Chinh's semi-random thoughts on software development, gadgets, and other things.

Live Spanish League (Primera Liga) Soccer on Dish/Voom Worldsport HD

Ok, I know I live in the ole US of A and nobody here gives two bits about the sport of soccer, but in case you are one of the few that do care…

Watch Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi, and Van Nistelrooy live on Dish Networks/Voom Worldsport HD! U.S. soccer fans now can view live coverage of Spanish League soccer, starting with the 2006-2007 season. Read rews release here. Yeah! It’s about time we get some real soccer around these parts. More info can be found on Worldsport HD web site.

Update on Verizon Wireless Samsung i730 Pocket PC Phone

i730I wrote earlier about problems I have been having with my Samsung i730 Smart Phone from Verizon Wireless. I have been trying to back it up but I have not figured out how to do it yet. In the previous versions of ActiveSync, there was a feature to backup your device from there. It seems that the backup feature is no longer a part of the latest version of ActiveSync (4.1.0). I tried to see if there is a utility on the device itself but I cannot find any. Apparently after I upgraded the thing to Windows Mobile 2005, the included backup utility Sprite Backup got wiped out.

So now it seems there is no way to backup my phone without buying a backup utility. Don’t you just love it.

I am sure I will get to backup the device some day so I can go ahead and get a replacement from Verizon but for now I seem to have fixed most of the problems myself by removing my 2GB Secured Digital card from the phone. I do remember reading somewhere that Samsung only recommends not using SD cards over 1GB in capacity. Argg! There goes my plan for using the i730 as a music player as well! Perhaps this is my excuse for getting a separate mp3 player :-).

Flickr and Picasa Web

Following the crowd, I moved my photos to Picasa Web (my old photos were hosted on my custom developed ASP.NET site). Picasa Web actually works very well for an online photo album. It’s the best in its class. Check out the pictures of my son Dat Do’s Page.

After deciding that I don’t have enough time to maintain my own photos site (and still be feature competitive with all the “Web 2.0″ stuff out there) , I first looked into Flickr. I liked almost everything about Flickr, but the deal killer was Flickr’s inability to display images at higher resolutions than the paltry 500-pixel-wide default. Hello! It’s 2007. Everybody has a 24” wide screen monitor now (ok maybe not everybody)! Yes, the viewer can click on “All Sizes” to see higher resolution versions but that has to be done every time.

Picasa allows for a much better viewing experience. The images are autosized to fit your browser window! Hmm… why didn’t anyone think of THAT before (rolling eyes and shaking head)? It seems that Google is the only company that consistently comes up with ideas that totally make sense like this one. Perhaps there is a reason why Google stock price is in the stratosphere.

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

Powershot S3 ISI’ve wanted to get a more advanced Point and Shoot Digital Camera for a while now and yesterday I decided to pick up a PowerShot S3 IS, after a fair amount of research. I learned that this class of digicams is called “super zoom compact”. The main features that sold me on the S3 are the movie mode and the Image Stabilization. After playing with it last night and this morning, I think the model is a keeper. It definitely takes better pictures than my PowerShot SD450… but the SD450 is much smaller so it’s not really a fair comparison.

DPReview gives the camera a decent review here.

I did find one dead pixel on the LCD so I will go back to the store and swap for a different one. Check out some of the pictures I took with the camera here.

9/6/2007 Update

The Canon PowerShot S5 IS is the latest model in this series. The major changes are higher resolution (8MP vs 6MP), Digic III, larger LCD, and higher ISO.

Samsung i730 Problems

I got a Samsung i730 Windows Mobile phone several months ago from Verizon Wireless to replace both my iPAQ and cell phone. My personal experience with it has not been good. The device frequently freezes, requiring a soft reset. The audio on phone conversations are often intermittently cut.

I decided to call Verizon Wireless yesterday about it. The support person wanted to walk me through a hard reset but I was not able to back up the phone then so I’ll have to call back. He said if the problems continue after the hard reset then VW will send me a new phone. Perhaps a new phone will fix my issues. We shall see.

Update: I seem to have found a fix for the freezing issues.

Update 9/7/2007 – Links for Windows Mobile devices:

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