Musings of a Food and Travel Addict
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.
I’m testing out the iOS app for word press. So far it looks like it works. So let me show you a picture of something really neat.
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!.
So Apple may be offering a trade-in program at their retail stores? Nice. I wonder what I can get for my 3G? Every little bit helps, since unlocked iPhones cost close to US$700.
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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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Image by warrenski via Flickr
Staying in touch is more important than ever in this fast fast go go world. And for that, the luxe flashpacker uses local prepaid SIM cards. In most countries, it’s pretty easy to purchase a local SIM. Walk into 7-11, walk out with a new local number that’s a bargain to make calls and even more so to send SMS on. Some of these SIM cards even allow you to roam, making and receiving calls and SMS, albeit at a really expensive rate.
Sometimes it’s not necessarily worth the bother to purchase a local SIM for a 3 day trip; that roaming will be fine since all that will be sent is SMS. That’s what I thought on my recent trip to Shanghai via Hong Kong. I have maintained a New World Mobility prepaid roaming SIM for a few years now. I can receive and make calls/SMS in the US and Singapore with it. Considering that mainland China is 40 minutes away via KCR, it should work there too, right?
Nope. As soon as I landed PVG, I turned on my phone and tried to call my friend who was to meet us at the airport. I manually selected China Unicom and CMCC (China Mobile) and registered on their networks respectively and tried to make a call. China Unicom said my call was “Barred” and China Mobile asked me to pay my bill. No roaming this trip. SMS went through fine both ways. No calls. So what to do? After having to make a call desperately, I fired up my AT&T Sim locked iPhone and made a 1 minute $4.00 phone call. No more!
When I returned to Hong Kong, I picked up a new prepaid from Peoples (AKA China Mobile HK). They have a prepaid that has China roaming, slightly cheaper prices for aforementioned roaming and most interestingly, a Guangzhou phone number in addition to the HK number. Since it’s part of China Mobile, it should work over there. And we will see in December…
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