Mobile Blogging Fun with the E71, Nokia Location Tagger, and Wordmobi

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Heading to work at the moment and checking out a combination of things. I’ll try to write more in detail about each of these things at a later time.

Nokia E71 on Mobifone 3G

Wordmobi application for E71 – lets you write new posts and manage your blog posts on your E71. That’s what I’m using now.

Nokia Location Tagger with Photo – if you have 3G, you can use Tagger to take a photo and tag it with your coordinates.

That’s this: (taken over the Saigon Bridge, looking at Saigon Pearl)
05202010005 Mobile Blogging Fun with the E71, Nokia Location Tagger, and Wordmobi

VOILA! Done in 15 mins.

Posted by Wordmobi

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20.05.2010 Blog, Photos, Tech View Comments

A Look at Mimo.vn – Vietnam’s Twitter?

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

MimoLogo thumb A Look at Mimo.vn – Vietnam’s Twitter? (Disclosure: I know someone who works for Mimo- he invited me to check it out a few months ago while the site was in a much rougher state and asked me to give some feedback and suggestions before I wrote this post)

I’m a big Twitter user- not that I have a ton of followers or anything, but I like to post. A big thing about using it in Vietnam is that it was hard to use it via mobile- there are all sorts of stupid things I want to say when I’m in a taxi or just out and about, random things I want to take pictures of and have them posted immediately online (it’s not the same to post them hours or day later, it’s all about the moment). I’d love to do a better job of sharing my life in Vietnam with friends and family over in the US.

Like I said, Twitter is not really so practical via mobile here (think of the costs to send a SMS internationally), and thus I’ve been hoping for a solution to this for a while, and it didn’t necessarily have to be free. There was a free Twitter/SMS option I saw sometime last year, but they would always embed their tag in your post, which I didn’t like so much.

I then started using Mimo. Mimo is Twitter. The Vietnam Twitter (the site is hosted in VN, and the default language is Vietnamese). And when I say it’s Twitter, it really, really, looks like Twitter. And while that might scream “knock-off” or “clone”, I think it’s actually pretty good. I’d actually call it more of a Twitter Plus.

Mimo = Twitter Plus

Mimo has a ton of features that a lot of people wish were already in Twitter, while at the same not making the UI overly messy nor removing anything that people love about Twitter. To me, it’s obvious the Mimo team has used Twitter or at least researched how people use it.

  • SMS Support: this is the big one for me. It’s 500 VND (about the same price as a normal SMS, I believe. 500 VND is 2.7 cents in USD) to send an SMS, but free to receive SMS from Mimo. So you can follow a ton of people and get their posts on your phone at no extra cost even if you never post. You can do a ton of things via SMS, like follow, private message, block users, even register. It’s a bit much for me, but I think you could basically use Mimo without going to the website at all if you wanted. The only bad thing I’ve found is that MMS is not supported, so you won’t be seeing silly pictures from me. Yet.
  • Sync with Facebook and Twitter: since I’m on both Facebook and Twitter, this is pretty important to me as well. Now I can send a SMS update to Mimo for less than 3 cents, and my sister in the US sees it on her Facebook instantly. The sync works both ways, I’ve confirmed- if you post on Twitter or Facebook, it’ll come back into your Mimo.
  • Language Support: Mimo supports both English and Vietnamese, and the English has been done really well! No signs of broken Google-translated English anywhere.
  • Attachment functionality: up to 20 MB per post, supporting basically any file format you want. It’ll show images and play music files inline as well. Thumbnails next to the post text make it obvious when there’s an attachment. You can’t watch videos on the site yet, though, there will just be a download prompt.
  • Webcam: support for avatars and uploads. Too bad you can’t record videos yet though.
  • Apps: Mimo has a seriously ridiculous amount of apps ready for it. I use TwitterFox for Twitter, and Mimo has a version of it out already. They’ve also got apps for Adobe Air and Windows .Net, and you can use Yahoo Messenger (it’s the number 1 IM client here) with it. Now they just need an iPhone app, and they can go claim themselves king.

In terms of the UI, and not messing anything up, let me give you an example:

MimoUI

Mimo UI Basics:

  • Top Center: Pick your Language. UK flag for English, Vietnamese Flag for Vietnamese.
  • Upper Right: If you like to type with diacritics (accents), click that.
  • Left of Avatar: Webcam uploads, Attachments, and Character Count.
  • Upper Left: (below Mimo logo) autocomplete username on replies – it’s like Facebook when you search! When you start typing @ and the beginning of someone’s username, Mimo will suggest people based on whom you’re following for the autocomplete.
  • Individual Posts: Favorite / Reply / Copy. Copy is basically Retweet- they do it the old school Twitter style, adding RT and copying the text of the post into the text entry box.
  • Right Navigation Menu: If you have a new reply or Private (Direct) Message, it will let you know in an obvious manner (like Gmail). I always thought the total Direct Messages count you see in Twitter was useless- I could never tell if I had something new because I don’t remember what the count used to be.

