The Great Reinstallation of '10

A few days ago I have successfully finished the rigorous task of repartitioning my drives and reinstalling everything. Now this might seem like an easy job for some of you, but here are the objectives I have to meet during reinstallation:

1. All important data are to be backed up and restored as is. This is not entirely difficult, but it is one of the objectives with grave importance. Most of my important documents are stored in my external HDD, Network Attached Storage (NAS) and my offsite Winamp is known for its shitty way of backing up your files. I've decided to just backup its database (as well as with iTunes for my iPhone), and just restore the files in the same location and partition as it was before so that they could easily find it.

2. I will have to equally distribute my partitions. As planned, my Windows and Linux partitions will get 40GB and 30GB of space respectively. A central storage drive formatted as NTFS (the Windows NT filesystem) will be shared by both operating systems. I'll explain more of this later.

3. Instead of Ubuntu, I'm installing Arch Linux as my Linux distro. This reason is primarily because Ubuntu is becoming less of the "Linux for human beings" as it was advertised and more of the "Linux for Mac Users". It's filled with bloatware, and horribly now very easy to use. Unlike Ubuntu, which practically works right out of the box, Arch Linux is light, but reliable and, ultimately customizable. It will be harder to set up, but more rewarding in the end.

As a matter of fact, you can use this post as some sort of a guide if you're planning to dual-boot Windows 7 and Arch Linux on a single hard disk drive. To avoid repetition, I'll post my laptop's specifications here.

IBM Thinkpad x60s
Age: 5(?) years
Intel Core Duo L2400 x86 (32-bit) @ 1.66Ghz
2.25GB of RAM
250GB Seagate 5400RPM HDD

(NOTE: If you have multiple hard disk drives, this will not cover your needs. However, I heard that multi-booting using multiple HDDs is easier than just using one HDD.)

(NOTE: I will not be covering how I backed up my data, as that wouldn't be too hard to do.)

Phase one: Setting up partitions

The first step would be repartitioning the hard disk. Take note that you will not be able to do this in the Windows 7 DVD, as it is really only limited to creating NTFS partitions of its own. To do this, you will need the GParted live CD, or you could use an Ubuntu Live CD, as they have GParted inside.

(NOTE: I have first attempted to repartition my drives on the Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Live CD, but GParted crashed shortly after the process and I could not get back to GParted just to check if everything was alright. I ended up using the Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) Live CD instead.)

After booting from the Ubuntu Live CD, I went to System->Administration->GParted. There, the filesystem table of my hard disk drive is shown. I deleted all the partitions, and then repartitioned them as:

/dev/sda (This is my HDD)
-> /dev/sda1 40GB NTFS (Windows 7)
-> /dev/sda4 30GB Extended (Arch)
-> /dev/sda5 10GB ext4 / (root)
-> /dev/sda6 2GB linux-swap (swap for Arch)
-> /dev/sda7 (the rest of /dev/sda4) ext4 /home
-> /dev/sda3 ~180GB NTFS (storage)

(NOTE: /dev/sda2 is used by Windows 7 as another partition, probably used for system restore. It is always 100MB in size, and takes up a partition in your HDD. There are, however, workarounds in removing this partition, if you plan on triple-booting.)

After successfully partitioning my hard disk drives, I prepared my Windows 7 Home Premium DVD (this is genuine, by the way, set me back Php5,500) to reinstall Windows.

Phase two: Installing Windows 7

I actually thought of installing Windows XP instead of Windows 7, as I enjoy XP better with its flexibility and being easily customizable (not to mention being completely compatible with LiteStep). But since that would mean tossing away five thousand pesos, I've decided to just continue with Windows 7. At least it's shinier.

Installing Windows 7 is a pretty straightforward process. It's particularly idiot-proof, so it's not really difficult. You can try to format your NTFS drives again here in Windows 7 (as it does the job better, I think), but take care not to touch the Linux extended partition. It will appear to Windows as blank and unpartitioned, but do not touch them or you will have to repeat phase one again.

After installation, I checked if my storage drive was present. It appeared in Windows as D:\, so I went ahead and created folders that would be shared by Windows and Arch (Photos, Music, Videos, Downloads, Games, etc.) and set the Windows Libraries to the location of the custom folders. Then I rebooted and inserted the Arch Linux Installation CD.

Phase three: Installing Arch Linux

The installation of Arch Linux is really different from Ubuntu's. In Ubuntu, you just input some information about yourself (location for UTC time, keyboard layout, etc.), and just let the setup do everything else for you. In Arch Linux, there is a semblance of a GUI setup present, but it's more of a list of everything you need to do before you copy the base files of the OS. Since describing everything I did during the installation would take too long, I suggest you consult the Arch Linux Wiki's Beginner Guide and the Official Arch Linux Install guide to get started. I won't be discussing how to use the Arch Linux installer, I'll be discussiing what I did after installing.

(NOTE: If you are just starting out with Linux, don't choose Arch as your first distro. It's difficult, and it's build primarily for Linux users who wants to know what's going on inside a Linux system. Ubuntu is primarily a good choice for those who are just starting out in Linux.)

After installing, I was transported back to the basic CLI terminal. I logged in as root (as there are no user accounts yet), and created a user account for myself. Using pacman (Arch Linux's PACkage MANager), I installed sudo (super use do, gives temporary root privileges for a command), the alsa mixer (for sounds) and the X Window Manager (xorg). As I want my Arch Linux setup to be minimal and un-shiny as possible, I've opted to install LXDE as my desktop environment, which turned out to be quite a pain to setup, so I removed it and installed the more familiar XFCE DE instead.

Right after installing my desktop environment of choice and starting X (using startx), I was greeted with the empty XFCE desktop. The extra packages that come with XFCE4 was not present, so I installed them using pacman. I also installed and configured ntfs-3g, which provides stable NTFS reading and writing, so now Arch can mount, read, and write to and from the two NTFS partitions in my hard disk.

Setting up my wireless network connection was the hard part. Although I was spared of having to find the drivers for my wireless device since the Arch repositories have them, managing the device itself was a pain. So far the method I used was through the CLI network management tool, netcfg. I added various network profiles like home (connecting to my home Wlan), home-eth0 (for connecting to my home ethernet), and others, which will make connecting to networks with profiles easily by just typing "sudo netcfg " to a terminal. Of course, this sucks if I am travelling and have to find a network to connect to, because I will have to manually scan and add a profile for that new network. But it works, and that's what matters.

Phase four: Restoring backups

This is pretty easy. I just move my backups back to the storage drive. I installed whatever is necessary to Windows and have successfully synergized it with Arch. Now they are pretty much working with each other, although I must admit Windows is a bitch. Currently I am in the never-ending process of customizing my desktops to get my dosages of desktop deviance (and shininess).

A sad case of focus loss

It's been more than a month since I last wrote a post for Sulatang Tapunan. It's been a frustrating October for me, even though that was the month where my birthday sits on. My ability to focus on one task is currently unoperational, as I have been trying to train my mind to multi-task everything. The human mind is not really a multi-threaded machine, and trying to multi-task on it is like telling your dog to do a handstand while he eats his food. It's never easy nor comfortable.

I managed to grab some time to write to Sulatang Tapunan by eagerly anticipating the arrival of my copy of Borderlands: Claptraps Robot Revolution DLC, instead of wasting my time playing Call of Duty: Black Ops (not really implying playing CoD:BO is a complete waste of time, that game is kickass, it's just that I don't really achieve much if I play it). Also, I am trying to fully adapt myself to turn Xubuntu into my primary operating system, and just resort to using Windows 7 if some game could not be run by Wine. As a consequence I wouldn't be able to use Windows Live Writer, a very good blogging tool developed by the folks at Microsoft, which I use frequently to write to Sulatang Tapunan, for its smooth, intuitive interface that is very similar to that of Office's.

Although the smooth ribbon toolbars and aero transparency is visually appealing to the eyes, it is also very, very distracting. When I first encountered the Aero interface I was very dazzled by the incredibly smooth blurring and transparency of the windows, and I would exclaim in my mind, "Holy shit, how did they do that?". My amazement was short-lived, though, as I quickly found ways to replicate the same effect in Windows XP, and more recently in a Linux Desktop Environment.

I wouldn't even dare go back to Blogger's default web editor either. Trying to work in a web browser is very dangerous to your concentration, especially today where my browser has an average of 30 tabs lying around (all sorted cleanly and beautifully by the way), waiting for me to click them, scan them, then maybe use my middle mouse to spawn more of them, until I become so absorbed in clicking that I forgot what I was doing. I came across a post in Lifehacker one day and found some great options for distraction-free writers. Distraction-free, as in, I am not given a beautiful GUI to work on, but rather, a dark (it could also be bright) void, waiting for me to type in my words. I chose TextRoom because, (1) it works on Linux, (2) It's as minimalistic as it could get, (3) It looks like it's based on Q10, another distraction-free writer, which is also great.

