Some Thoughts on the Samsung Focus

Samsung Focus Windows Phone (AT&T)

my wallpaper. with iphones you swipe left to right to unlock but with the Focus you swipe up.  It's very slim and light  its what everyone notices when they first have it in their hands.  Also 848 by 480 rez is bright, clear and good contrast. 

I got a new phone since my old phone was dying on me and I decided on the Samsung Focus (same price as iPhone 3GS but better specs). It's a mid tier Smart phone but can hang pretty much with iPhone 4s and HTCs and what not. The main driving force in getting this phone was that it was affordable, had a big 4 inch AMOLED screen to put my videos/pictures, quick to navigate and easy to text. 

Touch screen is good and pinch to zoom works well on websites and pictures.

The main screen shows the shortcut icons. They are somewhat customizable since you can arrange them wherever or you can delete or add more and also some of the icons are animated. For instance, if you are logged on to Facebook, your People icon will display the main picture of your contacts from Facebook in little squares. Also the phone seems to choose a random picture in your Pictures to display that as the icon and same goes for your Music and Videos icon but will use album art instead. The OS is Windows Phone 7. It is not as customizable as Android but its smooth and quick. 

Zune software is needed to transfer media from computer to phone or vice versa. It is similar to iTunes. What I like about the Zune software is that if you delete your media from your computer but still have it on your phone, you can still copy those files back to your computer which you cannot do with iTunes. That's the only real difference but a big one. Also you can sync wirelessly. Its great if you're just transferring songs or pictures. If you transfer videos, it's best to transfer with the usb cable but wireless syncing works well. 

cool app but I wish it also lists My Videos as well. 

The YouTube app by lazyworm is pretty neat. you can view portrait mode as shown in the picture or landscape to view full screen. You can swipe left or right to view more videos from the author or keep swiping to view your subscriptions or favorites or go to search. 

I don't really want to talk much right now about the games (might do some app reviews in the future but not sure) except that the selection is decent and still growing since the Windows Phone 7 market is still growing but a couple games that I do like are Pool Plus Friends since you can play against random people real time. I also like the card game Speed (can play 2 player mode on one phone not with random people) and Blocked In (puzzle block game). 

Overall pretty good phone. Battery life is average to above average but viewing a lot of videos kills it, no surprise there. Texting is easy in portrait or landscape mode. speakerphone volume is loud and call quality is good.  Theres a bunch of other things that I didn't bring up since I don't want to do a full review but there are no glaring negatives about this phone. If I were to give any criticism is that it doesn't play all video file formats. it can play 720P files but files should be h.264 mp4 or divx/xvid avi and does not play .flac audio files. Also no equalizer when listening to music.  Still a great phone and I already can't wait for it's successor.

if you have questions regarding the Focus let me know!

Sprinkles Cupcakes

http://www.sprinkles.com/

Beware: more than 400 cals if you eat the cupcake w/ the frosting lol. 

Long story short, I tried the peanut butter chip cupcake from Sprinkles at my cousin's place a couple weeks ago and loved it. Anyway I got my bro a dozen for his bday since he loves red velvet and that's what Sprinkles is known for. Kinda pricey for just cupcakes but they are tasty and don't mind getting it for special occasions. 

Cheska Bday 2011

old school Cheska banner when she celebrated her bday in the Philippines a year or  2 back.

one of the rare moments when she's perfectly still

G's gift. Dani seems to enjoy it more lol. 

wish we had this when we were younger. 

goodie bags are good 

birthday celebrant

hercules chillin'

i played with my cousin's cam more than I did mine.

Irvine Trip Pan American BJJ 2011

Took a trip with my brother and his girl to watch some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competition in Irvine this past weekend. Tons of eating and great competition. makes me wanna train again.

Kettleman exit off I-5. I always stop here to gas up whenever I head down south.

Nice arena in UC Irvine Bren Events Center.

Cute and calm brown belt who can beat up most men

Pirate entertaining the crowd

Sergio calling out instructions

Pirate making his opponent think twice about competing

game planning

game planning paid off

UFC fighter Cole Miller out the 1st round.

