Year: 2020

Just Another Joke

Of course, to the fanatics, this is just another one of his jokes. That is, while your job stays secure at this point.

If you’re one of those who already lost their jobs because of this pandemic, you’ll never find this funny.

Instapay now available in Security Bank mobile app

We have our salaries paid through our Security Bank accounts. Since I keep funds in my accounts with other banks, I need to do fund transfers now and then. And Instapay for Security Bank would have really helped.

Today I discovered that Fund Transfer to Other banks via Instapay functionality is already added to the Security Bank mobile apps.

 

Security Bank transfer to other banks
Security Bank transfer to other banks via Instapay.

Apparently, this functionality is available only on Android and iOS apps, but not in the web using your favorite internet browser. Nevertheless, this is a welcome development, especially now that GCash disabled cash-in via bank cards starting July 6, 2020.

Currently, as the whole nation is still technically on lockdown, all fees for Instapay transfers for all banks, including Security Bank, are waived. When things go back to normal, this fee schedule indicates that fees range from ₱10 to ₱50 among the different Philippine banks. Security Bank in particular will charge ₱15 per transaction, which is I would say is not too steep. I would argue that would be a cost worth paying for the convenience of not waiting some 30 minutes should you need to visit a branch of your bank.

Update: Read: Security Bank InstaPay Temporarily Unavailable

Viber is getting really annoying

It seems like when users are getting more dependent on a service, these service providers are doing everything to milk its users. And they’re doing it in the most annoying way.

Take for example, Viber:

That’s for their desktop app. In the phone app, there appears to be a setting to turn off Birthday push notifications of your contacts. But not in the desktop app.

How in the world did Viber get a hold of contacts’ birthdays in the first place? Now it’s shoving it to our faces!

How to sync Plex with Trakt

There used to be a plugin that seamlessly synchronized Plex library and watch history with Trakt.tv. Unfortunately, Plex discontinued the plugins feature, and thus leaving its loyal customers, even paying ones, in the dark. Yes, plugins still work, but I don’t think this particular plugin will still work in a fresh instance of Plex.

Of course, there’s the Plex scrobbler made by Trakt, which utilizes the Plex’s Webhooks, but that you need to have a Trakt VIP account to use this. Don’t get me wrong, Trakt is a great service, but I’m not paying $30 per year just for this scrobbler. They already have the vast users’ personal,  movies and TV shows preferences and collections information, those should already pay for the experience. They just need to be creative in order to monetize them.

There are also python scripts, but documentations are so poor, it’s not worth learning python just for that.

There’s a webhook, but it seems to do one way sync only (Plex to Trakt).

So, my questions are why:

  • If Kodi can have a native addon for Trakt sync, why can’t Plex?
  • Why is Trakt the only service that keeps track of your movies and TV shows collection that syncs with Kodi, Plex, Emby or Jellyfin? Where’s the competition?
  • Why Google is not making a service that competes with Trakt? I’m sure there are a lot of user data there that Google can use to enhance their collection.
  • Why Google is not buying Trakt?
  • Why Plex is not buying Trakt?
  • Why Plex can’t have a native library browser, complete with watch history?
  • Why Trakt? Where are the alternatives?

These are the questions that are painfully outstanding. Hopefully, in the near future, we’re not anymore dependent on Trakt.

Update: I have made PlexTraktSync work for my system. This required a little bit of work, installing Docker and running commands in the terminal, but I’m glad it’s working now. Read more about it here.