world of ice

This is a new application for your Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s.

Installation is actually easy and it perfectly worked with my Asus P525. (To avoid problems, install it in your Phone Memory, I have not tried to install it in the Memory Card)

First thing you will notice with this contact app is the speed. I have been using another program before and it was always too slow for me. I have been using Fun Contact for more than a week and it’s a very good addition to my PPC.

Sliding your finger on the left most or right most side of the screen will browse contacts faster. Sliding your finger on the center of the screen will scroll your contacts.

If you want to edit a contact using the default contacts menu of your WM Device, just tap the persons name and tap the windows symbol, you will be directed to the default contact menu.

You will be able to assign numbers as your favorites and you can also trace your call history with this app.

Another useful feature of this app are the minimize and close button. You can either close the app if you do not intend to use it for a long time or minimize it so that it can load faster the next time you need it.

You will be able to change skins and language but the latter seemed to be useless since I still believe that we all understand English and changing the language will still give you an English Manual (help).

One of my favorite features of Fun Contact is the presence of a phone dialer, you can select a contact using the dialer and call numbers not included in your contact list.

The only thing I found negative with Fun Contact is that it has an arrow on the left side of the screen.

When using Fun Contact for the first time and you scroll your finger on the left (or right) most side of the screen, it start suggesting the first letter of the contact you are looking for. Let’s just say you stop at letter P, a new user will expect that the first contact whose last name starting in P will be pointed by the arrow, but this arrow actually used to activate the phone pad. Your contact with a last name starting in P is actually on top of the screen.

This app is not free, it will cost you USD 19.95 but you can try for 14 days.

If you want to download Fun Contact:
http://iwindowsmobile.com/files/FunContact.cab
http://iwindowsmobile.com/files/FunContact.exe

Installing Fun Contact will replace your phone’s built in Contact Menu. If you do not want it replaced, just install Fun Contact then in the Programs Folder, copy the entire Fun Contact Folder and Paste it in another location. Uninstall Fun Contact and then transfer the “copied version” of Fun Contact (entire folder) to your Program Files folder. Just click the exe file if you want to use the app again.

So last June 28, I was free enough to visit Singapore’s Toy and Comic Convention 2008. I had to bring my camera (Nikon D40) with it’s kit lens to try to capture some images.

Interestingly, I found out that I am not yet capable enough to use my camera in Manual mode when taking pictures of people in events, I learned this the hard way missing opportunities to take a photo of Darth Vader while he was still alone… I had to set my camera in Paparazzo mode (or full auto) just to get pictures of some Star Wars characters.

Here’s Darth Vader, well guarded by his army.

Here’s one of my favorites Boba Fett.

Here’s how Asians would look like if we had Jedi’s.

Here’s a picture from outside the Star Wars booth, I wanted to go in but the queue was very long.

Then I went to the Ban Dai booth which was also full so I just took pictures of these two statues outside.

No toy and comic convention will be complete without the Rubik’s Cube and a place for people to play Magic. These kids can complete the Cube in less than five (5) minutes with just one hand.

Lego on display is always fun but then we realize that it almost takes forever to complete something with those blocks.

A guy playing with a Wii

This captured my attention, a booth specially dedicated to Heroes.

So we all heard that there will be a Thor Movie here’s more info.

And that Brad Pitt will be Thor (just gossip as of now)… I think they got it all wrong, here’s the perfect Thor to inspire all mortals and gods!

This year, we highly anticipated the release of a mobile phone, it has 3G, it has GPS and a lot more… The iPhone!

Before the 2008 WWDC, there were a lot of rumors of what the 3G iPhone would look like, there were even pictures of it having a Front Camera. Then came two men carrying a locked case and at the end of the TV ad came the new iPhone… With no front camera!

After the launch of the iPhone, came a lot of disappointments among bloggers and developers, it still cannot record video, still no flash and still the same memory (either 8 or 16gigs).

A couple of weeks later (before the iPhone hits the retail outlets, it will be available July 2008 something) came the Samsung Omnia (a.k.a. i900). You have to say that this phone looks like an iPhone. It almost has the same size and feel (The first time I saw it, I honestly thought it was the HiPhone from China).

