Microsoft Arc Mouse Review

It's been probably two years since I last posted something. Been too busy with my work and my other hobby, photography!

But here, let me share with you my latest gadget, the Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse!

I've been a Microsoft mouse fan ever since I got my first Microsoft Intellimouse 1.1. I found the quality of that mouse so much better than all those other China made mouse. I have since moved on to another 3 Microsoft mice, with my latest being the Arc and now the Arc Touch.

Let me do a little comparison and review of the two. First their similarities:

• Both are fold-able, good for storage
• Both have little LEDs to let you know it's battery life
• Both have some sex appeal for a mouse
• Both have pretty terrible ergonomics, especially the Arc Touch
• Both costs a bomb and in all honesty, not worth the money you pay for it. I got mine used, so, can't complain too much.

What's my mouse trying to do here?!

Now, the review for the original Arc Mouse:

• There's an extra button on the right of the mouse, which is what I love coz I am too lazy to navigate to the Back button on my browser.
• I've been using the mouse for about a year, and here is what I hate about the mouse: the scroll. The quality control on the scroll is terrible. Mine started to do erratic stuff like scrolling down when you meant up. I had to open the mouse many times to fix the thing (there's a good article online which tells you how to do it. After a DIY fix, it's still not great, but it works 90% of the time.
• Also, the metallic paint job on the side of the mouse comes out after time. Not sexy now.
• Batteries run for about 3 months (I'm using rechargables, so doesn't matter too much)
• Large-ish USB transceiver

As for the new Arc Touch Mouse:

• It's strange. It lies flat when you "close" it.
• If you are looking for carpal tunnel, you can most probably find it here
• The scroll is some touch technology with haptic feedback (which I initially thought were small eletro-shocks running through the mouse)
• Able to track on more surface materials than the original Arc

coo-chi-coo-chi-coo!!!

All-in-all, I have to summarize that I prefer the older Arc mouse because of it's ergonomics and additional back button. But those really don't mean anything if your scroller is broken. Perhaps I should start looking at Logitech instead.

Unlocking the Palm Centro

This post may seem outdated, compared to my Nexus One post… But I’m gonna post it anyway!

I bought a second hand AT&T Palm Centro and had it sent to me recently for very cheap price. I love the Centro’s keyboard, and although the OS is dinosaur age, I have some old apps from my Palm Clie days which I still use.

When I received the device, I realized that it was locked to AT&T still! Being a guy who loves exotic and hard to find devices, I had no chance of going to Low Yat to unlock it. There, I started my journey to find a way to do it online.

After much Googling, I found no free way of doing so, but there are a few alternatives. The cheapest one is via ebay (just type in “Centro Unlock” in ebay to see a list of sellers), where all you have to do is send in your IMEI number and they will send you a code within 24 hours. They are cheap, only USD3. But there is a disclaimer that if your phone has been refurbished, then it may not work. Hmmm… problem: how do i know if my phone is refurbished or not? Well, I don’t! Still, the sellers ratings are all positive, so I gave it a shot.

The result… they sent me a code via email within 24hours but the code does not work. I tried 3 times just to make sure i didn’t type in wrongly and sure enough, it did not work. I read that if I try 5 times unsuccessfully, my phone will lock… FOREVER!

Not giving up, I decided to scour phone forums for a recommended working solution. Finally, I found http://centrounlock.com/ to be the best. The method is a little more work than the ebay one. First, I had to download a little application on my phone. The app will then calculate and create a unique code which I can then apply to the site to generate the unlock code. The app worked on my phone. It spewed out a 16 digit code. The next step is to pay this company USD19. That’s RM70. Hmmm… should I do it? It’s risky. One, I may enter the wrong 16 digit code to the site and it may give me a wrong unlock code (the codes had lots of “0”s and “O”s, “1”s and “I”s which looks awfully similar in Palms default font). Two, these people may be another scam company. I tried sending them email to enquire about their service, but they did not reply me (and no reply until today). However, desperate, I decided to give it a go.

