Samsung S6 first impressions

Due to a confluence of factors, I got the Samsung S6. Not the Edge model, which I think serves very little purpose for an extra S$150. I would not have gotten it even if it costs the same.

Instead, I spent the $150 for an extra 32 GB, which is arguably useful because the S6 has no SD card slot, as well as having a non-removable battery and using nano SIM card.

I do not view non-removable battery, lack of SD card slot and glass back as "betraying" the way of the S series.

Battery life do get shorter over time, but my S3 battery has lasted three years without any issues. I do not have a spare battery nor a portable power bank — although I'm considering one to charge multiple devices when on vacation.

As for SD card, I already plan to stop using it. I am beginning to think it contributes to laggy UI. Even on my S3, I only use around 5 GB out of 16 GB, so the internal storage is more than sufficient.

The glass back is a design element. Samsung "sold out" and made the S6 look elegant at the expense of functionality — this phone is meant to go head-to-head with the iPhone. Aesthetics is as important as specs.

The good

The S6 boots up fast — in 10 seconds! This is a rare operation, but it gives a good first impression. All devices should aim to boot up in 5 seconds or faster! :-P

The UI is silky smooth.

The battery life is very good and it supports wireless and fast charging.

There is 54.53 GB of free space out-of-box. 9.47 GB is used. On a 32 GB model, that means only 22.5 GB is available.

The camera is very "bright" at f/1.9, allowing low-light photography. Even my best 35mm lenses are f/2, other than my 50/1.4 lens.

The ugly

Android does not have a way to automatically transfer app data from one phone to another.

The S6 comes with many "sponsored" apps, but many of them can be disabled or uninstalled.

The 5G WiFi kept disconnecting in my home. After some troubleshooting, I found that it was because my router chose a really high channel. It looks like S6 only supports the lower channels.

I got the clear view cover. It costs a whopping S$88 (before 20% off with purchase of phone), but the salesman assured me I could use the phone with the cover closed. That was not the case. It has two problems: it can scratch the glass and it is very easy to mute the phone when answering a call.

There is a very dim white light emitting from the rear LED that is only visible in a very dark room.

The bad

Launcher: does not loop. Which is fine for now. I try to keep it simple and have only two screens.

The app drawer cannot sorted automatically.

I now have the habit of turning off the mobile data to maximize battery life. There is an annoying prompt whenever I want to turn it off.

Data usage: the WiFi cycle cannot be changed. There is also no date range selection.

App Switcher

Thought it was Settings. It is too easy to bring up. Must hunt for the Settings icon now.

It does not close apps. This makes it harder to kill hung apps.

Now I have gotten used to it and found it very useful to switch between tasks. :lol:

Samsung Keyboard

Cannot switch to another input easily. Luckily, it supports Chinese input, so there is no need to use another input.

Comma is in sub-screen. However, that key remembers the last used char, so it can be set to comma most of the time.

Somehow, the key spacing is off. My typing error rate is significantly higher than on S3.

Google Keyboard

The Globe gets in the way. Otherwise, it would have been the perfect keyboard.

Messages

All text messages have the 'Text message' label.

There is no char count until the last 10 chars.

There is a prompt when clicking on links.

S Planner

Cannot create local calendar.

Cannot transfer data from another phone.

Must use third-party app to do both.

The takeaway

Overall, I'm satisfied with the S6. The weight, build quality, battery life and responsiveness are all good.

On the other hand, I have many small issues with the Lollipop (Android 5.0) because many things have been dumbed down from Jelly Bean (Android 4.3).

The OS is lacking, but that should change with Android M later this year. The most important change is fine-grained app permissions — a giant step forward! Also, doze mode promises to lengthen battery life by 50% in standby mode.

To light speed and beyond!

The criteria for broadband keeps changing. In the era of 56k dial-up modems, 256 kbps is broadband. Today, anything less than 10 Mbps would be considered "dial-up" class.

Singapore started rolling out fiber in 2011. Instead of a maximum of 100 Mbps for cable, fiber starts at a minimum of 200 Mbps.

