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No, I’m not talking about the half-human, half-whatever creatures on sci-fi movies. This is about the latest phone OS that’s been buzzing around these days. If you haven’t heard yet, Samsung is releasing an Android phone with Sprint on November 1st. They call it the Samsung Moment. It is basically just a QWERTY phone. What makes it interesting is its OS – Android – the opensource mobile phone operating system started by Google. After all those times, this humble OS finally surfaced to the public (I’ve been checking it out since day one, and I’m glad to say that Google is starting to make its point).

What’s really interesting about this news is that lately, the phone is starting to be like a real computer. I mean, yes it is a computer, but before Android, phones used to have their own proprietary OS (except for Symbian phones, but the UI for each of the manufacturers looked ridiculously different to even think of them as the same OS).

And now here comes Motorola, with their own Android just around the corner, dubbed CLIQ. With the very same familiar Android interface as with the other Androids, this QWERTY phone can pretty much get in the race.

This is one of the advantages of opensource – easily ported to different platforms. I commend those guys who work their hearts out and dare to give their work out to the public. Time may come that when you buy a specific phone model, you will be ask what OS you want to load it with. When that time comes, I’m pretty ready with my answer.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the android phones out today…

If you don’t listen to country music, I’d say you’re missing hell of a lot great music. But even in the pop scene, the Dixie Chicks were known for their outstanding vocals and spine-chilling harmony. Looking back 2002, Landslide was one of their hit songs off their album Home, and I must say, one of the best renditions of the song (original by Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac). I guess I also kind of regret that I never paid enough attention to this band and how they struggled the political controversy they got into. If you didn’t know yet, they Dixie Chicks were banned from radio stations and from their concert tours right after lead singer Natalie Maines made a comment about their president back then. Check out this documentary on YouTube to know more. In that context, all I can say is that shame on America for dumping the Dixie Chicks. So much for free speech and your free country. Now that Bush is out of office and the USA and the world is in a crisis, I’d love to hear the Dixie Chicks sing a song of “I told you so”!

The Dixie Chicks

Try to listen to the Dixie Chicks’ rendition of Star-Spangled Banner. I’m not American but this gave me chills! The best rendition, if you as me. The real tune was never altered, but they were still able to pull off their own flavor to it – unlike other renditions.

If you’re an American and that doesn’t move you, move to another country! (taken from one comment on that video)

Last 2006, they released their album Taking The Long Way. If you know their story, you will definitely love the third track on this album – kind of a response to how they have been treated. And the video is real good, too! Despite the controversy they were in, it is good to know that the Dixie Chicks is the best-selling female group in America.

It’s been awhile since I made a real post (you know, something that makes actual sense to everybody, not just geek stuff). I got myself a niftly MP3 player. No, not the apple-ish ones that play videos. I just don’t see myself watching video on such a small screen. If i am on the go, I listen to music. That is exactly why I got this thing. I will be going home some time next month, and I want to relax again on the ride home. I lost my earphones for my phone, and it costs pretty much the same as an MP3 player, so I just got the player.

So on the technical side, I got the Samsung YP-U3. Not much of a player – but exactly what I was looking for. Small, sleek, great sound quality, supports ogg playback… in layman’s term… cool! I got the 1Gig version, but I swear I’d cramp in 500 of my favorite songs in there for just about the same quality (the beauty of ogg). So enough geek stuff.

So the thing is I woke up as early as 6 today, and one song came to me from out of nowhere. Remember the song from the Coca-Cola commercial way back God knows when, sang by Nikki Gil while she walks down the street giving bottles of Coke to people? It’s entitled “Sana” (Some say it’s “Kasama Ka”, probably because it’s the slogan at the end of the video, but I don’t care. lol) So I looked it up in YouTube and found out that it was actually a Filipino rendition of a famous Nina Simone song. Then I found two more versions of the same commercial, basically with the same thought and with the same concept. One was American, the other was Spanish. But I couldn’t help but say to myself that Nikki sings SO MUCH BETTER than the rest! It just makes me feel prouder that I am a Filipino. And the commercial stuck into my mind. The part where she hands a street vendor a bottle of Coke, and then the girl gave her flowers, just made me cry (well, I could have, literally, if I wasn’t with anybody else).  It’s just so amazing how simple life can be, yet how happy you can make it by doing simple things for others. And then it goes back to the title of this website… lol

