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Energizer XP1000

My usage pattern (heavy mobile browsing, moderate SMS, and some calls) coupled with Smart’s poor 3G network coverage results in dismal battery performance of my iPhone 4S. Despite my best efforts, standby is at only 20 hours with usage of around 4 hours and that already includes my sleeping time. Fully charged in the morning, I get up to12-14 hours of standby before I need to recharge. Usually, I’m back home by then. But that means I have a problem when I’m away for more than half the day.

My solution is the Energizer XP1000. It is a small (about the size of 1/3 a deck of cards) and light emergency charger and backup battery. It has a “universal” charging cable that allows you to charge the XP1000 via a USB port and charge different devices by attaching different tips  or connectors for different standards/devices. The package includes tips for mini-USB, micro-USB, iPhone/iPod, and Nokia.

The XP1000 specifications claims it stores a charge for a year, can be recharged up to 500 times, and is rated at 1000mAh. It charges my iPhone 4S from almost empty to just over 50% in around 2 hours. Not bad. That should give me an extra 6-7 hours of standby and a corresponding amount of usage. My only quibble is that the universal charging cable makes carrying the XP1000 around in your pocket a bit less convenient. But it’s not a problem if you have a gadget bag.

Rating: 4/5

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SM Monstrosities

Passed by the monstrosity that is SM Mega Mall yesterday. As expected, the traffic was horrible. I can just imagine how the crowd is inside. Recently, SM was in the news because of all the pine trees in their Baguio mall that they’re “transplanting”. If you read what the experts are saying, they’re effectively just cutting the hapless trees down. Only gave me one more reason for me not to go to SM. I used to go to the original SM City but slowly I grew an aversion to it, the traffic, the crowd, the fugliness of the mall itself. Eventually I gravitated towards smaller malls like Robinson’s Galleria and avoided SM malls as much as possible. It’s past due time SM reinvents itself and do the community and the environment a favor. How about smaller malls  with a focused market like High Street? Or ones where the ugly parking structure is underground and out of sight like Power Plant? Or ones a bit farther away from major thoroughfares? You can help by not going to SM. You’ll reduce the traffic. You’ll reduce the crowd. Maybe you’ll even help save some trees.

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WTF: Binibining Pilipinas

Saw the intro portion of the Binibinig Pilipinas pageant and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought it’s one of those noontime variety shows. They should have chosen a better producer. Hopefully the rest of the show is much better.

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Engine and Air Cooling Systems Fixes

Just before Holy Week, the car overheated because the radiator fan wasn’t automatically activating. The aircon also died. My theory was that the overheat resulted in the refrigerant to go hot, over pressured, and got vented out by some pressure relief valve. I direct-connected the radiator fan so that it’s always on. Not a long-term solution as this will shorten the life of the fans. I also made do without air conditioning. Or rather Michelle did.

Today, I visited Fusion R and they confirmed that the radiator fan wasn’t working properly because the radiator fan temperature switch connector was loose due to a broken clip. They tried looking for a replacement but couldn’t find any. So what they did was remove the old temperature sensor and connector and replaced them with ones from a Subaru. Total cost P3000 for the Subaru stuff and labor. Ouch! At least the car has a little bit of Subaru genes now :P

But it wasn’t over yet. Next, I went to the aircon shop. They said everything seems okay, there are no visible signs of a leak.  So they’ll just recharge the refrigerant and observe if there’s a leak. Bad decision. In just a few minutes the refrigerant was gone again. There was definitely a leak.

They pulled down the evaporator and the pipings to look for it and sure enough there was a huge one in the piping near the radiator. The radiator had somehow sawed a hole on it. They brazed the leak shut, reinstalled everything, and recharged again. Total cost P950 for the initial recharge and P2650 for the pulldown and repair. Ouch again!

It became clear what happened: The radiator abraded the aircon piping until it finally blew venting out refrigerant. The aircon system detected the low level of refrigerant and shut down as a failsafe. This means the radiator fan and auxiliary fan didn’t spin as they usually do when the aircon switch is on. Since the radiator temp switch wasn’t working properly, the radiator fan didn’t turn on and the engine overheated.

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Facebook Buys Instagram

Just when I though I could get away from Facebook, they’re buying up Instagram, my photo sharing network and app of choice. Knowing them, they’ll probably claim the pictures  (and everything else) you post are not yours. So I just might have to switch. And soon. Path?

On other hand, I’m happy for the founders of Instagram. From a valuation of $100M, then $500M, and now $1B in a matter of months. For sure the recent availability of the Android version of the app pushed the valuation up. That alone has the potential to almost instantly double it’s current user level of 30M. Not bad. Not bad at all.