I have been on Singnet's 3 Mbps ADSL plan like forever. It is slow, but it is sufficient. It loads all websites fast enough and is fast enough for YouTube 720p playback — one at a time. :lol:

Even when bittorrenting gigantic files, it can download at 375 kB/s, or 1.29 GB/hour, which is not too bad. Its upload speed, however, is only 100 kB/s.

It was the cheapest plan at S$22.90/month (after GST). But there is a $26.75 phone charge every 3 months, so it works out to be S$31.81/month (after GST).

Singnet is phasing out ADSL. You cannot subscribe to it anymore since last year. In replacement, Singnet has been offering the 200 Mbps fiber broadband at S$31.90 (including GST) from time to time — instead of the usual S$49.90.

A ZTE Optical Network Terminal (ONT) and an Aztech dual band 802.11ac wireless router are given free. All installation charges are waived. There is no reason not to upgrade!

For the longest time, I wanted to rewire my fiber optic wiring first. I want to run it through the false ceiling instead of its own trunking, which looks ugly. But this requires coordinating the fiber optic installers and my own electrician, and I have always put it off.

But now I decided to install first, rewire later.

Everything went well. I got real-world speeds of 39.3 Mbps up and 22.2 Mbps down, which I think are decent enough. Where is the promised 200 Mbps? That is bandwidth within Singapore, which I'm not interested in.

I encountered two problems.

First, I was given this modem/wireless router combo. At least I was told it was. It has dual band 801.11ac, so it is state-of-the-art. However, like all Singnet's routers, it is locked down and many functions are not available.

One alternative is to disable the wifi on the modem/router and connect it to my own router using Ethernet cable. The network topology will look like this: ONT > modem/router > router.

However, this is double NAT and it always cause problems. And I need to power three devices: the ONT uses 12W, the modem/router 35.9W and my router 30W.

I took a close look at the modem/router. It looks like a standard router. It uses a standard Ethernet cable to connect to the ONT! Hmm...

I connected my router directly to the ONT and changed some config. No user id and password is needed for fiber. I just need to use the modem/router's MAC address. Then I was able to get on the Internet! I packed the so-called modem/router power hog. These devices run 24/7. Every watt counts.

My second problem was that the router was now on one end of my flat and as I suspected, the wifi signal was unable to penetrate the thick structural walls that bisects my flat. The bandwidth dropped from 300 Mbps to 5 Mbps at the other end!

I was able to move my router to a better place, restoring the bandwidth to 45 Mbps. But the long term fix is to move it back to its original position at the structural wall. This will require laying a long Ethernet cable.

The Samsung S3 amazing battery life

14 days and going strong!

The Samsung S3 has a 2100 mAh battery. It works out to be 5.38 mAh per hour.

Secret: flight mode, screen off 99% of the time. In other words, just idling. You might wonder why it consumes any battery at all!

The drop is not linear. It drops very fast from 100% to 90%, then it drops slowly to 40%, then steeply to 20%, then slowly again. This could be a quirk of the battery — it is already three years old.

What is the point of this? After all, the phone is not very usable in flight mode.

Well, if mobile network is enabled, the S3 can only last ~2 days. This tells us it takes a lot of power to connect to the mobile network. The secret to long battery life is thus to only enable the mobile network periodically when the phone is idle, for example, for 10s every 5 minutes.

I believe this is already done, but judging by the battery life, there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Amazon's final nail

Amazon US's free shipping to Singapore is a game changer. If you are an importer of goods, it is a business risk.

Amazon has always shipped board games to Singapore, but there were some holdouts. Until now.

Using exchange rate of US$1 to S$1.35.

I also noticed that some newer Lego sets can be shipped to Singapore. Is it a fluke or is it a new policy?

The saving is not fantastic, but it at least matches the best local discount of 20% — hassle-free.

Cost of milk powder

If we take one tablespoon (60ml) to be 8 grams, a full 300ml feed costs S$1.71.

OCBC 360 reduces bonus interest

The OCBC 360 Account "just got better", according to their advertisment.

