Gone to the Dark Side

I had been contemplating on getting a new mobile phone for some time now to replace my old Sony Ericsson k750 that I inheritted from Raquel. I wanted a phone that can basically replace my wonderful iPod Nano as my main mp3 player so that I just have one device to carry on me instead of two.

When I discovered that the new iPhone 3G was coming out in Australia, I became naturally interested. What better device to replace my iPod than a device closely related to it. As I was reading up on the features of the iPhone and the potential mobile plans that were going to be out there, I became even more excited to get one when it finally comes out. The Optus iPhone plans looked particularly nice as it allows me to use 3g and Internet access without having to take on a very expensive monthly plan. I amd my friend, Justin, who was also very keen on the iPhone, were constantly discussing the wonders of the iPhone leading up to its launch.

However, as time passed, I had a better think of what disadvantages the iPhone had. Here are some of it’s drawbacks:
– No copy and paste! That’s right. No stupid copying and pasting of texts across the iPhone’s different apps. It can’t even do copy and paste within the same app. What was Apple thinking?!
– The SMS app can’t delete individual messages. It’s ridiculous! You can delete whole conversation threads between you and any one person. But you can’t delete one of the messages any person sends you.
– As of right now, it has fewer available free apps than a Windows Mobile phone. Hopefully, that’s something that can be remedied in time.
– It only has a 2 megapixel camera when most modern phones would at least have a 3 megapixel camera.
– Stuck to using only one method of inputting text: the iPhone’s signature virtual keyboard. The keys looked small. How does Apple expect its customers to accurately hit those keys?
– Battery can only be replaced by Apple. This one just slightly annoying for me as don’t usually buy spare batteries for any of my older devices.

That made me look for an iPhone alternative like the HTC Diamond Touch that my other friend, Marty, recommended (he owns one). I’ve been a Windows Mobile PDA user for many years so a phone powered by the same OS like the HTC Diamond Touch really appealed to me. Marty allowed me to freely play with his phone because he just didn’t want any more people joining what he calls the Dark Side that is Apple. I was getting more and more convinced to go with HTC as it had more features than the iPhone. I even made a list of the HTC’s and iPhone’s features and scored each according to my preferences. The HTC scored way more than the iPhone.

I went to Organiser World two weeks ago to get an unlocked HTC phone. They were unfortunately sold out so I had to have the shop reserve me one when new stock came in. My iPhone buddy Justin found this out and declared me a traitor. I just had to laugh.

It took Justin 3 weeks of waiting to get his iPhone from Optus in the city. Apparently, if I got one from Optus, I had to sign up first and start using their mobile plan as I’m waiting for my iPhone to arrive after 4 week’s time. Too long, I thought.

Friday of the same week, I got the call from the shop that told me that my HTC was ready for pickup. I can get it that Friday or the next day only. After that, they’ll just sell it to somebody else.

The new phone was well within my reach and I didn’t have to wait 3 weeks to get it. I planned to get it on the Saturday so that I have a little more time to make sure that I was making the right choice. I went to OW’s website to look at the price again. It was over $800 and I was then finding that to be a bit expensive. That made me doubt my choice a little.

I then looked for a suitable 3G mobile plan that could take advantage of the new phone’s features but still be inexpensive. The problem was that there wasn’t a cheap mobile data plan out here. It seemed like the best mobile deal to be had was tied to the iPhone. That meant that the different Australian telco carriers don’t offer those mobile plans unless you got an iPhone. Unfair, I know.

So, getting a new phone seemed like it was going to be a very expensive endeavour. That made me question my need for a new phone at all. Having noticed my apparent confusion about the whole thing, Raquel asked me what was it that made me think of getting a new phone anyway. I considered the question for a moment then replied that all I really wanted was to merge my iPod with my phone. That was why I wanted to get an iPhone to start with.

Sure the HTC had more features according to my score sheet, but in the end, I didn’t want to get a new phone for those listed features. I wanted a good iPod replacement that was also a phone. Using just that criteria, the iPhone wins hands down. Everything else I would get on top of that is just gravy. Also, it would turn out to be a much cheaper proposition to just go with an iPhone than with HTC.