My color scheme is light grey on black, my favorite combination of monochrome, as it sorta looks like a xterminal. I don't really need formatting as I work, I can just do that later if I wish. Maybe I could also just lay out the HTML for the whole post and add formatting there, though, I would have prepared the pictures I'm going to include first before I finish up.

Other areas of Focus Loss

I'm also losing focus in physical activites, like how I get to jog less often, because I'm too busy either absorbed in studying, coding, or just playing around. It's horrible. Everything I do everyday now is quite unplanned and if this continues on I would be in serious disorganization. There's plenty of things I should keep up with, like my writing, my exercise, instead of just coding and playing around.

I don't even enjoy social networking, but look at me, I'm probably more disorganized than them. Maybe I should just stop lurking around on the Internet too much.

Result of no-protection XP challenge

When I installed Windows XP on a virtual machine on my laptop some time ago, it wasn't just because I want to experience nostalgia from using old OS'es, it's also to challenge my resilience on security and protection.

How does this challenge work? It's easy. I will never install any anti-malware software on my computer for some weeks or so. Additionally, since my copy of Windows is not genuine at all, it won't receive important security updates from Microsoft, so that's another layer of protection removed. Then I would do whatever I always do online. Trolling, researching, reading the news, maybe even download some pr0ns for...safekeeping. So there. I'll go out in the wild without anything watching your back for a few weeks, then I'd download Trend Micro House Call to scan for malware that came through.

Why did I use XP? Because with all the Windows versions I've used, XP was the most vulnerable, wherein I had way too many run ins with malware in the past. I believe XP is the most vulnerable operating system out there when it comes to malware. It's like a Thai prostitute - ugly and full of viruses. The only advantage XP has over its successors is that it uses way less resources than Vista and 7. So there.

Of course, I took every security precaution available. To safeguard myself against keylogging, I used LastPass to encrypt my logins and on-screen keyboards while inputting usernames and passwords. I even used Tor so that those tracking websites won't be able to remotely view my geolocation.

Results

House Call just finished scanning my computer for malware, and it found something. Great thing is, it's alone, and it's just some regular adware that I probably got from browsing pornographic websites (you know those popups of Adultfriendfinder and other sites? They give you that). The file detected was cmdow.exe, and its corresponding threat was, according to Trend Micro, ADWARE .0737EEDD. According to the data in the link, this spyware does nothing but take my browsing history and send it somewhere for marketing purposes. Well they're in for a big surprise then.

Also, cmdow.exe, according to further Googling, is not originally a fatal binary file, but a tool designed to modify commandline windows, such as not allowing the user to close the window (because some users freak out at the sight of an ugly DOS-prompt and close it immediately, hampering some installation procedures in the process). However, in this case, I don't recall having to use this, and I don't really need it, so I just removed it.

I also managed to install and run Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware (an excellent software, I might add), which managed to snag a trojan executable and a dangerous registry value. Also, it detected three potentially dangerous security settings, which was the Windows Security Center being turned off, but I intentionally set it that way for this challenge.

After a quick system reboot, I decided to run a scan again, just to be safe. I won't be posting any more details and its results, because that would be a waste of time.

Conclusion

• It is possible to be malware-free without some sort of security software


• Windows XP is very vulnerable to attacks


• Virtual machines are probably the best way to protect yourself against malware, by using a fake OS as a shield

The worst part in riding a bus

I love buses. I love them as much as I love my computer for always screwing up on me during some times when I needed it most. I am bound by forced love for buses because that’s the only mode of transportation that efficiently gets me from home to school and vice versa.

For our international readers, Philippine buses work a little differently than your bus lines. In the Philippines, we do not buy tickets before we enter the bus, we buy them once we get in. And those who sell tickets are not referred to as “ticket salesmen” but conductors, not the kind you see who waves a stick around in front of musicians but the kickass one who can withstand inertial forces in a bus while immediately computing the fare of the 40-53 sitting passengers, plus the unfortunate twenty or so who are standing on the aisle of the bus. Can you keep yourself cool and balanced while computing the fare of one passenger mentally while keeping track of the people who just walked in and are ticket-less? If you can’t, you’re not fit to be a Philippine bus conductor.

Another difference between Philippine  buses and international standards is that we rarely have bus stops. Bus stops in the Philippines are self-established by the passengers themselves. A bus stop in the Philippines is somewhere where there’s a lot of people waiting for a bus and there’s no MMDA traffic enforcers nearby who are in the mood for ticketing buses.

That’s how the system works here in the Philippines. Like most other systems, this one has its flaws. Besides having completely undocumented, clueless, and unplanned routes that could kill somebody inexperienced in Philippine commuting, there’s also another flaw: the standing room.

When you step in the bus and all the seats are taken, would you [A] Get out and wait for another bus, preferably one with seats or [B] Stay? If you chose the latter, you’re gonna have to stand, sucker. Move over to the back so we can try to squeeze others in this standing room orgy.

So I made a comic depicting what I feel when I’m that unlucky person who gets to stand first.

Screw you, Philippine buses.

Nostalgia is a pain in the ass

After successfully installing Windows XP on a virtual machine, I was immediately amazed at my recently-earned power of installing multiple operating systems on my notebook without having to buy another system or use multi-booting. I’ve decided to amp up my virtual machine craze and install one of Windows’ infamous builds: Windows 98.

Apparently I have downloaded not only an image of Windows 98 SE but also Windows 95. I don’t plan to install Win95 right now since I’d like to try out the operating system I’m more familiar with. The first build of Windows (and first operating system) I’ve ever touched was Windows 95, and that was like twelve years ago. But I’ve been with Windows 98 for a long time, before I made the jump to XP in 2002.

I used VirtualBox for virtualization, because I love open-source applications and I dislike the corporate feel of VMWare. The virtual machine for Windows 98 isn’t really that taxing for my laptop. I think Firefox would grab more system resources than Windows 98 inside a virtual machine. I just needed 64MB of RAM, which is really a lot for Windows 98, and a 4GB virtual hard drive. I took the specifications off my old Compaq notebook which is retired and resting in my closet. It ran Windows 98, and was one of the most powerful notebooks during its time. A Pentium II 366Mhz, 128MB of RAM, 4GB of HDD, what more could you want in 1998?

Installation

Windows 98 takes longer to install than Windows XP, because 98 has all that 16-bit crap that happens to slow down its processes on my virtual machine. I laughed at the fact that the boot setup installer mentioned that a HDD larger than 512MB is considered “huge”. I should probably go back in time and show them a 32GB SD card.

The installation process of Windows 98 was flawed and boring. Sure, it only has 8-bit colors during installation, and while I’m installing a new OS I don’t really need Aero effects. I think Windows 98 should have just used a text-based installer, because it does its job of looking pretty very badly. Also, the processes are not streamlined to a “set it and go outside” layout, unlike its older successors. After one hour of waiting, you are expected to input some information, wait for another twenty minutes, input more information, etc.

It even took ten minutes to set up “Plug-and-Play”, one of Microsoft’s failed attempts to monopolize by “supporting” numerous devices through easy installation. It was developed before the days of USB, wherein buying a mouse will most likely include a floppy disk inside for drivers.

Trying it out

After a few more setting changes by Windows 98, I was greeted by the familiar 16-bit interface, the gritty colors, the 640x480 resolution. The interface was very slow, probably slower than the average Filipino’s computer riddled with all sorts of crap. This was due to the fact that Windows 98 and its predecessors schedules (or prioritizes) its tasks poorly.

So, despite Virtualbox having the ability to run Windows 98, it does work, but it’s so slow it’s not really that useful. I can’t even connect to the Internet because this “MSN Internet Access” program thinks I’m some guy stuck in the late 90’s by trying to convince me that I’m using a dial-up modem to connect to the Internet.

Conclusion

While currently Windows 98 on my system is highly uncomfortable and slow, it works. Maybe the basics, but at least it boots up despite crashing and BSOD’ing itself a couple of minutes later. I’m yet to try out Windows 95 though, and maybe installing a couple of other operating systems such as Arch Linux and Chrome OS.

Virtualed XP

Recently I have successfully finished the task of virtualizing Windows XP under my Windows 7 OS in my Thinkpad X60s. Since I'm fond of installing XP stuff for the sake of nostalgia (after a failed attempt to make Ubuntu look like XP), I knew adding Windows XP to my boot configuration would be unnecessary, so I turned to virtual machines.

