In today’s post I am going to share with you how to get a free upgrade on your new Dell Laptop. This is based on my personal experience, so if you are intending on purchasing a Dell Laptop anytime soon, now is a good time to do it, since I will show you a loophole to get a free upgrade

This is what happened. I placed an order for two Dell Inspiron 1420 laptops on the Dell Online Store at www.dell.com.my. The order completed successfully. However,  the next day, a Dell sales personnel called me to tell me that the Dell Inspiron 1420 is out of production, and they will give the exact same specifications but on the Dell Studio 14 laptop for the same price!

I did a quick check and with the same specifications as the Inspiron 1420, the Studio 14 was costing about RM 500 more. So here I was being offered a free RM 500 upgrade! I asked the sales personnel if the model was out of production, then why still offer it online? That’s when she explained that Dell Online store is actually beyond their direct control and the offers they place are for 3 months at a time.

So, ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is what I call a window of opportunity! I just checked, and the Insipiron 1420 is still being offered at RM 2499 with a Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz processor, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD, WiFi, Bluetooth, 2 MP Webcam, DVDRW Drive, the works! And the best part is that if you order, they cannot deliver it to you since its out of production and you will get these specs in the Studio 14 laptop.

So, if you want a free upgrade to your brand new Dell laptop, now is the time to grab it!

If you were to do a Google search to look for a solution to forward SMS messages on your iPhone, you will see a whole bunch of different software designed to do this task. Some of these include SMSD, iSMS and WeTool. Some of them cost money while others are free.

This post is intended to focus on WeTool, a simple straightforward application designed to forward SMS messages on the iPhone plus other great features. Best of all, its FREE. This post will walk you through how to install this free iPhone SMS forwarding application on your iPhone, step-by-step.

WeTool is designed and developed by Aaron Jang, over at www.weiphone.com. If you go to this page, however, chances are you will not be able to make anything out as its written in the Chinese character set. This fact alone may scare some people away, wondering whether WeTool is really compatible with their iPhone. But the good news is, while it may not be easy to locate the software on WEIphone.com, it is really simple to install it, and yes, the interface is completely in English.

Some of the features of WeTool is as follows:

• Forwarding of SMS messages
• Sending SMS to multiple recipients
• Deleting individual SMS messages
• Deleting individual call entries (recieved, made, missed)
• 18 cool screen transition effects

At the time of writing, the latest version is 0.3.7.1 .The installation procedure is very simple, as follows:

1. Launch Installer on your iPhone
2. Tap sources, then edit, then add
3. Type in http://app.weiphone.com/installer/ in the prompt
4. Tap OK, the Installer Sources will refresh
5. Tap Install, then tap All Packages
6. Look for WeTool 0.3.7.1 (or a later version)
7. Tap Install

Once it downloads and installs, you will have a new program called WeTool which you can then use either as your primary SMS application or use it in conjunction with the default iPhone SMS application.

The Clarion BLT370 Bluetooth® Receiver is perhaps the best option for anyone who is considering upgrading an upgrade to their car stereo. Essentially, it is a Bluetooth transceiver (transmitter-receiver) which connects to the Auxilliary input of your exsiting car stereo. It supports 3 Bluetooth profiles, namely Handset (or Handsfree), A2DP and AVRCP.

The handsfree profile allows it to pair with your mobile phone so that you can make and receive calls wirelessly in your car. A built-in microphone picks up your voice, while the voice of the other party is played over your car speakers. At the same time, the BLT 370 can also pair with a music device which supports the high-quality Bluetooth audio protocol, A2DP. Many mobile phones today also support this which means you can use your mobile phone for phone calls and music streaming with the BLT 370. The AVRCP profile allows the device to intelligently pause your music and switch to Handsfree mode when you place or receive a call while listening to music.

