My Omnia "perfect" case?

My Omnia case (Samsung i900 Omnia Rubberized Back Hard Case, Product Code: SOTCA004600 from shop.brando.com) reached me today! Not bad considering that it took only 4 days from the time I placed my online order.

I understand now the excitement of buying things via the internet. When you place your order, you could only base on the pictures to have an impression of how the product looks like. You can't be sure until you actually see it physically. So would it be the case of WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get), or is it going to be "indah khabar dari rupa"? I guess that's where the excitement is, cos when I got the package, I couldn't wait to start ripping it up... and here's the content.


Frankly speaking when I saw the box that the case came in, I was disappointed. The box looked so cheap.. like something that you buy from "pasar malam".

Then I took out the case and the feeling improved slightly. The case is actually plastic but felt a bit rubbery to the fingers. If it was packaged with a nice looking box instead, I would think that it is "branded", you know like Krusell or something.

The case is slightly longer than the phone (0.8cm to be exact). I guess the extra length is to provide space for the stylus. As for the thickness, I don't think it made much of difference to the actual phone's thickness.



Omnia fit into the case snugly. Installation is not too difficult. You just need to fit in the right side of the phone (where the camera and volumn buttons are) first, and then snap the other side in.



With the casing on, I did not encounter any problems accessing the buttons. I thought it may affect the clarity of voice as the mic is partially covered by the bottom of the case. To test this out, I called a few friends and asked "Hello... can you hear me clearly?". They immediately thought I got a new bluetooth handsfree. :-) Anyway they gave the same feedback i.e. there wasn't any problem hearing me.


Omnia came with a hideous stylus and without a stylus slot. So this case compensate for all that as it has a better looking stylus IMHO and a stylus slot. The stylus is thin though but I still prefer this anytime than Omnia's original one.

Overall, I thought this is a good buy. The phone + case felt good to the hands and it does look expensive unlike the box that it came in. What bothers me is the extra length.. but to gain some (i.e. the stylus), you have to lose some lo.

As for the question "Is this the perfect Omnia case"? Well, maybe not to me but it will have to do for now. After all, it cost about RM51 after conversion. Me no rich man leh!

Your food sucks!

Recently my colleagues and I went to this Hainanese Restaurant for lunch and found that the food there was rather sucky. We were complaining about it among ourselves and one thing led to another, and we had this hearty discussion on giving feedback when it comes to food.

Although I think this is not very much a Malaysian culture, more restaurants nowadays seek to provide better service for their customers. So at the end of a meal, they would ask the customer on how the food was. Malaysians being Malaysians, I think we tend not to want to offend anyone... so most of us would shyly say "Err..okay lo" although the food tasted like feet.

So back to the discussion I had with my colleagues about this, one of them actually said that once when he was asked this question, he bluntly answered "None of the dishes we ordered tasted nice" and the restaurant owner's face immediately turned black.

Some of us there did not agree with this colleague for being so bluntly honest. "Why would we want to offend people like that?", someone said.

I on the other hand, thought it's a right thing to do. I mean if you can't take negative comments about your food, then you shouldn't pretend and ask your customers for their feedback, right? If you are asking for feedback, then you should take them constructively and find out what's actually wrong with whatever that you served!

So I think as a consumer, we have every right to provide honest feedback when we were asked for it. Perhaps what we need to be careful about are the intentions of these feedbacks and how to "refine" the way we present them.

As I said, I think this is not a very Malaysian type of culture to begin with. Like it or not, people still can't take the fact that their food sucks!

Seeking the "perfect" case

It has been a long while since I bought anything from the internet. Actually come to think of it, aside from Skype where I bought some SkypeOut credits, I haven't been using my credit card to purchase anything from any other online stores..... until 2 days ago.

You see... I have been searching for a perfect case for my new toy, Samsung Omnia. I haven't had much luck in that. Currently I have this standard black pouch that works fine for it.

However if you are a gadget lover like me, you will know that we will not stop until we find the "perfect" accessories... well that or until we got tired of the toy.

So anyway when I was browsing around, I came across this beauty - Samsung i900 Omnia Rubberized Back Hard Case:


I thought this looked great on my Omnia. The red may not go with my black colored Omnia though but nevertheless, I loved it.

It is being sold at shop.brando.com and the cost is USD14.50 plus shipping. I guess after conversion, the price is almost at par with any decent cases that you buy from all those handphone shops.

Anyhow I hesitated for a while...you know the worry of putting your credit card info into all these sites that may turn out to be fake. So to put my fears at rest, I googled the site and the product, and read some reviews about them.

After feeling slightly better with what I found out, I decided to take a calculative risk and proceeded to get the "perfect" case. I also checked that it's a secure site (https as opposed to http) when keying in my credit card info.

The case comes in 3 colors and I chose the black one as I thought that is more matching for my black themed Omnia.

Omnia doesn't have a stylus slot, and so this case is just great as it comes with a stylus and its slot!

After all that done, I guess I would have to leave it to take its natural course. The last time I checked via the Order Tracking feature at the site, they have already shipped the product out from HK on the 25th Aug. I guess I need to wait for a few more days for it to arrive.

Frankly speaking, I am actually very excited waiting for this "perfect" case. Hope when I actually get it, it will still remain "perfect". We shall see...

What is he thinking?