Here’s an example of what a post with an attachment (photo thumbnail on the right) looks like:

Mimo Attachment Post

Now, here’s Twitter’s UI:

TwitterUI thumb A Look at Mimo.vn – Vietnam’s Twitter?

Super familiar right? But that’s what I mean by Twitter Plus. If you already like Twitter, getting into Mimo is easy, and it has some nice small enhancements that make the experience a good deal nicer. I’m going to be using both Mimo and Twitter- Mimo to post updates and interact with my Vietnamese friends, and Twitter to monitor what my American friends are up to in the US.

Some negatives:

  • I am not sure Hot Topics is working right. I like the Twitter one, where you can see all the new trending and hot topics. I hope they can fix this, as getting real time insights into what Vietnamese people are thinking and doing would be pretty awesome. Imagine stuff like when VN has a big football (soccer) match, and everyone’s getting ready to go out in the streets, or everyone is excited to see Avatar 3D at Megastar, but can’t get tickets.
  • No Free SMS – ok, so I’m being picky. That’s not really a negative, that’s just me being greedy. Maybe they can have an ad-supported version in which you can send SMS posts for free. You could opt in to receive 2-3 SMS ads per day, and then you would be able to post to Mimo for free.
  • Already mentioned: MMS not supported yet, no direct video playback, no video through webcam, no iPhone or Mobile app (so what if I don’t have an iPhone), but there is a WAP site, m.mimo.vn. GPRS in Vietnam can be super slow though, I’d rather stick with SMS.
  • It took me 3 hrs to update my Twitter badge on the upper right (below the header) with a Mimo one. Why is this a negative? Because I am lazy and like to complain.

Some people to follow:

  • SaoNoiTieng: trash talking gossip.
  • QuaCauMaThuat is like Magic 8 Ball. I tried it (alright, I was a little drunk) with a friend via mobile, answering it random questions, and it would give me those random answers like back when we were kids. It does support English, it just depends on what language you have selected in the Mimo UI.
  • Eduard Kazanov and Tommy Tran: Eduard and Tommy are listed as two of the Suggested Users when you register for an account. They’re celebrities/VIPs as models/actors, and they’re actually very nice. I happen to know them and for whatever reason, they got me a pass into the Hard Rock Cafe grand opening. So that’s a plug for them!

Of course, feel free to follow me on either Mimo or Twitter:

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24.02.2010 Tech, Twitter, Vietnam View Comments

Buying Blu-Ray (HD) Movies in Vietnam [More on Piracy]

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Blu-Ray Disc logo

Image via Wikipedia

This blog has never been afraid to discuss piracy openly. (Notice I mention “this blog”. I, however, do not condone piracy in any way or fashion. “This blog” made me do it! I am innocent!)

Some examples: How to be a Digital Pirate in Vietnam, My Torrent Guide for You, The Escapist : Sony Invades Vietnam with PlayStations

Today, I want to share about the world of network media tanks, getting HD-quality movies on the cheap, and how to make this all happen. I won’t talk too much about the situation of piracy, having discussed those in detail in other articles. I also won’t get too technical about the discussion, just what 99% of the people reading this need to know to get things done.

The lowdown: getting HD movies in Vietnam can be quite affordable. Will these movies be the exact same quality as buying a Blu-Ray disc in the US? No. But pretty close for most concerning eyes (if you’re reading this article here of all places, you probably cannot tell the difference. I don’t even know if I can, for that matter, and I have a HD Player and Movies for my Xbox 360)

Getting movies basically gets down to getting a player for them (media tank), the movies (movie copy service), and of course, the TV.

Buying Movies:

3 Steps:

  1. Buy a Media Tank
  2. Buy a Hard Drive to Attach to Media Tank
  3. Buy Movies

Step 1, Buy a Media Tank:

A media tank is like a DVD Player or VCR. You connect it to your TV and it has the ability to play media. I have a WD TV hooked up to a Seagate 1.5 TB Drive. If you want to know more scroll to the bottom of post.

For a full list of Media Tanks available at Halo Shop in Saigon, see here: Media Tank List, Halo Shop. I generally recommend them for any purchases. They can speak English and they’re not so full of BS so you can take their advice for an easier process.

If you’re from Hanoi, sorry, I don’t know of any places in Hanoi, though I’m sure they exist- ask a local Home Theater shop, and they should be able to point you in the right direction.

A few more notes: Don’t bother getting HD movies unless you have an HDTV. There will be no benefit. Also, use an HDMI cable to connect the Media Tank to the HD TV. HDMI Cables should cost less than $10 USD- don’t be tricked into paying more. Lastly, if you’re not going to hook up a 5.1 (or 7.1/8.1/etc.) sound system to your TV, you should make sure the audio will be ok if you connect the Media Tank to your TV. Just ask “Can I use this Media Tank with my TV speakers?” With the WD TV, this isn’t a problem unless you are playing DTS movies, but scroll to the end of this post for more on that.

Step 2, Buy a Hard Drive to Attach to Media Tank:

You can buy these anywhere. I would suggest getting a package deal when you get your Media Tank, minimum 1TB Hard Drive, get 2TB if you can afford it. Remember, movies are 5-10 GB each, so a 1TB Hard Drive will store only 200 movies. Tank + Hard Drive may cost $400 to $500 depending on what you buy. Sounds expensive, but the movies themselves are extremely cheap.

