Cut the Rope is one of my favourite games on the iPhone. Its a puzzle game where candy is tied on strings and you will have to manipulate and cut the strings to feed a green blob called "Om Nom". Apparently it has been downloaded over 60 MILLION times to date!

The great news today is that, instead of paying $0.99 (approx RM3~) at the AppStore (US link), you can now get it for FREE on PCs with Internet Explorer 9 installed.

Now I know that many people especially designers and web developers, may cringe at the mention of IE but as I wrote during the launch of IE9 beta back in Oct 2010, Microsoft has overhauled IE9 from the ground up and integrated it beautifully with Win 7.

Cut The Rope is playable directly from the web at www.cuttherope.ie, showcases the advanced and powerful HTML5 capabilities of Microsoft’s latest and most powerful web browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9).

ZeptoLab, the creators of Cut the Rope, collaborated with technology specialists at Pixel Lab and with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Team, to deliver the game to online audiences with HTML5 technology and JavaScript. The developers discussed their technical approach to this project, and the challenges that they faced, in a short blog post including a video interview, which can be found at www.cuttherope.ie/dev/.

Eighteen (18) levels of the game are playable with most modern web browsers but seven (7) bonus levels are available exclusively to users who pin the game to their Windows taskbar with IE9.

Gamers that pin Cut the Rope to their Windows 7 taskbar, will find that IE9 takes on the look and feel of the game and unlocks unique levels not found in any previous versions of Cut the Rope. For further improvements, with the hardware acceleration enabled in IE9 and Windows 7, the game looks and feels just as rich and immersive as developers intended the game to be. This is the first of many games that Microsoft’s will be bringing to the web via IE9. Hot gaming titles such as Pirates Love Daisies, Disney’s Tron, and The World’s Biggest Pacman are all currently in the pipeline toward release with Windows 7 and IE9.

Microsoft’s IE9 can be downloaded at www.beautyoftheweb.com.

I’ve been blessed in 2011 to have travelled to many places throughout the year – Kota Kinabalu, Singapore, Penang, Hong Kong for a work trip, Malacca for my birthday trip and most recently, my first Euro trip to Venice, Rome and London.

The hustle and bustle of the Hong Kong streets

As a “seasoned traveller”, my habit is to usually research on the best prepaid multisim telco provider in the destination I was planning to travel. Now there are two problems with that :

1. I will not be able to receive incoming calls/texts to my Malaysia number (because I’ve swapped out the simcard).
2. But, if I don’t get a local sim, then I’m faced with a second problem, the ROAMING CHARGES!

When I was in Hong Kong, I bought a local sim for my personal number but I still had to use my work number and keep it active. And of course, it being a weekday, I received calls from clients and the office regarding work. Calls which I had to keep short and sweet.

The damage?

Yes, RM18.90 for 4 MINUTES of calls. That amounts to RM4.61/minute! How crazy is that? Not to mention that the credit limit you set on your phone bill is not applicable when you’re overseas? That means that you will continue racking up bills even though your credit limit is say, RM100. (Note: this applies to Maxis as of May 2011. I’m not sure if its still the case at the time you’re reading this or for other telcos).

Well unluckily for me (coz I found out too late), but luckily for you, there’s a service to solve that problem!

FlexiRoam (www.flexiroam.com) is a service that allows you to receive and make unlimited amount of calls to Malaysia without changing to a new international mobile number.

While you are overseas, calls made to your Malaysian mobile number will be forwarded by FlexiRoam to your foreign mobile SIM card which you can purchase locally at your destination country. This means Malaysian users do not need to inform their contacts of any new international mobile numbers.

Also, unlike services like Skype and the like *coughyeslifecough*, FlexiRoam does NOT require internet access, but leverages on the GSM network and is available in more than 200 countries such as China, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong (!), Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, United Kingdom and India.

And how much is this service? A mere RM10 a DAY for UNLIMITED incoming/outgoing calls!

(Can you tell how unfortunate I feel for paying RM18 for 4 friggin minutes?)

Signing up is FREE! Which means you can sign up, login and explore what FlexiRoam has to offer before committing some moolah. They also have helpful tips on the countries you are travelling to, for instance, did you know that Prepaid SIMs are not widely avaiable in Japan? Yea, I read that from their FAQ.

Also their service is quite flexible based on where and when you are travelling, you can buy passes for the whole duration of your travel, or just 1-2 days when you need it.

Updates: Flexiroam is now available for Singaporean users for SGD10 per day!

======GIVEAWAY======

Now the best part!

