The year 2008 was the year of gadgets & productivity. How about yours?

1. Jailbroken iPhone. Out of the box, the iPhone was merely an Internet device, & I had to fight the urge to dip this overpriced brick in my Coke.After a month of agony, I got the courage to jailbreak it myself, and turned out to be the best decision I ever made. Look ma! I can upgrade the firmware! I can even forward text messages!
2. Nokia N96. I have yet to see a phone which can beat the camera of this baby (check out my Flickr photo stream for sample pics). Digital TV is a big plus too, which allowed my brother to watch the Pacquiao fight for free (Smart subscribers only). I'm also known to sneak a peek in CNN during meetings. But that's just between you and me.
3. Sailor fountain pen. Has the smoothest nib on the planet. I need ten more of these.
4. Magic eraser. The original kind. Heaven sent for MacBook users, especially those who own the black version. Cleans the smudges, and makes it look brand new. Seriously.
5. BluePhoneElite 2. My friends always wonder how I can reply to their messages in such amazing speed. No, my hands didn't sprout additional fingeres. I really just use BluePhoneElite. This little app allows you to send & receive SMS messages on your Mac. Simply connect your cellphone to your Mac via Bluetooth. (Doesn't work with the iPhone, as usual, but seems to connect seamlessly with everything else.)
6. Remember the Milk. I was smart enough to dump Things & Omnifocus, but dumb enough only to do it after I bought their desktop & iPhone apps. But it's all worth it. RTM is web-basd, which allows me to view my tasks from any computer. Their iPhone app is also way cool.
7. Launchy. An app launcher for Windows. Press the hotkey, type the first few letters of the app's name, & tada! It's my "Spotlight equivalent" for Windows. Executor is a contender, but I'd like to keep things simple.
8. Shozu. For sending photos to Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, etc. from your mobile phones. Works for both my Nokia & my iPhone. But why anyone would use the iPhone's pathetic camera is beyond me.
9. Skitch. A doodling application for the Mac. Takes screenshots too. The pencil tool is not as sensitive as Tablet Draw's, but the rest of the features are great & very easy to use.
10. Vmware Fusion. Seamless virtualization. Because whether you want to admit it or not, we still need Microsoft Windows.
11. Wacom. I couldn't move my fingers for two weeks, and someone suggested I try using a pen mouse instead. After a few days, I can bend my fingers again into unnatural angles.
12. Lindsay Lohan. Because she made big bags look cool.

We live in a world where it is not very fashionable to love a Microsoft product ... but I need to give credit where due: Microsoft Live Sync kicks ass, and wins over Dropbox by a landslide.

Live Sync and Drop Box are free file sharing & syncing applications. You do this by creating a folder within your computer, putting files in it, and then inviting people would like to have a copy of that folder in their own computers. And it gets better: Any changes made in that folder (by you or by those people you have invited) are automatically replicated on all computers.

But wait -- there's more!

Imagine if you're using multiple computers with different platforms (Windows, OSX, etc.) in different locations. You can actually sync your files, bookmarks, and emails. In all your machines. In real time.

Dropbox is a newbie on the block, but quickly gained fanfare from those who've never heard of an older but silent contender, FolderShare (the precursor of Live Sync). Or maybe FolderShare/Live Sync was consciously ignored. After all, we live in a world where Steve Jobs can do no wrong, where Linux is uber cool, and everything else in Microsoft.

When Microsoft re-christened FolderShare as Live Sync last December 2008, it defied all expectations and launched an even superior product: It increased syncing of up to 20 main folders, with each folder having a maximum limit of 20,000 files. There are no file size limit on an account. However, a single file cannot be greater than 2GB, so forget using it to back up your DVDs.

Dropbox, on the other hand, only allows 2GB of space per account. And in my book, that sucks. Big time.

I finally solved the incessant hanging & mysterious rebooting of my Nokia N96 -- by updating the firmware. I knew it was something I should have done the moment I got this phone. Goes to show what my real priorities are (i.e., finding a theme).

To update the firmware:

1. 1. Go to Menu > Tools > Utilities > Device Manager
2. 2. Go to Options > Check for updates
3. 3. Install update

It goes without saying that you need to backup your phone before you do any firmware upgrades. Mine worked without a hitch. But then again, you'll never know.

I prepared myself for a grueling day -- slept for 8 hours, made sure my shoes were comfortable, and refilled my own water bottle.

Sim Lim is not for the faint of heart. It has 7 floors (the basement included) of electronics, and is touted as Singapore's (and even Asia's) largest computer center. If I want to get my flight fare's worth, I knew I needed to do one helluva walking & bustling.

And so my trek began. Expectedly, salesmen flocked around me. They were the vultures, and I was the prey -- a female tourist wandering about in her lonesome. It didn't take long for them to realize I have a photographic memory of the complete price lists of Amazon & Newegg. And that yes, I knew the difference between a RAM and a hard drive.

And finally, I was alone once again, peeping inside stores, inconspicuously rummaging through aisles, and smiling as angelically as possible when I demanded a S$300 price cut.

