General

I’m A Dad Again!

By on Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Probably stressed by Jeanne’s surgery and ongoing recuperation, Michelle started getting contractions. Her obstetrician prescribed her a medication but the contractions wouldn’t let up. So she eventually had to be admitted to the High-Risk Pregnancy Unit (HRPU) of the hospital. But after 24 hours and even with all the medications, the contractions still wouldn’t let up.

Finally, the doctor decided to go for an emergency cesarean. Michelle’s dad took my place watching Jeanne while I went to Michelle to prepare for the birth. Unfortunately, I was nursing a cough so I decided not to go into the operating room. I’ll just have to content myself with photos. But unfortunately still, we didn’t have the DSLR with us. And my iPhone just so happened to be low on battery! So I grudgingly give the nurse Michelle’s Note 3 (ugh!) for taking photos of the birth. Oh well.

After a rather lengthy wait, the nurse came in with my daughter, Charlie (that’s shar-lee) Melisande. And again, since I had a cough, I couldn’t hold her in my arms. Still, I’m one happy puppy, or rather, dad!

0
General

Amazon Fire Phone

By on Friday, June 20, 2014

My first thought when I saw Amazon’s new Fire Phone was it looks like a midrange Android phone. And it is. My second thought was what’s up with all those cameras? What originally was rumored to be a 3D display turned out to be a regular 2D display with Dynamic Perspective which adjusts the display depending on what your head is doing. Kind of like the Kinect. That’s what all those cameras are for. And that’s one of the Fire Phone’s main or at least most visible features.

Then there’s Firefly which seems to be Google Goggles on steroids. Take a picture of pretty much anything and it will be recognized and offered for you to buy. A shopaholic’s dream. There’s also Mayday tech support on demand and a one-year subscription (or extension to existing subscribers) to Amazon Prime.

So why did Amazon come up with a phone? I think it’s because you use a Kindle e-book reader when you’re reading, a Kindle Fire tablet when you’re reading, watching videos, and other tablet stuff, and a Fire TV when you’re in the living room. But these days it is the phone that is with you practically all the time. That means more opportunities to shop. With Firefly. At Amazon. I think that’s really all there is to it.

So will the Fire Phone sell? Jeff Bezos apparently thinks so. He certainly hopes so. Because even if Amazon doesn’t usually plan to make money from its devices, it definitely wants users of those devices to shop at Amazon. And they can’t do that dangerously easy shopping if they don’t buy the Fire Phone.

But aside from easy shopping, which you can do less dangerously elsewhere, what else would make it compelling? As a phone, it’s a midranger and it’s not even really Android. Dynamic Perspective strikes me as a bit gimmicky. Mayday? You shouldn’t need to use it. Personally, I really can’t think of a compelling reason.

 

0
Gadgets

Kindle Paperwhite

By on Wednesday, June 18, 2014
kindle-paperwhite

So I finally got my Kindle Paperwhite. It’s your regular Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi version with the notable difference that since it’s the Japan version, it’s got 4GB instead of 2GB to account for the popularity of manga I guess. But for regular books, that translates to twice the number, from 2000 to 4000, of books if you somehow have that many.

The e-paper display, for which the Kindle is known for, is definitely awesome. No glare or reflections at all. The background color is actually a greenish gray which is actually fine for reading. To get the paper white background color, you’ll need to turn on the built-in light which might impact the battery a bit. But it shouldn’t matter since it’s rated to last weeks instead of several hours with even the best tablets (iPads :P). A few hours, even days reduction shouldn’t matter much. And in exchange you get to read with a pleasing warm paper white background and read in darker environments. That’s quite fair enough.

The display is touch-sensitive and works well once you’ve gotten used to it. It is not as sensitive as the best tablets but definitely better than some of the others. Definitely sensitive enough for changing pages, which is the most common use. Since this is an e-paper display, refresh rates are not high and thus you change pages instead of scrolling. Scrolling is supported by the built-in experimental browser, but it’s not pretty. Still, in a pinch, it’s workable.