FlexiRoam has generously offered to giveaway 10 x RM50 FlexiRoam credit to you, my dear readers. That’s FIVE whole days of unlimited calling while overseas! Call your loved ones while you’re away, call your best friends to make them jealous, call your clients to settle work, call your hotel to make arrangements, call whomever you want.

Good luck!

If you’re like me, Hotmail was the first real email address you had. It was the coolest thing to see your nickname and getting really excited if and when someone emailed you. Hotmail launched in 1995 and was one of the first free email service.

Over the years, unfortunately, Hotmail started to lose its luster, especially with a whole lot of new free email providers cropping up like mushroom. Hotmail with its clunky design and lack of features (2MB space only!) got left behind.

From left : (i) The small crowd of techies & bloggers
(ii) Unsubscribing from a newsletter with a dropdown menu within Hotmail.

Fast forward to 2011 and Hotmail is still (surprisingly) the largest free email service in the planet with 360 MILLION unique users per month who receive 9 billion and send 300 million emails Every Day! And in celebration of its 15th year, Hotmail is ready to unveil new features! These new features offer improvements in the vital areas of spam filtering (which is a big issue for Hotmail users), performance, storage and mobile compatibility.

“We’ve all used Hotmail at one point in time and we loved it for its features and simplicity. Things are a bit more complicated today. People want more than just an email address. Users want huge storage space, seamless integration with instant messaging and contact management as well as easy access across all mobile devices.

With our latest Hotmail release, we are bringing all this and more to our users. Hotmail has come along way since its humble beginnings. It is now more feature rich, more integrated and more secure than ever before. It’s the perfect time to fall in love again with Hotmail, “ said Barrie Ooi, Head of Windows Live, Asia Pacific.

From left : (i) Attached photos will be automatically presented in a album format
(ii) Hotmail is coming to Mobile. In fact I think the Android one is launching later today!

Last night, I was invited as part of a select group of bloggers who were given a sneak preview of the new features launching today (press release was embargoed till 6am this morning) by Microsoft. Barrie, quoted above walked us through some of the exciting things coming to Hotmail in the next few weeks.

The new features include:

• Smart Newsletter Filtering which allows users to highlight and delete newsletters with a single click or unsubscribe completely.
• Categories and advanced folder management that allow users to choose to categorize their messages in the inbox as opposed to having to file them in separate folders.
• Scheduled cleanup allows you to automatically get red of emails of a certain age sweeping away old newsletter and out-of-date offers. You can also now keep only the last message from the sender.
• Flags done right that position your priority messages right at the top of your inbox. No more having to mark messages as unread or email them back to yourself to keep them at the top of your mind.
• Instant Actions are buttons that appear when your mouse hovers over a message allowing you to delete, flag, sweep, etc messages with one click. Users can also customize their UI by adding and removing buttons based on the tasks they use the most.

One of my favourite new feature is the Sweep function. The sweep function lets you select a bunch of emails then proceed to setup rules or filters on how these emails should be have (get deleted, move to a folder, etc). This will be really convenient for people who have tons of email.

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Hotmail has always been (unfortunately) associated with spam and they know it. In fact, they found out that 35% of your inbox is made up of spam. That’s more than 1/4 ! Thus, they have implemented a SmartScreen filter (made up of humans reporting spam and a computer algorithm) and managed to cut down the spam to ONLY 3% currently. In fact you can see the sharp dip in the left image below.

Another interesting fact is that Hotmail servers has the storage capacity of 140 Petabyte! 140 petabyte =1400 terrabyte = 1400000 gigabyte! Not only that, they are continuously increasing 10% every month (or was it week? I forgot.) That’s how Hotmail can give you virtually unlimited storage. Best part is, you can send attachments of up to 100MB – compared to the usual 10MB!

After a scrumptious dinner at Apartment, KLCC and an interesting demo and discussion with Barrie, we were given instructions not to announce anything until the press conference with media today. We were also given some Windows Live goodies. I also won a set of Windows Live plushies! Don’t they look cute?

So what do you think? I think Hotmail’s new features looks very useful and this puts them back in the running with the other big email giants like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. Was Hotmail your first email too?

Microsoft made (tech) news last week when Joe Marini, program manager for Windows Phone at Microsoft was fired for tweeting “I just got a chance to try out one of the slickest looking #Nokia phones I have ever seen. Soon, you will too! #wp7.” While this was against company policy, I believe that it excited many a Nokia fan about the great possibilities of the Nokia-Microsoft partnership.

I’ve played with a Windows Phone 7 device and I must say that the interface is pretty slick. Also having everything online “in the cloud” is something I quite like. I know some people are less trusting of that, but I really like the convenience of having everything on the go.

