August 2004 Archives

Ever since the word “convergence

Bear with me here. The rest of the editors say I'm "post-happy" so why not play along. Here's an absurdly funny yet entertaining Java game for your Series 60 phone called YoYo Fighter. The premise is simple: your girlfriend got captured and you have to save her armed with nothing but your YoYo which can destroy fearsome monsters in different angles. Install now for the ultimate fun. It's free!

Pictures are worth more than a thousand words so just check out these great pics taken in the recent PhilMUG Ladies' Night photo shoot. Behind the scenes great studio shots

First of all it was originally called "Cabir" not "Caribe." But we can play the game of nomenclature while still neglecting a bedazzled public virus outbreak. Yes, the local population is bedazzled - those people who never really cared about a virus entering your PC before are out breaking hell on the new wireless phone virus going around town. First of all, the Cabir virus isn't really a virus in the true destructive sense of the word. If we're talking about the rampant spreading of the Cabir to other handsets,then by all means, we can define it as such. The public outbreak is so intense, its totally amusing. Some local channels did a special coverage on this, and as I suspected, knew little to nothing about the true nature of "KARIBEH" like the DOST knows about computers. You can read the full article here. First of all, the Cabir only affects Symbian S60 and UIQ phones. This means that all Nokia S60 variants (6600/7650/3650/3660/7610), the Siemens SX1, and SE P800/P900 are prone to this. Second, the virus spreads via Bluetooth, which makes even more sense why only these S60 phones are infected, because a BT protocol is inherent to the manufacturing of S60. Third, the "virus" does not do any actual harm to your system. The reason why infected phones experience a battery loss and a slowdown are because the Cabir is trying to beam itself to other BT phones, thus a drain in battery life due to excessive BT use and in effect a slowdown in the processor. Fourth, you don't need to spend P1500 pesos to remove Cabir. All you need is a 3rd party File Explorer (the Siemens SX1 has one built in) and you can follow these steps to remove the application. It's not a virus... at least not yet. It's a Series 60 application. The Cabir developers wanted to show the world the capabilities of a future worm. So, beware for the future! Besides, you have to be stupid enough to click "accept virus" on your phone. Safety measures: Turn your bluetooth off when not using. Read m|ph.

Remember a month ago when SMART had that crazy promo where you could avail of the XDA II, Treo 600 and P900 at an absurd plan of P1200.00 a month? Then Globe followed offering the same promo a light niche higher? So I've been walking around the malls, seeing more and more people with P900's and XDA II's. Sad, all they do is text and make calls. And then some: others just decide to sell their units online just to get more money. Reminds me of a social development phenomenon where the government and NGO's give land to squatters, who in turn sell or rent the land out for extra income. Typical Pinoy?

In an effort to convince the iPod to open its doors to other content providers apart from the online music store, RealNetwork had made an online petition to convince Apple to allow a "more-than-one- source" supplier of music apart from the iTunes Music Store. Dear Apple, Your company has long stood for innovation and open competition. Wasn't it Apple that ran the famous Super Bowl ad encouraging consumers like us to stand up for our right to make our own choices? We're asking that you do the same now and support the right of your own customers to make their own choices about where they buy music for the iPod. We want Freedom of Music Choice! Don't lock us in to purchasing digital music from one source. That's bad for competition. It will stifle innovation. And it will slow the adoption of digital music devices like the iPod. Do the right thing. Stand with us for Freedom of Music Choice! Sincerely, The Undersigned Of course, the campaign backfired into this. Personally, I think the reason why the iPod works is because of the seamless integration you get with the iPod + iTunes + iTunes online store. It makes you feel ... exclusive.

Wow! Flux Challenge is finally out ladies and gents. After months of impressive beta show offs, the guys over at PDA Mill have released the first version of this adrenaline pumping, sci-fi bantering piece of eye-candy. Just take a look at these screen shots. "Flux Challenge is our new, revolutionary 3D racing game for the Pocket PC. This unique racer revolves around a world of magnetic-levitation tunnels. While originally designed for mass transportation, it soon spawned many underground ship-racing circuits and eventually became one of the largest international championship sports. Take control of one of these magilev ships, and become the international champion!" - PDA Mill Damn, the beta was good! And as we predicted, the commercial release is totally mind blowing. This is the best Pocket PC game we've ever seen: beautifully rendered colors, fast-paced action, and months of replay value! Jayvee gives this game a five star alien thumbs up! Available for Windows Mobile 2003 devices for $19.95 at the PDA Mill website.

