my zpdee now hitting 1mbps

This is a very geek post for me, but I’m just stoked that my two-year old Zpdee connection suddenly gave me a speed boost, up to 1mbps.

We’re paying about 900 bucks initially for around 380++kbps two years ago. About a year ago, the speed went up to 512kbps while maintaining the price. Zpdee didn’t email or announce anything then, so I was really impressed with that.

About a week ago, I noticed that www.zpdee.com was redirecting me to the sky cable internet site, and the site was offering insane speeds of up to 12mbps. Went through the site and really, nothing was said about existing Zpdee clients and connections.

The past two weeks have been internet hell though. Speed was really inconsistent and torrenting was a pain.

Well, I just hope that this speed boost will be permanent and will be the norm for my internet connection of choice.

 

Boracay in October – part 1

Boracay is my favorite quick-break vacation spots. It’s such a familiar place to me already, yet I don’t get tired of it. There’s something about getting away from it all, having the sun shine on your face, the waves lapping gently at your feet, while the fine soft sand caress your toes… really, it’s that wonderful. Add some familiar creature comforts like ice cold beer, excellent buy-one-take-one beach cocktails, fresh (albeit expensive) seafood and relatively good service – I’m in paradise.

Last weekend was no exception.

Ela and i hurriedly booked our trip there, a mere 2 weeks before peak season starts. Flights were still cheap and accommodations aplenty and reasonable. We ended up taking PAL Express and staying in Nigi Nigi Too.

Two firsts in one

It was our first time to take PAL Express – the new budget airline extension of PAL and it was our first time to go to the new Terminal 3. T3 is really nice. It reminds me of Kingsford-Smith International Airport in Sydney. It’s big, yet not intimidating, spacious without being too massive. Just what we need to welcome weary travelers. Oh yeah, make sure you BRING A JACKET when you’re passing through terminal 3. It’s really cold there!

It was raining cats and dogs that cold Friday morning, so we were rather worried that either our flight gets canceled or delayed. Surprisingly, we flew out just in time. Oh yeah, funny thing about taking PAL Express in the new terminal – you feel like you’re a second-class citizen in the airport. The gates are in the lower part of the terminal – with some electrical wirings still visible and temporary sound systems in place. Heck, you even have to board a bus and drive far from the terminal just to reach the plane!

No biggie though, because the new PAL Express planes are quite nice. Q300 – that’s the aircraft model they have. Turbo-prop, very clean and neat inside. The FA’s uniforms are festive too. Floral button down shirts and bermuda-looking shorts.

But there aren’t any potholes in the sky…

The weather was awful and the minute we took off, it was evident that we had to tighten our seatbelts throughout the flight. Clouds clouds everywhere, and the plane was battered by monsoon winds. There was even a moment that the plane was pitching and rolling in all 4 axes for about 3-5 minutes – which seemed like an eternity! Man o man… that was one of the scariest flight experiences I’ve ever had. Seriously!

Mercifully, the turbulence ended soon, and it was relatively smooth sailing all the way to Caticlan. I have to applaud the pilots of PAL Express – they landed that plane quite well. You know how scary Caticlan landings can be right? Rushing down and approaching the runway at over 200KPh, and you can see the water mere meters away, and then when the plane hits the ground, the pilot seems to slam it and hit the brakes as hard as he can…
That wasn’t the case with our flight. It was smoooooth as silk.

next up… pictures and pictures of our stay in boracay

 

Things I want, 2008 edition

Last year, I posted this on my multiply site:

http://chewychua77.multiply.com/journal/item/33/Things_I_need…_alteratively_titled_as_things_I_want
“…  I decided to make a list of the stuff I think I need and not just want…

1. a nice dell/acer/hp laptop with at least a pentium core 2 duo at 1.66ghz (up to 2.0ghz) at least 1gb ram (2 better) about 120gb hdd, 128mb nvidia card, 4x usb 2.0 ports, firewire etc…
2. iPod video 30gb or bigger
3. 1 or 2gb flash drive (perhaps this can be a freebie when i buy the laptop?)
4. 250gb external hard disk (the big one)
5. 120gb external hard disk (the pocket sized one)

and since we’re at it… “

Luckily, most of the things I lusted after, I actually got!

