Random reviews, comments and thoughts...

HTC Desire V - User available memory

2012-08-08T17:43:00.000+01:00

As always, HTC doesn't advertise user available memory so when you have bought the original HTC Desire from 2009, you WANT to know that before making the mistake to buy a phone that will force you to choose which apps can be installed because memory scarce.

So here it is for HTC Desire V:

Good news? I think so! Installed tons of apps and I'm confident it'll take a long time to run out of memory space!

How to test for a fake SD card, USB Drive, CF, MMC, etc...

2012-04-17T14:11:00.002+01:00

For those who want to test their SD card (normal, mini or micro), here is a very detailed post on Ebay.

I'll paste it here also in case it disappears from Ebay.

nupshutup says:

"Testing for fakes : SD cards, USB drives, MMC, CF and other portable or removable storage devices

As many people have reported there are a very large number of fake and counterfeit SD cards on Ebay at the moment. The reason for this is the large profits which sellers can make and the minimal import cost associated with such a high value item. Having spent quite some time contacting manufactures of SD memory cards in the course of my job I have been shocked to find that the vast majority are not only selling fake items but are very open about it.

To give you an idea of what kind of scale the problem is I contacted 45 manufacturers and wholesalers of SD cards throughout South East Asia :of these only 1 was able to provide me with proof that they held the correct Patent and Licensing for the production of SD cards. During this research I found numerous suppliers who got very upset when I suggested that selling counterfeit items was in any way wrong :the standard response was "We supply many people in Europe and US and there is no problem :they are making lots of money and are very happy" (quote lifted from an actual email).

Before you buy a card use you head:
1. While the physical appearance of the item is a good indicator the fakes are getting better and better. Remember that the act of printing a sticker is very simple and the casings are a dime a dozen. Look out for anything out of place such as misaligned stickers or serial numbers which have been badly printed.
2. If you are going to order a card don't trust a webmail Email contact address.
3. If you are going to order numerous cards order a very small sample first and refuse to pay a premium :often you will pay a lot for samples and receive "real" products then get shafted on the actual order.
4. If they are selling a large quantity and are in Australia ensure they have an ABN. If they tell you they are going to charge a premium for supplying a tax invoice consider that an insurance policy and just swallow it (or withhold 50% of the purchase price and send it to the ATO :as you are legally entitled to do).
5. If they have less than a 100% positive feedback rating then forget it :furthermore if they have never sold an SD or memory product before and instead have sold numerous very low value items in a short period of time consider them to be a High Risk (people do this to get their feedback rating up before cashing in).
6. Don't buy if they don't have a return policy. If you decide to risk it only pay what you are willing to lose ($12 for a 4 GB SD card is too good to be true but if you want to risk it remember you might get a 128mb card which isn't such a bargain).
7. Avoid sellers who charge high postage and handling costs :this spells disaster for you if you try to get it replaced because they will charge you the same amount again (the scam runs along the lines of : you buy an item for $3 pay $10 postage, it doesn't work so you send it back and pay another $10 to get it back to you :it still doesn't work so you ask for a refund, the seller happily refunds you money after you send the product back and they makes a tidy $20 and still has the product to sell to some other sucker).
8. If you must buy from someone who is profiting of high postage costs consider offering them more for the product in return for a reduced postage cost :this will save you if you have to send the product back and pay postage a second time.
9. Do your homework :recently 64, 128 and 256 mb Sandisk SD cards have flooded the market so the price is genuinely low (wholesalers getting rid of stock) but 1 GB and above cards are still not dirt cheap. Consider using an online price checker service such as StaticIce to find out what the going rate for the product is and then deduct a reasonable amount for retailer markup (5 :25% is a good guestimate). If you can't work out why a product is so cheap then it is probably fake :check Alibaba.com for suppliers of the product and email one for a price list (I don't think I am allowed to name names of known counterfeiters but lets just say that if the supplier has a hotmail address or other web based email address ... you fill in the blanks).
10. Once you have the product test it properly the first day you get it. If you buy a 2 GB SD card and it takes you 3 months to take 1 GB of photos there is a good chance the seller will either be long gone or ignore you when you complain.

