Snacking with Adel

My UPS died the other day.

My Uninterruptible Power Supply. It was a relatively inexpensive CDR King unit, kinda heavy, but compact enough. It served me well for a couple of years, but it finally tanked the other day. It blinked off and started emitting a brrr-brrr sound, and I couldn’t get it to start up again.

About half a year ago, it had intermittently been turning off for no reason, and after several ignominious restarts, I took it apart, thinking it was the battery. I was fully intending to replace the battery, but the thing was heavy, and I had no car at the moment. The thought of lugging it to the street to a jeepney or a cab seemed intimidating, so I let it slip by, using instead the plain old wall socket to power my computer stuff in the meantime.

A month ago I considered buying an old-fashioned servo-controlled power supply, but thought I’d give the old UPS one more try.

Two weeks ago, I put it together again, and started using it. It ran for a couple of days without incident, but then it started the on-off thing again, and it did that twice in the two weeks I used it, once while I was asleep, and the other time I was fully awake and working on the computer in the afternoon.

It had cost me a couple of grand. It was a nice 1000VA unit, with a 15 minute backup. And it was a surge suppressor and AVR as well. I was covered.

It had a bank of three power-safe sockets on the side, and three ordinary, unprotected ones. It worked fine for almost a couple of years before it started turning itself off mysteriously, and my troubles with it began.

And now it’s completely dead. I’m back to the old wall socket. Time to think about getting that old-fashioned power supply thing again.

Shucks.

I went and looked for these analog grips all over town, hoping to find them cheaper than I saw them online.

These DS4 grips were being sold by an enterprising guy who apparently ordered a whole bunch of them and now was plying them online for P250 for two pairs.

Pretty expensive, considering I found a whole silicone controller’s worth for P90 at DataBlitz. These were itty-bitty little silicone caps for the analog sticks. I initially had no intention of buying them, until I saw a YouTube video of a guy who had his analog sticks crumbling off after a couple of weeks of use. Couldn’t have that now, could we?

Trouble was, this seller lived in the south, somewhere in the bowels of Paranaque. To get the grips, I had to have them shipped to me in QC through JRS for an additional P90. That would being the total cost to P340. A bit expensive.

I spent a few days combing the malls around the city to find them, but couldn’t, and I had to give in. I texted him and we got the deal going, Had to make a deposit in BPI under his name, and I did that yesterday, and now the grips arrived just before lunch.

Despite my initial misgivings, the grips were nice. They were a little stiffer than I initially envisioned, but they went over the grips firmly, and they had tiny raised protrusions on the top that made using them a pleasure.

Even better, they also fit my Xbox 360 controller’s analog sticks as well, so there was no overage. Two pairs were just right.

Great. Now if only inFamous: Second Son was released soon, I’d really be a happy camper.

Just wanted to share a throwaway accessory I found at one of the stores. (I realize Technoodling is on hiatus, but I gotta quickly share this one, it’s so neat!)

It’s nothing important, actually, but I find it quite useful. And quite a bit of an accessory for the slightly paranoid among us, too.

It’s a third-party silicone sleeve for the DualShock 4—the new controller of the PlayStation 4.

The DualShock 4 Silicone Sleeve for the PS4 comes in a simple plastic bag, no label, no box. God knows who made it and where it comes from, but suffice it to say it’s pretty useful. I really like it.

I also realize I’m the guy who frowns on using cases and sleeves for his gadgets, but with the beating I give my controller in my gaming sessions, something like this is kinda required. So I made an exception in this case, and slipped that sucker on.

It’s made of a thin, white silicone material. It’s a tight fit, actually, and you have to make an effort to get the thing on, but once it’s there, you never have to take it off. You can go back to beating on your controller with abandon, secure in the knowledge that you can’t really damage it much (well, within reason).

It allows for unimpeded access to the controls; the cutouts for all the buttons and switches are precisely placed. My big worry was the cutout for the touchpad in the middle of the controller, but they (whoever they are) did that part nicely, having a humongous cutout that reaches out to even the front of the controller, leaving the light bar and the microUSB port exposed nicely. The edges of the cutout lie neatly and snugly along the lines of the DS4.

The best part about it is that it’s really cheap.

Data Blitz sells it for only P95, so it’s sort of a no-brainer purchase. Some enterprising PS4 users even sell it for P450 for a pair online, which is a bit overpriced. (There are even round disc-like silicone covers for the analog sticks called Precision Grips going online for P250 for two pairs, but I draw the line at them; there’s a point where simple protection becomes outright paranoia.)