I now have a kick-ass laptop
a 160gb portable hard disk drive
a 500gb external drive
over 10GB worth of flash drives (who would have thought that they’d cost a little more than 2 starbucks coffees now??)
We now have a Wii back in sydney (with all the fun games and the Wii fit)
I got a free iPod video and a shuffle
a real fender strat
a real gibson les paul
several kick-ass amplifiers (marshall, line6, peavey)

these things aside… here are the things I want for this year:

minimum 32″ LCD TV
non-overheating xbox 360
a good condition playstation 2 (yep, i still love my old games)

hmmm. that’s not a very long list, ain’t it?  being 30 has been good to me

 

Wireless in the Philippines – leadership versus influence

Talk about wireless and mobile anywhere in the world and invariably, the Philippines will pop up as a model, a case study or a hot-bed of sorts. With 63 Million mobile subscribers (out of about 91 Million total population) and all sending over a billion messages per day, we still are the Text Capital of the World.

Being the leader of this massive wireless tribe is really an accomplishment if not a Herculean feat – so kudos to Smart for being the clear leader in sheer numbers, in ARPU and in total business. Globe isn’t a laggard either, with their excellently packaged 24ever campaign, their iconic iPhone 3G and their die-hard influential post-paid subscriber base.

But credit is due to what I sincerely believe as the most INFLUENTIAL player here in this field: Sun Cellular.

These guys are the true mavericks in the arena. Sure, they haven’t really brought in any new technologies or new products, but for some reason every move they make warrants either massive paradigm shifts or tectonic pricing movements across the industry.

They seem to have a knack of knowing what people *actually* want from their telcos – unlimited bucket pricing for calls and text (check)
call all you want promos for off-peak usage (check)
easy subscription plans (check)
less red-tape to get subscriptions (check)
bottomless 3G mobile broadband (check)

Sure, their GSM offering was years behind Smart and Globe’s, but the way they priced it was light years ahead of the curve – they effectively turned mobile telephony into the landline of old – Telebabad was back!

Again, there’s nothing special about their post-paid plans – in fact, purists complain about signal quality, dropped calls and other generation-one problems – but the fact remains that for people and companies who shift their telco requirements to Sun, they experienced massive savings on telephony.

Lastly, this bottomless 3g mobile broadband offering is so tempting – even Smart lowered their Smart Bro dongle cost. Globe did one even better and really dropped their prices to less than 50% of original price.

Market leaders and brand innovators are supposed to lead the pack in technologies, pricing and products, but why is it that the smallest reputable telco here is the one causing shifts in pricing and in consumer behavior?

Leadership versus Influence.

I imagine both Smart and Globe following suit by offering simple one-ID subscriptions, uber-cheap per minute calls, 3G rate cuts among others just to counter Sun’s offerings. Which is just fine and dandy for the much beleaguered Filipino consumer.

With that, hurray for Sun, hurray for Smart and for Globe. Thanks for taking care of the Filipino mobile customer. Keep up the good work

 

San Miguel Premium

There’s a new beer in town, and it’s aptly named San Miguel Premium.

 

Just had it in Mag:Net cafe earlier, and the group found it quite nice and agreeable.  To sum the experience up in one word…  

heineken

that’s the beer closest to San Miguel’s newest and supposed best.

San Miguel is the country’s oldest and largest brewery (and food conglomerate) and it has been known to be one of the world’s best brewers of beer.  How good? Well, let’s just say that some Spaniards (mostly my friends) think that this proudly Filipino brand is their own!

Going back to SMP (san miguel premium) it is a departure from the usual San Miguel taste.  Gone is that malty (aratiles) taste that goes well with fried and grilled foods… Gone is that “chico” aftertaste that makes our beer distinctly Filipino.

instead you get a very refined beer, and a very good one.  It has none of the usual bitterness that is associated with beer, and it has that “imported” vibe that can only be delivered by beers 3x the price of our much loved Pale Pilsen.