Testing:
Most of these instructions apply to SD cards but can be used for other memory cards and USB drives as well.
1. If the card has a write prevention switch (as all SD cards do) put it in the Read only position and try to write to the card (if you can then it is a fake).
2. Reformat the card in you camera (if the card has an overstated capacity this will either fail or format the card with the actual amount of available space).
3. Copy a series of files to the card. Remember that most SD cards are formatted with a FAT file structure so files over 2GB can't be saved to them anyway. Try a series of 100mb files (recorded audio from Windows Sound Recorder found in the Accessories menu will do the trick, just record silence for ten minutes (no microphone needed)).
4. Copy a series of small files to the card :try text files or your temporary internet files. Do this until the card is full. (Testing capacity and the Master File Table).
5. If it is an SD card or similar put it in you camera and use the Video Record function :record for 30 minutes (or as long as you can) then wait for the camera to save the file. If the camera can't save the file and tells you the card is invalid then again you have a dud on your hands)
6. Attempt to open a large file directly from the card :a Photoshop file or even one of the silent audio files you recorded earlier will do the trick. You can usually connect you camera to you computer in Mass Storage mode to test this.
7. Use a program such as SiSoftware Sandra Lite (Free) to test the read and write speeds of the card. This software has built in benchmarks so you can compare the results to what you should be getting. This requires either a card reader or you camera to be connected in Mass Storage Mode.
8. Use KillDisk to view the contents of the card. Run the disk wipe on the SD card (which may fail with fake capacity cards) then view the contents again. When you scroll through the sectors move towards the end and look for changes that are out of place (the first 100 or so entries are the MFT and will be full of gibberish, then it should be all zeros :if it is 99 instead of 00 you have a card with overstated capacity).
9. Finally before you complain to the seller check that you camera can actually read the card :by this I mean many cameras can not handle cards with a capacity of over 512mb, just because you found someone on the internet whose camera could doesn't mean yours will so check the manual (different ROM versions for different countries can impact this :Canon in the USA and Canon in Australia often have subtle differences in the ROM image).

Conclusion
If you have to ask for a refund or replacement be nice to the seller : real cards can be duds as well, just because your card is a dud doesn't mean someone was trying to rip you off :for all you know the seller could be ignorant of what they were selling and never tested the card themself (or you could have a genuine dud).

I hope this helps someone find a good deal :there is another guide on spotting fake SD cards that is very good (with pictures) that I recommend you check out :it does have one factual error (it suggests you copy a very big file in excess of 2gb to the card : something that will rarely work under normal circumstances) but aside from that it is very good.

I will post a walkthrough of SD card troubleshooting if people find this guide useful."

How to use two Google Account in Chrome

2012-02-08T09:27:00.001+00:00

I don't know about you but I've got more than one Google account. Therefore, I often switch between one and another.

However, how do you do it without log in / log out all the time... Answer is simple: Chrome users!

You might have seen this new feature appearing in the version 15. You might have heard bad things about it. Well, like using a computer, or a car, it all depends on how you use it.

Obviously, you can use the functionality Chrome users if you are not using your own personal computer... You wouldn't want someone spooking around your personal DATA. SO, only use this on your personal computer(s)!

If you meet that criteria, then let's check it out!

So, go to "chrome://settings/personal".

There, you see a section "Users". By clicking "Add new user", it'll open a new window where you are asked to sign-in.
Signing-in syncs your DATA between two personal computers. You don't need to sign-in if you have only one.

From there, and if it is the first you use it, you'll have two users:

The default one that you have been using since the beginning
And the new one.

You can edit the user by double-clicking it.

You'll be able to give it a name and avatar.

Each user is independent from another. History, bookmarks, Google account, everything is kept inside its bubble.

So default user can be signed-in to "example1@gmail.com" and new user can be signed-in to "example2@gmail.com.

A few remarks though:

Sync doesn't work with Business Account... Don't know why but Google has kept the Business account kinda behind the personal ones...
If you delete a user, all the user DATA will be deleted.

Well, I hope this is of any use to you and happy browsing!

Learning a language for free

2012-02-03T15:36:00.000+00:00

Fancy learning a language for free? Want to help translating the web?

Here is the answer: Duolingo!