Step 3, Buy Movies:

image thumb Buying Blu Ray (HD) Movies in Vietnam [More on Piracy]There are basically 3 types of content: 480P (DVD quality), 720P (Hi Def), and 1080P (Bad ass Hi Def). You, for practical purposes, want 720P content. If you really think you need 1080P, read the section about buying a TV below. I do have a 32” 1080P TV, but I also sit less than 3 feet away from it.

One other thing to consider is that not that many movies are available in 1080P here, so not necessarily worth the extra cash.

There are two places that I consider:

  1. ChepPhim.Net: 199/19 Duong (Street) 3/2 F11 District 10, TPHCM. Movie List, ChepPhim.Net
  2. Halo Shop: 82 Pasteur, District 1, TPHCM. Movie List, Halo Shop

ChepPhim.net is cheap, fast, and has much more content available compared to Halo Shop. You can get 1TB copied for about $10 USD in less than two days. They update their movie list about twice a month and even have TV sets like Lost and Prison Break.

Buying a TV and Home Audio:

TV:

image thumb1 Buying Blu Ray (HD) Movies in Vietnam [More on Piracy] I’ll make this simple- get a 720P TV. If you really think you may want a 1080P, read this article first: 1080p Does Matter – Here’s When (Screen Size vs. Viewing Distance vs. Resolution). If you have a family or plan to share the TV with someone else, unless you are just rich, get a 720P. A bonus about having a 1080P TV, though, is that you can use it as a 1920 x 1080 PC monitor.

For the record, I have a 32” 1080P from LG, and like I said before, I have to sit less than 3 feet away from it to take full advantage of 1080p movies, of which there are few. Most video games also max out at 720P.

Retailers:

Home Audio:

This one’s a bit tougher. I can’t really help here in terms of where to buy in Vietnam or what to buy. Try HD Vietnam if you can read Vietnamese. Otherwise, stick with the stereo TV speakers.

———————————————————–

About the Western Digital WD TV: [Quick Review and Tips]

I have the WD TV, the original version.

image thumb2 Buying Blu Ray (HD) Movies in Vietnam [More on Piracy]

Some notes on it:

  • It’s cheap. I expect the original can be had for about $100 USD now in Vietnam. I don’t think the WD TV is sold at Halo Shop anymore.
  • Supports most video formats, but surprisingly, not .FLV or .WMV. I don’t use it for audio or pictures.
  • Overall, it’s okay. Not great. But a solid value for $100. The HDMI connection on mine is a bit loose, so sometimes there’s no signal, and the remote can be frustratingly spotty. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the machine won’t turn on or off, even when the remove is right next to the sensor. Once the machine starts recognizing the remote that particular day, everything is great.
  • Getting the new version (Western Digital WD TV Live Network-ready HD Media Player) or the original (WD TV Live) is fine for most purposes. The 2 main additions in the WD TV Live are 1) DTS support and 2) Networking support. Networking support means you can hook it up to another computer and stream stuff rather than have to connect a Hard Drive to it. The DTS support, for me, is a bit more important, because many movies that I’ve purchased here are DTS-only and therefore result in no audio when using the original WD TV. There is a fix – you’ll need this to convert those movies with the PopCorn MKV AudioConverter (along with Tutorial for converting audio tracks with HeartWare MKV Audio Converter).
  • There’s an issue with some 1080P movies on the WD TV with movies that have too many Reference (Ref) frames. This is where we get a bit technical. If you run into this issue, you’ll have to re-encode the entire movie, which is a two day process. If you get a 1080P movie that seems to stutter, try to find a 720P version. Or get a different media tank. If you really need help with this, you can find the solution on forums online. My hint: I used a combination of MediaInfo and RipBot264 to fix The Dark Knight. I haven’t fixed any other movies yet.

Links:

  • Official Firmware: WD TV Product Update – you can probably ask whomever you buy this from to install it for you if you are non-technical, but it also isn’t so difficult.
  • Unofficial Firmware: B-RAD (Don’t worry about using this unless you want to spend a lot of time on techie stuff. A note about the unofficial firmware is that I still can’t it to work right with all the extra functionality people have developed for it)
  • More talk about Firmware and Stuff: WDTV Forum Homebrew / Custom Firmware

———————————————————–

Sorry if this post got a bit crazy, but hopefully it’s useful to someone out there. If you have any questions or want to send in your own recommendations and tips, please leave a comment!

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09.02.2010 Movies, Reviews, Tech, Vietnam View Comments

How to Avoid the Facebook Block/Ban in Vietnam

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

HotspotShield thumb How to Avoid the Facebook Block/Ban in VietnamRecently, I’ve heard a huge hoopla over whether the Vietnamese government is blocking Facebook. Along with that, I read and hear people scrambling to find a solution to access it.