Heck, even the bottle looks sosy, and it’s actually green.

Verdict: If you’re a foreinger looking for the classical Filipino beer, stay away.  You’re better off with either pale pilsen, red horse or super dry… but if you’re a local looking for that imported taste then look no further.

hic*

 

Showing off the MSI Wind 100XP

Well, I’ve finally taken the plunge.  After almost a month of internal deliberations, countless websites visited, over 20 reviews read, 15 computer shops, 5 demos and hours of milling around Greenhills, Park Square and God knows where else, I’ve finally decided to get the…

MSI WIND 100XP

Honestly, it really wasn’t a difficult choice.  It’s just that I made it difficult for myself.  

4 weeks ago, it was the ATOM N270 1.6ghz that made it compelling (same as the aspire one and the eeepc 1000h.)

3 weeks ago, it was the “free upgrade” offer that made the hardware specs even yummier – 2gb RAM and 160GB HDD – though asus lowered their prices a bit.

2 weeks ago, after seeing all the netbooks side by side, the aspire’s smallish LCD screen let it down.

Last week, it was the realization that the asus eeepc’s keyboard was just awful and something that will be a painful stone in my shoes in the long run that made the wind the ONLY viable choice.

Then my much beloved Compaq Presario 2400 laptop finally crashed last Friday very early in the morning (when I forgot to bring home my Dell’s charger when I had to finish a friggin pitch presentation) – and that was the final straw.

Which version to get then??  The 100LX with DOS selling for 20K was really enticing while the 100XP with XP, 2gb RAM and Bluetooth seemed a bit expensive.  After chatting with a few laptop techs and sellers, I decided to get the all-in 100XP.  why?
Simply because I was too lazy to do some things that *could* have saved me money.  Like purchasing cheaper licensed windows (i know i could get away with pirated stuff, but i’m too old to be like that hahaha.)  Like having to purchase an external optical drive.  Like having to spend a good 2 hours of installing the OS… and the drivers… and downloading updates.

The toughest thing then was choosing the color.  White, Black, Pink or “love.”

Let the pictures do the talking…

 

the too-small orange bag

drooling with anticipation now

the most beautiful shade of blue

quick look at what’s in the box

the pink machine

girly looking machine

quick boot – quite surprising

well, hello there

compared to my massive 15.4″ dell

i can actually touch type

almost as wide as the span of my hand

happy camper. yay!

 

The fad that was known as Badminton

Five years ago when badminton was still in it’s upswing, it was quite difficult to get a court schedule in the Metro’s decent courts.  There were the old haunts, like Valle, Crame, Moro and the like, and a spattering of upstarts.  You had to call a week ahead of time to get a reservation – anytime from 6pm till 10pm -and boy, those court attendants were really sungit when you’d beg to be part of their waiting list.

Yonex was the hottest brand then, with the ubiquitous MP99 in it’s glorious yellow paint job commanding a saggering Php15,000 price tag… and it had to be a SP version… as the HK and TH version, though original, would fetch a lower price.

Shuttlecocks cost not more than Php50 for the top-of-the-line variants, and this was prior to the asian bird flu crisis.  RSLtourney 1, Silver Feather, Yonex AS 40 and 50, chao pai… these were the sosy shuttles then.

Shoes were pretty hard to find back then, as you’d either get those cheapo yonex shoes from indonesia (which were downright awful) or any cross trainer from Nike or Adidas, or perhaps a non-marking pair of tennis shoes jost to make do.  

The rules then were different.  1-15, side outs. Hence the games took a lot longer to complete.  I recall games where we’d get stuck with 14-all and the game would still take 10 minutes to finish!

The people playing then were different.  There were a lot of BABES then… in their skimpy outfits (skirts and sleeveless shirts)… models, pretty girls and actresses alike.  oh boy.

