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Alright, BBM is official and it's running on Android. It's not without tons of problems and hick-ups.  Basically, my marketing instinct considered BlackBerry is running a PR nightmare.

Here is my review for the 1-day experience with BBM.

Interface

It's cold and stiff. Even with the new design based on BB10 OS, BBM is too plain. Of course there are rooms for improvements:
- improve touch response
- inconsistent touch gesture access
- background customization
- less repetitive buttons
- larger emoticon (currently sooooo tiny)
- logical hidden menu
- cross apps sharing
- personalized status home page
- no tablet interface

The first thing I noticed was the hidden menu are repeating everywhere, such Invite button appears in 3 places despite 2 being hidden. So unnecessary, but it does hide the lack of additional features of BBM at first glance.

Fun factors when using the BBM is sorely missed. My wife is not tech savvy, but she immediately said she didn't like BBM within the first 2 minutes. Sure, BBM made Voice Note and Picture Sharing famous, but those are previous age features. Nowadays, messaging apps compete on video calls, video sharing, stickers, personalization, etc. The fun factors of messaging which make them "fun" to use.

And NO, BBM is designed for business is NOT a good reason for not including those features. It's like having a wedding cake without decorations, just the cake.

Network Communication

The legendary BlackBerry encryption and secure network is probably the only asset that BlackBerry has, which won't mean anything now with Samsung Knox and others producing similar security.  In fact, the communication slowed down by the process of cross network transfers.

A strange, if not a bug, anomaly is that BBM doesn't appear to have 'First In-First Out' traffic control over the messages typed in. Meaning if 1 message failed to be sent (maybe bad signal or interference), it will be sent later, much later than the next input you have typed in. This makes the conversation confusing to users and can cause misunderstandings. Business people won't like it. Even worse, those in romantic relationship will scream.

The Launch (Marketing Commentary)

Imagine you are launching a rocket to the moon, you will prepare everything and calculate every risk that can occur.  BlackBerry (previously RIM) should know that they don't have the infrastructure to contain to flood of users wanting to either use or try BBM, especially on Android environment.  Yet, the preparation was not well calculated. Disaster occured and they missed the launch event.

The second launch, they knew what to expect, again they failed to manage the risk. Instead of letting potential customers know ahead of tome there will be a line of waiting list for the pin registration, they just took it as it came to them. This mishap caused them loss of users. They should have more than 10 millions users within the first 10 hours if they managed it the right way from the beginning.  Blackberry is happy with nearly 5 millions users in 8 hours.  Even McDonald's gives us counters of how many burgers they served which is great PR for the Golden Arc brand.

Conclusion

BBM launch is a catastrophy and BBM is a major disappointment.  It's like witnessing an Ape Man walking in New York City.  BBM is still admiring the city, forgetting that they should have been the awe of competitors and users.

Will BBM survive the new messaging age?  If they are quick to improve BBM, maybe.  If their headstrong tradition dictates BBM is good enough, well, like I said before, we are witnessing history in the making. This is the 'do or die' time for BlackBerry.  Either we, the users, will attend a funeral soon or a celebration of success.

Ever having problems on how to keep your list of passwords and usernames together, as secrets but accessible anytime you need one of them?

In Android and iOS, there are tons of password manager apps, from paid to free, localized to online. But which is better?

The answer is of course depending on what you need. Not one is better nor worse. I can tell you my experience which I think will help a bit.

I have used several password manager myself. Like everyone, I have so many access usernames and passwords that it gave me a headache to remember them all, despite the similarity of the usernames and passwords. So, I decided to use password manager to simplify my life.

Easy enough, I have tons of options. However, just last year, Dataviz, the maker of Documents Togo, published a new app called PasswordPlus. It's basically a paid app. But it has several features that I like.

The advantages :
+ single access master password to remember
+ quite a versatile database entry system
+ sync to PC, Mac OS, Android, and iOS with multiple units on each platform
+ Dataviz doesn't keep you sync keys so only you have it

The disadvantages :
- not even Dataviz has your sync key
- rather slow synchronization
- lose the master password or sync key means losing all your data

I have been using PasswordPlus for about 6 months and I must say I'm impressed. I don't easily impressed with password manager and this one is basically has all the stuff I need. Synchronization across gadgets is a benefit I don't expect to praise. Meaning anytime you need, you access any device you have and it's there. Whether it is a bank account, online access, cloud access or anything, PasswordPlus prepares the entry system securely.

