Automatives+Tech Gadgets: October 2010

Friday, October 29, 2010

Celcom’s Blackberry Torch 9800 price revealed. RRP at RM2188.

Finally, the Blackberry Torch is showing up here in Malaysia. Two major telcos in Malaysia, Celcom and Maxis, are having their 1st day sales or pre-registration sales today. The price with BIS subscription was also revealed. I am wondering what DiGi is doing there? Well, their style is to observe what others got to offer and then come up with a better deal, isn’t it?

Alright, below is the BIS subscription details for Blackberry Torch 9800 with Celcom:

By the way, did anyone went to their 1st day sales today, at La Bodega Pavilion? Who manage to get this phone at RM8? If you were not able to go, no worries as you can visit any Blue Cube outlets from the 3rd November onwards to get one for yourself. At RM8? Yeah, right….keep on dreaming

Latest Android offers from Maxis – Samsung Galaxy Tab, Motorola Charm and Motorola Flipout.

Samsung Galaxy Tab-Motorola Charm-Motorola Flipout

Maxis has more gadgets to offer in their Android section now. I was targeting for the Samsung Galaxy Tab

Look at the contract price:

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Malaysian Blogger study--Jayce Ooi aka SP Blogger earn more than RM3000 per month.

Look at Jayce Ooi earning this month, it really motivates us Malaysian. Malaysia earn a lot from Google adsense with over RM3000 internet income per month. His advice is 'Focus on US traffic if you want to earn more money. Hopefully, I can reach my target RM 5,000 or 300,000 visits per month sooner.'

Below is his post:
Congratulation to Google AdSense. It is still the best income generator for me. And it broke US$ 500 level. Luckily, Vibrant is back on track too. By the way, ContextWeb is not a new advertising company. It was ADSDAQ (they changed the name). Local advertising companies are not performing well. Getting lesser and lesser ads from them. And I am sad to say good bye to Innity due to under-perform lately. Hope that Innity can back to the games when its technology channel has more ads. Or maybe they can add more channel to JayceOoi.com?
Internet income report for September 2010
Google AdSense – US$ 528.87 (RM 1621.72)
Vibrant – US$ 257.51 (RM 789.62)
ContextWeb – US$ 201.00 (RM 616.34)
BlogAds – US$ 91.00 (RM 279.04)
Nuffnang – US$ 59.70 (RM 183.07)
Innity – US$ 10.14 (RM 31.12)
Grand Total: US$ 1148.22 (RM 3520.91)
1 USD == 3.0664 RM. Ringgit Malaysia is not increasing in value while US Dollar is not dropping anymore. This is good. Hope that US will increase the interest rate sooner and push USD back to higher level so that I can earn more since most of my incomes are from US.
JayceOoi.com has 182,661 visits (28,183 Malaysia visits & 40,259 United States visits) and 381,403 pageviews in September 2010 compare to 55,689 visits (17,878 Malaysia visits & 6,979 United States visits) and 89,486 pageviews in September 2009. US traffic increased a lot for the past 1 year. Thanks to that, earning increased too. RM 3520.91 vs RM 1604.23 (2009).
My 2 cents… Focus on US traffic if you want to earn more money. Hopefully, I can reach my target RM 5,000 or 300,000 visits per month sooner.

Samsung Galaxy Tab vs iPad vs Notion Ink

Samsung Galaxy Tab preview

Hardware specs

Android 2.2 running TouchWiz 3.0
7-inch TFT LCD with 1024 x 600 resolution (WSVGA)
Weighs 380 grams
1GHz Cortex A8 processor
16GB or 32GB internal storage
microSD expansion for up to 32GB additional storage
Front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera and rear 3 megapixel camera with flash
4,000mAh battery
3G data / voice (there's a speakerphone and Bluetooth for phone calls, but no earpiece)
5GHz dual-band 802.11n WiFi
Standard back color is white, carriers might offer different colors
Full HD video playback
There's a 30-pin dock connector on the bottom that allows for HDMI, USB, and docking accessories (a car dock at least is planned)

