Ever since my girlfriend showed me her brother’s wireless mouse, I wanted to buy one for my self! I was drooling over the “Wow! No wires!” factor of the little thing. Quite frankly, it was also my first time to see one in action! I’ve been meaning to replace the mouse I am currently using which is, a.) not an optical mouse, b.) not a wireless mouse either and c.) It’s not even mine! (it’s rb’s!)

I also wanted to use my… er… rb’s old mouse at work ever since the company I am currently employed gave me a laptop for office use. I have been using the stupid touchpad which is as fun as eating soup with a fork. So I requested for a mouse, even a sucky one at that and fortunately, they gave me one. I am not quite happy with it though because it’s small and uncomfortable to use and rb’s mouse is really comfortable and I want to use it at work to reduce stress and all.

Thus the mouse hunt began! I started my hunt in SM Baguio and only on SM Baguio because they have shops that accept credit cards for payment. There are shops outside SM Baguio of course, unfortunately they don’t accept credit cards. I only found 2 shops that sells what I am hunting for, Octagon and Gigahertz. The first one offers a modest variety (overstatement) of wireless mouse than the latter one (Octagon with 4 models and Gigahertz at only 2).

I saw two models with a price tag of PHP750 and PHP850. I could buy that since it’s cheap and it’s the exact type of mouse my girlfriend’s brother have and… well… it’s cheap! But the plastic also looks cheap and I fear I may break it just by sneezing on it.

I decided not to get the cheap one so I checked the other one’s and they are shiny, cool looking and the size ain’t so bad and brand is Logitech.

Unforunately, they only have 2 models, one is Logitech models V320 and V470.

Here’s what they looked like:

Logitech v320

Logitech v470

V470 is out of the question because it doesn’t have a bluetooth receptor so probably you need to have a bluetooth transreceiver built in into your notebook (or desktop) in order to use it. It eliminates the possibly of it being useful in any notebooks or desktops the doesn’t have a bluetooth connection so I have no choice but to get the V320 model.

Before buying the sweet little thing, I wanted to check the prices on the internet, mostly in Villman’s website for comparison and was surprised by the difference of the price.

At Villman, the price for a V320 is only 1795 pesos and for the V470, 2095 pesos while in Octagon Baguio, it costs 2395 pesos for the V320 and 3250 pesos for the V470 model. The difference in price is really huge! I checked on Amazon.com for the prices of the mice. V320 which cost around 1780 pesos ($30.50 + $9.00 shippng). The list price is 2205 pesos ($39.99 + $9.00 international shipping). For the V470, it costs 2350 pesos ($42.24 + $9.00 shipping) with a list price of 3000 pesos ($57.40 list price + $9.00 international shipping).

I don’t know why they won’t lower their prices despite their price tag on the items looks really old and dusty and looks like it’s on their shelf for more than a year. I wished they’d lower their prices to match the current prices. This is exactly what would happen if there are no shops that could challenge their prices. The other shops only carry 1 brand of wireless mouse and it’s A4Tech. A4Tech is great and all but the designs are not that sleek and not as sexy as compared to Logitech’s designs. I just love monopoly!

Cd-r king should open a shop here in Baguio and wreak havok among the other shops. I am actually interested in opening up a franchise and even went as far as contacting them. I did get in touch with them but they don’t seem to be open for franchising. Too bad, the market here in Baguio would be great even my boss buys our accessories in Cd-r king and there are plenty of internet cafes, IT firms and call centers could benefit from their low price.

I’ve finally found out what kind of spider that lives in my apartment. It’s called a Brown Huntsman Spider (Heteropoda venatoria). I really didn’t research on it. I just read it in a book about keeping tarantulas as a pet while waiting for Resie at the National Bookstore. There is this part in the book about tarantula look alikes and I saw one look-alike on the book that matches the one in my apartment. So I did a little bit or research to verify this, and when I say little, I just visited Wikipedia about it.

I know that seeing a spider this big (with a legspan of 5-6 inches) will really give you a scare. but is it dangerous? The answer is: NO! Here’s what Wikipedia says:

“In general, Huntsman spiders are not regarded as dangerous, and can be considered beneficial because they feed on insects (Many Australians will relocate Huntsmen to the garden rather than kill them).”

“Brown huntsmen are welcomed in many homes as they feed on pests such as cockroaches and silverfish.”

So I just let those spiders go around the apartment and surprisingly, there aren’t any roaches and other crawling insects. Hopefully this information would be helpful in case you see one and let it live an eat roaches instead of kill it for it’s horrendous look.

By the way, one brown huntsman spider lurks in my girlfriends house. It actually tried to bit me when I poked it. Hahaha! There are no roaches in my apartment. Don’t kill it, it’s a natural anti-roach.

Three weeks ago, my girlfriend Resie showed to me a phone model that I can use as a substitute for my 3rd gen iPod because I wanted to buy a new mp3 player. My dad bought me that iPod 4 years ago and it’s battery life today decreased from 6-8 hours of play time to 3-4 hours. The phone she showed me is a Nokia cellphone being displayed on one of the cellphone retailers along Session. I really liked it because not only is it thin, it is also a Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, meaning it has dedicated buttons for mp3 playback. Another feature I liked on that phone is that it has a 2.0 megapixels for a camera, built-in radio and the best thing is that there are 2 colors of which I can choose from, blue and red. So we asked for the price and it costs PHP 4000! I immediately texted my dad to buy me that phone since it’s so cheap, it won’t hurt my dad’s pocket.

Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Colors
 
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Who doesn’t want to have chance to win a laptop computer? And look! The ad is in tagalog! They must be serious!
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Yup! That’s right! They are giving away their Photoshop book for free! I don’t know why. I just received in from my email. I don’t know why! The odd thing is, they emailed me that information from my alternative email account, not the email I used to buy “Principles of a Beautiful Web Design”. Anyway, catch it know!

http://www.sitepoint.com/launch/f948f3

*Note: I still haven’t received my email where the link to download is there. Probably their networks are jammed.

Yes, the official availability of Apple’s iPhone will be available this year by Globe Telecoms. It will be released locally by Globe around September.

According to Globe Telecom’s website, they have signed an agreement with Apple to officially bring the iPhone here in the Philippines.

Unofficial iPhones have already reached the shores of the Philippines. They cost around PHP30,000 - PHP35,000. Even if they are available here in the Philippines, I’d rather buy an official version to avoid the hassle of unlocking, hacking and other stuff that may brick an iPhone.

Sources:
Inquirer.net - Globe Telecom to carry iPhone in RP
PinoyMoneyTalk.com - Where to buy cheap Apple iPhone in the Philippines

You think you have a bad credit card issue? The U.S. Secretary of Defense has a bigger one!

Secretary Of Defense Humiliated As U.S. Credit Card Rejected

I received a newsletter from MSN Health. Here’s a comparison of fast food places where some foods are healthier done others.

Breakfast Sandwich

Eat This:

McDonald’s Egg McMuffin
300 calories
12 g fat

Not That:

Starbucks Classic Sausage, Egg & Aged Cheddar Breakfast Sandwich
460 calories
25 g fat

Save 160 calories and 13 grams of fat!

In the nutritional hierarchy of breakfast breads, English muffins beat bagels and croissants every time. As for meats, bacon tops sausage, and ham trounces them both. Replace the sausage with ham and you could save up to 500 calories a week from breakfasts alone. Case in point: Starbucks has a ham version of this sandwich that weighs in at 380 calories. Read the rest of this entry »