Category: opinion

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Not Necessary Believable News

As the saying goes, “bad news sells newspapers”.

Being true to this saying the traditional media (CNN, New York Times, etc.) are again reporting the Mac rumors as fact. Even with a recent example of how irresponsible these traditional media were; CNN iReport incident.

You can see from Dow Jones Newswires article Apple Sets Oct 14 Event: “Spotlight On Notebooks” they are referring to all the rumors about what Apple may announce as facts. They even went as far as suggesting that Apple is using this event on October 14, 2008, 09:30 (PST) as a tactic to recover the falling price of Apple’s stock (AAPL).

This Dow Jones Newswires’ Ben Charny has such high regards for Apple, that he is basically suggesting that Apple has such a great foresight, as to predict the collapse of the US economy and the global financial market. So they planned approximately 2 years ahead of time to have an event on exactly October 14, 2008; several days after Apple’s stock price broke its 52-weeks low a few times, to make announcements that will recover the price of their stock. That is utterly ridiculous.

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Smartone-Vodafone’s Stubbornness

Over the past year I had been trying to convince my current mobile carrier that their silly task bar; designed for WAP sites, on old generation mobile phones, is useless to me and should not be appearing on my phone, especially when I am using an iPhone.

They insist that this task bar is there to “enhance my surfing experience”, which I consider to be wasting valuable screen real estate for content of the web pages I visit. I told them that I did not signup to their service knowing that this task bar will be obscuring my surfing experience, and I believe that I should have the rights to remove this task bar from the web pages that I visit through their network (EDGE, HSDPA, etc.).

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Why Chinese Airlines Should be Avoided

I am now stuck in Beijing Airport. Air China has decided to cancel my flight to Shanghai, without giving any reasons.

There were just over 100 passengers for the original flight of a Boeing 777 aircraft, they probably thought it wasn’t worth it to operate such a large aircraft with so few passengers.

Canceling a flight because there are not enough passengers is something typical of US and “mainland” Chinese airlines, but not for Cathay and Dragonair or most large international airlines in Asia.

Another reasons may be because this is a domestic flight and they just don’t have a small aircraft available.

Will this happen to these large International airlines if they too operates short domestic flights like this one?

I guess we will never know.

[Update: Sep. 17, 2008 20:30]
It turns out the new gate is way on the opposite end of this huge airport terminal. We ended up having to take a bus to the plane. It was way out, parked in an area where they store planes that are used for flights on following day. The aircraft finally used was a Boeing 747-400 Combi.

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Comment on: Swedish Engineers Test iPhone 3G’s Antenna

Today I ready the following report from iPhone Hacks…

Some analysts have reported that the problem is with the Infineon chip that Apple has used in iPhone 3G, while there are others who believe that the issue is with the carriers such as AT&T who has a relatively young 3G network…

… They concluded that the results were completely normal…

… A difference of 4 to 6 dB could have indicated that there is a something wrong.

Read the full story.

I think the critics need to be a little bit less harsh on Apple on this whole iPhone 3G reception thing.

Yes, the reported iPhone 3G reception issue is not restricted to the USA, iPhone 3G users in Australia also have similar issues.

The thing is that both these countries do not have mature 3G cellular network cities, let alone national coverage.

Here in Hong Kong, all 5 cellular carriers: CSL, PCCW, Three, Smartone-Vodafone, People, have 3G network coverage for over 5 years.

You should see the number of cellular antennas here in the city, much smaller than most Australian and American cities.

It is expected to receive perfect cellular coverage within office buildings, malls and subway trains.

I personally have not use the iPhone 3G, because I am very happy with my “2G” iPhone (unlocked and jailbroken). I also had not heard of anyone I know who owns an iPhone 3G in Hong Kong complains about receptions either.

It is good that Apple tries to take responsibilities on the ultimate user experience of iPhone 3G owners, but the carriers (especially the less mature 3G operators) need too also.

PS: carriers in India is selling the iPhone 3G at very high prices even when compared to the rest of Asia, and they don’t even have a functional 3G network.

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Joke: Life Lesson 7

Story

A middle aged woman had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital. While on the operating table she had a near death experience. Seeing God She asked “Is my time up?” God said, “No, you have another 43 years, 2 months and 8 days to live.”

Upon recovery, the woman decided to stay in the hospital and have a facelift, liposuction, and a tummy tuck. She even had someone come in and change her hair color. Since she had so much more time to live, she figured she might as well make the most of it.

After her last operation, she was released from the hospital. While crossing the street on her way home, she was killed by an ambulance.

Arriving in front of God, she demanded, “I thought you said I had another 40 years? Why didn’t you pull me from out of the path of the ambulance?”

God replied, “I didn’t recognize you!”

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Joke: Life Lesson 6

Story

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.

While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out!

He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.

Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

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Joke: Life Lesson 5

Story

A turkey was chatting with a bull.

“I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree” sighed the turkey, “but I haven’t got the energy.”

“Well, why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings?” replied the bull. They’re packed with nutrients.”

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree.

He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

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Joke: Life Lesson 4

Story

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.

A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, “Can I also sit like you and do nothing?” The eagle answered: “Sure, why not.”

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

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OpenClip to Bring Copy & Paste to iPhone

A student developer, Zac White, released a software framework to the Opensource community, in hopes to finally enable cross-application Copy & Paste on the iPhone/iPod Touch. He calls this framework OpenClip.

Zac claims that his framework does not violate Apple’s SDK rules. The following is a demonstration of the framework on some yet to release versions of iPhone applications.

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