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Apple iPad vs Samsung Galaxy Tab

When we talk about touchscreen-only Tablets, the first device that pops up in mind is the iPad. It is an awesome device in many ways, provided that you find some good use for it. When iPad was launched earlier this year, it was pushed as a device to innovate the way we use our computers, just like what iPhone did with smartphones back in 2007.
The popularity and success of iPad naturally spawned many different manufacturers to bring similar devices to market. There was the JooJoo, the now dead HP Slate, Dell Streak and tons of other Android based devices. But none of them could proved to be a serious challenge to Apple’s offering. Samsung recently announced the Galaxy Tab, an Android 2.2 tablet which is getting lots of attention in media for being the only tablet that can give iPad a serious a run for its money.
iPad vs Galaxy Tab

Below is a quick showdown between the two touchscreen-only tablets, showing how the more popular iPad stands against the yet to be released Galaxy Tab.
Galaxy Tab vs iPad

Apple iPhone 4 Vs Samsung Galaxy S

I think I’m going to do something similar to what I did with the iPhone Vs Incredible and list a few categories and give you my personal take. I think you maybe surprised by the results but as always let me know if you think I’m right on or off the mark.
Build and comfort – Draw
Without a doubt the iPhone 4 is the best built smartphone. However as far as comfortable to hold and use not even close to the Galaxy S. The Galaxy S, while being made of high grade plastic instead of a glass composite, feels very comfortable, lighter and solid. When making calls it’s comfortable in your hand while being held-up to your ear and you don’t have to worry about your grip while making a call.
UI – Galaxy S
The iPhone 4 has a wonderful and very basic UI that has attracted a huge number of followers and rightly so but that was then and this is now. It’s time for a choice and that’s where the iPhone misses the target in my opinion. The Galaxy S can be set up with a UI that emulates the iPhone 4 as well as offering a UI that allows you to add widgets to provide on screen information without having to open the application.

Camera – iPhone 4
The 5MP camera on the iPhone 4, in my opinion is superior to the 5MP camera on the Galaxy S. The iPhone 4 camera provided sharper pictures that had better contrast and color creating a more life like image. While both handsets offer 720p video at 30fps I also thought the iPhone 4 offered a better video experience.
Display – Draw
I think this is going to surprise a lot of folks and I will admit the iPhone 4 display is astounding but the color density on the Super AMOLED display is something to see. The viewing angle and screen size make the Galaxy S a winner for me but you can’t discount the quality of the display on the iPhone 4. The pixel density and clarity of the display on the iPhone 4 are amazing no matter what you’re viewing and as you could see in the video it is definitely brighter. I also want to add the 4” display on the Galaxy S makes using the device more enjoyable then the 3.5” display on the iPhone 4.
Web – Galaxy S
This covers a lot of ground including youtube, browsing the web and Wi-Fi. and as you can see in the video the iPhone 4 didn’t start the youtube video and was slower loading web pages. I couldn’t get the iPhone 4 to hold a Wi-Fi signal through the entire video which was 13 minutes so I had to keep re-recording the second half of the video over and over and still the iPhone 4 wouldn’t load and play the youtube video or finishing loading the web page. Maybe the iPhone 4 was having a bad day because it worked a bit better against the Incredible but still slower in loading web pages.
Overall – Galaxy S
Remember all of this is just my personal opinion but I like the feel of the Galaxy S better, responsiveness, operating system and UI better then the iPhone 4. I like having flexibility when setting up my handset and I want to know that my smartphone is going to load web pages and play youtube videos quickly. I did have a problem with the video recording on the Galaxy S and had to turn the phone off and then back on to get it to correct the issue.