I have paired mine with my Motorola V3XX mobile phone and 4th generation Apple iPod Photo. I had to purchase a Sony Bluetooth Wireless Transmitter for iPod dongle to allow my music to be streamed via Bluetooth from my iPod. While there are many Bluetooth dongles available the small size of the dongle appealed to me. Plus, it does not need to be charged separately as it draws what little power it needs from the iPod battery itself.

If you are comfortable with messing with the electronics in your car, you can probably hook this device up yourself. I got mine installed from Quest Audio in Subang Jaya, for a mere RM 380 including installation. The sound quality is as good as what my in-dash 6-disc CD changer produces. Another plus point is that I can easily pass my iPod to a passenger sitting in the rear seat and they can wirelessly control the music in the car right from the iPod.

So if you are thinking of upgrading your car sound system, give the Clarion BLT 370 a serious thought. You will be glad you did.

A friend and his wife came over last weekend seeking for advice on a new Flat Screen TV for their new home. There are many technical variables which need to be considered before deciding upon a flat screen tv, but perhaps the most hyped feature is screen resolution. This is commonly marketed as HD-Ready or Full-HD 1080p.

If you were to go to any electronics store in Kuala Lumpur, you would notice that most sales personnel would try to sell you the latest Full-HD screens, whether or not you really need it. The reason? Higher commissions. Full HD screens have driven the prices of lower resolution screens down, which is an excellent thing. Unfortunately, if you are not fully aware of the technical details, you may get influenced by the sales pitch and end up with something that does not mactch your needs.

When deciding on which resolution to go for, the first thing you will need to know is the type of content you are going to watch on it. Chances are, like most people with basic entertainment requirements, you will be primarily watching Astro and an occasional DVD movie. This is considered medium to low resolution content with a typical resolution of about 500 horizontal lines. If you were to watch this on a high-resolution flat-screen TV, the content is going to pixelate. What this means is that the picture is going to look very blocky (like the image of the eye below). This is similar to what would happen if you took a photo with your digital camera at a low-resolution (such as 2 megapixel) and printed it at a large size.

If on the other hand, you are an avid gamer, and have an Microsoft Xbox 360, or a Sony PlayStation 3, you should get a Full HD screen to enjoy the breathtaking detail which videogames today have to offer. Another thing which would justify a Full-HD screen is if you are going to watch high definition video, which comes in either Blue Ray or HD-DVD formats. A Sony PlayStation 3 also doubles up a Blue-Ray player, so you can watch high definition movies.

Personally, if all you are going to watch is Astro and DVD videos, I would recommend that you try and source an older Flat Screen TV with a low resolution of about 1024×768 pixels. You may be able to get this set at a bargain and it will produce a smoother image compared to the newer Flat Screen TVs if you are watching Astro and DVDs.

So the next time you are at the electronics store, with breath-taking images being displayed on the Flat Screen TVs, ask the sales assistant to show you what the screen looks like with Astro or a normal DVD. Do not be surprised to see a pixelated image. But hey, its better to see it at the shop than once you take it back home with you.

In today’s post I would like to share my experience with the Linksys WRT54GX ver2 router. Granted it is based on 802.11G MIMO technology which has been superceded by Draft N technology, it does have some excellent points which make it a strong contender and the subject of this post.

I have experimented with a few Draft-N wireless routers from Level One and Belkin and have discovered they stop short of delivering the promised range on the box especially in multi-storey houses and buildings.

The Linksys WRT54GX on the other hand is able to broadcast a strong signal through several concrete walls despite being placed in less-than-perfect locations, such as below staircases and nooks and corners.

This router has given me excellent service all these years, with hardly any need for power-cycling or resetting, while being paired with a simple TMNet Billion modem. So recently when this router began giving me some trouble I immediately took a trip to Low Yat to purchase a new unit of this exact model, given its reliability in the past. My trip turned out to be a disappointment when I found out this model had been discontinued and replaced with N routers. Given my not-so-fantastic experience with Level One and Belkin N routers, I decided to give the Linksys N routers a skip and went home and decided to perform a thorough examination of the router to determine what was wrong.