And now, the much talked about Windows Phone 7.5 (codenamed “Mango”) is rolling out all over the world starting today.

“Windows Phone 7 broke new ground when it was first announced last year. We brought innovation to mobile platforms and delivered a refreshing smartphone experience that puts people first. Windows Phone is unlike anything the market has to offer. With Windows Phone 7.5, we’re taking this innovation a step further to offer an immersive and rich social experience that is sophisticated, intuitive and a joy to use.” said Danny Ong, Chief Marketing and Operations Officer, Microsoft Malaysia.

The Windows Phone 7.5 update offers innovative features like built-in group chat and deep integration with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, along with smarter access to applications, and a sophisticated web browsing experience that delivers a fast and beautiful web pages with Internet Explorer 9.

I couldn’t find an official video online but this page has some interesting videos about the new features in Windows Phone 7.5 (all images in this post is also obtained from that page). Some additional features :

Modern Communication Built In
Putting people first is the overarching theme behind Windows Phone 7.5. The latest Windows Phone update has essential social networking features built into the platform, making sharing important and special moments with loved ones and friends intuitive and easy. Through the unique People feature, users can now be more connected to friends, family and loved ones with a one touch access to Windows Live, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Another innovative feature in Windows Phone 7.5 is Groups, where users may group their favourite contacts and pin them to the Start screen in order to get live updates, from text, email and IM at a glance without the need to open any application. Facebook chat, Messenger, check-ins and photo tagging are also built into Windows Phone 7.5 to provide users with a more connected experience.

In addition, Windows Phone 7.5 also features Internet Sharing for users to keep their various devices connected anywhere, anytime, offering users a seamless and continuous rich browsing experience across platforms and devices.

A Smarter Way to App
Apps are key to a smartphone experience, Windows Phone 7.5 takes this part of the user experience a step further. Apps pinned to the Start screen will be able to showcase live updates and allow users to be updated on the latest with just a single glance. The built-in search function in Window Phone 7.5 is also connected to apps to make searches easier and richer, allowing users to discover more, faster.

Internet Beyond the Browser
Users will be able to easily find shops, restaurants, entertaining public events, localized amenities, and desirables through the Local Scout app. Windows Phone 7.5 takes the internet beyond the browser with the inclusion of Internet Explorer 9 with takes advantage of hardware acceleration to deliver rich and beautiful web pages. Windows Phone 7.5 will also feature SkyDrive, a cloud-based storage for Windows Live users to upload, share and edit Microsoft Office documents and files, photos and videos, allowing for true mobility in collaboration.

Local Scout app – What to do around your area?

I guess the big question is, When can I get it?

Well, there’s a table of update status for customers outside the United States HERE but Malaysia is not in the list. Our friends down south on SingTel  & Starhub has the status “Delivering update” so we shouldn’t be too far behind.

IMO, Windows Phone 7 is really shaping up to be a pretty solid mobile OS. Granted its first attempt seemed ‘half baked’ to some people but I think this update introduces more useful features. Can’t wait to see how the Nokia device would look like powered by it.

Guess your friends, get rewarded – http://bit.ly/getwholah

Every since I wrote this post [Tutorial] Link Maybank Visa Debit Card with Paypal in this blog and also posted on Lowyat Forum, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what is the currency rate for Paypal, especially for US Dollar (USD) to Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) or vice versa.

So here is another tutorial on how to find out what is the currency exchange rate for Paypal from USD to other currencies.

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Step 1

Log into your Paypal account.

Step 2

Click “My Account” on the top left, then click “Withdraw”.

You do not need to have any money in your paypal account at this point. This is just to check out what is the currency rate.

Step 3

Choose either “Withdraw to your bank account” or “Withdraw funds to your card”. Only choose the option which is valid for you.

I chose the card as I did not link my Malaysian bank accounts to Paypal.

Step 4

The next screenshot might be different if you choose the “withdraw to your bank account” option but the principle is the same.

Leave the “Amount” bank. Click on “Currency Converter”.

A window will pop up with the currency converter and you can change US Dollar to any currency you want by clicking the dropdown menu. As you can see from the screenshot, the exchange rate as of 9 September 2011 is 1 USD = 2.93351 MYR.

Its that simple!

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You will notice that the Paypal rate is much lower than the actual conversion rate. As of now, the exchange rate (via CoinMill) is 1 USD = 3.00 MYR.

Paypal Help explains it as such :

How does PayPal calculate currency conversion / exchange rate?
PayPal receives a quoted wholesale rate twice a day. We then add a 2.5% spread above this rate to determine the retail foreign exchange rate that is applied to transactions involving a currency conversion.

