Monthly Archives: June 2008

Rant, Technology

The Second Coming of the Jesus Phone – 7/11/2008 – 3G iPhone

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With the summer here, all your big and essential technology shows are abound. You have the Computex show out in Taiwan being the big one for computer hardware and E3 for the gaming folks. However, if you’re an Apple fanatic, WWDC is the most noteworthy to you. This year has been no slouch either. If you are a big phone fanatic like yours-truly, then obviously you know that this year’s WWDC has the second revision on Apple’s new “killer handheld”, the 3G iPhone.

iPhone Announcement

For some, this is the boat that a number of frustrated Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Nokia S60 users have been waiting for. The inclusion of 3G cellular baseband chips, A-GPS functionality, and a few more things are just a few of the things that many iPhone naysayers and bashers had picked on the first iteration iPhone. This announcement has not shaken down some of the other competitors just yet, as far as I know. I have not seen any price breaks from manufacturers like HTC et al from the WWDC announcement, but then again, it may not matter to them because they may have a pocket ace up their sleeve thay may not be known to the masses yet. (The Touch Diamond is rather prohibitive at $700+ at the moment, eh? – Zero)

iPhone Profile Shots

Notice this time that there’s a curvature to the back of the iPhone, much like a Palm Treo. The device comes in two colors, black and white. The colors signify the device’s storage capacity: black being an 8GB and white being 16GB. This also signifies a change in how the device is built. The aluminum back of the first iPhone is a thing of the past, the back of the 3G iPhone is plastic. Some fans on the web have speculated the curvature and plastic back are more to accomodate the fun new additions of circuitry inside the phone.

The new iPhone boasts that it will be using the new 2.0 software improving the user experience with features such as a customizable Home Screen, the App Store, a Map App that can use BOTH A-GPS and cell tower and/or wi-fi hotspots to triangulate data. For those enterprising corporate users who are jonesing for a tricked out phone but were sadly disappointed in the lack of support for Microsoft Exchange server for their jobs, the new rendition of the iPhone has added support for syncing up to Microsoft Exchange servers. Early or late first generation iPhone owners can still get in on the some of these features with the new iPhone 2.0 software update, so they are not quite left out in the cold.

If you want to behold more of the features about the iPhone, check out the Official Apple iPhone page (Link)! Need more visual porn? Check out the new iPhone gallery link here.

“What about the pricing information? How bad will AT&T rape me for service?” are probably the next questions for curious 3G iPhone buyers seeing to get their hands one one and possibly escape their old provider. Let’s break into the leaked confidential bulletin posted up by Boy Genius Report and find out, shall we?

Before we pick through the plans… Let me make this one point from the confidential bulletin loud and clear for you curious readers: In America, there is no way to buy the 3G iPhone without committing to AT&T and GoPhone customers are not permitted to buy them for GoPhone use either. I repeat, you cannot just buy an iPhone without a plan even in the Apple Stores. In other countries, you may be able to purchase an unlocked iPhone due to anti-competition agreements, but not much information is known on that. The caveat for the American market is that due to this closer partnership between AT&T and Apple is that now AT&T can finally subsidize the iPhone to an entry price of $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model. A very gutsy move as this puts the iPhone right at the same price points as AT&T’s corporate communicator market. HTC, Pantech, Palm, and RIM Blackberry devices be damned, AT&T basically created an internal smartphone war within their ranks! This has me curious as to how RIM, Palm,and HTC will play their cards in America, but that’s another discussion… 😉 for later this week.

Let’s go over the major points quoted from the Boy Genius Report post:

  • iPhone 3G will be activated at point of sale when the device is purchased in store.
  • Return period has been changed from 14 days to 30 days
  • $199 and $299 pricing is for new activations or qualified upgrades with a 2-year agreement
  • 2G iPhone data rate plans will remain available for 2G device suntil further notice
  • The new iPhone 3G data plan is $30/month and includes unlimited data and visual voicemail
  • There is not a no commitment price. This means you can’t just walk in and bang $500 on your credit card and walk out.
  • If you are an existing iPhone customer in good standing, you will be able to extend your contract for two years when the iPhone 3G launches and get the ill-na-na $199/$299 price point. Doesn’t matter when you bought an iPhone either.
  • AT&T and Apple stores “unbrick” the iPhone 3G at time of purchase, but for some reason if that doesn’t happen, you’ll be required to use iTunes at home.
  • Pre-paid and Pick Your Plan will not be allowed on iPhone 3G
  • Device purchase limit remains at (3) per customer in AT&T stores.
  • Launch day will mirror last year’s launch. This includes extended store hours, crowd controls, etc. Security will be provided to stores requesting armed police or guards.
  • AT&T is working with Apple to roll out GPS-enabled applications.

