AlanLok dot Com

Smart phones - they are finally popular in North America!

If you don’t know me, I love my smart phones.  My first smart phone was the Nokia 3650, a Symbian-based smart phone in 2003.  When TV shows and magazine articles started to talk about taking pictures and videos, listening the MP3s on the phone in 2006 (and made it sound like magic), I often question them by saying - what is the big deal, I have been doing it since 2003.

In 2006, most of Eurasia already had 3G high speed access, video calling, and a lot of other cool ideas.  North Americans are sadly lagging in this area due to poor understanding of the technology - perhaps due to resistence to change, our obsession for free handsets, and the extreme high cost of paying an average cellular phone bill. I know because my monthly bill between my three cellular phone lines cost $400.

I think 2009 marks the year of smart phones - we have Apple and RIM to thank for the popularization of these devices (and the push of much needed cheap data plans).  Alan of course have been using smart phones for the past 5 year to see a progression of faster (processor speed/video) and smaller phones, with better cameras.

• 2003 - Nokia 3650
• 2005 - Nokia 6680, 7710 (Yes, I had a touch-screen smart phone in the day)
• 2006 - Nokia N80, E61
• 2007 - Nokia E61i, Blackberry 8830, iPhone 2G, HTC S720
• 2008 - Nokia N81, iPhone 3G, Android G1, Blackberry Storm

A few notable features of the new phones are:

• Applications: most applications in before 2007 were focused on productivity, and almost all of them are not tied to a function of any particular web sites.  Facebook and Google created the demand for applications that serve the purpose of a particular website, which also drived the need for Smart Phone platform standardization and a central application store.
• GPS: I was really hoping for the Assisted GPS (AGPS)/Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT) to take off on the CDMA networks. Unfortunately with the high cost of deployment and the mobile network’s need to realize profits for their AGPS deployment ultimately caused the mobile location space to muture two years late.  AGPS/AFLT have been deployed in North America since 2005 for the purpose of E911, but the providers felt that they need to protect this information for revenues rather than innovation.  I am so glad Nokia, BlackBerry and iPhones have GPS chips built-in so that we can use location-aware applications such as search and navigation
  • Side note: iDEN phones by Motorola were the first phones that incorporated the GPS chip long before AGPS/AFLT, but the network/phones were industry-specific
• Music capability: farewell MP3 players, hello all-in-one phone/MP3 players. I have been enjoying this integration much longer than most typical Canadian/American just because I have been using phones from Eurasia.  I am glad they have merged the two together - now I can identify songs from the radio using Shazam, stream audio from last.fm, listen to MP3 from my 8GB microSDHC card, and take a phone call all without taking out my headset during a bike ride.
• Camera: we still don’t have the crazy 7MP+ cameras with Xenon-flash on our phones like the ones found in Japan or Korea, but with 3MP you can finally do something useful like book cover/barcode recognition. QR codes are finally are reality in North America if the application is pre-installed on the phones.

My take on my latest smart phones?

• Android G1: by far the most pleasant experience that a smartphone can get for configuration/set-up.  Gone are those complex “please insert CD to computer and load a million software” steps. It has been replaced with a simple “please enter your G-mail account info to continue”.  Within 2 minutes of me entering the info, my phone was usable, with my calendar, mail, and contacts all synchronized to my Gmail.  You have to hand it to Google for owning the search, e-mail, profile, and now the phone - it may not be the prettiest, but it is smooth.
• Blackberry Storm: I was surprised at the crisp display and easy to use touch screen.  I love the fact that the screen is a giant button, and to that there is a difference between hovering / pressing on the touchscreen.  The application library is somewhat lacking, and the keyboard is as annoying as the iPhone one, but at least it works.  The rotate function is cute for the first 5 minutes, but it is no longer cute when a small bump can flip you between orientation.
• iPhone 2G/3G: no comment.  It has the coolest application store, and the iPod integration is by far the best media player from any phone platform.
• Nokia: still keeping my options open on the E71, but my E61i has been a reliable workhorse. The os is slow, but it is much more reliable than the rest of the phones out there.