What are virtual machines?

Virtual machines are non-physical computers running instructions inside a host computer, similar to a real, physical machine. In layman terms, it's like Inception: a computer within a computer. This is very useful for testing compatibility issues, like testing if your Windows 7 program could work on earlier versions of Windows without using another computer or installing the OS on a separate partition. You can go as many virtual computers as you like, so long as your hardware capabilities can permit. You can have like a computer within a computer within a computer within a computer, and so on.

Disadvantages of virtual machines

Virtual machines will always grab a chunk of the host OS's resources. This means your host OS (the real computer) should have some spare resources to give to the guest OS. Processing power isn't really that much of a requirement, unless you're installing a modern operating system like Vista, 7, or OSX. But memory is a must, and for virtual PCs, 2GBs of RAM or more is recommended.

Also, it can't run as fast as a real operating system can. But it can do whatever a real OS could do.

Cool stuff about virtual machines

One of the most important traits a virtual machine possesses, is that, it is not directly linked to your host OS. It only runs inside the host OS, but it rarely directly communicates or shares files with the host OS unless you set it to. This means that whatever happens in your virtual machine stays in your virtual machine. This is great, because if your guest OS catches a virus, it stays there and it will never infect the host OS unless the guest has privileges to write to a shared folder on the host OS.

You can use the guest OS as a sandbox, go to sites you never dare to visit lest your computer gets messed up, and see what happens. If the guest OS gets nuked by malware and whatnot, don't panic. You can always just remove it and install another one, provided you don't have much sensitive data on your guest OS.

On a side note, virtual machines could be excellent for trolling, as it adds an extra layer of anonymity and protection. Combine that with a good relaying service, some proxies, and good privacy ethics, and you're good to go as a faceless person on the Internet, e.g. a complete Anon. Just don't troll too much, ok?

What you'll need for a virtual machine

- Some spare RAM (256MB+ recommended)
- At least 8GB of HDD space
- A (hopefully genuine and legal) copy of your preferred guest OS
- Time

I used some Windows XP disc I found lurking in my disc archives, it was marked as "Service Pack 3" for the lulz, as I recall I have bought it sometime around 2006. Now remember that the SP3 for Windows XP didn't come until recently in 2009 or so. But this copy was good - uxtheme.dll was already patched, so it had custom themes of its own, it included a basic suite of Microsoft Office 2003, and 2005 versions of Adobe Reader, Mozilla Firefox and Winrar. At least there aren't any bloatware.

What not to do in the vicinity of a computer: Eating

You probably must have heard this quite a million times. You have heard in it television, you have read it one of your computers manuals (you did, right?), and maybe countless other people on the Internet have told you so. Maybe you stopped eating after hearing them, or maybe you just let your inner glutton out and just gorged away in front of your keyboard.

And what would happen next? Most likely you’ll attract the nearest ant horde, or maybe even have roaches gnawing under your keyboard. Hell, there are even stories of worms and even baby mice found in all sorts of places in a computer.

And guess what? This happened to me, quite a number of numerous times. Thankfully, the enemy are just some regular fire ants.

These guys, although they appear much smaller. 

First wave: Desktop keyboard

So I’ve been shitty in keeping my keyboard from being shitty. I became fond of eating all forms of breads and pastries in front of my desktop, usually while playing GTAIV or Left 4 Dead. The bread crumbs, which naturally fall down from the bread, also naturally attracts the local ant empire who illegally set base in my house long ago.

They immediately formed ranks and began scavenging my keyboard, making typing a thing for nightmares to come since every time you hit a key, there’s a high chance that a squad of ants will rush out from under that key and try to climb up your arm.

Thankfully the ants are no match for an air compressor. You don’t really have to kill them with fire, just a little blowing of wind would sort them out.

Second wave: Power supply

This was the costliest but least annoying of the ant attacks. Supposedly, a couple of ants made the weirdest and most retarded mistake of thinking that the best place to get their ant grub is the insides of my power supply. Of all places, my fucking PSU. So one night while I was probably sleeping or challenging sleep, they decided to raid my computer (which was on at the time) and committed mass suicide on my PSU.

The next morning I was surprised to see that my computer has mysteriously turned off, and believing ghosts are just pussies who believe in afterlife rather than zombification, I did what a good computer user would do. Turn the computer on again.

But it did not budge. I tried to turn it on again, but then again it didn’t. I checked the power lines for any loose or removed sockets, then traced the wires back to my power supply, where I noticed one little ant coming out of the PSU like a wounded soldier from Vietnam. I ignored him, but a few seconds later one of his comrades followed, and then another, and soon after you’ll discover a group of ants emerging from the PSU, battered and wounded, enough to inspire someone to create a Call of Duty game featuring ants.

I took the PSU out of the case and examined it. I lit up the inside and was slightly appalled at what I saw – a mass grave of dead ants, some dismembered, some clinging on the PSU cooling fans. Not that I’m appalled from what I’ve seen, as I enjoy witnessing corpses of all kinds, especially when they come in bunches, but I’m disgusted because I have to shell out a hundred and fifty dollars again to get the same exact PSU unit again.

Third Wave: My laptop, fuck

As much as I love or hate ants, I don’t really mind them running around in my house. I mean, they’re part of this weird thing environmentalists (read: hippies) call an ecosystem right? They’re just little fools whose main purpose is to clean up the little bits of food and help bacteria in eating off rotting carcasses. However, they appear to have looked for food in the wrong place.

Returning home after my finals, I received news that the ants have assaulted my laptop and is now making a forward hive inside. And I don’t mean that they’re just hiding underneath its keyboard or anything. I meant that they were inside, gnawing on the motherboard, riding the heatsink, etc.

My first idea was to blow the shit out of the ants using explosives TNT nuclear bombs compressed air, however it didn’t do much since I can’t blow much of the inside of my laptop with it being tightly closed. I tried the belief that ants hate heat, so I tried to keep my computer on for three days and two nights, but to no avail. They just get out of the laptop while it’s hot, then come back in when it begins to cool.

I opened up the laptop to peer at its internal organs and see that it’s currently infected with ant shit. Seeing that I don’t want to intentionally fry the components with vacuum or air static, I sent it to a nearby laptop technician, who accepted to clean up my system despite him insisting me to get an insect exterminator instead.

Currently I do not have my laptop with me, and I’m afraid it will stay that way for three or five days or maybe even a whole week if the technician decides to just procrastinate and wank off. Fortunately I won’t be needing my laptop at the moment, because I needed some time with my desktop, the whole week’s my semestral break and I don’t really need it that much.

Lesson

So, lesson learned. Don’t eat nowhere near your computer. If you are feeling the urge to gobble something up, make sure you stay out within a six foot radius from your computer. I’m sure you enjoy sitting outside, eating a pasty and drinking a cappuccino, while watching people get kicked in the nuts on Failblog, but don’t do it, for your computer’s sake. Otherwise, the situation with pests invading your computer could escalate to this:

Oh shit.

Cherry Mobile Q5i: A review

I forgot to tell everybody about my new phone, the Cherry Mobile Q5i. I just bought it a week and a half ago and forgot to write a review for it because I lost track of time and I was having too much fun (aka procrastinating). Read long and find out why I prefer to call this phone the “poor man’s smartphone”.

The Phone

Overview

The Cherry Mobile Q5i is a Philippine phone with Filipinos in mind, but apparently has borrowed ideas from the big mobile phone players in the world. To keep up with today’s trends, it is equipped with a smooth physical QWERTY keyboard, similar to those of a Blackberry’s. It comes in four colors: Solid yellow w/black back, solid red w/black back, black w/blue back and trim (this is what I got) and black w/white back and trim.

Model

The Q5i is part of the Q series, which is, a bunch of phones who share a common trait – QWERTY keyboards. The Q5i is not really one of the newest and state of the art releases in its family, but it is one of the most reliable. Its successors include the Trident (triple SIM capability), and various other Q series phones.

Features

The phone itself is very feature packed. Here are some of them:

• Dual SIM capabilities. Every local phone has to have this, since most Filipinos are part of at least two cellular networks.
• Mobile Web Browsing. The Q5i handles true websites very poorly, because it can only use a GPRS connection and it has a very basic browser built mainly for mobile websites. However, it does its job pretty well.
• Touchpad control. The phone uses a touchpad instead of buttons to navigate through the interface. Touchpads are similar to those used in iPods other than the iPod touch.
• Java support. Not all local phones are capable of basic Java programs, but the Q5i is different. There are three Java applications installed by default – a mobile browser, a Yahoo! Messenger app, a MSN Messenger app, plus a couple of games.
• Improved audio. The Wolfson audio chipset used in the Q5i is similar to those found in the previous generation of iPods. It allows for clearer audio and support for a 3.5mm audio jack, instead of some proprietary jack.
• Dual MicroSD slots. The phone has two slots for MicroSD flash memory cards. Currently I’m using two 2GB MicroSD cards, however, I have no idea if the phone supports MicroSDHC (MSD High Capacity) cards (4GB and higher).
• Other features such as FM radio, a 2MP camera, a video camera, video playback support, image viewing, and no TV (whew).

