Ewdison Then » Random Call

Photos : SlashGear Team at CES 09

Ewdison Then — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:52:24 +0000

CES 09 was not as exciting as it was in the previous years I’ve attended; but we still had fun covering the show. Almost everyone from SlashGear’s core staff was in Vegas. Here are some of SlashGear team photos.

Thanksgiving day – I had a great meal as usual

Ewdison Then — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 06:40:48 +0000

Thanksgiving is a day that I always look forward to every single year. This year we are hosting again and my relatives are in town to celebrate with us – the usual gang were here, my uncle TJ, Daniel Lim (SlashGear’s associate editor), Aki Ukita (SlashGear Japan’s editor), my sisters, and good ol George. For Lunch we had Thai food from where my sister works. She brought food that was not on her restaurant’s menu; so not quite your typical Thai food.

For dinner, we had roast beef, pearl onions with cream gravy and crispy bacon, my fav dish green bean casserole, roast potato, pasta salad, and fresh greens. Desserts hits our tummy afterward – Banana’s foster, rum chocolate cake, fresh coconut drinks (Daniel shows his hidden skills in cracking those young coconut), and ice cream.

I was quite happy with our Thanksgiving celebration; sadly I was hit by cold late in the day and apparently my wife catch it from me too. I’m going to have a good rest tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

More photos after cut…

Epson Artisan 800 TV Ad mentioned SlashGear – what a nice suprise

Ewdison Then — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:09:51 +0000

I did gave them permission to quote SlashGear, but was not aware it will show up on video/tv ad – but I don’t mind at all. When I went to Fox.com to watch Sarah Connor Chronicles, was surprised to see the man in the ad mentioned SlashGear. Figured I captured and share it with you guys.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Android Community Party – Oct 18th 2008

Ewdison Then — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:21:10 +0000

It was a fun weekend and our Android Community party had a pretty good turnout in Dallas. Got to meet some cool people at the party, there were Jason from Big In Japan (ShopSavy), The SoftLayer guys (love them), Travis from Dallas Morning News, and many others. While we only have one G1 phone to pass around, we have plenty of booze to keep everyone happy :)

I want to thank our premier sponsors for their support – Business Asset Consultant, SmartPhone Experts, and Sandisk. We gave away a Plantronics headset, a Jabra Headset, a T-Mobile Sidekick, a WoWee Robot, and a 16GB SanDisk MicroSD. Overall, the party was a success. So if you are in DFW area, don’t miss the next one and make sure to RSVP early as we only have limited spot available.

Gallery after the cut…..

Westinghouse 37” 1080p HDTV for $569.99 at Woot

Ewdison Then — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:23:58 +0000

Woke up this morning looking for a new TV for my bedroom and found out Woot has Westinghouse 37” 1080p HDTV for $569.99. It’s not a bad deal and I can actually use this for my secondary monitor – hooking it up to my MacBook Pro. It sports resolution of 1920 x 1080 and it’s pretty thin for an LCD TV at 4.7-inch. Waiting for the “Wife” approval before I hit the Buy it button!

Finally! Bananas foster

Ewdison Then — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:11:45 +0000

I’ve been wanting to eat bananas foster for quite sometimes now and I’ve mentioned it to my wife several time in the past months. She finally made a serving for me today and I captured a couple of shots when she was making it. Craving fulfilled!

SlashGear Live coverage on Apple’s Let’s Rock Event – Bandwidth usage

Ewdison Then — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 16:34:53 +0000

Earlier this week (on the 9th), Apple held a press event called “Lets rock” announcing several new things related to iTunes, iPod, and iPhone. As usual, SlashGear is covering the event live and I want to share some stats. Unlike the past, we did not hit 447k users during the livecast, that was our record. However we did get a decent 103k users (unique) for the “Let’s rock” event. Looking at the RRDTOOL, we actually hit 53Mbps during the period of livecast. The entirely live coverage went well and servers did not choke. Another press event was rumored to take place on the 14th of October, so we are hoping to break the 447K records.

Swelling OQO2 battery pops itself out of the unit – the horror!