Here’s an easy fix that’s also free, Hotspot Shield. It’s ad supported (you’ll see an ad while you browse on the top of the window), and while that may turn off some, at least you can guess how it might be making money. For those complete free/no-ad solutions, how secure can you really feel that they’re not making ends meet by selling your data? Another solid use for the software is when you’re using a public wireless internet connection, like at a hotel or coffee shop. Normally, it’s easy for someone to spy on you and see what you’re doing online (see what you’re writing, where you’re browsing), but Hotspot Shield and other VPN software can shield you. Nevertheless, this is not a solution for protection in hiding illegal activities, but it is useful for accessing Facebook and avoiding IP detection (some sites don’t let let access them if you’re not in the US).

To access Facebook, here’s what to do:

Part 1:

  1. Download Hotspot Shield: http://hotspotshield.com/ (or you can try a direct link, http://hotspotshield.com/downloads/thank-you-VN/?type=na&p=ftp&)
  2. Install it (it’s a small file)
  3. Run it

In Windows, you’ll see icons like the ones below: (you want Hotspot Shield Launch)

2009-11-29_23-33-41-906

Part 2:

  1. When you run it, Hotspot will open your browser (or a new tab if it’s open) and you’ll see a  message like the one in the screenshot below. You’ll also see a icon2009-11-29_23-35-11-875 in your taskbar (the lower right corner of your screen). The icon will show red if it’s not connected (cannot access Facebook yet), and green if it is (that means GOOD!)

2009-11-29_23-34-32-141

If you’re done connecting, right click on the taskbar icon and choose “Disconnect/OFF” You can then close Hotspot Shield or reconnect later.

2009-11-29_23-43-11-826

And that’s all there is. One more note, if you find you can’t connect to Hotspot Shield, try downloading the newest version- there’s no autoupgrader, and new versions usually solve connection issues.

Good luck!

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29.11.2009 Tech, Vietnam View Comments

Shopping Fun!

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Batman: The Dark Knight The Joker 1:6 Scale Deluxe FigureNFL Legends Series 5 Steve Young Action Figure (Mcfarlane)Pocket Retro Game Emulator (Dingoo A3200)Street Fighter IV Ken FightPad for Xbox 360 WD TV HD Media PlayerAdidas LA Galaxy Rep "Beckham 23" Jersey

My recent purchases! Of course, since I live in Vietnam, not going to get them for a while until I return to the USA.

Clockwise, from top left:

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24.08.2009 Books/Comics, Tech, Video Games View Comments

Free Microsoft Software for Students in Vietnam!

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

DreamSpark Vietnam02 Pretty cool for students in Vietnam, students can download licensed Microsoft Software for free to help them learn. Of course, it’s not really a charitable thing, it’s good for Microsoft’s business as well. To access the DreamSpark site and find out more regarding your school, go to: https://www.dreamspark.com/wayf/wayf.aspx. I’d love a crack at XNA Game Studio myself, wish I had more free time to retackle programming. I’d copy the list of Vietnamese schools supported here, but I couldn’t figure out how. Information from Labnol.org:

What software programs do I get with DreamSpark?

Once you join the DreamSpark program, you will have to option to download the following Microsoft software tools for free :

  • Expression Studio 3
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
  • Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
  • SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition
  • .. and more – see full list.

Additionally, DreamSpark also offers free ebooks, up to 22 hours of free e-learning courses on Microsoft technologies and 1 free Microsoft certification exam.

Will Microsoft ship the software DVDs?

Unlike MSDN or TechNet, Microsoft won’t ship you DVDs but you can download the software installers from the DreamSpark website itself. If you are located in India, you can also walk into your nearest Aptech or NIIT center and request the software on a DVD.

Ok, but isn’t there a catch?

Microsoft licenses the software to you for educational use. This means that you can use the software without restriction for school assignments or personal projects. If you write or design something that you wish to sell, however, you need to purchase a standard licensed copy of the Microsoft software before you sell your product.

Is the software like a trial that will expire when I graduate?

No! The software from DreamSpark is the full version, and according to Microsoft, “You may continue to use the Software you obtained prior to termination of your student status subject to the terms of this license.”

This is taken from the license agreement that you accept before you download the software, so you can be sure that any software that you download via DreamSpark will be free for personal and non-commercial use forever.

When you graduate, however, your DreamSpark membership will terminate so you won’t have access to new software release but the software that you may have already downloaded will continue to work.

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20.08.2009 Tech, Vietnam View Comments

Customer Service FAIL, SRS Labs with SRS Audio Sandbox

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

(edit, Sept. 18, 2009: As expected SRS never cared to follow-up with me. Also, realized that SRS Audio Sandbox didn’t work perfectly before this error. Sound will loop indefinitely if you’re playing something for a few hours consecutively, like music or playing a game. Worse is that there’s no way to stop the sound unless you reset Windows. Muting or turning off SRS or the application playing the sound does nothing. I had this error, but never realized it was SRS. I thought it was my soundcard. I let Mike have my licensed copy of Sandbox since I can’t use it, but he’s decided to uninstall it because he also gets the looping issue while playing games)

It’s lousy enough when Customer Service ignores you. It’s even worse when they pretend to care, but actually don’t.