Keep in mind that some of the rates quoted in the media are the inter-bank rates that are available only to the largest international banks, which purchase currencies in quantities of US $1,000,000 or more. A more applicable comparison for consumers is the exchange rates quoted at airports or other consumer currency exchange shops.

Source : Paypal Help

If this tutorial was helpful, share it using one of the buttons below!

This is a pretty cool “customized” infographic for you Twitter users out there. Quite fun and interesting project from the people over at Visual.ly

Get your own here – http://visual.ly/twitter

One of my gripes about the infographic is that I don’t seem to have a unique URL to show people my character. So what I did was I screenshot the whole thing so that I can share it here.

Whoops my bad, you can get a short unique URL to show people. And also, I’ve noticed that it seems to track back only to a certain time, meaning the topics are what you’ve talked about in the past few days or past 1 week, I’m not sure. This is because my character this week is different from the one I did above. Also it’ll be quite cute if I can actually use the character created as my display picture automatically.

But still quite cute and good work from Visual.ly & @shanesnow

I’ve been traveling a lot lately, well alternate weekends anyway so posted this a bit late. Heh

Anyway a couple of weeks back, I was invited to the  “1Million Facebook Credits Giveaway with U Mobile” party . The event was held at DELIcious, Marc Residences on a workday evening. I got there quite on time I think but they started late – I guess its due to the jam and all that. KL is really a nightmare to drive in during peak hours.

U Mobile is proud to announce that they are the FIRST TELCO in Asia to have an exclusive partnership with Facebook to offer FREE Facebook Credits with every U Mobile reload!

“I’m also happy to say that this is the first time that Facebook is partnering with any telco in Asia to give away Facebook Credits. This makes U Mobile the only telco service provider in Asia with this one-of-a-kind feature to offer its subscribers,” Dr Kaizad Heerjee, CEO of U Mobile excited about this new partnership with Facebook

Before that, what is Facebook Credits? Its used to purchase digital goods and other enhancements for more than 600 social games and applications on Facebook. FB Credits is a consistent and trusted way to make purchases. So the next time you want to water your farm, build your city or gain some kind of advantage in a Facebook game, FB Credits is the way to go!

U Mobile’s unique offering to its users is a result of its recent collaboration with Facebook, the world’s most popular social networking site, and MOL AccessPortal Sdn Bhd, the official distributor of Facebook Credits in Southeast Asia.

Ganesh Kumar Bangah, CEO, MOL Access Portal, Dr. Kaizad Heerjee, CEO, U Mobile, and Stephen Dolan, Commercial Director for Facebook in Singapore and Southeast Asia tossing coins at the ‘One Million Facebook Credits Giveaway with U Mobile’ Celebration. (I think this pic of Dr Kaizad tossing coins is cute)

“Our goal is to make Facebook Credits as accessible as possible to people everywhere that use Facebook,” said Stephen Dolan, Commercial Director for Facebook in Southeast Asia. “This collaboration with U Mobile and MOL AccessPortal will enable people to quickly and simply earn Facebook Credits for use in their favourite games and applications.”

U Mobile will be working closely with MOL AccessPortal to ensure a seamless and consistent user experience.

(From left to right) Stephen Dolan, Commercial Director for Facebook in Singapore and Southeast Asia, Ganesh Kumar Bangah, CEO, MOL Access Portal and Dr. Kaizad Heerjee, CEO, U Mobile Sdn. Bhd celebrating a historical partnership at the ‘One Million Facebook Credits Giveaway with U Mobile’ party.

So how do you get the Facebook Credits? For every RM20 top-up or more, subscribers will receive 2 Facebook Credits and 1 Credit with an additional reload of RM10. There’s a daily cap of 20 Credits per user per day and a monthly cap of 50 credits per month. It just takes some simple steps :

1. Like the Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/umobilesb
2. Reload your prepaid U Mobile account and you will receive a code via SMS
3. Go to the Facebook page and click “U Mobile Facebook Credit Redemption” (or http://on.fb.me/umobilefb)
4. Key in your code = Get free credit!

After the launch ceremony, we played a couple of games which were quite fun. One was collecting gold coins (chocolate coins) scattered/stuck all over DELIcious. There were on the trees, on the walls, at the tables. Was quite funny to see people poking all around to find coins. Another was everyone was given half a coin and we had to find our “match” and we can redeem the code.

Throughout the event we also played a game on Twitter. There were a number of questions asked and the first  person to get his/her followers to answer the most questions correctly will win a prize. Thanks to awesome Twitter friends like @nescagraff and gang, I won a HTC Wildfire! Its not often I win games at events so I was quite happy!