After having decided to go with the Dark Side, I called up the Optus shop in the city to ask about the availability of the iPhone. They said it would take 4 weeks to get one, as expected. So, I then called up the Optus shop in Werribee to ask if they had the black 16gb iPhone at their shop. The person on the phone said yes. I couldn’t believe it. I had to rephrase my question and he again confirmed that the iPhone I wanted was available in their shop that very second!

I went to the Optus shop that day, signed up for the $29 Yes Plan that offered a 250mb monthly data allowance and free wifi access to Optus hotspots, and got myself a new shiny black iPhone! All on the same day.

Justin was understandably upset that I didn’t even have to wait for my iPhone. Marty, on the other hand, was just upset that I went with the iPhone anyway.

Now, I’ve been using it for 2 weeks and I’ve come to this conclusion: I absolutely love it! I don’t know why. It’s certainly lacking a lot of must-have features, but what it does have, it does it real well! Like the keyboard which I thought had very small keys, it actually works pretty well! And with a thumb, no less. I’m so comfortable with this method of text entry that I’ve typed this whole blog post and me previous one entirely on my new iPhone. I found that to be a big chore with my Windows Mobile PDA.

On paper, the iPhone may look weak but when I finally got to use it, it turns out to be a very delightful device. No wonder a lot of people are big iPhone fanatics. And a lot of these people were like me who thought that the iPhone wouldn’t be as nice a phone as it turned out to be.

I’m not saying you should get one too. All I’m saying is that I’m glad I got one.

Laptops and convenience

A friend from work asked me the other day why I just don’t buy a desktop PC. After all, for a similarly priced laptop, I could get a desktop PC that’s multiple times more powerful and faster machine. I admit that I do miss the power offered by a desktop PC from time to time, specially when I’m playing PC games. However, I wouldn’t trade the convenience and portability that a laptop offers over more power and speed.

I want the option to be able to use a computer wherever and whenever I wished more than being able to play any PC game at full spec mode. If I really wanted to have an amazing gaming experience, I’ll just go out and buy a Playstation 3 or something.

As an example of how having a portable PC is handy, I’m actually at Toyota Werribee having my car serviced as I’m typing up this blog. I have like a couple of hours to kill while I wait for my car and I’m thankful I have a laptop. While sitting here waiting, I was able to listen to my own music, watched a bit of Back to the Future 2 and played a few minutes of Call of Duty 4.

And I don’t have to take my laptop outside the home to appreciate its portability. Having a laptop that connects to the network via Wi-Fi means I can have a PC experience anywhere in the house, be it in the bedroom or in the lounge room. I don’t have to be in a separate room and be stuck there if I want to use the PC. I could be using the PC in the same room as Raquel as she is watching a movie she likes.

Another advantage of a laptop is its battery. In the event of a power failure, my machine won’t just suddenly turn off. It has its own in-built UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) or back-up power.

As for games, I have a powerful enough laptop that it could still handle the newer PC games in the market today. I wouldn’t be able to play them in full-settings, sure, but the games are still pretty cool even with the settings turned down to what my laptop can handle. In exchange for a minor loss of visual quality in games, I get to play my games on the go, like on an hour’s train ride to and from work.

Now, if only Melbourne has free city-wide Wi-Fi like San Francisco. I could surf anywhere in the city then. For now, I’ll just have to settle with going to the few establishments that do offer free Wi-Fi in the city for Internet access (such as MagNation, Australia on Collins, Collins Place and State Library of Victoria).

Time to end this. The car service is done and I’m out of here.

New PC frustrations

I don’t have the time to do much blogging recently. I don’t have much time to do anything, really, ever since I got my new PC from Dell about a week ago.

I was in the market for a new PC. Something with a bigger screen, more memory, more hard disk space, a better graphics card and more power. I chose to get the new PC from Dell due to multiple factors: I get to choose the components that go into the machine; they are cheaper (if you compare a Dell machine with other brands’ similarly spec-ed machines); and I get a 3% discount from my company on top of the cheaper price. The only downside was that I have to order the machine online and wait for it to be assembled in Dell’s factory and shipped to my address.

Anyway, instead of relying on the company discount, I was lucky enough to have timed my purchase on the weekend that Dell decided to give out massive discounts. For the machine I wanted to buy, the discount was 15%! That’s certainly a lot better than 3%, right? But before committing the purchase, I gave my specification request another look to see if I forgot to add anything.

