These past few weeks during the lockdown, I’ve been happily spending a good amount of time learning and enjoying a new game app on my phone called “Breakthrough.”
The full name of this new game app is, “Breakthrough: The Financial Choices We Make.” And ever since I discovered it, the game has been happily keeping me entertained, and at the same time educating more about personal finance and investments. Aliw diba?!
Hey, everyone! I can’t wait to share with you these new gadget accessories I’ve been using with increasing frequency the past few months.
If you’ve been following me on my blog and on social media, you probably already noticed that I’ve been putting out more and more videos recently. In fact, I started going heavy on vlogging as well (You can check out my videos on YouTube and on my Facebook Page).
My vlogging setup – Nikon D5600, Rode VideoMic Go and Joby GorillaPod Hybrid
What I normally do is shoot my footage using the Nikon D5600 DSLR and Nikon KeyMission 170 action camera, then work on them on my laptop. But, as much as I love editing my videos on my laptop, a 17″ portable workstation isn’t something you can always bring along anywhere you go. That’s why I sometimes find myself having to wirelessly transfer video files from my DSLR and action camera onto my iPhone especially when I want to put out videos on Instagram and Facebook.
But transfering videos files via bluetooth or even through a wifi connection isn’t really the ideal way to go. Can you imagine how big these video files are? It would take an eternity waiting for wireless transfers to complete. Not only that, long transfers eat up a ton of battery power, too.
But boy am I glad that all these woes are now a thing of the past — all thanks to my PhotoFast iOS Card Readers. Particularly, the PhotoFast CR-8710 (for the regular sized SD Cards) and the CR-8800 (for Micro-SD Cards). These lifesavers are designed to work seamlessly and effortlessly with iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads.
Storage, storage, storage. It’s one thing that we gadget geeks can never get enough of. Well, that and battery power of course.
Here’s the thing folks… as our devices get better and better and as the cameras of our smartphones are constantly upgraded with better sensors and higher megapixel capabilities, the file sizes of our photos and videos naturally get bigger. There’s no problem with that. By all means, anything better is always welcome. The dilemma lies in our device’s storage space. Storage has to keep up with the pace of how fast our hardware is improving.
Expandable memories such as Micro SD Cards are great but they slow down the performance of devices to a certain degree which is somewhat of a bummer. This is one of the reasons why a good number of smartphone and tablet manufacturers (like Apple) opt to take the built-in storage route instead.
If you’re one who enjoys photography, listening to offline music and dabbles in a lot of videography, storage limitation could prove to be a huge problem. Backing up and transferring media files can be quite a headache. It’s tedious and very tiring.
If you find yourself nodding and agreeing to some of the things I’m talking about right now, then what I’m about to introduce to you may well be considered a lifesaver.
You gotta love how smartphones make things so much easier. I admit, I am quite dependent on my smartphone when it comes to a lot of things.
And why shouldn’t I be? Haven’t I always stressed, even during my talks, that your smartphone is supposed to make you more efficient? It was created to make you a better person overall.
It’s called a smartphone because it’s designed to be smart enough to aid you in accomplishing more.
Just take a good stroll around the App Store or Google Play Store (if you’re using an Android device) and you’ll immediately see what I mean.
In my case, I use a ton of apps to get errands and chores done (Sunrise, Clear), apps for saving and accessing my online scripts for tapings (Google Docs), apps to take better photos (Camera+, VSCO Cam), to stay healthy and stay on track with my fitness regimen (Fitstar, RunKeeper, Misfit), apps to help me find my way (Waze, Google Maps) and so much more.
But as much as I already love my device, you gotta love it even more when your smartphone works seamlessly with your own telco, empowering you further via really cool custom designed apps and services created to make your life a whole lot easier in a lot of aspects.
If you’re on Globe (like me!), you may have already heard about most (if not all) of these awesome Globe Apps, or what we have now come to simply know as: G Apps!
Let me be the first to say it in case you felt the same way, Airdrop sucks balls every so often. It’s faulty and it isn’t reliable. It’s great when it works but it’s such a pain when it doesn’t. And boy does it falter quite often.
I sometimes take countless minutes trying to detect my other devices via Airdrop when it should be practically instantaneous. Sometimes, sending files via email end up being faster, albeit more tedious.
In my quest to search for faster (and more reliable) means to transfer files from one device to another, I stumbled upon a really nifty gadget.
I vividly remember having a daily delivery of The Philippine Star brought to my desk every morning as part of our high school class’ morning ritual back in the late ’80s and early ’90s. It was actually good training for us kids back then.
I actually love reading the newspaper. I grew up flipping through the pages of my father’s daily broadsheet delivery. Early on, I’ve been taught to be constantly aware of our current events and happenings.
Today, though the medium of learning about the news has significantly changed, my desire to be constantly “in the know” hasn’t. This is actually a very good thing. And just as this habit has been ingrained in me by my parents, so should we do the same to the kids of today.
In fact, because of the internet and the power of social media, this generation now has more ways of gathering news and learning about them much faster.
But where to look for accurate and credible reports is the tricky part. Anyone with a smartphone and a Twitter or Facebook account can immediately become sources of different kinds of news. But how verifiable? That is the question. Good thing I discovered that one of the biggest broadsheets in the country, The Philippine Star, has come up with an app that provides the same high standard of news reporting but at the same time, catering to the reading habits of this newer generation.
It is called, “The Philippine Star” Pagesuite app. You download it on the AppStore just like any other normal app. The only difference is that, this app installs into your iPhone’s built-in “Newsstand” app instead of the usual standalone type.
Friends and family know how paranoid I get concerning low battery problems on my smartphone, including my other gadgets.
That pretty much explains why I carry a ton of power banks in my sling bag every single time I’m away from home. A ton of power banks is in no way an exaggeration. On any given time, I’ve got 4-5 high capacity power banks to supply every device my family uses.
But there are times wherein you just feel like traveling light especially when gadget usage isn’t too demanding.
That’s why when the Native Union Jump Cable was introduced to the market, I immediately jumped on the opportunity to have one.
I love music. Any music. Well… Almost any music, that is.
I love listening to music while biding the time. I enjoy music in the background when I go to sleep. Music keeps me company and paces my stride everytime I do my regular run around the neighborhood to stay fit.
I love music just because. I’m sure you do, too.
Whatever your reason (or numerous reasons) for loving music, there is cause to rejoice and be excited.
Spotify, the awesome online music service that has been immensely popular abroad and oh, so elusive to Filipinos has finally arrived and is now available! Woohoo! Read more
Android, app, bpi, bpi mobile app, breakthrough, game, iOS 0 Comments 
