SMSDiscount Review

26th September 2007

I've been trying to find a cheaper alternative of SMS-ing rather than using my current mobile phone carrier. Trying out free SMS services here and there (which most of them put advertising texts at the end of your message, which is uncool)

After trying out some paid web SMS services, I'm stuck now at SMSDiscount!


With only 3 cents (in Euro) or 5 cents in Australian per SMS (depends on the country), I can send 5 more SMSes overseas instead of just 1 SMS with the same price! The service so far has been good, messages are sent in a snap, and so far I've encountered no problems on the service.

There are currently 3 ways to send SMS through SMSDiscount:
1) From their website
You can login to the site to send SMS (but there are no characters counting when you type and also no address book yet).

2) From their application
You download their nifty application, install it in your Windows machine (which has an address book, among other features). You can always check your credit here (it's displayed and updated
automatically when you send an SMS)

3) Through their web API
If you are a techy or at least know some web programming, you can then create your own web page to send SMS using your SMSDiscount account. I use this as it gives me the easiest access and quickest access to those friends (or my girlfriend :)) whom I SMS a lot everyday without having to click on her name on the address book, etc.

Please let me know if you'd like my sample code to be used for yourselves!


Screenshots:


Fig 1. SMSDiscount Application


Conclusion

I've tried other paid SMS services, but none gives me the satisfaction of SMSDiscount! Give it a go and let me know if you enjoy it as much as I do!

Happy saving and SMS-ing! :)
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HTC P3600i Review

25th September 2007

Well I'm not a professional reviewer, just a casual user who wants to share his experience with the new P3600i ^^
I was replacing my mini O2 so most of the words I say will unfortunately compare my mini with this one (besides migrating from WM2003 to WM2006). This short review should be useful to those who want to purchase HTC P3600i.

The positives:

The Phone

• The phone itself is sort of similar in weight and size with my mini O2; I still put it in my pocket, even in my jeans pocket (I hate hanging my phone on my belt like some people do)
• It's responsive (due to more processor power + I guess the more stability of WM2006)
• It has more memory to install your programs to (No more headache of "install as many programs as possible in your storage card!). Although I'm still installing some stuffs in my storage card, depends on how crucial the program is to be in memory
• Built in GPS! It may take some time to lock your position (depends on where you are). Have a look at my other blog entry here if you are unsure if your GPS is working or not.
  
• Haven't tried the camera but I'm sure it's much better than my mini O2, but don't expect it to replace your digital camera! Personally think the new Nokias/Ericsson have better cameras. Well it's a PDA, what do you expect?
• Can accept 4 Gb (I saw the sales assistant put a 4 Gb miniSD on it and the file explorer could see it as a 4 Gb storage card). I only use 1 Gb though and it's so much more than enough, but I guess some people require more.
• It really has a power off/shutdown feature (my mini O2 can only put the phone in "standby" mode if you press the power button)
• Doesn't come with any miniSD at all! but with $25 just to get a 1 Gb, I think no one should complain here.

WM2006 and its default applications

• Much much more intuitive then the WM2003 in terms of interface and menu, etc (for calling, sms notifications, etc)
• Built in Voice Commander to those who use it.
• Comes with the latest .NET framework installed.
• WM2006 doesn't suffer from the WM2003 "Non-wake up" bug (alarm doesn't go off)
  

The negatives:

The Phone

• It has 180 Mb memory to be allocated for installed programs and 49 Mb memory for running programs. So far I've had 20 Mb left in the Programs memory and at one time it went so high that the phone "freezes" like my mini O2.. maybe I've installed too many "crap" in there lol.
• The stylus is at the bottom right instead of the top right.. this is not a negative I guess, as I'm used to inserting my stylus from the top of the phone, but I guess it's harder to insert from bottom-up (if you're not careful you might drop it :) )
• Fingerprint magnet like CNET reviews said! But I've put it on the pouch that I used for my mini O2, so no more finger magnet.
• No built in radio (although I don't hear radio much)
• Doesn't come with a regular audio jack, so you may need to get a converter if you want to plug in yours to this baby!
  

WM2006 and its default applications

• The battery power somehow only displays 100%, 90%, 80%? Instead of 87%, 93%, etc
• If you want to sign in to your WLM (messenger), it forces you to add all of your MSN contacts to your phone address book!! This put too many rubbish in there which most of them contains just email address and you'll never gonna call those people around the world anyways!
• A few reviews say that it's bundled with Tomtom navigator?? Definitely not.
• Why Microsoft doesn't allow sync based on Wi-fi? I hate using bluetooth on my Vista and USB cable..It's probably security thingie, but can't they just put passwords connection or something?
• Can't select all contacts in your address book. After the horrible 200 hundred of my MSN contacts added in there, I had to manually select one by one and remove them :(
• Err it forced you to enter your email server/pop3 settings, etc for Email messages (I don't use that phone for emailing, so I entered a dummy account) upon first usage.
• Memory handling of the OS is still not satisfactory. You'll still need to soft reset every now and then because your free memory suddenly drops to 3-5 mb free even though you've closed all applications (I mean, really CLOSED, not minimise)

Photos taken by the built-in camera:





Conclusion

So far, this is the best PDA phone that I've ever had. It's stable, fast, looks sleek and quite affordable. You may want to check other reviews as well if you are still considering to get it. But with built-in GPS, the latest Windows Mobile 2006, nothing can go wrong with this one!

Please feel free to RSS subscribe this post or come back in a few more days. I might add more stuffs here in the future.

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Pic2Color - online color pick tool

This online color picking tool is very useful especially for web designers. It will automatically gives you all of the colors in hex based on the picture file that you uploaded.

The steps are pretty simple, you upload your picture (usually a company or user logo) and then let the tool gives you all the colors combination found on the picture, in which you can use for your pages.

Check my screenshot below:

I'd recommend to use this tool instead of opening your logo in a Photo editing tool and then pick the colors one by one manually :)
The site is at http://www.pic2color.com

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