It was like a big sweaty party.  People had to have the latest and most expensive gear, the nicest tops and skirts or shorts, the shiniest shoes.  People who didn’t know $#!^ about the game playing it, katulong  style but still having fun.  It was the great equalizer – males, females, subordinates, bosses, clients, agency – all playing the same game.

ah the good old days of badminton.

There were some really exciting online communities to help feed your baddiction… pinoybadminton, baddicts and smash philippines, complete with it’s own dramas and political upheavals.  some really interesting personalities, like Kelvin Montalbo (and his bull horn during smashing all the way) and some other people I’d rather not mention…

Badminton was my life then.  

I couldn’t last a week without playing on Mondays in Centro,  Tuesdays in Olympic Badminton, Wednesdays in Aguinaldo, Thursdays in Battledore or Olympic, Fridays in Battledore, and Saturdays with the Baddicts crowd in Greenhills.

I actually went through over 30 pairs of shoes in 4 years

about 50 rackets in the same span of time, and incidentally wrote about 25-30 reviews of em giving me enough money to finance my passion.

The good old days.

 

The last time I actually played was in June of this year.  that’s over 3 months ago. 

How about you?

 

Netbooks on my mind

Asus EEEPC
MSI Wind
Acer Aspire One
HP Mininote

All amazing machines, weighing in at less than 2kg, powered by relatively weaker processors, meager ram and storage, but still managed to spark a new mobile computing revolution.

the past two weeks of my life has been about Netbooks… particularly about which one to get!  These buggers cost anywhere from 12K for the eyesight damaging 7″ asus 4g eeepc, up to almost 30K for the uber cool looking HP Mininote.  They come in several sizes, processor flavors, os, hard drive/ssd configurations, and it’s more than enough to drive anyone absolutely bananas.  

having done my net homework and actual hands on, here are my findings (in case anyone is interested)

For the best keyboard – HP Mininote. They keys are big enough to be really comfortable for long-use, and HP did not have to invent a sucky keyboard configuration to fit everything

Weight/Mass – hands down, the small 7″ screen asus EEEPC (but it’s horrible) so for something more humane, the EEEPC 900 for 9″ and the MSI wind for 10″

Pure computing power – MSI wind wins by a whisker.  You get the Intel Atom N270 running at 1.6GHz with Hyperthreading, you get a generous 2 GB Ram.  this is even better than my 5 year old Compaq Presario laptop running a Centrino 1.6Ghz +512ram (and i still use often for nostagia’s sake.)  Sure, the wind shares the same specs as the EEEPC 1000, but online reviews point out that the wind still wins in computing benchmark tests.

Storage – I’d give this to the asus eeepc.  you can install a “regular” 2.5″ hard disk if you want to.  though the wind offers a mouth watering upgrade for this month.. your 80gb hard disk can be upgraded to 160gb this september.  But still, I prefer the user-upgradable configuration of the asus.

Value – Oh boy.  It only gets tougher and tougher.  Here are the specs that i’m looking at:
MSI Wind 100XP – 10″ Screen, intel Atom 1.6ghz, 2GB Ram, 160gb HDD, Bluetooth, 3-cell battery, wifi (abg), Windows XP Home
Php26,000

ASUS EEEPC 1000H – 10″ Screen, intel Atom 1.6ghz, 1GB Ram, 80gb HDD, Bluetooth, 6-cell battery, wifi (abg-n) , Windows XP Home
Php26,000 

finally, the coolness factor.  now this is a toughie.  Asus has always been a Taiwanese brand for me as I still remember the days when these guys didn’t sell assembled computers and they only offered parts.  MSI is a relative newbie player and still has to establish itself as a *reliable* hardware provider.  HP is a step above both brand-wise, but HP is still HP, and is devoid of any personality (hehehe)

You might want to ask why I find these netbooks interesting…  simple.  There were a bunch of people happily typing along with their netbooks during the recenly concluded SEMCON.  These guys only had to bring small bags with them to be productive, and I had to lug around this monster 15.4″ dell laptop and it’s equally massive bag (earning me a sore back after 2 days.)

Gadget envy. nothing more, nothing less.  

But i still want to choose well.  What do you guys think?

 

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