Previously,

Now,

The bonus interest is effectively reduced from 3% to 2.2%. The insure/invest requires "spending" — not worth it.

The credit card increase from S$400 to S$500 may push me to skip it altogether, so I will only qualify for 1.7% bonus interest.

I'm using the OCBC 365 credit card, but it is not really that suited for me. Only dining qualifies for 3% off (6% on weekends) — provided I hit minimum of S$600 — the rest is 0.3%.

Bonus interest per annum for S$1,000:

The 2015 phone contenders

I was still looking for a mobile phone, almost a full year after my 2-year contract has ended. I almost decided on the LG G3 in January, but I have procrastinated until now.

In the mean time, the next generation of mobile phones has been released. :-O

I'm looking for a 5.5" phone, so my first choice of the bunch is, no surprise, the LG G4. :lol: The price is unknown, but it should be around the same as the G3, S$660. The only problem is that it will only be released in May, and I need to buy by end of April to take advantage of a S$150 sign-up offer.

My second choice is the Asus Zenfone 2. This is a really value-for-money phone. I'll pay S$45 more to get the 32 GB model. Unfortunately, the Telcos either don't carry it or it is sold out.

My last choice is the Samsung S6. It is only 5.1", but it is close enough. It costs S$548 for a low-end 2-year contract, so there is a phone subsidy of S$312. For S$100 more, you can get the 64 GB model, which I think is worth considering, given that the phone does not have a SD card slot anymore.

Quick charging at a glance

A standard high-power USB charger supplies 2.0A at 5V (10W). Apparently 2.0A is the highest current that can be drawn safely at 5V, taking cost and safety into consideration.

To charge more quickly than that, we need to be adaptive. And that is how Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 does it.

The Samsung S6's bundled charger supports 2.0A at 5V (10W), but also 1.67A at 9V (15W).

The Motorola Nexus 6's charger supports 1.6A at 5V (8W), 1.6A at 9V (14.4W) and 1.2A at 12V (14.4W).

Downsides?

First, it only works for the first 80% — which is good enough. The last 20% must be charged normally.

Second, the battery is hotter during charging.

The COE floodgate opens

Last year, there were 23,039 cars left after 9 years and only 1,840 cars were renewed.

This year, there are 73,764 cars left after 9 years. How many will renew their COE?

My guess is, not enough to significantly affect the COE recycling. This of course assumes the PQP remains around S$50k, so that most people are unable to afford or unwilling to do so — you need hard cash. Even if you plan to renew for 5 years — a poor choice, IMO — you still need $25k.

Suppose 65,000 COEs are recycled. This is the first time it is above the 55k average (assuming 550k cars over 10 years). If LTA wants to smoothen the COE quota, it may only release 55k COE, or 4.5k per month.

LTA just announced a monthly quota of 5,248 (2,853 + 1,856 + 539) for Cat A, B and E, so this is above average.

How does this affect COE price?

I think it will fall, but not by much to around S$50k. The rationale is simple: existing car owners will almost always want a replacement new car, so the COE price, together with 40-50% downpayment, will reflect the barrier to entry.

Next year will be even more interesting. So far, in the 8th year, there are still 97.6% (113,962) of the cars left! This is unprecedented.

I will expect COE price to fall further, but again, to just low enough to weed out the marginal car owners.There should be many of them in 2006-2008, because this was the era of 0% downpayment and 10-year loan.

Finishing touches on Windows 8.1

Configure swap file to use 2 - 8 GiB.

Configure Recycle Bin to use 1 GiB max.

Set TEMP to D:\Temp.

Move AppData to D:. Relocate Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures and Videos to E:.

Set display PPI to 100%.

Turn off animations.

Don't auto arrange windows at edge of screen. (This is very annoying.)

Reduce window border width.

Use small shortcut arrow overlay.

Remove everything — and I mean everything — from the Start screen. I'm impartial to it once I do so; I treat it like one giant Start menu.

Pin Windows Update to Start. I manually created the shortcut, but later, I realized I could just right-click on the Windows Update icon in Control Panel and select Pin to Start!

