Now, there is a cheaper and more reliable way of buying iTunes Gift Card online. Bestbuy, one of the largest online-offline seller in the US, sells the iTunes Gift Cards through their website. Since Bestbuy is a name that you can trust, you don’t have to worry about the legitimacy of the code. Also, they charge only the face value. In fact, now the cards are on sale, and you can get 20% discount (I paid $40 for a $50 card).

The problem is, when you check out, they only accept a credit card issued in the US(it seems this restriction only applies to the purchase of iTunes Gift Card). But there is a way around it. First, you need a US Paypal account. You just need to choose US as your country when you make an account with Paypal, and you don’t need the US credit card. Once you have the US Paypal account, then choose Paypal as your payment method when you check out from Bestbuy. That’ it! You will get the code in a couple of hours(if they are not busy, it might come within an hour). Some people tried foreign credit card and succeeded in buying the iTunes Cards from Bestbuy, but most people failed with this method, so using Paypal seems to be a better alternative.

Now, it looks like this “too good to be true” scheme turns out to be too good to be true. Today, many users reported that their iTunes Store ID is blocked, because of Freeappdaily. They say they used the app, and got redeem code as promised, but now Apple is considering the whole deal as “fraudulent activity”, and blocked their account. So, they cannot update their apps, and if they had any credit, they’ve lost it, too. It seems that if your redeem code from Freeappdaily is recorded as “gift from Alexander”, then there is a very high chance that your account is blocked.

It seems like Freeappdaily didn’t pay Apple(or anyone who issued the redeem code) properly, so Apple is considering any user that has redeemed those codes as participants of illegal activity. It’s rather unfortunate, because most users who got the codes from FAD didn’t suspect any foul play, mostly because this app was available on App Store, so they thought the whole deal was legit. They see themselves as innocent victims, rather than accomplices of a crime. I haven’t use FAD, because I’ve never seen any app they provided that I really liked, but I understand the frustration of those users who are in trouble because of it. I hope Apple will eventually unblock those accounts.

PS. Freemyapps, another free apps service seems to be running fine, and they may be totally legit. But then, FAD seemed to be legit too until yesterday…

[Update] A new post on Freemyapps facebook page says, “We are aware of the Apple ID issue, and have been in communication with Apple to resolve it. Apple is working hard to correct the problem, and it should be resolved quickly. Thank you.” It seems they are working on it. I hope they will be able to resolve the problem soon.

[Update] Now, several users are reporting that their Apple ID is unblocked, and they can access their account. It seems like there is happy ending after all.

This year, AirOne, a budget airline based in Italy, started fly between Milan-Munich, and everything has changed. They are so cheap(I just booked my return tickets for April, and it costs around 70 euros), and it takes only an hour to get to the destination. Now, it seems there is no reason to take a train!

Okay, nothing is perfect in this world, and with AirOne, to get the cheapest option, you have to carry only one 8kg hand-carry bag. If you want to check in your bags, you need to pay extra. Still, it is quite a good deal, and since I fly between the two cities regularly, I think I will benefit a lot from them. By the way, even Allitalia lowered their pricing, so it might be a good idea to check price comparison sites like Momondo to find the best option.

The problem that I had was mostly due to the fact that Snow Leopard was installed using Kakewalk, but I tried to use Unibeast and Multibeast when I installed Lion. Hackintosh is always a delicate system, since you are installing an OS on a machine that is not supposed to have that particular OS. Then you mix two different solutions and two different versions of OS, and something is bound to go wrong.

So, I formatted the hard drive and started from the scratch with Kakewalk. I had excellent result with Kakewalk in installing SL, and I also had an easy time with it in installing Lion. If you have one of the motherboards that is supported by Kakewalk, there is really no reason to use other solution.

To install Lion using Kakewalk, you need a copy of Lion, Kakewalk, and a USB stick(you also need a mac, because Kakewalk is Mac-only program). Basically, you choose your copy of Lion, and the motherboard, and Kakewalk does the rest, including formatting the USB stick. Kakewalk downloads drivers for your motherboard, so your mac should be connected to the internet.

Once the USB stick is ready, just plug it in, and boot from it. Then you will be able to install Lion as if you are just installing it on a Mac. Once the installation is done, basically your Hackintosh is ready to be used. Of course, there might be some tweaking to be done. For example, I installed USB 3.0 Lacie kext (Patched by Modbin) to enable USB 3.0 port on my Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Rev 2.0 board (by the way, the old version of Kakewalk had problem with this particular board, but now it works fine).

Then, I applied 10.7.3 combo update that was released just a few days ago. Once I did it, as the Kakewalk manual says, before I restart the computer, I run Kakewalk and chose update, so that Kakewalk magic will not be broken by the OS update. Now I have a solid 10.7.3 Hackintosh.

With Kakewalk, building a Hackintosh is almost as easy as buying a Mac. The only thing to remember is you should choose the right mother board and graphic card. I recommend choose one of the motherboards that is supported by Kakewalk. Unibeast and Multibeast method seems to support more kinds of motherboards, but I think Kakewalk is a more elegant solution.

The ferry stops near the Amsterdam Central station. When you enter the station from the main gate, just walk across it. You will come out of the rear entrance. Then cross the road, and it is located on the left side. The ride takes around 5 minutes. It’s not long, but it is a nice free ride, and you can see the city from the sea. It looks even nicer after the sunset.