Interface

The interface is speedier and prettier than my previous Cherry Mobile D15. It has simple transitions that makes you feel that the phone isn’t slowing down on you. Also, the colors are smooth and easy to the eyes.

Portability

The phone is wider than my previous D15, due to the fact that it possesses a QWERTY keybaord, but the Q5i is very lightweight for its size. It fits in most pockets, and can be easily fished out if needed.

Its battery capacity is quite high, a natural trait for local phones. The battery stays alive for at least five days with constant audio playback using headphones. I’m guessing it should last a week if its just on standby and you’re using it just for texting and calling.

Durability

The phone’s exterior is very durable, as, contrary to popular belief, it can resist falls and shock without much permanent damage. The pins and sockets of the phone however, are susceptible to damage under pressure, I’ll explain more of that later.

My phone (no, I meant the Q5i I have, not the other Pinoy phone brand)

My Q5i has been in my possession and care for about one and a half weeks, and so far the only problem I had with it is that the 3.5mm jack socket got busted, and all the time the phone thinks that a headset is connected to my phone.

This problem is not a nuisance. It has very huge implications on the phone’s capablities. Since it thinks that there is a headset attached to the phone even though there wasn’t, it will always rely on its imaginary headset to transmit audio from the handset whenever you make or receive calls, which sucks, since you won’t hear the other person on the line unless you have earphones connected and using the loudspeaker is just too awkward in public.

How I fixed the problem

I would have sent my phone to a Cherry Mobile technician, but the place is too far away and I’m too lazy to go there. So, I sent it to the numerous cellphone repair “technicians” (read: people who think they can fix things because they can handle opening up stuff and soldering shit) who refuses to touch my phone because all they touch are Nokias, Sony-Ericssons, Motorolas, etc. Thankfully there’s a guy who managed to man up and tried to fix my problem, but to no avail. So we simply just cut off the connection between the port and the system board of the phone. Sometimes amputation of a certain part is just the only way to cure another.

So my Q5i has lost its main feature that’s very rare among China and local phones. I guess I’m going back to my shitty iPod.

Conclusion

Pros

• Dual SIM capability
• QWERTYY keyboard
• You can attach any standard pair of head/ear phones to it
• Mobile web browsing
• Facebook capabilities

Cons

• Ports can break if you’re not careful
• Touchpad can be a pain in the ass to use for maneuvering the interface
• QWERTY keyboard has a slightly steep learning curve for those who are not familiar with them.

Overall, the Q5i is a great phone, hands down. For Php3,499.00 (US$79.00), you can get a sweet QWERTY phone that can fit any lifestyle. Just please don’t mess up its audio port, as it’s quite fragile.

How to really make your desktop look good

I’ve been customizing my desktop since I think a year ago, and it started from me choosing a different wallpaper, to arranging my desktop icons and to switching my shell style because the default looks retarded and everybody else is using it. In fact that’s really just the only reason why people customize their desktops. Most of us aren’t really into beautifying our desktops, we’re not Renaissance artists, we’re rebels. We design our desktops differently because that’s the way we want it to be, and not be part of a demographic wherein millions of other people are using the same look.

Want to stand out? Tired of Aero Glass on Vista and 7, tired of that lame Bliss wallpaper and overwhelming blue in XP? Here’s a couple of programs and tips that will help you stand out.

(Linux and Mac users, this isn’t for you, however, I’m thinking of writing a similar article for Ubuntu users. I don’t think I’m going to be writing a similar article for Mac since I’ve never even used one)

The Basics

Sometimes, the basics are already good enough to create an eye-catching and pleasing desktop environment. Here are a couple of pointers you should heed while designing your desktop.

Your wallpaper

DON’T use a wallpaper that everybody else uses. And I’m talking specifically about that wall of Arthas from Warcraft III, you know, the same face they use with the game’s box art. We do not care how much you love or how good you are at Dota.

If you are going to use a wallpaper, make sure it fits in cleanly with your desktop. An orange desktop on your blue taskbar is certainly bad for the eyes, because of the overwhelming color contrast. Try to stick to one color theme, like Cool colors only, Warm Colors only, monochrome, etc.

Choose a wallpaper that fits your style and your personality.

Choose colors that are pleasing to the eyes. High contrasts are generally kept at a minimum.

Where can I get good wallpapers?

There are many ways to start, like DesktopNexus (my personal favorite at the moment), DeviantArt, and Interfacelift, just to name a few.

Your icons

If you prefer icons, and you use them regularly, focus on keeping them organized than having them in a fancy formation.

As much as possible, use a dock instead. I’m not an Apple fan, but I find docks to be more beautiful and organized than desktop icons. Plus they tend to get out of the way. There are many docks available for Windows, one example is Rocketdock.

Advanced stuff

If you really want to customize your desktop, here’s a couple of tips and tricks that could help you design that perfect desktop design.

Windows themes

Since Windows 2000, the functionality of themes were added to the operating system. Themes back then composed of a taskbar style, a window border style, colors for different parts of your interface, and sometimes desktop icons. In Windows 7, sounds were an added feature for themes.

Where can I get good themes?

I don’t know what “good” exactly is, however, if you’re looking for various Windows themes, I suggest searching the Customization > Skins and Themes section of Deviantart and Customize.org. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, Google is your friend.

A word of caution: You will always be required to patch your Windows’ uxtheme.dll, the library that manages your Windows themes. Patching this will allow you to install your user-created themes, because Microsoft insists on users using their created themes. Take note that this involves editing system file – if you’re not used to risking the stability of your system – do not try this.

But you can use Windowsblinds if you’re too scared to patch your uxtheme.dll, however, Windowblinds is proprietary shareware. Its free version does not last for very long, and the full version costs money. Still, if you’re more willing to fish out a few dollars than mess with your system, you can try Windowblinds.

System Monitoring

If you managed to peek into a geek’s desktop (like mine), you probably seen these: moving bars, information about RAM and CPU usage, even animated gears that float above the desktop wallpaper. How do they do that? It’s not exactly magic. In fact, it’s not really that hard to do.

Rainmeter

Rainmeter  is currently the best choice you can get to easily add system monitors and widgets to your Windows desktop that does not involve Windows Gadgets. Currently, Rainmeter has a very enthusiastic and active community, both for development and design, and currently there are a lot of setups you can use or base from. The introduction of rain theme files makes the process of installing Rainmeter themes much easier. I recommend you get it if you’re new.

Samurize

Samurize is currently a geek’s choice when it comes to powerful desktop customization, because with the right tools and skills, you can make it more functional and beautiful than Rainmeter. However, that trait gives it a steep learning curve, and can be difficult for users with little or no experience in coding to use and customize.

If you like to keep your hands dirty in code, Samurize might be up your alley. Currently, Samurize only fully supports XP, but you can use it in Vista and 7 using the compatibility mode.

Bootskins and Logon screens

Bootskins and Logon screens are a big deal. Just a quick tweaking of them can make your computer look like it belongs to the FBI, or the NSA, or whatever government agency you like. Just don’t make your Bootskin look like another flavor of Windows, like those “Windows XP Virus Edition” and “Windows XP: Elite Edition” skins.

Thankfully, Stardock, the ones who created the tools Bootskin and Logon Studio, are offering the two customization software for free. Go ahead and play with it.

NOTE: Bootskin currently supports Windows XP only. If you’re using Vista or 7, there are different methods of altering your bootskin, but they are at most, irreversible. Also, there are separate versions of Logon Studio. There is a Logon Studio for XP, and another for Vista and 7. So please be aware of that.

Shell replacements

Ah, my personal favorite. Shell replacement software, completely replaces your Windows shell, which is the one managing your interactions between yourself and the Windows kernel (the one who interprets your instructions to your hardware and vice versa). If you’re bored with the “taskbar at the sides look” of Windows, LiteStep is for you.

Litestep allows you to customize almost everything on your computer – from your explorer windows, your taskbars, basically everything under the Windows sun could be customized. The only drawback of using LiteStep is that it’s sometimes tedious to code properly to create a beautiful design. There are, however, numerous free Litestep setups available to download on the Internet.

