felix ker's blog » Technology

Why You Shouldn’t Sign Up for SingTel’s BlackBerry VAS plans

Felix Ker — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:03:42 +0000

This post is my personal opinion and research. If you’re a smart consumer, please read what I have to say. If you have comments, I welcome them. I’ll keep this as short as possible.

You might be thinking why I wrote this. It’s definitely not to pull any service provider down. Let me share them.

I am a SingTel customer, I’ve got a BlackBerry and need BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS).
I am also a StarHub customer and I have another BlackBerry service activated.

An hour ago, I called SingTel to enquire about their BlackBerry plans. I was told that their BlackBerry Flexi plans cannot be ‘activated‘ and must be signed as a plan. So that means I have to wait till next year to recontract. Next, I was offered 3 plans – 1GB, 3GB and the Unlimited plan. Briefed about the prices and was told 1GB doesn’t include any web surfing and 3GB can surf web but only via BlackBerry APN.

Read more after the jump!

The keyword – BlackBerry APN. So I went on to ask if I were to use maybe BOLT Browser, will I be charged? “Yes… Blah blah blah”. And next I asked “Does that mean I’m losing out?” and I got “Yes, blah blah” for an answer. Seriously, was that staff trained?

For everyone’s advantage, I’ve made the chart below for your comparison. It’s for your reference before you consider signing up with SingTel / M1 / StarHub.

Download as PDF

Summary

It’s unfair to compare SingTel’s 1GB plan with M1/StarHub’s. But for another $3 with StarHub/M1, you get more value on your BlackBerry device.
WARNING: SingTel’s 3GB bundled data covers only BlackBerry APN.
WARNING: SingTel does NOT cap your data usage.

Review: StarHub’s BlackBerry Premium Value-Added Service

For almost a year, I’ve been using StarHub’s BIS with no problems. Speed is satisfactory and I don’t remember any downtime. There was once or twice when the outage was at RIM’s side – StarHub shouldn’t be blamed for this.

The only thing I don’t like is the unstated data usage on my bill. It’s only reflected as “BlackBerry Premium”. Good thing is I don’t exceed my 1GB usage. So it doesn’t really affect my service usage satisfaction.

Are you a SingTel BlackBerry user? Drop your feedback here and hopefully SingTel hears/sees them!

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How to know when your Facebook is hacked

Felix Ker — Sun, 23 May 2010 04:20:48 +0000

If you haven’t read about the new security feature of facebook, you can actually have a feature turned on and you will be updated when someone, somewhere logs into your facebook account. Here’s the steps:

Login to your account using the actual web. Not the mobile or touch site.
On the top-right corner, click on the “Account” drop down and go into “Account Settings”
Scroll down till you see “Account Security” and click on it to show options.
Switch “Would you like to receive notifications for logins from new devices?” to “Yes” and Save.

So when ever some strangers log into your facebook, you will get an email notifying you of this activity. Thus it’s not advisible to have the same password for your email and facebook.

Overly secure? Facebook couldn’t recognize that I was using the same computer, one week later.

Have you encountered any problems with this feature?

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How I found someone’s scheduler and returned it!

Felix Ker — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:21:06 +0000

This scheduler happens to be lying on the bench I was doing my revision. At this moment I’m writing this article, I wonder if most people will flip and find ways to return it or flip and leave it aside. What will you do?

How did I find her?

Randomly flipping it, I discovered the owner’s name behind, on the last page. I know the owner’s name and 3 possibilities of how she looks like since there’s an mini Instax photograph of 3 girls.

Guess I was out of luck – überTwitter’s Find User didn’t return any results (It took ages to load, but still no dataset was returned).

Last hope – I searched Facebook hoping the name was real and used as her profile name. Luckily she had a distinctive name that returned 1 person! Just nice, I have 2 mutuals with this person. – 1 that I’d meet often and another that I haven’t met for ages.

I started WhatsApp Messenger to discuss how I could either meet up with him/her or (snail)mail it to her.

It was concluded that since the owner was already out of school, I’ll meet my friend the next morning so I could pass it to him and he’ll return to his classmate.

Power of Social Networking

Isn’t it nice that when you lose something, you get it back through your friend?

Its all because facebook shows mutual friends between you and strangers – provided you can be found with a public profile. (Here’s one advantage to keeping your facebook profile public.)

Future

All of you out there should name your belongings with your digital identity such as (twitter:felixker). It will be more helpful if someone found your belongings.

In future, instead of writing just names on belongings, I’ve a feeling people would stick RFID stickers or stickers with digital identities stating twitter id/facebook link, linkedin url, etc!

Have you lost anything recently? Found it?

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Review: WhatsApp Messenger for BlackBerry

Felix Ker — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 03:59:48 +0000

WhatsApp – Current Chat

This post was written when I was in the car.

If you’re wondering what’s this – WhatsApp is a popular software for iPhone platform. Recently it was introduced for BlackBerry. Soon, Nokia Symbian and Android!

I didn’t get the application until two days ago when I realised its time I contact the developer to purchase it via PayPal directly instead of going to the BlackBerry App World which doesn’t allow users from most (if not all) Asian countries to buy anything yet.

What’s good?

I realised that being able to talk to my friends on iPhone and end up saving on a lot of SMS is already a great deal.

Instantly, I received what people sent, instead of lagging for quite awhile. I thought it should be like this for now but when more use this service, I’m expecting it to be alittle slower.

Functions I like

- Last seen date – shows when your friend was last seen on WhatsApp. You can view it through your friend’s “profile” or at the chat window (appears sometimes).
- Friends list based on mobile phone number (address book) – I do not have to manage another address book.
- Favourites list – allows me to manage people I frequently talk to. Makes talking and selecting people fast.
- Status – I don’t see this as being so useful, but good for a personal note to friends.
- Clean simple design!

What’s not so good?

- Lack of functions! – I don’t expect to be sending files so soon. But can I have logs for my chat?

I think if expectations are put low, with IM in mind, WhatsApp is a wonderful messenger.

Version used to review – WhatsApp Messenger (ver 2.2.2451.400)

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WhatsApp for BlackBerry Coming to Singapore soon!

Felix Ker — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 06:34:08 +0000

I actually took an effort to email WhatsApp Inc to check if there’s any way we in Singapore can actually purchase the software. Tadah, here we have an update!

I was told that they’re now running a beta for a new version of the app. It will be out for the public real soon! And, regardless of where you are, you can buy it as long as you have a Paypal account! (Okay, you can borrow a friend’s.)

How will the new version work?

You will soon be able to download WhatsApp over-the-air (OTA) through their website. The software will be a 48hour trial and after it ends, you will not be able to connect to their servers anymore.

To purchase it, you can get through the menu and you’ll be brought link inside the program that will direct to PayPal and you’ll be done in seconds. After payment, immediately the program will tell you that your ‘license’ has been extended.

Thus, If you do not buy it, you will not be able to use it since the new program now records your purchase with your registered mobile number.

My thoughts

Downloading the whole application was fast with no errors (on their side). Was able to get WhatsApp working smoothly. (I’ve already started chatting with a few friends!)

Will do a review soon!

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