From Wikipedia => Duolingo is a free language-learning website and crowdsourced text translation platform. The service is designed so that as users progress through the lessons, they simultaneously help to translate websites and other documents.^[1]^[2] Currently, the site offers only Spanish and German courses for English speakers, though it has plans to expand to French, Italian and Chinese in the future.^[3] Duolingo launched in private beta on November 30, 2011, and has accumulated a waiting list of more than 100,000 users.^[3] As of January 19, 2012, the service has translated over 45,000 sentences.

I'll try it to learn spanish and hopefully, what they say will be true: you can really learn a language via Duolingo!

Screenshot App for Android devices

2012-02-01T09:28:00.000+00:00

While searching on Android market for an App that takes screenshots directly from your phone.

Somehow, I have always thought that you had to have a rooted phone to do so. Apparently, things have changed (not surprising when you consider how fast Android OS is evolving.

So, here it is: Screenshots UX Android App. There is a trial and paid version. They give enough to play around with the trial version. I think I'll buy for the FULL app once I've used up the trial version.

Using the App is very easy. There is different modes to take a screenshot:

Shaking the phone
Some kind of notification in the tab bar... Not really good to take a quick snap.
Finally, the best of all is the small camera icon that you can place anywhere and that displays constantly as lon as the service is running. I love it cause you can resize the icon, stop the service by pressing a few seconds on it and obviously take a screenshot with a single tap.

Obviously, there is plenty other options like what to do after taking a screenshot, what format the screenshot must be saved, crop the screenshots, etc...

By default, it saves the screenshots in the folder DCIM/Screenshots of your sdcard.

To end this quick review, this App seems to work on non-routed phone (the list is available on Android market). So have a try and download the trial version (Only 14 screenshots available)

Screenshot of my home screen (HTC Desire Rooted)

How to optimize your SD-Card for Offline maps

2012-01-18T15:40:00.000+00:00

So, I took a while to do it but here it is since I've just formatted my card today. This is a follow up from this post.

This process will improve the efficiency of the memory of your SD-Card. I don't want to go in too much details but to store 100.000+ of tiles from Google Maps or OSM, you need to use small clusters to make sure your card doesn't fill up to quickly.
The smaller the cluster, the more efficient the tiles storage on your card will be. By default, a card is formatted with 32K clusters (if my memory is correct... :-) )

Find out the smallest cluster size you can use by checking this formula:

FAT: Number of clusters <= 65526
FAT32: 65526 < Number of clusters < 268435446

Concretely, here the smaller size for the following SD card sizes:
16GB=4096
8GB=2048
4GB=1024
etc...

Here are the steps to format your SD-Card:

Step 1: do "Windows key+R" and type "cmd".
Step 2: type the following command line

{Volume letter}: /FS:{format chosen} /A:{cluster size}

NB: this example works for 8GB SD-Card.

Here is the full documentation if you need more:

FORMAT volume [/FS:file-system] [/V:label] [/Q] [/A:size] [/C] [/X]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/F:size]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/T:tracks /N:sectors]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/1] [/4]
FORMAT volume [/Q] [/1] [/4] [/8]

volume	Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon), mount point, or volume name.
/FS:filesystem	Specifies the the file system (FAT, FAT32, or NTFS).
/V:label	Specifies the volume label.
/Q	Performs a quick format.
/C	Files created on the new volume will be compressed by default.
/X	Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary. All opened handles to the volume would no longer be valid.
/A:size	Overrides the default allocation unit size. Default settings are strongly recommended for general use. NTFS supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K. FAT supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K, (128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes). FAT32 supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K, (128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes).Note that the FAT and FAT32 files systems impose the below restrictions on the number of clusters on a volume: FAT: Number of clusters <= 65526 FAT32: 65526 < Number of clusters < 268435446 Format will immediately stop processing if it decides that the above requirements cannot be met using the specified cluster size. NTFS compression is not supported for allocation unit sizes above 4096.
/F:size	Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (160, 180, 320, 360, 640, 720, 1.2, 1.23, 1.44, 2.88, or 20.8).
/T:tracks	Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors	Specifies the number of sectors per track.
/1	Formats a single side of a floppy disk.
/4	Formats a 5.25-inch 360K floppy disk in a high-density drive.
/8	Formats eight sectors per track.

