Alcatel OT-C825..not bad.

I was in the market for a mobile phone so I browsed around some shops here in the locality. I was hoping to get a Motorola RAZR phone (unlike the general population, I am not a Nokia fan).

However, when I was about to ask the sales person for their Motorola RAZR phone I saw this phone with a chrome casing and leather effect frontage, it has a cool vintage look. I was thinking..okay..I'll look at his phone for a while...never did I thought that I will not be looking at another phone.

The mobile phone was a "star" product in Alcatel's 2007 collection, the smokey brown OT-C825 is packed full of features including a built in MP3 player, 1.3 Megapixel camera, video recording and webcam function. A tri-band phone (GSM triband 900 / 1800 / 1900) and at 99 grams-- a real lightweight! Although it's not a 3G phone it has GPRS and is Bluetooth capable.

It's a slider phone that have dedicated music keys allowing the user to instantly play music with a touch of a button.

It can also play MP4 and 3GP video formats, and since it supports external memory of up to 2GB you can store hundreds of MP3 files and videos.

What's more, its price is way affordable than the RAZR!

I thought it was a good deal so instead of a RAZR, I ended up bringing home an Alcatel OT-C825 phone plus a few thousand pesos of savings.

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How simple is it to install an internet camera?

Recently I have client project which involves the installation of an internet based camera (IP Camera). He wanted me to set up the camera to his shop so that he can remotely monitor it from home or from wherever. Honestly, it took me quite a while to set it up but with a few trial and error and lots of perseverance, I was able to have it up and running (or shooting?).

For this system to work you need the following set up:

1. Internet Connection (at least 256 kb/s upload speed)
   
2. At least one personal computer
   
3. broadband router
   
4. IP Camera
   
5. CAT5 Cables
   

The IP camera I used was an Edimax IP Camera Model IC-1500. It’s a pretty decent camera. Aside from the fact that you can view the camera remotely via streaming video anywhere through Internet Explorer, it has the following features:

• It supports Motion JPEG Images Compression
  
• Supports Motion Detection and sends the snapshot of events
  
• Records Video Clips on a Predetermined Schedule
  
• Supports DDNS and UPnP (although I experience some issues with this)
  

For the router, I got a DLINK 4 port broadband router.

The set up was quite straight forward:

1. Read the accompanying manual of your camera and router.
   
2. Connect the router to your DSL modem
   
3. Connect the PC to the router
   
4. Install the camera in the most strategic place (Note: the camera I got needs an external power source so you may want to plan ahead regarding where to plug it. Some cameras have “Power over Ethernet” features. This is cool feature since the camera is powered by the same cable connection you used to connect it to your network).
   
5. Install the camera software in your computer.
   
6. Access the web page of your broadband router (normally, its http://192.168.0.1) via your web browser.
   
7. In your router web page, forward the ports of your IP camera (typically its 80 for the web port and 4321 for the video port).
   
8. Run the camera software and if there are no other problems then you’re done!
   

I won’t talk about the actual step by step procedure since this pretty much covered by the products manual (see step 1). Now having accomplished the above task, I can view my camera over the local area network.

I have one SIMPLE problem though: I can’t view it over the internet!
After reading and re-reading the manuals, browsing hundreds of sites over the internet, contacting the product customer support...I finally figured it out.
The solution is with the ISP! My client’s internet connection is under a dynamic IP set up. For the camera to work all I need to do is to have my client’s ISP to issue a static IP address to our internet connection. One phone call and a day after, my client is now contentedly viewing a streaming video of his shop from his home 10kms away.

My Digital Life Anywhere Without the Laptop

About a year ago I was surfing the world wide web when I came upon this website that offers an amazing piece of software collection that redefined my computing experience-- Portable Applications . Portable Applications let you carry your favorite application programs and your personal settings in your USB. You can then plug your USB in any computer with Windows platform and run them from there. Best of all most of these programs are free!

Now that I don't have a laptop, being able to carry my files from my home pc from my work computer (I used to be a center manager for a IT Training School) and having all my tools and utilities in my person has been a time saver!
Here is a list of portable apps that I have on my 2GB USB Flash Disk:

1. 7-zip portable
   
2. AutoRunINf Application
   
3. Capture
   
4. ClamWin Portable
   
5. ColorPic
   
6. Command Line Portable
   
7. Converber
   
8. EssentialPIM
   
9. Filezilla Portable
   
10. FireFox Portable
    
11. FoxIt reader
    
12. GAIM Portable
    
13. GIMP Portable
14. HoverSnap
15. IDD
16. Image<--> Icon Converter
17. KeePass Portable
18. LavaSoft Ad Aware
19. NotePad++ Portable
20. Notezilla
21. OpenOffice Suite
22. Opera Portable
23. Password Generator
24. Portable Sword Project (Online Bible)
25. Scribus
26. Thunderbird Portable
27. TrueCrypt
28. VLC Media Player
29. WinHTTrack Website Copier
30. wxdFast
31. YBDict Dictionary
    

Try visiting this site to get you started with portable applications. Believe me its worth it!