The Beanster Blog

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...

Hey AAPL, you're on version 6 of your mobile OS already.  And you still CANNOT create/edit Contact Groups natively on iOS.  You need to log-on to iCloud.com (on a normal browser, mobile browser is just a landing page) to create / edit Contacts groups. Meanwhile, Contacts on OSX has Smart Groups (similar to iTunes Smart Playlists) very useful but they don't sync to your iOS device via iCloud. AAPL should STOP or LESSEN this skeumorphism bullshit and enable Contact groups creation and editing natively on iOS. Also they should enable Smart Contact Group sync to iOS. In short make things more useful before you make them look like real world things (skeuomorphism)

In my bid to never use the Starbucks stupid cup size naming system. I decided to order a 16 fl oz Apple Berry Juice Freeze. It's too warm for my usual 8 or 12 fl oz black coffee. I needed to show Ms. Barista my cheat sheet because she gave me the "eyebrows-up-hand-hovering-over-cups-waiting-for-me-to-nod" look. I try my best to be a jerk to idiots but I decided not to blurt out "hey a barista should actually know this shit." because I don't want spit in my overpriced refreshing beverage.

After a “passionate” phone call and email to Microsoft Support. I have come to the conclusion that moving from WindowsMobile to WindowsPhone7 is just not advisable for residents of the Philippines. If you’ve been following my blog you know that I’ve been using WindowsMobile since 2001 (that’s 9 years). Around November last year Microsoft launched WindowsMobile MarketPlace (for WM6.1, earlier for 6.5) at the time Philippine credit cards were not accepted so you could get free apps but there was no way to purchase paid apps. 11 months later Philippine credit cards are still not accepted on MarketPlace. I decided to ring Microsoft and write an email expressing my concerns. Today I got a follow up email stating that WindowsPhone7 MarketPlace will also not support the Philippines and that it is unsure when support would be added. This is from “Rizal” of Microsoft Support: Additionally, for the new Windows Phone 7 marketplace, the list of supported countries is still the same; Singa...

For the record: I have been using Microsoft mobile devices since 2001, currently my primary device is an Apple iPhone 3GS, and my secondary device is a palm Treo Pro WindowsMobile 6.1 Pro device. Microsoft KIN Today Microsoft announced that KIN is dead. Goddamit it should never have been born! The still born (lacking features, bastard child of WindowsPhone7) should never have been released in the first place. Microsoft wasted resources on KIN when they could’ve folded in what they learned or acquired from Sidekick into WindowsPhone7. FUCKING STUPID! WindowsMobile I have Windows Mobile Marketplace on my TreoPro. GREAT right? WELL NO! It has been more than 6 months since I’ve had it on my device and I still cannot add my credit card and purchase apps. Yep the behemoth that is Microsoft can’t get it’s act together to allow Philippine credit cards. Of course I can side load but that doesn’t have all my apps in one central location and updates have to be checked and applied by me, 1...

I have been using this feature to create AAC files (M4A) renaming them to M4R to make Ringtones for the iPhone. With Apple’s newest (still bloated) version of iTunes they have removed this feature. It really pisses me off when companies remove functionality which was there for so long and which was very very useful. Does anyone know of a way to convert MP3s to AAC (preferably for free)? I would like to keep on making ringtones for the iPhone.

In a fit of clumsyness (?) I jammed my hand with the car door in the morning and in the evening I somehow managed to slip and do an elbow drop and shove move to wreck both hinges of my Wind and to put a dent in the chasis. With my weight I was also able to break the battery lock.  It still turns on but now I cannot move it in use because the battery will drop out. Some of the keys are also tough to press. I still haven't brought it to the shop but I suspect it would be better to get a new system rather than having it repaired. Stupidity and butter fingers aren't covered with warranty. This definitely craps on my tech roadmap and what little budget I have stashed for gadgets … Come to think of it this netbook is not even 6 months old! I could hunker down and add a usb keyboard (I am pretty sure I have one at home) to get over the keyboard issues but honestly once you know there is a dent, ding, scratch or issue with your device you never look at it the same way. I am still...