That’s when it hit me. If I add something to the machine that will make it go over $100, I get to have 25% off instead of just 15%! So, I added an external 160Gb hard disk to my request and recalculated the final price of the machine. It was so unbelievably cheap for what I was getting. I was so happy.

I expected the machine to arrive after three days max, but it didn’t. The reason? The Dell representative I talked to told me that the delay was due to an out-of-stock part of the machine. They already ordered for the missing part and once they have it, they will promptly send me the machine. Out of curiosity, I asked which part was missing. She said it was the external hard disk! Great. I had to wait several days more for my new PC in exchange for getting it cheap.

A few days later, I finally got the new PC. I was happy again. I couldn’t wait to take it home and start customising it according to my needs and desires. This meant installing a lot of apps I had installed in my old laptop. The problem was that not all of the apps I had in the old laptop that had Windows XP on it was compatible with Windows Vista Ultimate, which is the OS of my new PC. I only found out about the incompatibility of some of the applications after I had already installed them. So, installing, uninstalling and looking for a viable replacement app took way too much time.

Now, I think I have most of the things I wanted installed on my Windows Vista machine. Maybe now, I can finally continue playing my relatively-newly purchased game, Call of Duty 4. Maybe now, I can finally get to enjoy my new PC. Maybe now, I can finally rest and relax again.

A new monitor, some sketches and a request

I love my small Dell XPS m1210 due to its small size. However, its small size is also the problem. My PC’s maximum resolution is only 1280 x 800 pixels which makes for a very cramped screen real estate. Ordinarily, this isn’t such a hassle but when it comes to drawing and colouring digitally, it’s a good thing to be able to see the entire picture all at once while working on it. So, one of the things I had wanted was to buy a large secondary monitor I can connect to my laptop.

I have been shopping around for a new laptop since late last year but I couldn’t find one that is not too expensive but at the same time have a resolution larger than 1440 x 900 which was the maximum resolution of most wide screen monitors I was looking at. One monitor did seem to fit my requirements and was relatively cheap: Hanns.G HG216D 22″ Widescreen HDMI LCD monitor.

A month ago, it was selling at Harvey Norman for about $500+ if my memory serves me right. I guess that’s just about right since it is a 22″ monitor with a maximum resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels. I also like that it had an HDMI input which would potentially allow me to turn this thing into a monitor for a PS3 when we do decide to get one in the future. My only concern was that this was the first time I’ve heard of the Hanns.G brand.

Well, after I looked up the monitor on the Internet, I was satisfied that it was a pretty safe purchase if ever. However, I found it a bit too expensive at the time since I only mostly wanted it for my digital art needs. Last week though, it was being sold for only $349 at JB Hi-Fi! That’s a big price drop and suddenly the monitor was within our budget.

But instead of buying the monitor at JB, we went to Harvey Norman instead where it was being sold at a discounted price of $397 (slightly more expensive than at JB). Good thing Harvey has this 110% price match policy. That is, they’ll match the lower price of a competitor and reduce it a further 10% of the price difference. I don’t exactly understand the policy completely but the end of it was that we got the monitor for less than JB’s $349 price! Yay!

Of course, I quickly tested it when I got home by doing some sketches.

After connecting the new monitor to my laptop, I quickly sketched this piece using Painter X’s Artist Pastel Chalk brush mainly. I was still feeling a bit nostalgic about my old webcomic after drawing Nadine last time, so I went and drew another Lovarian Adventures character. Helix the rogue this time. He has a different haircut now and he seems a bit younger here than in the comic (according to Raquel).

While at Borders (mega bookstore) yesterday waiting for Raquel do some shopping, I saw this girl across from where I was sitting really intent in reading her magazine. Since I wasn’t really doing much, I whipped out my trusty drawing book and started drawing her expression, face shape and hair. I wasn’t after her likeness but her overall look. I scanned the sketch when I got home and modified the image further in Painter.

In the end, I’m pretty happy with the new monitor. It certainly works the way I expected it to. Watching high definition (HD) videos on it was pretty cool, too!

