Steven Chia » Techie-Stuff

Calling on GMail

Steven Chia — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:59:07 +0000

Wow! I just found out today that you can make calls to anywhere in Canada and the US free by using the call feature available on your gmail. I haven’t tried it out myself yet since my internet is SO SLOW right now! Will test it out later!

Hellooo iPhone 4

Steven Chia — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:38:14 +0000

It’s been 18 days since I bought the new iPhone 4. The infamous iPhone 4, the one that apparently would be the downfall for Apple because of the prototype leak, multiple hardware issues and of course, Steve Job’s “non-issue” comment on the device’s antenna issue. However, after having it for more than two weeks now, it is safe to say that it is really the best iPhone ever to be release without any major issues. And yes, it has revolutionized the smartphone industry, again.

Here are some of my feedback on the iPhone 4:

Retina display. Simply said, it makes any text, graphic or video crystal clear. And because of this, you are able to see the finest details. You cannot absolutely find any pixels on your phone.
FaceTime. It is video conferencing at your finger tips. The only downside to FaceTime is the other person also needs to have an iPhone 4 and is only available over Wifi.
Battery life. iPhone 4 lasts at least a day! The older generation iPhones died too quickly. On most days if I logged over an hour or two, listened to music, used 3G, etc. it would die within a day.
Front-facing camera. Forget about the 5-megapixel zoom or the enhanced digital zoom on the back camera. Or even the extremely bright LED light on the back. The front-facing camera is what enabled iPhone 4 users to talk face-to-face. It’s also a very handy camera to take those front-facing pictures that people always do… ahem…
Non-existent antenna problem. It really is a “non-issue”. Well, it really depends on how you grip the phone… Personally, I haven’t had any problem with it. To skeptics who are hesistant to buy the device because of this problem: supposedly this problem has been fixed and will be shipped out starting September…?
Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating on front and back. Last but not least (yes, I had to google what the coating is called) the fingerprint-resistant coating works like magic. Your front-screen literally does not capture any finger prints.

So there you go folks. The iPhone 4 is definitely worth paying all that money for (and having Alan and Mo line up 10+ hours for… thanks Alan and Mo!). The antenna problem isn’t as bad as what people claim or show! =)

Pictures taken from Apple.ca

Three things you can do to help your PC run faster

Steven Chia — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:21:34 +0000

Don’t you wish your old beat-up computer was just as new? Running like new several months down the road, without having to reformat it? Well you can help your computer perform its best by following these very simple steps. Before I list out the steps, here’s why I decided to write this article. Since February 2008 I’ve been an Apple guy, following most of Apple’s products. Lately, however, I’ve been using a PC and remember how easy it was to use it. Currently I’m running on an older Dual Core PC on Windows 7. After using it for a while PCs, like any other computers, will tend to get slower, causing frustrations–and who likes being frustrated? Several reasons why your computer performs worse and worse is because of installations, files occupying disc space and all the other unnecessary junk! We will assume that you do not have any virus or spyware on your computer. To eliminate this you need to install anti-virus and anti-spyware software!

So if you’re using Windows here are three things you can do to help your PC run faster.

MSCONFIG – Remove unnecessary start-up programs. You will undoubtedly install programs on your PC over time. Those installed programs will sometimes allow themselves to start up automatically whenever you turn on or restart your computer. After a while of installing programs you will get many start-up programs causing your computer to run very slowly. A quick fix is to actually stop those programs from starting up automatically. Click “Start” button > “Run” > Type in “msconfig”. A system configuration pop-up will appear. Click on the “Startup” tab. Here you will see all the programs that currently have a start-up status. Deselect the nonessential programs. Make sure you absolutely know which programs to deselect. Deselecting an essential program can disrupt your computer. As you can see I’ve deselected Acrobat, iTunes, MobileMe, etc. because I know I don’t need to run these programs all the time.
CCleaner – ccleaner.com – A “Crap Cleaner” software you can download for free at filehippo.com that allows you to… clean all the crap from your computer. The more you use your computer the more unnecessary files will be kept and therefore will slow your PC down. For example, just by surfing the Internet you could have many many megabytes (MB) of temporary files. In addition with this application you can also clean up your registry. It will help you clean up all the unlinked/unused registries. Be sure to backup your registry before you go ahead doing this! CCleaner allows you to backup your registry very easily.
Defraggler – piriform.com/defraggler – Another fabulous freeware by Piriform that allows you to “defrag” your computer. Defragmentation is the process that reduces the amount of fragmented files in systems. As you install and uninstall programs, or add and delete files you will get chunks of files scattered throughout your hard drive. These fragmented files make it less efficient for your computer system to locate the files it is looking for. Defraggler is very similar to the built-in defragmentation application found on Windows OS.

With these simple steps and tools you will have a better experience with your PC.

Google Android vs. Apple iPhone OS – neat competitive commercials

Steven Chia — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:30:23 +0000

Google has been responding to Apple‘s tremendous successes in the telecommunication industry with one of their witty marketing stunts: a commercial that directly competes with Apple’s iPhone, much like what Microsoft and Apple has been doing for a while now. Android’s commercial can be found below. It’s pretty cool and I definitely am currently deciding on whether I want to stick with the iPhone or get a new smartphone with Android on it. Perhaps the new Motorola CLIQ or an HTC. Unfortunately the Motorola CLIQ is not available in Canada until 2010.

iDon’t

“All the things your phone doesn’t do, Droid Does.”

Fans of the iPhone responded to Google’s commercial:

iDon’t Care

Pretty cool!

Recover corrupted emails in MS Outlook Express

Steven Chia — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:50:52 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I was faced with a challenge of recovering emails from a severly infected PC using Microsoft Outlook Express (OE) 6.0. While spending countless hours looking up ways on how to fix this problem, as well as trying out various software, I realize that I needed to write this down as it probably can save a lot of stress and time for others with similar problems.

The Problem:

An infected PC with MS OE 6.0 that randomly crashed one day and deleted the entire Inbox
MS OE emails are compressed into dbx files that make retrieving emails impossible without a third party software
Replacing corrupted Inbox.dbx file back into the storage folder was unsuccessful in bringing back emails

How OE emails are stored and how to access them:

Each folder found on the side menu in MS OE (e.g, Inbox, Trash, Sent) is stored in a separate file with extension dbx. The dbx file stores the messages entirely and some other information.

Each Identity (item File > Identities in the main menu of OE) creates its own folder for storing dbx files. To locate this folder select from the OE main menu Tools > Options. On the maintenance tab, click on the Maintenance tab and press the Store Folder button. Copy the file path (CTRL-C). Press the windows key on the keyboard or press Start and then click Run. Paste the file path and press enter.

The Solution

After trying out different demos on email recovery, I decided to go ahead and purchase DBXtract from http://www.oehelp.com/dbxtract/default.aspx for $11 USD. It’s a relatively simple application where all you need to do is follow the simple instructions they provided after downloading the file. It was able to retrieve many, if not all, of the lost emails. After retrieval, all emails could be simply placed back into OE by dragging it into a folder on the sidebar (e.g, Inbox or Inbox-Old). The only downside to this software is that it takes a very long time to extract. Depending on how many emails you need to extract it could take a few days.