(had to do the oil painting effect)

I was able to play with this phone for a couple of minutes only since it was only on display in the Samsung store at Vivo City (Singapore). Here’s my mini-review…

I won’t go too much of the things we already know. Just a fast refresher, we know its Windows Mobile 6.1, its got FM, GPS, 3.5G, video call and the other stuff you expect from a WM Device.

I actually liked the fact that every time you tap an icon on the screen (or the on-screen keypad/thumb board), the phone vibrates, Samsung’s UI is clean but I have to say that its too clean making it look like an iPhone’s UI (I honestly feel they wanted to achieve that).

You can assign icons on the “today” screen and it will look like Vista’s Widgets.

One thing that surprised me with the Omnia is that the famous “stop all running programs” is not available. Yes, I pressed Start (I had to open File Manager just to see the start button on top), settings, system then memory. Inside that tab are only two memory tabs, no stop all running programs. I was actually surprised with this and I’m not sure if this option was removed only in the Omnia or in all WM6.1 devices.

Pressing start then programs does not look like the normal WM device. It will go back to the programs menu of Samsung’s UI which I found to be surprising too since my wife’s LG KS-20 will show the regular programs list of a WM Device.

As for the external buttons, you will see that it has three (3) buttons in front, call, end and the one in the center. That button in the center works like the i780’s track pad and I think this feature is a very good addition to PDAs.

There are even more buttons on the side which I did not care to press since I do not have the luxury of time.

Compared to the iPhone (which only responds to your finger), you can use a stylus with the Omnia, but the phone will not come with a Stylus. Even person selling it is not sure if the box will come with a stylus but there’s no hole in the Omnia’s body where you can have the stylus inserted.

One drawback I found with the Omnia is that it uses a “Samsung” cable to connect to a PC and Charger. The people from Samsung actually told me that I was the first person who made that comment but I explained to them that maybe I am the only person interested on their phone who travels a lot. I cannot imagine carrying an additional cable in my luggage just to be able to charge this phone. I have too many cables already and a Samsung Cable will give me enough cables to make my own Suspension Bridge.

*****the people from Samsung actually told me that I will also carry another cable for the iPhone but the thing is we will already carry an iPhone’s cable since we will surely travel with our iPods. Imagine this in your bag… Cable #1. Laptop Cables, 2. USB - mini USB (it will connect to my Mobile Internet, charge my P525, Motorola Headset, Jabra BT Adaptor, 4. Nokia Chargers (company phone), 5. Digital Camera Charger, 6. iPod Cable. A Samsung Cable will required me to carry SEVEN (7) cables.*****

As a conclusion, the Omnia is a great alternative to the iPhone, LG KS-20 and HTC Diamond. Looks, Functionality and Entertainment. Each and every model has its own pros and cons. The only thing I did not like about this phone is that it looks like an iPhone! The person right beside me was holding it beside an iPod Touch and even the person from Samsung thought that he was holding two (2) Omnias side by side.

Here’s a picture of the Samsung Omnia beside my trusty old ASUS P525… look at the size of this thing!

For the past several years, there have been a lot of Comic Books which made its way to the big screen.

What once used to be a hit from comic stands now dominates the box office.

For some people, the younger generation, they will see these movies as entertaining but for the older ones, I am sure that they have mixed comments on these movies as some of them did not stay true to the characters when they were still in comics.

As some directors say it, their films are “loosely” based on the comic books, but how can they say that if the movie is all about the comic’s main character? Others will say that they had to make amendments to the hero’s origin as it is no longer applicable during the present time.

Whatever they say about it, it still feels good that comics are considered as a good material for big budgeted movies. I can’t wait to see what other movies we can expect in the future.

For those people asking on which of their beloved comic books has been made to movies, here’s a list…

Animated Films are very tricky but I have decided to include them on this list.