Pin Bluetooth Devices to Start. Surprisingly, this was not possible to do in Windows 8.1 — until someone discovered a trick.

1. Create a text file somewhere and name it BluetoothDevices.bat
2. Cut-and-paste these two lines:

   %windir%\explorer.exe %%localappdata%\Packages\windows.immersivecontrolpanel_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Indexed\Settings\en-US\AAA_SettingsPagePCSystemBluetooth.settingcontent-ms
   %windir%\explorer.exe %%localappdata%\Packages\windows.immersivecontrolpanel_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Indexed\Settings\en-US\AAA_SettingsPagePCSystemBluetooth.settingcontent-ms
   

   The two lines are the same. One line will just open PC settings, but two will open Bluetooh Devices. Yes, really.

3. Create a shortcut to this batch file in order to customize the icon
4. Change the icon of the shortcut. Use the Bluetooth icon from %SystemRoot%\System32\DevicePairingFolder.dll
5. Now copy the shortcut and paste it to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

Final thoughts

Windows 8 gets a bad press — quite deservedly so — but Windows 8.1 is usable. I miss Windows 7's Aero Glass that gives it a very classy look, but other than that, Windows 8.1 has been fine.

Arduous reinstallation of Windows 8.1

Step 1: backup my data to a USB flash drive. It was just a few GiB, but it took 40+ minutes because the flash drive was slow (~4 MiB/s).

Step 2: Restore Factory Defaults using the Recovery parition (Alt+Fn+F10 on startup). It failed; it was unable to find the recovery partition! This is rich. Rebooted to Windows, created a USB recovery disk and booted to it. It worked. It took roughly an hour.

Step 3: once the fresh Windows 8 is up, I uninstalled many of the preinstalled programs: Acer Games, AcerCloud Docs, AcerCloud Portal, clear.fi Media, clear.fi Photo, CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5, Live Updater, McAfee Internet Security Suite, Microsoft Office, Nero BackItUp 12 Essentials OEM.a01, Norton Online Backup, Pokki, Soluto, Spotify.

Step 4: applied all updates, except for Malicious Software Removal Tool and Windows Defender. This took over an hour and at least two power cycles.

Step 5: I used the Disk Cleanup tool to free up space. Bad mistake, it took 2.5 hours!

Step 6: head over to Windows Store and update to Windows 8.1. It failed with a simple "Something happened and the install of Windows 8.1 can't be completed" error. Wow.

After a while, I realized I had to install the two missing software. Head back to Windows Store. Was able to download and install Windows 8.1. As with before, it took over 3 hours over my slow Internet connection.

Good news: it updated to Windows 8.1 Update 1 directly.

Step 7: applied all remaining updates. This took another hour or so.

Step 8: used the Disk Cleanup tool to free up space again. This time, it was relatively fast, perhaps just 10 minutes.

Windows 8.1 is officially installed! It was easier than my last attempt, but it still took a long time.

Bad news: many Metro apps auto-minimize to the taskbar and could not be opened. No big deal. I don't intend to use any of them.

Ultrabook reinstallation 2.0

My ultrabook is crashing quite regularly when resuming from sleep or hibernation. This has been happening soon after I upgraded to Windows 8.1, so it is likely that I botched the convoluted OS installation. It has gotten so bad now that resume fails more often than it succeed.

I decided to factory restore and start the painful journey all over again.

The silver lining is, I'm using this opportunity to repartition the disk:

This gives the OS and AppData partitions a little more breathing space.

My last pilgrimage for the Man

Legend: blue = walk to waiting area, cyan = queue, green = in the Parliment House, pink = the walk back.

4.5 hours.

After the sweet trip, the bitter bill

The effective exchange rate was S$1 to 5.596 HKD.

Total expenses S$2,090.70.

Equilibrium point of $10

During one of its sales, Bata offered $20 off on purchase above $120, and $10 off on purchase above $80.

I bought two pair of shoes for a total of ~$110. I could spend another $10 and still pay the same $100!

Unfortunately, I was not able to find something that was just over $11.

