Asian Tiger

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Apple iPhone will start shipping on the 29th of June.  That’s in the US; it will be 30th June in Malaysia.  I’m not entirely sure if there will be any on sale here in Kuala Lumpur but I sure would like to get my hands on one of those lovely gadget.

When I first saw the iPhone demonstration, I was extremely impressed by the capabilities and ease of use.  I believe that the folks in Apple has put in much thought, dedication and effort to produce one of the most impressive mobile phones (to me, that is).

In the past, I’ve used other types of PDA phones but the stability of these gadgets got on my nerves.  Ever so often, these devices will hang and rendered useless especially at times when you need to use them urgently.  My initial fear was that the Apple iPhone would behave the same way.  But, recent news has it that Steve Jobs has confirmed that the iPhone uses the Mac OS X as its base operating system; which would eliminate many stability doubts in doubters such as myself.

So, folks, get ready for the fireworks on June 29th (US time). 

I have been using mobile phones since 1995 which makes me a 12 year old mobile user. All these years, I have not used any kind of Bluetooth headset simply because owning one is an expensive affair. As technology progressed and pushed prices down to an affordable level, I got me one of those Samsung WEP 200 Bluetooth headsets.

What compelled me to buy this is the following:

1. Weight - it is so light that after a while of attaching this to your ear, you tend to forget it’s there
2. Ease of use - very easy to use. Press to switch on, to switch off, to answer and to hang up. How much simpler can it be?
3. Price - relatively cheap compared to the rest of BT headsets I’ve seen
4. Sound quality - since the headset has an earpiece wedged in your ear, you will hear good crisp voices. However, this depends on the distance of your headset and your phone. The farther you are, the more static interruption.

After using this Bluetooth for a bit, here’s some slight downside:

1. Talktime - it’s definitely less than what the manufacturer claimed
2. Slight heat build up in my ear canal owing to the fact that this BT headset is lodged in my ear
3. Static can be heard if I left my phone in my pocket
4. Build quality is lacking sturdiness.  It feels like it could break easily.  My headset is already “wobbly”

Having the same background images on my O2 Xphone IIm is pretty boring. I wanted to change some other background images but all I see on my mobile phone is a XphoneIIbg.gif image. I searched around the Internet and found some software that takes care of the themes and background images. Unfortunately, these software are either paid or given out free but I do not wish to further clutter my O2 Xphone IIm with software that may potentially cause instability to my phone.

I found the easiest method of adding background images to the phone. First, I got some images off the Internet and cropped the images to be 176 pixels wide by 200 pixels tall. After editing the images and saving them as GIF format, I will then connect my Xphone IIm mobile phone to my laptop via the USB cable. Naturally, ActiveSync kicks in and synchronizes my phone with Outlook. To upload the newly edited background images:

1. Double click My Computer
2. Double click Mobile Device
3. Double click My Windows Mobile-Based Device (this will access into your mobile phone)
   
4. Double click Storage
5. Double click Application Data
6. Double click Home
7. Copy and paste your background images into this folder

To change your Xphone’s background images:

1. Click Start on your left softkey
2. Select Settings or ‘8‘
3. Select Home Screen or ‘4‘
4. Scroll down until the Background image setting
5. With your navigation pad, push left or right to select the desired background images including the ones you have just uploaded.
6. Finally, click Done, Done and Home using your left softkey. You will now notice that your background image has changed.

Simple enough? Yes it is. This way, I don’t have to rely on installing 3rd party software to manage my background images. Below are some of the images that I have uploaded to my phone. You can save a copy of these to yours if you like them. If you want other backgrounds, just drop me a comment and I will try my best to get it for you.

Here’s a green background entitled “Gnome”

Here’s a blue background entitled “Smoky”

Here’s a cropped image of Van Gogh’s famous “Sunflower”