Pfingo - Phone, Finger, Internet oN-theGO

Pfingo is launched in Mar 07 and it is an interesting VOIP service. It provides you a local Singapore number starting with "3" instead of "8" or "9". It provides 2 services:

• Desktop - For users who have no wifi-phone and use desktop or notebook as platform; and
• Mobile - For users who have SIP or wifi-phone and more features are available.

Pfingo Desktop (free for 3 months)

1. If you use Goggle Talk, Skype or similar service, there is nothing new to talk about. The only comparison will be the IDD rate charges which may vary;
2. You can send and receive fax via your given number starting with a "3";
3. You can forward this number to your mobile phone to receive call;
   
4. You can sign up for a foreign number (mostly non-asian countries) and others can call you paying local call rate; and
   
5. Other services (email, SMS, PIM Sync) are already offered by competitors so there is nothing much to talk about. SMS and fax are chargable so there are many free services which can offer better.
   

Pfingo Mobile (free till 31 Dec 08)

1. Many services (push mail, push news, push stock, chat, sms, weather forecast, horoscope) are already offered by other competitors (like blackberry) so there is nothing much to talk about;
2. The interesting part is the link between your wifi-phone to your local internet connectivity to enjoy cheaper call. Therefore, you need a wifi-phone or SIP phone to exploit the full features of pfingo.

So, how good is pfingo?

1. If calling overseas bill contributes the bulk of your mobile phone bill, this may be a cost saving solution in the long term;
2. Voice clarity is definitely a PLUS here. Perhaps due to a small scale of beta-testers in Singapore;
3. Calling China is only S$0.02/min which is reasonably cheap; and
4. If you want to get a free local number for 3 months, why not? Sign up is free but the confirmation of OTP code takes a long wait of 24 hours.
   

Any bad?

1. If you have a non-wifi phone, please do not attempt to download the mobile client as you are using GPRS/3G to make calls. Your high connection charges may offset the savingyou enjoy on the cheap calling rates. However, you are still able to enjoy desktop features till 31 Dec 08;
2. Most of the services require subscriptions. Starting in 2009, besides the normal subscription of S$5, users are required to pay for outgoing calls too; and
   
3. Are the services enough? It may provides the basic communication needs but normal users are pampered with more services such as reading blogs, payment services over mobile, shopping, downloads, games which are not provided by pfingo.
   
4. Another issue with pfingo is that it wanted to ties mail, sms, voice and fax together thereby spreading itself thin. There are professional services like goggle and yahoo for email and skype for VOIP etc. Limiting its service to wifi phone users is confining itself to a small market segment. In the long run, when wifi phone becomes popular, maybe more users will use pfingo. Let's wait and see.
   

How to measure your household electricity consumption?

In view of the rising oil prices, our electricity bill has shot up 30%. To promote awareness of saving electricity in household, NEA has launched a competition to cut household electricity bill by 10%. Click here for the full article.

So how do you know what are the actual power consumption in our household? We have all different appliances and equipments in our household. Well, generally, every electrical appliances are measured in WATT (W). Here, I will share a simple method of how to measure your individual household appliances.

What do you need?
a) digital watch with stop watch function. Analog watch will do;
b) pen;
c) paper;
d) simple calculator; and
e) your time.

1) Take note of all the appliances that you cannot switch off. Examples are fridge, Uninterrupted Power Supply for server/PC or faxing machine etc. They are always switch on for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

2) Switch off all other appliances that are not running. Please note that you must switch off ALL remaining MAIN switches instead of the switch at the extension cord.

3) Go to the power meter gauge of your house. They are mainly located just outside the house. Take note of the rotating speed printed on the meter. For example, "230 rev/kWh". Take note of R=230.

4) Take a stop watch and record the time taken (S in seconds) for the disc to rotate 1 revolution. There is a black line or mark on the disk to mark the start and stop time.

5) Now, switch on one appliance which you wish to measure. I suggest aircon or water heater since they consume significant power.

6) Go to your gauge again to record the time taken (S1 in seconds) for the disc to spin 1 revolution. You should notice that disc is rotating faster since your household consume more energy now.

7) Plug in the figures in the formula below to calculate the power consumption.

Power (W) = 3,600,000/(R x S)

Example 1: R = 230, S = 60.2,
Power = 3,600,000/(230x60.2) =224.31W

Example 2: R = 230, S = 10.24 (aircon),
Power =3,600,000/(230x10.24) =1318.69W

So we see that your fixed household appliances power is 260W while your aircon power is (1318.69-224.31) = 1094.38W.

(For spiderman, great power comes with great responsibility. For you, great aircon power comes with great hole in your pocket!)

