Motorola Defy Yowza! I wannit!

Here's the sorta phone that I would really like to have - I'm a tough/rugged gadget enthusiast (due to all those SAS, Andy McNab books and such), a outdoorsman wannabe and a unrepentant tech geek. And the Defy would definitely go well next to my Panasonic CF-29 Toughbook.

It runs on Android! OK, so it's not like your garden variety Linux distro*... But it's a really geek-centric mobile OS. Plus its got tonnes of apps up for free at the Marketplace.

The Defy is a tough Android 2.1 phone and features elemental resistance to dust, water, impact and scratches of the harsh outdoors.

Great bod!

It has that familiar 'touch-tablet' form but with some great ruggerised features such as impact and scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass and built to withstand spills and dusty environments. It is also light at 118 grams.

I just love the fact they've tried to build it tough. I wish I'd have a review unit to try out to see whether it's all up to hype. I've seen some reviewer blogs plopping the Defy into a glass of water.

If I ever get one for review (my day job requires me to test out and review some models), let's see if the claims are auta or not shall we?

Display

The Defy comes with a 3.7 inch FWVGA (480 x 854 pixels) which is nothing much to shout about these days, but some concessions are necessary to allow the Defy to be made more ruggerised thanks to Gorilla Glass and overall body construction.

Processor

Defy has a 800Mhz OMAP3610 processor which is more than enough to run the Android 2.1 Eclair Operating System.

Memory

Defy has 512MB of RAM and 2GB of ROM and 1.2GB of user available memory. Adding to the memory is possible using the SD Card Slot.

Connectivity

Besides the regular phone stuff, the Defy supports HSUPA 2.0 Mbps, Corporate Sync, Bluetooth, Firmware Over the Air and USB.

Battery

The battery has been rated at 1,540 mAh, which Motorola rates up to 6 hours of talk time and 9.9 days of standby. I'd take this with a pinch of salt...

Camera

Defy has a 5MP camera with LED flash and video supports H.264 (VGA video playback at 30 frames per second) and MPEG4.

Price?
RM1,599! Which is not bad all things considered. Of course, there are others out there which can be had for less. There are Android 2.1 phones like from Alcatel and Samsung which cost between RM680 to RM860. But these are entry level ones. The Alcatel OT-980 has a cheap TFT 2.8 inch screen, which doesn't really duke it out these days...

What you pay, just like in the case of the Toughbook, is (no its not the macho, tough guy image) the premium grade materials and well thought of design to give you a bit more assurance that your gadget will survive harsh environments and rough usage...

Unlike the Toughbook though, the Defy doesn't look like that it can take a bullet. A toughbook actually stopped a 7.62mm round (the type used in the notorious AK-47). But alltogether this would be a phone that I wouldn't worry about much about for the bump and grind of daily life.

*Some folks would know that I'm a Ubuntu pusher - it's a sado-macho relationship. It stresses me out but it makes me really happy when I figure out how to fix or tweak things in Ubuntu. I like the challenge. Oh, I also have OLD hardware to up the difficulty level.

Fixed up my Toughbook

I've fixed up my Toughbook. OK. It's not really brand new. In fact it's considered to be a bit long in the tooth: Centrino 1.3Ghz, 1.2GB RAM, 160GB hard disk drive and a bit banged up in the beginning. If you're one of my pals who've seen in before I did this paint job thing, you'd know there was a huge dent and flaked off paint, right above the centre hinge part of the magnesium alloy cover...

So I've plugged the hole up with some metallic-epoxy resin putty, sanded the CF-29 (that's the Toughbook model) and painted it errrr several times. I've done some customising jobs before on some older laptops and PCs sometime ago but those weren't very good jobs....

First I took the 'repainting the original' path and attempted to spray the beast silver after (sufficient masking to prevent paint going onto the screen, keyboard and other parts). Take my advice, the silver spray paint in the can makes your custom job look cheap - it made the anondized magnesium alloy cover look like plastic painted silver...

So what did I try next? Green & black - the 'x' crevice motif on the cover filled with black. Then I realised that: great now it looks too much like Ben 10! This was confirmed by a 6 year old too.

So Army Green from Samurai paints was the last colour I tried and my wife thinks the colour suits the Toughbook - or it could be that the family can't bear breathing in the fumes for so many days.

If you count all the layers of paint, after re-sanding the rough parts and respraying - I think I've got over 10 layers of paint on this thing.

Well. It's a project. Sometimes fixing up stuff and doing this sorta thing is somewhat therapeutic for yours truly...

My guess by now would be you asking & saying: Why in hell would you want to get a Toughbook? The one you've got is old and a Netbook would have sufficed! - That will be answered in the next post.

Not passing the Buck: A Golden Virtue?

"That's what I like about you. You don't try to run away after you've done something," said Mr. Larsen, our Technology Class teacher at Dewitt Middle School, Ithaca, N. York. He said this to me in the presence of the other Grade 6 kids.

I was totally unprepared for the reaction - I really thought that I would 'get it' this time. The crime? Well those hack-saws with the flimsy blade break off very easily. Tech 101 is one of those classes where they teach you woodwork, metal sheet bending, how to do copper tooling, make cookie cutters, solder, drill stuff, make rockets (yep model rockets that actually fly) and even how to handle a blow-torch! It was a really cool class - I savoured the third or fourth periods when I had the classes twice a week.