Or ... "the difference between nerds and geeks." Or even ... "why geeks love Steve Jobs and not Bill Gates" A lazy Sunday afternoon prompted me to browse trivial to semi-useless topics and after stumbling upon a brow-raising topic thread at PinoyExchange, I decided to write this. The thread question in the cupid forum went something like “Would you ever date a geek or a nerd?

Today marks the first month anniversary of the m|ph weblog. According to statistics, we've had more than 3,000 hits this month even before putting up the hit counter. On behalf of the editors, we would like to extend our deepest thanks for all the support our readers have given us. We've had our ups and downs, but rest assured our magazine is here to stay. For those of you wondering why the latest "green" issue is labeled "July-August," this is because the June Sarah Meier issue was willfully delayed in time for Mobile Pilipinas 2004. Please feel free to write your comments and suggestions below so we can further the improvement of the magazine and this weblog. Maraming salamat po and remember to always "get your geek on!"

ZLauncher this, ZLauncher that! I am so sick and tired of hearing all of the praises and raves that this program is getting. I'm not saying that ZLauncher sucks, in fact, ZLauncher deserves every praise that it is receiving cause it is the most full featured 3rd party launchers currently available, very well worth the $12 registration fee. But for the sake of being different, I decided to look for a different kind of launcher for my Palm and my searches led me to this piece of software called Appshelf, and let me tell you, I am *NOT* disappointed. Appshelf is developed by H. Imazeki, a Japanese who is well known in the Palm software market, his other works include Code Diver and McFile. Since this is a Japanese product, it has been optimized for use with Clie handhelds, but it works just as well on any other Palm powered device, I've already tried Appshelf on a Tungsten C and it works perfectly. Here's a screenshot of my Palm running Appshelf, isn't it purdy? You can download a demo or purchase a full version of Appshelf here

m|ph July - August 2004 issue is out featuring the lovely Olivia Daytia on the front cover. Featured articles include the Bluetooth "PANs Out" wireless office guide by Jason de Villa, enterprise PDA's, chic office gadgets, more personalities who live the mobile lfistyle creed, coverage of Mobile Pilipinas 2004, and much much more! Grab your copy now! Available at your favorite news stands for only P80.00.

I got a text from Mike, one of the product managers from Nokia this morning. He was asking how the loaner N-Gage units were going. I had to reply "sorry, no reviews yet because we're too busy playing." Then I found out my fellow editor Howard posted something below about how great the QD was. It really is a great improvement, in a lot of fairness since I was skeptical at first. I just wish I had more games to play. (hint: Mike are you reading this?)

So who here hasn't made fun of Nokia's N-GAGE gamedeck in one time or another? Just like I thought, all of us are guilty of making fun of the N-GAGE in one time or another. Most of the jokes we say in expense of the N-GAGE are quite justified actually, I mean, who in their right mind would use a phone that forces you to hold it up to your ear as you would a Taco? plus the N-GAGE was big and ugly as hell, it looked like a Gameboy advance with a myraid of birth defects. But that was then........ Nokia has recently released an updated version of the N-GAGE called the N-GAGE QD, it's smaller, cuter and doesn't have the nasty "side talking" feature of the firt N-GAGE. "But it's still an N-GAGE so I bet it still sucks" or so I thought, after using an N-GAGE QD for a few days, I'm actually contemplating in buying my own N-GAGE QD game deck. So what's so good about the N-GAGE QD? Sorry, can't talk about it right now, my The SIMS: Bustin' Out character is bugging me to feed him and he needs to take a bath, he's starting to smell. Thanks to Nokia Philippines and fellow m|ph editor Jayvee for dragging his ass all the way from the provinces (Alabang) to the Nokia office to pick up the loaner units and games.