The Four-eyed Journal » Gadgets

On the Samurai Umbrella…I want one!

jhay — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 02:53:18 +0000

When it comes to wisdom, factoids, trivia and explaining stuff, most of my friends turn to me for their regular dose and questions. But there are limits to what I know and one of them is the Samurai Umbrella. Which is getting quite popular nowadays.

Awesome Samurai Umbrella

I’ve seen one or two in the metro lately on one of my regular trips to work via the MRT. “They got through the security guards carrying those?” Was the first thought that crossed my mind when I first saw one, fooled into thinking they were really bladed Samurai replicas. “Or maybe they were used by cosplayers.” Was another hypothesis of mine.

For a more compact and stealthier ninja, err traveller

As it turned out, they were just umbrellas that look like Samurai sword. Awesome!!! And I want one! Not the full-sized one though, the smaller and compact one for a more stealthier look. Also because I’ve long moved on from carrying around full-sized umbrellas that were mostly a hassle to travel with in our crowded passenger jeepneys and jam-packed buses.

And since my present umbrella is about to give out, I’d replace it with a compact Samurai Umbrella soon. Ah yes, you want one too, right?

Short-of-expectation iPhone 4s and Samsung Galaxy Nexus leads to hopeful 2012

jhay — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 06:41:41 +0000

When it was first announced that Google has partnered with Samsung to make the Galaxy Nexus which is the flagship phone to carry Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, anticipation among Android fans grew as Apple fans salivated for the next iPhone.

It turned out that there was no iPhone 5 just the iPhone 4s. So we all thought that it was a good opportunity for Google to score with the Galaxy Nexus or so we thought?

Gizmodo has come out with a review of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus which said that it’s the best Android phone to date simply because of the raw Ice Cream Sandwich on which it runs. No questions there as Android 4.0 has been received well by critics and tech pundits.

However, one cannot ignore the Galaxy Nexus’ shortcomings, Gizmodo points out:

the worst thing about this phone: The camera, the camera, the camera! Sweet Jesus Diaz, what were they thinking? When I heard they’d gone with a 5MP sensor instead of the now-standard-on-high-end-phones 8MP sensor, I promised I’d reserve judgement until I’d tried it. The camera does pretty okay in bright daylight, but it doesn’t come anywhere near its competition, plain and simple. Colors are washed out, low-light shooting is a noise-fest, and it’s not nearly as sharp. Why would you totally revamp your camera software, make it fast and awesome, include time-lapse, panorama, and really fun face-morphing video features, and then put a piece of crap camera in there? It’s utterly baffling.

Other deal breakers are the lack of an SD card for extra storage, the lack of a dedicated camera button and the cold hard fact that it is easily outperformed by the Samsung Galazy S II which is an older-generation phone.

With both Apple and Google falling short of expectations with their new ‘flagship’ phones, 2012 will be exciting as other phone manufacturers will try to fill in the void with their new handset offerings running on Android 4.0

But with the Christmas shopping season soon to pick up with stores offering current generation Android phones on great deals, it’s hard to resist waiting for another 6 months for great phone running the latest version of Android.

Image by laihiu

Not yet – iPod/MP3 player killed by smartphones

jhay — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:00:37 +0000

Just when I was considering the idea of getting an iPod, Wired’s Gadget Lab raises the spectre that Apple may soon retire its venerable iPod device.

According to the piece by Christina Bonnington, iPod sales has been steadily declining since December 2008 when sales peaked at 22.7 million units sold.

The culprit is the smart phone be it an iPhone, a BlackBerry, an Android, Windows 7 Phone or a Nokia. Her observation does make sense, why get a dedicated device to do one thing when a smart phone can also do it and a lot more?

But I beg to differ. There’s a couple or more reasons why I’m thinking about getting an iPod. The top reasons are:

To conserve the battery on my LG Optimus One – It’s a given that Android devices are power-hungry gadgets, especially when the Wi-Fi is turned on.

Security when on the road – My current job forces me to go home at the most perilous times of the night, so commuting alone exposes me to street thugs, pick-pockets and possible road accidents involving half-awake drivers of jeepneys and long-haul trucks. Having only a smart phone in my pocket on one unlucky night with a thug would mean parting away with my hard-earned money and contacts to get home alive.

So the iPod would be a decoy or a ‘perishable item’ that will allow me to keep my phone and limbs.

One egg per basket – It would be a nightmare. My Android phone suffering a crash which could lead to the SD card being wiped clean or left in a corrupted state. It’s not just my music and well-arranged play lists that will go down the digital abyss but my apps, contacts and personal information as well.

