Using the Nokia 6680 as a GPRS modem

I finally got to tweak the Nokia 6680 to work as a GPRS modem, following Russell Beattie's guide on Using the Nokia 3650 as a GPRS modem.

Good thing the phone had a Setting Wizard so it was a cinch to quickly configure its settings for the Smart network.

Next step is to configure the Packet data connection settings. Under Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> Connection -> Packet data, I had the following settings:

Packet data conn.: "When needed"
Access point: "internet"*

*The entry in "Access point" must be the same as the "Access point name" entry under Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> Connection -> Access points -> Smart Internet.

On the laptop computer with bluetooth, I just set-up Dial-up Internet Connection as usual and select the bluetooth modem. The username/password fields were left blank and *99# was entered in as the phone number to dial. *99# will instruct the phone to connect to GPRS when used as a modem by the laptop computer.

Presto! Instant internet connectivity outside the confines of a WiFi hotspot. No more blogging withdrawal symptoms for me.

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From a financial standpoint -- which is cheaper to use: using the phone as a GPRS modem or using the phone as a dial-up modem?

Assuming that I want to download a 1 MByte file to my computer:

Using the phone as a GPRS modem the computation is fairly straightforward:

Approx. download time for a 1 MByte file: 5 minutes
Charge: P0.25 per KByte
Total Bytes downloaded: 1 MBytes
Total Charges: P250.00

Using the phone as a standard dial-up modem, the computation is a bit more complex:

Approx. download time for a 1 MByte file: 15 minutes
Airtime charges (data charges for Smart Infinity): P3.00/minute x 15 minutes = P45.00
Dial-up internet charges (using Blast prepaid) = approx. P2.00 for 15 minutes
Total Charges: P47.00

Surprising, isn't it?

So if I'm in a remote, far-off place with no access to a landline phone or WiFi hotspot but with good cellular coverage and I need to download bulky e-mails, I'd rather use the phone as a dial-up modem and just dial into my favorite ISP over the air.

But for not-so-bandwidth-hungry applications like instant messaging (so I can be "online" most of the time), I would still use GPRS.

But hey, what the heck, if I really want to be online 24/7, I've got Agile Messenger for my phone. I'm online - I just stay "invisible" most of the time. There's really no need to use a computer for instant messaging stuff so now I can easily "text" anyone and send them a message for less than P1.00, even when they're out of the country.

Ain't technology great? If only everyone had Agile Messenger and GPRS phones... That would definitely save consumers a lot in text messaging expenses. This will mean less revenue for the telcos though :P

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This blog was inspired by Ka Edong's Technobiography, a great pinoy site for learning and knowing about anything and everything mobile.

The struggles of childhood

I recently gave my sis' blog the Friendster.Blogs' Blog of the Year awards, as documented here. Of course what can you expect... I'm her bro! Blood is indeed thicker than water :P

In her blog "About a Girl... & a Girl" she discussed a bit on the "struggles of childhood":

1. how to save one’s self in “Hide & Seek”

2. how to determine the proportion of gumamela with soap to make lasting “blow bubbles”

3. how to make Barbie cross legs

4. how to remove stuck Lego pieces from the base w/o using the teeth

5. how to make a paperboat sail through rain residue

6. finding clues that lead to another inside the “Secret Passage”

7. how to win in “pekwa”, “monkey-monkey”, “1-2-3 pass” & “bluff”

8. how to sharpen one’s moves in "piko" & "patintero"

Here's more from my own "struggles":

1. How to run up the stairs really fast without tripping over.
2. How to run down the stairs really fast without falling down.
3. Finding out for the first time that a dog has a "hotdog".
4. Discovering how dogs mysteriously get their asses "glued" together ( I really thought there was some sort of a "suction force" that was gluing their asses together... so i got my father's bolo and started "sawing" in between their asses. Surprisingly, they separated! The male dog wasn't too happy though. And no, I didn't saw his hotdog off.)
   
5. Discovering that caterpillars (budo-budo) hate getting burned to death.
6. Discovering that earthworms hate being "salted" to death.
   
