Jun/100
New phone
Thought is make a new post on my new HTC legend phone.
I haven’t posted anything in a while since ice been busy with work and hanging out with friends.
I am still currently finishing an online course and currently work full time at Canada computers. Driving to work is a pain since it is 50 or so minutes depending on traffic.
I’ve slay beef hanging out more with friend. So I have had little to no time to with on my side project is re doing this website from scratch.
Back to the new phone. I got a new phone. Thud HTC android phone runs the 2.1 android software. Hopefully it will get the 2.2 update so I can play around with the jit compiler.
So far typing on this is similar to that of he iPhone where the sup correct kicks in to try to help you type faster. I still sometimes have to back space before i typed too fast or the spell check didn’t add the correct word.
The phone itself is awesome. Better than I thought. The HTC sense UI is very cool. And the 7 screens make cusomizing awesome.
Though I wish it had re 1ghz snapdragon processor. And more RAM. Other than that this is awesome. I will include a more in-depth review of check unit next week with pictures. It won’t be done on that phone tho. That would just take too long. Haha
Mar/100
Selling my iPhone 3g
Ever since I got my Blackberry 9700 Bold I haven’t had a need to use my iPhone 3g, even for Tethering. So I’ve decided to attempt to sell my iPhone 3g. The Phone is perfectly fine, minus the silent mode switch being missing. (the little knob on the side of the phone). But other than that everything is perfectly fine.
It’s a Black 16GB iPhone locked onto the Rogers network. Of course it can be unlocked so it can be used for any gsm network. My asking price for it right now is $300 dollars.
May/090
Online Distribution, Bandwidth Cap
Online distribution seems to be growing in popularity every day while your internet service providers are cashing in on your excess bandwidth. Steam is an example of a successful Online distribution which sells gamers online and allows the customer to download their games instead of going out to the store and buy a physical copy of the game. It is an effective way to sell content, but with the bandwidth cap it can be quite limiting. I remember the days when ISPs offered Unlimited bandwidth when the internet was relatively slow (compared to today’s standard). But with advancements in technology you’d think the ISPs can handle the increasing traffic with less resources than before.
What is the point in offering faster download speeds “for file sharing” when the bandwidth cap isn’t even enough for 2 blu-ray discs worth of content. They say majority of the consumer base never go over the bandwidth. And what only 1% actually do. Yet they are spending thousands of dollars to prevent their 1% customer base from enjoying the full experience of the internet. Traffic shaping is already put in place to optimize the network so no one customer uses 100% of the providers speed. But a limit on how much you can download? It’s like putting place a limit on how much air you can breath in before you have to pay for it.
Take my provider for example. Hi-Speed Extreme. Offers 10Mbps down and 1Mbps up, sounds great before you calculate the bandwidth cap of 95GB per month with $1.5/GB afterwards. I know alot of people would say 95GB is alot and that they can’t think of any possible ways to use up all that bandwidth per month. Not yet maybe its hard, but when more full 1080p content show up, you rely 100% on making online purchases for games, music and movies through services like Steam or iTunes. That 95GB or even Comcast’s cap of 250GB would seem like a speck of dust. I can easily go over the bandwidth in downloading legit content from various websites without even breaking a sweat. Downloading a game off Steam is around 4-5GBs, Linux LiveDVD is around 4.7GB, 1080p content is at least 18GBs usually more. Add those up and you’re already half way there to the limit.
It just pisses me off that Providers are trying to control how much we access the internet. With their false advertisements of “Download as much high def content as you want” with the fine print of “as long as you stay with in the limit we set for you then you pay by the GB or in some cases I’ve heard people paying by the MB. We’re in 2009 where HD companies are talking int Terabytes now while Providers are still talking about Gigabytes and Megabytes. :S. I can’t even imagine how much worse ISPs are going to make things. Lower the Cap so they would make even more money while teasing us with Gb/s speeds? lol. But if it keeps up like this. Then the internet as we know it will no longer exist.
All I have left to say is. Stupid Monopolized Internet Service Providers trying to make more money by overcharging us with relatively slow connection speeds. -.-
Sep/080
Dual Display on Vista
There seems to be spreading an issue of running dual display under vista which has been causing alot of problems for alot of users. Since this seems to affect both nvidia and ati users, I’m not going to specifically point fingers, but I am using an ati video card at the moment.
The issue of running dual display under vista is, it crashes the system, sometimes it would work fine. The Video Processing Unit (VPU) would randomly stop responding triggering a VPU recovery to attempt to restart the service. Normally this would solve the problem, but at times it would go through the VPU recovery cycle 4-5 times before the operating system finally giving up and fail completely with a blue screen, hence crashing the user’s system.
I haven’t used a nvidia card for a while now so I don’t know when this problem started for them (driver version wise) but on the ati side the problem has been present since theirt Catalyst version 7.7 which was released last year in July. So it’s been well over a year and the current driver version, 8.9, still experiences this issue.
This made me come to a conclusion that either the graphics company just simply don’t care about this issue and that it’s not a big deal to them to even bother trying to fix it. OR they have tried and there’s nothing they can do about it and that the problem lies with Microsoft and that THEY are too lazy or dont care about fixing this issue. Either way, this problem has been persisting for far to long now.
The weird thing about it is, this issue seems to only happen from a cold boot or a restart triggered by applications that require restarting after installation or windows update. If I do another restart right after windows restarts. The video card doesn’t do the whole VPU recover thing. Also, this seems to happen when I’m on desktop using normal applications like firefox and itunes. Not those killer 3d games or benchmarking software. Just normal desktop applications. My video card is ATI Radeon HD2900XT running at stock speeds and using the stock cooler. The temperature is 69 degrees, I think its a little high but the graphics processor is designed to withstand hotter temperatures than that.
