Category: Mostly Everything

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Mostly Everything

Angry Birds runs on Chrome — Ultimate Office Time Waster!



http://chrome.angrybirds.com

Simply put, it’s great marketing for Google Chrome. But on a completely different level it is also showing you what HTML5 can do. In case you’ve been under a rock for the past few months, HTML5 is the really the “new way” of doing things on your browser without the need to code in Flash. So the lesson here is quite simple. The next time your client tells you that he wants his site in flash, (1) give him a firm no because (a) flash is so 90’s, (b) a lot of people use flash blockers on their browsers, (c) it takes too long to load, (d) flash is not SEO-friendly (e) and finally flash won’t run on an iPad. You can then (2) suggest the site be coded in HTML5 instead because it’s the “cool new way” things are done without requiring a plugin.

As long as you have a browser that supports HTML5, you can run this. But of course, it’s still all about the branding!

Get Chrome now. And play Angry Birds while you’re at work. Oh and if you’re head of IT, please don’t block this site, k?

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Mostly Everything

Nokia E6 in the wild running on Symbian Anna

Had lunch with Nikka Abes of Nokia Philippines and she showed me a prototype Nokia E6. Imagine the best selling E72 with a touch screen integrated into its system and refurbished with stainless steel and glass: voila, Nokia E6! This phone is due in the second quarter of 2011 with no pricing as of late. However, if we are to look at trends, it should roughly be the same price as the Nokia E71 and E72 when they made their respective debut. These phones went for an average of PHP 20,000 so it should be somewhere in that line, even cheaper.

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Mostly Everything

Inn at the Crossroads: My new favorite food blog


Quails drowned in butter

“This evening they had supped on oxtail soup, summer greens tossed with pecans, grapes, red fennel, and crumbled cheese, hot crab pie, spiced squash, and quails drowned in butter. Lord Janos allowed that he had never eaten half so well.” (II: 91) Photo c/o Inn at the Crossroads

I have a new favorite food blog and it has everything to do with its theme. Inn at the Crossroads is run by two women, Sarian and Chelsea. And like me, they’re huge fans of the Song of Fire and Ice series by George R. R. Martin. If you haven’t heard of this yet, it is hands down an epic series which you must absolutely read before you expire. It’s so good, the first book, A Game of Thrones has been turned into an HBO series.

Sarian and Chelsea usually follow a formula with their posts — making both a Westeros and modern version of their dishes followed by a commentary on each dish — similarities and differences in preparation and plating. Their blog is truly a work of art.

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Mostly Everything

Difference between HSPA+ and LTE

So over on Plurk I was trying to explain the difference between HSPA+ and LTE. There is a lot of confusion. Without naming who carries what, here’s a simple way of looking at it:

HSPA+ is built on existing 3G technology. LTE is built on an entirely new network. Your iPhone 4 will work on an HSPA+ network because it is 3G compatible. It won’t be able to access the higher speed LTE network. You will need LTE compatible devices to run on the LTE network. These are phones like the Motorola Atrix and the HTC Thunderbolt.

Here’s an example. The BlackBerry 8520, one of the more recent devices being sold today cannot access 3G because it is limited to the 2G EDGE network. A lot of people don’t know this. Did they notice? Actually, no. This is because you don’t need really fast speeds to access email on a BlackBerry — which is what it is for.

Short chart:

2G
GSM –> GPRS –> EDGE

3G
3G –> 3.5G (that’s HSPA which is a combination of HSDPA and HSUPA. “D” and “U” stand for “Upload” and “Download”) –> HSPA+

The HSPA technology is a combination of HSDPA and HSUPA which. D and U stand for Downlink and Uplink which you can just translate to mean “download” and “upload.” SO HSUPA = uploading photos faster and sending email with bigger attachments faster.

When telcos here and abroad say that they have “4G” they are not referring to speeds. They are referring to “next gen” hardware. Based on the ITU standards, the real 4G is considered to be a technology called LTE Advanced, a small step above LTE (it’s like how 3G moves to 3.5G). LTE Advanced isn’t available yet anywhere around the world but rumors say by 2012.

LTE is the closest thing to what we call “4G speeds.” The truth is, the nomenclature doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t.

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Mostly Everything

“I changed my number. Please update your phonebooks.”

PROBLEM??!

It happens with some regularity where we have a friend who changes his or her mobile phone number and sends a big text blast to everyone on the list informing them to change this bit of information. More often than not, I forget to update and the past two days I’ve SMS-ed two friends who have apparently changed their numbers. So it was rather embarrassing (and annoying) to get a “HUS DIS” and a “sn0 p0h i2” jeje-reply.

There is a way to avoid this though. If you (1) own a smartphone, and (2) make use of mobile Internet on your handset and (3) store your contacts using a sync with GMail, Yahoo! or Facebook you can easily inform your other friends who are also on smart phones that you changed your contact information. In fact, you don’t even need to inform anyone. Whenever you change the information on your Gmail vCard (or Facebook) the next time your contacts sync (which happens often when they’re doing over-the-air Internet), the update takes place. If you enter a new address book contact or make changes to your address book, the change reflects online as well.

So yeah you could say that owning an iPhone, Android or Windows Phone 7 device helps you really stay in touch with your friends not just with reading status updates, but with their contact information as well. Switch to a smartphone now and grab that data plan!