Upgrading to SHA-2 cert at last

SHA-1 is marked for deprecation in 2016. It is time to generate SHA-256 self-signed cert:

openssl genrsa -des3 -out ca.key 4096
openssl req -new -sha256 -x509 -days 3650 -key ca.key -out ca.crt

openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 4096
openssl req -new -sha256 -key server.key -out server.csr

openssl x509 -req -sha256 -days 3650 \
 -in server.csr -CA ca.crt -CAkey ca.key \
 -set_serial 01 -out server.crt

I'm early for once. :lol:

Income distribution

At least 544,000 CPF members will "benefit" from the CPF salary ceiling increase from S$5,000 to S$6,000 starting from January next year.

There are almost 2.2 million people in the resident labour force. That means almost 25% earns S$5k or more per month!

In another note, the tax rate will be increased for S$160k and above — the top 5% income earners. That translates to around S$12.3k per month.

Petrol excise duties

Good news? One time road tax offset of 20% for cars and 60% for motorcycles!

With friends like these

A and B were playing with a battery-operated race track.

A: "go ahead, knock this thing."

B: did it and caused the cars to fall out of the track.

A: "everyone look! B knocked all the cars out of the track!"

Who needs enemies?

Amazon refund and loss

I bought something from Amazon for US$19.99. Exchange rate was US$1 to S$1.371, so it costed S$27.41.

It was not delivered.

I requested for a refund. Amazon did it, no questions asked. :thumbsup:

I got back S$25.86. Exchange rate works out to be just US$1 to S$1.294. S$1.55 disappeared into a black hole.

Long live the HD!

The HD in my 24/7 file-server has bad blocks since August 2013. I bought a replacement HD right away, but I decided to continue using the existing HD until it gives up the ghost, which I thought would happen within 6 months. It still works fine today.

Well, time's up. I finally decided to retire it.

Somehow, I managed to fail at the simple task of "cloning" a HD. The cloned HD refused to boot. I should have tested that before wasting 2+ days copying all the stuff over. (It was not a simple cloning operation.)

In hindsight, I should have copied just the system and home partitions (around 30 GB), boot up with the new HD and then copy the data partition with the server online. Instead, the server was offline for three whole days.

After expending all that effort, I started to think if I should just continue to use my existing HD. All the bad blocks are now mapped. There has been no further issues.

The load cycle is high, but it is only an increase of 18 since April last year, after I updated the idle3 timeout to a sane value.

The replacement HD, an identical 2 TB HD, remains mostly unused:

Luckily, not all is in vain. The casing was choked full of dust, hence the server was getting very loud. It is now quieter, although still audible in the dead silence at night.

Sensible motorbike parking charges at last

HDB introduced the Concessionary Season Parking Ticket for Motorcycles (CSPT) starting this year. In one sentence: citizens/ PRs HDB flat residents get to park one Singapore registered bike in HDB/URA carparks island-wide for a flat S$20 monthly. (They need to top-up either $3 or $5 for their usual one carpark-only season parking.)

Last July, HDB introduced the per-minute parking charges of 0.333 cents/minute for EPS (Electronic Parking System), capped at 65 cents per day for the same carpark. An hour costs just 20 cents.

After so many years, HDB has finally listened to feedback to make motorbike parking cheaper. All hail the power of one non-PAP GRC!

Now there is no excuse to park illegally if there is a HDB carpark in the vicinity! :-D

Ubuntu 14.04, here I come!

I have put off upgrading to Ubuntu 14.04 for some time, partially due to this article Ubuntu 14.04 LTS: Why you should not use it, at all. But I'm in the what-the-heck mood today.

First thing, do-release-upgrade does not work: /tmp cannot be noexec. Quick fix:

sudo mount -o remount,exec /tmp

Second, it downloads all the packages, 1.5 GB in all, somewhere in /var (likely /var/cache/apt/archives). My /var is only 2 GB — a tight squeeze. In the future, I will make it 3 GB. There is no need to be so stingy for a 2 TB HD. :-P

The upgrade went well enough. There were several minor "merge conflicts" for the config files and I was asked to choose between the current or new version. I almost always chose the new version — after backing the ones I have edited before; I plan on restoring the changes later. Surprisingly, it still tries to merge my changes in — and it mostly works.