Just before I end this, I just want to add something that doesn’t warrant its own post, I think. I just got a message from a DeviantArt member who had been looking at my stuff and I think I just got my second commission offer (Rick was asking about commissions first). Here is the message:

Cool art! Would you like to draw some sexy sketches of my wife in your style?

He didn’t send me any photos of his wife for reference yet but I did ask Raquel if this was a bit of a weird request. Draw his wife in sexy poses? Raquel was okay with it as long as we get paid. Cool.

Boggled

Last week, we had some friends over for a game of bowling. It had been a long while since we had played bowling so we thought that was a valid excuse to come together. Unfortunately, the bowling centre was running a tournament that day and didn’t allow for any casual players (even though there were lanes available).

Instead of bowling, we just went back to our house for some snacks and story sharing. We decided to go out for dinner afterwards because we didn’t have any dinner prepared at home. On the way out, we noticed the old box of Boggle sitting on the bookshelf near the front door. I bought this several years ago to keep me amused during those first few years of being alone in Canberra. I love word games so this certainly did its job back then.

After dinner, we got out Boggle and refreshed ourselves with the rules. It all came back to me soon enough. We also established some house rules. One of which is that for challenged words, we would consult the dictionary we have in our library. It’s by no means the official Scrabble dictionary of allowable words so there would be valid words that won’t be in there. So, we agreed that if the word isn’t there, it won’t be counted even if it turned out to be an actual word. It just makes things easier.

At first, our writer friends was taking lead with her long words. In the end though, I was able to catch up to her and eventually take the lead by the time we decided to call it a night. Well, if we had followed the rules and stopped when somebody had reached 50 points, she might’ve been the winner because it took me a while to catch up to her score.

In the end, I quite enjoyed our game of Boggle. I usually played it either with my friend Randolf or with Raquel only. I have never played it with four players since college. It was certainly more fun with more people playing. More people meant that more common words get removed from the list of any player and made the game a bit harder, too.

I hope our guests genuinely enjoyed the game too so that we can invite them for another round of Boggle.

My new Bamboo Fun is fun

For my advanced birthday gift, Raquel gave me a brand new spiffy Wacom tablet called Bamboo Fun to replace my old Wacom Graphire4 tablet.

The Bamboo Fun model actually replaced the Graphire4 model in Wacom’s line-up of tablets. It is aimed primarily at amateur/hobbyist digital artists who would want to have a decent enough tablet but don’t want to spend a fortune on the high-end models such as the Intuos or the Cintiq which sells from $600 up. The Bamboo Fun model I got is the medium-sized one and sold for about $299.

The new tablet is essentially the same as my old tablet except for the following advantages:
– It also came with a wireless mouse that uses the same tablet technology as the pen stylus.
– The drawing surface is wide which proportionally matches my laptop’s wide screen. Meaning, no wasted tablet space.
– Using the pen on the tablet surface feels like pencil on paper unlike the older one which felt like ballpoint pen on glass.
– It has two more buttons I could assign functions to.
– It’s thinner and therefore more portable. I could place this side-by-side my folded laptop and have both fit in my small laptop case. I could also unplug the cord from the tablet itself. The older one is wider, thicker and you can’t detach the cord so you have to wrap it around the tablet if you decide to take it somewhere.

It should be pretty obvious by now that I love the new tablet. I was first taken aback by the pencil-on-paper surface texture when using it because it meant I have to be more forceful with my strokes. With the older tablet, my strokes just glide off the glassy tablet surface. With the new tablet, my lighter strokes trasnlated to more crooked lines and very light lines. But now that I’m used to the new one, I find it’s no longer a problem.

Actually, I got the gift a few days ago so I was able to use it already to draw some of the stuff I’ve posted on the blog such as the Little Drummer Boy and Tomas and Nilo.

Apart from these two, here are a couple more stuff I drew with the new tablet (click on the thumbnails to enlarge):

The first piece was originally just a sketch I did as part of my daily doodling exercise.The original sketch had incorrect facial proportions on it and I knew it. But, I wanted a sketch I could practice some colouring on so I used it anyway.

After doing a quick colour experiment, I was a little satisfied with the result so I copied the whole thing from Painter to Photoshop and proceeded to distort the image to make the proportions look more or less correct. At the very least, it now looks better than before I altered it.