Samsung Galaxy S in MALAYSIA

Samsung Galaxy S, the specs and features

ARM Cortex A8 1GHz Processor
Android OS 2.1 (Eclair)
4-inch, 16M colors, Super AMOLED touchscreen display (480×800)
64.2 x 122.4 x 9.9 mm (119 gram)
5MP autofocus front camera
Secondary VGA camera
16GB internal memory, 512MB RAM
microSD memory card slot support up to 32GB
1,500mAh Li-Ion removable battery with up to 13 hours talk time (2G)
Act as remote control for Samsung TV set
Swype text input allows texting without lifting your finger

Price: RM2,599 (RM1,699 with Maxis 12-month contract)

Samsung Galaxy S comes with pre-installed apps such as Aldiko e-book, Layar Reality Browser, ThinkFree, etc. The Aldiko e-book app design looks very similar to Apple iBooks but only supports ePub format.

iPhone 4 Vs Samsung Galaxy S Video Review

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Sketch Faces Online Like Facial Recognition System

You know in movies, witnesses to crimes are asked by the officials to illustrate the faces of law breakers with a facial recognition system. Witnesses describe how the offender looks like and the police will compare selected facial features with images from their facial database. Flashface allows you to do that online D.I.Y style. With comprehensive list of face features like hair, head, eyebrows, glasses, eyes, nose, moustache, mouth, jaw and beard it is possible to illustrate someone’s face almost 100% alike.

This comes in pretty handy when you witness some unethical incidents, not violating the law but still you are not comfortable with the particular person’s act. You can draw them out, email it to friends, blog about it or even save online for future usage. Cool huh.
I’m not really sure who I’ve produced here, but I hope it looks like one of Beatles or Liam of Oasis.

Create Logo Online For Free – LogoEase

In need for an identity but not ready to pay for logo design yet? Try LogoEase. LogoEase is a web service that allows you to create logo for free. Whether you are looking for a business logo, or just intend to create a logo for your blog or personal site, LogoEase got what you need. When you are satisfied, just export your logo in high resolution image format – EPS, PNG, JPG and TIFF.

You are required to sign up an account before you can get started with logo designing. If you have no idea how your logo should look like, check out some pretty good samples other people had come out with.

Password Generator For The Lazy – PasswordFire

Do you have hard time coming out with a password for your online accounts or whatsoever? Passwordfire is the kind of service that help suggest passwords you can use by taking in few keywords (name, word, date) special to you, blend them around and throws you some suggestions. Keep on clicking on the suggestion until you are happy with one good combination.
Passwordfire is probably what I’ll be using if I’m not too keen in using my standard password and too lazy in thinking of a new password. Whether it’s a script generated or self-generted password, just make sure you keep yours private and safe.

ToneBee – Create Your Customized Ringtones Online

Want to have customized ring tones for your cell phone but don’t have the technical knowledge of softwares to do it? No problem. Folks at ToneBee.com makes creation of ring tones fairly easy and you can even do it online. By signing up as member (it’s free), you can then create your own ring tones in 3 steps:

Upload your mp3.
Create ringtones with editing tools.
Save it to phone.

tonebee ToneBee Create Your Customized Ringtones Online

ToneBee ring tone maker runs on credit basis. That means you will have to purchase credits to create your own ring tones. However the site is currently offering free ring tone making for a limited period of them. You will not want to miss this.

Create Mobile Version Of Your Website / Blog With MoFuse

Creating a mobile version of your blog or website is not as hard as we think, at least there is no programming involved. MoFuse helps site owners to create a mobile version of the website within clicks. Creating a mobile site is simple; just sign up, fill up a couple of compulsory text-fields and your mobile site is good to go.

Create Chart Online For Free – ChartGizmo

Do you have figures that you instantly want to make a comparison chart out of it? Try ChartGizmo. ChartGizmo is an online service that generates chart on the fly by talking your input into count. It’s free to use, generating charts are just a sign-up process away.

Generating charts are pretty straight forward. ChartGizmo supports 3 type of charts; bar, pie and line chart. For every chart created, you can also save them as HTML and share with your peers.
Create chart online with chartgizmo.