And that’s my saga with SRS Labs and their SRS Audio Sandbox plugin. The product itself, when it was working, was fantastic. I bought it about a year ago, and it could be used with any audio, whereas most other plugins will work just with specific software, like Winamp or Windows Media Player. Since I use VLC for video and Media Monkey for music, those pluglins were useless.

So, like I said, it was fantastic while it was working. It stopped working a couple of months ago. I have no idea why. After contacting SRS, I still don’t know why but I also still have a non-working product, and I’ve wasted the money I used to purchase it. And that sucks.

After being ignored (“It’s even worse when they pretend to care, but actually don’t.”), I have no other avenues to pursue, so I figured I’d just write about it.

June 1st, 2009- From me, to the contact form on their website:

Product: SRS Audio Sandbox software
Operating System: Windows Vista
Product Version: 1.9.0.4
Sound Card: Soundmax Integrated Digital HD Audio

Message: A few days ago I downloaded 1.9.0.4 to upgrade over 1.9.0.1. Even though under the Sound applet in Control Panel, it shows SRS working (the application also says it is working without errors), there is no sound. I have checked to make sure the volume is up, the sound is not muted, but there is no sound whatsoever. Once I change the default sound back to the Soundmax, however, sound is there again. While SRS before worked with no problems, the new version doesn’t work at all. I also don’t have 1.9.0.1 anymore to reinstall. I have uninstalled the new version before reinstalling, tried resetting the system to make sure the audio drivers are in place- none of that works. Again, everything from the Vista standpoint is working- everything reports that sound is playing back, but it is not. If I switch to the default sound, everything works fine, but obviously SRS doesn’t work. What can I do?

June 3rd, 2009- From: Michael Gonzales [mailto:MichaelG@srslabs.com] to me

I believe it’s a compatibility issue with your HD sound card. And simply the plug-in probably won’t work with it. Your best bet is to uninstall the plug-in.

Kind Regards,
Michael

Right away, I thought, did he even read my request? It WAS working, for quite a long time, and then it didn’t. Anyway, his reply is basically saying to me, we have no solution for you, that’s your problem. Even though you are probably one of the few who paid for it instead of downloading a cracked version.

June 3rd, 2009- My response to Mr. Gonzales

Hi Michael,
I actually have purchased the SRS software, so I’m definitely invested in finding a solution. Like I mentioned before, the SRS version I was using before ( I believe 1.9.0.1) was working for me fine, would you be able to send me the older version so I can retry it?

Thanks,
Michael

June 8th, 2009- After not hearing back from SRS for 5 days, I sent another e-mail to Mr. Gonzales. Before I was just asking to check out a previous version of the software to see if it would work. Since I didn’t hear back, I actually had to go pirate it. Yeah, I pirated a version of the software I actually own.

Hi Michael,
I’m e-mailing again to ask about support.

Would I be able to provide more information in order to help me fix this problem? I’m using Vista Home Premium SP2 on a Lenovo Thinkpad T61P. Like I said, it was working fine until about a week ago, when it stopped working as soon as I installed the newest version. Windows seems to think it is working (they show audio levels going up and down) but there is no sound, but if I switch back to the default sound card, it’s fine again.

As I have mentioned before, I am a paid customer of SRS, so I am definitely alarmed if my purchase now is completely non-working, especially since I love the product.

Sincerely,
Michael

I still didn’t hear a response after this, so I just gave up, and posted a random complaint on Twitter a little bit after this. To my surprise, SRS found me and responded on July 14th, 5 weeks later. Looks like using social media can help! I e-mailed the guy who had contacted me on Twitter.

July 15, 2009-  I sent the below as well as all previous correspondence to Michael Farino <MichaelF@srslabs.com>

Hi Michael,
Since this last e-mail, I have reformatted and installed the Windows 7 Beta, and the issue still exists. I am still not sure why, and if it’s a hardware issue, I would think the soundcard would be dead completely, not just be a problem for SRS.

Thanks,
Michael

July 16, 2009- Michael Farino asks Michael Gonzales (btw, if you notice there are so many “Michael”s, my name is Michael as well), the guy who ignored me before to help, and I get the following:

Hello,
What type of sound card are you currently running?

Kind Regards,
Mike

Nothing like people not even using your name when replying. Originally, I had already listed the sound card I am using in the original form, but what the hell, I’ll try to do my part to help.

July 16, 2009- From Me, in response to Michael G.

Hi Mike,
I am using a SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio, driver version 6.10.1.5510.

July 17, 2009- From Michael G

Hello,
Where did you make the purchase through our site or through paypal? Did you use your information or purchase it under someone else’s name?

Kind Regards,
Michael

He still doesn’t know my name. And he is doubting that I even paid for the software. Of course, I did make this support request 7 weeks ago. But….I’m willing to prove that I did pay the company.

July 17, 2009- From Me, I send the receipt of my purchase

Hi Michael,
Please see attached for my receipt.

July 27, 2009- 10 days go by and there is no response. This is where I’m starting to get tired of this lets-pretend-we-care-but-ignore-him-until-he-stops-bothering-us tactic. I e-mail Michael F for some help with all the entire dialogue thus far.