Thank you U Mobile for the fun night! ^_^

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Since there is 1 Million Facebook Credits from U Mobile to giveaway, I also have some to giveaway to my readers! Top 5 people who gets the most RTs will win 20 Facebook Credits each!

Just do the 4 steps below :

1. Follow @umobilesb on Twitter
2. Tweet this : “1Mil FB Credits Giveaway with @umobilesb http://bit.ly/fbumobile ! #zestfulorg”
3. Get your friends to RT your tweet.
4. Top 5 people with the most RTs by 11.59pm Tuesday, 12 July 2011 gets 20 Facebook Credits each

Terms & Conditions

• You may add more words to the tweet as long as the line given is intact.
• Your twitter profile cannot be private.
• Contest closes at 11.59pm on Tuesday, 12 July 2011.
• The judge’s decision is final

So what are you waiting for?

I’ve been using this Energizer Energi To Go XPal XP2000 for more than a year now I think. Yea, yea slowpoke, I know!

I’m actually quite surprised that a lot of people are not aware of this thing. There are actually a couple of different brands for power packs/external battery pack but I choose Energizer because it is a reputable brand. You don’t want to buy a cheap power pack only to plug it into your expensive smartphone and spoil it!

I initially bought this for my iPhone 3Gs and HTC Desire but I’m always lending out to friends to charge their blackberries and Nokias. The Charger also works for the iPhone 4. I did notice once that when I plugged it into a friend’s 3Gs, it stated that the accessory is not compatible but that was fixed by re-plugging it.

It claims to contain 1x charge for smartphones and 3x charges for normal (dumb?) phones. I’m sorry I forgot to test out exactly how much power it contains. The pic above shows the size in comparison to the name card/ business card box on the left.

I’m not sure how much it is overseas but its RM120 (or so) in Malaysia. I’ve seen it in shops like AllIT and IT hypermart (in e@curve). The charger comes fully pre-charged out of the box. Oh, I must give a shoutout to the All IT store in Ikano where I asked the guy if the iPhone can be charged and he actually took it out of the box to test it on my phone.

Package Contents

• XP2000
• USB Charging Cable
• Cell Phone Tips – Mini USB, Micro USB, Nokia, Samsung, LG, Apple 30 pin
• User Manual
• Welcome Card
• Travel pouch

As you can see, you will receive 6 charger tips for various types of phones. Don’t fret if you are missing any of the charger tips. After buying the Power pack, register your product at EnergizerPowerPacks.com/my and you can order FREE replacements for life! I believe you are limited to 2 tips a year.

I tried ordering a MicroUSB tip last year before my first year was over. I only had to pay for International Shipping – can’t remember how much exactly but it was quite cheap (as in under RM15) if I’m not mistaken. As you can see, it is well packed in a sturdy box and sent via airmail along with a small brochure of their newest products.

Tech Specifications

• Battery Cell : Lithium Polymer
• Power Capacity : 2000 mAh
• Rated Input : DC 5V, Max 500 mA
• Rated Output : DC 5V, Max 500 mA
• Recharge Time : ~4 hrs
• Weight : 0.16lbd/ 0.07 kg
• Dimensions : 3.34 x 2.28 x 0.51 Inches / 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.3 CM

All in all this is a great product. In fact, a lot of my friends have bought this after they seen/borrowed it from me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Footnotes :

i) Energizer should totally pay me for influencing a lot of friends to buy

ii) Maybe I should start charging for usage of this battery pack. lol

Don’t you hate the new Facebook Photo Viewer that’s with that “lightroom” effect? I seriously dislike it a lot! Its so annoying and doesn’t enhance the user experience at all, in my opinion.

I found a simple way to walk around this issue. Can’t remember where I saw it la, some tech site I think.

Note : In addition to the steps below, here are more steps to help “remove” the new viewer

• Open in new tab – In Chrome I tried duplicating the tab, it seemed to remove the lightroom effect. Haven’t tried on other browsers tho. This works on other browsers like Firefox
• Refresh the page – Pressing F5 to reload the page also works
• Chrome Extension – If you’re using Chrome browser, download this extension. <—best method!

——————-

Here’s how to do it.

1. Click on the photo and look at the address bar (the URL at the top)

2. Remove the text “&theater” & press enter

3. Then you…..nah, that’s all you gotta do

See screenshot below. Remove the highlighted words

And you’ll get this…Tadaaa!

Hope that was helpful

Do you have any more tips on how to remove this? Will add it to the list on top