Bro and his girl in Irvine Spectrum

Quick shot of fountain at the spectrum

Galvao wins again

Ready to rumble

A focused Sergio

Major underdog

Game face

numba 1

Mike Nickels MMA fighter took 1st in his division

Photoshoot with Cheska

My niece Cheska needed new Head and Full Body shots since she cut her hair short. Rather than spend however much for professional shots, I was able to take some good photos with my Canon SX130. It was a very good experience for me, eg. figuring out where too shoot, how the model should pose and what settings work best for the shot I'm looking for, etc. 

I've been researching a good entry level DSLR to purchase in the future and the Canon T3i is up there for me. The T3i isn't much different than the T2i so I can prolly go for either one. I won't be getting it anytime soon but I will keep it in mind but for now I love trying to get used to the different shooting situations I come across with my camera. 

Here are some of the pictures. I'm glad it was overcast. It made it easier for me. I didn't do much post processing. I only resized and corrected the contrast and level a bit. 

 Notes to myself for future reference:

-Try to limit distractions in the background

-shoot the same shot but w/ different exposures

-using longest focal length comprises image quality so find a "sweet spot" focal length

edit. not so much focal length but more so at smaller apertures like f5.6

-direct model more in specific poses

-make model more comfortable/natural 

-if i'm not too far from subject, try incorporating fill flash to reduce shadows

-invest in 6 in 1 reflector/diffuser thing 

collage of danika

Western Digital - WD TV Live Plus HD Media Player Quick Review

I just purchased the Western Digital HD media player for my parents the other day. The media player plays all the files I download whether it is a movie, songs, or photos I have stored on an external hard drive. It is capable of accessing the internet through purchasing a USB wireless adapter or can connect to the net with a wired connection. That being said,  their player is not connected to the net! No need for my parents' style of use. 

A picture of the picture quality. Picture quality will vary depending on the resolution of your video file as well as the resolution of your HD TV. 

Sample photo just to show interface

The interface is simple and resembles that of a PS3 console. Since there are 2 USB inputs, I'm able to connect an external hard drive as well as a small flash drive stick simultaneously in the player. I can play the files on either drive or I can also copy/move/delete files from one drive to the other. 

The media player is connected to the HD TV through HDMI so it can play video as well as audio through the TV. Since they also have a receiver, I connected the media player to it with the audio composite cables. The media player has the optical audio input as well but my parents don't have that cable, maybe in the future. The cables that it comes with are the composite av cables for non HD televisions and the component cables for HD television sets. It does not come with HDMI cables(also for HD TVs).   

This player really does play many formats. The video formats I've tested were AVI, M2TS, MKV, and MP4 though it can play many more. I've also tested a few audio formats such as .FLAC and .MP3 and they work really well. For the rest of the specs click here. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330

A few knocks on this player is that the remote is not really responsive and the fast forward feature isn't the best in the world although it can remember where you left off in a movie and resume playing from that point on. Some of the downsides to this player involves connecting it to their wireless home network. I cannot comment on that since I'm not using it in that manner.  

If you are tired of watching your 1080p, 720p or DVD quality rip vids on your computer monitor and don't have a PS3 or Xbox 360 and want to play them on your large HD TV then this is a must buy for only 119 but cheaper online. The picture quality is clear. Remember if you purchase this, you must also have some kind of external hard drive or flash drive that contains the files you want to play. If you want an all in one system that has a 1 TB hard drive already built in the media player, then get the Western Digital HUB. 

Western Digital WD TV Live Hub 1 TB Media Center

Please leave any questions or comments! I'd be happy to help.

UFC 126 Silva vs. Belfort

Well another UFC event is coming up this weekend and I'll be discussing my picks to win. 

