Echo Binary

So I finally got the latest firmware update in Nokia Software Updater (NSU) after painstakingly waiting months for the official update to appear. I tried to update NSU several times but it seemed to be not working at all. But tonight, after I rebooted my PC and reinstalled NSU, I managed to make NSU work!

Anyway, the update process was quite scary because if you accidentally pulled out the cable or disconnected the bluetooth, your phone might be damaged and be rendered unusable. I’m so careful while updating my phone that I really got mad when someone tried to go near my PC. When my N73 firmware update was completed, my phone rebooted and every file in my phone was wiped out. That’s true. Thank God there is a backup tool that comes with Nokia PC Suite, restoring backed-up files was a breeze. So, don’t forget to backup your phone when updating firmware so that you can keep everything in your phone intact.

I know that there are still bugs in the latest firmware version but hopefully they are less troublesome than what I used to experience. These bugs are somewhat tolerable but I hope that firmware v4.x for N73 will come out very soon to fix whatever was left out in the bug-fixes. After updating the firmware of my phone, I could feel that the applications run faster and the transition is smoother while switching between apps. I’m sure that other S60 phones in Symbian OS 9.1 had some issues in the pass, too, but firmware updates like this made those phones more stable.

Here’s a screenshot of my phone with the latest firmware.

To get NSU, just go to Nokia Phone Software Updater website.

Technorati Tags: Nokia, N73, firmware, Symbian OS 9.1

I couldn’t come up with a good title so I just mashed-up the 3 main topics I’m going to discuss.

First of all, iPod. I don’t own an iPod but I have a problem with my girlfriend’s iPod. I don’t know what happened to it but it suddenly decided not to communicate with Windows. I tried to troubleshoot the problem and looked up several forums but every information I got didn’t help. It won’t show up and it is not detected by iPod updater. So, I told my dear girlfriend to go to the nearest Apple Center in order to claim warranty for her defective iPod. We went to the nearest Apple Center I know. Unfortunately, the Apple Center in Greenbelt 3 is not yet open (I was hoping it’s already in operation because I saw the place being readied 3 weeks ago). After doing a little research, and to my surprise, I didn’t know that there is an Apple Center in Greenbelt 1.

Next, CCNA review. Hmmm… I’m sacrificing a fraction of my weekend for the review for Cisco certification and it’s going pretty well. However, I am thinking if I would take the exam as soon as the review is over. Having a weekly review doesn’t seem to be enough because during weekdays what occupies my mind is all about SAP, Unix and business. Whatever happens to my CCNA exam, and whatever is the result, I’m not yet sure if that will be a turning point of my career.

Then, Fashion Ability. It’s an Animax fashion show, complete with real ramp models and cat walks held at Ayala activity center last Saturday, inspired by Paradise Kiss anime. I didn’t know how would the models and designs look like but I still waited quite long just to watch the fashion show. I was impressed by the designs, specially the 1st, 2nd to the last and the last entry. It’s a pity that I didn’t take pictures of the fashion show. My phone camera can’t zoom far enough and clear enough to capture a decent shot. I stood more than 2 hours starring at nothing just to watch this fashion show. My girlfriend insisted to wait at the 2nd floor balcony since 5:00 pm but the show started at around 7:15 pm. I guess it’s worth waiting after seeing the designs but it’s funny how I endured the long wait. I tried to close my eyes and meditate while standing in order to relax, but I nearly collapsed while dozing off. Thanks to my girlfriend, who was very enthusiastic about Fashion Ability, I didn’t fall asleep or literally fall down while sleeping. After the ramp modelling, we already left even if the fashion show is not yet over because it was too late already… and I was already hungry.

Lastly, we ate at Burger King to satisfy our hungry stomachs. While we were eating our burgers, a year-old boy seating on the adjacent table started playing peekaboo with us. He was laughing while doing his own peekaboo. He’s so cute. He repeatedly do his peekaboo for quite awhile. Then, his parents tried to stop him already because he was giggling and laughing so hard at us. He continued his peekaboo ignoring his parents’ distraction and kept showing funny face to us. He’s so adorable. When my girlfriend and I were leaving BK, we bid goodbye to the young boy. He managed to say “byebye” in a cute way. I can’t really understand why he became so fond of us so fast. Perhaps he was attracted to my girlfriend? Probably…

I’m actually game enough to complete the Starbucks promo this year. Last year, I only had two (2) stickers which is somewhat pathetic because I didn’t bother collecting the stickers even though I love Frappuccino. Today I collected 2 stickers.