Oh, and did I mention it’s for Windows XP only? Don’t bother using it on Vista or 7. No I’m just kidding. It works – somehow. An alpha build, according to a Google search, has improved support for Vista and 7, it’s just that it’s not perfect. So try it at your own risk.

How the Philippine National Police took the title “World’s Slowest” from Slowpoke.

It’s official guys, the Philippine National Police has officially taken the title of “World’s Slowest Retard(s)” from its previous title holder (who managed to hold it from, say, the beginning of time, I might add), Slowpoke.

This guy.

You see, there happened to be a recent hostage taking that took place somewhere in the Philippines, as you can read here, here, and here. If you’re too lazy to click on those authentic links to real news sites, see the full coverage of the “event” and you just lazily wrote “TL;DR” in the comments, let me narrate the sequence of events to you, in my perspective.

The Crime

Apparently, some pissed-off cop who was recently kicked off-duty from the police force a year ago got tired of not being a cop and all, despite all his friends and family telling him that everybody hates cops. So instead of going into therapy session with other ex-cops and transforming himself into a metrosexual (as most of the squeamish would do), he stood up, put on some massive balls of steel, grabbed an M-16 assault rifle, three magazines, maybe a grenade or two, then went outside.

Everybody ignored him and all his gear because everybody assumed he was a cop, stolling around the streets more armed to the teeth than Duke Nukem. He stopped and thought what would he do to “impress” the folks at the camp and get them to get him back. A tour bus carrying Chinese nationals arose from the distance, and he thought, “Oh well, might as well take this bus, there’s a lot of cover inside plus, I fucking hate Chinamen.”

So he tried to pull the bus over, and it did. The bus driver looked at the cop before him and thought, “Oh great! A cop! Just what I needed! Now I can mindlessly drive around while masturbating and those MMDA folks won’t give me a ticket because I have someone with an automatic rifle on board!” They cruised through a little bit. The people on board noticed that someone who took a time machine to the present from the Vietnam War have boarded the bus, and seeing how much Vietnam war-machines hate people with slanted eyes, the tourists on board immediately shit their pants and put their asses on Guantanamo Bay mode.

Some folks outside saw the bus stopping all of the sudden and some guy with a powerful assault rifle inside, so after a little bit of hesitation deciding whether they were seeing some simulated airsoft match or a real hostage taking, they called the police, who happened to arrive in just a nick of time.

No, not really! The hostage taker actually had time to take a nap before the cops arrived.

They had time for a little bedtime story, too.

The “Negotiation”

When the cops did arrive, they barricaded the place and in a 1970’s Munich Olympics scenario revival, they let the press flood in. You know, people with cameras and crap who tell other people that someone just hijacked a fucking bus.

The hostage taker demanded a lot of things from the negotiators before he lets the hostages free. First he asked for some coffee, because he feels groggy after a long nap waiting for the cops to arrive. Secondly, he asks them to clear his criminal records, the same records that kicked him out of the force in the first place. Lastly, he wants some real policemen to come and get him, because those who came to apprehend him appears to be geeky cosplayers trying to look like Counter-Terrorists from Counter-Strike.

The cops just hanged around a bit, because they were waiting for their “superiors” to make the call. While they were having a pretty quiet excursion in the park in front of the Quirino Grandstand (it’s a nice place by the way), the hostage taker’s brother, who’s also a cop, appeared on scene and tried to approach the bus, where he was promptly taken down and got a nice dosage of ass-kicking.

Seeing on the bus television that his brother was having a bad case forced nightstick sodomy, the hostage taker flipped out, and began to empty his entire magazine into any motherfucker he sees inside the bus.

He must have called them cock-a-roaches too while he was at it.

After that, the cops called in the big guys, and began to barge in and kill the asshole who tried to do a Tony Montana on the Chinese tourists. Just joking! They just lied around the park watching the action.

 

The “Action”

The Philippine National Police must have big love for nighttime rescue missions, because they actually waited for night to fall before they send in the big boys, or, in other words, men with tiny balls wielding guns too big for them to even carry.

Armed with bulletproof vest, kevlar helmets, flashbang and teargas grenades that would make a COD or CS player cry in joy, these guys surrounded the bus to do – you guessed it – absolutely nothing, if you think posing for the cameras while in full gear is doing nothing.

Philippine SWAT team: We may as well look cool for the cameras while we make complete fools of ourselves.

They had a problem though: they had to get inside the bus, but the wise-ass hydraulic door would not break down, even when they tried tying an end of a rope on it, the other on a truck, then pulling it with machine force. They found an emergency door at the back which they could break into, but realizing that they left their tiny balls in the freezer again, they didn’t go in, and decided that chucking in flashbang grenades and tear gas was the only way to go.

The hostage taker then got bored of having his senses consistently disoriented by the endless barrage of flashbangs and teargas being thrown at him, so he stood up, and decided to do the Tony Montana again, this time with shit in his eyes and ears. He did manage to hit some random passerby outside, though.

After all the fun whirling around in circles relieving the scratch on his trigger finger, some wiseguy sniper, who probably earned his job by playing endless hours on Special Force, shot the hostage taker square in the head. That’s right kids. All those hours killing each other with AWPs in Counter-Strike will land you a good job as one of the Philippine’s greatest snipers.

Where sniping legends are born.

The Aftermath

So far, about 13 passengers in the bus made it out alive, but the remaining ones were dead, along with the hostage taker who attempted to play Grand Theft Auto: Philippines Real Life.

Also, the Philippine National Police earned two titles. The first is “World’s Slowest Retard(s)”, where, as mentioned previously, was previously owned by the Pokemon, Slowpoke. The other title they achieved was “World’s Shittiest Police Force”, where they beat the Nigerian Police Force out of number 195.

As for the Philippines, International tourism marked the entire country as “The Best Place to go to when you have a death wish”, and “The Best Country to experience a full hostage experience”. The country earned itself a sweet spot in the trending topics of Twitter, and the front pages of the biggest news sources in the world. Great job, guys!

Ancient Sulatang Tapunan attacked by lazy spambots

I was surprised to see that my already rotting Yahoo Mail account, which I dumped due to the reason that it simply sucks, has received a blitzkrieg of emails in a short succession. About 80 emails with the same subject of “Friendster Blogs: New Trackback on your post “<some post here>” flooded my inbox. The body consisted of the following line:

San diego casinos

And that’s it. Usually another line that says “WIN WIN WIN” follows it. I laughed it off and presumed it was just lazy spambots who managed to penetrate the shitty security of Friendster blogs. I’m really glad I moved out of that shitty excuse for a Blogging platform and moved to Blogger, where it’s much more secure.

I’m thinking of limiting the comments people can post on Sulatang Tapunan’s blog posts, so that I can prevent simple HTML script injection (the one problem unprotected blogs face all day) from trolls. I don’t think I have to worry about SQL injection though, since I don’t own or manage the server Sulatang Tapunan is sitting on, and there are no login forms or whatsoever on the blog.

My quick experience of deleting my Friendster account

Right now, those crazy kids are all about Facebook. Being a member of Friendster for about six years, and a member of Facebook for five years, I've decided I don't really need my Friendster account anymore, and the information stored there could impact my identity and the future. Not to mention that if I get to become a target of a raid, trolls would have more targets for them to mess up, so there.

This is also an opportunity for me to say that social networking sites nowadays are so desperate and have completely lost the sense of originality. Just take a look at this screenshot I took when I was on Friendster's front page:

Go to Facebook, login, and compare the Facebook front page to Friendster's. Familiar, right? I'd like to let you know that about three years ago Friendster never looked like this. It looked a lot more like MySpace.

So in conclusion, dying social networking sites are keeping themselves alive by stealing ideas from popular sites of their time. I can't argue with the logic, as 90% of people using social networking sites don't mind the difference anyway.

Although I have to give Friendster the credit of allowing me to cancel (or delete) my account quickly. I was just given one form and was not bombarded with regret with the "Your friends X, Y, and Z are going to miss you!" page in Facebook. Also, I don't have to freeze my account for 14 days, and I'm pretty sure they actually delete my files and information from their servers.

So goodbye, Friendster. Thanks for all the good times, and nightmarish memories.

I'm going to delete my Multiply next because it's another useless social networking site that could hurt me in the near future.

Why people should f*cking wake up and fix their Facebook profiles

Right now, Facebook is in a roll. I actually signed up there when some of my machinima-directing friends made a group there for they find the site cool. I didn't, and I left my account rotting there for four years. Then the Facebook asteroid suddenly crash landed in my country and put Friendster into extinction, and quickly everybody had Facebook accounts which were indefinitely wasted on playing one-track games for one-track minds.