Of course it works awesomely with the Amazon bookstore. But a problem for me is how easy to buy something. I myself ended up with accidental purchases. This is offset somewhat by how easy to cancel a purchase. But I personally would prefer some authentication especially if kids are around. Another problem is that it’s a little harder to find the free books (yes, there are lots of them in Amazon) since they’re almost always mixed in with the paid books. But hey, that’s Amazon’s main business after all. And I’ve always been happy with them. Including with this e-book reader.

0
General

Bad Lazada Experience

By on Friday, June 13, 2014

I’m a fan of Amazon. But their global shipping rates and custom charges often raise the cost too much. I usually buy only when I have friends or relatives visiting the US or when the overall cost makes sense, i.e. items that are not available or very expensive locally.

So I was glad about Lazada who supposedly aims to be the Amazon of Southeast Asia. Their prices are actually pretty high than what you can find locally. But coupled with promotions, vouchers, and free shipping, they do have a value proposition that can be seriously considered on a case-to-case basis. Last May 24, I ordered a Kindle Paperwhite. It $139 straight from Amazon but would be more expensive once shipping and customs are factored in.

On June 9, the package arrived. It was quite slow as shipping goes but the site did mention 10-15 days. I was more surprised when the courier tried to collect payment for customs charges. It turned out that the item was shipped from Hong Kong and not locally. But there is no indication whatsoever on the site about this. Or maybe there is but it’s buried somewhere, believe me I tried looking. So I called up Lazada customer service and disputed the charges. They were helpful and promised to have the item redelivered without the charges immediately.

But two days later, there was still no package in sight. I called a few times but I ended up explaining myself all over again and would end up getting nothing new. I got the feeling that it’s back to square one every time I call. They always talk about the “backoffice” but there’s not further information. After several such calls, I frustratedly cancelled the order. If Lazada is to be the Amazon of Southeast Asia, it definitely needs to improve on the communication and/or data access between customer service and fulfillment.

UPDATE 6/18/2014: My package arrived even though I had already cancelled it (see what I said about communication?). Since it’s extra effort for me to ship it back as a return and since they didn’t charge me extra anymore, I decided to accept it.

0
General

iOS 8 Beta

By on Thursday, June 5, 2014
As expected iOS 8 was announced at WWDC and I grabbed the beta as soon as I could. The newer iOS 8 doesn’t stray too far from last year’s iOS 7’s look-and-feel but there are many new features and enhancements. Notable changes are the following:
  1. Integration with Apple Devices – With Continuity you can go from any of your Apple devices and continue whatever your doing across devices. On supported applications of course. This includes Mail, Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Maps, Messages, Reminders, Calendar, and Contacts. You can also answer calls and write messages. And finally there’s automatic WiFi hotspot.
  2. Integration with 3rd Party Apps – This means two things. First, Apple is seamlessly integrating features into iOS that used to be provided by 3rd party apps (either on iOS, Android, or elsewhere) :P And second allowing 3rd party apps access to the OS and hardware. For example, keyboard apps to replace the default keyboard and payment apps to access TouchID.
  3. HealthKit – the long-rumored foray of Apple into health and fitness. It’s basically an API for collecting health and fitness data as well as an app providing access to this data. Various health and fitness devices and 3rd party apps can register as data sources for the Health app which then consolidates all the health data including history, graphs, etc. Vitals is included. In addition, it provides About Me, health and medical details. There is even an emergency feature that will reveal About Me details that may be useful for emergency personnel that’s access from the lock screen.
  4. HomeKit – like HealthKit, this is basically an API for controlling and communicating with smart home devices. Since Apple doesn’t have Nest, it instead has a certification program. Which I think is actually good. Sticking to your core and not having to make everything yourself.
  5. Notification Center – you now take more action straight from the notification center including answering messages.
  6. Task Switcher – along (actually above) with running apps you now see the recent people you communicated with and call or write messages from there. I guess it’s for switching communication tasks.
  7. Camera and Photo Editor – Camera has new features such as timer, time-lapse. Photo editor has new features such as rotation and brightness and color adjustments
  8. Photos – new interface, new filing system (years, collections, moments)
  9. Siri – trying to get closer to Google Now. You can activate it by saying “Hey, Siri!”. It can now recognize songs (and buy them from the iTunes store).

Overall, I like where iOS 8 is heading and the beta itself is quite stable.

0