Today I finished talking with palm support and trooped to Makati to get my palm Treo Pro replaced AGAIN! This my 3rd Treo Pro… this is getting ridiculous… What the hell!? The keypad frame was falling off on the refurb unit I got. BTW I haven’t dropped my device yet. [here are some pics of the faulty device] When I got there the guy gave me my replacement unit I inspected the keys and found out the start button was stuck so I asked for another unit. Thankfully this one had better keys. Hard reset my defective TP, took out the SIM, microSD, stylus, battery and back cover. I then installed those to the new one and powered it up. The guy at the drop off zone moved the screen protector for me too. I setup google sync so I had my contacts/calendar until I got back to the office. Finished signing stuff and I was off. My 1st device’s d-pad failed after six months the 1st refurbed units keyboard frame failed in 2 weeks. I hope this device lasts longer… I really don’t have the mo...

I was at the Nokia store while I was waiting for my Treo Pro to get replaced. Of course I went straight to the dummy models (they don’t display live phones anymore; fear of stealing I guess). I was playing with the N97’s slider and tilt system. Looks really sturdy, however it seems that it goes tilt only; you can’t just slide it up. The guy noticed I had to smartphones so he smelled a potential sale. He comes up to me and starts spouting specs like an frakin’ sub-machinegun. He knows his product great training Nokia. So WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth, 5MP, wow… pretty impressive ey… touch screen ooooooh… Finally I got tired of playing with the slider and asked him the most important question. Does this phone recognize similar numbers? At this moment the guy already new that he has lost this sale. It is not your fault well groomed, well trained but of questionable sexual orientation sales dude/tte it’s the product’s fault. You see folks in the year 2009 Symbian Series 60 Feature Pack...

Here is my letter to Mr. Manuel V. Pangilinan president of SMART Telecommunications Inc. I also sent a copy to their customer service address just in case the email address I was provided with was not real. I am hoping he reads it and responds to it. subj: SMART TELECOM INT'L ROAMING DEPOSIT IS DISCRIMINATORY, UNFAIR, and WRONG Mr. Manny Pangilinan Dear Sir I am SMART subscriber in good standing. I pay all my bills on time. A month or so ago I decided to lower my plan from 1200 to 500. I did this because I had noticed that I was not hitting 1200. As I was getting this done I asked the service rep to make sure that international roaming and data services would still be active. She said it would. Now early this month I went on a business trip to China. To my surprise my roaming had been turned off. Upon my return to the PH I gave the SMART hotline a ring. I was surprised to find out that my roaming had been cut because my plan is bellow 1800PHP. I asked t...

I had recently changed my service plan from 1200 to 500 [last April] because I had a SUN 350 line and I wanted to lower my monthly expenses. When I was getting this done I expressly asked the service rep about roaming. Fact of the matter is I was only keeping SMART because SUN had weak to zero coverage outside Metro Manila and because I assumed SMART [being bigger and older] had more roaming partners over SUN. When I went on my 4 day trip to China last week, roaming was not working. Good thing I had brought my SUN SIM card which did roam successfully take note my SUN plan is only 350/month. That is even lower than my SMART plan. So I decided to call SMART and have roaming activated on my SIM. I was surprised when the rep on the phone said that activating roaming now required a 2500PhP roaming deposit and that this deposit can only be credited to your account as bills payment when you decide to deactivate roaming. I asked if this deposit would be used if I roamed and she said no. I argu...

Lately, I have been feeling a lot of anger/hate inside. A quick check of the calendar and it all became clear to me. I must have been trying to repress it too much. It still pains me to think about it. It has been one year since I realized that I had put my trust upon the wrong person. It has been one year since I let my guard down. I do hope I have learned my lesson. I don’t want to go through it again. I reckon this time last year was one of the darkest times in my life. Thankfully there were some people who took time and effort to bring me back into the light whilst others were content on standing idly by. It is good to know where you stand even though you don’t always like where you are standing. I am writing this post in the hopes that it will lessen the negative feelings that are welling up inside me again. I know that my family is there for me and I now know who my real friends are. For that I am both grateful and thankful. So I end this post with another quote...

