Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Red Mobile is the new celco in town


Red Mobile officially launched its website last Saturday which unveiled the new cellular service from CURE, a 3G licensee bought by PLDT in April this year.

Red Mobile effectively replaced the old uMobile brand of CURE and now aims for the same target market as Sun Cellular. The TVCs that’s been airing around makes it pretty obvious actually.

Red Mobile have been calling up uMobile subscribers and telling them they will receive a new SIM card for free which includes Php200 of call and text loads.

Php0.50/minute - red mobile to red mobile calls
Php6.50 - red mobile to other network calls

Php0.50/minute - red mobile to red mobile text message
Php1.00 - red mobile to other network text messages

Php7.50 per 15 mins - 3G internet

is priced at a very low Php39. The big catch here actually is that Red Mobile will only work on 3G capable handsets and on areas where 3G signal is available. This is because CURE’s license is only for a 3G spectrum.

Click this link to visit their site: http://www.redmobile.com

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Walt Disney 2009 Movie Lineup

A combination of high-octane adventures, family-friendly tales, rip-roaring comedies, delightful love stories and gripping thrillers comprise Walt Disney Studios’ line-up of films for 2009. From Jim Carrey to Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage to Adam Sandler, Miley Cyrus to the Jonas Brothers, the stars have aligned for a year-long celebration of wholesome entertainment.


G-Force. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer brings his first 3-D film to the big screen with a comedy adventure about the latest evolution of a covert government program to train animals to work in espionage. Armed with the latest high-tech spy equipment, these highly trained guinea pigs (voiced by Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell and Penelope Cruz) discover that the fate of the world is in their paws.

Up. From Disney/Pixar comes this comedic adventure about Carl (voice of Ed Asner) who has spent his entire life dreaming of exploring the globe and experiencing life to its fullest. But at age 78, life seems to have passed him by, until a twist of fate (and a persistent 8-year old) gives him a new lease on life.

Bedtime Stories. An adventure comedy about a hotel handyman (Adam Sandler) whose life is changed forever when the bedtime stories he tells his niece and nephew start to mysteriously come true.

Race to Witch Mountain. A thrilling action-adventure about a hard-luck cab driver (Dwayne Johnson), whose life is thrown into chaos when two apparent “runaway” teenagers jump into his taxi. He soon realizes that the kids possess exceptional paranormal powers.

A Christmas Carol. A multi-sensory thrill ride re-envisioned by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis. Starring Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge, the film captures the fantastical essence of the classic Dickens tale in a groundbreaking, performance-capture 3D motion picture event.

Confessions of a Shopaholic. In the glamorous world of New York City, Rebecca (Isla Fisher) is a fun-loving girl who is really good at shopping–a little too good, perhaps. She dreams of working for her favorite fashion magazine, but can’t quite get her foot in the door.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua. A pampered, diamond-clad Chihuahua named Chloe (voice of Drew Barrymore) enjoys her luxurious lifestyle so much, she hardly notices Papi, a tough looking Chihuahua who happens to be head-over-paws for the fashionista pooch. But when Chloe gets lost in the rough streets of Mexico, Papi heads south of the border to rescue his true love.

Surrogates. FBI agents (Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell) investigate the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a high-tech surrogate phenomenon that allows people to purchase unflawed robotic versions of themselves–fit, good looking remotely controlled machines that ultimately assume their life roles–enabling people to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes.

The Proposal. When high-powered book editor (Sandra Bullock) faces deportation to her native Canada, the quick-thinking exec declares that she’s actually engaged to her unsuspecting put-upon assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds), who she’s tormented for years. He agrees to participate in the charade, but with a few conditions of his own.

Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. The Jonas Brothers head to the big screen–in Disney Digital 3D–in this high-energy rockumentary. The film blends excerpts from the Brothers’ red-hot “Burning Up” concert tour, with exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, off-the-wall segments, and a lot of JB-style humor-giving fans never-before-seen insights into the lives of Kevin, Joe and Nick.

Hannah Montana: The Movie. The music-filled comedy adventure based on Disney Channel’s blockbuster television series, “Hannah Montana,” in which Miley Cyrus stars as a teenage girl Miley Stewart who lives a secret life as a pop star. The film follows Miley as Hannah’s soaring popularity threatens to take over her life.