The Golden Wrench: Replacement Studs for Studded Tires

2011-11-28T09:54:00.000+00:00

The Golden Wrench: Replacement Studs for Studded Tires: Studded tires make a world of difference when the streets are coated in a layer of glare ice. The studs, typically made of tungsten carbide...

How to save battery on your Android phone

2011-11-18T10:50:00.001+00:00

This is the big question! How do you improve your Android phone battery life?

Well, the answer is simple: Battery Defender! Available on the Market, it's free, has good reviews and actually work (at least I think so).

How does it work? Basically, you setup a night mode, a period of time during which the app will deactivate all networks while screen is off. When you switch on the screen again, network come back on.

Also, it does switch off WIFI when not using it or when screen is off. That way, no wasting battery life while searching for WIFI networks when you don't need...

I use mostly my HTC Desire for GPS tracking and for a 32km commute everyday, it uses about 10-15% of battery. So far, I've almost reached 3 days with no WIFI but mobile network on to receive calls and texts.

I see a big difference but unfortunately, it doesn't do anything screen sucking up the battery life when it is on!

Mobile Atlas Creator removes Google Maps tiles download...

2011-11-18T10:40:00.001+00:00

In version 1.9.1, I have discovered that downloading Google Maps tiles is become history...

So, for those who still want to download those precious tiles, try here.

2011-09-20T09:41:00.001+01:00

This tyre is the entry level of Schwable brand for road bike. It's available in 23c and 25c with wire (http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=24894) and recently in folding version (http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=63725).

Both version come in various colours.

Personally, I bought two of the wired in blue to replace the Schwable Ultremo R.1. You may ask why since the Ultremo is much better on paper. Actually, I'm commuting everyday to work and Dublin roads aren't very forgivable when it comes to nice and soft tyres like the Ultremo...
So, I opted for the Lugano and I made a good choice.

They lasted long, very long considering the price. I used them to the bone as this picture demonstrate:

Left: brand new Lugano tyre. Right: my former rear tyre.

The right tyre (rear) has 4382km from 10th of November 2010 to 6th of September 2011 is compared to the brand new one on the left. Despite the bad state of it, the tyre never punctured. I've actually realized very late that the thread was so worn... And even like this, I've done 50k with no problem. Plus, I didn't go easy on it by locking a few time the wheel.
So, when you see it costs €15 each, the Lugano is definitely a good tyre for those with budget. You don't need to spend 30€ or more if you are commuting around 100k per week.
Last good note is that they are easy to mount. Actually, all Schwable tyres are easy to mount. And they're all very good.

On the down side, it doesn't have the rolling efficiency of a Ultremo R.1 but I would go for the Lugano every time because of the price and harder rubber.

Google not allowing Google Maps tiles download anymore?

2011-09-14T17:56:00.001+01:00

Today, I've just downloaded the Mobile Atlas Creator 1.9.1 version and Google Maps has disappeared from the list of map sources.

It looks like the same thing for the Android App Maverick. In the version 1.95, caching (or tiles download onto the phone memory) is not allowed.

So, offline GPS maps with Google Maps is ancient history? I'll investigate and hope it is not!

REVIEW: Purple Extreme Golden Degreaser - Industrial Strength

2011-06-07T15:13:00.000+01:00

Taking care of your bike is really important if you want to increase its lifespan.

Many parts on a bike get dirty from the rain, dust and durt. However, the degreaser I'm going to review is wonderful for drivetrains mainly. I didn't try it the rest of the bike but I'm sure it'd work as good.

How fast parts less efficient depends on your usage. Personally, I commute 150k a week so I clean the drivetrain every week if it has rained a lot, every two weeks otherwise.
The main components that need cleaning are:

Chain
Cassette
Chainset
Derailleurs

BEFORE ANYTHING: make sure damp the bike with hot water (not boiled) before applying the degreaser.

The first one is the most important. I usually use a chain degreaser machine and repeat the process twice or more depending the chain state. After the first run, the chain should already be better. The degreaser works so fast, you see the shiny plates going back to their normal grey colors.

The cassette: squirt on the degreaser while pedaling gently then quickly scrub with a tough brush each cog of the cassette. It cleans one side(outside) of the cogs nicely. For the other side (inside), use a rag.

For the rest, mix with water and use a soft brush to clean.

