Samsung Star 3G S5603

Specs highlights

Samsung Star 3G is very light and thin. It weights only 96 gram and 12.9mm thick. The 2.8 inch touchscreen has a resolution of 240×320. You see less screen details if compared with other higher-end mobile phones.

Samsung Star 3G screen with widgets

Samsung 3G Star has a 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash. Supports bluetooth, FM radio, but no WiFi. Connects to your computer using USB 2.0.

Internal memory has 80MB and support external memory card up to 16GB. The 1000 mAh battery allows up to 3 hours talk time and 300 hours standby time.

Review Samsung Star 3G S5603

Samsung Star 3G is thin, light and the curved design make it very comfortable to be hold in your hand. The phone’s speaker is quite loud but so-so sound quality.

One of the highlighted features of Samsung Star 3G is its touchscreen and widgets. You can a column of widgets at the left hand side of the screen. You can drag a widget and drop it anywhere you like on the screen.

Samsung Star 3G widgets and multiple screens (3 small square boxes on the bottom of screen)

Like Apple iPhone, Samsung Star 3G has multiple screens. You can have different widgets on each screen. You “swipe” to switch in between the screens.

Sounds cool, right? But it is not the real case.

The touchscreen of Samsung 3G Star is not sensitive. It is slow and lag. It keeps on launching widgets when I only want to switch screen or move a widget..

Click, move, or swipe, you need to do it slowly on Samsung Star 3G.

On the plus side, Samsung Star 3G has a 3.2 megapixel camera with rich camera controls. Many scene modes are available, as well as custom adjustments. Very much like a touchscreen digital camera!

Samsung Star 3G camera scene modes

The overall user interface design of Samsung Star 3G is colorful and cute. Youngsters would probably love it, but not for an uncle like me.

More photos of Samsung Star 3G

Here are more photos of Samsung Star 3G. Click on each thumbnails to get full size image.

My two cents

Samsung Star 3G is a light, thin, fun, budget touchscreen mobile phone. If you have limited budget but want to have a touchscreen phone, consider this.

Else, I would recommend you to skip this and get a higher-end smartphone.

Pro:
- ligh & thin
- low cost touchscreen mobile phone
- powerful phone camera

Con:
- less sensitive touchscreen
- no wifi

Retail price: MYR$999 (~USD$294)

The Chrome OS image (300MB compressed / 700MB uncompressed) is compiled from the Chromium OS source code (developer preview 0.4.22.8) by Jon Ursenbach (gdgt.com engineer). You can use it in VMware, VirtualBox, and on a USB drive.

Please note that the Chrome OS is still in its VERY early development. It could be very buggy and very limited functionality.

Download it at your own risk! (although it can’t do much harm by running in virtual machine)

For geeks who installed Chrome OS, How is it? What do you like/dislike about Chrome OS? How’s the performance? Super-FAST?

Google Chromium OS (Chrome OS) login screen

Update: I downloaded the Google Chrome OS VMWare image and load it on VMware Fusion (Mac). But I can’t log into the OS because it cannot detect the network connection. A Google Account (Gmail) and Internet connection are required in order to login Google Chrome OS.

Made in Vietnam with 100% virgin pulp, the Google toilet paper is “very long, soft, and smooth” (text on the package). Hey, they even trademarked the word “Google”!

Hmm… I wonder what’s the feeling to have Google on my butt?! Anyone can get it from Vietnam for me?

[style14 via Gizmodo]

The following video tells you “What is Google Chrome OS?” in plain english.

What do you need to know about Google Chrome OS

The Google Chrome OS IS the web browser. It has super fast start-up speed. All applications are web applications, no installation.

The OS has high security to prevent malware and virus. If anything goes wrong, it will reboot and fix itself.

Chrome OS only works with solid-state hard drives and meant for netbooks. It will not install on your notebook.

Update: Now you can download Google Chrome OS for free!

Google Chrome OS screenshots

To satisfy your curiosity, here are some screenshots of Google Chrome OS (by Engadget)

Google Chrome OS application menu

Google Chrome OS file browser

Google Chrome OS app preview like Windows 7

My two cents

Based on the current available information, a netbook with Google Chrome OS is an Internet tablet with fast start-up time and high security.

It is ideal for you who need fast access to Internet or those switch on computer mainly for online activities.

Quote from a YouTube video comment by xDubaRx:

“Its an OS exclusive for Internet addicted people. It will work really great for that kind of people. Useless for developers, designers and/or gamers.”

