Affordable Android: Samsung Galaxy Spica

Samsung Galaxy Spica

This is the Samsung Galaxy Spica, also known as the GT-I5700, or the Galaxy Lite, depending on what part of the world you’re currently in. It’s my newest phone, mostly a result of my Nokia N79’s refusal to send SMS when I most need to.

I’ve been not–so–privately salivating at the Google Nexus One since some of my friends got theirs. At $530 USD though, it doesn’t come cheap. Having one shipped all the way from the US tops the 30k barrier, hardly a reasonable price for a mobile phone, no matter how good.

I first heard about the Galaxy Spica through one of Globe’s newspaper ads, promoting an affordable Android–powered smartphone that can be had for only 14,495 pesos as a prepaid kit. I later learned I could get it for 1,000 a month for 12 months if I’m getting one of their new Globe My Super Plans, a good deal for a phone paired with a good service plan. To my disappointment, it was only for new postpaid subscriptions then.

Since I can no longer wait trying to bear with a phone that magically refuses to send SMS, I went visiting one of those Samsung stalls that seem to sprout in all shopping malls these days. You can’t miss them, they’re conveniently placed to occupy your field of view. All of it.

I asked about the Galaxy Spica and they said it goes for 16,000 pesos, but it can be had for only 13,700 if I pay cash! It was too tempting, so I went for it!

So you’re wondering, how’s the Samsung Galaxy Spica? It’s a lot of a phone for the money. You get Android 1.5 Cupcake, the Google–backed operating system for mobile phones and portable devices. 1.5 is not the latest version, but it’s the most widely used so you’re fairly covered. An update to 2.1 is coming too as those in Europe have been getting this same model with the latest Android.

The screen is a 3.2 inch TFT, not as bright nor as colorful as the Nexus One, but nothing to complain about. Unlike the Nexus One, the screen color appears true and not exaggerated. Since Samsung opted to leave it at vanilla Android 1.5, you don’t get any unnecessary apps or interface tweaks, making the phone feel snappy even with just an 800Mhz processor and around 180MB of RAM. There’s a 3.2 megapixel camera that’s robbed of a flash, but usable enough in bright settings. The battery’s rated at 1500mAh, a bit better than other moderately–priced smartphones. It can get more than a day of use, but it’s the type of battery (and phone) that you charge at night to give uninterrupted power the following day. Unless if you have a girlfriend who loves to play games on your phone, then there may be days your phone shows the low battery warning just before midnight. And because this is an Android phone, you’ve got lots of games and apps available for you, many of them free!

If you’re looking for a smartphone now, get the Samsung Galaxy Spica. 13,700 pesos cash gets you most of the things you need in a mobile phone. Better yet, if you’ve been putting off going postpaid, now is the best time! Get Globe’s Surf–All–You–Can paired with My Super Unli Super Plans and put this phone to good use with unlimited internet and Globe–to–Globe calls. You won’t regret getting this phone.

markkuandhana.com

Photo of Jay & Gang.

We have a new blog! markkuandhana.com is our photoblog where we showcase weddings that Hana and I get to shoot. Working with Mimi+Karl has shown us the joy in photographing beautiful celebrations of love, inspiring us to immortalize these touching moments through our eyes.

Shooting a wedding is always an awesome experience. You take comfort in knowing that things might not always be the same as the last time, that there just might be a photo that lives by itself, a photo that tells the whole story, all in a single frame.

Photo of Don & Mildred.

Shown here are the first three entries on our new blog: Jay & Gang, Nitz & Bek, and Don & Mildred. If you’re getting married soon, it would be nice to also have you on that blog.

Photo of Nitz & Bek.

Work + (−Inspiration)

When work consumes you and inspiration escapes you, what do you do?

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I post photos.

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Just blogging with imagery, or what–not.

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This time just blurred imagery, or blurred what–not.

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Just doing what comes easy at the moment, like how blogging should be.

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And maybe just doing how I’ve always written on this blog?

Last Friday

Last Friday would have been a nice twist to my “Five on Friday” series that I’ve been doing regularly irregular. I was gonna title my post “March 5 on Friday” as a reference to my birthday, and it would have been one of my better birthday entries. I guess this will do as my belated birthday entry for myself.

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As you see, it all started with a surprise: Luigi. It took a while for Luigi to come, but now he’s here to join big brother Mario in making my bed just a little bit more crowded. But the surprise doesn’t stop there:

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Hana knows exactly the things I want! But knowing my pangga, any special day wouldn’t be complete without a craft project for a gift. I just wasn’t sure there’s one for me.

To take my mind off it, and because the afternoon light was quite beautiful that day, I decided we should take some portraits:

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Before we left the office though, there it was! My uber–special gift!

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It was a tiny photo album (one that M+K could be proud of), a collection of photos we’ve had since we’ve been together (mostly cliquebooth photos), along with photos of nice little things special to us:

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It even includes one cliquebooth photo we’ve had before we were together!

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My pangga surely made my day very special with all the surprises. Friends and family also sent their greetings through SMS and Facebook and some even called—just about everything kept me smiling all day! So that was it, that was last Friday.

