Apple 12 days of Gifts 2013

12 days of Gifts is a mobile app from Apple, it notify you free gifts everyday since 26 December 2013 to 6 Jan 2013. The free gifts could be an app or iTunes songs. You still can download the free gifts without the app, the app just to help you to get the free gifts much easier.

The first day gift is Justin Timberlake's live performance album.

How to get it? You need iOS 7, download 12 days of Gifts from iTunes app store, is free. The app will notify you a new gift everyday, enjoy yourself till 6 Jan 2014.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2014!

Maxis Hotlink Free Internet Prepaid 2013

This is quite an innovative plan for free mobile Internet.

Hotlink is Maxis prepaid. It came out with a new prepaid with free Internet. How can it be free? You can not surf in full speed, only at 64kbps. What you can do with 64kbps? Whatsapp, WeChat, facebook etc. There are review saying that Waze can be used as well, but I have to try out the speed performance. (Note: You can subscribe to unlimited Waze for RM1 per day)

You still need to top up the prepaid card, but there is a 50 days of de-active period that you still can use the Internet surfing.

Active and de-active period. After you top up, is the active period. Active period depends on how much you top up, example RM5 active for 5 days. After active period end, you can receive call and sms, but not call out or sending sms, this will be the de-active period. This Hotlink free Internet has a 50 days of de-active period, you can not send SMS, but you are still able to access to Internet. That means you can send Whatsapp with these 50 days without top up.

 [ Top up | -- active period -- | -- de-active period (50days) -- | card expired ]

To prevent the card from expired, you have to top up before de-active period end. Once the card expired, you can not top up anymore. During de-active period, your balance will be freeze, but it will be carry forward to the next top up.

Cost for free mobile Internet. Ideally with 5 active and 50 de-active period, you only need to top up 7 (365/55) times x RM5 per year. Which cost RM35 per annual for 365 days free surfing. The RM35 will still stay in the account balance. Compare with Super Long Life 365 and Validity 365. These are long validity period which cost about RM30 a year. The Hotlink free basic Internet doesn't sounds that bad.

Auto top up. Most people will forgotten to top up every 55 days (so do I). You can subscribe a monthly auto top up, check the detail here.

Subscribe full speed Internet plan. What do you do will all these balance? You still can subscribe to a full speed data plan like RM2 for 100Mb Daily (not auto renew), detail check here. This package is for light users who want to save money but still want to access Internet.

How to get it? You can purchase the new card or existing Hotlink users can change their current plan to this Free Internet Plan. Hotlink Extra/Basic/SMS/Talk Plan/ Hotlink 2.0 & 3.0 can change to Free Internet Plan, excepts Hotlink Youth Club, Hotlink Campus Edition, Hotlink Broadband, Hotlink Sabah/Sarawak/Terengganu/Kelantan Plan. (Wow! I didn't notice there are so many Hotlink)

The key will be the 64kbps. Will 64kbps enough for Whatsapp and facebook? I will let you all know if I have the change to try out.

How to share location and pick up with Waze 2013 December

Waze is a GPS navigation software available on iPhone iOS and Android system. Waze just updated their mobile apps with a new interface, which looks cleaner and easier to access.

Remember to turn off (menu lower right button) before exit

Starts with very simple 4 buttons menu:

1. Navigate to target location.

2. Setting, foursquare check-in etc.

3. Send ETA, share location.

4. Inbox

Note:
Turn off Waze before exit on the menu power button.

Tutorial. This simple tutorial just shows you how to share your location or request a location of a pick up point.

Share location. There are a few ways to share location with Waze.

1. From (any point on) the Waze map, press and hold on the location (for sharing) until a marker pop up. Click info icon, then the "More" icon at the bottom, Send a Location. You can share the location with mobile text or email. The share url will be something like this http://waze.to/hw753xdwhx.

1. point the location to share

2. Click more, Send a Location.

2. Share my current location (or destination). Click the lower left button, menu pop up. Choose Send ETA > Send a location > My location (or My Destination).

To pick up someone. Send a pick up request, once the other side authorize your pick up, you will be notified. To send a pick up request, swipe the lower left button to the right, click "Send location request".

Send ETA. While you driving to the pick up, you can send ETA, the receiver can track you on the road, estimate when you will be arrived. The tracking will off after you turn off Waze, or you can turn off manually by a simple 2 clicks action.

To send ETA, click the lower left button, a menu pop up, click Send ETA (refer to the picture below), Share Drive, with mobile text or email.

Turn off ETA following. When someone following your ETA, the Waze menu button turn yellow color. Number showing followers who is following your ETA now.

iOS Waze 3.7.7 shows ETA following

To terminate following just click on the red button above Stop Nav will do.

Digi Super Long Life 365 2013

Super Long Life 365 package cost RM30 (as for now) to validate you number for 365 days. The RM30 will be deducted from the balance and will not converted to talk time.

Digi prepaid has 3 choices, best, easy and smart. Best for call, easy for internet, smart for both.

The confusion part is there are 2 best plan. One is the old DiGi Best Prepaid Hit RM1, another 1 is New Digi Best Prepaid.

The new Digi best prepaid is take effect on December 2012.

To check current plan:
*128*1*4#
"DiGi Best Prepaid Hit RM1" (old)
"New DiGi Best Prepaid" (new)
(There may be some older prepaid package, but I have no idea what will be the package name)

Check is super long life 365 is available for you: *128*1*7#, reply 3 (Super Long Life):
1 RM5 (30 days)
2 RM30 (365 days)

The super long life 365 is not with the DiGi Best Prepaid Hit RM1 anymore, you must upgrade to "New DiGi Best Prepaid" to enjoy the service.

How to subscribe after switch to New DiGi Best Prepaid?
To activate DiGi Super Long Life via *128#:
Step 1: You must have at least RM35 in your account. (*126# check balance)
Step 2: Dial *128# and then press call.
Step 3: Reply 1 for My Account.
Step 4: Reply 7 for Talktime Services.
(You can use the shortcut code to dial, but since the menu may change, You might choose the wrong option)
Step 5: Reply 3 for Super Long Life.
Step 6: Reply 2 for Super Long Life RM30 (365 days).
* In 2012. There was only 1 option. Reply 1 for Super Long Life 365.
Step 7: Press 1 to confirm that you have selected RM30.00 with 365 days validity.

Backup mobile phone data

I heard 2 cases of phone lost recently. One backup the data, the other one just lost the precious photos on the phone. I always remind my friends:

Backup your data on the mobile phone!

Backup everything
How? The easiest way is backup everything with the desktop software. For iPhone you can sync all the data to iTunes software. I suggest do it everyday, just connect your iPhone to the desktop PC iTunes software, click the sync button. At the same time it will charge your phone.

Even old Nokia phones has Nokia PC Suite, or the later version call Nokia OVI Suite (or Nokia Suite). Sony Ericsson has a PC Suite, as well as Android. I have not used the Android PC Suite before.

I bet most normal users who doesn't know how to backup the mobile phone data, do not use any software that I mention above. I suggest to backup to the Internet cloud, I will show you how.

I just choose to backup contact list and photos as an example.

1. Contact (or address book). Link your contact to the Internet, for example Gmail contact. Android is Google friendly, it should automatically sync to Gmail contact.

iPhone contact to Gmail
Connect to gmail using CardDAV. Google has a support page on how iOS sync gmail contact. Different version of iOS may have some minor different in configuration.

iPhone > Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account... >

Choose any prefer service

Choose an account and follow step by step will do.

Then set Contacts default account to Gmail or the service name you set above (not On My iPhone), so all your new added contact info goes into cloud service and not on local iPhone.

iPhone > Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars >

Set default account to Gmail.

2a. Photos to Dropbox. Most users (include Android and iPhone users) should be able to sync photos to Dropbox. You must have a Dropbox account (free register) and you need to connect your phone to a desktop (or notebook to do that).

(iPhone users can turn on iCloud sync in step 2b. You don't need a PC to do that.)

Once you have installed the Dropbox software, connect the phone to the desktop. A screen will display, just click import will do. Select auto import, so your photos will be sync to Dropbox automatically the next time you connect the phone.

2b. iPhone iOS sync to iCloud. You need iOS 5 or later. iOS will sync your photo stream to iCloud automatically when you connect to Wifi.

iPhone > Settings > iCloud > Photo Stream > (set On)

Once activate, you can check your iCloud photo stream from iPhone > Photos > (Photo Stream button at the bottom)

This is just a very brief guide to back up your phone data. Hope it helps you.