The DualShock 4 Silicone Sleeve is a great investment for protecting your gaming gear, and if you ever get tired of it, you can just take it off and put it away, no regrets. I think this thing is going on my controller for the duration.

*Reprinted from Technoodling

Just a quick update.

I went and bought the Sony Dualshock 4 Charging Station today (from DataBlitz, it turns out—only one store in Greenhills carried it, and it cost the same).

I was also going to buy NFS Rivals and get the last one in stock,  but the salesgirl warned me it was the Asian version, and I might not be able to use the North American-ness of my PS4 when playing multiplayer. I sorta knew that was a crock as far as I was concerned, but I held back buying it, which was fortunate, because I found a 2nd-hand copy going for cheap from TipidPC later in the day. I’m meeting the guy tomorrow morning at 9:30 at Centris.

And someone asked to buy my PS3′s NFS Most Wanted, which offsets the cost of my new stuff quite a bit, although the buyer had to re-sked our appointment this afternoon to Monday at 5:30 (he was called to an emergency at the hospital, and tomorrow he has a binyag).

The charger is good. It has an ungainly plug though, and it snakes to a power charger, and only then to the charging dock, which makes for a long cord indeed.

My controller is a tight fit, because of the silicone condom, and I’m thinking of taking the damn thing off. And that empty slot for another controller is bugging the hell out of me, although I’d be damned if I’d buy an extra controller just so I could slot that one in. I’d rather buy a PS Eye if it came to that (I saw one at that store in Greenhills that carried the dock; it was going for nearly P4k).

Wala lang. Just thought I’d drop a line telling you about my latest PS4 purchase.

I’ve been enjoying my PlayStation 4 immensely this past week, and I’ve been accumulating friends on the PS Network and playing my games and getting demos and all.

But I’ve struck an impasse. There really aren’t much games to be had. Yet.

I’ve already bought Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag in addition to my Killzone: Shadow Fall, and I’ve been enjoying it a lot, but something’s still missing. The graphics and gameplay are great, but the oomph just isn’t there. I’m hoping inFamous: Second Son will be it when it comes out next month.

Resogun and Outlast are both wonderful, being the free games that they are (only when you’re a PlayStation Plus member, of course—which I am), but I’m still looking for others. I’ve downloaded and played, and eventually erased, several demos of games, but one stuck with me—Strider.

It’s a platformer action title, fast, furious and frenetic, and I enjoyed the demo a lot. I went online and read the reviews and watched videos, and then decided that I should buy it. It’s only US$14.95, and it’s a digital download only—no discs are available.

So, among other things I did today, I went to DataBlitz and bought US$10 worth of credit. I still had US$6.50 or so in my account, and I just needed to round it up. I bought the game this afternoon, and no more restarting from the beginning every time I wanted to play it.

That DualShock 4 controller is the bomb, but it’s got a limited battery life. It’s damned difficult to patch the controller with the PS4 via a USB cable every night, though.

This afternoon, I was thinking of buying that original Sony charging station (which is for two controllers, but I’ve only got the one), but it costs P1850. Well, not too bad for an original charger. The third-party ones cost upwards of P1500, so it’s all good. You plug it in independently of the PS4, and it charges your controller lickety-split. I’ve decided to get it, and I’ll go to Greenhills tomorrow to look for a cheaper one, but if there isn’t any, it’s the DataBlitz one for me.

I’m also thinking of getting Need For Speed: Rivals, and I’ve looked at the online sellers, but none of them have a good enough discount for me, and I might as well buy it brand new from DataBlitz. The only thing holding me back is the fact that I’ve already played a similar game—Need For Speed: Most Wanted—on the the PS3, and I wasn’t too happy with it. I’m thinking the new one might be better, but I’m not sure.

Oh, this PS4 will be the death of me.

So my birthday came and went.

Quiet day, actually. The most action came out of Facebook, Twitter and my iPhone. All my friends (and some acquaintances) came out of the woodwork to greet me.

I went out and did my usual thing, and then I got a small treat for my few loved ones: pizza, cake and ice cream.

Then just like that, it was over. I’m fifty-two now. Working on being fifty-three.

Last week, I did go and get me my birthday gift: a PlayStation 4.

It’s great and all, but I was shocked at the dearth of games for it. There was only one that I liked—Killzone Shadow Fall—and the guy who sold me the PS4 also sold me the game real cheap. Then after I set it up and started playing, I started to look for other games, and found none.

There was Tomb Raider, COD Ghosts and Battlefield 4, but I played and finished them all on my older-gen consoles. Then the others were… blah. NFS Rivals seemed like a logical choice, but after the snoozefest that was NFS Most Wanted for the PS3, I was hesitant to get it. Likewise with Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag; I never really liked these pirate/stealth titles. Everything else seemed bottom-tier launch titles.

