Month: September 2011

General

Let’s Talk iPhone

By on Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Apple has finally sent out invites to their much anticipated October 4 press conference. So on Tuesday October 4 10AM at their corporate HQ in Cupertino, CA, Apple will make an announcement.

Of course, they will announce the iPhone 5. It’s not the iPhone 4S or 4+ because it makes marketing sense to have the iPhone 5 match iOS 5. And just one phone because the notification badge says 1.

There’s no need for a low-end phone because iPhone 4 will, after the announcement, become the lower end phone. Maybe they will come up with an iPhone 4 with lower memory but it will still be an iPhone 4. There’s no marketing sense in calling it iPhone 4-.

The iPhone 5 will be a taller, wider phone with an aluminum back following the general design pattern of the iPad 2. Although the display is bigger, resolution remains the same as the iPhone 4 because they want to leverage the current existing Retina apps. It will have a dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, and 64GB storage in line with current smartphones specifications. But these will not be highlighted or maybe even mentioned.

Now let’s see if I got anything right.

Waiting.

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General

Bladeless Fan

By on Sunday, September 25, 2011

Last Friday, Alex texted me saying he’s got Jeanne’s Christmas gift and if I can pick it up. So I went over and he gave me this bladeless fan. Perfect for babies and toddlers like Jeanne. And of course, it’s not exactly bladeless. Hidden inside the base is a real fan that takes in air through intake vents and feeds it up and out vents along the inside of the aerodynamically-shaped tube. This provides the airflow which then induces the air behind to flow through the tube. Supposedly this provides 15x airflow if the marketing blurbs are to be believed. In actual use, it may not be the strongest fan (industrials are) but the geek factor more than makes up for it. Thanks Uncle Alex!

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General

How To Train Your Dragon(fly)

By on Sunday, September 25, 2011


Gretchen, Michelle, Jeanne, and I went to mass at UP today. Afterwards, we went to the Sunken Garden, spread out Jeanne’s Nemo comforter on the grass, and had picnic lunch of lechon and rice. It was a great day and the sun was shining. We walked around on the grass as dragonflies buzzed around, we picked up and played with sticks, and Jeanne got an ice cream. I was able to catch a dragonfly and Michelle fed it a blade of grass while Jeanne watched. We let it go after a while. Later, Michelle and I lay down and watched the sky and the sun through the treetops. It was sooo relaxing.

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General

iOS 5 beta 7

By on Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Finally pulled the trigger and registered on the Apple iOS developer program. First thing I did is, of course, download iOS 5 beta 7 and the required iTunes 10.5 beta 7. As soon as the downloads completed, I extracted the iOS 5 ipsw file and installed iTunes. Since this is the first time I’m installing iOS5, there’s no OTA update, and I had to update via iTunes:

  1. Back up iPhone.
  2. Restore iPhone. But press and hold the alt key before clicking the Restore button. This will let you select a specific ipsw file.
  3. Select the iOS 5 beta 7 ipsw file.
  4. Wait for the restore and sync to complete.

iOS 5 generally looks just like iOS 4. There were some minor cosmetic changes here and there but the biggest ones I noticed were:

  1. Notification System – Instead of the old pop-up notifications, you can now opt for discreet notification banners that slide down from the top of the screen and quickly slide up. To (re)view pending notifications, there’s a pull-down notification screen. Pending notifications are also viewable on the lock screen. And by sliding (to unlock) the particular notification, you directly go to and access the notification in its corresponding app.
  2. Widgets – The lock screen can also hold widgets, though right now there’s only the Weather and Stocks widgets. I’m pretty sure Apple will let app developers come up with widget extensions soon enough.
  3. Browser – There’s now “Reader” full-screen feature accessible on the address bar. In addition, there’s open link “in background”. Which means to say open a new tab and stay in the current tab (as opposed to open a new tab and automatically go to new tab). Finally, there’s  “Reading List” which is a cloud-based bookmark.
  4. iMessage – the SMS app is now iMessage. It is a text messaging platform over data that works on iOS devices (for now). It will default to SMS when it is not available to you or the other party.
  5. Camera –  The camera app can now be accessed directly from the lock screen. And you can take a shot by pressing the + button. There’s also a switchable grid to help in framing photos.
  6. Photos – You can now create and delete albums. You can add photos across albums. There’s also basic photo editing (rotate, enhance, red-eye removal, and crop). I’m not about to delete PS Express though.
  7. iCloud – Store  mail, contacts, etc in the cloud.
  8. Twitter Integration – You can tweet directly from Apple’s built-in apps.

All pretty good and much-needed enhancements. Supposedly there are more enhancements in the final that were not included in the public beta. Can’t wait!

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General

Sunday Afternoon Out

By on Sunday, September 18, 2011

After mass and lunch, Michelle wanted to watch Crazy Stupid Love. I decided to skip it. It’s not exactly a movie that takes advantage of the big screen so I was planning to watch it at home. Nor would Jeanne appreciate watching it whether on the big screen or at home. And she would have had to pay full rate. But Michelle and Gretchen went ahead. It later turned out the movie was no longer showing in MegaMall or Galleria and they ended up watching Johnny English.

As for my dad, Jeanne and I, it was the Podium. First, we went to the bookstore where my dad looked for a C programming book. But there was none available so he just got a newspaper and a Winnie the Pooh book for Jeanne. We then headed to Cinnabon for coffee and cinnamon rolls. We drank and ate while reading: my dad a newspaper, Jeanne and I the Pooh book. Then, of course, a requisite visit to the toy store. Always a good stop. She actually didn’t want to leave until I asked her if she wanted to go to the grocery at which point she put back the ball she was playing with and let me carry her.

As there is no grocery at the Podium, we drove over to Hypermart. I got ingredients for different kinds of sinigang (prawn, salmon belly, pork, veggies), and orange juice. Jeanne was well-behaved and sat on the cart all throughout so we were done quickly. We then headed home. Great bonding time for 3 generations.

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