Colin Charles Agenda

I was rather thrilled this past week to note that the team at MoSync have released 2.4-pre-beta, with support for not only Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7, but also Apple Mac OS X 10.6. Goodbye Windows virtual machine, and hello native Mac app.

Check out the release notes, and you’ll also see some very interesting tid-bits. The largest request that I seem to hear from users is that they would like to target the iOS platforms. Apple iOS devices seem ubiquitous these days, and MoSync is now filling the gap. The highlights:

• support for iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) – read hints to help develop iOS applications (you want to read this, especially if you’re doing some development on Windows; you will need XCode and a Mac to run it)
• Android 2.2 support – read hints to help develop Android applications
• ARM recompiler for Symbian 3rd and 5th edition devices
• Bluetooth client/server library

There’s also improved documentation, with example applications. Check out btServer (makes use of the Bluetooth features) and MapDemo (good example with various map sources).

While there are no binaries for Linux users, there is a guide on how to build MoSync using Ubuntu. I’ve not tried it recently, and the guide is a bit dated, but I expect it to work without too many issues.

Learned a few things during my trip to the Philippines this time. Another country that amazes me. For the first time in history, Philippines attracted more foreign direct investments (FDI) than Malaysia, in 2010 (see: Malaysia’s FDI plunge).

Mobiles

There are a lot of people here using prepaid phones as opposed to postpaid phones. This is because the requirements of getting a postpaid account is quite tough (you need bank documents, etc. before they give you an account).

Many people carry more than one phone (or have more than one SIM). Smartphones face an uphill battle – they cost too much and there is generally no operator subsidy because everyone prefers prepaid accounts. It makes economic sense to have more than one SIM, as you’ll end up saving money (operators like to offer free text, calls, etc. from time to time).

It’s interesting to note that SMS is very common in the Philippines. At the conference, you ask questions the traditional way – going up to the microphone. Here in Manila, you can also send a SMS message and it will be asked on your behalf. Very handy use of technology, especially in Asia, when people are occasionally scared to ask questions in-front of a large audience.

Data plans are not very common here. The cost of mobile data only recently took a price cut here, it would seem. USB dongles with data can be had for about PHP1,200-1,500 per month, with no implemented data cap (they’ll tell you its 3GB, but apparently nothing happens if the limit is hit). That’s quite impressive, since you might also just plug it into a MiFi and get data for cheap, on the go.

Social Networking

Facebook is the social network of choice. Multiply is losing ground. Friendster is the network of the past. This is true with the universities, and it is also true on popular TV shows (I caught a VJ talking about the shows Multiply and Facebook presence). Twitter seems to be pretty large here.

Foursquare and other location based services (LBS) do not seem to be very popular at all. In the Makati area, you’ll find people checking in, and there has been some use of Facebook Places even. You’re usually about 4-9 check-in’s away from becoming the mayor from what I’ve seen. Students have next to no use of these LBS services; I have a feeling that it should largely be attributed to data plans being uncommon.

Gaming, payments, OFW’s

People love to play Farmville and other Zynga games online. Credit cards are not common here. You can buy prepaid cards to buy credits for online games. Virtual goods is a large market here. Social gaming – I see this more and more now. Online shopping/e-commerce is not too widespread.

Gaming (gambling) is common. There is legalised e-gaming (presumably with taxes going to the government), but there is also a growing number of illegal gaming making lots of money. Apparently this industry is quite large. Here gambling also has another problem – the Catholic church is not necessarily very happy with it.

Today, remittance can happen via mobile phones from overseas. From what I understand, if you are an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) you can remit money from Singapore to the Philippines using your mobile phone. Telcos are going past banks, becoming clearing houses. It turns out that last year, through official means, OFW’s contributed about 20 billion dollars to the Philippine economy. That is something in excess of 15% of the GDP of the nation. About 11% of all Filipinos are overseas as an OFW. Population currently stands at 80 million.

In conclusion

There are lots and lots of smart people here. UP has about 80,000 students. Over 19,772 people attended Y4iT. The crew did a fabulous job in terms of organising and getting people together.

The people are all very friendly. They all speak English. I know many people outsourcing work to the Philippines through services like oDesk.

Generally, good stuff is happening here. Manila is the only place I’ve been to, but I know there are DevCon’s happening elsewhere and there are other IT hubs in Cebu, for example.

I learned about Unsubscribe.com, from Fred Wilson’s recent post about how he works towards achieving Inbox Zero. I don’t use GMail as my main client, preferring to currently use Apple Mail after I ditched Thunderbird earlier this year. However, most of my email accounts are now based on GMail, thanks to the wonders of Google Apps for Domains.

Unsubscribe is exactly what I’ve been after. I get subscribed to a lot of mailing lists and instead of marking things as spam (sometimes in my MUA, sometimes on GMail), I’d rather just get off the mailing list so it does not clog up Google’s servers. Another problem is that my oldest email account is now fifteen years old, so it tends to get clogged up with quite a lot of crap.

Signing up was easy. Installing the plugin for Firefox was also easy. Hitting the limit of five email unsubscribes per month was dead easy! I had to quickly grab my credit card and get the limit lifted (if only they offered Paypal as an option).

I ended up using it in a mixed-mode environment. I tried to use it in the browser for some of my various Google Apps for Domains accounts. It worked a charm. Then I moved back to my MUA, and started forwarding emails to mail@unsubscribe.com. That too, worked a charm. One click (and one forward) unsubscribe is just too easy.

Considering I have too many email accounts and not all of them have GMail access, I had to write their support line a quick email. Within a few hours, they fixed my problem – they whitelisted all my email addresses, and if I need more, they’ll gladly whitelist more. They also told me that they’re working on an interface to allow users to add their own email addresses.

Service within a few hours. Absolutely love it. Can smell that they are a great startup to watch. Well worth the USD$19/year fee.

Update: In the 2 days that I’ve been using it, on day 1 I got off 78 mailing lists, and on day 2 another 51.

Nokia World 2010 is happening today, and I got to watch snippets of the keynote via their live stream. I saw the demo from Anssi Vanjoki where he played a video, in full HD on all their screens. He was especially proud it did not happen via a computer in the back – it was live via the Nokia N8. It comes with a HDMI port. Note that many laptops don’t even come with a HDMI out (yet). So this is revolutionary right?

So I quickly asked on Twitter: Do you really watch movies out of your smartphone? If you do, isn’t the use case on it, rather than output to a TV?

I got some interesting answers, and lots of points to discuss. First, how I might use my smartphone to watch a movie:

• Watching movies on my phone is something I envision doing when I commute. If I’m on a train or in a crowded LRT/MRT, I might whip out my phone and watch a movie. I might do this on a plane too, but the moment I get to a place with a TV its quite unlikely that I’d be interested in watching anything on my mobile phone.
• I should not forget about video podcasts – I subscribe to quite a lot of them, but I tend not to watch it on my mobile phones. I presume my usage might increase if I carried an iPhone (because my podcatcher of choice is iTunes), but the moment I could whip out my laptop or iPad, thats probably where I’d watch the video. Plus quality is an issue – HDMI out is great and all, but if the content is lacking (as most video podcasts are – you want to ensure you get quicker downloads), it’s not going to look pretty on a TV.
• I might want to watch videos I create on my mobile device. This is where it might shine – watching user generated content on the big screen. To be fair, the Nokia N8 includes a very basic video editor, and this might be where HDMI out might make sense.

Now, for the rather interesting answers.

Matt Armitage tells me that he watches movies and TV on his smartphone while he is at the gym. He usually does it via a video cable to the treadmill monitor. Furthermore he tells me that some treadmill monitors allow you to plug it in via an AV lead in, and others give you an iPod adapter (compatible with all iOS devices) and you can now use the touch screen interface on the treadmill. Advanced!

Carolyn Chan tells me that she watches Futurama on her iPhone. But when pressed if she would watch it on TV via her smartphone, she says no, largely because getting movies on the phone is already a painful experience, and poor battery life is not going to help the cause.

Asrial Baker and I had a rather interesting conversation. He watches full length movies on his smartphone, with proper earphones/headsets. Asrial does this on his long commutes, and he notes that others do it on buses and trains too. Asrial’s daily commute is probably over one hour but less than two hours, one way, everyday. He can get quite a bit done while he’s on the train. He goes further to tell me that its useful when you are at a hotel, and the hotel TV is not that entertaining, its best to have the N8 + HDMI out to enjoy your movies.

Now, I never thought of this use case. When I’m at a hotel, I’m usually beat from the day and I rarely have time to watch television, let alone a feature length film. But I do spend a lot of time at hotels, and recently during my vacation, I stayed in six hotels over 3+ weeks. I am writing this while in a hotel room.

Not all hotels have a HDMI input. Asrial says every hotel he’s been to had one. Thinking back, during those six visits, only 50% of the hotels had flat screen TVs. The rest were all CRT based, and would not have had any HDMI inputs. The one I’m in now, has 3 HDMI ports, but you’ve got to get to it via the TV. No chance of plugging your phone in to get it charged (otherwise, you’d have a flat battery in no time).

What you see above was taken in the Four Points by Sheraton in Kuching, Malaysia. That’s two power sockets, a 5 volt USB charger, computer VGA in, HDMI in, iPod in, and regular AV in. In recent times, I can only remember one other hotel that does this: Intercontinental Bangkok. What is common in hotels though is an iPod dock. This commonly connects to the TV as well, so you can enjoy music & videos from your iOS device.

David Lian tells me that the idea behind this is: everyone carries their personal content/media wherever they go. Of course, now which manufacturer/hotel ends up “getting it“?

On an airplane, for example a Singapore Airlines Airbus A380, you will get a USB port, an Ethernet port, and a video AV in port. No HDMI.

In conclusion, do you watch movies on your smartphone? How will you use HDMI out?

I will be in Manila, Philippines from September 13 – 17 2010. If you want to learn more about MariaDB, talk about MySQL, or just talk about open source in general, there are several opportunities for this:

• Y4iT 2010 (event is September 14-17): Thursday, September 16 2010, 1.50pm, the talk I will give is titled: MariaDB: The new M in LAMP. It was a popular attention grabber during OSCON, where we had a MariaDB booth, and this is a completely new talk, so should be fun to give in front of a huge audience.
• MySQL/MariaDB Meetup on September 16 2010, 4-6pm, at Bahay ng Alumni. This is a meetup, and will be informal, so good for Q&A. Manila doesn’t have a regular MySQL Meetup group, and we’re hoping to kick something off here. Much thanks to Rom Feria, who helped putting everyone together to have this organised!
• DevCon at Y4iT, September 15 2010, 4.30-7.30pm, there will be a lightning talk on MariaDB. These talks are not 5 minutes long, but 10 minutes.

If you’d like to meetup anytime during the week, don’t hesitate to drop me a message via email (colin[at]montyprogram[dot]com) or @reply me on Twitter – I’m @bytebot. I will have my mobile with me, so don’t hesitate to drop me an SMS if required.

MariaDB just released MariaDB 5.1.50. Linux, Solaris and Windows (32-bit) are supported. Go give it a twirl.

Its also worth noting that today when you go install Drupal, and check out the documentation for requirements, you’ll see that MariaDB is now a recommended option.

Via the new news page at Monty Program’s newly designed website, I also found out that MariaDB is now recommended in the documentation for the next release of the Zend Framework. See the changelog.