I got the free ones, of course: Resogun, Outlast, DC Universe Online,  Warframe and Blacklight Retribution. Was too late for Contrast, but that game looked sucky anyway.

The newer games can’t come soon enough. inFamous Second Son is closest, followed by Driveclub and Watch Dogs. I can’t wait.

I put my unchanneled techlust to check for accessories for the PS4, but there was really nothing there too. There were some gadgets, like a vertical stand and a charging stand for the controller (which was a logical need, since the DualShock 4 has a very very short battery life of 8 hours), but I was looking for actual authentic Sony gear—Sony’s stuff was woefully out of stock and all they had was third-party things. Was thinking about springing for a PS4 Eye, but that was out of stock too.

I saw a silicone case for my controller, and it was going for P95 only. Third-party too, but how could it hurt?

So I got it to protect the DS4 against wear-and-tear. It’s like a condom, actually, and I don’t notice it anymore when I’m playing.

I’ve been working on building up my list of friends, and cribbed a bunch of them from PinoyPS.

So far that’s it for my PS4 adventures.

I took time out to get myself a PlayStation 4 this morning. Yeah, advanced happy birthday to me.

There was a guy selling a US unit online, and I got in touch with him over the weekend, and closed the deal. Met with him today, and got it, finally.

He also sold me a PS4 game—Killzone: Shadow Fall, for real cheap, and I was really happy. I was planning to go to DataBlitz and get me that very title (it’s the only one I really wanted to have among all the launch titles; I didn’t realize there were so few good titles for the launch, dammit) and I had already reserved one in Cubao for P2.4k. The guy sold it to me for P1.5K! He had more, but I had them already for my other consoles.

Sony Philippines and DataBlitz were selling their PS4s (Asian units, too) for a little under P25k. The US units were going for as much as P33K , but I’ll be damned if I know why, they look exactly the same. Maybe in the future some differences would matter, but for now I can’t tell. The guy sold me a US unit for P20k!

Now I realize that’s a huge amount for a guy in my situation.

But I sold my two Nexus 7s for P6k each, so that’s 12k already (actually, that should be less P3.5k because I had to have one of them repaired—so that’s P8.5k total only), then I sold my Nintendo 3DS XL and the five games I owned for P9.5k (big loss, yes—the set cost me 18k brand new, but what can you do?), so the total comes to P18k.

I spent P20k for the PS4, then P1.5k for the game, for a total of P21.5k. I had P18k in hand, so I only had to shell out P3.5k. Not bad.

I put away the wonky PS3 in its box and the many games I’ve accumulated over the couple of years I had it. Sniff. I’d sell it too, and the games, but like I said, it’s wonky. Besides, I might still play some of the games.

With the PS4, I realize some of the accessories that came with the PS3 (like all its games) didn’t work. My BD remote control and the controller keypad were goners, so I thought I’d put them up for sale. I did, tonight. I put them up on the PhilMUG marketplace, TPC and Sulit, my favorite selling sites, for P2k all in all. I already got the first obligatory lowball offers.

If they’re bought, they would offset the money I put out for a grand total of P1.5k only. Not bad at all.

One more thing.

I got me an iPhone 5s and an LTE Smart Gold account right? So I now use the Personal Hotspot feature to get my internet for my iPad, so I have no use for my ZTE MiFi/SmartBro post-paid account. I can sell the ZTE Mifi now on my sites for P2.5, which puts me in the black for P1k. I would actually have money in my pocket, if all goes well!

Damn.

EDIT: 2/13/2014 – Ha! Sold everything today, except the ZTE. Sold the Xbox controller, the PS3 BD remote and the PS3 Keypad/Controller, to separate people. Took me most of the day, but still.  Now, how to sell that ZTE MiFi? Hmm…

EDIT: 2/18/2014 – I also sold several of my old games for the older consoles. About time anyway, they were just taking up space. Yesterday I sold a bundle of old PS3 games, and today I’m meeting someone to sell an Xbox360 game bundle. Taking a little bit of loss compared to what I got them for originally, but it’s all good.

Saw an email from our Editor-in-Chief Jason de Villa this morning. Technoodling’s going on hiatus for a couple of months, maybe more, to affect a redesign by the same folk who made pepper.ph.

But the way Jason put it, it was like the end of the site. He thanked me for my 2-year participation and said it was nice working together. He says he hope when the site goes back online, it’ll be with new eyes and a new vision.

I can’t say I’m enthralled by it.