I did a little research on this issue on Google and found that quite a few forums also has topics about this and I am not the only one that’s suffering from this problem. The problem only affects people running dual display. As much as I hate this problem, I also don’t want to have to ditch the second monitor and go back to single display since I got too used to using dual displays. Switching back would be weird and hard.
Sep/081
Windowblinds hates me, me thinks.
I have used windowblinds for my XP system in the past but had yet to use it since upgrading it to Vista. This was like over 2 years ago.
So today I decided to use Windowblinds again, instead of installing it on my main machine. I thought I’d use it on my XP parallels partition. There’s no reason for it as to why it’s not working. but with my luck. It refuses to work. So I finally gave up completely and uninstalled it. It’s running XP Service Pack 3. And I installed the trial version of Windowblinds. And a good call at that. Otherwise I would have really been pissed off. Paid 20+ for a software that refuses to run on my virtual environment. unacceptable. 
Windowblinds. You have failed me for the last time!
Heres the problem. I installed. It installed, it told me to reboot. I clicked yes, it rebooted. It loaded windows, I log in. All the startup applications run. But wait! Windowblinds pops up a message. A reboot is required! (thought I just rebooted), okay. I’ll reboot again. same processor. log off, restarted, log in. Windowblinds pops up again. You need to reboot your machine! and the cycle continues. windowblinds claims i need to reboot after i finished rebooting back into the system. I did this cycle maybe 5-10 times, cause theres nothing really to do here right now. lol but yea. I eventually gave up on that and said to hell with Windowblinds.
I just felt like posting this. Probably will catch the attention of a specific person I shall remain nameless (but you know who you are. 
)
Aug/081
August Update
I now have a total of 3 22″ LCD Monitors. It originally started with a Sceptre 22″ then I got a BenQ 22″, now I have purchased a LG 22″ with a pivot and height adjustable stand. I have also gotten rid of the default monitor stand for the Sceptre monitor and replaced it with a monitor stand my dad brought home from work a few years back and it is now connected to my MacBook Pro in vertical mode. The LG and BenQ 22″ are the main displays of my main tower.
Also, I have replaced the Logitech MX3200 cordless keyboard combo with a Logitech diNovo EDGE bluetooth wireless keyboard and continuing to use my G9 wired mouse as my main mouse. So far this Logitech EDGE keyboard feels great and looks really cool! And its rechargable! 
An updated screenshot of my Workstation as of today.
This of course is all about to change in 2 weeks since I move back into Humber residence on August 24th and all that is probably coming with me to residence. HAHA
and a Picture of my new keyboard
The only downside I can see right now with this keyboard is the fact it lacks a number pad, however it includes a cool circular trackpad which acts as a monitor so I can actually use this as a remote to control the computer from my bed. 
and I’ve gotten used to using laptops so I can live without a number pad.
I would post my current desktop screenshots of both the MacBook Pro and my desktop, however they go on a rotating wallpaper so the wallpaper changes every 5 minutes. hehe but my Main desktop has ObjectDock installed as well as DisplayFusion Pro which I actually paid 10 dollars for, so far the application is working pretty great. Going to play around with the hotkey features sometime next week when I no longer have to wake up early for work.
Jul/080
Rogers iPhone promotion
Due to popular customer demand, Rogers has caved in in offering a promotion of a data only plan of 6GB a month for 30 dollars more on top of any voice plan. This is significantly better than their previous top iPhone plan which costs 115 a month for only 2GB of data. This plan takes effect on July 11th and will run until August 31st 2008. Anyone who purchases an iPhone within this time period can take that offer, which is 1 step further to an unlimited data plan. haha
A few stores in Canada (see roger’s press release for more information) is opening their stores at 8am for advanced iPhone purchases for anyone anxious to buy the an iPhone. As well as complementary breakfast and prizes to be won.
Jun/080
Fido to sell iPhones, Rogers iPhone plans announced
Fidos, a gsm based phone service that was bought by Rogers a few years ago, has announced it too will be selling the iPhone under the Fido brand. Though ultimately it’s still Rogers.
On other news, Rogers announces their iPhone plan. Though its not what I was hoping for, the data allowance is too low in my opinion. But here are the official data plans.
| Monthly | $60 | $75 | $100 | $115 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekday Minutes | 150 | 300 | 600 | 800 |
| Evenings and Weekends | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Data | 400MB* | 750MB* | 1GB* | 2GB* |
| Sent Text Messages | 75 | 100 | 200 | 300 |
| Additional Weekenday Minutes (per minute) | $0.35 | $0.35 | $0.25 | $0.15 |
| Additional Sent Text Messages | $0.15 each | $0.15 each | $0.15 each | $0.15 each |
*Additional data charges are $0.50 per MB for the first 60MB. $0.03 per MB afrerwards
Other essential plans such as Call Display, Who Called, more send text messages, Caller Ring Trax, call forwarding minutes and early evening calling is 15-20 dollars more.
*Update. Forgot to add. There is also a $6.95 charge for “system access fee”. Also it appears you are not limited to only iPhone plans. You can pick voice and data plan available on their website. As well as you do not have to buy Data plan (although it would make the iPhone just another cell phone without data plan) Without a data plan, using the 3g network costs 5 cents per kilobyte or 51 dollars per megabyte. so it would be best to buy a data plan.
Also the announcements of the plan has triggered and uproar in potential iPhone customers in Canada creating ruinediphone.com. A site created around a petition to rogers to make the plans more fair and comparable to AT&T’s plans and pricing. So far over 30 000 users have signed it. All it needs now is for Rogers to cave into the demand and lower prices on the iPhone AND include unlimited data.
Rogers has also updated their pricing plans to include unlimited local calling in the first 3 months.
keep checking Roger’s iPhone plan for up to date plan details