.: CEBUPACIFIC grounds 10 Deaf Passengers :. [the story is dated in the early part of this year it is not clear if cebu pacific has done something about this]

So my mom is still out of the country, my brother and sister are busy with a store opening and guests from MY. So I am left to watch over the office with my dad. He is re-arranging the office and has been a PITA for 2 weeks about it. He has been pestering me to move to my new desk. So I finally move and guess what there is no allotment for power, phone, and network. GALING!!!

I think it is really stupid that all these WM device manufacturers are trying to *kill* the iPhone with all these touch only devices. I for one want a front facing QWERTY bar device. We all know that the choices for these are very very limited as of this writing. I do hope that this changes in the very near future. Please please please don't kill the QWERTY bar form factor. -- At the moment both my devices are QWERTY sliders and I've blogged before that I want to go back to the QWERTY bar form factor. -- I am still waiting for the Treo Pro to reach Manila soil... I am still undecided if I will get rid of the TyTN2 or S730 or keep em all and relegate one as a spare device. -- I do feel that there aren't any new WM6.1 standard QWERTY bar devices being announced. -- Hey manufacturers are you listening???

It is that time of the year again when devices are being announced and are coming to market. But at the moment I don't have a whole lot of choices. So far it's neck to neck for the hp iPAQ 900 series and the palm Treo Pro both devices have impressive specifications but these specifications are almost identical to my current device the HTC TyTN2. We can interpret this 2 ways. 1 the TyTN2 is an awesome device which is hard to replace. 2 device makers are resting on their rumps and not innovating. I think it will be a mix of both trains of thought. So why am I even considering plunking down the moohlah to buy a new device if the specs are not so different from my current device? Well the answer is in the form factor... and because I like new and shiny toys [errr... tools]. With my TyTN2 I had a bigger keyboard but it definitely required 2 hands to operate efficiently. I do love the tilting screen and use it on a daily basis. I would like to report that after close to 10 months of ...

We got in late from HKG because our flight was delayed. We landed and taxied to Terminal 3 the 'new' one... A/C was really cold because there were so few people in the terminal. The walkalators were off the rest rooms were still clean, I think they've been on trials for the past few weeks or so? Immigration was fairly fast because again there was only 1 plane that landed. Customs took a lot of time because we were harassed by a gentleman by the name of Ottoman Mamardo, a customs officer... He asked me to open my luggage and immediately went to the boxes. He saw the Canon G9 Box, the Jabra BT3030 box, the HTC S730 box and he wanted to tax them! I said that those were for personal use [because they are!] and he said that they're still taxable. He also wanted to tax the microSDHC memory card and even a CD from HMV. Suffice to say this officer was either on a power trip or just plain hungry, he said that I shouldn't buy abroad and buy locally? What the F is that??? Why ...

My desktop is really really slow, it doesn't feel like it's CoreDuo 1.8Ghz with 2Gb of RAM at all... I guess swapping in my old HDD with an existing XP install isn't an ideal way to go about things. I think the drivers and crap that I needed for the 1st MB is conflicting with something on this MB... Bah! It looks like I have to do a reformat of this PC. All my files are on a 2ndary drive so that's not going to be a problem. It's time spent installing all the applications I use. The good thing is I get to have an ultra clean PC after cause I can opt out of installing applications that I don't use that much. So far the shortlist is XP [duh], Office 2007, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Reader, Firefox, Yahoo Messenger, Activesync. These are pretty much the apps I use on a day to day basis. Then I have to go call MS to have my copy of XP activated and validated again. Then updating! Damn... that'll take a lot of time. I wonder if it's time I should be taking another...

I was smoking outside and noticed it was really hot so I checked my weather app... -- Apparent Temp is 43C!!! Damn that's warm!

The rooster problem is a thing of the past but now I have to deal with frogs. Good thing that the volume isn't too bad when I turn on the AC and the TV. There are 1 or 2 roosters in the vicinity as well but like the frogs they can be drowned out by the AC. We have a non split type AC unit and it does make more noise than the split type in our old room but it's constant and rhythmic, am actually used to it already.