Below is a summary of how to enter the unlock code:

1. 1. Remove the battery from your device
2. 2. Leave the phone off for 10 seconds
3. 3. Put a SIM card into the phone
4. 4. Place the battery back in
5. 5. Go to the dial pad
6. 6. If the radio isn't on (phone application reports "Phone Off"), turn it on by holding down the red power button for a few seconds
7. 7. Wait for "SIM card not allowed" message
8. 8. Wait for the dial pad to indicate "SOS only"
9. 9. Dial the unlock code carefully, including all * and # characters (it should look like *#*#00000000# when you are done)
10. 10. Press the dial button
11. 11. The phone should inform you that the SIM lock was removed

After I paid via Paypal, I received the unlock codes immediately. Praying hard, I entered the codes as follows: *#*#95912867# (don’t try this on your phone. this only work on mine). And lo and behold, my phone is unlocked! *PHEW*

Notice the Digi signal on my phone? Well, I can now gladly confirm with you that the DigitalUnlock service at http://centrounlock.com works like a charm! And another piece of good news: the ebay seller refunded my money after I proved to him that I got the unlock codes elsewhere. Woo hoo!

My Three Weeks with Nexus One

Hello folks, welcome to the first Malaysian review of the Google phone, Nexus One. I have had the privilege of testing the phone for 3 weeks and would like to share my thoughts on the device. If you want to know how I got the device, it was shipped direct from the US. That’s all I can tell you. :)

A little disclaimer. I don’t have an iPhone. I know most people will want to compare, but sorry folks. Perhaps it’s a good thing, as I can give you a unbiased review of the phone. :)

Unboxing and Hardware Specs

The Nexus One comes with a nice simple packaging. Box is of high quality.

There are four hard buttons on the device. The power button, volume up/down and trackball. The trackball is actually not really useful as most of the time, I use the capacitive touch screen. The screen is beautiful as it is AMOLED. Though, there is one complain from is that dust can some how manage to squeeze itself behind the touch screen panel! The device is charged by a micro-USB port and has a 3.5mm audio jack. The phone has a nice weight to it and the back cover has a nice velvet-like feel which makes the device not a finger magnet (ala iPhone. Yes I don’t have one, but I know how fingerprints is attracted to the phone like ants to sugar).

The device comes with standard accessories, i.e. a micro-USB cable, charger, headphones. No CDs or user manual. Only a piece of quick start guide and some warranty stuff (not like it’s applicable here).

I just popped in my Digi SIM and added the APN in the settings and I’m done! 3G gives pretty decent experience, but EDGE and below, well… sucks.

For battery life, you can expect only a day of use. Also, it somehow magically sucks out tonnes of battery in the night. Not sure if it’s because of my POP3 mail running in the background.

When you first turn on the device, you will be greeted with a start-up wizard, and you will meet the Home Screen. The home screen has the much talked about Live Wallpaper, but personally I found it pretty boring. Try looking for the Matrix or Star Field Live Wallpaper on the market. Those are pretty good!

Applications

The device is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. The performance is smooth and no visible lag noticeable unless you load it with lots of apps running on the background. Below are the preinstalled apps that come with the Nexus One. I’ll just do a simple review of each app for you as well.

Preloaded Apps:

• Browser: can browse almost anything, except Flash contents. Also, it’s location aware, so it uses the GPS help localize results for you
• Calculator: better free calculators in the Market
• Calendar: syncs with Google Calendar
• Camera: not much options, can’t turn off the shutter sound!
• Car Home: a short cut menu to a collection of apps which can be handy if you dock it in your car
• Clock: pretty nice for a clock app
• Contacts: with ability to sync with Facebook contacts
• Email: with Exchange compatibility
• Facebook: nice app, except videos and photos are linked back to the mobile site, which seems silly.
• Gallery: able to sort by location and time
• Gmail: with push alert
• Goggles: interesting app to play with. but hardly works for me.
• Maps: now comes with lots of cool new features! Directions and even local recommendations from Harith Iskandar and more
• Market: the app store. it is pretty basic in features (download and manage downloaded apps, search), but lacks filtering criteria like filter by rating, price, etc.
• Messaging: with threaded messaging
• MP3 Store: able to purchase Amazon.com music
• Music: standard player. pretty boring
• News and Weather: not able to customize your own RSS feeds! that’s not nice.
• Phone: calls, call logs, contacts, favorites
• Settings
• Talk: GoogleTalk IM service
• Voice Dailer: just say a name
• Voice Search: just say anything
• Youtube: Youtube browser and player

Two days ago, I had a pleasant surprise when the device pushed an auto-update notification that I can update my device. It was a painless 16MB update which now allows me to do pinch multi-touch gestures for Google Maps, Gallery and Browser. Cool!

Pet Peeves

I absolutely hate typing on the soft keyboard. It gives me the cramps. There is of course the voice-to-text feature, but although it was a cool feature (try saying sh*t and see what it outputs), it is not really practical as you won’t want people listening to you dictating your message to your wife.

