Healthy and Fun Gulaman

I recently encountered Super Gulaman(Agar) while doing my grocery at Parco. It makes 1.4Liters and costs under 11php. I didn't think much of it until I started reading about it and its health benefits.

It is easy to prepare and fun to eat. It is 80% fiber and absorbs lots of water so it is filling and aids digestion.

The only drawback I found with this brand is Pulverized Sugar which accounts for the 80 Calories per serving. I might look in to the pure Gulaman Bars sold in wet markets, as those are unsweetened. But in terms of its compact/powdered nature, this one might become a mainstay in my diet and can supplement my IF(Intermittent Fasting).

TCL L24D12 LCD TV Review

The TCL L24D12 is available at Abenson's for Php 9,995. My brother Xtian  got it as the grand prize in their office Christmas raffle and I'll give my review below.

[update] It seems its monitor native/optimal resolution is 1360x768, where it is sharp. Unfortunately even in this setting, it's slightly bright for my eyes, even at lowered brightness/backlight/contrast settings. The difference in brightness between a browser's background and photos is too great for it to be comfortable for programming or photo editing. I might have to relegate it to the second computer as movie display.

Pros:

• USB slot can play movies/media. This includes recent x264-LOL encoded mp4 files available for download.
• Sound in media player mode is acceptable.

Cons:

• The prize included wall mounting stuff. This is probably because the stand assembly is super wobbly and unstable. A breeze from an electric fan can probably bring it crashing down.
  [update] In the last page of the thin manual, it shows that you need to use 3 screws to stabilize the stand. duh! :P
• PC (1920x1080) resolution currently sucks big time. At the highest resolution, the entire picture is dark and dreary. Will try again soon with another 1080p device.
• At other resolutions, fonts and lines look fuzzy. (I get better sharpness from the older LG L1719S monitor and from a Sony Bravia)

I'll keep this post updated as I keep using it as a computer monitor.

[update] At wee hours in the morning, the startup sound is annoyingly loud, so I googled and found this:
http://www.fixya.com/support/t18690027-turn_off_startup_sound_tcl_lcd_tv_menu
which states this:

You can go service mode of your TV by menu>picture>contrast press 1950 within 3 seconds. 
When the menu appears, you choose Service Menu>Config>Pwon_music >> OFF
And exit.
Turn off and turn on TV to enjoy

and it works! Just be careful about changing the other settings. Unintentionally changed some setting and the display ended up weird and upside down. I reset enough settings to get things back to normal.

Multiply Starts to Roll Out Tools, As Promised

Multiply previously announced that they are chopping off some features by December 1, 2012. As promised, they started to release methods and tools to get/migrate your content from your account.

The "Download media" option would have been the bomb, but it requires installing plugins for your browser for easier downloading. It also doesn't include Folder/Album information, so the photos are all mixed up :(

I'll try and review the Blogger and Tumblr exports soon.

Update 1: Chrome + Download Master works, but it keeps displaying "Allow" "Deny" buttons for multiple downloads. Some occasional "Kill Task" and "Wait" prompts show up too. Maybe Firefox would to this better :(

Prepaid DSL?

In a strange move, Bayan Telecommunications adjusted their "billing period" and "period covered" which will reflect on their bills this month. In my understanding, this means that they're billing me for DSL and landline even before I've actually used it. That sounds very similar to Prepaid :(

GPS and the iPad 3G

I'm taking a trip to Kalibo, Aklan soon and I was thinking of borrowing a handheld GPS device for some task. I was about to post the request online when I remembered that the iPad had some location capability. So after some google searches, I ended up surprised at what this device can do. It does have GPS and A-GPS. Note: GPS is only available on models with 3G/4G chips.

After enabling most of the Location Settings and downloading the "WhereAmIAt?" app, I think I'm ready to track GPS coordinates.

(Numbers and street names intentionally mosaic'ed for my safety :P

With the default Maps App, the accelerometers and such show what direction I'm facing:

Problematic Yahoo Pingbox [Solved]

A friend of mine was having problems with her Yahoo! Messenger Pingbox since it's Flash(swf) file only loads if the user has visited other yahoo! sites. Yahoo! failed on this one by requiring a cookie that is not guaranteed to be there.

Looking around the interwebz, I found a couple of suggestions, but the best one only worked after loading the page again. This solution requires jQuery to be included. Using some jQuery fu, I cooked up some code to:

1. Load yahoo! terms page in an iFrame. This will load the cookie that pingbox requires.
2. After that page completes, writes the Pingbox code.

<script type="text/javascript">
   $(document.body).append('<iframe id="myId" style="visiblity:hidden;display:none;" src="http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/"></iframe>');
   $('iframe#myId').load(function(){
      $('#pingboxhere').append('<object data="http://wgweb.msg.yahoo.com/badge/Pingbox.swf" height="420" id="ZZZZZZZ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="240"><param name="movie" value="http://wgweb.msg.yahoo.com/badge/Pingbox.swf" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="flashvars" value="YYYYYYY" /></object>');
   });
</script>
<div id="pingboxhere"></div>

I'm not sure if this solution is the best practice, but it works for me. Any thoughts?

Best Combo Jutsu... Evar

Neji + Rock Lee = Jet Lee!

AVG Free Mishap

I've been using and recommending AVG for a few years now, but after it updated today (2012-05-16), I'm not so sure anymore. I rebooted since avg requested it, but after working for an hour my system felt really sluggish. My browsers (FF3 and Chrome) had "AVG Do not track" sneakily installed and avgidsagent.exe was eating up 800MB of RAM!

I uninstalled the browser plugins and disabled AVG identity protection. Bad AVG! Bad!

The Two TeraByte Test

Having noticed that a good chunk of my time is spent on managing files(downloads) across 4 hard disks, I opted to canvas/look for a reasonably priced 2TB HD. I was eyeing this WD 2TB from PCX but its price went up from 5300php to 5620php, and it wasn't available in sm north. After looking around I spotted that model in another shop for 6k (neg 5800). In another shop, I chanced upon this 2TB HP SimpleSave for 5,500php. I pondered a bit, and decided to go with the HP. Weird thing is, looking at the support website, it's hpsupport.wdc.com ... so it's essentially a WD too.
I've had bad experiences with HP/Compaq as Laptops, but I do recall that a Hard Disk from that is still running quite well. I'll torture this 2TB as much as I can and report here my findings.

Initial Impressions:

• USB 3.0 but is backward compatible to USB 2.0
• Relatively Fast: RapidCRC speed of 38.28MB/s
  vs Combi (Seagate 7200rpm 80GB:CDRking 3.5" USB2.0 enclosure) 26.33MB/s
  vs Seagate 7200rpm internal SATA 48.38MB/s
  
• Upright, with Blue Blinky Light thingy
• Not too hot (temp)
• Separate power source/adapter with long cord.
• USB 3.0 cable, half meter-ish.
  

Wednesday The 11th

As much as I like to practice Constant Vigilance, booboos always happen when you let your guard down. Ok, so I lost my phone and sim(circa 2k-ish).

I was feeling down about it and dreading having to inform everyone of my new number. But thanks to the tips of facebook friends and the blog entry here, I was optimistic that I can get my old Prepaid number back.

So here's the breakdown:
100 - Affidavit of loss
40 - micro sim (regular sim was unavailable)

After acquiring my affidavit of loss (the place didn't seem too reliable though), I went to the Globe Center at SM North Edsa Annex and lined up for 15minutes. I explained the situation, filled up a form, gave the AoL and 40php. After a few minutes, I got my new sim with my old number.

In less than 2hrs, the sim was active and my previous load was intact. Thanks Globe!