I’m joining the Starbucks bandwagon because most people in our office would like to collect the limited edition Starbucks Coffee 2007 Planner, and I certainly want one just for fun. It would hurt my budget a bit but I guess the coffee experience is worth it. Since I frequently get sleepy in the afternoon, it’s very timely to have an ice or Frappuccino blended coffee break at those times. Let’s see and wait if I would be able to collect 21 stickers to claim the planner.

For the last two weeks, I’ve been buying and selling computer parts in order to upgrade my Pentium 3 computer.

Initially, I bought a 2nd hand 1.0 Ghz Pentium III socket 370 (Coppermine) together with a motherboard, all for P1700. Then, I also bought an old Nvidia Riva TNT2 64mb graphics card for only P300. So I was able to upgrade my testing PC for only P2000.

The older motherboard of my Pentium III 550 Mhz slot 1 (Katmai) seems to be already defective because I have tested the memory modules and they seemed to be free from errors. I don’t plan to sell the old 550mhz P3 slot 1 because I would collect it. I have a small collection of processors at home, starting from an x86 AMD processor I collected from my neighbor’s PC parts and a 133 Mhz Pentium 1 from my old Compaq Prolinea 575. I’m starting to fascinate with processors. The trend with processor is obvious — multi-core is in, single core is out. It’s probable that about 5 years from now, single core processors would be history already.

The P3 Coppermine’s motherboard is problematic with Ubuntu. I tried other distros but the LAN card and PCI graphics card could not be identified properly so I resold it the same price I bought it just to “dispose” it as fast as I could (I don’t want my room to serve as stock room). I bundled it with 256 Mb Kingston SDRAM so the whole package costed P2,300. Right now I have a Pentium 4 1.6Ghz socket 478 (Northwood) in ECS PF1/648 motherboard bundle which I bought for only P3000. I had to take one 256Mb Geil DDR off my Pentium 4 2.4c to make it run.

I sold my old Linksys router for P1300 because I recently replaced it with a new wireless router (also Linksys). So, if I compute the total money I cashed out in order to replace my old P3, that’s P1700 + P300 + P3000 - P2300 - P1300 = P1400. If I would sell the semi-defective P3 motherboard and P3 processor, and its 64 Mb SDRAM leftover, I would have probably even out my expenses. Nowadays, PC hardware could be dirt cheap.

My purpose of building this P4 system is for me to experiment with Ubuntu during my free time, and use it as a tunneled proxy server in the office. I will resell this lower-end Pentium 4 and I expect to get back at least 90% of the money I spent with it. Then, I’ll get a brand new Core 2 Duo system this Christmas to replace my primary workstation at home.

I watched the movie “The Departed” this afternoon and I was really entertained. I didn’t expect much at the beginning because I knew from reviews that it is a remake of a Hong Kong 2002 movie “Infernal Affairs”. I haven’t watched the original so I did not have any idea how the remake would be.

It’s a cop movie but there’s not much chase-and-run scenes here. It’s a detective story with a perfect blend of action thriller and drama.

Set in Boston, the undercover cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) joined the mob syndicated lead by Costello (Jack Nicholson). He leaks information to South Boston Police Capt. Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg). On the other hand, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) gained high position in the Special Investigation Unit using his wit and raw talent in solving cases while serving as Costello’s mole in the police. Soon, Costigan and Sullivan would have to unveal the identity of the mole so it became a race against time on who would be the first one to uncover the true identity of the other one.

I’ll just jump to the ending but I won’t tell any spoiler here. It is shocking. If you haven’t watched the original movie, you will be surprised. It’s not the way I would imagine the ending of the characters at all. WTF. The twist is just too unforgiving.

Since then, I wanted to know more about the film so I watched “Infernal Affairs” and I found out that the ending of “The Departed” departed from the the original. I would prefer the ending of the original but the ending of “The Departed” is also brilliant. There were subtle differences in the story but “The Departed” is essentially an American remake with added action and a bed scene. There’s only one woman involved with Sullivan and Costigan but in “Infernal Affairs” there were several. I would think that at some point, the original is better than the remake but I would rate the two of them 5/5 solely for the story. “The Departed” was Americanized and re-interpreted to suit the environment in Boston since Hong Kong police is very different. And since “The Departed” has a different ending, there won’t be any sequel to it unlike “Infernal Affairs” that has a sequel. However, I doubt that Hollywood would remake a sequel. That is way too much…