Over to You

What do you think about the Google Chrome OS? Will you install it? Will you buy a netbook with Chrome OS pre-installed? What features you wish to have in the OS?

Update: Now you can download Google Chrome OS for free!

How Pingtest works?

According to Pingtest.net, the quality of your connection is determined by 3 factors:

1. Packet loss: the success rate of data packets to reach its destination from its source. The less loss the better.
2. Ping: the travel time of a data packet between source and destination. The faster the better.
3. Jitter: the variance in measuring successive ping tests. The less the better.

Pingtest rank the your broadband test result with A to F, where A is the best quality broadband.

Benefit of quality broadband

The better broadband quality, the better performance when you are accessing online stream data such as online video, online music, online gaming.

Pingtest result of my broadband

My broadband connection (TMnet Streamyx) got a Grade C. The Ping time is 92ms, Jitter is 48ms, with no packet loss.

How is your broadband quality? Let’s compare!

It is a beta version, therefore software bugs are expected.

The free Office 2010 download is available now here. Registration is required to get the Office 2010 product key and the downloads.

image: Office 2010 serial key

The free Office 2010 beta included: Word, Powerpoint, Outlook, Excel, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace, and Communicator.

Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office 2010 are available for downloads. The Office 2010 (English version) download size is 685MB (32-bit) and 750MB (64-bit) respectively.

Office 2010 supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003/2008, and Windows 7.

Before you install Office 2010, make sure you have BACKUP your data and UNINSTALL previous version of Microsoft Office before installing Office 2010. To install Office 2010, you need to have at least 3GB of free disk space.

Download free Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

The other two finalists MODx and SilverStripe tied for the first runner up position. (Sorry, first time I heard of them!)

In addition, WordPress also won 2nd place of the Best Open Source PHP CMS Category in 2009 Open Source CMS Award, ahead of Joomla! (3rd place). Drupal won in this category.

Matt, WordPress Co-Founder, wrote about the news, too.

WordPress as CMS?

Personally, I still treat WordPress as a blogging platform and not a CMS. Yes, you can use it as a CMS but it is not a out-of-box CMS script.

What do you think? Do you use WordPress for your CMS site?

Some CMS books for you: Beginning Drupal 7, Joomla! 1.5: A User’s Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website (2nd Edition)
, WordPress: Visual QuickStart Guide

What’s new about Mcfee Antivirus Plus 2010?

• Active Protection — Say good bye to slow dat downloads. New threats will be analyzed and blocked in milliseconds, so you don’t have to wait for regular updates to arrive.
• Quickscan — checks for threats in the areas of your computer that are most often attacked.
• Faster performance — faster startup, shutdown, and scan times. Run silently in the background without slowing down your PC.
• Power optimization — deferring scheduled scans until your notebook is plugged in. Can also be set up to shut down your PC automatically after running antivirus scan to help save energy.

Buy Now! McAfee Antivirus Plus 2010 (3 users) at USD$18.99

But I don’t feel excited at all, even though that I have 2x 24-inch monitors (see my review of Dell 2407WFP 24-inch widescreen UltraShart LCD monitor), which fully support 1080p HD video’s resolution (1920×1080 pixels). Why?

My slow-broadband connection is way too slow to watch online video at HD quality. I even need to wait for buffering when watching YouTube videos at normal quality.

Watching 1080p HD video online is a dream for me now. It took me about 5 minutes to load the 44 seconds YouTube 1080p HD video demo at below:

What’s the big deal about YouTube 1080p HD video?

In short, you enjoy better full-screen high quality of YouTube video.

You could connect your HD LCD TV to your computer and enjoy watching YouTube HD videos on your sofa.

However, before you can enjoy that, you need to have a fast broadband and a monitor/tv that support HD video.

Also, you can upload HD videos taken with your HD camcorder. Currently, YouTube accepts video quality up to 720p.

Can your monitor support 1080p HD video?

If your monitor/TV supports resolution of 1920×1080 pixels then it supports HD video, such as 24″ inch or bigger computer monitors.

If you do not have a monitor/TV that supports HD video, the YouTube 1080p video makes no difference to you (except longer buffer time).

Over to You

Do you feel excited about the news? Do you have the broadband and monitor to support YouTube 1080p HD videos? Do you record video in HD quality?

Check out the great offers of HD 1080p Camcorders on Amazon.com.

[WordPress] 2.8.6 fixes two security problems that can be exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting privileges.