7. Discovering that parakeets will fly away when you let them out of the cage and will never return back :(
8. How to get the swing to swing 180 degrees front and back (yahooo! my first daredeveil attempt... and I lived to tell about it)
   
9. How to make a paper airplane fly farther and further. (Make a really BIG paper airplane using dad's scrap cartolina, tie a long piece of string at its tail end, and launch it at a cliff's edge -- finding cliffs in Baguio was never a problem)
   
10. Making water bombs and letting it fall off a cliff and watching it "explode" as it hits the bottom. (Kaplooosh! ...again, playing by the cliff and discovering Newton's laws)
    
11. Discovering that the flowers of my mom's plants are edible ("hey where did the flowers go???!!!")
    
12. Proving to my friends that sand is edible and then discovering that it is not (ouch! my teeth!)
    
13. Treasure hunting and digging holes in one's backyard hoping to find a pot of gold. (I found lots of stones instead, and at one time, a dead cat).
    
14. Feeling the giddiness while rolling over and over down a grassy slope and then landing on doggie doo (hey what's that smell?)
    
15. Watching a horror movie on television (dracula!) and then being too scared to go near the TV to switch it off afterwards (Remote controls haven't been invented yet then, so I invented my own remote - a long piece of stick that I use to push the TV's power switch off so that I wouldn't have to go near the TV set).
16. How to catch spiders hiding in dry, rolled up leaves in a sayote vineyard, and then letting them fight each other afterwards. (go spiderman!)
    
17. Collecting catterpillars, storing them in a glass jar and waiting for them to spin their cocoon and emerge as a butterfly. (Nope, they didn't become butterflies. They became ant feed instead - ants must really love feasting on catterpillars stuck up in glass jars).
    
18. Discovering that the higher the step you jump from a staircase is directly proportional to the annoyance factor you give to the people living one floor below you.
19. Discovering that the smell of freshly baked, home made brownies is the best smell in the world.
20. How to build a small "dam" by blocking off a canal with lots of dirt and stones and watch it create a mini-lake when the rain starts pouring (I was dreaming of building a hydro-electric plant someday in my own backyard!)
    

Friendster.Blog Awards!

        I've had my Friendster profile for a while but it's been only recently that I became active in the Friendster community and started experimenting with blogging.  I started with this Friendster blog and finally created another two in Blogspot here and here.  I'm really very rusty with my literary skills ever since I started making financial write-ups, business plans and even some attempts in computer programming.

        Amidst all the daily turmoil in my existence I discovered that my sister Eileen also has a profile in Friendster.  Well what a pleasant surprise indeed!  She's so far away kasi in Singapore so communication is far and between.  It's not like I'm alone in this world - I'd be more surpised though if I found out that my parents also have their profiles here in Friendster... yikes! 

        So now my sis is now my "friend"!  :D

        And another surprise - my sis has got a very excellent and well written blog!  So far this is the the best blog I've read ever...  Naunahan pa ako sa paggawa, hehehe.  Hands down, my Friendster.Blog awards for Blog of the Year goes to "Me, Myself and Eileen"

        Check out "En's New World"

        clap clap clap clap clap clap! 

Keep on blogging sis!

~Your brother for life (ano pa nga ba?) hehehe...

More About Goals and Commitment

Here are some more things learned about goals, coming from a very good mentor-friend that I look up to:

"The world makes way to those who know where they are going."

It's all about dedication and commitment to a goal, and all about the passion for achieving something worthwhile. Circumstances will always bow down to commitment.

These people certainly know where they are going:

1. Tony Tan Caktiong, CEO of Jollibee Foods and
Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year 2004

"When I think back on those early days, I can say I had a dream, and it was a pretty big dream. I once boldly stated in one of our early planning sessions that my vision was to create the largest food company in the world. That was when we had just five stores! Some people laughed when they heard it, but I wasn’t joking. Well, we’re still far from achieving it, but we do have over 1000 stores today, in six different countries, and we’re growing faster today than ever before." -- Commencement Speech at the Ateneo de Manila University, 18 March 2005

2. John Gokongwei, founder of JG Summit Holdings, Inc.

"Call it trite--but, believe me, success CAN BE ACHIEVED through hard work, frugality, integrity, responsiveness to change--and most of all, boldness to dream. These have never been just easy slogans for me. I have lived by them." -- Commencement Speech at the Ateneo de Manila University, 1 March 2002

"If you dream of creating something great, do not let a 9-to-5 job—even a high-paying one—lull you into a complacent, comfortable life. Let that high-paying job propel you toward entrepreneurship instead...", "The only barriers left are the barriers you have in your mind." -- Commencement Speech at the Ateneo de Manila University, 27 March 2004

A Little Bit of Fun...

