Photo Lessons

Project365 Frame 060 March 1, 2013 1330 hrs


I'm currently enrolled at Photojojo University. Its an online photography class where you learn the basics of taking good pictures using a phone camera. Its now becoming a trend that people choose their phone's camera feature in snapping pictures over digital cameras. Phone cams are always handy wherever you go, and always ready to snap pictures. I took these lessons to improve my photography skills or in this particular case, my "iphoneography" skills because Im using my iPhone 4S on all the photos featured in this blog. Lets see if this works out well. For the meantime, I made a collage using an app out of the previous pictures I took and were already featured in this blog.

Rebirth for the New Year

Before I would proceed with this entry, I would like to apologize to the blogging world for not being able to come up to the level of expectations required of me as a blogger. I've been writing about the highlights of my life in the past years and I guess I came to a point that I ran out of something to talk or write about. Most of my blogger friends may disagree on my rationale but this is what I felt inside me. I didn't want to write just anything in my blog with no hint of truth in it, I'm not a fiction writer. My blog is all about me and everything connected to me and my life, its just a personal journal. I'm not a political person so if I wrote some political issues in the past, its just my own opinion and it was not intended to create a major hoopla to the community and the world as a whole. That being said, I would like to revitalize my blog again. It's kind of a New Year's resolution for me. During my absence from the blogging world, I got a lot of ideas on how to restart my blogging again. A friend of mine have been pushing me to pursue my so-called elementary grade passion on photography and I guess I picked something from that idea. Ever since I got my iPhone 4S, I've been using it to take pictures on everything in my path. I've been downloading apps pertaining to phone photography and even opened an online gallery where I could actually sell my pictures to anybody who are interested. Instagram is one social network app that enticed me to take pictures and share it online. I'm so into "iphoneography" that I basically missed the opportunity to write something about the pictures I got and post it in my blog. I therefore realized that even how much boring one's life is, life still goes on and there is always something new to share with other people. Starting tomorrow, January 1, 2013 I will slowly transform this blog into a photo blog in order to cater to my photography project called Project 365. I will embark into this major project, taking and sharing one (1) picture a day for the next 365 days. To help record and track the pictures I got, I will write something about each picture and post it here in my blog. I got this idea while browsing around my twitter account and came across a tweet from an online photography store that suggested a few photography projects to start with for the coming new year. I hope I could do this and get 365 pictures worth blogging about by the end of the year. So, help me God!

Network Wars – Are Customers to Suffer?

It's part of business strategy. Communications networks are fighting each other to get a big share of the market and most of the time, at the expense of their subscribers.

When I first arrive here in America, I spent my first pay check on a cell phone using Cingular network. I subscribed to it because this was one of the two networks that used the GSM (Global Systems for Mobile communications) platform which is the same thing used in my home country, the Philippines. I did my homework at that time, researching online about reviews on their services and I found it appropriate for my needs. I had my mobile phone for several years until another giant network AT&T bought Cingular. We instantly became AT&T customers and eventually my phone service became poor and erratic. I couldn't get a signal inside my room and in any other parts of our house. Even outside and surrounding our house signal was very low. Then I decided to change my network to T-Mobile, another network that uses GSM platform. I didn't have any problems at all with my signal and I even observed that the signal inside our house was much better than my previous Cingular service. I can make and receive calls even when I'm lying on my bed. Then with the rise of smart phones and the popularity of social networking, the need for unlimited internet data connection was undeniable. I upgraded my subscription plan that will cater to unlimited internet data connection with T-Mobile.

Introducing the iPhone: exclusive only at AT&T. Then came the android phones together with Google powered phones and Windows phones. But most of the customers were attracted more to the iPhone and its apps and features. There were several reports and is now a known fact that iPhone users always suffered problems on connectivity like dropped calls. I have a number of friends that complained about this problem with their iPhones. Still reports came out that a big percentage of T-Mobile costumers switched to AT&T because of the iPhone. Verizon Wireless, a network that uses CDMA platform now offers iPhone so customers wanting this phone have another choice. This scenario brings T-Mobile's market share into jeopardy and just yesterday, reports came out that AT&T is going to buy T-Mobile. This would leave AT&T as the main GSM network in the USA. It was known that T-Mobile had been working on expanding their latest technology to 4G, and with this merger, I just hope that AT&T will use this to improve their sloppy service.

Millions of dollars will be paid out to T-Mobile and for sure AT&T customers, now including me, will carry the brunt through our phone bills. Maybe we may not feel the effects now pending the approval of the merger but nowadays prices have nowhere to go but up.

What’s Your Favorite Mobile Apps?

Almost all of us own a smart phone or any latest hi-tech mobile phone like iPhone, BlackBerry, a Windows phone, Android powered phones and some latest Nokia models. These are the latest gadgets where we can connect with our friends, families and business associates with much ease and unbelievable speeds. Gone are the days where cell phones or mobile phones are only for placing phone calls; it evolves into a tool where text messages can be sent and received. It further advanced its capability of accessing the internet and therefore emails and multi-media messages can be easily exchanged.

Lately though, coupled with the existing network war as to who among them is the fastest, more powerful phones are in the market. Aside from making voice calls, text and multi-media messaging as well as emails, more cool features came up. These applications or "Apps" can easily be downloaded right on the mobile device either for free or with a fee.

I'm using a Nokia e71 smart phone and a Nokia C6 both powered with Symbian OS. I can download all the Apps to my heart's content from Nokia's OVI store where you can find a huge collection of Apps, music, games and videos. Other phone brands can also get their own applications from iTunes, Google Android Market or BlackBerry's AppWorld. Aside from my favorite social network Apps (yes, I'm addicted to Facebook and Twitter, I think), I have other useful applications like Wikipedia, Dictionary, Flight Info, Flashlight, Here and Now, Location & GPS among others. I do have some games but I'm not really into video games so I just maintained my favorite Solitaire, LOL!

My favorite application right now is called Shazam! It is an application where you can discover, buy and share any music from any sources. Just run the application, let it "listen" to the music say from radio, TV or a live performance. The program will match the music it heard against the database from their server and provide all the information about that music and the option to buy and share it with your friends. By the way, your device must always be connected online so having an unlimited internet connection is favorable.

I remember the catch phrase from an iPhone advertisement that says something like "there is an App for everything". Apps are here supposedly to make our lives easier…oh well if you want your life becomes easier, there's an App for that.

So how about you? What's your favorite App?