Right now I don't use Facebook for leisure. I hate it because of all the Farmville requests, force-tagging me in photos, and people ditching proper IM platforms because they believe that the shitty embedded Java chat is better than a regular IM client. If I were to use Facebook, I'd use it to track someone, organize myself with other people, stalk someone, and arrange events. I think social organization is the only "productivity" you can get with Facebook. Too bad people missed that part because they were waiting for their sunflowers to grow in Farmville.

Oh, and about that stalking part, that's actually a very easy thing to do. I've been doing that even before I'm into Facebook. But it's not about ethical hacking and making your screen look like it's from the Matrix just to stalk someone. You just need some skills on human psychology.

Take advantage of a common Facebook tradition of accepting everybody who asks using a friend request. Create a fake profile, add a picture of a hot girl or a douchebag and load up all kinds of BS you could think of into that profile. Then start luring in the morons. Earn someone's trust, make him/her think you're his/her boyfriend/girlfriend, and invite him/her to meet at some public place. Then don't go there, build an excuse, and promise to meet up again. Repeat. That's just one of the many things you could do to destroy someone on Facebook. I could go into more damaging and dangerous techniques, but I wouldn't go into any more details for the safety of others.

That's all thanks to Facebook's shitty privacy settings, where, by default, your profile and all its useless information are visible in Facebook's growing public directory. Think of it as one big phonebook - everything you have written on Facebook that is set to public is accessible there - from seemingly harmless information like your name, your applications, your Farmville, to more serious ones like your complete address, your telephone/mobile numbers, etc.

I actually tried the trick of texting a complete stranger in Facebook - I used an old SIM card and jacked it in my PLDT WeRoam 3G Dongle, picked a random stranger in the Philippines, and I quickly found her mobile number. I texted random shit to that person using my computer, and she responds like a charm.

Are you afraid? Want to change your ways. I'm going to help you with that. Here's what you have to do:

1. Remove all sensitive information from your public profile. You can choose not to delete them, just set them to viewable by "Only Me".
2. Remove and unassociate unnecessary applications from your profile. Applications are always given full view of your information, and that's not good. Keep in mind that quizzes are separate applications, and I found them hard to remove from my profile. Right now I only have my useful desktop applications (TweetDeck, Pidgin, Miranda, Trillian, etc.)
3. Remove yourself from the Facebook public directory. This can be done by going to Privacy Settings > Applications... > Public Search. If you're under 18, the setting is turned off by default, however, it is wise to turn it completely off even if you're over 18.
4. Remove Instant Personalization. Instant Personalization is a feature used by partner websites that automatically updates your settings and profile there using your Facebook profile. This could save you some time, but it is potentially dangerous to your privacy. It is wise to turn them off, just go to Privacy Settings and you'll find it there.
5. Limit the amount of information accessible to your friends. It's not just your friends - it's also for the applications your friends use.

However, the best defense for your privacy on Facebook is, to not use Facebook at all. You can deactivate your account on Facebook, however, it's difficult to do so, as it takes quite a long time. Since I'm lazy and don't want to point you in a certain direction, I'm just gonna give you a "Let Me Google That For You" link.

Think Facebook is still safe? Here's the torrent that contains over 100 million Facebook profiles harvested by an efficient person named Ron Bowes. This isn't illegal in any way, because every user included in this database actually agreed to have their information displayed in public. It only takes a simple dataminer to automatically collect the data, because Facebook is not protecting public data and it makes them available to anyone for anyone to use in any way. Go, download the database, and look for your profile there. If you find it, change your privacy settings right away, if not, good job.

Why it's almost impossible to perfectly couple Windows and Linux in wedlock

Here's a story about how I recently seriously messed up the integrity of my computer and put myself into misery and disorientation. About a few days ago my Windows 7 operating system began complaining about "being lonely" and wanted to have the perfect companion operating system. Being a compassionate owner of the computer who listens to its needs while I bitch about mine, I introduced to him Xubuntu.

Why Xubuntu? Because there are those times when I needed to save resources and just want my computer to generally stay relaxed while I'm running applications. And I don't use the built-in Xcfe window manager that often, I mostly use Fluxbox while working. I think a very lightweight distribution of Linux is the best companion a Windows operating system could have. It's like pairing an anorexic girl with a 500 pound basement dweller.

However, there are problems. Xubuntu and Windows uses different types of partitions, ext and NTFS respectively. To put it metaphorically, anorexic Xubuntu keeps a neatly organized filesystem, while fat Windows does not bother cleaning up his basement base by himself. Also, they don't like visiting each other's flats. Xubuntu does not like her boyfriend's messy basement, while Windows it can't lift his fatass to stand up and go outside.

Luckily, there's a solution for that. Either I give Windows a Segway so he could go visit Xubuntu (using ext tools for Windows), or I could allow Xubuntu to go to my Windows partitions, using ntfs-3g. I chose the latter because my Linux partition is only 12GBs big and most of my files are stored in my two NTFS partitions.

While I am setting up Xubuntu to run with Windows 7, I actually did quite a lot of mess ups that will scar me for life. I first MOVED ALL (note that I MOVED, not copied) my important files to a storage NTFS. Now while I was installing Xubuntu I accidentally used that drive as swap, which completely removed it. Sucks, really. Thankfully, Windows saved my ass because it automatically saved a backup the day before I was screwed. Also, Dropbox has my important documents, so I can just restore in a breeze. However, this messed up my Winamp. I will have to reconfigure it to get it working again, or switch to Foobar2K because Winamp is getting old and unproductive.

Then another problem came up. I have allowed Xubuntu to read and write on both of my two NTFS drives. However, when I save files from Xubuntu there, then boot up Windows 7 to see if they can be detected, they were nowhere in sight. It appears that Windows overwritten them (in address, not in actualy memory). The files are there but Windows pushed them away from sight. Worse, it affects Xubuntu as well. When I boot back to Xubuntu all the files I have saved earlier are gone.

I got stuck like that for days until I found a solution: I stopped hibernating Windows 7 (as I was used to doing), restarted it, then ran a CHKDSK. It turns out there were so many errors in the storage partitions. Thankfully Windows 7 sorted it out and now it can see all files written by Xubuntu on either of its NTFS drives. I will have to refrain from hibernating Windows though, because it appears that it negates the changes made by Xubuntu when it boots up from hibernation.

I'm not happy with the state of my laptop right now. I'm planning to reformat it after the end of my term, when I can freely reinstall Windows since I'm done working with it. I will not completely remove Windows, though. I will need it for Windows programming (cross-platform programming is not my thing), and playing games that are laggy and unplayable with WINE in Xubuntu. I will continue to use Xubuntu as my primary OS, however.

A good phone is a useful one: the Cherry Mobile D15

Right now good chances are, your phone is made by one of the big players in the mobile phone industry. It could be a Nokia if you don’t mind a slow UI, a Motorola if you’re a hipster, or even an iPhone if you’re an Apple fanboy or just easily drawn into buying shiny things that lose their usability when you hold them the wrong way. You take much pride in your phone because you nearly sold one of your kidneys by buying it.

Meet my new phone, the Cherry Mobile D15.

A new local player in the Philippine mobile phone industry (an industry, which, I must say, is so freaking huge), Cherry Mobile is the kind of company wherein a bunch of Chinese guys who got tired of imitating countless Nokia phones started incorporating creativity in their works. Cherry Mobile, much like the earlier and slightly similar phone manufacturer MyPhone, is evidently from China.

But don’t let its Chinese etymology make you think that the phone is shit. Yes, it is sort of shitty, but at least it’s a lot more reliable than typing horrendously on a virtual keyboard.

I’m going to go through my phone’s features, and rate them according to how good they are.

Size

My D15 isn’t big – it’s area is about the same as my Nokia 1208, but the D15 is much slimmer and lighter than the 1208. This is probably due to the fact that the D15 carries a much lighter battery by default (it can, however, use the batteries of my Nokia 1208, I’ll talk about that one later on). The phone is easy to chuck around in my pockets, and it doesn’t feel obstructive to my thigh movement, unlike my Nokia N95.

Score: 9/10

Durability

Chinese phones have an accepted stereotype of being one of the least durable on the planet. Still, I’ve seen Chinese phones last for two or more years, despite the ongoing belief of many folks that these phones break the minute you hold them in your hand. I just got this new so I can’t rate its durability just yet.

Score: Unknown

Reliability

The CM D15 carries a trademark feature that most Chinaphones share – multi SIM capacity. My D15 can handle two SIMs at once, which eliminates the need for me to bring a second phone along just to be connected to one network and another. Still, having two phones is intuitively better because if one of your phones gets lost or died, you can use the other.