30 Days of Night, 2007

300, 2007

A History of Violence, 2005

Art School Confidential, 2006

American Splendor, 2003

Barb Wire – Pamela Anderson Lee, 1996

Batman

v      Batman – Michael Keaton, 1989

v      Batman Returns – Michael Keaton, 1992

v      Batman Forever – Val Kilmer, 1995

v      Batman and Robin – George Clooney and Chris O’Donnel, 1997

v      Batman Begins – Christian Bale, 2005

v      The Dark Knight – Christian Bale, 2008

Blade – Wesley Snipes

v      Blade, 1998

v      Blade II, 2002

v      Blade Trinity, 2004

Bulletproof Monk – Chow Yun-Fat, 2003 

Cat Woman – Halle Berry, 2004

Captain America – Matt Salinger, 1990

Constantine – Based on Hellblazer – Keanu Reeves, 2005

Dare Devil – Ben Affleck, 2003

Dick Tracy – Warren Beatty, 1990

Electra – Jennifer Garner, 2005

Fantastic Four – Ioan Gruffud, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis

v      Fantastic Four, 2005

v      Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 2007

From Hell – 2001, was based on the Graphic Novel with the same title

Garfield

v      Garfield: The Movie, 2004

v      Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, 2006

Ghost Rider – Nicholas Cage, 2007

Ghost World, 2001

Heavy Metal, 1991

Hellboy – Ron Perlman

v      Hellboy, 2004

v      Hellboy II: The Golden Army, 2008

Howard the Duck, 1986

Iron Man – Robert Downey Jr., 2008

Josie and the Pussycats, 2001

Judge Dredd, 1995 – Sylvester Stallone

Men in Black (MIB) – Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith

v      Men In Black I, 1997

v      Men In Black II, 2002

Monkeybone – Brendan Fraser, 2001 was based on the Graphic Novel Dark Town

Mystery Men - Based on the Flaming Carrot, 1999  

Nick Fury – David Hasselhoff, 1998 - this movie was made for TV

Popeye – Robin Williams, 1980

Punisher

v      The Punisher – Dolph Lundgren, 1989

v      The Punisher - Thomas Jane, 2004

Richie Rich – Macaulay Culkin, 1994

Road to Perdition, 2002

Sin City, 2005

Spawn – Michael Jai White, 1997

Spiderman – Tobey Maguire

v      Spiderman, 2002

v      Spiderman II, 2004

v      Spiderman III, 2007

Supergirl – Helen Slater, 1984

Superman

v      Superman – Christopher Reeve, 1978

v      Superman II - Christopher Reeve, 1981

v      Superman III - Christopher Reeve, 1984

v      Superman IV: The Quest for Peace - Christopher Reeve, 1987

v      Superman Returns - Brandon Routh, 2006

Tales from the Crypt, 1972

Tank Girl, 1995

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

v      Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1990

v      Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, 1991

v      Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, 1993

v      TMNT, 2007

The Crow – Brandon Lee, 1994

The Incredible Hulk

v      Hulk – Eric Bana, 2003

v      The Incredible Hulk – Edward Norton, 2008

The League of Extra Ordinary Gentlemen, 2003

The Mask – Jim Carrey, 1994

The Rocketeer – Bill Campbell, 1991

Timecop – Jean Claude Van Damme, 1994

Transformers, 2007

V for Vendetta, 2006

Wanted, 2008

X-Men

v      X-Men, 2000

v      X2: X-Men United, 2003

v      X-Men III: The Last Stand, 2006

I will try to update this list for as much as I can. If you have any comments or anything that you would like to add, please send me an e-mail or a comment.

Last update: 18 June 2008

As the song goes, the best things in life are free!

I honestly disagree but for those looking for Free Tones for your mobile phones in .wav format, here’s a couple that I have uploaded over the internet.

Please rate them or send me an e-mail (or a comment in this blog) if a tone was good/bad.

http://www.airfagev.com/tones.asp?username=ice

Have you noticed that for the past months (or maybe years) the word “killer” as been often used specially for electronic goods?

I can remember seeing an iPhone Killer and an ASUS EEE PC as examples.

