pink, yellow)   Basically they made a poly-carbonate (plastic) backed iPhone 5 with more color choices, complete with over priced silicone cases. More info in the iPhone 5C If you own an iPhone 5 you may skip the iPhone 5C. Apple’s new flagship iPhone is the iPhone 5S. They are coming out in 3 capacities (16, 32, 64Gb) and 3 colors (Space Gray, Silver, Gold) these are the high-end iPhones and will have that glass and metal finish. The iPhone 5S will be running 64-bit operating system. They are saying it will perform better. They are selling over-priced leather case for this higher end device. As usual they made a big deal about the camera features. They also made a big deal about Touch ID, it’s fingerprint scanner which should improve security. I think I am most intrigued by this feature. Security made simpl...

Embarking on a new challenge. I hope I am up to the task.

STAR WARS SMUGGLER'S RUN from Oliver Thompson on Vimeo . Star Wars Smuggler's Run is a 22 minute fan film, that has been filmed on location at the original sets in Tunisia. The story is set between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. Director Oliver Thompson has written an original story set within the Star Wars Universe. They used guerilla filmmaking techniques to make this movie and edited (video and SPFX) the project on a single Mac Book Pro. The music was composed by Gary Gibbons of World Worm Studios. The short film stars Warren Laker, Rodney Wong, James Gitsham and Kim Haslam, it features the voice talents of Russell Wait, Phil Bagshaw and James Gitsham. Star Wars Smuggler's Run was made over 14 months, they filmed in six countries with a cast and crew from all over the world. We filmed with a Scarlet (provided by Marc Oberdorfer of Young Indie Films) and a Sony A77 camera. The whole project was completed within a budget of just 10,000 USD and could not ha...

Let me preface this by saying that this is personal experience with these services and that your mileage may vary (YMMV) Ok. So I decided I wanted to try Netflix. I knew that I had to tackle two main issues: I needed a US issued credit card for the Netflix subscription Spoof my IP so that it appears my location is in North America instead of Asia For issue 1, I used entropay.com to create a virtual credit card (VCC). Then I loaded it with US$ 20. So that’s US$ 20.99 (entropay charges 4.5% to load a vcc) Now issue 2, is where it gets a bit more complicated. I first signed up for 7-day RISK-FREE trial @ $74.95 for one year ($6.25/mo.) (BEST VALUE) on proXPN.com (used a 20% off promo code: tnt = twit.tv/tnt ) this comes out as US$ 59.96 I downloaded their Windows app and was able to connect my notebook to their VPN was able to access Netflix and create a 1 month free trial account. This is the streaming account and does not include DVDs which you don’t need really. I also down...

Winter Kills is Josh Gabriel (1/2 half of the legendary Gabriel & Dresden) and the vocalist Meredith Call. The Winter Kills side project I’d say is a definite success because they have created such beautiful tracks. From their debut album called Josh Gabriel Presents Winter Kills, the track is entitled Forward Facing and I absolutely love it. Enjoy the Otto Coster Remix: Grab the release: http://www.audiojelly.com/releases/forward-facing/268515

I am a huge fan of Mat Zo, saw him at EMF 2012 too, then a few weeks later I saw Porter Robinson at REPUBLIQ. This track is a collab by these two young EDM DJ/Producers. It has that definite anthem feel and it is wonderful! Loving this track is easy   The official video is basically a trippy anime with an old school feel to it. Sweet! Grab it from audiojelly: http://www.audiojelly.com/releases/easy/289743

From Australian sensation tyDi comes Glow In The Dark. Vocals are provided by Kerli. Love this track ever since the first time I heard it at EMF 2012. Well done. Purchase: http://www.audiojelly.com/releases/glow-in-the-dark-feat-kerli/261197

Released on Intuition Records this track from Menno de Jong and Ellie Lawson is another amazing vocal track that is a must have for vocal trance fans. Beautiful! grab your copy: http://www.audiojelly.com/releases/place-in-the-sun/268588

This track by Dennis Pedersen I stumbled upon on audiojelly and it’s a beautiful trance track. The Farhad Mahdavi Remix is getting the most plays in my case. Head to audiojelly to grab your copy: http://www.audiojelly.com/releases/badittude/290237

Released on Euphonic by Cressida with Natalie Peris on vocals. This track has become one of my favorites and is a main stay on my Essentials playlist. You can get it on audiojelly: http://www.audiojelly.com/releases/easy-to-forget/216016

  BT, Arty, and Nadia Ali three artists that I absolutely adore have come together and made a track that I really really love. Because it’s Nadia Ali on vocals you know it’s an amazing track. Get it from audiojelly: http://www.audiojelly.com/releases/must-be-the-love/257503

If you have a Windows machine you should be using this nifty app. Step 1: Go to http://ninite.com/ Step 2: Check the apps you use Step 3: Save the installer and run it. Step 4: Enjoy your apps without pesky toolbars! By the way you can also use this installer to update your apps… If you are not using ninite you are missing out!

I still think that google does better voice recognition (especially for my less than stellar English accent) but it is good to see that AAPL is adding more features to the Siri app.

Progressive trance duo Norin & Rad's Five Finger Death Punch is a progressive winner. And I can't help but bob my head, tap my feet and smile when I listen to this track. Nice and uplifting progressive trance. DeVas the second track in this release is no slouch. I really like the piano and driving bass. I think both tracks deserve a place in my Essentials playlist. You can grab it on iTunes  https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/five-finger-death-punch-devas/id557181364