Category: Compooper Stuff

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An iPad epiphany

I was on a domestic 4 hour flight recently. And since it was a domestic flight, it was basically riding the bus. It was a single aisle A319 (yeah that’s an old Airbus) with no seat back AVOD. There was WiFi, so it wasn’t completely unbearable. The bandwidth was strong enough to keep me occupied with Netflix and YouTube for most of the flight, which was a pleasant surprise.

Yes, this is AI generated. I couldn't get a proper photo because it was dark.
Yes, this is AI generated. It was hard to get a proper photo of all those screens lighting up a dark cabin.

While going up and down the aisle to use the bathroom, I noticed a lot of iPads. Every other passenger seemed to have one, all with some sort of TV show or movie on it. For every 8 to 10 iPads, there would be someone with a laptop of sorts either watching video or doing work. More of them were watching video actually. Everyone else was watching video on their phones or trying to sleep.

Why so many iPads? I did some Serious Internet Research™ and found out that you can download shows and movies from the major streaming services to a tablet for offline viewing later. Instead of downloading individual video files that can be shared with others (Ohhhhh Noooooo), it downloads the files to the app. If you download a few movies and seasons of TV shows, the app will become huuuge. You used to be able to do this with the Windows 11 Netflix app, but that useful feature was removed in 2024. Forget about doing anything of the sort with a MacBook Pro.

I did not know about this!!

I currently have a 2nd gen iPad Pro 12.9” that’s almost 10 years old. It has served long and well, being the device I read while I have my 2 cups of black coffee in the morning. However…since it’s close to a decade old, it has been orphaned by Apple (software updates ended about 2 years ago), the battery health is just above 70% and more importantly, has only 64gb of memory. The OS takes close to 40gb so storage space is extremely limited.

So now it’s time for me to start looking around for a successor for my iPad. Have they always been this expensive??

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Pokemon Go

What’s the big hook about this smartphone game? It’s the thrill of the hunt, both for monsters and for pokeballs. You need the latter to go after the former.

You also need an external battery and unlimited data because this game sucks both. Fun way to get your exercise.  Look forward to hunting when I return to Asia.

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Trade In

A few posts back, I wrote about Apple starting a trade in program for older iPhones.  Well, I was able to trade in my unlocked 4 for $100 store credit which went to my unlocked 6S.  If the 4 I was trading in was SIM locked, it would have been worth only $50!.

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Frozen over…

Unlocked! iTunes say so...

Hell has begun to freeze.  AT&T is finally allowing customers who are out of contract to SIM unlock their iPhones.

Prior to April 9th, if you were a sucker customer with AT&T and you were out of contract, you could unlock any phone, except for the iPhone.  All sorts of tap dancing resulted with AT&T blaming Apple and Apple (correctly) blaming AT&T for not being able to SIM unlock your property.

Some of the stories the AT&T CSRs defending this policy were beyond outrageous.   “Why unlock?  You can roam on AT&T internationally”.  “Apple doesn’t unlock iPhones”.  And the best one, “There’s no such thing as an unlocked iPhone”.

Of course, I fired back, telling the CSR about being in Singapore and Hong Kong, where there is an abundance of unlocked iPhones.  In Singapore’s case, they’re sold that way because it’s illegal to SIM lock a cell phone.

Now we are beginning to emerge out of the GSM dark ages here in the States; you can finally unlock your iPhone without having to deal with the hassle of jailbreak and hacks.  Yay!

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Mobile update

Well, here’s the first entry from my iPhone. To make blog entries this easy will hopefully wean me away from FB.

Here’s a random photo!

20120411-175822.jpg

It’s small, easy to park and fun to drive, especially with the top down.  It also gets 29MPG in the city despite being aggressively driven.

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Rebirth

After close to 10 years using the Movable Type platform, I finally took the plunge and converted the site to WordPress.  Why?  A few things.  First off, it’s easier to customize using themes than MT was, resulting in a more visually interesting site.  Second, the tools provided by WP for controlling comment spam works very well and is easier on the servers than MT was.  Third, there are all sorts of interesting add ons to control your WP blog, including an iOS app.  Overall, a much more user centric package that doesn’t require knowledge of code to work.

Interview

Inputting photos is easier too.  See photo above of Congressman Darryl Issa (R-Vista) and Amber Lee, KTVU reporter working at a recent event here in San Francisco.

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China Mobile Prepaid (Shanghai). Get one!

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China Mobile is the world’s largest cell service provider and there are lots of locations to get top ups and such. As a tourist however, you should visit a shop in an area where there are a lot of laowais.

It just gets easier and easier to do things in Mainland China.  During my last trip, I broke down and purchased a China Mobile prepaid SIM for use during my visit.  It makes things a lot easier when you’re out there.

It was a lot simpler to buy a SIM card than it was before.  Here’s what you need to do:

1.  Find a China Mobile (they have better coverage) store.

2.  Walk inside and ask if someone can help you in english (对不起，你会说英文吗?). 

3. Bring Passport and unlocked GSM phone; the former to register your SIM card and the latter so the staff can test it out for you.

It really was that easy.  Here’s a site with more detailed information.  It’s a couple of years old, but the information is still valid. 

I ran the SIM card on my unlocked Nexus One.  Phone calls and SMSes went through fine.  I was able to purchase a data bucket to run Google Maps, the internet, Foursquare and most importantly, Google Translate! For standard GSM phones however, you will be running on EDGE.  If you’re wanting 3G speed, I’ve read conflicting reports that China Unicom has a prepaid 3G service.  Unlike most prepaid service in Asia, you can’t punch in a USSD code to pull up your balance or to purchase services.  You need to call 10086 and press 2.  Service is 24 hours and their English speaking staff is pretty good. 

One more thing; Boingo Mobile works with a lot of the pay-hot spots around Shanghai.  So if you have that service, you can always save your data by logging onto Wi-Fi. 

So, the moral of the story is: be adventurous and ask!  Usually people will be nice enough to be helpful, especially if you try to speak Putonghua.  Which I can’t. 

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Wow, still out there!

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated.  I’ve been the great procrastinator but last night, as I was watching Sunday Night Football, I moved my blog and domain to a new, more (Movable Type) friendly webhost.  So now entries may resume…

UPDATE: Since my new webhost is MT friendly, many of the plugins that require back end support that 1&1 refused to support now work.  Picture resizing now works and most importantly, the virtual tide of comment spam that I’ve endured for the last year has ceased and updating and republishing this blog no longer involves a 500 error after 5 seconds.  Yay. 

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