So I went on and grabbed the song from I don’t remember when. Then on some comment on the YouTube video, I found out that the title of the original song was “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” originally written by Nina Simone. Somehow it rings a bell. Then I realize that the song was also sang by Lighthouse Family on one of their albums. How could I have missed that?! They basically have the same melody with Nikki’s “Sana”. I can’t believed I didn’t notice it! Oh well. But I just can’t!

Still getting over it now…

And some side notes… It really sucks when people say something but they don’t mean it. And further down, I pity the people who don’t do what they think is right for them, even if they had the choice. Well, I guess that’s how things work some times so I guess the best thing to do is… just… deal with it.

Still… Life could have been much better. But I guess I’m not even halfway at it yet!

Last week I finally got myself a new head for my computer. After scouring through the reivews and pondering for many hours, I finally decided I’d get a 16:9 lcd. Widescreen is not yet very much adapted here, so this is kinda new to me. I got the lowend type for my budget. Hell I’ll get a bigger one later. So the thing is, I got the one from BenQ, called G900HD, and the special thing about it is that it has a native resolution of 1366×768. It was a great deal, so I just grabbed the thing and thought my video card should work with it!

When I turned it up, I thought it was more like a downgrade from my 17″ 1280×1024 ViewSonic. So now comes the exciting part. I tried to test XP. It did not detect the native resolution, but changing to it was painless. So one down. Three to go. Now comes Vista. It was a genius! Even the round orb that comes up at startup is a perfect circle! It was able to detect the exact resolution and displayed the desktop flawlessly. Ok. So I’m done with the Windows stuff. I didn’t really worry so much with that since Windows is disposable (lol). Now comes the even scarier part. I booted to my Mac partition… The splash looked horrible! the apple logo is all stretched out and everything was bad. So I logged in… Relief. There is a 1360×768 available in two refresh rates. I tried the 75Hz and was wondering why it looked blurry. I switched to the 60Hz and things look better. But what happened to the 6 pixels both sides? And how do I get a pixel-to-pixel rendering? Now I’m worried. I went through the monitor’s menu and found out that there is a way to display by aspect. Well, it basically just means that whatever resolution the OS produces, the monitor displays it pixel-for-pixel, leaving the sides with total black pixels. The 6 pixels didn’t seem noticeable. Mac is working again! So now I tried to run OpenSUSE. This is where things get rough. The 1366×768 or even a close resolution is not in the Gnome Resolution Switcher! So I tried adding the resolution manually in xorg.conf, and as I feared, X wouldn’t start up! So I tried regenerating a new xorg using nvidia-xsettings. Still would not work?! WTF! Then one day I tried running SaX2, now it was able to detect the 1366×768 resolution. I didn’t even update or anything. It just got there. Tried using it… worked! Well, looks like it wasn’t so hard after all. If only I knew what to do in the first place.

So now all systems work fine with my new monitor. Now if only I could make NFS work with widescreen, too!

Looking at the trend in social networking, it seems microblogging is the mainstream activity for most. Take twitter or facebook for example. Think of how you can just say what you want with just one line, and then everybody knows about it.

Not that it’s destructive or something. In fact I think it is the best choice for those people who are extremely busy and can just leave a line or two on their facebook in a day. And then everybody else gets to check it out and comment. It’s really cool. But what I miss is the essence of blogging to begin with. Before microblogging, I used to read on people’s thoughts about things going on around them, and then sometimes, if I have the time, add comments on the site. That’s gone now. When you comment on someone’s facebook status, it’s just like chatting with the person although everyone in his friends list will be able to see it. Not the same feel at all. But hey, it’s what we have, might as well enjoy it!