So the iPhone is not a Prada Phone killer since the Prada Phone never dominated the market, but did the iPhone dominate it to receive so many killers waiting in line? Seeing a graph of PDA users in the US, the Blackberry is still number one, why didn’t I hear that the iPhone is a Blackberry Killer? The iPhone just passed the Windows Mobile in terms of numbers so this makes sense that the Windows Mobile is now aiming at the iPhone (which is number 2) in making their new products.

So the iPhone integrated new features like Push E-Mail to make it corporate friendly, they made it work like a Blackberry, but do we hear Blackberry people saying that the iPhone us trying to clone their device just as some people insists that Windows Mobile, Samsung and the others are cloning the iPhone? In finger friendliness, the Prada Phone came out first then the HTC Touch before the iPhone but we still here these people saying that WM, and LG are trying to copy iPhone.

The ASUS EEE is also one of those gadgets who received a lot of killers. After being in the market for less than a year, they have gained the attention everyone wanted to have.

Lets face it, while everyone were proud to announce that they have more core’s than the others, they have more hard disk and faster optical drives, the EEE pulled the carpets under them by making a device that has less storage space than an iPod Video. It turns out that there’s a market for people who just needs a basic laptop for their basic tasks, no video cards, no optical drives and even no Hard Disk! Imagine 4gigs of space on your machine, and people didn’t care, our market knows what they need and ASUS brought it to them.

Now we have other manufacturers trying to beat each other not only in pricing but features as well. All of us consumers have so much to gain as prices of what used to be luxuries goes down. Trying to make “killers” for market leaders and since this maybe the norm for the next couple of years, we will be enjoying a wide range of products for all types of income groups.

So I guess we can say that the term “killer” is used when a new product is launched aimed to get a market share from the leader.

Having “killers” is not so bad after all; however, I still think a better word could have been used. Did we hear the Toyota Yaris is a Honda Fit killer or Yokohama coming out with a Good Year killer? How about McDonalds trying to kill the Burger King or Kenny Rogers trying to kill Colonel Sanders? I think I made my point.

I guess this comes with being a leader in your market will get free advertisement when a competitor releases a new product. 

Here’s another stall in Lau Pa Sat where you can eat Filipino Food… Panyeros!

Sorry for the dark picture, I just used my mobile phone’s camera.

Pros:

1. Weather proof! But I honestly have not tried to have it wet
2. Can make calls
3. You can have the headphones replaced

Cons:

Now for people looking for a good Bluetooth headset, this is one gadget that you MUST STAY AWAY FROM!

I have been using this for almost a year mainly on my Macbook when watching movies, here are a couple of reasons on why I did not pair it with my Jabra A125s (BT Adaptor for iPod).

1. Music Skips, it’s like listening to a cheap/old Discman. It’s having problems to obtain a stable connection.
2. Battery life is very bad, less than 5 hours.

There are some other complains I have like it has a three color indicator, it is red when battery is low and when turning off. Blue when paired via BT to accept calls and Purple when paired as headphones (A2DP).

When using it with my PDA (Asus P525) and iPod, all controls will work. Even with its small size, it has a button for the following:

1. Play/Pause
2. Next Song/Previous Song
3. Answer/End (Call)
4. Volume Control

Another draw back to this gadget is that the stereo headphones that comes with it sounds bad, not even at par with the original iPod headphones. You can use the original iPod headphones with this device but you need to use a cable organizer.

The last thing I hate with this gadget is that it uses a different charger! I bought this device a year ago together with the Jabra A125s and I was surprised to see that they cannot share chargers, this is a big hassle if you will travel with this headset as you will need to carry a dedicated charger for it.

As I said, I have been using it for a year before I actually wrote a review, the reason for this is that I am seeing a lot of stores carrying this model here in Singapore and I think the buying public needs a different perspective before investing in this item.

I have no complains when using it as a headset for my laptop but I will think twice before I use it for my iPod.

If there’s any consolation, you can use your x-mini speakers on it.

To those not familiar with Sim Lim, here’s a page from wikipedia.

Sim Lim Square on wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim_Lim_Square

Sim Lim Square has a wide range of gadgets but there are a couple of things you must know when buying items there.