I also found that there is no settings to allow messages to have a tone and vibrate at the same time. It’s plain irritating! I had to download another app to help do this.

Conclusion

Overall, the Nexus One is a nice effort from Google to start moving into the smart phone market. If only it came with 4G and a keyboard! Let me know if you have any questions, and I will try to answer you! Thanks for reading! :D

Mobile Phone Etiquettes and Yelping Terriers

Mobile phones are now part and parcel of our lives. In Malaysia, about 95% of the population have at least one device.

But having a phone so personal in your live also means that there must be some kind of social impact as well. It’s like bringing your dog out everywhere. You love your dog, but you don’t want it barking, biting and peeing on everyone you see. Well, unknowingly, we can be as irritating as these people who thinks they are doing the world good by lugging their yelping terriers around.

I learnt most of these the hard way, so here are my suggestions on what we can do to irritate our neighbours a little less:

1. When you are talking to someone face-to-face or having family time and you absolutely must check your phone, just tell them that you will need a minute to check your message or pick up the call. If it is not urgent, wait till the discussion is over before you start tapping on the phone. Facebook and Foursquare is not considered urgent.

2. In the cinema, brightly lit LCDs are really annoying. If you need to check your phone, place your hands around the screen to minimize the effect. You don’t need the world to know you are replying to your wife whom you had a fight and you ran off to the cinema to watch Avatar to release steam… (not that I have done that before… *whistle*)

3. When you are in a meeting, try putting your phone on vibrate and in your pocket. It can be quite annoying to hear phones vibrating on tables. There is an application on Android called BuzzOff which enables you to set how long you want your phone to be turned to silent/vibrate. If your meeting or movie is two hours long, then set it to two hours and after that it will revert back to normal profile. Pretty useful!

Well, these are three main scenarios I can think off so far. If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know!

Skypephone S2 Unlocked!

Another first in Bolehland! Yes, I've managed to at long last unlock the Skypephone S2 which was lying around at my workplace. 

For the uninitiated, the Skypephone S2 is a phone exclusively created for 3UK. It's a pretty interesting phone, with built-in Skype client, Windows Live and Facebook client. 

The phone is very cheap, GBP70 (around RM375), considering it's a HSDPA phone and very big and nice TFT 320x240 screen. It is made in China by a manufacturer called Amoi (which incidentally in Malaysia, a rude way of calling a Chinese girl). The phone's camera is one of the most responsive I've ever used! Just press the camera button and within a split second it is ready for shooting. The catch is of course, it is LOCKED to 3UK network and I can't use it for anything maybe except take photos and listen to MP3s. Not much fun eh? :(

In this article, I will not review the phone. I will, instead, walk you through how I got the phone unlocked. Phones in Malaysia are never locked, and it proved a challenge for me to get it done. I've asked the folks at Sungai Wang and Low Yat Plaza (mobile phone and IT hub of KL) and they only have one reaction for me "What phone is that?!". Needless to say, I gave up hope.

Then today, breakthrough! I was browsing around for a solution online and I found this forum: http://forum.gsmhosting.com/. I did a little search and I came across one particularly interesting post which claims to be able to unlock the phone. Woohoo! Just my luck! The post linked me to a website called Kulankendi . Honestly I was a little sceptical about the whole thing, but I downloaded their unlock software to take a look at it.

I plugged in my phone and at first it did not detect my phone. I found that the reason is I have not installed the phone drivers. To do so, all I had to do is double click the CD Drive that automatically appears when I plug the phone into the PC via the mini USB cable.

Then I clicked Read Info on the software. And there were very legitimate and convincing looking information about my phone which appeared like IMEI and firmware version. With that, I was pretty convinced this software will work.

The next thing to do, would be to buy an unlock credit to get this working. This was the part which got me pretty nerved, simply because I have no idea who Kulankendi is and what if this did not work? The damage: Euro25 (RM118!). Of course after much deliberation, I have decided to take the risk. After all, what's RM118 compared to an good but unusable phone? :)

From there, I paid via paypal and using the instructions given on the software, a username and password was generated for me with ONE credit. Keeping my fingers crossed and praying hard, I pressed EXECUTE. The whole process took only a few seconds. And when the phone rebooted, VIOLA! I can use my Maxis and Digi SIM cards with the phone! 

