TrackIDâ„¢ is a feature available in most of the newer range of mobile phones from Sony Ericsson. It’s a feature that allows you to record a few seconds of a song using your mobile, and get track, artist and album information sent to you in seconds. While it’s a handy tool to help you identify the song name, it’s considered under hyped in a sense that many haven’t tested it or aren’t even aware of it.

In this article, I’ll demonstrate step-by-step how to use TrackID via my Sony Ericsson W880i

First, I play a song in my WMP11, let’s try with a Cantonese song and see if TrackID is able to recognise it or not..

Then, while the song is being played, I launch TrackID from my W880i main menu..

Press start to identify the music track currently in play..

Recording in progress..

And wait for the sample track to be uploaded to the Internet..

And here you go, you’ve got the song info! And surprisingly it can recognise Cantonese songs too. You can also send the info to your friend via SMS :-)

But one thing to take note, the success rate is definitely not 100%, I’ve tested it quite a number of times and it doesn’t always work. Anyway, have fun with it if you’ve got your latest Sony Ericsson Walkman phone with you.

This is an interesting site I’ve come across in India. After seeing a lot “MouthShut.com” advertisement being shown on taxis in Mumbai, and attracted by its unique name, I couldn’t help but to visit the site.

Apparently, it’s a portal for comparing prices, reading consumer written product reviews on movies, gadgets, books, music, cars, shopping malls and million of other products/services. It is something like CNET Reviews but it covers a much broader scope other than just tech products.

The site layout is pleasant and organized, it’s pretty useful as sometimes people would just like to seek some opinion on some specific stuffs that’s difficult to look elsewhere (for example, airlines, colleges, hotels or restaurants). The quality of reviews are not that bad either, of course as a community-based portal you can’t expect it to be perfect, but there’s a review rating column anyway, in which you can rate the review as “Somewhat useful”, “Useful”, or “Not Useful”

I’m wondering if there’s such website in Malaysia too, where you can find reviews of foods, clubs, books and basically everything in Malaysia under a centralized portal like MouthShut.com. Do let me know if there’s any.

NetFlix is such a great service.

Here is how it works:

• You create a list of movies you want from their lists.
• When a movie on your list is available, they ship the movie to you.
• When you’re done with the movie, you mail it back via the envelope it came in (no stamps required).
• They will then ship you the next item on your list.

Interested already? Read more.

You are not just limited to 1 movie at-a-time too, you can actually receive up to 8 movies at-a-time! (by paying more of course). Except for the most basic plan, there isn’t a limit to how many movies you can receive each month.

If you do the math and compare with other rent-a-movie services, you are actually saving money by using NetFlix.

3 DVDs from Hollywood Video = $13.
3 DVDs at-a-time plan at NetFlix = $18.


3 DVDs twice a month at Hollywood Video = $26/month.
3 DVDs at-a-time plan at NetFlix = $18/month.


So as long as you watch more than 3 movies a month while on the NetFlix plan, you will be saving money.

Even better is that the speed at which you receive the DVDs from NetFlix is phenomenal! You mail one back today, you get it within 1 or 2 business days!

NetFlix has gotten so popular that it’s user base has grown exponentially.

Now for my question.

Is it possible for a service such as NetFlix to exist in Asia?

Unfortunately, I think not.

The problem is piracy.

Take a look at one of my previous writings about piracy in Malaysia as an example.

Why would a bargain-hunting consumer pay to rent movies when they can own a copy (although illegal) of those exact movies?

The cost of a pirated DVD movie (of decent-good quality, lower quality movies cost lower) in Malaysia is only about US$1.97 (converted at RM3.55 = US$1).

Is it even possible for a service such as NetFlix to compete on the basis of price?

It is a shame that due to piracy, such a great service will most probably never see light in Asia. Instead, we (in Asia) will have pirated movie vendors (image on top).

1. IKEA Planning Tools
IKEA Planner Tools is IKEA‘s field marketing tool that enables you to become your own interior designer. It seems to be the same application available at the stores on public terminals used by shoppers. Simple to install and quite intuitive with a drag-and-drop-from-list interface that details the furniture models offerings at IKEA. You’d be able to choose furniture to fit the exact measurements of the rooms in your home and experiment with different combinations and style by swap things around until you’re satisfied with the result. A much more high tech method to would-be home planners than the usual cutting out papers in furniture shapes and moving it around the room, visualizing how thing would look like. The downside? There are 4 different tools for 4 different parts of your home – kitchen, office, bathroom and bedroom – so if you’re remaking your whole house you’re suppose to download all four and install all four respectively.

download from here.

2. BoConcept’s Furnish
If you’re not keen on IKEA furniture or their interior design software then maybe you could give Furnish from BoConcept a try. In the same vein as IKEA’s Planner Tools, Furnish is an interior decorating software which lets you plan the perfect interior for your home. Furnish is much more customizable than IKEA’s Planner Tools allowing you to give color to your walls, ceiling, etc. Furnish also gives you more control by letting you create pieces of virtual furniture with whatever fronts, arm rests, leg designs or veneer types you like. Simply enter the dimensions of your room and start drawing or select from pre-existing furniture i assume belongs to the models offered at BoDesign.

Download from here.

3. Michael Lachmann MLCAD
Not into interior design? Well you could try MLCAD which is an acronym for Mike’s LEGO Computer Aided Design. Written by Michael Lachmann it’s an easy to use virtual modeling program aimed at LEGO enthusiast specifically for use with LEGO parts. MLCad uses the LDraw official parts libary of virtual bricks and/or the tools like LDView or LPub which are bricks currently under developement to enable you to build almost any LEGO model virtually with an unlimited amount of bricks.

Here is a quick tutorial to get you started and downloadable from here. Libarary files are from here. Extract and dump into the same directory.

A week ago, I wrote a post regarding my MacGyver wannabe act.

Wondering what happened?

According to the video demonstration, it should take me no more than “a few minutes” to decipher the combination to my lock once I got pass the initial stage.

Unfortunately, as shown in the image, it has been a week and my lock is still firmly fastened. (yes, i give up)

Upon more scrutiny of the video as well as my own lock, I discovered the following to be possible reasons as to why I failed:

• 1. I am no MacGyver (most likely reason).
• 2. My lock is not made by “Master Lock” as mentioned in the video.

I think reason no. 1 is the most likely cause for my MacGyver wannabe failure.

Ok…I’m not sure if he actually did that in the TV series, but I’m certain he has picked a couple of locks before. That is what I am about to try doing.

Why?

I am the proud owner of a typical locker room combination lock, of which I have totally forgotten the combinations to.

It just so happens that Core77 recently published a post on how to ‘break’ the combinations to one of these locks. How convenient. =)

So wish me luck as I try to break my own lock. (Disclaimer: this is MY lock!)

To make things simple for you, I have embedded the video from Core77′s post onto this post as well. Take a look at it:

The Hole – video powered by Metacafe