Plus, I’ve never had an iPod before and I just want an MP3 player. Plain and simple.

So from these reasons alone, I think the chances of the iPod being retired by Apple soon would still be nill. Other users have other valid reasons as well. I guess then that not everyone will lay to rest their MP3 players to rest just yet. Smartphones may be taking over but it’s not the end of the road yet.

Has your smartphone replaced your iPod or MP3 player?

Image by Hdaniel licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution-ShareALike.

Overheating problems with my Compaq Presario Notebook

jhay — Sat, 21 May 2011 07:33:50 +0000

A sign of aging. For the last couple of days, the wife has been complaining that notebook suddenly shuts down automatically while she’s in the middle of browsing Facebook.

Inside is an exhaust fan that's nearly given up on me

I suspect that it’s an overheating issue as it has happened before to my Compaq Presario c765TU notebook which I bought way back in 2008.

However, the overheating problem has been more persistent as again, the wife reported that it caused the notebook to shutdown four times within a span of just three hours just the other day!

Come to think of it, today is the 3rd ‘birthday’ of my Compaq Presario notebook. An ominous sign perhaps that indeed it deserves some well-earned pampering by undergoing maintenance to replace a worn out exhaust fan and with it an extension of its service life span by a couple of years, which would just be enough time to enable me to save enough money to buy a replacement. Or at least find a way to get a replacement notebook.

So now I’m on the hunt for an HP Service Center, I have a vague idea that there’s one in Makati City but thankfully, a few friends of mine chimed in on my Facebook wall giving me a heads up that there’s one in Robinson’s Place Imus, Cavite.

Before that, I went ahead and looked for other laptop services and found PinoyLaptops.com which offers a wide range of laptop/notebook repair services. Of course there are others that a Google search will give but it’s either that or HP Service Center in the Philippines.

I want to keep the costs of replacing the exhaust fan reasonably low but not to the extent that it would just give me more headaches and a more broken notebook a few months or weeks down the line.

So on Wednesday, I’m off to Robinson’s Place Imus to check out the HP Service Center there, or maybe an accredited partner. If that doesn’t work out, then it’s off to one of their Service Centers in Makati City.

For now, an alternating use of the air conditioning unit and an electric fan is used to keep my notebook from overheating. Hopefully, a replacement of the exhaust fan would solve this problem for good.

Becoming an Android fanboy

jhay — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:06 +0000

GPS set my home city to Manila even though Tagaytay City was much closer.

After a week of being away from this blog, I am now writing this update, well at least the draft, via WordPress for Android. Yes, that means that I am now an Android user, specifically by way of my newest gadget, an LG Optimus One phone.

Picked this baby up last Friday at Fone Style Accessories at SM Bacoor for just 11k. It’s the third day I’m using the LG Optimus One and there has been not a single moment that I regretted choosing it over the BlackBerry Curve 8520, which was my first choice after deciding that I would finally upgrade to a smartphone.

There are a lot of good phones running on Android nowadays so why I chose the LG Optimus One? The price-point was one of the top reasons, the 11,000 I forked over was money well spent. Running on Android version 2.2 or Froyo, while not the latest version, the LG Optimus One is already a good investment on its own.

However, what made the deal for me was the phone’s close integration with Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Maps. Being a heavy user of Google Apps, the Optimus One was heaven-sent. My email and events are now easily managed from the tips of my fingers everywhere I go.

I tried to do the same thing with my SE K800i but the whole task was tedious, clumsy and did not work most of the time. After setting up and syncing my Google Apps accounts with the Optimus One, I installed Springpad which allows for easy note-taking while on the go. Taking notes might not be that fun an experience on a mobile phone but it’s the opposite on the Optimus One. It sometimes just beckons me to write down ideas that pop in my mind.

Another cool thing that I really like about the Optimus One is that it’s now become an extension of my notebook which runs on Ubuntu Linux 11.04. Both are Linux-based and open-source taking my open-source lifestyle on a full circle. In the following weeks, I’ll brave the attempt of writing my own Android app for more open-source immersion and goodness.

However, for all the great and awesome things I like about the Optimus One there are two things that I do not. First is Android’s battery usage issue. One day of actively using the phone to surf the web, send out tweets, download and install apps would easily drain the battery and thus requiring a battery charge every day.

The second thing is the Optimus One’s not-so-appealing headset. The construction and materials of the headset that came with the phone looked like LG didn’t put that much attention and thought to this element of the kit.

Overall though, I’m very much happy with the LG Optimus One. A feature-packed, Android-based smart phone that wouldn’t break the bank.