I’ve gotten used to Technoodling, with its sucky pay and lackadaisical editorial staff. It’s been a major outlet for my tech stuff, and I’d gotten used to writing a couple of posts for it every week.

It saw me through my difficult adjustment period coming from my stroke several years ago, and it was instrumental in getting me back into journalism. It gave me the confidence to write again.

Alas, it’s apparently come to an end.

It’ll have its last posts from us on Friday, Valentine’s Day, and while it will remain online, there won’t be any more posts on it for the duration of the hiatus.

I have time to post one last article—that PlayStation 4 review that’s been long in coming. I’ve written more or less a complete draft of it with temporary pictures cribbed from the net. I better get on finalizing it, and maybe post it on Thursday at the earliest.

Aw shucks.

It’s been nice.

Goodbye, Technoodling.

Posted with Blogsy

I'm turning 52 on Saturday.

Time was when I thought I'd never reach 32, much less 52. I'm old now, exiting middle age and getting into the wizened old age part of my life.

Don't want to celebrate, but I suppose I'll have to. At least for those few close to me. Although only my daughter seems to be the only one excited about it.

I think I'll treat myself to something expensive though. Something I've been lusting after every since it came out last November. A PS4. Or maybe an Xbox One.

Nah. A PS4. It may have less frills, but it's got it where it counts. Better graphics, speed.

I already have a PS3, although it's a bit wonky now. It stutters. That's the best way to put it. It hangs for a few seconds, then abruptly resumes. It's maddening.

I think it's the hard drive, which I've desperately been trying to replace, but that damned screw in the mechanism has been keeping me from doing it. I actually bought a replacement drive already, but I can't get it in. And there are no spare caddies available anywhere. Believe me, I've looked.

It was my go-to console. I have an Xbox 360, but I only keep it for the Xbox-exclusive titles, and I get multiplatform games for the PS3 usually (along with PS3 exclusives, of course). But since it screwed up, I've been forced to get games for the Xbox instead, like COD Ghosts and Battlefield 4.

I recently came into some extra cash, so that's good. God knows I should really save it, but you know, YOLO.

Besides, I've been selling the stuff I don't really use much. I sold my two Nexus 7s recently, and now I'm working on selling the Nintendo 3DS XL and the games, and my ZTE Mifi device. Thinking about selling my Panasonic LX5, but I'm still on the fence with that; might have some use for it still. Besides, the devaluation of the thing might be too much for me to bear.

Selling these things makes me feel better about buying a new console, it defrays the cost. I already have buyers for the 3DS-XL and for the games.

I know I shouldn't be thinking about these things in the midst of my medical and personal problems at home, but you gotta have some fun, right?

Posted with Blogsy

Pebble finally released Firmware Version 2.o for iOS yesterday, and with it, a brand new and free Pebble App Store.

Last week, they started shipping the new, slightly more expensive Pebble Steel hardware, essentially the old watch with brand-new and fashionable steel casings and wristbands.

Since then, people have been waiting for improvements to the firmware as well, and they released it this week, along with inaugurating an iOS-only (for now) exclusive Appstore for Pebble apps and watch faces. The Android version is in the works, according to the developers, and will be out very soon.

To get the app store, you need first to upgrade your firmware to version 2.0—a straightforward and easy process. With it comes the installation of the Pebble App Store, which brings together all the available apps and watch faces under one roof. The store appears when you click on the Pebble icon on your phone, showing for the first time a complete, centralized location for all things Pebble-related in an attractive menu-based setup.

The Store shows the status of the Pebble (if it’s connected to your iPhone or not), and features three separate pages: My Pebble, Get Watchfaces and Get Apps. It also shows a Support Page where there is a Getting Started section, an FAQ and other portions to help the first-timer out. The App section is divided into Daily, Tools & Utilities, Notifications, Remotes, Fitness and Games.

Since the Pebble watch’s tiny memory allows for only eight applications and watch faces to be installed at any one time, the app also features a “locker” where you can store and swap out unused watch faces and applications in the My Pebble portion of the store.

Firmware Version 2.0 is very picky, and it immediately rendered a couple of old applications unusable until they were updated and complied with the new firmware first. I immediately picked out a couple of new watch faces for my Pebble (Dots and Perspective), and a couple of new Apps (Foursquare and Twebble), but first I had to make sure some of my old watch faces and apps went into the Locker to wait it out first.

The App Store is the “first open platform for sharing apps optimized for wearables”, and it’s hard to doubt that it is. All told, in practice, the app store is fast and snappy, and goes a long way towards making Pebble a formidable force in the new field of wearable tech.

*Reprinted from Technoodling