Lovefilm.de has a huge DVD library, and now they have a growing collection of Bluray discs, too. If you get a membership, they begin to send you discs by mail. When you are done with them, you can send them back using the same envelope they came in. It is just like Netflix in the US.

Since Germany mail system is quite reliable, most of the discs arrive safely, even though one set of discs went missing this year for the first time for me. I had to wait 5 days before I could report the missing set, and they promptly sent new set.

There are several kinds of memberships that you can get. For example, if you pay 17 euro per month, you can rent two discs at one time without limit. It means, you can always have two discs, and as soon as you return the disc, they will send you new ones. You do not have to make a long-term contract, so you can stop whenever you want, and if you are away for a while, you can suspend the service(up to two times a year).

The only complain that I have is that sometimes they do not send the next set of discs right away. I return mine, but they take some time before they send new ones. It happens more often when I am very quick with watching them and return them the next day. The other problem is there are quite a number of DVDs missing in their library, marked as “unavailable.” I would like them to make them available soon!

All in all, I think the service is a good option for movie lovers, and now there is even the option of watching the movie online(they use very simple technology. Basically, they stream the movie with flash, so you can watch it without problem on a mac, too). They accept credit card issued in a foreign country, and their customer service team speaks English. Usually, they provide a trial period, so you can try the service for free for a while before you get a full-membership.

I love my Philips HR1861/00. I bought it because I wanted to drink more fruit juice for my health. Of course, I could have bought a normal blender, but I knew that I would have to add water and sugar to make juice with a traditional blender. With Philips HR1861/00, you use only fruits, so it is healthier.

Another advantage is that juice made with this juicer tastes better. When I made carrot and apple juice with a blender, I could not finish it, because I didn’t like the taste of carrot. Now, when I make carrot juice(without apple or sugar), it just tastes fantastic. I usually mix carrots, apples, lemons, oranges, and cabbage (cabbage adds pungent taste, which is not very nice on its own, but okay when you mix it with other fruits or vegetables). In summer, I use watermelon a lot, and when I can find pairs, I use them, too.

Another major selling point of this juicer is the fact that it is very easy to make juice. You don’t have to peel and remove the core before you make juice. You just wash them, and, if they are too big, cut them. You’d better remove the skin of orange though, because it tastes bad. Once you are done, you need to wash it, which takes a few minutes, but I guess there is no way around this particular chore.

This juice make juice by breaking down an fruit, then use centrifugal force to extract juice. That’s why the juice made with it tastes so good. The problem with this approach is that you cannot extract the juice 100%, so you are wasting a little bit of juice. I think more effective machine will extract 5% more juice, but that’s quite negligible amount, I guess.

I paid around 70 euros in Germany for this machine, but it seems the price is higher now. It is an excellent machine that can improve your health, and make your life more pleasant. I highly recommend it.

Since then, I checked the online billing system of T-Mobile Germany, and it showed that I was charged 4.99 euros twice, once per week. Then I remembered that the ad said the logo cost 5 euro per week. I was so upset, that I contacted T-mobile, reporting the abuse. They said they blocked my account from being charged by outside service, but it seems I still have to pay the 10 euro.

It’s quite crazy that mobile networks allow this kind of scam to defraud people. If I didn’t check the online billing, I could have paid 20 euro extra each months. I could have lost several hundreds euro eventually.

But it’s easy to understand why this kind of scam is hard to uproot. Mobile companies make money from the commission(when an outside company provides service and charge the user, the mobile company gets commission), and apps developers gets a lot of money(I’m sure those people who run this scam are willing to pay more than 10 euro per click to developers, which is 10 times higher than what adsense or iAd would pay). But, scams like this will eventually kill the whole mobile ads market. I mean, who will ever touch an ad when they know it might cost them several hundreds of euro?

So, I plead the mobile networks to make sure the outside services should be able to charge people only they are actually providing valuable service(and reject them as soon as several users report their scam), and if you are a developer, consider use only respected ad systems like adsense or iAd. And, don’t ever click on suspicious ads on your mobile gadget. They can tab into your phone account and siphon money out of it.

There is a very simple way of doing it. If you go to http://facebook.com/home.php from your mobile web browser, it will show the normal Facebook site. After that, you can go to other pages on Facebook, but it will continue to access the normal page, and not the mobile page. Simple, but can be very handy when you want to change that obscure setting that you cannot access from your iPhone usually.

I was very excited when I heard Facebook for iPhone 4.0 was out. So, I installed it right away on my iPhone 4. It didn’t open, so I had to remove it and install it again, then I turned off my iPhone and turned it on, just for sure. Now, it opened, and I could enjoy the beautiful new design. However, I realized that there was no friends list on it. Friends list mode shows news from only certain people that you included in the list. I have around 500 friends, and I usually only read news feeds of certain number of friends. Without friends list support, I would have to go through news feeds of people I barely know a lot. So, I had to delete it again, and reinstalled the old version from my laptop.

I think it’s sad that Facebook does not include the friends list support on the new version. They remove not only the custom friends list, but other list like close friends and aquaintances that Facebook introduced recently. They dropped the friends list in the past, but restored it after negative reviews. I hope they will understand their mistake, and reintroduce it again soon.

Update- I downloaded 4.02, and I found friends list. It’s not on the side menu, but you can choose it on the Newsfeed page, which is confusing, because if you access Facebook on safari app, friend list is on the side menu. Anyway, I am glad to be able to use friends list.