Connected Sites on Google Buzz

I was planning to blog today when my plans suddenly changed the minute I started playing Plants vs. Zombies. I’ve been holding off on this craze for a few months but finally gave in to the temptation after watching my sister play through most of it. But before the zombies eat my brain, I think I’d use it first and write this blog entry. (I had to stop, I just lost the game at an embarrasingly early level.)

As you may already know, the microblogging zombies have been abuzz with the latest craze: Google Buzz. Basically, it’s twitter without the hype and with better functionality. For starters, it has comments. And you can upload photos. Things that would have made twitter better if they integrated such features into it.

Buzz also has something that doesn’t come with twitter: connected sites. Utilizing their Social Graph API, it allows you to connect your identities from across the web to your Google Buzz profile, essentially pushing whatever content you generate to all your fans and followers. I was initially dumbfounded though when I noticed that this blog (rebelpixel.com) wasn’t listed under my profile though my other sites were. The solution was much simpler than I thought.

Google Webmaster Tools

Signing into Google Webmaster Tools, you can add your site to your profile and after verifying ownership through a <meta> tag or a hash–named html file uploaded to your server, it will be listed for use on Buzz’s connected sites:

Google Buzz Connected SItes.

Don’t forget to save your changes to your profile, the button’s positioned not quite intuitively at the bottom of the page. Now everytime you write something on your blog, your Buzz followers will hear about it.

Now I’m back to waging war against the zombies.

Web Design in 2010

If you’re still reading this blog you must be a real fan. Or just plain bored. So I’ll indulge you with some entertainment.

You would’ve noticed by now how rebelpixel.com looks very different to how it has always been for some years now. I always liked it grey. Now though, it’s in boring white that I think is quite a refreshing change. (You wouldn’t know that though if you’re reading this in an RSS reader.) But I guess “fresh” wouldn’t be staying for long.

If you’re reading this on a Mac with a fairly recent browser, you’d think the new minimalistic look blends well with the @font-face embedded font I’m using: Museo Sans. This works in Firefox 3.5 (and the recently released 3.6), Safari, and Google Chrome. Unfortunately, if you’re on Linux or Windows, @font-face rendering can go bad. In my current case, really bad. Look:

Image of text rendering sample of Mozilla Firefox on OS X and Windows 7.

Firefox/Mac text rendering just blows aways its Firefox/Windows counterpart, though I honestly feel it’s more of the operating system’s fault. Google Chrome shows us the same trend:

Image of text rendering sample of Google Chrome on OS X and Windows 7.

Note how Chrome (and Safari as shown below) renders the text inside <blockquote> tag. It’s supposed to be in italic as defined in CSS though I did not declare an italic sub–font for Museo Sans. Firefox tries to make italics out of the single embedded font file while it’s ignored in Webkit–based browsers. What should be the right behavior? I honestly have no clue.

Image of text rendering sample of Apple Safari 4 on OS X and Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7.

Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 paints a different picture: it ignored my EOT–encoded fonts and simply rendered text using the next available typeface in the CSS font stack. It’s broken and familiar; silently I think I’d rather take that compared to the rendering inconsistencies in embedded fonts.

Welcome to web design in 2010—it’s almost just like a decade ago.

Now I should really fix this design.

The Last Tonight Show

Last week, Conan O’Brien’s run with NBC’s “The Tonight Show” abruptly came to a halt after what many consider a wrong move by the network’s top executives. It was a sweet seven–month run, and I don’t think the show will ever be as fun again. Not with Leno doing it. But you’ve got to give it to Coco for saying the right thing as everything ends:

I hate cynicism. It’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

Now what’s left for me to watch with Conan off the air until at least September 1? I firmly believe Conan’s coming back big with a show worthy of all this drama. He’s always been known for his weird brand of comedy, and I’ll be looking forward to it. And it will somehow feel like this commencement address he gave to the Harvard class of 2000:

I’ve dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you’re desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.

I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I’m as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.

So, that’s what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over. If it’s all right, I’d like to read a little something from just this year: “Somehow, Conan O’Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the Late Night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possible the greatest host ever.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, Class of 2000, I wrote that this morning, as proof that, when all else fails, there’s always delusion.

I’ll go now, to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought: If you can laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you’re drunk.

Surely, amazing things will happen.

Sinulog at the Basilica del Santo Niño

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Around this time last year, I posted some Sinulog photos from way back 2008. Now here’s the rest of them, taken a day before at the Basilica del Santo Niño.

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Though I grew up in Cebu until I was five, I could hardly remember if I got to watch it before. So when my mom and dad offered me to join their almost–annual trip for Sinulog, I gladly obliged.

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I remember losing my phone (and very my old globe number/SIM); I was distraught about it that I was so hesitant about getting a new number or a postpaid subscription. Globe gladly gave me a custom number I want though, but now I realize I hardly use all of my G–Flex consumable credits.

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I would’ve wanted to take the 5Dmk2 for this year’s Sinulog if not for the busy sked. On second thought, it’s rather scary if tragedy decides to strikes twice with me holding a few–days–old camera. Yikes.

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Most of these photos were taken in color with my 400D, and they would’ve looked nice, though I think Sinulog in color is too common that I’d rather see them differently. But instead of giving them the Photoshop treatment, I chose Picasa’s basic editing and B&W conversion. I think they turned out well.

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I’ve removed the embedded gallery within this post but it’s now available as Sinulog at the Basilica del Santo Niño in the photosets section.