One of the first things I noticed as a definite step to progress is the in-store activation. I had read a few accounts online about some people having trouble with doing the activation at home due to the servers timing out and having to activate their phones a few days after purchasing an iPhone. This ensures that end users will have a working phone on purchase instead of angry users griping that their new toy is useless until the server can activate their device.

The purchase of an iPhone will require an iPhone data plan. The unlimited personal plan starts at $30 with any qualifying voice plan, however if you need to link with corporate e-mail accounts… you’ll need to front $45 per month for the enterprise data plan. My assumption is that a “qualifying” voice plan is a plan that is priced at least $39.99 and has 600 anytime minutes. As far as the press release from AT&T goes, there’s no mention if the unlimited iPhone data plans will include any text messaging… but that could change come July 11, 2008. As far as AT&T’s texting plans go, that could range from $14.99 – $19.99. So about $30 (estimated) for the lowest qualifying voice plan, $30 for the unlimited personal e-mail, web and visual voicemail package, and then $15 for the texting plan. A rough grand total of $75 before miscellaneous taxes and service charges would be due on the billing date; possibly around $80 – $82 after those charges. That’s decently competitive to an individual corporate user with a smartphone or Blackberry configured in the same manner. This combined with the subsidized price of the iPhone actually gives AT&T some leg room to fight. If they combine texting with different tiering of iPhone data packages, like the unlimited personal data plan being able to also get unlimited texting for a total of $80 before taxes, this may give providers like T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon more incentive to step up to the plate and really be creative.

Tune in tomorrow when I’ll play Devil’s Advocate and spin my thoughts from the anti-iPhone camp from the eyes of the T-Mobile/Sprint/Verizon/HTC/Palm/RIM side of things. This will actually be a 3-part series of things. The floor is now open to any pro-iPhone comments. If you have hate or bones to pick with the iPhone, save your energy for tomorrow.

Personal

MMO’s are one hell of a drug…

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Where do I begin…

I remember living the alone life and watching my life depressively fall apart. I was the low man on the totem pole at the office. My course-work was a shining example of a guy who had too many things to worry about and school could hit the back-burner. I will admit that I had a bad problem with alcohol addiction and only because I lacked supportive and close friends to break me from the slump. I only found one outlet for my loneliness and that was through online gaming. Sure, I was drunk most of the time I played, but for the few hours of my evening… I could be a character who was kind and sympathetic to other travellers of a fantasy world with mythical beasts and denizens. However… with how much computer gaming has changed with the years, my gaming computer can’t even barely play Guild Wars anymore. My laptop had a shot with the game, but the graphics chips just couldn’t handle splitting processor power to display the game and processing the game data at the same time. I have had to take a forceful retirement of gaming all because of dated hardware.

With my status change to an “eligible bachelor in training” (quoted from my boss) and with my reputation in Dallas being a tad tarnished… It’s been a little hard to try to do damage control to re-establish myself as a reputable person. With friends in summer school and some of my distant friends unable to take vacations to Dallas, I have been at a rather odd loss to going to the bars and wine parlors to only drink alone or watch my attempts to strike conversation only go so far. Then there are days where misery makes me yearn to put my time into a game… but I have lost my gaming consoles save for my PSP and DS and I lack funding for the new generation systems as well as a TV. I lack a digital SLR camera to fuel my hobby of macro photography.

Sad to say… I almost want another gaming computer. I know that there’s college for me around the corner… Lots of laptops on the retail market at the entry prices of $600 have GeForce 8000M series or ATi Mobility Radeon cards with supple processing power and RAM to boot. Not that I have anything against my loyal Linux laptop Suzaku, but booting into Windows bogs down the poor 1.73gHz Centrino from doing its job and I am damn near close to scrapping that partition… In essence, I’d rather have a dedicated Windows machine for gaming, Windows Mobile phone back-ups/hacking/modification, and proprietary academic programs that do not play nice in Wine or Virtual Box. I almost want to fork out the cash for a modest machine to play an FPS game, Guild Wars or even, dare I say, World of WarCraft. I have hated the cabin fever of staying in with nothing to do and even more so that my machine is so limited and my old gaming tower is damn near useless.