As for the colouring, I’m trying out something that I can do real quick but remain pleasant to look at in the end. This was more free form and it was a lot quicker to do compared to my other method which involved a lot of cleaning up and precision.

The second piece, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, was something I did for another Christmas-themed art contest at the DeviantArt art community called ‘Tis the Season for Illustration Contest. The rules state that we should draw a Christmas-themed scene from a book or film.

I did this on the day of the deadline so I had to draw something quick and finish it quickly. The only thing I could think of drawing was the Grinch. Since I’m basing it off the movie instead of the book, I sort of used the Jim Carrey Grinch as reference instead of the Dr Seuss book Grinch or the Grinch from the cartoons. It was rushed but I hope I win anyway since all the other submissions weren’t all that flash.

Broadband churn

We’ve had our adsl broadband connection provided by iiNet for more than two years now. They were great to start but our needs had changed since then. When we started, the plan we chose was quite adequate for what we needed the broadband for.

For about $70 a month, we had a 512kbps download bandwidth and a 128kpbs upload bandwidth. We were allotted a 10Gb/month download limit during peak hours and another 10Gb/month limit during off-peak hours (from 12 midnight to 8 AM). If we go beyond our limit, our bandwidth gets shaped down to 64kbps for the duration of the month.

At first, the 512k/128k bandwidth was good enough. However, I found it very difficult to play online games while Raquel is surfing at that speed. We needed more bandwidth. We also just started watching a lot YouTube, downloading a lot of podcasts and vidcasts and generally just downloading more. A faster bandwidth would mean less waiting around for the downloads to finish.

With our increased downloading, we found ourselves often going beyond our allotted monthly download limit which really sucked. Supposedly, our traffic should be shaped down to 64kbps but it felt more like we were only connected via a 28kbps connection. A dialup connection to iiNet felt faster!

Needless to say, we got tired of it all. I wanted to switch to a better plan. I originally wanted to stay with iiNet because we found their service to be sufficient. However, when I looked at their ADSL1 offerings, I found that our current plan has been grandfathered. Meaning, it is no longer available but those who are in it would continue to have it.

The new ADSL1 plans offered by iiNet were all lousy. For the same money we are paying now, the limit is something like 5Gb per month only. So, if we want to increase our bandwidth to 1.5Mbps download / 256kbps upload, we’d pay more and get reduced allowable monthly download limit. So, sticking with iiNet was a definite now since then.

After looking around for the next best ADSL1 Internet deal, I decided that Westnet was it. For roughly the same price of our current broadband service, we’d get double the bandwidth and an even better monthly download limit at 20Gb during peak hours and 40Gb during off-peak hours. That’s double the peak limit and quadruple the off-peak limit at double the speed for the same price. As an added bonus, they have lots more gaming servers for Counterstrike and Team Fortress 2 that I usually connect to anyway and connecting to these means the traffic won’t be counted against my monthly limit.

I couldn’t wait to churn to Westnet. By the way, churn is the term commonly used in Australia (I’m not sure if it’s true in other countries) to describe the act of transferring from one Internet service provider (ISP) to another. Here is a description of churn from the .Netcall website:

What is Churn?

It is more correctly called the DSL transfer process (commonly refered to as “churn”), and provides an efficient one step mechanism for moving DSL end-users/customers between DSL service providers, rather than the more time consuming disconnection/reconnection process.

In short your traffic that is routed to your current ISP is re-routed to your new provider without actually disconnecting the service

We wanted to do this months ago but we then remembered that we were under contract with iiNet to stay with them for two years or we pay them $180 or something (I forgot the exact amount, sorry). So, we had to wait till December 7 before we even attempt churning to Westnet.

The good news is, December 7 has come and gone. The day after the 7th, we called up Westnet and applied for an ADSL1 account with them. And yesterday, our broadband got churned to Westnet at long last!

We now have the benefit of faster Internet speeds and bigger download limits. I was so excited yesterday that I quickly tried watching a video on YouTube just to test the new connection. Before, video would play for a few seconds and then stop while it waits for our PC to download more of the video. Then the video would continue playing again and then stop again. This would continue to happen until all of the video was completely downloaded. But now, I can load a video and watch it without waiting for it to finish downloading first.