Score: 8/10

Speed

Chinese phones are never known to be fast, because their operating systems work like they were written by an eight year old kid. But some lucky Chinese phones which make use of popular operating systems like Android and Windows Mobile are much faster than their lower quality counterparts. Too bad my phone belongs to the latter group.

Score: 4/10

Features

My phone is capable of listening to FM radio stations, play .mp3 songs stored on its memory, watch .3gp movies, take pictures with its camera, and even read e-books, but it’s never good at any of these. It’s a jack of all trades, but a master of none. It can’t browse the web and/or connect to wireless networks, but why would I even need those?

Score: 6/10

Accessories

The CM D15, unfortunately, comes with its own set of earphones that connects to the phone’s special audio jack. This means I won’t be able to use my own earphones with my phone. I’ll have to settle for its shitty set of earbuds where the bass sounds like cockroaches having an orgy.

Score: 2/10

Customization

I can customize plenty of stuff on my phone, like its wallpaper (it stretches the image all the way unlike the way Nokia does wallpapers), turning on/off screens, and basically almost its entire sound scheme. Transferring your own files to it is a pain though, because I have to take out the Micro SD card inside and plug it in to an adapter and to my PC.

Score: 7/10

Battery

My phone’s battery is generous – it allows up to 72 hours of standby time, and at least an hour and a half of playing music. Its charging adaptor fills up the battery with juice fairly fast. Also, if my battery dies permanently (that is, being unable to store any more charges), I can use some specified batteries of certain Nokia phones, like the one in my Nokia 1208.

Score: 8/10

Price

You get this feature-filled, dual SIM, shiny phone for Php 1,999.00, or less than US$45. That’s a steal, if you ask me.

Score: 10/10

Overall

The Cherry Mobile D15 is a great phone for those who are not easily drawn to shiny phones that brag about being able to get you on the Internet so you can watch porn on your phone. This is a phone that is able to do what you want it to do, unless what you’re thinking of doing is getting your phone to get you on the Internet so you can watch porn on your phone. For the basic Joe who like a basic phone that has plenty of basic features at a low price, the Cherry Mobile D15 is a good phone to start with. Sadly, it appears to be only available for sale in the Philippines.

Overall Score: 6/10

Our parents are pointing their fingers in the wrong direction: Why video games and television doesn’t lower our attention span

Long title today. Ok, let’s get this started.

There are recent articles circulating on the Internet claiming that the reason for the diminishing attention span of people today is due to excessive video games and television.

In my own honest opinion, I believe that the statement above isn’t true. Yes, video games and television does contribute to the lower standards of attention span today, but they’re not the only ones that are responsible. The convenience of modern life today is most likely the main culprit in this growing problem.

Let’s compare how people get their news 100 years ago to how they do that today. A century ago, when people wanted to get their news, they would get out of their homes, go to the nearest store that sells newspapers, buy them, and take them home for them to read. Seeing that having to stand up and walk outside is quite a hassle, society invented convenience – instead of having customers go to the stores and buy newspapers, newspapers hired young children to deliver newspapers to those who subscribe to the service. When child labor was considered illegal, newspapers then resorted on news stands, a slower but less slave-labor’ey than using children for the job.

Right now, if you still wake up every morning, open your front door, and pick up that dirty slab of paper on your porch to read its contents, you’re most likely above 35 years of age. We just don’t do that anymore. It’s a hassle.

That’s just about it. Because technology moved towards speeding things up – making things easier, quicker and with less waiting times, we are forced to keep up with it, or at least encouraged to. Who needs snail mail when you’ve got email? Better yet, why use email when you could instantly contact anybody who’s online using the many instant messaging platforms available on the Internet?

We’ve got way too many stuff to make us lazy – televisions eliminate the need to go to an event and watch, phones and Internet communication eliminate the need to actually go to a friend’s house and have a chat, and we have the food delivery industry because most people are too fat to move their fatasses around just to get to the nearest McDonalds that they need to have people fetch food for them. People even came up and made the Segway, probably one of the those early spawns from hell that spells doom for humanity. It eliminates the need to do the one thing we have been doing since accomplishing bipedalism – walking. Walking. You’ve learned that when you were one to three years old. Why would you give up now?

Not trying to sound like a 60 year old deranged beardy man who constantly yells at children on the street to get off his “lawn”, but in my honest opinion, technology is really making us lazy. We’re even lazy to listen to people because we’re accustomed to just exchanging thoughts with each other through text messages and tweets that are less than 140 letters in length.

Did you read all of that? Good, you’re probably in your late thirties or more. If you just scrolled all the way down here and didn’t bother reading, get out of here, kthxbai.

Why 64-bit architectures are overrated (at least for now)

When buying yourself a new computer (or building yourself one), it’s imperative to check the individual specifications of your new system, from the processor, the memory, the storage drives, etc. Basically the performance of your system boils down to the essential little details inside it.

But when looking at processors, most people who are new to buying computers or their components are confused when it comes to choosing a 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) CPU. Professionals and enthusiasts alike encourage people to go for a 64-bit system, as they claim it is much faster and efficient than a 32-bit system. A lot of PC manufacturers and most CPUs sold today, be it by Intel or AMD, are capable of going 64-bit.

The Dream

People have long believed that “bigger is always better”. A bigger house could store more stuff, and a bigger road could accommodate more vehicles. Somehow I’m not going into nay more details here since sentences about making stuff bigger always go down to dick jokes.

The Reality

In reality, sometimes bigger isn’t always better. A bigger house would require a larger lot, and with society’s tendency to pack more people and stuff into every square meter, acquiring a big enough lot for your mansion without breaking the bank would be highly impossible, unless you drive five Rolce-Royces and those five cars shoot dollar bills out of their exhausts instead of fumes.

The term “bigger is not always better” could apply in choosing whether a larger memory architecture would be required. In a computer, the smallest data size is a bit, which is represented either by a 1 or 0. Bits, when packed together, form the essential pieces of data and information you see today. A single character that you can read in this article at the moment is actually made up of 8-bits, or a group of eight 1’s and 0’s packed together. Imagine having to convert all of the characters in this article to groups of eight bits manually. It would be torture. Thankfully, you have your CPU do that job for you.

CPUs rely on various bit architectures to do their work. The first microprocessors were capable of using an 8-bit architecture, but today most microprocessors are capable of performing in a 32-bit or 64-bit architecture.

The difference

The only important difference with 32 and 64-bit architectures is that, because 64-bit architectures have more bits than 32-bit (and water is wet, fire is hot) architectures, 64-bit architectures can handle more 1’s and 0’s than 32-bit. 64-bit can handle up to 64 bits, and vice versa. Accomplishing this, 64-bit architectures can handle larger numbers and floating point (decimal point in layman terms) numbers.

With a 64-bit architecture, a system can store, process and handle larger amounts of data. A 32-bit system for example, can only have a maximum memory of around 3.5GB to 4GB, because its address buses (aka places where your computer stores its shit) can only hold to around that amount. 64-bit systems can handle much more because they have more bits to store stuff into. This is why many computer salesmen, enthusiasts and manufacturers tell you that, “You should definetely go 64-bit, because you can hold more than 4GB of RAM! How awesome is that! More RAM = faster computer, amirite?”

Actually no. More RAM does not equal a faster computer, unless you completely take out your swap space (some space on your hard drive that the computer uses like RAM, but slower than RAM), and dedicate your oversized RAM space to your computing needs. With more RAM, your computer is able to multi-task more efficiently, because all the applications you are running can have some space on the RAM, making them quicker.

However, the part that RAM makes programs faster does not apply to every computer software, most notably 3D applications such as games. Games rely more on your graphics card than your RAM, so extra RAM in gaming would only be useful if you can’t shut down background applications while you’re gaming.

The Decision

Concluding this article, I’m not trying to steer people away from going 64-bit. 64-bit is GREAT. People are actually looking forward to have our computers go through a transition from 32 to 64 bit, even if it’s a bit slow. To support this campaign, modern microprocessors today are capable of running 64-bit. New versions of your favorite operation systems, be it Windows, Mac or Linux, have support for 64-bit architectures.

However, since not everybody in the world uses 64-bit systems, software developers have to create separate source codes for both 32 and 64-bit computers. You’ve probably noticed that on some applications you download on the web, there is a 32-bit installer, along with a 64-bit one. Although your computer will not blow up and burn in flames whenever you run a 64-bit application on a 32-bit machine and vice versa, your program will run much, much slower, because your computer will have to compensate for the missing/extra bits.

So if you have a 32-bit computer as of now, don’t fret, you’re not getting old, maybe at least not for the next five to eight years. However, if you’re looking to buying or building a new computer, be sure to get a 64-bit machine, so that your computer will be compliant to the new standards of the near future.

