• Interests, Hobbies, Geekdom

    iPhone4 Singapore

    August 24, 2010

    After getting my hands on iPhone4 here in Singapore through M1’s preorder, and queuing 2 hours+ just to collect it, here is a list of my comments after using it for almost 2 weeks:

    1) It feels solid, holding it in my hands just feels more right than my old iPhone3G. It is not heavy, and putting it beside my old iPhone3G makes the old iPhone looks more plastic.

    2) The retina display is really awesome. Again putting it side by side with my old iPhone3G, the colours on iPhone4 seem to be brighter, sharper and generally more pleasing to the eye.

    3) Battery Life. With the iPhone4, I started using it as my main phone. Using it for work daily, I must say the battery life is really much better than my old iPhone3G, but still way behind my 2 year old Nokia N97.

    4) The iPhone4 runs all my applications much faster. Using the Whatsapp application on iPhone3G was painful, with me typing faster than the words appearing. With the iPhone4, everything is so  much faster. Playing Godfinger, for example, was so less frustrating than before.

    5) HD video recording. It is really incredible, the video quality was top notch, and really impressive.

    6) The Apple’s death grip problem? It really exists. I have tested this in a few locations in Singapore. But since the coverage in Singapore is generally pretty good, this is not a serious problem. I have yet to encounter any drop calls because of this.

    Suffice to say, iPhone4 should have been the phone that Apple releases originally, instead of waiting 2 generations for it.

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  • Ramblings

    Microblogging

    August 23, 2010

    Read an article at TechCrunch today, regarding the rise of microblogging and the demise of blogging.

    but look at anyone’s Twitter account and it’s the same story – 140 characters simply doesn’t give enough depth or breadth to commit events, memories or feelings to the permanent record.

    How true.

    Blogging forces me to revisit events, no matter how painful they are, and put them in words, in a logical manner. It helps me to put things into perspective, and also offer an outlet for me to vent. Twitter is more like IRC to me, than blogging.

    Of course, I blog much, much less than I twit. Blogging is emotional tiring when the topic is about something close to heart, something painful. It is never easy to revisit painful moments twice, and mostly, I would rather just pretend those incidents never happen. As such, I would prefer not to blog about painful, emotional draining incidents. Also, a one liner sometimes has more impact than a full length blog post.

    Thinking aloud, perhaps I should blog less about personal issues, that might increase my blogging frequency. Besides, I can never know who is reading my blog.

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  • Ramblings

    Too Much To Ask For?

    August 18, 2010

    I am not asking for too much. I just want to be your friend, be there when you need me, and in the shadows when you do not. Always available to have drinks if you require, to have lunch and dinner with you if you allow me.

    Is that too much to ask for?

    If it was, why did you not tell me that when I said all these to you? Why do you have to hurt me, again and again? It was really a mixture of anger and hurt, and I know what is left now is hurt. Because I can never be angry with you for long. What is left is pain, a pain so great that I only know of two ways to numb it. One is to intoxicate myself, so I can get some sleep, to have a brief respite from the pain. The other, a more permanent solution, is to just end this miserable life of mine.

    I am not asking for good things to happen to me, I just do not want the painful things to happen to me. Because, you know, I have enough of pain to last me for the next ten lives.

    Is that really too much to ask for?

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  • Ramblings

    People Like Us

    August 10, 2010

    People like us will not fall in love easily, because when we do, we literally throw ourselves into the relationship. And because of this, we also get hurt badly. And because we get hurt badly, we tend not to fall in love easily.

    I understand how it feels when you said that when the relationship ended, you view the whole world in black and white, that you cannot stop thinking of him, that you cry every second, that you walk like a zombie. How you wanted to end it all just to stop the pain, how you just want to dash across the road because the pain and sadness were just too much to bear.

    I understand because, I was once in your shoes.

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  • Ramblings

    Notting Hill

    August 6, 2010

    There is something magical about Notting Hill that makes me watch it every time it is shown on TV.

    Perhaps it is the chemistry between the actor and actress, perhaps it is the script, the lines spoken. Perhaps it is a simple love story.

    Perhaps in this life of mine where good things rarely happen, deep down I want to believe in that a fairy tale ending like in this movie, will happen to me too.

    The more I think about things, the more I see no rhyme or reason in life. no one knows why some things work out and some things don’t. Why some of us are lucky and some of us get…

    And the best line from the movie:

    I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.

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  • Ramblings

    I Told You So

    August 5, 2010

    Not trying to sound like I am gloating, but I find it most apt by saying to you, ‘I told you so.’.

    Perhaps that is why you did not want to tell me what happened, because I already warned you about this. Do you believe he is really interested in you just because you had ‘good vibes’ with him? He was just making use of you.

    Knocking yourself against the wall once is fine, knocking yourself against the wall again and again is just plain stupid. Giving a reason like ‘This is the life I chose.’ does not justify your stupidity.

    As a friend, who is in a really unique position, all I can do is be there for you when you need me. But do not expect any sympathy from me, because I had already told you so.

    When will you learn?

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  • Interests, Hobbies, Geekdom

    iPad Kindle Singapore

    July 29, 2010

    There were two main reasons why I went to get myself a iPad:

    1) Kindle. I am running out of space at home for my books. Having ebooks will enable me to read without worrying finding space to put my books.

    2) Watching video without sitting in front of my PC. With iPad I can now watch video anywhere.

    And after playing around with my iPad for the past few days, I can safely say the iPad fulfilled both and more.

    It was not that straight forward to purchase books off Amazon for Kindle on iPad. However upon successfully purchasing ebooks, the ebooks were pushed down to the Kindle on iPad. Reading on Kindle was a wonderful experience, with a flick of my finger, it displayed the next page. While I believe it is easier for the eyes to get tired reading on a iPad than a Kindle, at least the iPad is sold officially in Singapore, while we are still waiting for the Kindle to be here after so long.

    To purchase ebooks on Amazon, follow the steps given in Jeff’s Blog. As to the VPN, I tried a few free ones, and most of them were slow and unreliable.  In the end I am quite pleased with VPNReactor, a free VPN service with servers located in US. It has been quite reliable so far, and the speed is fast enough for me.

    A word of caution, you have to use a VPN service with servers located in US. The first time that I did not, I receive an email from Amazon asking me to verify that I was in US.

     

    [Updated 25 Dec 2011] TunnelBear is a pretty good VPN to use. However, there is a need to install their application to use it. 

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