So far, I've used it about 6-8 times (once I cleaned two bikes instead of one) and the bottle is half empty. When you look at the price, quantity available in one bottle and normal usage, the degreaser should last another 2-3 months. So for less than €10 spent over about 5-6 months period, I think it's not too bad.

Overall, this degreaser is the best I've used. I highly recommend it to anyone who need to keep her/his bike in shape. From experience, a chain/cassette last 2000k if you don't take care of it. My commuter chain/cassette has 2000k already and it still looking brand new. But too bad CRC don't sell a 1L container...

Product Description : http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=14885

SKYPE: How to buy credit with Paypal funds

2011-05-16T13:49:00.000+01:00

Lately, my credit card has expired and consequently the auto-recharge of my Skype account failed.

Now, I don't want to use my credit card to auto-recharge but I prefer using my Paypal funds. For days and days I tried and every time, it was asking me for my new credit card details... But I didn't want that!

Finally, after reading Xth thread on the subject via Skype forums, someone gave this great solution. If you want to pay via Paypal funds and that you have Paypal method setup, just uncheck the Auto-recharge option before going off to Paypal.
Like that, it'll use your Paypal funds.
Therefore, auto-recharge option is only available if you give your credit details... Weird.

If only that never happened...

2011-02-10T14:38:00.000+00:00

Last week, on my way to work, a surprise hit me hard!

Broken derailleur hanger! They say it happens when the derailleur too close from the spokes of the wheel but not my case...

Maybe the chain was the problem...

Then again I don't know if it is the cause... But a few weeks before, I found a loose link!

Anyway, it is a three-month old bike so still under warranty... However, derailleur hangers are supposed to break under high stress on the derailleur itself. So might not be covered...
Anyhow, I hope I'll get something back from ChainReactionCycle.com (where I bought it)... Otherwise, €200 more to spend on repairs for a €1300 bike...

Maverick Pro - Android App with very nice GPS capabilities

2011-01-17T14:53:00.003+00:00

If you are looking for a nice and simple android app, but with all the best features to do some GPS tracking, Maverick is a good choice. It can be found in the Market for about €5.

Recently, the version 1.75 enables you to move the app on SD card! Nice one there developers!) So don't be afraid to get download it... You won't run out of memory!

So let's start! The Home interface is simple but well organized:

top left: "Maps" button to select which you want to use.
top right: Zoom in/out though the pinch gesture works great too.

Left to Right: Google Maps view, Map menu with plenty of choice, OSM Mapnik view.

The app works so that any maps browsed is cached on your SD card (update: not for google maps since version 1.95). But I would advice to use Mobile Atlas Creator is you plan to use the app on offline mode only. The review about this is coming. Meanwhile, for those who know how to use Mobile Atlas Creator, maybe have a look this post!

bottom left: Switch between map viewing and some features like track recording, compass and display of speed, altitude and position.

The blue point on the compass is the destination (called here "Waypoint 4") that is at 5935km from me at the moment when I took the screenshot.

bottom menu:

binoculars allow to search Waypoints(aka Point of Interest or POI), tracks a lot of other stuff.

The green flag allows to add a POI in the Waypoint.kml file or foursquare.gpx file. Personally, I use the first.

The GPS grid displays the number GPS available. In the all the above screenshots, I was in a building so 0! But the little squares become yellow when a satellite is in sight.
Track recording info finally in the bottom right.

The settings are rich:

As you see, if you want the zoom buttons off, just uncheck the box.

One thing I would like is to have the auto screen orientation. Currently, you have to press "Menu" and "Switch orientation".... Weird...

I hope this review is giving you enough info to decide.

Cheers!

Offline GPS Tracking on your Android phone

2011-01-13T13:00:00.037+00:00

Hello,

I have recently bought a great app, Maverick Pro (its review on this blog) that allows to cache automatically Google Maps or any map sources available in the app itself. This is great as I am a big cyclist and I love discovering new roads around Dublin and I don't want to pay the DATA charges to download the maps.
However, while it's caching it automatically when connected to a Wifi AP, you have to browse around the area you want to be cached. And this needs to be done for every zoom level... So you can imagine how painful it can be...

So, I've found a JAVA app (working across Windows, MAC OS-X., etc..) that allows me to download the tiles from Google Maps from a selected area.