My Personal Angel

專屬天使 by Tank




Pinyin lyrics:

Wo bu hui guai ni dui wo de wei zhuang
Tian shi zai ren jian shi gai cang hao chi bang
Ren men yu chun lu mang er ni xian xi shan liang
Zen neng rang ni wei le wo bei peng shang

Xiao xiao de shou zhang hou hou de wen nuan
Ni zong neng ping fu wo bu an de ye wan
Bu gan xiang de meng xiang tou guo ni de yan guang
Wo cai kan jian ta yuan lai zai qian fang

Mei you shei neng ba ni qiang li wo shen pang
Ni shi wo de zhuan shu tian shi
Wei wo neng du zhan
Mei you shei neng qu dai ni zai wo xin shang
Yong you yi ge zhuan shu tian shi
Wo na li hai xu yao bie de yuan wang

Xiao xiao de shou zhang da da de li liang
Wo yi ding ye kuai xiang ni yi yang fei xiang
Ni xiang qu de di fang jiu shi wo de fang xiang
You wo bao hu xiao rong jin guan can lan

Mei you shei neng ba ni qiang li wo shen pang
Ni shi wo de zhuan shu tian shi
Wei wo neng du zhan
Mei you shei neng qu dai ni zai wo xin shang
Yong you yi ge zhuan shu tian shi
Wo na li hai xu yao bie de yuan wang

Yao bu shi ni chu xian wo yi ding hai zai chen shui
Jue wang de yi wei sheng ming zhi you hei ye

Mei you shei neng ba ni qiang li wo shen pang
Ni shi wo de zhuan shu tian shi
Wei wo neng du zhan
Mei you shei neng qu dai ni zai wo xin shang
Yong you yi ge zhuan shu tian shi
Wo na li hai xu yao bie de yuan wang

Selling miracles

Health products are so in trend nowadays. There seem to be so many new brands coming to our shore under the ships of MLM.

With the current economic situation, I guess more people are jumping into these ships hoping to get extra pocket money or to take the opportunity to have a business of their own. Although currently I am not into MLM but who knows, right? Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I do have friends or relatives who have gone or are going into this type of business. It can be funny at times cos I always notice very similar traits about them after they got involved.

Firstly every of your conversations with them always tend to evolve into a sales pitch. It's like every topic that you talk about will slowly have a relation to their products be it from talking about your working life, love life, friends, family or whatever.

For an example, someone would say that they are really becoming old cos they are slowly becoming long sighted... and the other person would start to say how their products can reverse the signs of aging; or when someone talked about a friend, and the other person would say how this friend or that friend have used the products and felt or looked so much better than before.

It's as if whatever void you are experiencing in your life is because you did not discover the beauty of their products!

The products also tend to be like miracles. It could be just one single product but it is able to cure all sickness - cancer, diabetes, stroke... just name it. If you have pain in your neck, it will cure that. If you have growth coming out somewhere, it will make it smaller. I am not surprised if some of them are saying how their product can cure H1N1 as well.

It's like the product is a highly intelligent substance that when ingested, would scan your whole body for non functional parts and automatically fix them!

I do agree that all these health products surely have their very own benefits... but the ability to cure all sickness???? I am really very very sceptical about that! If that is true, then I would say that they are not selling a health product... They are selling miracles.

Well perhaps all these are part of the sales strategy. Perhaps one day if I ever join MLM, I would be doing and saying all the same things too. However for the time being, I will just sit back and have a smile thinking back of my encounters with all these miracles sellers.

Don't Touch My Stuff!

WM Apps in my Omnia

Some friends who recently switched to PDA phone have requested for me to share with them the applications that I have installed in my Omnia. I understand that it is really difficult to know which of the applications that work for you, and having to do the trial & error type of approach.

So hope this helps.

Freeware

s2u2
This is a replica of iPhone's lock/unlock phone application.
http://s2u2.ac-s2.com/


Mdict
Free dictionary reader. Need to download the dictionary files (also free) separately
http://www.octopus-studio.com/product.en.htm


Metro
A very useful guide to check which public transport you should take going from one location to another. Comes with many databases for different countries. I just use the one for Malaysia & Singapore.
http://metro.nanika.net/MetroA-en.html


Facebook Mobile
Facebook application for PPC. Need I describe more?
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-facebook-app.html



Not Freeware

For these, do check out the respective sites for the screenshots. Too much work to put all of them here, hehehe.

Spb Mobile Shell
A nice user interface
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/mobileshell/

Spb Pocket Plus
In WM devices that doesn't come with similar tool, when you press x to close a program, it just minimises the program and runs at the background. This will eat up your RAM causing your device to slow down or even hang. SPB Pocket Plus has this feature where you can configure that pressing x to close a program will actually CLOSE it.
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/pocketplus/?en

Spb Insight
This is a RSS reader.
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/insight/

Spb Phone Suite
I am using this for phone profiles i.e. different loudness for different profile, what time to automatically switch to which profile.
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/pocketpc-software/phonesuite/

Pocket Informant
PIM (Personal Information Manager) for your calendars, contacts, to do list and notes. They provide nicer interface to the default WM's PIM.
http://www.pocketinformant.com/products_info.php?p_id=pocketinformant

Coreplayer Mobile
To play movie files. Support a lot of file types.
http://coreplayer.com/content/view/28/45/

SKTools
General management for your device's resources
http://s-k-tools.com/index.html?sktools/m_feat.html

Resco Photo Viewer
Can view and edit pictures.
http://www.resco.net/pocketpc/photoviewer/

Twikini
Twitter application for PPC. I got this free by doing a blog post about them.
http://www.trinketsoftware.com/Twikini/