Download Opera Mini 4 Now!

Funny, I just installed Beta 3 a couple of days ago, only to find out that it just got out of beta yesterday and is now available  for download. You can download it from their website and just install it to your mobile device. Or, you can download directly from your phone – just point your browsers to http://mini.opera.com

I highly recommend Opera Mini if you don’t have WiFi, and you use your 3G, Edge or GPRS connection to surf the internet. The browser has a compression tool where they download the full website on their servers first, before displaying on your phone. This means A LOT of savings especially if you’re on Globe or Sun, since they charge by kb downloaded.

Hope we get unlimited data plans here soon!

Free Ayala Cinema Tickets (for Citibank card holders)

For Citibank Credit Card holders… just be one of the first 200 to answer this quick survey and you can win 2 free ayala cinema tickets!

Happy with my Broadband Provider

I just want to tell everyone that I’m very happy with my internet provider at home – Globe Broadband. I actually subscribed to them last April if I remember correctly, and I intially signed-up for the 768kbps data only plan at Ph995/mo. Since then I’ve been pretty satisfied with the service. Downtime has been limited to several instances only, and connection speeds are generally consistent. Thank god they installed lines at our place! I tried applying for PLDTdsl a couple of times before, but I couldn’t produce the required documents which for some reason they were so strict about (our pldt line at home is under the former owner, and I needed a special power of attorney for PLDT!). Good luck.

Anyway, going back to Globe… A couple of months back, they introduced new and super CHEAP packages. For example, you can get 1.5mbps for Ph995 – that’s twice the speed of what I was paying. That’s a good thing – but I felt duped signing up before this promo was released. Unfair! But guess what, I learned that existing subscribers were actually eligible to upgrade to the new packages! I just had to sign a piece of paper at the business center, which I didn’t mind at all doing last weekend. The Globe people were very helpful, considering that it was a public holiday and they were stuck in a shopping mall working until closing time. They informed me that upgrading meant locking in another 12months, I get free wi-fi, etc. etc. etc. After 36hours, I get my upgraded plan!

Now isn’t that admirable? Other service providers will always have separate promos for existing and new subscribers. You sign up, they forget about you until right before your contract expires – and they offer a loyalty program. Or worse, you get stuck with your outdated and crappy plans. I guess they’re showing here that they value both new and existing subscribers. Yeh!

Downloading Radiohead

Just finished downloading the much talked about new album from Radiohead – In Rainbows. I guess they finally got tired of all the illegal file swapping through bt, limewire, multiply, etc. and they just said if you’re gonna get for free, might as well get it from us. You can download the whole album officially from their website – you can get it for whatever price you want – it’s up to you. Yes, you can even get it for free.

Well in my case I decided to pay ₤3.00 for it, now that’s roughly around 300 pesos or half the price of a cd. I guess it’s a fair amount considering that the MP3 files are encoded at 160kbps, which is less than half the quality of a CD copy. Besides, they didn’t have to spend for the production, marketing and distribution of a cd anymore.

But you ask, why did I still pay for it if I could have downloaded it for free anyway? My belief is that if I can get a legal copy, I will get a legal copy (goes for both music and movies). That’s one frustrating thing about living in Manila – limited options. Go to Music1 or Tower Records, maybe 80% of their shelf space is dominated by britney and fall out boy. iTunes will not even allow my philippine credit card to purchase music online. So in this case, Iam left with no choice but to download for free (yess, haha!!). If the distributors feel the market is too small or threat of piracy is too high, they’re also in a way encouraging the spread of pirated copies online, aren’t they?

Hope to see more bands doing a radiohead!

Yess… I’m a Bloggist!

Joke, haha! Well, this will be my better late than never attempt at embracing this whole Web 2.0 thing, outside of friendster and multiply. I still don’t know how this whole thing will go… successful hopefully! Please expect me to write about anything and everything that I encounter in my daily life – glorified manila adventures, me working for a dotcom, some out-of-town trips, running down my daily online feeds and a lot of technology stuff (like gadgets and mobile phones). Well, these are the things my daily life is made up of.

Hope to see a lot of me here!!! Hehehe