Dealership repair shops… trust them if you like to donate money to the rich! (Re: solution to Passet/A6 2.8 cylinder misfire)

This may sound like a rant, but there’s a silver lining to my tale:

A year ago I experienced a persistent cylinder misfire on my poor 1998 A6 2.8, and so I go to my trusted mechanic friend at a VW dealership and got the advice to buy new spark wires and ignition coils.  In I went, and all the stuff were putted in, the car ran just fine for 8 months.

October came, and car decided to misfire again (the dreaded P300-series error code from the OBD2 readout), but my mechanic friend is no were to be found.  As my luck ran out (ie. the dealership closed down), I resorted to the evil act of bringing my beast to the Audi dealership for an official diagnostic.  November came, and I dropped my car off at the Agincourt Autohaus dealership - the reset the error codes from the computer and declared the car worthy of driving.  This was in fact the biggest mistake I have ever made!

December came, and as I return from the company Christmas party, the car finally smoked and gave out at the intersection of 16th Avenue and Woodbine Avenue on a cold Friday evening, I desperately called everyone from my family to the Audi dealership to figure out what I needed to do.  First thing in my to-do list is to call a towing company to get this car OFF the busy intersection.  Audi is nice to include a hazard sign in the trunk so that the oncoming traffic can safely ignore the sign and honk at a car that is smoking…  6 towing companies later, and Cardinal Towing came to my rescue promptly and professionally.  At least my towing experience has been extremely pleasant.

Now, you must think by towing your car to an Audi dealership (this time, Uptown Audi) with a real problem, they would know what to do right?  Wrong!  Once again, they misdiagnose the car and said I had burnt spark plug wire, and that my problem with the misfiring cylinders were to replace the spark plug wires, plugs, and clean the injectors and throttle body.  $1300 later, I said to myself, they know what they are doing - I dropped the car when it was completely dead so they MUST be able to find the problem.  Sadly, within 12 hours of getting the car back (and with only 15 km added to the odometer), the misfire returned.  Brought the car back, and this time I got a quote for $4800 to replace two catalytic convertors, 4 oxygen sensors and 6 exhaust nuts.

Any reasonable person would rationalize - why would you want to throw in so much money to a used and old car?  On the other hand, if I don’t repair the car, I can’t extract the other 50% of the value of the car (no one would buy the car in the current condition).  Out of desperation, we found our old mechanic friend who suggested another person who may be able to save us - but only in January , which brings us to our interesting conclusion to this post.

January 3rd came, and car went into the shop for the catalytic converter replacement - we were told (and have seen) the old part would have burnt up the car if we didn’t repair it.  What we didn’t do was to tell the mechanic about the history of the car and why we are doing these repairs, and so another 200km later, the symtons returned.  I call the mechanic to ask him to conduct a thorough diagnostic on the car, and turns out the ignition coils were defective again.  What made me more mad was that if Agincourt Autohaus properly diagnosed the car intially, we would spend $550 on the repair ($327.30 for the ignition coils at VW/Audi dealer, 1 hour install and standard $95 diagnostic fee) rather than the $2800 catalytic convertor replacement.

The moral of the story:

1. Don’t trust Audi dealers, they are crooks.  In general, don’t trust the dealers unless you know the mechanic personally.
2. Don’t allow dealers to tell you want you need to repair until you see the damage.  Our desperation in getting a working car caused us a lot of money.  Dealers are evil.  (Unfortunately, most repair shops are evil too, so I you just better do a lot of research on the net)
3. Trust your instinct - if the car reports a cylinder misfire - triple-check all of the ignition electronics (ignition coils, spark plug and wires) and replace the part if suspect.  Our lack of trust (and assumption that 1-year old part cannot be defective) caused a much bigger repair bill than needed. Audi A6 2.8 / VW Passat 2.8 ignition coils tend to get destroyed quickly for some reason.
4. Genuine VW/Audi parts are actually better and more reliable.
5. Lastly, don’t trust the dealers.  They are evil, very evil.  I know, I said it before.

Rogers making money from user typing mistakes (aka breaking DNS behaviour). Shame on you!