Finally, I was almost done: an AspireOne netbook, and the usual trinkets of card readers, retractable cables, portable speakers, etc.

It was time for my last stop ... to paradise on the first floor: cellphones.

The first store was the usual horror story. The salesman raised his voice upon learning I wanted to try out the phone with my SIM card.

"No! You buy, then you try!"

I giggled in his face, which irked him even more, and skipped away. It was, after all, too cheap to be true.

And finally, I saw them -- two young sales persons smiling welcomingly at me. No pressure, no waves. They just suddenly knew I was coming, & they were ready. I sat on the chair in their booth (because I hate standing up), and rattled off my phone shopping list -- an N96, two unlock SIMs for my iPhone, and the cheapest Nokia phone they have in stock.

The boxes started piling in front of me. More European & American tourists followed my lead and brought out their SIM cards to try out their new goods. While waiting for my unlock SIMs, I gave a handful of tourists an overview on how to unlock their iPhones, and the difference between a "jailbreak" & an "unlock." Pretty soon, their won't be a difference, I told them.

Finally, my goods were ready, my weary credit card swiped, and my GST tax refund slip printed. I was ready to head off to my hotel.

Boxes in hand, I went out the building. But I had to look back at Sim Lim one more time. Til next time.

SimpleBits has a refreshing color palette. It also has small details which makes it simply lovely: the little squares at the top of the page, the way it divides each article from another, & mouseovers on the images on the footer.

You've heard about the cons of using an iPhone -- no video recording, no cut and paste, short battery life, yada yada. And like you, I also thought, "Hey, I could live with that." After all, the fundamental thing is that I will have my calendar and productivity apps -- to have my "mac in my pocket."

And I now have an iPhone 3G. Unlocked, of course, because we geeks turn to Smart by default when it comes to 3G. But having Smart's fast 3G service wasn't enough to make me happy. Because Apple is known for churning out half-baked products. Sometimes even purposely so. And they leave it up to Steve Jobs to make it sound like the latest thing on the planet.

1. You will not be able to receive vCards. At least for Nokia phones, which probably make up 90% of the entire Philippine phone population.
2. The battery life is more pathetic than you think. You will need to charge the iPhone, at the very least, once a day. Cry, you Nokia E series owners, and say goodbye to those good old days of charging your phone twice a week.
3. You cannot multi-task. You thought you can maintain that Yahoo chat while playing mSudoku? No can do. The only apps that are allowed to run in the background are Apple's own (e.g., the iPod).

1. Camera quality is bad. Very bad.
2. You cannot turn off auto-rotate. A big deal if you like surfing while in bed.
3. SMS and Mail do not have landscape mode. Real smart Apple. Don't provide a landscape mode on the apps which need it the most.
4. You will not be able to send or receive MMS. There are apps for the jailbroken iPhone which allows you to send MMS, but receiving them is another matter.
5. You cannot cut and paste. I didn't care much about this for the first few weeks. After all, how many times do I need to cut & paste on a phone? But as soon as I really started to use the iPhone, this incapability became a big source of frustration. I hate you, Apple.

So, what else do you think suck about this thing?

Back in the late 1990s, I was known as the girl who broke up with her boyfriend because he was a Mac user. Technically, I didn't: He was really an insufferable human being. But yes, there were fights which involve his strong unwavering (and I think gay) devotion to Steve Jobs.

I was a proud Windows user. I could give troubleshooting instructions point by point without ever looking at a screen. My PCs had the customizations, file organization, & configuration only a freak could appreciate, my backup system impeccable, & my weekends were spent poring inside my CPU to ensure that my motherboard & peripherals were dust-free.

Then last March, the unthinkable happened. For undisclosed reasons, I had to make the big switch. Technically, it wasn't such a big switch since my Windows are still with me:

• Chocnut, my trusty old server
• Carebears, my Fujitsu tablet
• Batman, our multimedia server
• All the other old Toshibas lying around the house
• And of course, Vmware Fusion, which can instantaneously fire up Bill Gates' pride & glory

But it was a switch, nevertheless, as anyone who had followed me on Twitter and read all my anti-Apple-fan-boys-tweets could attest. The moment I let it slip that I was using an MacBook, I could practically hear the gleeful guffaws of AlistairIsrael, rom, and JeromeGotango; the consternation of jeromea, & the abomination from abetsky -- all of whom were kind enough to keep their comments to themselves.

And there were friends who tried to save me from further humiliating myself:

• Leigh Reyes, who tried to stop me from over-thinking, and made me install the cutest and most time-wasting applications on the planet
• Michael Fallarme, who did not hesitate to fill up my Dropbox with all the useful and non-Leigh-type of applications, and simply threatened me with "Basta install mo yan."
• Marco Cabazal, who involuntarily provided 24-hour online & phone support, and assured me that yes, Macs have torrents too

It is already Month #4 since the fateful day when I cheated on Bill Gates. I still miss a lot of things, but overall, it aint so bad.