One of the most formidable rule of shopping is not to settle on the first price you see.  I was looking for a skin for my iPhone, and was browsing at one of the IT mall at Hua Qiang Bei.  As I was going up the escalator on the first floor, I spotted the item I wanted, it was RMB 35 for one, with a simple question,’can it be cheaper’, the price drop to RMB 30.  It was a little more than what I was willing to pay for a piece of rubber.  So I soldiered on to the 4th floor and came across another shop, with many more color choices and the price was RMB 15.  With much haggling, the price remained the same.  So I bought two, for the price that I would pay to get one on the first floor.  This is why, never settle for the first price you see.  You never, know, it might be much cheaper just a few floors up.  Oh, by the way, pink is for my wife, so don’t get any funny ideas.

Yes, you got it right, I bought this glamour phone for just a little over four hundred ringgit.  I bought it over at Hua Qiang Bei in Shenzhen and it got one year warranty.  I was amaze by the feature this little gadget pack and how it looks and works.  The photo viewing works fine with pinching zooming capability.  The music player goes to album view when the phone is tilted.  This is something that other models could not do.  The cheapest I’ve seen starts at RM3xx and all the way to this model RM4xx.  I found out on the web that this phone’s name was CiPhone and it was a fake that gets as close to the real thing as possible.  Just search for CiPhone at youtube and you can see a wealth of video about this phone.

Out of the box, the device came with a sleve, earphones, charger, usb cable and a user manual.  All looks like the real thing.  You can check out a video I made unpacking this thing.  There are so many “iPhone” models over at Hua Qiang Bei, All the model except this one supports dual sim card and they comes with two batteries.  However they are much thicker and the dimension are much bigger.  But they have much more functions, some could even change song when shake, like the sony handphones when it first introduced. 

There are a couple of things that might turn you off, first there seams to be a lag on this phone, you will notice it on my video.  Secondly, the phone battery indicator can go up and down, especially if we let the phone hibernate, the next time the phone wakes up, you will notice the battery indicator shifts up a little.  This phone only supports single sim card, while other models support dual cards. Lastly, there seams to be a problem with the phone where after some time, the music player would reset the phone whenever I click on the music player icon.  The shop guy first says it was virus, then he said the mp3 format not compatible, which is all loads of BS.  Somehow the Chinese Songs that came with the phone seams to be fine.  So there goes, want perfect working beautiful iPhone, stay away from fakes.  if you dont mind this, then, it is a cheap glamour phone for you. 

I have been in the company for almost 3 weeks now, and I have not seen a single techqie yet. I have seen quite a lot of fasionable people, but none that are hung up on gadgets nor computers. I was working with one of the manufacturing expert asking her if she has found the thumb scanner next to the laptop screen useful? And her response was like, eh, what’s that thing? When I explain what it was, I can see the amazement on her eyes that her 1 year old laptop has this feature. I have also notice that 50% of the population uses WinXP default theme and color scheme, and 50% of the population uses the windows classic look. I was surprise that they know how to use the window classic to speed up their computer. I was in a discussion with one of the program manager and I commented him on how smart he is to use windows classic to speed up the laptop. He noted that he was thought to do it by someone, but didn’t know the purpose. Anyway, his laptop was only a little over a year old, and didn’t need the speed boost anyway. Everyone seams to use the computer for its intention and none did any personalization. None has any sticker on their laptop as well. How boring. Well, this is going to change. I will be the first to have stickers and the minute I get my new laptop, I will pimp it up with OSx theme. Lets see if I manage to get some heads turn and poison them to modify the desktop like I did with my previous company.

Well, Gigabyte is not that new to me, I have seen their motherboards in the market for quite some time, but Amtek is totally new to me. These two companies have recently launch their UMPC (Ultra Mobile Personal Computer) at Cebit, and its spanking hot. What could be the next hot thing after Digital Cameras and Portable MP3 players? To me UMPC will be the hot future. With the introduction of 3G and WiMax, this enable high speed internet connection anywhere within a given city and this will help to push UMPC from the techno geek to the average user. Imagine, lost in a city, just pop up your UMPC for a google map. Need Cash, and need a PC to make money transfer? Just pop up your UMPC to do the transaction and withdraw from the nearest ATM machine. Applications are limitless. The biggest challenge to the UMPC makers are how to make the device powerful and yet lightweight and cool looking. Imagine the UMPC released by Gigabyte and Amtek, as thin as the Motorola Razr Phone, how hot is that…

Steve Smith have outdone himself again with the latest revision to his Tiger Admin plugin for Wordpress. For those who do not know what I am talking about, Tiger Admin is a skin or rather a well pimp-up administration interface for the Wordpress blogging tool. The interface theme is inspired by Apple Tiger, and hence the name Tiger Admin. With version 3.0, the entire color scheme, font, and images are changed. The layout is still the same, where all the key functional links such as Dashboard, Write, Manage, etc are all still arranged on the left column. If you run Wordpress, this is a must have plugin. It will enhance your blogging experience. There is nothing more exciting than a new Christmas present..

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Steve Smith is a Web Developer residing in South Bend, Indiana and currently leading the University of Notre Dame Web Group.