I guess ultimately what I am saying is… LOL! When friends turn me down to go out on the town to enjoy the night life over a pleasant drink and maybe dinner… I’d like to have an alternate plan to bask in the greatness of MMO’s and maybe feed my gamer side when no one online feels the need to talk to me. (I can assure you that I would not be neglecting ZeroXR 13mg in any form of fashion.)

I think I know what my next purchases will be, should I be able to hobble up my expenses… a new Windows laptop for strict use that minimize it from being a full time machine and a Canon Digital Rebel XSi with a 4 or 8GB high speed SD card as items celebrating my liberation from debts. I have just a little more to go before I am free from the biggest financial bondage… To be free of personal debts is something that I am so very close to concluding. I cannot thank my family enough for giving my that one chance to prove my filial worth as as son and to start over as an upstanding man in society.

Personal, Rant

[Editorial] Empowering Debilitating Words

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A while back… My dear friend dare2dreamer had told me quite the interesting anecdote that involved the skill-toy folks. The tale was quite interesting and I thought the resolution that came to it was quite good!

One of my friends had posted a video of his demos online and some egotistical fellow out in New York basically slammed him for his demo. This person went as far as picking out “flaws” in my friend’s demo and even went as far as calling him “mediocre” and his skills “amateur”. Of course, this bothered my friend… however, the guy out in New York claimed he was doing skill-toy stuff on a professional level and made claims that the mediocre skills would not be taken seriously. I decided to pick apart the “professionals” use of the word “mediocre” and decided to re-spin it as a positive. We were joking around and going “I’m mediocre!” with enthusiasm. In essence, we turned the word mediocre from meaning “ordinary” to “awesome”. We may even go as far as making t-shirts just for kicks and have my friend do another demo video of his skills with the t-shirt. In all seriousness, it should have never gone this far.

With regard to this uplifting tale, I can see how we as humans can let debilitating testimony get us down. I know with personal experience that I have let too many trample on me just for the sake of their own glory to just simply gloat “I am better/faster/stronger/[insert misc adj. here] than you.” I have been spinning attacks made on me to a better light, because honestly… what’s the point of getting disturbed with pathetic and cheap-shot attacks? The next time you encounter someone taking a cheap shot at you by saying something that is derogatory… Turn it into something much better!

After all… We’re all mediocre! 😀

Edit: Get your “Mediocre” and “Am I Mediocre Yet” Apparel below!

“Am I Mediocre Yet?” Shop
“Mediocre” Shop

Personal

The Journey East: Unlocking Limits at A&M Commerce

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Well… It was a fun journey. Sol and I had arisen from our sleep at about 5:50am yesterday to go east. We both couldn’t really sleep from how we both have messed up our sleep cycles. The first stop of course was to 7-11 for early morning refreshment and food. I had my 710mL can of Monster Lo-Carb with a croissant while Sol got a English muffin with a can of Rockstar Light Vanilla. After we scarfed down our food and all… The GPS from my phone got a lock on the location and directional data… We proceeded onward!

I will admit that 380 from Mckinney through all the way up to Greenville is horrible boring. Lots of boring roads and a whole lot of nothing. There was the lake, but I quote Sol on this one:

“What the hell dude… It looks murky and with the branches sticking out of the waters… it looks almost like a marsh!” – Sol

We did however see lots of fireworks shops setting up their booths and trailers for the upcoming event of the Forth of July, sadly none were open… $3 artillery shells does sound awful tasty in retrospect. On jumping off of 380 to I30, we saw probably one of the greatest “1337” sights ever however the worst crime of it all was we were too damn far to take a damn picture. There was an Asian grill called………. Ninja Grill. For this infraction, I will post the address here for those who want to either pass by it, dine there, or phone them up:

Ninja Grill
1218 I 30
Greenville, TX 75402
903-454-0102

Running I30 to 50 was another boring stretch of road again… but then again… so was running 50 until I finally was reunited with the “Welcome to Commerce” sign and the sight of Whitley Hall (my dormatory). This time around, the campus was rather busy with summer students living off campus and attending classes for the summer time. I would seek out the Agricultural Technologies building for the Arts and Sciences advisor to unlock my holds and sign up for classes. The surprising thing to find was the fact that I am basically a little more than half way done with my education. Take into consideration that I had been side tracked for almost 4 years and even quit school for nearly 2 years, that’s really impressive. I was eligible for an astounding 19 hours, but I decided to take a modest 14 hours just to keep things tolerable and try to merge in work. I will definitely have to see how my employment will work… because I know for a fact that I will have to seek some employment to finish the last of my car note.