Upon further checking, I discovered the router was working well when I connected to it through a wired connection, but the wireless portion was not working altogether. In fact, it was worse, the status screen on the web interface indicated there was no wireless module installed at all. The wireless light on the router failed to come on as well. I decided to upgrade the firmware to version 2.00.20 and it was still the same. Every setting seemed correct and I was beginning to wonder if the wireless module had malfunctioned.

That’s when I performed a search on Google for “WRT54GX wireless MAC missing”. It is amazing what the correct keywords can do for a query. It can really mean a world of difference between getting the results you need and sifting through pages after pages of irrelevant results.

Anyway, the search results lead me to this page on the Linksys forums which was a post by hameluck from the United States with the exact same problem I was facing!

The best part was that he had discovered a solution to the problem, and the reason why the wireless module was not working was that the wireless daughter card in the modem had become loose from its connector. Without wasting anytime, I unscrewed the device and sure enough I saw that the wireless card had become loose from its connector. I pushed it back in, powered the router back on and voila! the wireless module was functional again.

As mentioned above, the router is placed below a staircase and despite all the concrete, it is still able to send a strong signal across an entire double storey house, right up to the very corners of the house. Despite all the marketing hype, I have yet to see an 802.11n router perform as well as this router can.

In recent times, I have got several people asking me about the viability of getting an unlocked Apple iPhone in Malaysia.

For the uninitiated, we shall quickly go through the basic facts first. At this point in time, the iPhone is only available officially from Apple either in the United States with a plan from Cingular/AT&T, in the United Kingdom with a plan from O2, in Spain with a plan from Telefonica, in Germany with a plan from T-Mobile, and most recently in France from Orange.

In other words, the iPhones which are on sale officially from Apple are locked to these mobile operators, as Apple requires these operators to enter into a revenue sharing agreement, with Apple not being content with just selling a device, and wanting a piece of the telco pie.

The natural consequence to this marketing strategy has been a cat and mouse game between various groups of mobile phone hackers/enthusiasts around the world and Apple; with the former releasing software to ‘unlock’ these iPhones to enable them to be used with practically any sim card. As can be expected, Apple has been ferociously fighting attempts to unlock its iPhone to protect its revenue sharing model and exclusivity agreements with mobile operators.

Besides issuing warnings, Apple has also released a couple of firmware updates to the iPhone which will automatically revert the device back to its ‘locked’ state, and can render the device inoperable in certain circumstances. Since the firmware updates are installed automatically through the iTunes software interface, users with unlocked iPhones need to be extra vigilant to ensure that they do not inadvertently allow the update(s) to take place.

In Malaysia, many people have been using the iPhone for a while now, and have learnt to overlook some of the issues with the device, which have stemmed either from the device’s lack of maturity or from the unlocking process itself. One of the biggest gripes is that Maxis users have been unable to receive incoming calls to their iPhones, due to a technical incompatibility with the iPhone and Maxis’s network. However, Maxis has taken heed of its users’ complaints and has managed to resolve this issue in certain areas around the country. There are other issues as well, ranging from intermittent reception problems to occassional undelivered text messages.

So the question is, is it worth getting an unlocked iPhone in Malaysia now or to wait for an official launch sometime this year?

A parallel can be drawn with the pirated DVDs we Malaysians often see being sold just days after a movie is released, and sometimes even before an official release. More often than not such movies are just recorded off private screenings and do not do justice to the movie itself. However, there are still people who still buy these movies, despite the poor quality, just to be able to be among the first to have watched the movie.

So, if you just can’t wait and need to be among the first to use the device, and are willing to overlook many features which may not work as intended, then there are plenty of online merchants and stores from which you can source an iPhone locally in Malaysia. Otherwise, my bet would be to rather wait for its official release, so that I am able to fully enjoy the device, and every feature in it as intended by the manufacturer.