Hi Michael,
I haven’t heard anything back from Michael G. Can you assist?

Thanks,
Michael

July 28, 2009- Michael G responds,

Hello,

As I said before this is simply a compatibility issue with you HD sound card, there is no current solution or fix, and I apologize. You should uninstall the plug-in and your sound playback will return.

Kind Regards,
Michael

Now we’re back to to that June 3rd response again- we can’t help. Period. Does he really know if my sound card doesn’t support it? How come it’s not documented on the site? Wouldn’t that be a lousy thing to do with your customers? Hey, let’s sell software that doesn’t run with certain soundcards, but not even tell people that so they can buy it, and THEN find out. But wait, this software already worked with this sound card before, almost for a year. Hmmmm.

Also, why’d he bother asking about my receipt- he didn’t give me any support, he just ignored me further.

So, at this point, it’s like BS.

July 28, 2009- Me, to Michael G

Hi Michael,

As I mentioned before, SRS was working for me for nearly a year. I didn’t change the sound card, the OS, or the laptop, so it doesn’t seem conceivable that there’s just now a compatibility issue.

I appreciate any help, but I don’t feel like SRS is really interested in working with me to figure this out. With the answer you’re giving me, it feels more like I’m being ignored and brushed aside rather than you truly know this is the issue.

-Michael

July 29, 2009- From Michael G

Hello Michael,

I apologize that you feel that way. It’s just that usually in these particular situations, the problem is has to do with the HD sound cards. Could you please further explain how exactly it stopped working for you, it was hard to indentify what the problem exactly was in this thread. I can try to look into it further and see if we can identify any other problems or possible fixes, if not like I said the only remaining option that we have found for HD fixes is to uninstall. If that’s the case I’d be obliged to offer a full refund of course.

Kind Regards,

Michael

We are going around in circles at this point. I have run a Customer Service department before (not to brag, it’s just a fact), and I know how people normally ask for requests. Normally, you have people giving no information whatsoever about the issue, they just assume you can figure it out for them. I had at least tried to be open and very upfront with all the information I knew in the very first request, and even added additional info as I kept trying to find the solution. I was even willing to answer more questions about the issue. In his response, Michael G is just trying to put this issue back on me in a passive manner, yet he doesn’t have a specific question about what (“Could you please further explain how exactly“) I wrote before, which implies that 1) he doesn’t care 2) he didn’t read it.

July 29, 2009- My final response:

Hi Michael,

Here was the original support request:

Message: A few days ago I downloaded 1.9.0.4 to upgrade over 1.9.0.1. Even though under the Sound applet in Control Panel, it shows SRS working (the application also says it is working without errors), there is no sound. I have checked to make sure the volume is up, the sound is not muted, but there is no sound whatsoever. Once I change the default sound back to the Soundmax, however, sound is there again. While SRS before worked with no problems, the new version doesn’t work at all. I also don’t have 1.9.0.1 anymore to reinstall. I have uninstalled the new version before reinstalling, tried resetting the system to make sure the audio drivers are in place- none of that works. Again, everything from the Vista standpoint is working- everything reports that sound is playing back, but it is not. If I switch to the default sound, everything works fine, but obviously SRS doesn’t work. What can I do?

As I said above, when I run SRS, it believes it is working. The sound meters go up normally, but there is no sound. Once I disable the software and switch it back to the sound card, everything is ok. I am not running any additional sound software. Also as I have mentioned before, before upgrading, SoundMax worked fine ever since I bought, 0 problems.

Since then, I have switched to Windows 7 Beta, build 7100, in hopes the error would be solved, but it has not. Under Windows 7, I am using SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio driver version 6.10.1.5510 on a Lenovo T61P.

Please let me know how I can clarify this further for you.

Thanks,

Michael

Today is August 8th, 10 days after the last contact. No response. I’m not going to even bother e-mailing back. I suppose SRS will be happy now, they’ve gotten me to drop it.

I’m just going to post it on this blog and e-mail http://consumerist.com/, and if I’m lucky and this is kind of a big deal, they’ll pick it up.

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09.08.2009 Random, Tech View Comments

Is WordPress A Thankless Community? | Weblog Tools Collection

Saturday, July 11th, 2009
donate

Image by Mindful One via Flickr

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, donating to plugin authors around the same time when I changed my blog theme, but I ended up not doing it. Who isn’t lazy about spending money when they aren’t forced to? It reminds me a little of Winamp. I wanted to donate to them for so long, but when I finally decided to, they’d been bought by AOL, and didn’t need my money anymore.

Seeing this article this morning finally got me going for Wordpress, and I decided to leave a “thank you” comment, wherever possible, or donate to the plugins I’m using right now. Ended up donating to 6 authors, and I’d definitely like to donate to more in the future, perhaps with Kiva certificates or something.

I encourage others to do the same, even if it’s just a little- donate, say thank you, or contribute your own code.

Is WordPress A Thankless Community?

Jeff Chandler on July 10th, 2009

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. Many of the plugin authors I have spoken with throughout the community tell me that very rarely do they ever get a donation let alone a Thank You for releasing their work to the public. Based on the plugin authors feedback, end users demand more features, demand better support, and in the end, have this feeling of entitlement even if the plugin is available without a price tag. The reality is, that for a freely available plugin, you’re not entitled to anything. I don’t know about you, but I certainly would not like to be part of a community that is known as thankless.

Before I list a few ways of curbing this attitude, I must say that not EVERYONE in the community acts in the ways I described above. I know many of us have donated to plugin authors, have written reviews of plugins to give them exposure, have said thank you, etc. This post is not geared towards you but towards those who seemingly want to have their cake and eat it too.

Saying Thanks – I believe saying thank you is underrated these days. Saying thanks can go a long way in making a plugin author feel good about themselves for their contribution to the community.

Donate – It’s pretty clear to me by now through asking plugin authors and other posts on the subject that there is no way to pay the bills through donations alone. However, donations are often seen as one part of the income generating strategy so whatever comes through is seen as a benefit. I’ve donated over $100.00 so far in my time spent with WordPress which I know is small compared to what these plugins have enabled my sites to achieve but I’m astonished at the amount of people who have not donated any cash at all.

Exposure – What plugin author does not like exposure? This can be done any number of ways such as a written review, a podcast dedicated to plugins, links to new plugin releases as WeblogToolsCollection.com is known for and overall, just spreading the word about the plugins you enjoy using.

Contribute Back – To support a plugin authors initial contribution to the community, we as end users can return the favor by beta testing new versions, submitting bug reports, helping out with translations, and helping to provide support.

Wrapping Up:

At this stage of the game, I think it’s unfair to provide a blanket statement covering the entire WordPress community as thankless. However, I know many plugin authors who are holding back from releasing their work to the community because they know they will be inundated with support, demands, etc, all for no price.

I think we sometimes have to sit back and remember that WordPress is a piece of great software but it doesn’t have every feature under the sun, that is where plugins come in. These plugins are generally patches, feature enhancements, or ways of providing functionality that are better than the core offering. Plugins are one of the thriving aspects of WordPress that bring people to the platform because if you can’t do something with WordPress, there is at least 1-3 plugins that will. I would really hate to see plugin authors jump ship from the platform simply because of the way the community treats them.

The WordPress platform and its end users have nothing to gain from having this happen so please, lets all do our part to show plugin authors the same love we show for WordPress.

*note* If you know of any other ways to help the situation, I’m all ears.

Is WordPress A Thankless Community? | Weblog Tools Collection

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11.07.2009 Blog, Tech View Comments

More Wordpress Plugins to Live By

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

My Plugins There’s a fantastic number of plugins available for Wordpress. It’s truly an amazing platform, and for the two years I’ve been using the self-hosted version, there’s been an incredible amount of support added, new (good) features that have been implemented, and a dizzying amount of customization plugins created. You can find the official directory for plugins here http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/.

I’ve covered some of the speed plugins that I like few posts ago, and I realize everyone already knows and uses All in One SEO Pack (SEO Optimization), Akismet (comment spam) and Google XML Sitemaps, so here are 10 great plugins that you may not know about:

(I’ve limited this to 10 so this post doesn’t get too out of hand, and in no particular order)

  1. WPtouch iPhone Theme: This plug-in makes your site optimized (readability) for the Apple iPhone, Apple iPod Touch, Google Android and Blackberry Storm. I don’t have any of those phones, so I can’t testify on how good it is, but I think it’s always nice to be able to reach an extended audience.
  2. MobilePress: Another useful plug-in to get your blog ready for mobile access.
  3. WP-PageNavi: Wordpress blogs by default show next and previous to go backwards and forwards in the blog. Change this so it’s paginated as you would see in a forum, like the below at the bottom of my blog home page.

    4. Page 1 of 94 1 2 3 4 5 » … Last »

  4. WP Security Scan: “Perform security scan of WordPress installation.” Yeah.
  5. Secure WordPress: Another good security-related plug-in to have. Remove common methods hackers use to analyze your Wordpress installation and find weaknesses that can be secured.
  6. Twitter Tools: Let’s you set up your Blog with Twitter. I use it to update Twitter every time I write a new blog post, but you can also use it to add a widget to show your newest updates, update Twitter from your blog, and post daily/weekly compilation posts of your Tweets during that time. (This plug-in is not being used for Twitter update in the upper right of my blog, however, that one is part of the Imagination theme.)
  7. Search Unleashed: You ever the search option (Ctrl-F) in Firefox 2 or 3, and you can highlight the search query on the page so you can find the text easier? Search Unleashed can do that for people who search directly on your blog automatically as well as for those who come to your blog after searching on Google.
  8. Photo Sidebar Widget: There are plenty of Flickr plugins for Wordpress, but not many Smugmug ones. This is the one I use to preview new content from my Smugmug account.
  9. Global Translator: As you can see below or in my right sidebar, you can translate my blog into different languages. Global Translator is a great plug-in in that it caches the translations so that when a user access them, they stay on your blog rather than be taken to a different website showing your site in a frame. This is also great for Search Engines because each new cached page in a different language is considered a real page and can be found by users searching in that language. To simplify what that means, imagine you write the blog post “More Wordpress Plugins to Live By” in English. That’s one page you’ve written now indexed. Now, you enable 10 (in the plug-in settings, you can pick exactly which/how many languages you want to support. I’ve picked the ten most common languages in the world in addition to SE Asian languages) translation languages in Global Translator. Through the plug-in, you will have effectively written 11 posts- the one in English, and the additional 10 in other languages. Users searching in their native language will find your post.

    10.  Global Translator

  10. Comment Relish: This emails users who leave a comment for you automatically. Think of it as a follow-up “thank you” to those who comment. You can create a custom message to let users know how to subscribe to your blog or whatever else you’d like.

I’ve talked about this before, but I really recommend Windows Live Writer for composing your blogs.It’s like Microsoft Word for blogs- it’s easy to use, it’s free, and it has a lot of great features- spell check, drafts, image handling, blog preview within your theme, etc. I also recommend getting the Zemanta Plug-in for it- it will automatically find copyright-free photos for you to use in your new blog post, as well as suggest recent articles and links related to whatever you’re writing about in the post.

Download Links:

 

Enjoy!

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31.05.2009 Blog, Tech View Comments

My New Theme!

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

My new theme is finally done! You can see it all around you now, like the Matrix. ISHF May 2009I really liked my old theme and I’d been using it for about 1.5 years before the change, but I had feedback Chung and [[Trench]] saying white text on black background wasn’t such an ideal reading environment. In this new theme, I still get my blackish (granite) background, well, I guess it’s still white font on a dark background.

But hopefully you like it, or I’ll have to customize this theme, which is actually quite easy.

This current theme is Imagination by CSS Jockey, Mohi Aneja. He’s basically built a layout which you can then customize in terms of colors to your heart’s content right from the Wordpress Admin, no CSS knowledge necessary. Well documented for idiots like me as well. He gives a number of color themes to the layout, so if you like a more blue theme, or more white theme, he already has it pre-built in.

He’s simply done an amazing job, and the theme is free. 

Before deciding to go with this theme for good, I had hired Jai from http://www.blogohblog.com/ to finish out the Blamatic theme for me. Ah…that didn’t work out. I liked Blamatic a ton, but just ended up loving Imagination before finding someone in Vietnam to finish Blamatic for me. Pat, Blamatic’s designer, did tell me that another developer is working to finish it soon, so that’s another theme I recommend.

Some of the major differences between the new and old look are:

  • Versus the old three column theme, I think this theme feels simplified but more focused and still with a strong aesthetic.
  • This theme’s not fluid width, so if you’re on super high resolution, then you’re seeing the text take up a very small part of the screen.
  • Moving from two widget columns to one, I had to drop my Last.FM widget and reduce the number of pictures for my SmugMug Widget to 1. At first I wanted to show everything about me, widgets galore, but once I accepted the one widget column, I realize it helps me focus more.
  • I’ve now added widgets for Most Recent Posts and Most Popular Posts and News From Vietnam, which is an RSS feed of Chao Vietnam on BlogSpot. I’d rather show articles from Intellasia, but it’s banned on some ISPs in Vietnam, including mine. If you go to the Chao Vietnam, you start to question where these stories are coming from, but I’ve looked up enough articles to know they’re coming from real newspapers- don’t just the site on how it looks. Last weekend, I saw that a bunch of articles on the website were from the English version of Thanh Nien daily, so I think it’s fairly safe to read in the sense it’s not made up gossip garbage.
  • I really liked to show one blog at a time the way my last theme did. I don’t think it made so much sense to go with one again in the new one, but I’ve limited the default view to latest 3 blogs rather than the 5 or even 10 other bloggers use. I don’t feel that the blog home page should be so long, and I also know the 30 people who come here each day aren’t reading this site like they would Kotaku. People are mostly coming here from searching and just reading a specific article.
  • New Favicon for ISpitHotFire I’ve added a new favicon! If you see a star, you may need to hit Ctrl-F5 to refresh your cache, but you should see a smaller version of this half US and half Vietnamese flag. My old favicon was probably unrecognizable unless you knew my old dinosaur toy logo, so I wanted something a little more immediately understandable. I just took two pictures of the respective flags, cropped them in Powerpoint (that’s right, I edit photos in Powerpoint), combined and resized them to square dimensions. I like it, it’s Vietnamese-American, and I hope no one else has done it yet.

In the change for a new theme, I’ve been reading and researching a lot about Wordpress, including speed optimizations. I’ll be posting about my experiences and lessons to share over the next week or so. Hopefully, you feel that the site is reasonably quick now, especially if you’re in Vietnam. I’ve also decided to become more visible online, so I have some ideas on how to build a bigger audience for this site, even though I talk about nothing interesting or even focus on one particular subject. And I’m not a hot girl.

But I believe and more on that later as well too.

Anyway, I hope you like the new look, and feel free to give your thoughts!

And… here’s one last look at the old theme:

ISHF March 2009

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12.05.2009 Blog, Tech View Comments

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