I also managed to talk to my housing committee about my meal arrangements and reduced my plan to a lower scale one factoring that I will be completely on campus 4 days out of 7 days a week as well as buying bulk snacks and supplies. On top of that, most of the construction has finished compared to when I was at Commerce in January so I was able to take a look at the mess hall and Mane Card Office. I ended up getting my ID made so I could have it then and there rather than wait in a line to get it.

Other than that… The dates are settled. August 20 I am extracted out to Whitley Hall to commence preparations and acquaint myself to my surroundings. August 25th is my official “Mission Start” date for school and classes. I definitely like how my classes are configured… Sure, I have to rise at the tip of dawn, but to be done by 11am (save for Monday and a lab course that lasts until 6pm) is a fair trade. That gives me time for school work and working out which is ideally what I want. I know working full time and then carrying an encumbering debt was the main issue that hindered my education, but to be free of the encumbering debt is quite liberating.

Logistically speaking… Dorm move-in for the university begins 8/20/2008. Classes begin 8/25/2008. My assumption is that I am to make my final move on Sunday 8/24/2008. We will see how things hold up. I know for one… I do hope to keep ZeroXR 13mg in good shape.

Personal

[Thank You] My thanks to Kwesta for vindicating me!

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Last night, I had met up Kwesta to talk about helping him launch his own personal domain and such. I actually failed to mention the highlight of the evening’s meet-up. For once, I actually spoke fashion with him as he had taken note that I was dressed to the times. This actually made me feel vindicated. I hang out with a good number of friends, but they aren’t typically up with the clothing styles and trends… (Disclaimer, I still love you all!) To hear his compliment made my day as I never got much verification if any that I was not dressing according to the times or if I was making actual fashion faux pas. I know that Kwesta himself is up to the times as he is affiliated with Global Fashion News and is always looking sharp himself… He can’t possibly be wrong!

There were a few people who seemed to hold their doubts about me ever possessing style… To them, I will leave this post with the best and most timeless phrase: “Told ya so.” 😉

Personal

A Ray of Hope and A Journey East

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Well… Today’s been interesting. Found a decent little car windshield mount for my phone for cheap and I rather like it. It has my phone oriented in a way that can present my GPS clearly, which is very important for when that need arises. It didn’t cost me much coin and that made my day a little brighter. I will be testing it out on the open roads tomorrow.

Work at the office was rather relaxing for once and not at a frantic pace. I did however wire myself up with a 700mL “can” of Monster Lo-Carb and the reaction of my boss looking at the monstrosity of a can was priceless!

“Really dude? Really? Thing looks like an oil filter.“

Then my subordinate eating ice cream with chopsticks took the cake for the day… Yeah… A sad day indeed.

Things picked up knowing that Sol would be awaiting me at my residence. He will be accompanying me to my journey to Commerce.

My colleague wanted to meet up on launching himself as a brand on the web, so I would meet him up for food and drink while bantering about things. I did manage to network with him so it may lead to a tangent here on ZeroXR 13mg for a potential set of fashion and men’s care segments to keep unique content rolling. Rest assured, I will be playing with Linux distributions, games, and other technologies as well still. I am looking into the male fashion and care tangent as some have rather liked my work on straight razor shaving and anything for geeks looking into being stylish is always a good thing!

In 6 hours… I will awaken to drive to Commerce, Texas to discuss with my school about what I need to do before I may register for my classes and such. I know for sure that I hope to be back in the burg of Dallas by mid day to talk to banks and financial establishments on procuring monies for school. Let’s hope that I can hit the tasks I need to complete before everything surges at me like a river. I may have Sol assist me in logging my adventures tomorrow, so don’t be surprised if you end up seeing a few quotables from him.

Personal, Rant

Damn Vehicular Envy and Lust, We Meet Again!

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Machinery and throttle have been in my blood since I was a wee lad… Most of my fans know that I had a very modest Acura Integra sedan as my “intro” car. I had observed and assisted my father with repairing his cars, so naturally my interest in cars is profound from watching the machinery evolve from a primitive rat’s nest to a very neat compacted power plant with wiring and hose work that almost looks beautiful. Sure, the bodies of cars have seen some bad days where you have designers butcher misshape metal into abominations… at the same time, you also have artisans trying to push the limits for new styles but embracing traditions.

I made the foolish mistake of thinking I could turn a project car into a daily driver… but it was one hell of a lesson. The majority of the foolishness was the fact that I was desiring too much for a return to my days of glory. Oh well, one day I will have my chance to revive Project Phoenix and relive my old days…

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