Microsoft and Nokia join forces in smartphone market

Of all the analysts who publicized their reactions to the Microsoft-Nokia smartphone deal announced on February 11, Blue Badge Insights founder Andrew Brust seemed to be the most rational I have seen so far. He said (in an interview with http://www.eweek.com/), "The two companies are on their respective back feet."

Brust added, "But they can certainly help each other: Microsoft gets global reach and market share from Nokia; Nokia upgrades from the somewhat stunted Symbian OS to something modern, touch-centric and contemporary in design value, through Microsoft's WP7."

Nokia president and CEO Stephen Elop and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Now, compare that with the vitriol and beratings mouthed by some other analysts, industry rivals and partners, and even consumers. These people seem to remain unable to forgive Microsoft for its role in the Wintel homogeny during the 1990s and early 2000s.

My Samsung S2 Portable HDD goes lights out

My one-month-old portable hard disk drive, a Samsung S2 Portable, went bonkers last week. All of sudden, and without even the slightest of premonitions, the Korean-made 320GB HDD lost its intimate partnership with my home PC, and would not even talk to my old-hand, dual-core laptop.




My one-month-old Samsung S2 Portable HDD, seconds before it stopped letting me access my data

I had a hard time trying to stifle my fear, as the worst of worries over losing data – lots of data – began rearing its head. This could not be happening to me, I told myself. This is something that happens only to those unlucky or foolish enough to place their data-storage fate in the hands of unworthy data-keeping devices and services.



My brick of a portable HDD in its full naked glory

Instead of letting me browse and open files I had stored in the portable HDD, my home PC is telling me now that the drive needs to be formatted before I can use it. Before I can use it!

Of course, the unit comes with warranty. But would even the toughest warranty be able to retrieve my gigabytes of photos, work files, movies, MP3s, and other digital souvenirs I picked up for the last two years?

I should have browsed the Web for users' opinions about this product before I decided to buy this Samsung HDD. Unfortunately for me, the thought of doing so came to my mind hours after I lost my HDD. I should have read this and this.

HondaJet Light Business Jet Flies, Conforms With FAA

HondaJet light business jet, front view profile

Last month, on December 20, 2010, a HondaJet light business jet took off from Honda Aircraft Company’s facility at the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina. Aside from marking a huge step forward in the company’s march to mass produce an advanced generation of business jets, the event was the first flight by a HondaJet that conforms to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s safety and performance rules and regulations.

Consumer electronics, information technology ease our worries in 2011

Hello, 2011. It's good that you finally got here. Your predecessor has been a real roller coaster -- sometimes a real pal, and a times, a real pain in the arse.

A part of me is hoping you would turn out a lot nicer and a lot friendlier than the last one. But you can do whatever you want; I don't really care that much. After all that we have been through, anything you can bring about, we definitely have seen it before.

Also, whatever gloom and doom you might be capable of doing, it would not matter much. After all, we have consumer electronics and technology to help tide us over. Last year was a killer, figuratively and literally. Yet we have survived. Thanks to technology.

Bombings, massacres, and natural calamities? We can go beyond those things. Thanks to our love affair with the latest and the shiniest tech toys. Those self-declared saviors of our freedoms and eternal salvations, they can bomb us all into the next millennium or two, but they cannot make us let go of our smartphones, our tablet computers, and of our wireless Web connections.

In fact, in almost all of last year, the only thing that retained its luster was the technology sector. Humans' achievements in science and technology almost helped us forget about those morons who think killing and maiming each other is their only way to nirvana and paradise.

Those smartphones, laptops, and tablet computers are more than our latest badges of vanities. They are symbols of our ability to overcome adversities, even our weaknesses, wickedness, and ignorance.

Long live, consumer electronics!

Saying goodbye to 2010

Only a day left before the world says goodbye to 2010 -- a year that for some people should have gone on its way much faster than it did for most of the past 12 months. The past 364 days have shown us in an in-your-face manner how vulnerable we humans are, how brittle the ramparts we have built around us to protect our lives and livelihood from nature's unpredictable ways, from the things that other, more evil people and countries can do, and from ourselves.

Here, on these islands, the year has never been less unforgiving than it was for other lands and peoples. In fact, few would disagree with one who would say that the past 12 months were more unkind to Filipinos than they were to other nations.

Man-made and natural disasters we had more than our fair share. Too much rain one moment; too much sun the next -- mountains fall upon our villages and farms and a little later on, our fishponds and ricefields dry up faster than you could say, "disaster unpreparedness."

Our rural places are ruled by roaming bandits and self-declared saviors. Our cities stink like ill-maintained urinals and outhouses. We kill each other for power. We kill and maim each other for money. Sometimes, we kill, maim, and blast each other for no reason at all.

Most of us are poor. We have been this way for as long as we can recall. The microscopic minority that call themselves rich do not give a damn about how the rest of us fare. We survive or perish, they never give the slightest care.

For the foreseeable future and beyond, we are most likely going to continue our dismal and pathetic existence. And, hence, it does not make any sense at all, why most of us are brightly optimistically looking forward to whatever the next year brings us.

Our own pitiful way of compensating for the harshest of realities we find ourselves in? Or are we engaging in a social, mutual feeding of false hopes and collaboratively putting on each other's blinders?

What the heck. I am putting on my own, too.

Goodbye to you, 2010. And good riddance.

Hello, 2011. Here we go again.

Smartphones for budget-smart people

Without a doubt they’re all smart. But without any doubt too, only the superrich or non-smart people can afford them.

Smartphones may indeed enhance your ability to take charge of personal information. These mobile tools are supposedly designed to help you become more organized, more efficient than before you purchased these phones. However, these phones cost so much, they can drive you to the poorhouse.

The Smart from HTC, one of the most affordable smartphones in the market

Coming with prices that range between Php25,000 and Php45,000, these smartphones also would require budget-draining monthly fees that you have to pay for you to enjoy their full range of smarty features.

Optimus Android One Sale by LG Mobile Philippines a Success,Too Successful for Some

Judging from the number of people who formed huge crowds before LG Mobile Philippines' concept stores nationwide, the Korean mobile vendor's November 13 50-percent discounted sale for the Optimus One Android smartphone proved to be a huge success. Apparently, Nokia's surprise (and announced-without-warning) 60-percent-off sale of its C6 phone failed to rain too much on LG Mobile's parade.

As this photo (which I "stole" from LG Mobile Philippines) shows.

Hundreds of consumers and smartphone enthusiasts did not mind the long lines, and some people's "inability to stay in line" just to get their hands on one of those Optimus One Android smartphones on sale at 50% discount. 

There were reports of lack of discipline among some consumers who could not wait in line. This prompted some smartphone enthusiasts to post their complaints on Facebook, the most popular networking site in the country.

Without a doubt, however, this one-day, one-hour event created lots of noise (mostly positive) (mostly negative, unfortunately) for the Korean mobile phone vendor.

P.S. We were told recently that both the LG and Nokia sales became case studies on how not to do sales promotions. Unfortunately (or was that fortunately?), I was not able to cover the event. I met an accident at home the week before the sales.

So, for Nokia and LG (and for their frustrated customers): better sale next time; and next time, can we do it properly?