Adino Online

Social media has become a popular buzz word these days.

It seems everybody is trying to get into social media. My company has even formed a new department just to promote our products and activities online.

Most people would equate social media to Facebook or Twitter alone, but social media transcends any single website or service.

To me, social media services allow us to consume each other’s lives.

When you follow, friend or subscribe to someone, you open the floodgates to their thoughts, interests, and activities.

I have been a user of services like SixDegrees, Friendster, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Delicious, LinkedIn and Twitter. Since I got my new phone, I’ve even started Foursquare, Waze and GetGlue accounts.

I’ve found one weakness of social media after using these services for some time.

The terrible fact is, all the social media in the world is useless if you don’t have friends who are equally interested (and active) in social media.

<rant class=’dramatic melancholy’>

It can get very lonely and disheartening.

Somehow, somewhere I have gotten so busy updating random facts about my life and checking in all over the place.

But was anyone listening? It’s like I’m shouting into a canyon and all I get is my own echo.

What can I offer that can stand from all the digital noise?

I’m not a sweet young thing, a celebrity, an outrageous personality or a talented whatever. I’m just a regular guy. Who would be interested to know about my life?

I’m really glad to have met some new acquaintances online. But when I look carefully, I have met all of you through blogging, not through services like Twitter or Facebook.

I feel it’s all meaningless… like typing 4 8 15 16 23 42 every 108 minutes. Take for example my latest tweet “Good morning and Happy September”.

What was the point of that message and will it mean anything one week from now, or even 24 hours from now?

Then there are privacy issues and the danger of revealing TMI in a moment of excitement or anger.

</rant>

Breathe.

So what am I going to do? First of all, I’m going to stop using some of my ’social media’ accounts. There’s just no point and it’s not worth the time.

Second, I’m going to try to engage people in conversation instead of publishing random thoughts.

Third, I’m going to try channeling most of my updates back through this blog. Blog posts allow me to express my thoughts and feelings better than 140 characters can.

Fourth, I may be removing some ‘friends’ and stop following so many people. Don’t worry… if you’re reading this blog post then you’re probably not one of them. I’m talking about those you add, but have not sent a single message (or worse, never bothered to reply my messages!).

In case you skipped all the above and just read the last line, what I’m expressing is my poor user experience with social media because, well, I’m failing in the ’social’ part. I start to see it’s kind of pointless for me, and I have decided to take action.

P/S: I realize I’ve been saying a lot of things are meaningless. I’m not trying to be difficult or sound suicidal, but a lot of things that occupy our time, energy and attention are really meaningless in the sense that you get no lasting value, and sometimes you don’t even get appreciated.

Photo by: B Cleary

Today I just want to tell you about my trip to New Zealand.

I had planned a holiday with my wife and parents to New Zealand. Our flight was scheduled for yesterday so we were all excited and rushing to pack.

I realized with horror that I didn’t have time to pack anything. It was exactly like that time my family were moving house and I forgot about it.

Mummy kept asking me to pack my stuff in boxes and I said later, until I woke up one morning and she said we were moving on that day. There was a lot of cramming and frenzied packing!

Anyway I had to depend on my wife and mother to pack my luggage, and I couldn’t shake the feeling like I was forgetting something.

I rushed to pack all my personal items. My camera, my phone and some books to read on the plane. It was going to take 22 hours to fly to New Zealand, and I wanted to be prepared.

I was so excited and happy to be going on a holiday at last, and really looking forward to exploring the beautiful country of New Zealand.

Before I stepped out of my house, there was something in my arms. I looked down and it was baby Daryl.

POOF.

Immediately I woke up and came back to reality.

It was such a disappointment because it was only a dream after all.

Photo By: thimoholst

Last weekend I found some of my old primary school photographs at my parent’s home.

It was nice to see the photos of my old school Sekolah Sri Petaling in PJ, and see some of my classmates. I see my Standard 3 photo and I’m surprised that I can remember a lot of names.

Do you think it would be polite to post those photos in Facebook? Or should I get permission first?

Problem is, I’m out of touch with most of them already.

Reason I ask is, some people don’t like their old photos to be posted online, or they don’t want to be tagged in Facebook.

You know what I mean? You tag them in a photo and the un-friend you on Facebook and block you.

So now I’m not sure if I should or not… or maybe I can just post the photos and blur out the faces.

Photo By: Svilen Milev

Do you ever have dreams of making a living from your passion? I’m sure you do.

Well last night I’ve taken my first step to achieving my dream.

I’ve been feeling depressed lately so I think this little project will give me a nice distraction.

I don’t really want to reveal what my dream is at this moment. Why? First of all I’m a little afraid to announce something and then fail. Second of all, I’m worried people will laugh at my silly dreams.

I know those fears are not rational, but I am not such a bold person.

So what’s the point of reading this blog post, if I’m not going to say anything?

Well, just to allow me to share my excitement with you.

I started having this dream in my heart early this year. I was trying to answer the question: What would get me excited to wake up in the morning? How can I make a living while having fun at the same time?

From there, the dream was born. I shared this dream with Poey Chin and she was quite supportive (as she always is). She even threw in a few ideas.

The next thing I did was to lay out a ten year plan. How I would begin, what I would have to do to make it happen, and how I was going to get there.

The dream was put to rest for a few months while we were busy with Daryl, but I think now is a good time to start.

It’s not going to cost me a lot of money in the beginning, but as time goes on the costs will rise exponentially.

I have to admit it looks really daunting. There’s so many things I don’t know. Worst of all, there are things I will have to do I am not comfortable doing.

In this first step I’m still unsure. My legs are still trembling and I can’t stand steadily. I still need a hand to hold me.

But I’ll take it one step at a time. And I hope I get confidence along the way.

Wish me luck!

Do you have dreams? Have you taken steps to earn a living from your passions or hobbies? Share your experience in the comments!

Note: this is a dream that will take many years and a thousand steps to achieve. So if my bosses are reading, don’t worry ok?

Photo By: seansbizz

It has been a month since I bought my Samsung Galaxy S Android phone, and I thought I’d share some real world experiences with you.

Those of you looking to buy this phone may be wondering how the phone works in real life. What is the truth behind all the marketing?

Performance

First of all, I’m going to talk about speed and performance. I have not been disappointed so far.

It really runs any app I can throw at it smoothly and seamlessly.

However.

The browser is slow. I don’t think this problem happens to just the Samsung Galaxy S. I think this is a common problem for all Webkit phone browsers. You click on the link and have to wait a few seconds for the page to load. Even on Wifi.

If you are used to browsing the web on computers, then you will find the wait a little frustrating. I tried using the Opera Mini Browser and it does help a bit, but still not up to computers speed.

The phone does not hang, but some of the applications I installed have memory leaks. Memory leaks happen when an application does not release memory that it does not use any more. So after a while, the available memory drops and you have to reboot your phone.

Camera

Although the camera is 5MP, I still find that there is a difference between the phone 5MP and my Nikon 5MP.

I read somewhere before that mega pixels alone do not determine the quality of the image. It also depends on the sensor size and the lens.

So when it comes to taking casual photos, the phone is fine. But for other photos I prefer to stick with a DSLR.

Videos have turned out fine though. The speaker is really sensitive, so the audio captured is really clear and loud.

GPS and Gyroscope

This is the first time I had a GPS on my phone, so I didn’t know what to expect.

As with other GPS, you need to be outdoors (or at least see the sky) before it can work. I really don’t know how to evaluate if the GPS is good or bad, but it does a good job tracking your exact location.

The best thing are the apps that use GPS.

First of all, I use Foursquare to check in to the different places I go to.

Then there are map software like Google Maps, MapDroyd and a nice one called Waze. Waze is like a live traffic report. You see the map and can inform other drivers when there’s a traffic jam.

I usually scan this app before I go home, to see which roads have traffic jam. You can even chat with other drivers that are nearby.

There are also many cool AR (augmented reality) applications like Layar, which allows you to scan your camera around you to see any nearby places of interest. You can choose restaurants, ATMs, petrol stations or even houses for sale.

Then there is Google Sky. You can point your phone at the sky and it shows you the exact position of constellations.

And I also tried Celeste (Lite), which tells you the position of the sun, moon, and planets with their orbit path!

Applications

I mentioned in my first review that you can’t buy apps from the Android Market at this moment. Google Checkout is not available to Malaysians yet, so we only have access to free apps.

Many nice (free) applications are also unavailable to us Malaysians.

Some of these are:

1. Google Voice (allows you to make free calls)
2. Skype
3. Amazon Kindle

I am seriously thinking about rooting my phone so I can install an app (Market Enabler) that spoofs your location so you can have full access to the market.

How are the free applications then?

You can find a lot of good ones in the Android Market, but you need time to browse. You can get the standard ones like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, EverNote and WordPress.

But when you can’t buy apps, you are restricted to trial or lite versions of applications. One warning though, a lot of ‘naughty’ apps are in the Android Market too.

You can find Android versions (or imitations) of most popular iPhone apps.

Android phones are really integrated with Google applications, so it’s great if you are a GMail, Picasa, and Google Tasks/Calendar user.

I can even search Google using my voice (but it doesn’t understand Malaysian accent so I have to speak. proper. English).

One final thing to mention about apps: you are not restricted to a single channel to install applications (like iTunes). You can install any app as long as you can find the proper installation file. This gives you the freedom of buying applications from third party websites or even download pirated applications if you choose.

Phone and Messaging

I almost forget that my Samsung Galaxy S is a phone. Honestly I don’t make or get many phone calls, so I hardly use the phone and messaging functions.

But so far, I don’t have any problems with call reception or call quality.

Even though the Samsung Galaxy S has signal attenuation when you apply the ‘death grip’ on it, it doesn’t drop the call. The reception drops two bars when you hold the bottom part of the phone.

Things I Enjoy Doing

I really like how the phone allows me to do the things I used to do with my Dell PDA, and much much more. I primarily use my Samsung Galaxy S to:

1. Tweet and Facebook while stuck in traffic jams
2. Take photos and videos of my kids and post online immediately
3. Navigate my way home and avoid traffic jams (using Waze)
4. Read e-books
5. Play games (right now playing Galaxia. Army code 559ED. Add me)
6. Have instant access to the Internet

Things I Can’t Do

Some of the things that I can’t do are:

1. Check my email. Reading a few emails is fine, but the screen is too small to scan through lots of email quickly.
2. Blog. The WordPress app is fine for approving comments and creating drafts, but somehow I can’t get images to appear in posts. Plus, it’s too tiring trying to type a thousand word post (even using the amazing Swype input method) using just my fingers. I still need to use a keyboard because I’m frequently selecting text, cutting and pasting.
3. Get paid applications. I’d really like to get the Kindle app because I love reading and want to stop buying physical books. Please do something quickly Amazon!

Looking Forward

In summary, I still have no regrets. Its okay that most people don’t have a clue about Android phones or what they are capable of.

I’m looking forward to the Froyo update for my phone, especially with the speed improvements and tighter integration with desktop Chrome.

I *heart* my Samsung Galaxy S.

Samsung is also coming out with a Samsung Galaxy tablet soon, so it’s going to be interesting to see how it compares with the iPad.