If you blog has untrusted authors, then upgrading to 2.8.6 (download) is recommended.

My blog has only me and my proofreader. I skipped this update. How about you?

I was surprised that some famous anti-virus programs are not in the list, such as: Norton, Mcfee, Trend Micro, F-Secure, and Kaspersky.

Personally, I am on Mac and I don’t need any antivirus app but I installed VirusBarrier for Mac to scan files for virus, so that I don’t spread viruses to my PC friends.

If any PC friend asks me, I would recommend AVG Free Antivirus.

For my younger brother, after testing several antivirus programs, he recommends Kaspersky Anti-virus. “It is a very powerful antivirus program, but sometimes too powerful..”, he comments.

Check out Best Selling Anti-Virus Softwares on Amazon.com and their discount prices.

Over to You

What’s your choice of anti-virus software (both free & paid), and Why?

[image credit: paris_b's twitpic]

Someone spotted this car with the car number plate “WTF1″. Yes, W-T-F. But in this case, it is not the acronym of “What The F*ck?”.

WTF is the prefix 3 letters of current car registration number in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. At the time I am writing, the latest car registration number is “WTF2178″.

Meaning, there are now 2,178 WTFs on the road in Malaysia now.

Few years ago, Malaysia’s neighbor, encounter similar car number plate “problem” when S-E-X will be the prefix for their vehicle registration numbers. Then, Singapore banned vowels in the middle of number plates to prevent SEX on Singapore’s road.

If you could get a “fancy” car number plate, what would it be?

In 2006, some paid links market websites like Text Link Ads (TLA) started to grow. Many webmasters/bloggers received easy money by selling paid links on their blog. Me too.

Then, Google started penalizing those websites which buy/sell paid links. I quit selling paid links that time.

However, there are still many websites are buying/selling paid links. Reason because, for advertisers, it is a fast way to improve search engine rank for their selected keywords. For publishers, it is a easy money that does not require you to do anything but only putting a few links on your website.

People ask Google again and again whether the paid link consider as SPAM or not. Google has reconfirmed by replying using their Google Webmaster Twitter account that they are considering links via sites like Text-Link-Ads as SPAM.

“Since we hear this question again and again: Yes we de consider buying links via http://tinyurl.com/39epw3 and similar services as spam.”

The tinyurl URL links to Text Link Ads homepage.

[via Thats SEO]

My two cents

Regardless of you are advertiser or publisher, if you are still with Text Link Ads or similar services, you should quit it now. I believe Google will keep on working an algorithm to detect all the paid links.

Don’t let paid links buriyyour website in search engine results.

Instead of paid links, now you should work on the social media marketing. The social media is the Internet now.

Learn Facebook marketing from the book “Facebook Era” available at Amazon.com.

Over to You

Have you bought/sold paid links before? What do you think of paid links? Should search engines ban it? Do you think Google can detect all the paid links?

The multiple recipients message with a subject line “hey” and the message body is:

You weree sighteed on our seccret ccamera!
http://bit.ly/4EOyWX

The bit.ly short URL redirected to an error page with text

“Traffic Back URL not using.”

Seems like the spam page has been removed. The domain name “bestdatingdirect.com” looks like a dating site. But visit the root domain page, only shows a online contact form.

Although the Facebook spam message does not do any harm to me, but it means that Facebook Inbox messages is no longer spam-proof.

Do NOT follow any website link that you do not know, even if it is sent by your best friend!

The simplest way to check is by sending a reply message and ask your Facebook friend to confirm about the website link sent to you.

Have you received similar spam message in Facebook before? How did you deal with it? Have spammers attacks your Facebook friends? Have Facebook spammer flood your Facebook news feed?

Master everything about Facebook with the book “Facebook: The Missing Manual” available at Amazon.com for $13.59 (32% off).

This is certainly not a good news for Mozilla.

According to Cenzic, Firefox accounted for 44 percent of all browser vulnerabilities reported in the first half of 2009. In contrast, Apple’s Safari had 35 percent of all reported browser vulnerability, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was third at 15 percent and Opera had just six percent share.

Does it make Firefox a dangerous web browser?

The Firefox plug-ins are one of the main reasons of the vulnerabilities. Mozilla launched a plug-in checker in Oct 2009 to address the problem.

Ironically, while Firefox has the most vulnerabilities, Cenzic themselves use Mozilla technology within its own solutions.