So, the short of it is, we transferred to a different ISP and I’m quite pleased with it. Can’t wait to play with it some more later.

Art meme

In the art community of DeviantArt, there is a popular art meme going around and for good reason. It is very fun to fill out. But being an art meme, there is a lot of drawing involved in answering it.

Below is my answer to the art meme, created by Nyu of DeviantArt. It is shrunk to fit in the blog though so some of my smaller writings may not be readable. To view it in its original view, click on the image below to go to my DeviantArt gallery where the full size version is. If you load that page and the image is still small, click on the Full View link on the left or the small image to enlarge it.

Click to open in DeviantArt then click on small image to enlarge

Whew. Took me a couple of hours over a few nights to finish this. I’m glad it’s finally done.

Head-hunting

I decided a few weeks ago to start drawing/digitally-painting faces more realistically as opposed to a more anime-ish style. That meant a non-flat face, smaller teardrop-shaped eyes, mouths with lips and noses with nostrils.

In a way, I already know how to do this but I want to be better at it. I figured that the best way to do this is to draw actual faces. Sure, I can use mine and Raquel’s faces as models for my work (and I already have) but that would always give my characters a more Asian appearance. I also want to be able to master drawing faces with a distinct caucasian appearance.

To that end, I’ve been head-hunting. Literally, hunting for heads I can use as art reference. I’ve been going to shops looking for toys, action figures, dolls and statuetes I can buy and use as art models. I also went on eBay and started looking for mannequin heads for sale.

I soon discovered that these things are a bit expensive. I wonder if there is anything cheaper I can use out there. I’ve even contemplated on going to the nearby Catholic shop and look for a good statue of a saint there that I can use instead. It’ll probably be cheaper there. I have yet to look.

Another option I thought of was to use a virtual head reference instead. I have games like Half Life 2, Sims 2 and Oblivion at home. Maybe I can use the characters on those games as my models, I thought. Well, I tried Oblivion and Sims 2 but I found that there are some limitations on how I can control the camera. I couldn’t get a worm’s-eye view of the characters at all.

Fortunately, Half Life 2 has this mod (modification) called Garry’s Mod which allows the “player” to play around with the characters and objects of the game and position them anyway the player wants. That actually worked quite well. The only downside was that I was limited to the characters already in the game. Maybe there is a way to add mod characters in there. I’ll have to look into that later.

Wanting a potentially better option, I searched the web for software that actually does what I really wanted. I found various 3D modelling software but those were more geared toward animators. I did find the software called Poser Figure Artist which looks like exactly what I’m looking for. It was made for artists wanting to use live models for art reference but was willing to settle for virtual models. There are various models to choose from, the models could be posed however you wish, and the environment (lighting and such) could be manipulated. It was great but, unfortunately, it costs US$99.

I guess that’s cheap compared to buying collectible action figures. For 99 bucks, I have more model variety at my disposal and I can pose it anyway I want. Although I’m very tempted to just purchase Poser Figure Artist, I also want to just have a model that’s tangible.

Zapped!

Before moving to Australia, the only time I have the feeling of being electricuted was when I touch an electric appliance or device that wasn’t properly grounded. Now, whenever it starts to get colder, I often get zapped with static electricity when I touch anything conductive.

Supposedly, it has something to do with the dry cool weather. When it is warm and humid, the moisture in the air helps disappate any static electricity charge you have. When it is cold and dry, the only way the static electricity gets discharged is when you touch something conductive resulting in a slight electric shock.

So, getting zapped is something you should come to expect if you are someone planning to migrate to Australia from the Philippines.

Over the years, I’ve tried of different ways to avoid getting zapped. I try to discharge the static by touching my palm on a brick or wooden wall first before touching the metal door knob. For a time, I thought it worked but I still get zapped sometimes.

Recently though, I’ve discovered a method that works the best for me. Before I touch something metallic, I would hold one of my keys and use that to touch the metallic object. I still get zapped, sure, but it isn’t as painful as touching the object directly. The key seems to distribute the charge more evenly. And before writing this short blog, I’ve read that you can do the same using a coin instead. It’s good to know that something similar to my method was something that was being recommended by others as well.