However, there is a precaution. I had the most unlucky scenario that even Dataviz didn't expect to happen. All my smartphones were damaged : Samsung Galaxy Note required a power board replacement, Asus Padfone 2 required mother board replacement, and I have no clue what my HTC Desire VC needed a replacement, and worse I have no laptop to go back to. Hence all access to PasswordPlus sync key are gone. So when I log in to my master password, PasswordPlus asked my sync key from of of my device and it's not there. So. If you want to use PasswordPlus, make sure you keep the sync key in a locked safe written manually.

Otherwise it is the best password manager I have ever used.

Whether it is for work or for household management, we all need a toll to remind us what needs to be done constantly. I've been searching for an application that can support me in task management and found Any.Do, an online task management application on Android, PC and Mac OS that goes beyond listing and reminding tasks at hands.

The benefits:
- Nagging reminder, almost like having a wife as a secretary, it nags and reminds you constantly as programmed. It works across platforms so the nagging goes in all installed tools you have.
- Online capability means it link all your android, PC and Mac OS to provide all linked task management system.
- In app added application in Chrome enables you to right click and add task directly from a website
- Linked to Gmail for easy task adding
- Morning day plan to easily browse what to do that day in the morning
- Provided note taking feature to make the task clearer
- Meeting report request will run after the meeting is completed to give you a chance to enter notes from the meeting.
- It's free
- Always on

Note: it doesn't have iPhone (iOS) version.

Try it, it's worth it to have a strong task management app.

Listening to music is probably one of the most usable features of Android Smartphones. So useful that some manufactures boast about the capability of their smartphones musical capability.

I'm using Asus Padfone 2 and the original Samsung Galaxy Note N7000, despite of being the underdog compared to Samsung Galaxy S3 & S4, Sony Xperia Z, and HTC One, I'm quite surprise that musically it is a capable, if not excellent, audio player. It has flat neutral tone and clarity as a player.  So all I need is to find the most capable Audio/Music Player application for this PadFone2.

Side note: sound reproduction quality Asus Padfone 2 vs Samsung Galaxy Note: SGNote is warmer with more power on bass, but details rather sacrificed. Asus Padfone 2 is flatter with tighter bass and higher details. Quality wise, Asus Padfone 2 wins.

I have been testing several apps ever since I owned Asus Padfone 2: Google Music, WinAmp, PowerAmp, JetAudio, Neutron Player, PlayerPro and SoundMax.

My requirements for suitable music player are as follows:
- It needs to be able to play FLAC and Wave lossless format music
- Clarity for details and sound stage
- Flat tone preferences
- Able to support my collection of headphones and earphones
- All those must be fulfilled without any equalizer adjustment (EQ off)
Note: Equalizer needs to be off or set to flat/normal to make sure that the sound characteristic tuning is accordingly to the recorders/musicians attended sound or musical characteristics.

Out of all, I dropped out Google Music (no FLAC playing), WinAmp (sound quality not to my preference), and PowerAmp (too much sibilance and bad sound staging).  Later on, I dropped SonicMax, despite it is the only app and does BBE sound setting and very customizable, it doesn't have the EQ off setting, meaning everything is already set as sound tuning effect and it is the most bass-focussed player I tested.

The selection comes to JetAudio and PlayerPro.  Both have similar characteristics:
- Play FLAC and WAVE
- Read Folders
- Able to play music as it is (EQ off)
- Good sound tone characteristics: excellent brightness (excellent details, excellent sound separations, acceptable sound staging)
- Both can support my headphones and earphones (Super lux HD381F, UE700, Sennheiser MX760, Ultrasone HFI 450 and Jays V-Jays)
- Both have simulated amp setting, to adjust the volume out to support bigger headphones (preamp setting), pretty good for my Ultasone HFI 450 since it requires higher amp out.

The differences are as follows:

(Pre-note: songs used for testing are GnR's Welcome to the Jungle, Hans Zimmer's Molossus, Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerard's Now We are Free, Yasuharu Takanashi's Fairy Tail Theme, Slipknot's Psychosocial,  Susan Wong's First of May, Nightwish's Wish I Had an Angel, and Maroon 5's Move Like Jagger.)