If you are a Rogers customer, you might have noticed in the past day that when you typed in a wrong website URL (or any domain name), it claims the site exists and gives you Rogers-Yahoo sponsored advertising.  See an example here:

http://this-domain-does-not-exist.ever

Brings you to:

http://www20.search.rogers.com/search?qo=this-domain-does-not-exist.ever&rn=X-AtJja2sy6ndMo

Shame on you Rogers! Breaking RFC and annoy your customers all at the same time.

Afro-centric School in Toronto? A giant step back in equality.

The idea of having a Afro-Centric high school being built in Toronto absolutely scares me. I know they have schools for the LGBT community because they are vulnerable, but an afro-centric school? Are we going to now run chinese-centric school because they learn better, or indian-centric school because of the need to accommodate their religion? We live in a multicultural society - not only are we learning how to tolerate each other for who/what they are, but learning to embrace and enrich each other’s live experiences for their cultural diversity. Running special assemblies, creating special credit courses, or having special groups to help cultures in trouble fitting into the school system is the correct way to deal with any issues students are running into. Running a culture-centric school is no better than what happen in USA 40 years ago!

We can’t regress on all the work we have done so far to bring diversity to Canada! Diversity is something we learn by growing up with our friends.

AskMeNow? The deceptive service that charges

As part of being in the mobile local industry, I get press releases for new and innovative service that has just launched.  With my new “unlimited” text messaging bundle, I decide to try the service from AskMeNow.com (short code 27563).  My welcome message from them was:

For AskMeNow Help goto askmenow.com or 888-EZ-ASKME. Txt STOP to end. The service is provided at no charge but carrier fees will apply.

Yes, 3 messages and $3.75 of premium messages later, I called Rogers to figure out what the heck is this.  I ask them to revert the message, but I really wish they can charge back text message to the origin to ensure SMS applications owners take responsibility to communicate charges to the user, or else face public humiliation. 

TomTom - not quite ready for Vancouver

As I was trying desperately to make it to dinner on time in Vancouver, I turned on my trusty TomTom GO 910 and plotted my way to Banana Leaf restaurant….

First mistake - not listen to my co-worker when he said it’s at 3005 W Broadway in Kitsiliano.  That was 5:55pm.

Second mistake - allowing TomTom to use its point of interest list to send me to the 850 W Broadway. At this point, I have already parked my car, paid $4 worth of parking to find out I went to the WRONG restaurant. Timecheck: 6:30pm

Third mistake - allowing TomTom to guide me to 3005 W Broadway in Kitsiliano!  In TomTom’s brilliance, it decided that 3005 W Broadway = 3005 Broadway = 3005 Broadway E.  That’s about 6000 house numbers away from the restaurant, and about 2 minute from the Burnaby office (that I originated from).  Frustrated and mad, I check the clock, 6:55pm.  I reluctuntly called my collegue at the restaurant, embrassed, and said I will pick them up at the restaurant to the hotel instead of eating with them.

Finally… punching 3005 Broadway E. in Kitsiliano took me to the restaurant I wanted.  Timecheck: 7:40pm.  Did I bother to pay for parking until 8pm?  Nope… nor did I care enough to do so.

Lesson of the day - trust your instinct and your friends while driving in Vancouver.  Unlike the commercial, I am not going to ask “TomTom, where’s W Broadway” again!

(TomTom will be getting a nasto-gram from me very very soon…  this isn’t the first bad direction I got)

There should be a fine against parents buying kids Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

During Christmas time, Jana and I decided to buy PlayStation 2 just so we can play Guitar Hero 2.  Of course I bought it for more than just that reason - I love the Final Fantasy series!  I decided to go to the not-so-local (and super busy) EB Games at Yorkdale last Sunday to pick up Final Fantasy X.  In my long line-up, there was a kid - probably 12 to 14 years old, with her mother, lining up to buy Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

For those who don’t know what GTA:SA is, this game is the only game rated Adults Only by the ESRB rating, and apparently retailers will get fine $5,000 for selling adults only game to a minor.  So of course when the kid ask for the game and pay for it, the first salesperson warns the parents that this is for adults only and inform them of the possible game play (have sex with hookers to get money).  The mom wanted more clarification, so the second salesperson comes and first read the back of the ESRB warning to the mom, then proceeds to tell her the more explicit details.  Remember - there are at least 10 people lining up to pay for items, plus another 20 people in this crammed store, listening to the events unfolding!  The mom caved to the kid’s wishes and bought the game anyway!