I am happy to say: Kulankendi, thank you! I just gained a very nice phone to use. Unfortunately though, Skype, Facebook and Windows Mobile Live could not work on my network as there is some sort of network detection feature on the software end... Why is it that I always get nice phones but can't use their services here??? Sigh. But at least I got the RSS and Web browser to work! 

Summary: Although I got my phone unlocked, I still have to warn all of you people who want to unlock your phones using this method... be very careful as you have to bear the risk of losing the phone and your money.

HTC Max aka HTC Quartz aka HTC T8290 Review!

This is  a special moment for all people in Bolehland! I shall treat you to an exclusive FIRST in Malaysia review of the FIRST WiMAX phone in the world! Woo hoo! The htc MAX by Yota!

Yota is a Russian WiMAX operator (http://www.yota.ru/en/) and I have one unit of their htc MAX which all you technophile will lust after! Muahahahaha...

I'll try to keep the review short and sweet. The specs of the device is pretty much a beefed up htc Diamond. Bigger screen (3.8"), widescreen resolution (640x800), lots of memory (8GB+microSD expansion). Of course, it comes with WiMAX apart from the WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and GSM/EDGE connectivity.

Now before I continue, htc Max is supposed to be exclusive to Yota. That means you will never find it anywhere else in the world. And that is a bad thing because the unit comes only in Russian languange. And there is no way you can change the language settings because the language is burnt into the ROM of the device. Thanks a lot Microsoft! :(

On to the review!

Box

Basically the box is exactly the same as that of the htc Diamond. What's inside are the standard CD, UBS connector, screen proctector, charger, headset. There's one interesting thing htc provided this time round: a mini USB to 3.5mm audio jack converter. That means you can use your standard earphones on the device. How thoughtful of them... but you still can't charge and use the headset at the same time though.

Physical Check

The htc Max lives up to it's name. It's big, heavy and thick. The back of the device however is made of some suede like material which is really a nice thing as it does not get fingerprints all over the back (like that of the Diamond). But the screen still is a fingerprint magnet.

50sen coin to proof that this unit is in Malaysia! :P

The Insides of htc Max

Htc Max has Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 as it's operating system. But like all good WM phones, it's better to throw the original interface with something more acceptable, like htc's TouchFlo interface. However, unlike the other htc phones today, the Max has something different up it's sleeves... the Yota client which I will share with you shortly.

I won't go into details like phone calls quality, etc. All I can say is that I can use my Maxis SIM here with EDGE.

As for WiMAX, sorry guys, htc Max is only for Yota network. Anyway, Yota uses 2.5GHz WiMAX. We use 2.3GHz.

Well, there's always WiFi (incidentally, you can't use WiFi at the same time as you use WiMAX. Frequency is very close (WiFi is 2.4GHz)).

Yota

When you first use the device, you are led to use the Yota Loader. This software downloads the latest Yota Interface and installs it on the the phone. To access Yota, click Yota! on the right soft key on the Home Screen.

Once done, you will have the Yota Interface. There are three options on the bottom. I can't read Russian, but the first is probably Catalogue, second is Applications, third is Task Manager.

On the Yota Interface, you will see customizable shortcuts which you can add and delete as you like. Not exactly widget based like Android which I've seen on the T-Mobile G1. But clicking on the App button seems to copy the G1 style of accessing installed apps.

Yota Catalogue

You can use the Yota Catalogue to add new services or even 3rd party apps over the air! Easy as pie!

Yota Application Manager and Task Manager

Currently, there are a few services Yota has launched, namely:

- Yota TV

- Yota Music

- Yota Video

- Yota Yap Yap

Out of these 4, I can only preview Yota TV and Yap Yap. The rest requires a Yota Passport, which you need to be a subscriber.

Even though I can enter Yota TV and see the preview of their 5 free TV (more to come I'm sure), but unfortunately I cannot view any show (blank screen when I click on a channel). Such a waste... I think it's because it detects the access I am using, which of course is not WiMAX.

Yota Phone Application

One of the most interesting feature of Yota's htc Max is the WiMAX VoIP call. Unfortunately I cannot test it out, but the premise is this:

You can call anyone within Yota network using WiMAX instead of GSM.

Also, using Yota, you can see the presence of other Yota users and talk to each other with their version of Instant Messenger.

Summary

I couldn't enjoy the full benefit of using Yota's services, nor could I enjoy the phone due to my poor Russian (hahaha...). The phone is a little large for most people's preference, but the big screen certainly is better than the tiny Diamond. But this device certainly sets a benchmark for all WiMAX devices to come.