Nokia N900 Cracked

I have been looking forward to upgrading my mobile phone for a while but have been putting it off for the simple reason that my old Nokia N900 was still doing a great job. It has survived several falls and tumbles and even an dip in the bath. However, soon after we moved back to Malaysia, it slipped off my hands and fell flat on it's face. The result:

This is my second phone with a cracked screen. I still have a Samsung Galaxy Note with a cracked screen. This proves that these phones with super tough screens will still break (Check out the various new iPhone 6 drop tests on YouTube) when they fall face down and phone cover designers need to somehow keep this in mind. They should somehow incorporate designs which prevent the phones from falling flat on their screens. Ayyway, I have learnt my lesson and will invest on thick covers with screen protectors next time though it will be a pain to answer and make calls every time.

Fortunately, in the meantime I still have my old trusty Samsung Galaxy S2. It still works perfectly but I need to get a new micro SD card so I can load up all the apps I use regularly.

Rubbish Barbie branded toys

Like a lot of girls her age, my daughter used to love Barbie dolls. However, she seems to have lost interest in playing with them and I can think of a possible reason - Barbie branded electronic toys.

The first Brabie branded electronic toy I bought her were a pair of pink Barbie Walkie talkies. She was really excited and she enjoyed playing with it You had to imagine what the other person was saying as you could hardly hear them over the static and I guess the novelty wore off and it ened up among the old pile of toys.

However, what really made her angry was a Barbie camera which I bought for her last birthday. She choose it from the Argos catalogue and it was not cheap - it cost around £30 and was bright pink (what else). She was happily taking pictures of everybody, her cake and presents.

Imagine her disgust when we downloaded the images next day and found out that the pictures were really awful. The resolution of the camera was really bad and pictures were dark and grainy. She was really disappointed and told me that she didn't want to buy any Barbie products ever again.

One of the better images taken - a close up of my face by my daughter.

I know it's a toy and I was not expecting HD quality images but at that price, I was expecting something better. In fact you can buy 7MP digital cameras for less than £25 and older digital cameras for less than a tenner on eBay if you are lucky.

My advice: stay away from Barbie branded electronic toys - just a waste of money. And I have nothing to say to toy makers who think kids are stupid.

No link exchange requests please

I no longer accept link exchanges on my blog.

Almost all of these blogs that want to exchange links to me either have low Google Page rank and are anonymous, and impersonal blogs that lack a personality.

Initially I used to accept all and any kind of link requests regardless of whether their sites had a high Google PR or not. Some of these guys got a nice link from my side bar but I then found that my link back from them would be buried in some Godforsaken page deep within the website.

I also had some who promised me that my link "would be there indefinitely as long as our link was not removed". I go back a few months later and find that the entire link page has disappeared.

So I have finally decided that I am not going to exchange links any more. I will just link to blogs I like and of course, I do accept text link ads.

My experience with the 3 network and my new Samsung Galaxy Portal

My contract with the 3 network ended yesterday. I have been a loyal customer for more than 2 years now ever since I first trialled the 3 Skypephone and had been looking forward to getting a new smart phone.

A few weeks back, I received a call from one of their salespeople who tired to get me sign up for a new contract with a refurbished phone for 2 years. I might have been interested had the models on offer been new ones or if they had been cheaper. However, I realised that I could get newer models at the same price and I rejected his offer.

I was really excited when I visited their website and saw that they were offering the Nokia X6 on the Internet Talker 100 plan for just £14 pm. Both my wife and I have decided to reduce our expenses on mobile phones and we had set the limit of just £15 pm. I had been paying around £19 per month before this.

However, I found out that I could not automatically upgrade online. So I called up their customer service. Imagine my shock when I found out that the online offers were only for new customers. Old customers would have to pay the normal store prices, for example £16 for the Nokia X6 on the Internet Talker 100 plan. I could take advantage of their very attractive online offer (which runs till the end of this month) but it would mean losing my mobile number which would be a big hassle.

I had hoped that as a loyal customer I would be eligible for a discount or something. I had introduced so many of my friends and family members to the 3 network as well but apparently loyalty counts for nothing on the 3 network.

I talked to a number of their customer service people but they were simply not willing to compromise. In the end, I was so annoyed with them that I decided to change network and even took the PAC code.

Today I am almost ashamed to say that I had to swallow my pride and went back to them. I renewed my contract in their store in Coventry city centre today.

I have to admit, 3 has the best deals for mobile phones among all the providers in the UK. Even at £16 for the X6, they are still the cheapest. The free Skpye and Twitter is an added attraction. However, the biggest reason I had to go back to them was due to the fact that my wife had renewed her contract with them yesterday. I could still go but that would mean extra expenditure to call each other across networks. This is what my wife refers to as switching costs. It doesn't mean that I am satisfied with their service or loyalty but simply that the cost of moving is too high. So I didn't get any reduction in my rates, no gifts, no rewards, nothing for being a loyal customer.

So here is my new phone: The Samsung Galaxy Portal GT-I5700. I got it for £14 pm month on the Internet talker 100 plan. This is my first ever Samsung phone and I am hoping that I won't be disappointed with this phone.

Look out for a full review of the Samsung Galaxy Portal soon.

O2 broadband sucks

Update: Read my latest post "O2 broadband finally comes through"

Warning: Rant ahead

It's been almost 7 months since I wrote "Moving from Talk Talk to O2 broadband" and we finally got connected via O2 broadband in July last year.Read my O2 broadband review.

I have since then regretted moving from Talk Talk. We were unhappy with Talk Talk's low connection speeds but we later found out that O2 is far worse. Talk Talk's connection did get better in the end but by then we had already decided to jump ship to O2.

We moved to O2 because of the good customer reviews and I have no idea who these idiots were. Now we are paying more for a lousy service.

Download speeds are no where near the promised 8 mps ( though they did mention that it is subject to location). We are still stuck with download speeds of around 4mps and upload speeds lower than 1mps (worse than Talk Talk) and get cut off all the time. I can't even have a decent conversation on Skype anymore.

They boast that their customer service staff are all based in the UK and calls are free.  

Who cares!

I don't mind if the customer staff is somewhere in India or Timbuktu as long as they solve my problems. Called the O2 technical support twice - the latest was last Saturday. After being on line with 2 different guys for nearly 45 minutes they couldn't solve anything and said that they will have the line analyst have a look at our line. They promised to call back within 24 hours and I am still waiting.

So far I have tried 3 broadband service providers in the UK - AOL, Talk Talk and now O2 and none of them have delivered what they promised. Forget about customer satisfaction.

To say I am unhappy with O2's service would be an understatement. Can't wait for our contract to end and jump to another broadband service provider but the question is "which one?" I don't know if the problem is poorly managed servers or just poor management in general, but I cannot wait until this nightmare is over.

New advertising policy

I offer different types of advertising on my blog, namely:

1. Text link ad on the side bar - A key word with link to a desired url
2. Button ad (125 X125) on the side bar linked to a desired url
3. Paid reviews (minimum 100 words or more).

The first two types of ads are usually for a duration of one year while the paid review will remain on my blog as long as the advertiser want them to and as a result will cost more.

A number of advertisers have showed an interest in advertising on my blog and I have had good business relationships with a few.

However, some advertisers have left a bad taste in my mouth. As a show of good faith, I used to put up links even before I received payment. Now I have to change that policy because of a couple of guys. Some guys didn't pay after I had put up the ads and the worst part is that they didn't even respond to my email queries.

All you have to say is that you have changed your mind and I will just remove the ads. But to keep quiet after the agreements and the ads have been put up is completely wrong, unprofessional and unethical. Many of these are so called "SEO companies" representing big clients. I am drawing up a list of these black sheep and might post them up here in the future.

From now on, I will be following a policy of payment first, ads later.

First Commentator
Kai Lo

Bad buy on eBay

I have been able to grab a number of bargains on eBay and I thought that this Binatone MR620 Quad Two Way Radio, was one of them.

The batteries were dead when I got the walkie talkie and left them on the charger units to recharge overnight. Woke up in the morning and it seemed to be working fine when one of them died off after about a minute.



Naturally, I was really pissed off and left a neutral feedback on the seller's profile (I should have left a negative). The seller contacted me much later and she said that he/she would be willing to give me a refund. However, that was the last I heard from "ohhelsbels".

Tried contacting Binatone - no replies from their customer service.
Tried contacting a rechargeable battery reseller - no reply. I guess they don't have batteries for the particular model.

I sometimes wonder what the hell's wrong with businesses in this country. No wonder they are going bankrupt one by one.

Now I am stuck with a pair of useless gadgets. I plan to get a replacement rechargeable battery when I go back to Malaysia next time. Some of my friends has assured me that I can find a replacement battery for any gadget back in Kuala Lumpur.

There are a number of great personal license-free two-way radios in the market with an average range of up to 3km (some like the MOTOTLKR T5 walkie talkie has a range of upto 6km²).

Of course you may wonder why we need a 2 way radio in this age of mobile phones.

You should be aware that some place don't have mobile phone reception. Plus, there's no monthly bills to worry about and no contract either.

Rubbish TomTom maps

Among the gadgets I have, one of the most useful is undoubtedly the TomTom One sat nav. However, both the maps I have were way outdated. I realised the need for updating my map after driving in London a couple of time. The TomTom would tell me to drive into one way streets, lead me into dead end roads and tell me I was speeding when I was only doing 45mph on 50 mph roads.

So I finally downloaded the latest version of the Map of Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland v_8.15 for £29.95. Was quite happy until I discovered that a number of post codes were missing. I normally use post codes to get to a destination and on 3 separate occasions, including our recent shopping trip to Stoke-on-Trent, the post codes were missing from the map.

This really pisses me off. Updated maps are supposed to have more information, not remove them. Day before yesterday, it happened again. We had to go to Birmingham to collect some stuff but the TomTom didn't recognise the post code of the location. Fortunately, I was able to find it on my old Europe map after switching maps.

That's totally rubbish.

Am I the victim of an evil eye

I was discussing the possible reasons behind my recent downgrade in my Google PR rankings and one of my knowledgeable friends suggested that someone might have "notified" Google about the presence of sponsored posts in my blog. Now, this is just an assumption but not entirely impossible.

Before you think that I am suffering from any Paranoid Behavior, let me explain.

I had people asking me how much I charge for reviews on my blogs and never replying back after I gave them quotes. And no I don't charge that much. Definitely not $400/ per review like John Chow charges.

Moreover, today I discovered that I had 255 bans on PayPerPost.com. When I went to view the bans, I noticed that all but one of the bans was made on 17 of January 2008, "Per Advertiser Request", presumably by a single advertiser. Now I am left wondering who this advertiser is and what problem he/she has with me. The problem is that In case you are not aware, Bans will negatively affect your overall rating. Before this I had an overall tack rating of 5 tacks. It has now been reduced to 4 tacks.

I have left a ticket with the Izea people and looking forward to what they have to say.

Google PR updates are still on

Just a few days back, I noticed that the Page Rank on my both my ah ok lah blog as well as this blog was down to 0. I didn't think much about it as it had happened before - where my blog' PR had gone to 0 and back up again.

Apparently, this is not some short term thing as my blogs are still showing a big 0 PR. It's clear that the Google updates are not over and in fact may signify that it's an ongoing process unlike in the past where they updated the PR and we had to wait a few more months until the next.

In case you are wondering about my reaction... I have to say initially I was really really upset. I seriously considered boycotting them. Moving all my blogs to my own host, removing Google as the default search engine on my browser, removing adsense ads from all my blogs - I earn peanuts from it anyway and discouraging everyone I know from using their products.

Why do I feel like this?

Mainly because I feel betrayed. Like how can they do this to me? Unlike some bloggers I know (online), I don't earn thousand of dollars from my blogs. Then there is the fact that I have always been a Goggle supporter, this was even before I started blogging (in 2003) and I have introduced hundreds of my students if not thousands, to the search engine (when it was still a search engine) and their email service. Talking about their email service - it was what actually makes it quite hard to boycott them. I love Gmail and sacrificing my email account might be an extreme move and to my great disadvantage.

It was my wife who brought me down to Earth, like she does most of the time. She asked me why I was so worked up about, "it's only PR".

One thing she said really made me think: "Do you blog because you love blogging or because of the stupid PR?"

To think about it, I never really cared about PR. I simply blog because I love blogging - sharing my ideas and thoughts. I became obsessed with PR only after I started blogging commercially in December 2006.

I am still pissed off but I am not boycotting Google.

Don't ask for link exchange

...if you are going to:

1. put the link on some page other than the home page of your blog,

2. hide the link using some fancy Javascript/ any code, or

3. delete the link after a few days or weeks.

...especially #3.

Was really annoyed when I found that a few guys go around asking other bloggers for a link exchange. They then put up the link. Everyone happy.

They then delete the link after a few days or weeks.

What they don't realise is that bloggers do click the links on their own blogs too.

Some people are really selfish.