[via InternetNews.com]

Tip: Install NoScript addon to make your Firefox safer.

The wallpaper has an message “ikee is never going to give you up”.

The worm is capable of breaking into jailbroken iPhones if their owners have not changed the default password after installing SSH.

Once the worm breaks in, it will find the other iPhones in the mobile phone network with similarly vulnerable and spread itself to them again.

Anyway, your iPhone is safe if you haven’t jailbreak it or have not installed SSH.

You must always change your root user password if you have jailbroken you iPhone or iPod Touch, and installed SSH.

More information about the worm and the worm’s author here.

Who is Rick Astley? Click here for information about the 1980s pop singer.

For Malaysians. The last PIKOM PC Fair of the year will be started at the end of November to December 2009. Here are the pcfair venues in the different states of Malaysia:

26-28 November 2009 (11:00am – 9:00pm)

• Dewan Merdeka, Seri Manjung

 27-29 November 2009 (11:00am – 9:00pm)

• Dewan Tunku Ibrahim Ismail, Kluang
• Alor Star Mall, Alor Star
• Terminal One Shopping Centre, Seremban

 4-6 December 2009 (11:00am – 9:00pm)

• KL Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur
• Penang International Sports Arena (PISA), Penang
• Melaka International Trade Centre (MITC), Melaka

 11-13 December 2009 (11:00am – 9:00pm)

• Persada Johor International Convention Centre, Johor Bahru
• Stadium Indera Mulia, Ipoh, Perak
• LG Car Park Exhibition Hall, 1Borneo, Kota Kinabalu
• Dewan Suarah, Bintulu

Have you marked your calendar? Too bad, I cannot join you guys at KLCC PC Fair.

I have to attend my best friend’s wedding during the weekend. I wanted to get some promotion price lists to check the price of external hard drives.

What would you want to buy at this coming PC Fair?

Weighing at merely 147g, Apolco P3 micro projector has a throw distance of 30″ at 1.2m. The projected image size can up to 60″. The contrast ratio is 200:1. Display resolution is only 640×480 pixel (VGA).

The micro projector’s brightness, due to its size, is only 15 lumens (normal projector has over 2000 lumens).

Apolco P3 micro projector accepts video input of composite video and D-Sub (PC). It supports NTSC/PAL/SECAM video formats. The speaker audio output is 0.3W (mono channel).

The rechargeable battery life last 40 minutes for a single charge.

My two cents

Never compare Apolco P3 micro projector with a normal projector. That’s unfair.

The micro projector would be an ideal gadget when you want to do a small presentation at any place. Or, show photos taken from digital camera when you are traveling.

I like the small sleek white/black design of Apolco P3 micro projector. However, it does not has a stand, nor it could stand stable without any support.

Pro:
- extremely portable

Con:
- low display resolution
- low brightness
- does not support digital video input

More information at IBI Electronics Sdn Bhd.

Similar pocket projectors:

• 3M Pocket Projector MPRO120 listing at Amazon.com
• Optoma PK102 Pico Pocket Projector listing at Amazon.com
• Optoma EP-PK-101 PICO Pocket Projector listing at Amazon.com

fb140: find your Facebook friends who are using Twitter

1. Sign in your Facebook account at fb140.
2. Sign in your Twitter account.
3. You will get a list of Facebook friends who have Twitter account. Tick them and click on the “Follow these people!” button to follow them on Twitter. Done!

fb140 is a web application to find all your Facebook friends on Twitter. It looks at the website field of your Facebook friends’ profile to find friends who have listed their Twitter URL.

If your Facebook friends do not list their Twitter URL then fb140 cannot find them…

Among my 344 Facebook friends, only 6 have Twitter URL listed in their profile. I was expecting more.. maybe my friends are not keen to tweet?

How many of your Facebook friends are Twitter users too? Try fb140.

*Follow me at @liewcf

I withdrew the PayPal money at Nov 2, 2009 and received in my Public Bank account at Nov 5, 2009. 4 working days. I withdrew more than RM400, so there is no extra fee.

Surname? Name?

When you are adding bank account to PayPal account, PayPal fixed the “surname” field according to your account information. The “surname” might be your name.

It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry.

Just make sure your full name is there, no matter how they arrange your name. Example: “Surname Name” or “Name Surname”.

A reader also reported that she received PayPal money, even only submitted partial of her full name (missing middle name)!

Read my previous post “How to withdraw PayPal money to any Malaysia bank accounts?“