The interface is pretty simple. I'll come back to a more detailed review this JAVA app (Mobile Atlas Creator)

Once you have finished downloading the tiles, before you copy them on your MicroSD card, you need to prepare it.

Because the tiles are very small (with Google Maps Street), between 2KB and 12KB, you need to have your MicroSD card to be set with the smallest clusters possible.

For a 2GB card, the smallest is 512B

For a 8GB card, the smallest is 2KB

By default, clusters are usually set to 32KB which with 100,000 tiles can waste a lot of space.

In my case, I have downloaded 686,020 tiles on a 2GB car with 512B clusters, the tiles use 1.14GB of space. On a 8GB card with 2K clusters, all the tiles use 1.94GB of space. You could double that if the 8GB card was using 32K clusters... You can imagine how useful it is if you have only a small MicroSD card.

I'll explain later on how to format a MicroSD card with a different size of clusters.

So, with all those downloaded tiles, you can open Maverick Pro, without any WIFI or 3G connection, and browse around Google Maps like if you were connected to a network. It is really a good app for that which really worth the money.

I'll fully review the app later.

Cheers!

First impressions - Google Sky Map

2011-01-11T13:41:00.000+00:00

Hi,

I have just found this app available on the Android Market. I gave it a shot and I am nicely surprise!

If your compass works ok (which is not the case for everyone...), as you move, the sky map does too.

You can limit the info shown with a menu appearing when touching slightly the screen.

Searching for something? Press "Menu" and then a search section pops up.

Just type one later a list of hints appears. Very nice feature!

Then select a result and a cycle will appear with an arrow pointing to the object searched. When you point at objet, you can see it highlighted.

Pretty cool, isn't it?

Other features are available: photo gallery from hubble (no personal upload avaible yet), Time Travel (didn't really test), a night mode (will test when it's dark)...

I'd advice google to use real HD images (if possible) for galaxies, planets, sun, etc. The app would become very attractive then!

Review - HTC Desire

2010-12-14T13:00:00.008+00:00

Review: HTC Desire

Ten years ago, computers were big, limited in Memory and not the fastest… If you wanted the best, you had to have the cash for it. Within years and now months, price has dropped considerably and computers become incredibly faster.

For a few year now (it’s safe to say about 2007-2008), smartphones appeared, then touchscreen (TS) and now, you can find the latest HTCs or Samsungs as powerfull or more than PCs from 10 years ago… And it’s going to go even further.

However, I’m not going to review the latest handsets but just one: the HTC Desire Bravo

This was my first TS phone and I have to say I’m pretty pleased.

The device looks good and is light enough. The screen has good proportions and the sensitivity is amazing compared to the Samsung F480 that I tried once upon a time.

So, here is a list cons and pros:

Cons

- After a few month of usage, one main drawback has been revealed: lack of memory, more specifically the ROM. With 512Mb split between the system (250mb), the user cache (40mb) and the User data (147Mb), you have much for your apps. But where are 75Mb missing to get the total of 512Mb? Good question! I frankly don’t know and would need to investigate. I’ll keep you posted I found out!

Now, every time I download an app, I check straight after the app is installed if I can move it to the SD-Card. If not, I rethink twice before keeping it.

- In relation to that point, I found very annoying that some build-in Google apps can’t be moved to SD-Card: GMAIL, Google Maps… When you know Google are built Android and they made available for developers the “Move to SD-Card” option, you wonder why they didn’t implement it on their own and very popular apps…

- Battery life: one of the biggest problem for every HTC Desire user. I use WIFI a lot and if I don’t leave the phone plugged in all day, the battery would die several times… So, when I don’t use it, I deactivate! Same regarding the 3G/EDGE.

I am a big cyclist and I love the GPS system though it is also a source that drains the battery lifetime down… I managed to reach 8 hours while recording a track via RunKeeper App, display off most of the time, some offline map browsing via Maverick App and most importantly in “Flight Mode” (e.g. no network connection at all!).