Back to the saw- well the blade snapped off after trying to negotiate a curve while cutting a block of wood for a fish-shaped cutting board, if memory serves me. I left the saw in the tool box. When Mr. Larsen came in he asked: "who broke this?"

Every kid was looking at me, all quiet. Maybe they were afraid that one of them would take the fall. No one needed to. I raised my hand. Mr. Larsen smiled and said those words that I still remember today. Instantly, I knew I had done the right thing.

"These snap off quite easily - if you're not careful," Mr. Larsen said while he took out a brand new blade and replaced the blade. No fuss about it. This is where I learnt a lesson; a noble one which no school or university for that matter could teach you: fess up to your doing- don't pass the buck.

It was quite sometime ago; back in 1985-86 to be exact when my parents were in the States. My dad was finishing up his PhD. in Communications and Liberal Arts (whatever that is) in record time at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Similarly when I was in Standard 3 or 4, back in Serdang, Selangor I had another prior episode- but it didn't sink into me why I actually did it. We were told to keep quiet in class one day. I had to speak to my best buddy in class. We got into trouble and were told to stand on the desk. What did I do? I said that my buddy didn't talk to me - it was me that disturbed him. It was me that talked to him. Probably surprised, the female teacher (can't remember her name) took a few seconds to digest and told my buddy to sit down. They must have all thought I was weird. But I guess it's an ingrained feature seared into my fibres. I knew to let someone else suffer from my wrongdoing was morally wrong - karma and spiritually aside.

The point? Well if I can figure something like this out when I was still a kid, why do people that I see today, can't seem to figure this out? I see people and bosses that wash their hands completely and passing the blame, monkey, buck or whatever name you want to call it, to an underling. This is how they survive and progress in their career.

IT IS SICKENING. Especially when certain people profess to be of strong religious or moral character/fibre. A senior management person I know does this 'tai-chi' stunt often enough to bolster his position by not taking the blame and passing the buck. This management style, is no style at all- it is a cancerous growth that starts with a malingering git and destroys an organisation from within. Auta-betul!

Casino 01

Casino 01, originally uploaded by zeeman01.

I have some shots of my trip last year to the Mobile GSMA Congress 2007 in Macau - was staying at The Venetian.

On the Road - Perlis MOSTI Roadshow

I was up north in Perlis last week for another exhilarating round of the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation's nationwide roadshow - It was a good affair it seems with busloads of schoolkids ready to fertilize their minds with the endless possibilities that science can offer to them...

Second angkasawan Mejar. Dr. Faaez was there. Nice chap. I must say the popular public opinio that I gathered on the fair grounds was that he's the better liked amicable person. But that's a matter of opinion of course.

Now the reason why I'm writing this: remember the last blog entry about the National Science Centre? Well they did a good show in Perlis. A lot of people, schoolkids and teachers included made a beeline to their area...They took along some of their permanent exhibits and made up some new ones as well.

And guess what? Some of the exhibits which I wrote earlier, i.e. not working etc. , were in fact working fine at Dewan 2020 in Perlis! They apparently fixed them for this show! Well I hope they'll fix the others back in KL as well...

Pusat Sains Negara Visit

Pusat Sains Negara Visit, originally uploaded by zeeman01.

I visited two weekends ago the Pusat Sains Negara - after not coming over for about 2 years or so.

What can I say? Just coming in, I was able to impress the kids of what cool and great things they could see and learn. It was a promising start with the fish, aquarium, the animatronic animals (the sea turtles were a favourite).

There was one exhibit which was a hit with my son- the one which demonstrated centripetal force via a perpetual motion-like machine. It involved cranking up balls up the different segments of the exhibit, which then fall into rails to demonstrate what perpetual motion can do...Some segments required another ball to be cranked up to set in motion stuff like King Kong climbing up a skyscraper and to trigger a boot to kick the other ball. When we got the third part of it, the ball skipped the rain and fell into the centre of the display with a thud! That's off bounds so we couldn't do anything about it. Seems like the machine hasn't been fine tuned for awhile...

In the end however, I couldn't help feeling a bit peeved and cheated since a lot of the exhibits were not working well and some were even broken...It was a weekend and I guess some of the science shows were not on.

Felt a bit hungry and peckish and the only place to eat was the souvenir shop which had a makeshift kind of eatery with toasted bread, instant noodles and sandwiches. Wished there was more so I can encourage the family to come more often though...

How are we supposed to cultivate science in the young then? We sent a man to space but we can't even maintain some permanent science exhibits, even when people pay to get in...*sigh*

Words of wisdom to adhere to...

I've got some words of wisdom that got me as far as winning that job interview that I was aiming for. Some of these, can be used and when applied with skill, will be impressive I tell you!

1. That Starbuck's guy was right when he said "You got to challenge yourself every few years even when you're hitting home runs."

2. He also said "Don't be afraid to learn from people smarter than you."

3. He also said "Compromise on everything except you core values and everything matter (in terms of the little things that customers appreciate)"

4. "Live by the Golden Rule," - this is to be applied not said. Treat them as they you would like them to treat you.

5. My favourite, after it's all over and if the occasion arises and if they seem friendly enough: "I think it was the former CEO of AMD, Hector Ruiz who summed it up best when he said: You can get far in life, without being an asshole!" - mind you, I only use this to give a nice warm fuzzy feeling lasting impression when it seems that all seems well and friendly like. You don't want to seem cocky - friendly and sincere is what you're aiming for...