Weigh ins Friday 2/4/11

It's Anderson Silva versus Vitor Belfort. I believe Anderson will take it TKO round 3. I'm about 70/30 sure about it. Anderson is somewhat of a slow starter and if Vitor doesn't spend any time doing a feel out process and be guns blazing like Vitor of old then we might see magic happen. The fight may play out that way depending on which Vitor we see. Vitor has worked with a top striking coach in Shawn Tompkins but not for this fight so I'm not sure if there is any drama prior to fighting. Vitor has had a pretty long lay off, 17 months to be exact as well as shoulder surgery. Also Vitor hasn't fought at 185 in a while and when he did fight Rich 17 months ago, that was at a catch weight higher than 185. So weight cut might be an obstacle for Vitor who I think is normally at 220 lbs. Another thing to add to that is that Vitor hasn't fought the championship rounds and Anderson has so Vitor's gas tank is in question.

It seems the formula to beat Anderson is a good wrestler who can take him down and GnP him and not get caught with a submisison or the only striker who can beat Anderson by KO or TKO would be Vitor within the first 3 rounds(definitely has the punching power to do so) but with all the negatives I mentioned earlier, it's a very tall order. Vitor seems hungry and is capable but it seems that Anderson is in his prime and is very mentally prepared. If Vitor does win, my hats off to him. I'm a fan of both. For sure it will be (in a Michael Schiavello voice) "Good Night Irene" but for who.

This fight I didn't really want to see. I like both Rich and Forrest. Rich did well against Chuck not that long ago and has momentum on his side. Rich also seems to do very well off of his back (his armbar escape against lutter comes to mind). Rich does have power in his hands and you can ask many fighters like Chuck or Nate Quarry. 

Forrest is a big dude. He cuts an extreme amount of weight to make 205 and looks as if that does not slow him down one bit. Unfortunately he doesn't possess the power but seems very hungry for a win. The only thing is that Forrest had a long lay off, just over a year and I think he had surgery also. I watched an interview with Forrest and it seems like broke down his game and tried to fix the weaknesses he had from the ground up. This could be good or be bad since introducing an overhauled game/style with a tough opponent like Rich may be too soon. 

I'm about 65/35 for Rich but if Forrest comes with a good game plan he can earn that victory via split decision. Forrest mentioned that he can muscle Rich which is true but he's going to try doing it in the clinch ala Anderson Silva style. But I think Rich will be to fast for Forrest so I don't think much clinch work will be done. I think Forrest can take Rich down but I trust Rich's ground game vs Forest top game on the ground. So I don't think Forrest can keep him on the ground but we'll see. Both have great gas tanks and if it were a 5 round war then Forrest's size advantage can gas out Rich but I do favor Rich in 3 with all three judges saying 29-28 unanimous decision.

Now moving on to Bones Jones and Bader. I really don't find Bones' personality appealing. He's very well spoken but does carry an arrogance around him. He's a big up and comer and may be future champion. I kind of want to see him get "humbled" in the octagon. If he does, it might even make him better because at least he knows where the chink in his armor would be. 

Bader has improved leaps and bounds also. From a pure wrestler to greatly improved stand up, he's an up and comer as well. He looks really comfortable with his hands now and has excellent take downs.  He's also very heavy handed and has a good work ethic. 

I'm going to pick Bones in a unanimous decision. I believe he has enough to beat Bader but not enough skills yet to finish a guy like Bader within 3 rounds. Jones' long reach and speed will be key in this fight, not his flash (even though I've heard he said he's going to be extra flashy for this fight). If he does come out extra flashy, I expect him to get taken down and we get to finally see how he reacts on his back for the first time. If he looks like a fish out of water on his back, then the hype train would finally be derailed. I pick Bones 60/40 but I would not be surprised if Bader won by split decision by take downs and top position. 

Real quick. Kid Yamamoto is finally debuting in the UFC. It's about time but now I'm not as excited for it. He's fighting a great wrestler in Demetrious Johnson. I don't know too much about the guy but I think I saw him do well in the WEC and Kid is passed his prime so I'll go with Johnson just based on that. 

lol i hope i predicted correctly. comments are very much welcomed!

Cool interview with Bas. I like what he says about Brock lol.