Movie Review: Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time

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My Rating: 4Stars

This evening I saw the movie Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time at UA Cinema, Times Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. One of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

The video game Prince of Persia was created by Jordan Mechner for Brøderbund in 1989, and ever since it has been refined and republished by different game companies over the years, with Ubisoft being the last to do so. Now in 2010 a movie had been released staring Jake Gyllenhaal of Brokeback Mountain fame. Aside from Ben Kingsley the rest of the casts are mostly unknowns.

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Choosing a 3G Tariff Plan in Hong Kong for iPad

With the pending iPad official release by Apple Hong Kong some time in July, mobile carriers in Hong Kong have begin to release tariff plans designed specifically to target iPad owners.

Among them only 3 HK currently has a data plan that comes with either a regular mini-SIM or the new micro-SIM. The rest of the carriers are offering data only 3G tariff plans that includes a free USB 3G modem. All of the plans also come with free WiFi network.

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Review: L5 Remote for iPhone

The iPhone has always been a great platform for developers to innovate and invent new uses for the device. Recently L5 Technology did just that with their L5 Remote hardware dongle + iPhone app [iTunes App Store link].

The L5 Remote is an universal remote control. It comes in two parts: a hardware IR dongle attached to the iPhone (3G/3GS)/iPod Touch Dock Connector, and an iPhone app. The hardware dongle cost USD49.95 + shipping and the L5 Remote iPhone app is free from the iPhone App Store.

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Movie Review: Robin Hood (2010)

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My Rating: 3Stars

This afternoon I saw the movie Robin Hood (2010) at JP Theater, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. One of the movies from my Must See Movies

Before I begin, I need to set the mindsets of all potential movie goers for this movie. It is not a “Robin Hood” movie of the traditional sense, but what they refer to as a prequel to the Robin Hood saga. This movie describes the background of the person who will eventually be known as “Robin Hood”. In this movie this character is played by Russell Crowe.

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Review: Twitter for iPhone

A bit over a month ago Twitter (the site/service) purchased the popular iPhone app “Tweetie”. During the announcement Twitter also announces that they will rename the app to “Twitter for iPhone” and reduce the price to free. The name is not that original but that was intentional, because Twitter wants people to find their client of the same name when they perform a search in the iTunes App Store.

Since the acquisition the Twitter 3rd party client development community has been shaken up. The thinking from analysts is why would any user pays for a 3rd party client when there is a free official client from Twitter.

With the name change Twitter also changed the icon of the app. I think they have chosen a great icon, because it is the same as the default avatar icon in the Twitter service.

Even prior to the purchase Tweetie 2 users had already have a great deal of anticipation for the next update, Tweetie 3, so they are glad that the newly released app is basically Tweetie 3 with a name change. In this new version of Tweetie (aka “Twitter for iPhone”) there are several speed improvements and bug fixes, the most noticeable are: Continue reading “Review: Twitter for iPhone”

Spam Alert for All Domain Owners

I just receive the following email from a company who claims to represent the “Department of Registration Service in China”.

It appears that the email was sent to individuals who owns domains and is attempt to scam the user into spending outrages prices for similar domains under different TLDs.

We are the department of registration service in China. we have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application on May. 17, 2010, One company which self-styled “Mintor(Japan)Venture Capital Co.,Ltd” are applying to register(vinko) as internet brand name and domain names as below (vinko.cn vinko.com.cn vinko.net.cn vinko.mobi  vinko.asia  vinko.in  vinko.hk vinko.tw etc.).

After our initial checking, we found the internet brand name and these domain names being applied are as same as your company’s, so we need to get the confirmation from your company. If the aforesaid company is your business partner or your subsidiary company, please DO NOT reply us, we will approve the application automatically. If you have no any relationship with this company, please contact us within 15 workdays. If out of the deadline, we will approve the application  submitted by “Mintor(Japan)Venture Capital Co.,Ltd” unconditionally.

Please forward the email to your decision maker,and let them contact me in time,so that we can handle this in reasonable,Look forwarding to hearing from you.

Best Regards,

Kevin Wu
Senior Director
TEL: +86 21 69929440
Fax:  +86 21 69929447
Website:http://www.qp-world.org.cn

Address:Room 902,8th,nong 1518,Jinyuan 1st Road,Jiading District, Shanghai city.

Whatever you do, DO NOT click on any of the links, reply to the email, visit the company’s web site or act on this email in any way. It is a scam to try to get you to purchase more domain names.

Review: CantoNotes & Hanzi Lookup on iPhone

A pair of iPhone app from Omar Rabbolini, an Italian application developer currently resides in UK.

These pair of iPhone apps: CantoNotes and Hanzi Lookup, will help Cantonese speaking users not familiar with writing Chinese; like myself, learn to write Chinese characters.

CantoNotes will allow users to enter Chinese characters using the LSHK (Linguistic Society of Hong KongJyutPing standard phonemes input method and CantoNotes will respond with the corresponding Chinese character. Characters displayed can be copy and paste into the built in Hanzi Lookup screen. Rather than using the built in copy & paste feature of iPhone OS, the app use its own Copy and Paste buttons. Although the iPhone OS built in copy & paste feature also works. After pasting the desired Chinese characters into the Hanzi Lookup screen, it will display the Chinese character in a medium size font, along with the Cantonese pronunciation beneath it one character at a time.

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Exodus of Facebook and What to Do About It

Other than the “Red Shirt Movement” in Thailand there is also a movement to stop using Facebook.

This all started when Facebook announce their “Open Graph API” initiative. I am not going to explain the details of this API here, because there are extensive documentations on Facebook’s Developers web site. The reason for concern is not because Facebook has opened its API, but how Facebook is doing so and the side effects of these actions.

From the beginning, users of Facebook have used it as a private network where people share personal information with only people they desire and no one else. In recent days/months due to various changes to Facebook it has betrayed this trust that over 400 million Facebook users have placed on the site.

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Review: Numbric on iPhone

The maker [Headnix] of the very useful iPhone/Mac application “Finger” has release another new iPhone/Mac application, “Numbric“.

Numbric is one of those cool iPhone apps that enables the transform of the iPhone into something other than a simple smartphone. This time it converts the iPhone into an external numerical keypad.

Ideal for anyone using the recent models of iMacs that only come with the new Apple Keyboards. These new Apple Keyboards do not have the extra keys and numerical keypad like the old Apple Extended Keyboards. Of course anyone who has a frequent need for number entry and is using a new Apple Keyboard, MacBook or MacBook Pro will find this little application useful.

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