JetAudio:
- Mid frequency is adequate, almost every vocals sound as they are supposed to sound, except when the singer has the tendency of having higher pitch sound characteristic (it rolled off)
- Bass impact is excellent, tight but powerful, all music become warmer
- High frequency details is adequate and controllable, no sibilance.
- Sound staging is leaning towards a smaller space; imagine you are listening the music in your bedroom or living room, you can allocate the source and they are at close range.
- Sound separation detail is sacrificed due to the enhancement of bass tonality. Nightwish's Wish I Had an Angel lost its cymbals percussions and parts of bass guitar. Hans Zimmer's Molossus percussions are inseparable.
- PreAmp enables the songs to have higher power up to a small level
- However, when played using speakers, JetAudio sounds excellent and well balanced and relax, if not laid back. Very enjoyable.
- Gapless play is poor quality. Not recommended, better turn it off.
- Recommended for pop, hip hop, dance, techno and other genres that requires more bass tonality.

PlayerPro:
- Mid frequency is good and clear
- Bass is tight and less boomy, but keeps adequate impact.
- High frequency is very good, producing details and controlled treble. Sibilance only heard when using higher PreAmp level.
- Sound staging is acceptable. I can recognize where were the musicians of each instrument were located.
- Sound separation is surprisingly better, the separation of each instrument is clearer in symphonic metal and classical musics.
- PreAmp enables the song to have higher power up to a small level
- Recommended for acoustic, classical, jazz, rock and metal songs.

With this summary, I recommend PlayerPro. Get the paid version since it comes with 2x equalizer adjustment frequency to tweak for those who prefer customized music reproduction.

VPN or Virtual Private Network. This network feature exists in nearly all modern latest PC and smartphones. In concept, VPN drill a pipeline into existing network you are using, turning your connection into a private network by protocol. Originally design for corporate security when connected in public network, VPN has become common feature in todays computer powered tools, PCs laptops, tablets and smartphones. Most people don't use this feature because it is too complicated to use. Nowadays, there are so many shortcuts available for anyone to use VPN without any technical knowledge.

Before we explore the VPN feature activation applications in the market, it's best if we explore the benefits of VPN.

1. Enhance Security.

Especially important when you are travelling. Connecting public network, such as in cafe, hotel lobby, airport, etc., regardless how secure the connection is, still opens a possibility of someone hacking your connection, hence your data becomes less private.

Using VPN adds a layer of shield to your connection. Imagine your connection is a strand wire, using VPN add a hose surrounding your wire, thus suspiscious character(s) needs double efforts to get to your precious data. This is also the reason that corporation use network login page for you to access company's database. That first login is actually the VPN connection.

2.  Enhance Privacy.

VPN also add privacy enhancement to your equipment. When you access a website, the website servers also access your equipment at least for your identification and location. Nowadays, with smarter websites, smartphones, applications, high capacity processors and connections, more data transactions are exchanged in each connections.

When you activate VPN and connect to the VPN servers, some of your personal and private data are hidden, such as your real location is hidden behind the VPN server location (note: turning on GPS confirms your location), your identity will be revealed as the login of VPN server,

With the 2 mentioned benefit above, you gained additional benefit:

3. Hiding your location when browsing

Since website you visited caught the location of the VPN server you use, your true location is hidden. Yes, you browse websites that usually blocked in your country. Note: most VPN service is paid service, some are full malware, and some are blocked by the provider.

4. Hide your location

Imagine sending an email and saying you are outside of the country, and it can be proven. Looks like a good spammer tool, doesn't it? But a good tool to hide your real location nonetheless.

How to easily activate VPN feature in your PC and Macbook? Simple, Google VPN and you will be presented with tons of options.

For Android phones and tablets, type VPN in Play Store search box and you can choose the one suited your usage.

For iOs phones and tablets, find VPN in the store.

I am honestly not sure if Windows phones store has it, if you find them, let me know.

To close this article, I think VPN is a feature that useful for work and play. Enjoy it.

Additional note: I will write an article on how to activate VPN in Samsung Galaxy Note in my other blog (mysamsunggalaxynotejournal.blogspot.com).

Happy New Year 2013