When in Rome. An ambitious young New Yorker (Kristen Bell), disillusioned with romance, takes a whirlwind trip to Rome where she defiantly plucks magic coins from a “foolish” fountain of love, inexplicably igniting the passion of an odd group of suitors (Josh Duhamel, Dax Shepard, Jon Heder and Danny DeVito).

Doubt. Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams star in the gripping film adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play about the quest for truth, the forces of change, and the devastating consequences of blind justice in an age defined by moral conviction.

Adventureland. Set in the summer of 1987, the film concerns an uptight recent college grad (Jesse Eisenberg) who is forced to take a minimum wage job at the local amusement park. The experience helps him to loosen up a bit as he finds first love (Kristen Stewart), forms new friendships and matures just in time to enter the real world in the fall.

The Boy in Striped Pajamas. Eight year-old Bruno is the sheltered son of a Nazi officer whose promotion takes the family from their Berlin home to a desolate area where the lonely boy finds no-one to play with. Crushed by boredom and compelled by curiosity, he ignores his mother’s repeated instructions not to explore the back garden and heads for the “farm” he has seen in the near distance. There he meets Shmuel, a boy his own age who lives a parallel, alien existence on the other side of a barbed wire fence.

(Walt Disney Press Release)

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Intel Core i7 is out, should you upgrade?


Intel had recently launched last November 21, 2008 what it claims to be the fastest processor in the planet, the Intel Core i7. It is first their new line of processors which are based on the Nehalem architecture (45nm).

Many hardware critics can only say nothing but praises for the Core i7 which is a breakthrough in computing technology. Intel showed that their Core i7 is at least 40% faster than their top of the line Core 2 Extreme processor (QX9770).

Hyper-Threading Technology is back

The Core i7 can utilize their own HT Technology which can be a great advantage for highly threaded applications and games. Multi-tasking would be a breeze as computing threads can be done in parallel. With its 4 cores, it can deliver 8-threaded performance.

Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of games that can optimize those 8 threads but they’re in talks with game developers to make use of the technology. However, games that utilize HT Technology (FarCry 2 was demoed) can give you a totally realistic experience when playing just as what the developers intended the game to be played.

Turbo Boost Technology

This technology automatically increases or decreases the processor’s frequency as needed. It can disable the 3 cores if not needed to save energy and can easily maximize their capability for CPU-intensive processes. No need to tweak the frequency on the BIOS settings just to get more juice out of your processors.

So should you upgrade your current machine?

Well do you need 4 cores or is your dual core good enough? I think changing the name to Core i7 is a marketing ploy so that buyers who would be asking for the most latest processor can be caught unaware that they’re already buying a quad core that they probably won’t need. Removing the word "Quad" on their branding can do that.

If you do a lot of 3D or video rendering then the Core i7 can really save you a LOT of time. If you think your current quad core is fast, the Core i7 is way much faster.

If you’re an extreme gamer and overclocker then you would probably want to get your hands on the fastest processor around. They removed the overspeed protection and has a native support for DDR3 1066MHz. *whistle*

Be prepared to pay top dollar for the Core i7 which is already available in the market:

Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz - $284
Intel Core i7 940 2.93GHz - $562
Intel Core i7 965 3.2GHz Extreme Edition - $999

And pay some more for the select few of high-end motherboards that supports the Core i7. Not to mention the still-expensive DDR3 RAM chips and a PCI-E 2.0 graphics card.

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SiteMeter crashes thousands of websites on IE7

Over the weekend, thousands of websites inexplicably crashed when browsed via Internet Explorer 7. The common thing about them is that they all use Sitemeter and a bug in the site tracking service caused all the havoc.

Sitemeter has promptly fixed the issue:

Dear SiteMeter Users,

We corrected a compatibility issue with our SiteMeter tracking code and IE7 and IE6 browsers that started last night.

The problem was related to some work we were doing on the backend system for our upcoming website launch.

We’ve identified and resolved two separate but related issues -

1 - IE Users viewing pages - The error occured (sic) when the SiteMeter tag was not a direct child of the body tag (e.g. if the tag was within a table or div). Recent changes we made created a failure for visitors viewing sites using Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 6.

2 - Accessing SiteMeter and Stats - Individuals trying to access or view their SiteMeter stats by clicking on their SiteMeter logo/icons were unable to gain access. This again appears to have affected only individuals using IE7 and IE6.

At this time both problems have been fixed and our services are fully operational.

For those who removed the SiteMeter code from your pages please be assured that the problem has been resolved and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

During the outbreak, site tracking was partially disabled.

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