Apache2

First, the <Directory> directive now requires the line

Require all granted

It will not allow access to the directory otherwise.

Second, the Options command now requires '+' if one option has '-'. This no longer works:

Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

Third, SSL was not enabled, so I had to enable it manually:

sudo a2ensite default-ssl

(And restart the webserver.)

At first, I thought the SVN server was not working, but it worked once SSL was enabled.

MySQL

I was asked for the password to upgrade the databases. However, it assumed the user is root, so I was not able to proceed. No big deal, I do not use MySQL anymore.

Anyway, I manually ran mysql_upgrade after the upgrade.

Samba

The home directories are not shared by default. Easy change.

SVN

Need to upgrade the local working copy. Easy.

Transmission

I'm not able to set the scheduled times. Other settings are fine.

VNC

Blank screen. Need to update xstartup:

#!/bin/sh

unset SESSION_MANAGER
gnome-session --session=gnome-classic &

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources

xsetroot -solid black
vncconfig -iconic &

x-window-manager &
gnome-panel &
gnome-settings-daemon &

The last three lines are needed for some reason. Else the window manager and the desktop manager are not run.

But we are not done yet! For some reason, the Super meta-key is always pressed — and I have no idea what is the Super key. This caused simple keys like s, d, Tab, Up and Down to do special actions.

This seems to be a long-standing VNC bug, but there is no fix, only workaround. Use the dconf Editor and edit the key org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings. Remove these:

• maximize: Super + Up
• panel-main-menu: Super + s
• show-desktop: Super + d
• switch-applications: Super + Tab
• unmaximize: Super + Down

I still have some issues with the desktop. I'm unable to open System Settings. Seriously? No wonder Linux is not taking over the desktop. It is so easy to go wrong and yet so difficult to recover!

Error message

I get this line every time I use sudo:

no talloc stackframe at ../source3/param/loadparm.c:4864, leaking memory

The fix is to run pam-auth-update and remove SMB password synchronization.

Final thoughts

All in all, I would consider the upgrade easy and painless (VNC issues aside).

Dirtier than dirty

I have not washed my CB400F bike for so long that I was not able to clean it fully with one wash (two 20-cents worth of water).

But it is no match for my YBR125 bike. It was so dirty that it completely blackened the sponge, my hand and the pail!

And I will need to wash it two more times: one general wash and one just for the rims.

In another news: my YBR125 bike is just past its tenth birthday, clocking just slightly under 56,000 km. That is 5,600 km per year, or 467 km/month. That is not very much.

Outlook calendar wishlist

Holidays should load into the Outlook calendar automatically. It is not a big deal, but here is the big deal: it takes some effort to make them out-of-office.

Outlook should be linked to the Leave system so that it indicates out-of-office automatically.

2015 New Year Resolutions

Exercise.

Don't squander time.

Keep track of tasks/schedules.

Housekeeping.

Home Improvement Project.

Home server upgrade and improvement.

When 20% off is not worth the hassle

20% off is significant, unless for the following:

• there is 10% off year-round
• there is 15% off year-round elsewhere

20% off means we save $20 when we buy $100 worth of goods. That is significant (to me, anyway). But if we compare to 15% off, we only save $5.

That might not be worth taking one hour off and enduring 20 km of travel.

Three way fight of flagship phones

Verdict: the Asus ZenFone 6 wins hands-down, because it has most of the high-end features, but at half the price. It is, in two words, "good enough".

Not everything is captured by specs, of course. The ZenFone 6 feels silky smooth, but has a poor battery life due to its Atom architecture.

The main hurdle to using Atom on Android is apps using native ARM code for performance. Intel includes a binary translator, so these apps should still work. However, battery life and performance — in a twist — will suffer.

Splurging like no tomorrow

Unlike KidZania, it is much easier to spend than earn money in the real world! :cry: