Rough Groove

HP Photosmart 7960

Initially, I was thinking of getting a Canon Pixma ip5000: 4 colors with additional black ink for text, 1 picolitre (!) micro nozzles, the smallest in current printers, 9600×2400 resolution and with a 12 month zero % interest if purchased via credit card. I have already read the forums and reviews and found it to be a good deal as well as enough for my current needs of printing my photos. These, plus mid priced ink and paper almost convinced me to get this baby.

Until I made a last ditch search in online articles and found Vincent Oliver’s very informative site Photo-i and came upon his review of the HP Photosmart 7960: 8 color ink with a very much touted grey ink (#59) for that faithful rendition of black and white tones that in other printers without the grey ink is bound to be cursed with a color cast. Since I will be printing usually in black and white, this capability attracted me most to this printer. Nevermind if the ink is a bit expensive and HP papers are a bit hard to find, well, I can address that, but first and foremost, I go for quality b/w prints which I believe this equipment will be able to give that.

While reading other articles, my choice got more muddled when it was said that there is the latest version of the 7960: the HP Photosmart 8450. With almost the same specs including the grey ink but this time, it has network capability and uses HP’s new Vivera inks that does not fade fast. With these in mind, I went to Glorietta in Ayala and checked prices. I came upon HP Home and Business and they had the two printers available at the same price! But the 7960 was 6 months zero % interest with extra free #59 and a webcam that whetted my appetite. Right there and then, I decided to get it. Well, I don’t need networking capability and with photoquality of the two printers just at par, 7960 was enough for me.

HP Photosmart 7960: P18,900.00 with free extra #59 grey ink, webcam and 40 sheets everyday photo paper
HP Photosmart 8450: P18,900.00
Canon Pixma ip5000: P15,000.00++

*photo from HP

Mobile service price war heats up

The cellular service price war heats up with the entry of Smart’s Smart258 service, a response to TouchMobile’s Todo Text Todo Tawag Text as well as Sun’s 24/7. These services offer unlimited voice calls and SMS for a flat rate and at a specific duration.

Launched last Friday (unlimited SMS is launched today), subscribers who wish to avail of this service need to register. Once in, subs will send the number of the person to be called to an access code and wait for a ring back and the call is connected. Talk time is 5 minutes max and has a validity period of 10 days wherein subs need to register again to avail it. Costs P115 and open to the network’s prepaid subscribers under its different brands. Unlimited SMS is valid for 6 days and costs P60. Promo is for one month.

This is, as one column of Cocktails in the business section of INQ7 put it, a mischievous dig at Sun’s 24/7.

Launched also last week but prior to Smart258, this also offers unlimited voice calls and SMS after registration but only open to Touch Mobile subscribers. Costs P300 for voice and P50 for SMS. Promo runs for a month.

The pioneer to this kind of service, which goes back to sometime in October last year, was a hit among various subscribers. Costs P100 for 10 days of unlimited voice calls and texts and P250 for 30 days. Open to postpaid and prepaid subscribers.

Because of its relatively young and small network, it was not prepared to handle the deluge of transactions in its system that its subscribers are plagued with bad quality, delayed text messages and poor service.

This recent phenomenon has rocked the very much competitive telecommunicaitons industry. Not only that, there has been a slew of “unlimited” promotions from landline voice call services to internet access. Already there are affected sectors who are complaining.

The wonders of competition. In the end, the people will benefit.

Related post: Ridiculous!

Ridiculous!

From today’s Inq7 edition:

“The NTC should revisit the circular because a new product has evolved and competition in the industry has changed. We are not against imposing standards because that is good for the consumers. What we are asking is that a different standard be set depending on what we charge consumers,” William Pamintuan, senior vice president of Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc., parent of Digitel Mobile, said in an interview.

This is a very preposterous proposition coming from Sun, the mobile brand of Digitel, the third cellular telecommunications provider in the country. In its desire to lure subscribers from the big carriers to its fledging network, it is offering an innovative pricing strategy called 24/7 wherein you pay a flat rate of P250 and P100 for unlimited calls and SMS for 30 and 10 days, respectively, against the other carriers’ per minute charging. But this comes with a price: because it is still expanding its small network, it wasn’t able to cope up with the sudden surge of traffic. Just imagine a call setup success rate of 35 and 38%, respectively as tested by both Globe and Smart, the other carriers, and a high drop rate of 14% (Globe’s test) coupled with mandatory cut off every 15 minutes. This goes against the NTC (National Telecomminications Commission, a regulatory body) circular of 2002 which set a mandate of setting only 7 calls not connected for every 100 attempts and 5 out of a hundred calls being dropped. Not only that, SMS sent to SUN subscribers are not received or sometimes reception of these messages is much delayed.

Because of their shortcomings, they’re now asking the regulator to change the rules of the game to favor them. Ridiculous!

Hard drive’s busted

Was able to visit the Toshiba service center in Makati yesterday and it was found out that the hard disk is busted. Damn. All those important data still embedded into the disk’s platters but irretrievable. Its as good as gone unless I shell out thousands of bucks just to retrieve it. But I can manage. Still got backups of my website and important databases circa 11 January. I just need to update these files. Another way also, is to make a copy of my entire salagubang site.

Now the hard disk. I was told that stock’s not yet present and I have to wait from 30 – 90 days for it to come! Not just that, I was given a quotation of around P16,500 pesos for a 20GB proprietary disk! Jesus! I never thought that notebook computer drives are scarily expensive. Not just that, I also don’t have the option of upgrading it to a higher capacity disk since I was told that the computer’s just built to have 20GB. Darn! Luckily, an angel came to my rescue and offered me a P12,500 hard disk, same capacity, same model and brand new which I readily got. Talk of underground deals. Shhh… but still, bad for my budget.

Now I’ve learned my lesson. Back up, back up and back up.

IDE #0 error

Just as I was setting up my photo gear to photograph my beetles that my notebook computer suddenly had that infamous blue screen. Well, I experienced this many times before and the only way to do it was to disconnect the power cable and then the battery. Just did that and the next time that I turned it on, “IDE #0 error.”

Intel (R) Agent FE v4.1.09
Copyright (C) 1997-2002, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent.
Insert system disk in drive.
Press any key when ready…

Press any key and the same problem. Fuck. Hard drive’s got a problem. A major problem. Hijo de puta!

The saddest part though is that I only backed up my RAW files before coming over to Cebu. Stupid! No backups for my website salagubang, my outlook PST, my beetle database and a host of other important files.

Really stupid me.