This is my latest entry after some time of dormancy. Kinda got busy with life. I hope this one doesn’t turn into a microblog. lol

I installed OpenSUSE 11.1 the other day, and I can say it has been an improvement from the 11.0 I used to use. If only there was a way to do just an upgrade instead of cleaning the whole thing up.

So anyway, the thing is that I’ve been pulling my hair out over trying to run the PulseAudio Equalizer on my previous install. Now on this new one, all I did was add a few lines in default.pa, and everything works! I just followed these simple steps from a forum (thanks to blueskynis) and it worked like a charm. Now I can listen to my music on Linux the way I want.

I’m still on the process of observing if it can survive a whole day without crashing. So far, i’ve gone about a quarter of it, and no crash yet!

I watched the movie and was reminded of my own dog who died some time last January. I miss him. Such a great dog. It’s been a good ten years. The movie was also very heartwarming. Light, but never boring. Kinda makes me think how simple and happy life can be if you really just want it to.

I miss you Buddy…

 

For most people, Linux is a geeky machine that is only used for servers and for research. They don’t think of it as a gaming platform because most games almost always come as Windows and Mac only version. The truth is, there are actually lots of games available for Linux. I’m not talking Linux-wine-games but those games that run natively on the platform.

As you can see above, those are some of the games I would say are absolutely great. If you start from the left, the first one would be Warzone 2100. It is a very good game, much like CNC Red Alert, with a 3D engine. Next is Glest – a game like Warcraft. I haven’t explored the game much as all I do are quick battles, but the graphics are good. Next up, AssaultCube. A Counter Strike-like game that uses the Cube 3D engine and boasts of a multitude of players online. The next one is Sauerbraten (I don’t know why they chose that name. I believe it’s a type of food), aka Cube 2. It has amazing graphics, if you check on their site. The online gameplay is great, too. Now the next one, Tremulous, is also one slick online FPS. You get to play either alien or human to defend your race. It’s really addicting if you could try once. Next up is Alien Arena. This one looks pretty much like Quake, and with all the cool weapons similar to Quake. Graphics are also great, as with the other games that uses the Quake engine. Lots of eyecandy. Then there’s the real Quake. This is just the demo version as I don’t buy games (lol). It’s great and fun, too, but since it’s demo, I don’t get to play online. Next up, Tile Racer. This one is all about car racing, with a twist. And when I say twist, I mean literally. The streets shape like roller coaster tracks where you go 360, and it’s like, whoa! Just try it and see for yourself. Then next on the lineup is Nexuiz, another FPS that uses the Quake engine. Graphics are always good with these games. I just had it running, so I haven’t done so much tinkering with it so far. And finally, my favorite game of all, Savage 2. Recently, S2 Games has released the game as free-to-play, so I get the chance to install it on my rig, and it was freaking great! Check out on my previous post to see why.

This is not a review, just an overview of how gaming is on Linux. You see, it’s not really that bad if you just try to dig on the net for some of the cool stuff. Just think about it. I had all those without even paying a cent.

If anything, this guy knows how to keep you glued to his book. And his stories are not even going anywhere If you’ve read one any of his books, then you’ll know what I mean. One page could get you from pet dogs to ghost stories. I am appalled by the way he can write everything in Tagalog. I’m not a big fan of the language and had it not for the witty lines, I wouldn’t have lasted reading his books. I also salute the truth that his lines punch on everything. Like when he said: “Pag hindi ka mahal ng mahal mo wag ka magreklamo. Kasi may mga tao rin na di mo mahal pero mahal ka.. Kaya quits lang.” For the non-Tagalog, it means if you love someone but he or she does not like you, it’s OK, because there are also other people who loves you but you don’t like them. It’s just even.. And the titles are equally catchy, too: ABNKKBSNPLAko, Ang Paboritong Libro Ni Hudas, Stainless Longganisa… you get the idea.

Right now I am on the third book, and I intend to finish every one of them. I couldn’t find copies of his books in stores right now so I hope the next visit would be luckier.