Movie Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife

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My Rating: 3Stars

This evening I saw the movie The Time Traveler’s Wife at UA Cinema, Times Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

The movie’s plot is different from what the title implies and not unlike the 2001 Kate & Leopold with Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman, or the 2006 The Lake House with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. All three movies use the concept of moving between times to deliver a love story that cannot happen.

In this latest movie, Eric Bana (Henry DeTamble) of Hulk fame, delivered a very good performance playing the time traveller who has no control of which time he jumps to or when.

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First Impression of HTC Hero

HTC Scenes UIMy apologies to my readers waiting for my review of HTC Hero. It is only today that I had time to go into the Smartone-Vodafone store to check out the HTC Hero.

Previously I gave the HTC Magic a try and really did not like the feel of the Android OS on the Magic. Not sure whether this was a hardware issue or the nature of Android. When I tested the HTC Magic I was able to try the phone freely without any of the usual carrier security devices attached to the phone. For the HTC Hero, I wanted to try the phone without being bordered by any sales staff, so I just tried the display model, which had several security devices attached to the back and around the front of the screen.

Compared to the basic Android OS on the HTC Magic, the HTC Sense UI in the HTC Hero is much better. Since I was not able to use the phone freely with the security brackets and other security devices attached. I cannot really give the OS the full test I wanted. One of the security device actually obscure the screen partially.

I wish there was a HTC specialty shop where I can use the phone longer and freely. So far what I saw was good. The HTC Sense UI was fast in the Hero. I particularly like the way it unified all the contact information of an individual into one place; a very user centric approach. I cannot give the hardware much of a judgement due to the SMV security devices, but it did feel light. I also like the AR applications on the phone (I gave Wikitude a try), but those applications are also coming, from many of the same software manufactures, to the iPhone.

In the past I had found that I cannot live without my iPhone for more than a day, it is difficult to tell whether the HTC Hero can fulfill my needs in place of the iPhone. So at least for me, the time being, the jury is still out for the Hero.

I hope someone from HTC or Smartone-Vodafone can send me a review unit, so I can give the HTC Hero a proper review.

Review: SimplyTweet on iPhone [Updated]

SimplyTweetOver the years many Twitter clients had come and gone on various mobile phone platforms: iPhone, Blackberry, Android, etc.. Some great ones like TweetDeck, Tweetie, Echofon Pro (formerly TwitterFon) and some flops like TweetStack.

I’m glad to see other developers are still trying to out do its established competitors. Recently I came across such a developer, MotionObj, in the form of SimplyTweet. The version I reviewed here is 2.3.

In the past I had enjoyed the Grouping feature of TweetDeck its ability to synchronize created Groups across multiple TweetDeck clients, and the simplicity of the free Echofon.

SimplyTweet -  Push-notificationSimplyTweet has a simple UI and UX, with many of its features layout logically and readily available.

At the top right hand corner is the icon to allow the user to create a new tweet at the bottom is a toolbar containing 5 icons of your choosing. Both of these are the only constant elements on most of the  main screens in SimplyTweet. By default the bottom toolbar has the Friends, Mentions, Messages, Search and More icons shown. You can customized the icons shown in the bottom toolbar by going into More -> Edit button.

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Movie Review: Surrogates

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My Rating: 4Stars

This afternoon I saw the movie Surrogates at UA Cinema, Times Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

Like the many other Bruce Willis movies in the past Surrogates also had a chase scene.

The plot is a fairly typical, but the story had a future element to make it fresh, but not so much so that present day audiences cannot relate to. The movie updated the audiences the background of the story’s past 14 years in the first 5 minutes of the movie. This became the premise for the pace of movie. As it is one of the shorter big Hollywood productions at just 89 minutes.

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Treasures In Its Own Backyard

World Carfree Day LogoToday is World Carfree Day and there were various government officials participating by taking MTR (Hong Kong’s subway system) to work and to meetings.

Yesterday the Hong Kong government announced its deal with Mitsubishi to purchase 10 Mitsubishi iMiEV electric vehicles, which it was testing since May 2009.

These 10 electric vehicles will be deployed progressively through out different government departments through to May 2010. They will be testing the performance of these vehicles in day-to-day activities of the respective department. All this is Hong Kong government’s push to adopt electric vehicle use in Hong Kong, to combat air pollution caused by combustion engine vehicles.

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Downgrading iPhone 3GS from 3.1 to 3.0

A few days ago I mentioned in my post, Things to do Before Upgrading iPhone to 3.1.x, if you do not do what described then you will not be able to jailbreak or unlock ever again, or until the hacking community figure out a way.

Well there is now a way. If you had stored your 3.0 iBSS and iBEC files on the Cydia server. If that is not the case, you will want to follow the instructions at Jay Freeman’s web site.

Now that the iPhone Dev Team has released Pwnage Tool 3.1 for iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 1G. The version for the iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch 2G and 3G will be coming soon.

As always I do not see a need for jailbreaking at the moment, and if you do not have to, I do recommend you seek someone who has the technical background to understand that process for assistance, especially if you do not have the skills yourself.

Things to do Before Upgrading iPhone to 3.1.x

It appears that many who had jailbroked or unlocked their iPhone 3G[S] did not know what they are doing or had not ask the friend who knows, like myself, before upgrading their iPhone to version 3.1 of the firmware.

It is very important that BEFORE anyone upgrade they save a copy of their unique iBEC and iBSS files before the perform the 3.1 upgrade. Failing to do so will, at the moment, made the iPhone no longer unlockable or jailbreakable. These files will also not be obtainable afterwards.

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Seoul Visit, September 2009 – Day 2

I started off spending the morning planning my itinerary for the day. I have decided that I will use Seoul’s extensive Metro (subway) to get around in the city.

Did not end up leaving the hotel until 12:30. So I began by getting a bite to eat at a restaurant that I can figure out the menu, Burger King.

Walked to Yeouido (526) station on Line 5 to begin my journey. Fortunately the ticket vending machine has English instructions. It was quite easy to get a ticket, although I did not realize there is a deposit to the Metro Single Journey card. I figured that out when I reached my second stop Seoul Station.

My first stop of the day was City Hall (132) on Line 1. Since it is the weekend I was going to check out City Square. Unfortunately when I arrived it was pouring rain. Everyone was stuck at the Metro exit waiting for the rain to stop. I decided to wait along with the locals at exit 2, the entrance to Deoksugung (Palace).

Apparently most locals are like me, hates to carry an umbrella. All of a sudden a lady with a cart load of umbrellas came to the Metro exit, selling umbrellas for KRW4000 each.

Since I was not in a hurry I decided to wait it out. Several minutes after the lady sold umbrellas to every locals waiting with me the rain stopped and sun even came out.

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iPhone Firmware 3.1 Not for iPhone & iPod Touch

New iTunes 9 NoticeIf you run the Software Updates on your Mac or Check Updates from within iTunes you will find that Apple had updated iTunes to 9.0.

There are many discussion about iTunes 9.0 all over the Interweb so I will not do it again here.

Along with the new iTunes Apple had released the iPhone firmware 3.1 (technically 3.1.1) for the iPhone and iPod Touch. In doing so, Apple also reduced the cost of upgrading the iPod Touch to USD4.95. For those who held out when the iPhone firmware 3.0 came out, there are even more reasons to get it now.

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