I am sorry - there should be a law against irresponsible parents buying violent, adult video game for kids.  As if we don’t have enough shootings out there, we now have to contend with kids wanting sex with hookers and stealing cars before the age of 16?!  While I am not here to pass judgement on the mom who decided to expose the kid to this kind of video game, but if we fine the retailers for selling the game, smokes, or porn to kids under 18, the parents should be fined for explicitly allowing the kid to play the game, knowing full well the consequences of his/her actions.

 

Of LCDs, Plasmas and Projections

Over the past few months, I have a few people asking me about what is better - LCD, Plasma or Projection TV of any sort.  Here’s my take:

• I hate rear projection TVs - it’s prone to alignment problems (even today), viewing angles, and richness in colour.  Though I have to admit the new 3 LCD technology such as the JVC DLA and the Sony SRXD is making this problem go away.  I will get to DLP in a few secs.
• Front projection - I remember calling them the 3-eye monster!  It’s not so bad if it doesn’t generate so much noise and have a light bulb replacement cost associated.
• LCD TVs - it used to be expensive, now it’s cheap but depends on the brand and resolution.  I got lucky to have purchased an Acer AT3705-DTV TV which doubles as my giant monitor.  All LCD TVs in my opinion should have VGA, DVI-HDCP, HDMI, and of course the standard component and composite inputs.  DTV/CableCard is not in Canada yet, so complaint to your local MP/CRTC rep get Canada in the digital TV age.
• Plasma - aren’t they so pretty?  They were great when they came out, since LCD screens were so expensive to manufacture.  Now?  The only difference is the richness of the colour and viewing angle - even then it’s not so significant.  You will be able to buy a bigger Plasma panel cheaper than LCD panel due to the different manufacturing methods - at least for the next year.

Here’s what I think of DLP - thanks Texas Instrument for creating the underlying technology, Digital Micromirror Device, but why the colour wheel?  I guess back then it was too expensive to put 3 DMD chips in a single projector and have it combined through a prism.   Did economy of scale get in the way of innovation?  DMD is a much better technology for light transmission (since it’s reflective and not translucent), and no visible refresh since each pixel is a micromirror - it’s your ultimate no-ghosting image system.  Having the colour wheel spinning at 180 times per second is just anonying, since I can see the vertical bars when I move my head side-to-side while looking at a DLP projected image.

Fido is losing money on me / Sierra Wireless AC860 on Vista!

Along with my Windows Vista installation, I have managed to hack the Sierra Wireless AC860 card into my spanking new laptop.  I have spent this entire weekend (ok, not quite the weekend, but I need the literary flair) re-installing Vista, and after trial and error got the wireless card running on the machine.

There’s a secret with this wireless card - the 3G watcher isn’t 100% compatible with Vista.  The folks at Sierra Wirelsss posted a knowledge base article that walks you through how to install the 3G connection as a Dial-Up Connection (DUN). This is what I would have done if I had a 1900/850 HSDPA phone. After this step, launch the 3G Watcher, select the DUN connection and watch it fly!

Hence my post - Fido is losing money on me.  I just racked up 30MB of transfers in under 5 minutes.  Imagine - even at $0.01/kb at pay-per-use, my bill would have been $300!  Too bad for unlimited North American roaming - it’s just $50/month for the kind of abuse I’ll be putting this guy through.  Even if Fido capped the speed to 48KB/sec (as compare to Rogers’ 150KB), the latency is so much lower than EDGE.  We can definitely proclaim that Canada (Toronto) has a real metro-wide wireless Internet network!

What happened to the old AlanLok dot Com?

This is my first post in my brand new blog.  Most visitors are probably wondering where everything went?  All my photos are offline, along with my original biography and MIDI music.  Rest assured, it will be restored when I get a chance to fit the old with the new.

You will be hearing a lot more from me, as I venture into my daily raves and rants about all those toys (get your mind out of the gutter folks… those who know me should realize by now I mean TECH toys).  Of course that’s not the only thing I’ll be writing about.