8) If you wish to measure other appliances, you can switch it on individually together with the appliances which are fixed as per (1). Apply the formula to calculate and subtract the power consumed by the fixed appliances.

9) After generating the whole list of power consumed by individual appliances, you can plug it into the formula below to see how much you pay per month.

Monthly bill for appliance with GST
= Power of appliance x Estimate of hours used per day
x 30 x PUB rate x GST / 1000

Note: PUB rate is currently S$0.2388 and GST is 7%.

Example 1:
Amount you are paying per month for fixed appliances
= 224.31 x 24 x 30 x 0.2388 x 1.07 / 1000 = S$41.27

Example 2:
Amount you are paying per month for aircon which is switched on 8 hrs/day
= 1094.38 x 8 x 30 x 0.2388 x 1.07 / 1000 = S$67.11

10) Add up all the appliances and you will know which one is stealing money from your pocket every month. Now, save 10% and you stand a chance to win a fuel efficient hybrid car.

Did you switch off your aircon while reading this post? Alamak, like that how to win?

3D Mas Selamt bin Kastari Photo

It has been over a month since Mas Selamat had escaped from detention. We have seen his photos 5 hours after his escape but he is still at large.

Suddenly, an idea pops up.

Why not create a 3D photo so we can visualize his face better? Using freeware Faceworx, I came out with his 3D photo within few minutes.





















These pictures are illustrations and further fine tuning is possible for better effects. Finally, I felt I have done my part in this island wide effort. Next time you come across someone similar to pictures above, call police immediately.

Meanwhile, just take 2 photos of someone and test the software. I did it in few min and so can you.

Have fun!!!

Singapore 1st Unofficial i-Mode Portal

If you are having a mobile plan with a GPRS plan, do visit this website to experience the ease of use and capabilities of using this website:

http://imode.x10hosting.com/im/imode.php

All the websites are FREE. Special mentions deserved are:

1) Free MSN login for instant messenging;

2) Wide selection of world and local news sources;

3) SBS waiting time;

4) Free ChannelNewsAsia access;

5) Advice based on your personalised BMI;

6) Local Food directory;

7) Check if your car has an outstanding parking fine;

8) Free dictionary access;

9) Free online books for reading from your mobile (no reader installation required);

10) TNT tracking of parcels;

11) Individual Readiness Accessment - A SCDF test on your knowledge of civil defence;

12) Chinese links to HK's, PRC's and Taiwan's websites;

13) World and Singapore blogsites;

14) Read your selective feeds using bloglines; and

15) can you imagine... Japan's Shinkansen information.

Now, you will have something to do while waiting for your girlfriend to finish her shopping or waiting for your boyfriend to finish that soccer match.

NOTE: Pay attention to your GPRS use. Although this portal has light traffic, the links may be heavy traffic and consume a lot of KBytes.

To compare GPRS/WAP mobile plan, please read my earlier blog on iMode vs GPRS offered by the 3 Singapore operators.

Browser status bar message: Done with error

This bug is bothering me as I cannot:

1) access certain pages in all browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Flock, Avant);
2) see google ads; or/and
3) open up live chat session.

The pages appear perfectly alright so it has something to do with my computer. I updated windows update frequently and perform virus/spyware scans but futile. For months, I have searched for a solution but there is no answer. I strongly suspect it has something to do with my registry or my anti-virus/spyware applications.

The first light to the solution is from adsense.com. After going through the steps to locate the problem, I realised that there is a file named "HOSTS" which reside in windows directory.

After opening it, I found the few restrictions that block the advertisements from appearing.

NOTE: You can disable the READ-ONLY properties of the HOSTS file in order to edit and save it. This is not mentioned in www.adsense.com.

If you find these lines in HOSTS file, please delete them:

# [Google Inc][Restricted Zone site]
127.0.0.1 adwords.google.com
127.0.0.1 pagead.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 adservices.google.com
127.0.0.1 www.googleadservices.com

After deleting the lines and save the HOSTS file, I can FINALLY see the Google ads in my webpage after reloading the browser.

In the first place, how do you know if your HOSTS file is active?

Test #1: Open a Command Prompt (XP): Start Run (type) cmd (click Ok)
(type) ping microsoft.com (press Enter) You should see the following [screenshot]
Note: not all sites return a ping request (example) microsoft.com returns a "Request timed out"
Test #2: paste ad.doubleclick.net into your browser, you should see the following:
"The page cannot be displayed" (IE only)

To know more about HOSTS file, please click HERE. There are other anti-virus/spyware or firewall programs that adds entries into this HOSTS file. The computer becomes over protected - To be safe than sorry mentality.

I hope you find this tips useful if you encounter similar issues.