It is a tourist trap! They don’t even care if you’re a permanent resident of Singapore, if you do not have their native tongue and if you are not a Singaporean, they give you a higher price.

• Try to canvass the price and freebies of the items you want to buy from other malls, I suggest that you choose the exact model of the gadget you need (example, the Nikon D40). Then visit the other malls (I suggest that you visit Vivo City, Funan and Mustafa) and write down their prices before going to Sim Lim.
• Prices do not include GST, when they give you the price of a certain item, ask the seller if GST is inclusive.
• It is always cheaper if you visit or buy with a local (Singaporean)
• Ask the store to issue a GST refund receipt (for tourists), bring you ticket and passport as there is a GST refund booth in Sim Lim.

It is not always cheaper to buy your gadgets from Sim Lim!

• If there is a “SALE” in another mall, normally the prices will reach the price range in Sim Lim’s stores. If the sale is an Electronics Fair (sometimes in Suntec or Expo) go to the last day in the afternoon. In some cases, prices will be lower then Sim Lim.

They will try to sell you the units they have on display.

• Test the product, and if you have doubts, ask for another stock if they have it, normally they will allow exchanges if you suddenly felt that the product is not for you but they will normally overcharge you for the replacement.

Don’t hop from one store to the other.

• Stores hate it if they notice that you have been hopping from one shop to the other asking about the price of the same item.

They charge higher for “rare” stuff.

• They normally charge more for a 512MB Memory card than a 1GIG Memory card, because (according to some sellers) they know that older cameras/devices cannot read the 1GIG Memory Card.

It doesn’t hurt to be extra careful when buying new stuff, especially in a foreign land. If you have any experiences that you can share please feel free to comment.

I just got my wife a LG KS-20 pocket PC and I must say that LG did a great job on this one.

From the website (http://www.lge.com/products/model/detail/lg-ks20.jhtml) of LG and other gadget sites you will know that this phone has 3G and wi-fi (something the HTC Touch should have!)

The camera of this device is good (for a PPC), it can actually be compared to the camera of my Asus P525, and it also has auto focus and is capable of Macro shots. Since it has two cameras, you can switch to use the front camera with just a tap of the screen (note that the front camera does not have the focus capabilities of the main camera). The only problem I had with its camera is that when the memory in use is the memory card, it does not save the pictures in the My Documents nor the My Pictures folder.

LG also made its own UI on this device to make it “finger friendly” however; it could have been more fun if it came with the HTC Touch’s UI.

Here are pictures of the phones Today Screen:

If you tap start then programs, you will then realize that this is still the same Windows PPC.

Playing with this device and comparing it with my Asus P525, you will only notice that it does not have a SIM Manager for everything else, it does the job done.

As expected, this phone not only looks good, even the packaging and the leather case (no belt clip) looks good with it. You can say that LG really made this device to look and feel good to use. The only problem you may have is that it attracts a lot of finger prints but you know that we are now able to live with that thanks to our Atom (XDA) experience.

For a guy like me, I’m going to stick with my P525 for now, but my wife really loves this new device from LG, she has been using a PPC for quite sometime (XDA mini then the Dopod 838 ) but she suddenly lost interest as she also needed something that not only works great but looks great as well. This new phone from LG really made an impact on her the first time she saw it.

For its price, when I bought my P525, I thought my phone was cheap for a PPC but when I saw the price of the KS20… I was thinking of getting one myself!

The only negative things I can say about this phone is that it uses a different USB cable, one from LG and the package came with only one stylus.

*****I have tried installing PocketCM Keyboard on this device and it worked perfectly well, I also installed some of ytsejam’s skins (http://www.airfagev.com/forum_view.asp?msg_id=187499).

*****UPDATE AS OF 22 MAY 2008*****

I forgot to tell you how good this new toy is for LEFT HANDED people as the stylus is located at the bottom left side.

Being able to spend more than 5 minutes with the unit, I will have to say that its quite slow and the screen is not responsive if you use a screen protector (had it removed already)

If you ask me now if I would want to use the device myself… I’m still sticking to my Asus P525… for now. Lets just hope LG comes up with a ROM upgrade for their KS-20.