Why the games of tomorrow suck, and why we should stick to the classics

Let’s face it – the future sucks. Being so obese that you can’t lift your fat ass off your seat will be so commonly accepted. Robots will be left to do the dirty work, and that isn’t cool because, unlike the sweatshop workers of today, they don’t look sad and you can’t laugh at them. Robots are programmed to be happy while they do menial tasks, which sucks.

The future of gaming is even more bleak. Ever since Nintendo attempted to touch the more unfortunate side of the gaming society (aka old people), with their devices of doom called the Nintendo Wii, everyone, even non-gaming companies, have tried to follow suit to make digital life better for people over 40. Apple, for instance, created the iPhone and the iPad because they knew old people would go all sorts of crazy with keypad buttons, and that they would love a device that resembles their fantasies of the future during the 60’s.

Sony and Microsoft have tried to appeal to the much older community too, because apparently Nintendo has made a lot of money selling gaming consoles with remotes that were accidentally thrown into flat screen TVs, smashing them in the process, because they thought you have to throw the controller forwards when you’re playing Wii Bowling. They wanted to produce the same effect of making you look stupid while you’re playing (which has been the standard for the whole gaming era), sans the weird looking controllers we have been with since the beginning.

Enter the Kinect and the Move. Created by Microsoft and Sony respectively, these accessories will be available shortly to the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Both have been featured in the recent E3 2010, where nerds and gaming enthusiasts have gathered to watch the impending horror of the death of the gaming industry before their very eyes, in a fancy and exciting convention.

Both of these motion controllers, which feature state of the art sensors (I won’t go into any details here, go Google for it yourself) that somehow intelligently perceives your motion in front of it. This allows games like dancing to be more “dance-like” without the use of a heavy metal pad with four direction buttons on it. Boxing and fighting games wouldn’t need a badly designed glove-like accessory or a platform with infrared sensors that does the contrary to feel realistic. Driving is probably the worse – instead of using an already awkward-to-use steering wheel and pedals, you now just have to raise your hands in the air, grip and imaginary steering wheel, and you’re good to go. It’s like reliving what you were doing in your childhood again.

There’s also new ways of manipulating this new technology, like using it for simulation games like having a pet tiger in a jungle. With these new toys you can actually own a virtual pet tiger that you can feed, pet, and punch in the face by just letting your hands do the action in front of the motion sensors. Of course, all this does is just doom children when they realize that tigers don’t like being fed, pet, or punched in the face when they grow up as adults.

If there’s such thing as too much technology, it’s very apparent for the coming years of the gaming industry. This makes me want to throw away all my new games away and just start playing games that were made prior to 2008. Those were all better than most, if not all the new games we have now.

Why I absolutely hate Yahoo (and why I am still using it)

WARNING: Rant inbound. If you don’t like listening to a person bitch about what he hates, flee. Flee now.

These days, Yahoo is known as the international version of AOL. It’s clunky, cheesy, and the only Americans who seem to be using it at the moment are those who believe chain spam mail about a creepy girl appearing at your closet tonight or Bill Gates eating your hard drive if you don’t send an email to everyone in your contact list within eight minutes.

I absolutely hate Yahoo. Really I do. The search engine is just another crappy competitor of Google, and has failed miserably doing so. Bing is ten times better than Yahoo search, and we all know Google is ten times better than Bing. Yahoo search is clunky, full of ads, too purple, too family oriented, and too…friendly. It does not appeal to power users like me.

What I hate most about Yahoo is their mail service. Yahoo mail is one of the most crappiest mail services I have ever seen. It is like the greatest shitty e-mail service of all that you’ll think God himself crapped out Yahoo mail to remind people of retarded people sending chain mail to each other. The interface is just plain awful – very, very little space for people like me who use 4:3 screens, and there’s too much things going on screen – worthless ads about some untalented old “singer” named Kelly Clarkson, deals on car air filters, and other flash ads that were actually made in 2003 but Yahoo was too busy annoying the shit out of its users so they left it there on purpose. The interface is also very, very slow. The massive orgy of Javascript and Flash in the interface slows down any computer with a browser to a crawl. That’s why I switched to Mail Classic, in order to not have my computer molested with unnecessary JS.

But yet I’m still using Yahoo despite my opinions of it being the shittiest thing on the Internet since Geocities (funny thing to know, they own Geocities too). Why? Because of the same reason why I’m still on Facebook despite me hating it also – everybody’s  on it.

My professors use Yahoo Groups to upload lecture notes, worksheets, etc., so not having a Yahoo account to access this groups would be a bad idea. And it appears 98.3% of the Philippine population uses Yahoo as their Instant Messaging client, so I still maintain a YM account, though I don’t use Yahoo’s crappy IM messaging client, I use a much more stable and lighter Miranda IM.

Yahoo is also where I got my first email address. That email address is what I still use today, as I have since 2004. I signed up for Hotmail shortly after that, but I realized Hotmail is somehow shittier than Yahoo during that time, so I quit and let it rot under a million spam mails every month.

Thinking of switching to Wordpress

When you ask a web designer, a professional blogger, or a tech geek about a good blogging platform, almost all the time, their answers would be Wordpress. And it’s true, most of it anyway. Wordpress allows great flexibility, its engine is open-source and can be loaded up into your server (some popular websites such as the Cheeseburger Network uses Wordpress technology), if you feel hosting on Wordpress.com is a little sleazy.

I’m thinking of making that switch. As a amateur graphic designer and tech enthusiast I would definitely enjoy the flexibility of Wordpress. However, there are some things in Blogger that I cannot live without, like integration into my Google account. I don’t use any of those “account and password” management softwares, for I don’t trust them at all with my data. So having multiple accounts for e-mail and blogging would be hard to manage. I wouldn’t want that.

Next, Blogger is easy to set up, and even though it does not allow you as much flexibility as Wordpress, you can still make your own Javascript widgets if you would prefer so. Also, Blogger still has a pretty good user database, despite Wordpress overshadowing it. It’s not like people don’t like Blogger; Blogger is in fact, one of the most preferred platform for people when it comes to personal blogs. It’s only when people plan to make professional blogs that they use Wordpress and/or the Wordpress engine.

There are also other blogging platforms available other than Wordpress and Blogger, like Tumblr and LiveJournal. However, I don’t prefer Tumblr and LiveJournal because I don’t want sad people posting unnecessary comments on my posts just because I expressed disgust for Twilight or a lesbian named Justin Bieber or something. I like to keep things civilized.

So there you go. Hopefully I won’t get an aneurysm trying to decide whether to import my blog to Wordpress or not. Google is doing a good job maintaining Blogger, and as long as they keep it up, I’m staying there.

Why getting a 1337-ass computer nowadays is unnecessary

Most geeks like yours truly possess at least two computers: One “main” computer is used for heavy work, such as powerful 3D gaming, video editing, etc. And then there’s probably a “secondary” computer, usually a notebook or a netbook (or an iPad if you’re an Apple fan), which is usually used in travel and generally browsing the Internet.

Nowadays, I don’t really need a powerful computer. They’re too overrated. I’m so very much buried in college work, and I don’t have much time playing modern video games. Maybe I could sneak in one or two hours of Garry’s Mod every Friday (where I usually don’t have classes), but that’s just about it. I rarely find fun in video games these days, unless that game is an open-ended sandbox.

My custom-built gaming desktop, which I named the “Warmonger” (from the countless CS, L4D and CoD4 games it was into), is slowly turning to deteriorating and the only thing that keeps its coolers from accumulating dust is the occasional “turning on the computer because not using it would deteriorate it even more” habit. Also, it’s getting old.

This proud piece of hardware once ran settings at max in almost all games (maybe not Crysis). It helped me win games because I just calmly do my business while the opposition is busy dodging projectiles at 8fps and complaining about how old their computers are. Sadly, it appears that the Warmonger is going through the same fate also. I ran “Aliens vs. Predator” on the Warmonger at DX10 mode (my Radeon HD4870 cannot support DX11), and it ran at 26-35fps on high settings (mild AA), but I get spikes often when I look at wide open scenery. It sucks.

Now I’m pretty content just playing GTA: San Andreas, Quake III Arena and Warcraft III on my laptop because they’re awesome games despite their graphics being shitty. I have tried importing Garry’s Mod on my laptop, however, it’s mediocre Intel GPU that’s good only for desktop and light 3D graphics could not handle vertex shaders, thus making the waters of HL2 invisible from the surface.

Who needs games anyway? They’re just good ways of slowing down your PC. I find more fun finding lols on Cheeseburger than watching marines die in AvP. It’s just too repetitive for my taste, sorta like working in an Asian sweatshop, except you watch people in heavy armor die after just being punched in the face by aliens.