This has been sitting in my phone for so long already, giving me a mischievous smile on my face everytime I read it... So I just have to post it here:

Dexter's Frazzled Wisdom...

1. It's not how you pick your nose, but where you put the booger.


2. Impotence: Nature's way of saying "No hard feelings".


3. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life.


4. When all else fails, follow instructions.


5. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.


6. The early bird gets the worm.  On the other hand, the early worm gets eaten.


7. if at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.


8. He who laughs last thinks slowest.


9. It takes many nails to build a cradle, but only one screw to fill it.


10. You can't be late until you show up.


11. Make war, not love. It's safer.


12. Anything can be obtained through hard work, perseverance, and a large assortment of automatic weapons.


13. There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people.

Smart SIP Apps Challenge - Finalists

Congratulations to the Top 10 Finalists in the Smart SIP Apps Challenge! They received their 100K cash grant and two Nokia 6680 phones each during the awards ceremony held sometime last June.

The Finalists:

Acquired Computer and Communications, Inc.
Application: Baloon Pop (Game)

Ateneo de Manila Wireless Center
Application: GoSIP Groupware Suite

FC Liu Development Corp.
Application: Nuts and Bolts (Game)

Gibeon Technologies, Inc.
Application: Cellbots Battlestage (Game)

GMA New Media
Application: My Fanatxt (File Sharing)

Icon Interactive
Application: Patintero (Game)

Institute of Physics - Universiy of the Philipines
Application: Mike Mo To! Videoke

MMXtreme Technologies Corp.
Application: CameraSafe (Community Application)

Pixelwise Multimedia
Application: MyTindahan (M-commerce)

Wireless Services Asia - Mobinext
Application: Camera-Driven 3D Avatar

Emulator versions of their software applications will be submitted on or before 12 noon of July 6, 2005. Of these, five companies will be selected and granted a 1 Million development grant to complete the development of their respective applications.

Good Luck to everyone!

Transforming your phone into an iPod

'We Need Tunes' converts your MP3 collection into super compressed files (as small as 10% of the original) that you can enjoy on your mobile phone.

Just upload your mp3 file and We Need tunes will do the rest, including clipping the song depending on how long you want it to play (hmmm... this makes for a very good ringtone converter!).

Why do we fall?

From the movie Batman Begins...

Batman's dad says this to the young Bruce after he rescued him from the well that he had fallen into, where the young Bruce broke his arm:

"Why do we fall? So that we may pick ourselves up."

A good review of the movie can be found here.

This reminds me of John Maxwells book, "Failing Forward". John Maxwell says in his book that its just normal to fall down (i.e. to fail at something), but make sure that when you do fall down, its in a stepforward.

"Its not how many times you fall that matters, but how you pick yourself up after each fall that matters the most."

"Phone Language"

MobuzzTV has a very interesting "mobisode" regarding Cellphone Language.

The way you carry your cell phone in your pocket reveals your emotional state of mind:

• If you wear your phone hidden in your left pocket - it means you're in a secure relationship.

• But if you hide it in your right pocket, it means you're free and up for a date.

• Wearing your cell phone in your left pocket with part of it showing, it means your after a relationship.

• And wearing it partly concealed in your right pocket, means your out for a fling.

But what if, like me, you've got two cellphones, one in your right pocket and another in your left? :P

Comitment to a Goal

This statement is so true:

"When you commit yourself to a goal, circumstances will arise to challenge and test you to see how committed you are to your goal."

A majority of failures result  from people "folding" up in the face of these challenges.  The rest of the failures result from people being too afraid to even start trying.

Successful people persevere and see things through, no matter what the cost is.

 
Read more about goals in my blogspot: "Goals: How and Why"

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"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul".