"The Great Samsung Mobile Sale" discount and trade-in promo starts today

Samsung Philippines is holding once again "The Great Samsung Mobile Sale" starting today, March 8 until April 14, 2013. They will be giving away once more great discounts and bundles to select entry level, mid-level and high-end handsets.

Sony PS4 beta test offers are fraud

It seems like fraud offers like these are on the rise, luring and gagging unsuspecting online users who will always step in to get something for free. And recently, these PS4 beta test offers have been circulating around, most notoriously on Facebook, asking users to like their Facebook page and share the post for a chance to get selected as PS4 beta testers and get the chance to keep the unit for themselves.

5 Best Android Power Saving Apps to Extend Your Device's Battery Life

Battery life is always a big issue in using smartphones, most notoriously Android. You're one lucky Android smartphone user if your device can last a day on normal use. There are many factors contributing to short battery life like weak battery, poor app management system, misbehaving apps, and so on.

Top 5 Microsoft Windows 8 Tablets

The PC market is fast shifting to tablets and Microsoft Windows 8 tablet market share is growing each day. And choosing the right tablet isn't necessarily easy. Selecting the best bang for the buck Windows tablet should answer some of the basic questions like what tablet features are best? What are the experts' pick among the growing choices available? But if you're keen on picking the best Windows 8 slate, we've rounded the best 5 of them. The top 5 Windows 8 tablet getting rave reviews all around are listed right after the jump.

Latest Mac OS X 10.6.2 Released

Calling all Mac users: Return to your Mac base station and hit Software Update, because the latest update for Snow Leopard Mac OS X 10.6.2 has been released by Apple. Get ready to download a large 499.9MB update (direct from Apple or via Software Update) which contains a considerable amount of bug fixes with the most notable fix of the big old scary guest user bug that threatened to delete your precious data.

Also released alongside this update are: 10.6.2 combo update, Mac OS X Server 10.6.2, Server combo update, and Security Update 2009-006 Client.



Check the update change log below to see what's up with the latest release. Yes, I know... you already hit the update button before reading this. Great!

General operating system fixes provided for:

• an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account


• an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly


• Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts


• the reliability of menu extras


• an issue in Dictionary when using Hebrew as the primary language


• shutter-click sound effect when taking a screenshot


• an issue with the four-finger swipe gesture


• an issue adding images to contacts in Address Book


• an issue in Front Row that could cause sluggish or slow frame rates while watching videos


• creation of mobile accounts for Active Directory users


• reliability and duration of VPN connections


• general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk


• overall improvements to VoiceOver performance


• this update addresses video playback and performance issues for iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009) and iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) computers that may occur in some situations while AirPort is turned on

Fonts fixes provided for:

• an issue with font spacing


• an issue in which some Fonts are missing


• font duplication issues


• an issue with some PostScript Type 1 fonts not working properly

Graphics fixes provided for:

• an issue when connecting monitors to DVI and Mini DisplayPort adapters


• an issue in which the brightness setting may not be remembered on restart


• addresses functionality with specific display models


• general reliability and performance improvements when using some applications

Mail fixes provided for:

• a situation in which Mail’s unread count may not update properly as messages are read on another computer


• an issue in which deleted RSS feeds may return


• an issue in which Mail cannot preview or Quick Look attachments when composing a new message


• an issue that can cause Address Book and/or Mail to stop responding when opened


• an issue in which email messages received from an Exchange Server are not formatted correctly


• an issue in which Mail reports “Account exceeded bandwidth limits” for some Gmail accounts

MobileMe fixes provided for:

• performance when accessing files from iDisk via the Finder and syncing iDisk files


• an issue in which syncing iDisk files does not proceed beyond “checking items”


• reliability and performance when syncing contacts, calendars, and bookmarks with MobileMe (syncing with iTunes and iSync are also improved)


• an issue that prevents some users from logging into MobileMe via the MobileMe System Preference pane

Network file systems fixes provided for:

• compatibility with third-party AFP servers


• file synchronization for portable home directories

Printing and faxing fixes provided for:

• automatic printer updates improvements


• Print dialog allowing you to enter and send to more than one fax recipient

Safari fixes provided for:

• a graphics distortion issue in Safari Top Sites


• Safari plug-in reliability

8 Things About Windows 8

Looking ahead past Windows 7. Techradar reported that Microsoft has started working on Windows 8.



With Windows 7 now out of the door, it's about time to hype up another Windows successor. So here goes 8 things you need to know about Windows 8, another one from techradar.

1. Windows 8 release date is late 2011 or early 2012

That's 2-3 years after Windows 7; leaving aside the aberration of Vista, that's the typical time between Windows releases and it matches up with the 2012 dates mentioned on leaked Windows Server timelines.

While Windows President Steven Sinofsky says he doesn't want to "underpromise and over-deliver" for Windows, it's likely that Microsoft will announce the later date and ship on the earlier one.

2. Everything we know comes from job ads and profiles - so we don't know much

It's impossible to say what will and won't be in Windows 8 at this stage because no-one knows; not even the Windows team.

The broad scenarios for Windows have been decided and all features will have to fit into one of those scenarios but the feature list isn't set. The final list of features will be locked down late in 2010, which is when we'll see the first public beta – and the first official details.

Remember that internally Microsoft uses 'Windows 8' to cover the server and desktop operating systems and many of the features gleaned from job adverts are server features like Distributed File System Replication (DFSR) storage technology and the File Server role.

If the rumoured 128-bit support is true, then it's 128-bit registers for processing data in Itanium servers.

3. Hibernate and resume will have a new engine

According to the profile of an intern on the Windows team, there's going to be a new Hibernate/Resume Integration API using what he calls "the new TLZ file compression engine". That could mean even faster hibernation and resume times – if it makes it into the final code.

4. Windows 8 will have new networking and security features

Another intern reports working on "new networking features"; that tells us about as much as the profile of the Software Security Engineer who's working on "Windows 8 security".

Changes in network security, authentication and encryption detailed in a Software Design Engineer's profile are again probably related to Windows Server. Another online resume mentions a possible "follow-on" to the PatchGuard system that stops viruses changing system files that was delayed from Windows 7.

5. Seadragon? Maybe

The team behind SeaDragon and the Deep Zoom feature in Silverlight is recruiting a Lead Developer but the ad only says they "want to take it" to Windows 8 (as well as Windows Mobile 7, XNA for Xbox and WPF for Vista and Windows 7).

6. Windows 8 will have better multimonitor support

Steven Sinofsky has already said there wasn't time to do more work on the user interface with multiple monitors but that it's on the list for Windows 8, not least because "we all use it at Microsoft". Expect scenarios for handling three or more screens, in various arrangements.

7. Windows 8 might run on ARM

Or at least the Windows kernel might run on the ARM and Qualcomm Snapdragon chips found inside smartphones, possibly using a hypervisor. That might not mean the full version of Windows 8 but it would enable a future mobile version of Windows that could run on much lower spec systems than current PCs.

8. Steven Sinofsky is in charge of it

This is both good – he was responsible for getting Windows 7 out on time and working well – and potentially very bad. Sinofsky's expertise is execution rather than vision and for Windows 8 that could mean a pedestrian set of improvements rather than anything potentially game changing.

Windows 7 is more than Vista done right, but it is an excellent execution of the Vista architecture changes. With Windows 7 to compete against, Windows 8 will need to be a lot more exciting than that.

Nokia N97 firmware update (11.0.021) now available

As speculated, the latest firmware release on Nokia's flagship handset N97 is now available. In such little time has gone by and so much has been written about the Nokia N97. Both good and bad. But looks like this new firmware update 11.0.021 will have some solid bug fixes and a few new additions in place on your shiny new Nokia N97. The firmware should be available in most regions and if you can’t get it OTA, fire up Nokia Software Updater and give it a go. As for what you can expect from this release, changelog for the new N97 firmware update 11.0.021 are listed below:

* USB detection error fix
* PC does not detect N97 or USB charging connection not detected.
* Widget
* Home screen online/offline widget crash fix
* Fix for “Alphabetical and Number input are mixed in facebook until end key is pressed.
* Widget UI improvement - New facebook widget fixes a problem of Home Screen background visible on soft-key area.
* Browser fixes to improve widgets stability.
* MfE related fixes
* Partial fix for Messaging/calendar entry lost.
* Mail for exchange calendar entry synchronization error fix.
* UI transition error fixes (Portrait <-> landscape transition, there is a home screen corruption.)
* UI transition (Slowness and bad effects)
* Slow Touch UI response
* Picture of the device lock appears half of the screen when transitioning the UI sometimes
* Landscape: in some cases the soft buttons on touch (right hand) show the Home Screen in background (install maps.google.com)
* Photos thumbnail performance and stability improvements
* Device performance deteriorates when lots of content in the device - especially photos
* Partial fix no display backlight illumination when unlocking lock-key - CAP Genius reported already
* New version of Accueweather to improve the “Connection error” situation
* Device reset when browsing with high speed packet access (for Malaysia)
* “Browser soft key UI doesn’t work after putting Chinese character with qwerty keyboard”
* Java fixes (TCK, Pre-install app disappearing, *#7370#*)
* Operator fixes (CMCC, Hutchson and Telefonica, Vodafone)
* Ovi store client now embedded in the core image




The N96 was updated today as well to 30.033.