Remembering the Nokia 8800

20110507-110437.jpg

I remembered going to Avant Abenson 5 or 6 years ago and seeing a model unit of this Nokia phone, the Nokia 8800, which then carried a price tag of around PHP 56,000.00 or so.

Can you imagine: small screen, no touch screen, no 3G, no GPS, not even a flash light? Such a luxury indeed.

Here’s the complete specs. Continue reading Remembering the Nokia 8800

Sun Cellular Mobile Internet Rates

What I really liked about Sun Cellular (Sun) is that it really offers competitive rates not just call and text (SMS) but also mobile internet.

Take a look at their prepaid mobile internet pricing scheme called SBW Loads below:

SBW Loads

Contrary to popular notion, Sun Broadband Wireless (SBW) loads are not just for the SBW dongle; they can be used by regular Sun Prepaid subscribers to surf on their phone.

SBW Load Price Inclusions Validity
1. SBW25 P25 3 hours 1 day
2. SBW50 P50 1 day unlimited 1 day
3. SBW100 P100 3 days unlimited 3 days
4. SBW300 P300 48 hours 10 days

Rates sourced from their website.

The big question, however, is if you are considering the options SBW100 and SBW300, it’s a no-brainer that you should go for SBW100, right? What could be the logic that you would pick otherwise?

Again, another example of corporate ignorance.

Ironically Android Devices

I find it ironic for Android tablets (just like this Acer Iconia A500 tablet, photo above) and Android phones to pose like an iPad or iPhone competitor, and yet offer their products at usually higher prices than the leader.

If you are gonna take on the competition, and you can’t offer a lot more — if not better — features, then at least come out with a competitive price. Think about 50% to 60% of that of the leader.

OpenPGP for iPhone

Searching for OpenPGP in the App Store returns two apps only: SecuMail and OpenGP. Both interoperates with GnuPG. SecuMail is more robust in terms of functionality but costs a whopping $49.99. OpenGP (the Full version) is priced at $7.99 only, but it currently operates in a copy-and-paste message only — no support for attachments.

There are a lot of message encryption apps in the App Store in various encryption algorithms from 64 to 254 bits and in various prices. Some are universal apps for both iPhone and iPad. But most if not all are offering symmetric encryption, meaning you have to provide the other party you send your message to the passphrase in order for him/her to decrypt the message.

So, if you are already using OpenPGP like GnuPG to sign and encrypt emails in your desktop computers, you would love the two apps I mentioned above to access the same signed/encrypted email messages from your iPhone.

Update (June 3, 2011): There’s a new app that’s much cheaper to both apps featured above. It’s called iPGMail. The app costs US$ 1.99, and it appears to be functioning very well based on users’ reviews in the App Store. Wish I could try that to test, though.

Samsung Galaxy Ace – The Mid-Range Android Phone

At 3.5-inch display, it’s as big as the iPhone 4’s – though graphics may not necessarily be as crisp as the latter uses the Retina Display. Yet, at P14,990, who could resist this offer?

Samsung Galaxy Ace vs. iPhone 4

Photo Courtesy of PhoneArena.

The Galaxy Ace’s specs follow: Check out the specs and the PhoneArena Review »

The Three Types of Client Attitudes Toward Auditors

Just in time for the busy season, or at least for Philippine-based external auditors from the Big Four (or Five) or even smaller firms, here’s an article dedicated to my auditor friends and colleagues.

Having been in the audit for almost 6 years, I was able to draw some conclusions about the types of client attitudes toward auditors: Continue Reading »