Ewdison Then — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:54:01 +0000

We covered many horror stories on SlashGear about battery exploding, swelling, and the aftermath of its explosion – but never do I experienced it myself until I received an OQO2. The battery was attached to the unit but I notice there is a small gap between the unit and the battery itself. Ignoring that thinking it might not be a big deal, I plugged the unit to charge up and within two minutes I heard a loud pop. The battery unattached itself from the OQO2 and cracks open.

Immediately I unplugged the charger and made sure nothing has leaked out. Luckily it was just swelling, but the crackling sounds made me nervous. I properly wrapped the battery and took it to battery recycling center in Dallas. [Note : Always properly disposed an unused battery!] I guess its time for me to buy a new battery for it. I carry the OQO2 everywhere I go for emergency in case I need to reboot our servers and etc.

Footnote : This Post in no way blaming OQO for this battery problem

iPhone 3G Cases – Several good options

Ewdison Then — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:55:02 +0000

I’m not a clumsy person, but from time to time I would drop my shiny gadgets, that includes my new iPhone 3G. While cases probably won’t do much to protect the phone when dropping it into a pool, but at least it will give a little resistance to scratches.

Belkin Slim-Fit is on the top of the list. It has slim profile design and features shock-absorbent padding (which is good if I dropped it on the hard concrete). It’s top aligned with the iPhone speaker, so if you are in a noisy place, your iPhone 3G’s ring will be quite loud compared to those cases with closed top (covering the iPhone speaker).

Marware is no stranger to iPhone cases, and they make very well designed. Their C.E.O Premiere for iPhone 3G cases is my second choice but still worth the consideration; it comes with free screen protector and microfiber cleaning cloth. The leather-constructed case allows access to headphone port and easy phone removal due to its bottom notch.

Marware C.E.O Flip Vue reminds me of my old Compaq Aero PDA’s case. It flips open and allows you to use the iPhone 3G screen without pulling the iPhone off the case. Pretty convenient and its rotatable clip is a nice touch. The perforated leather and contrast stitching really makes this case look extremely attractive. I do wish the clip would be a little smaller and thinner.

Incipio alphaPouch Lycra Slim is my last option. I like simplicity and this case offers it. It is also slim like the Belkin Slim-Fit and Griffin Elan Holster, and cost the least (only $14.95). It might protect your phone from scractes, but I’m not sure it’s padded enough to give dropped protection.

Well, those are my top pick for iPhone 3G cases. If you have any other suggestions, please do post it on the comment section below this entry. For wide selection of iPhone 3G cases and accessories, visit our store.

Week one iPhone 3G hands-on

Ewdison Then — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:53:35 +0000

After using it for a week, I have come to conclusion that the iPhone 3G is not quite what I expected to be (in not so great way). There are many shortcomings on it including battery life and lack of copy and paste functionality. While not all Apple’s fault, 3rd party applications need tighter quality control; many applications are crashing too frequently.

Apple said copy and paste function are not on their priority to-do list – without this feature, the iPhone 3G will not be suitable for writing documents, thus we won’t be seeing mobile office suite for it anytime soon.

Apple did publish a guide to conserve battery, but it contradicted the purpose of getting iPhone 3G – suggesting users to save battery life by disabling the 3G connection and use EDGE instead. I found this recommendation quite funny, especially for those who have 3G coverage.

From my daily personal experience, using push email, taking around 75 minutes of calls and surfing the web for roughly 20-30 minutes will put my battery life at 10-percent by 5pm (from 8am). Compared to the first generation of iPhone (without push email of course – but IMAP checks every 15 minutes) I still get around 16 hours of battery life. I think iPhone 3G external batteries would be something I look into buying in the near future, but for now I’ll just have to carefully manage my power usage.

If you are getting weak signals using 3G connections, you are not alone; many of iPhone 3G users experienced the same thing. I honestly can’t point finger on Apple for this one, it seems like AT&T’s 3G networks is flooded. Turning your 3G connections off and reverting back to EDGE seems to put all the signal bars back.

Tell me your iPhone 3G-experience, you can email it to me or just post it as comment below.