- Lack of a build-in SD-Card browsing app. I found one very light and nice looking but when most of the DATA are stored on SD-Card, you would prefer not to install another app…

- Camera isn’t impressive. The lack of stabilisation is a shame…

Pros

- Excellent UI from HTC!

o The seven desktops represent plenty of space to put you widgets and app shortcuts. I personally use only 5 of them. I like the two-fingers drag down to get display all desktops like Spaces on MAC OS-X!

o Like I said above, the Touch Sensitivity is pretty good. You don’t need to press like a mad person. The accuracy is good too, even with big fingers!

o Build-in widgets from HTC are pretty handy, especially the power controls to manage Flight mode, GPS, Wi-Fi or 3G/EDGE. When you want to switch in a pinch between Wi-Fi and 3G, that’s the best!

- Speed!

o 512Mb of RAM! That’s the stuff! Never blink, no system crash so far…

o Gaming feels neat (ex: Angry Birds) and Asphalt 5 from Gameloft.

- Audio: good speakers and sound pretty good.

- Video in the dark with the LED light!

- I like the messaging app. It feels very “chat-like”.

Regarding the application coverage, there’s plenty available for almost any needs. I personally use the following:

- Chordbot: very useful app for songwriting experiments! The pro version is definitely worth it and you have much more choices of pianos, guitar, organs or synths.

- Tuner – gString: really cool app to tune any musical instrument.

- Mini file Manager: to browse inside the SD-Card.

- SmartMonitor Lite: give essential system info.

- Dropbox

- Documents To Go 3.0: edit, create and view any .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx and pdf documents!

- Gauge Battery Widget

- Maverick: very nice offline map app with plenty source from Google Maps to OSM and Bing

- Google Sky Map: locate stars, planets on your phone very easily!

I’ll give an indivual review for some of them. When done, just click to the App name to view it!

So overall, the HTC Desire is a really nice phone. If only the internal memory wasn’t that small, it would be one of the best!

Apple MacBook Pro (MBP): Review after a year of intensive use

2010-11-10T11:40:00.004+00:00

Hello,

I have bought in September 2009 a MacBook Pro... My first Apple private computer ever. At the time, I was a pretty new at using Macintosh. At work, I was using a Mac Mini (2.1 model) for 6 months and I have grown very happy to use this tool even though I couldn't do all my daily tasks with it (.NET programming).

So, coming back to the MBP: it has been great so far. Never had a problem with it, no system crash, very quick to start and even faster to shut down, very intuitive UI that I love (Windows are far behind even with Windows 7), performance are very good, especially with 8GB of ram and a 2.66GHZ dual-core processor.
I don't play so I can't really tell about the graphic ship performance but I have carried on some 3D landscapes development and rendering time is pretty good.

One hardware piece that I really love on my MBP is the trackpad. It is like nothing I have ever experienced before! The working area is huge (almost 4 times bigger than my PC's) and the multi-touch combinaisons are very intuitive once you know them: right-click with two-fingers tap (much better than the bottom-righ-corner click), three-fingers swipes left or right for browsing navigation and simple Finder navigation and four-fingers swipe up to clear the screen of any application windows or down to activate Exposé...

Since I have upgraded the MBP to Snow Leopard, I can tell that it's a bit better but like all articles you'll read about the 10.6 version of MAC OS, the changes on the UI weren't the main ones. Still, Spaces & Exposé features were improved and I really like using them.

I will write a review about the operating system MAC OS 10.6 that I use every day as it's going to be a long one.

And if, when you look at the prices of Apple computers and say to yourself "no way! too expensive!", I would rethink that if I were you. In fact, I have been using a PC for 4 years now I had to reinstall Windows several times (at least once a year). It's cost me €1500 which exactly the same price as I paid for the MBP. The last didn't slow down a bit and I expect that it'll last for a very long time.... After all, I know someone owning a Mac Mini G4 for more than 6 years and never had a system and hardware failure.

So, have a look on Apple.com/your_country and go in the refurbished section. I bought mine there!

Eligible to Full upgrade of your MAC OFFICE 2008? Be careful!

2010-11-08T11:36:00.004+00:00

Hello!

As a first, I am going to start with the MAC OFFICE 2011 free upgrade that is available for any person who buys a copy of the MAC OFFICE 2008 between Aug. 1, 2010, and Nov. 30, 2010, at Microsoft or an authorized reseller.

So if you are looking to buy it, make sure the reseller authorized! I did not check that and I’m screwed now with a 2008 pack…

Here are all the conditions to be eligible: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/aug10/08-02msmacofficepr.mspx

Good luck!