So, if you’re a BlackBerry user like me, do consider following their account!

Ridzuan Ashim
Starting and maintaining Ridz.sg aside, Ridzuan is Co-Founder of Senseless Labs – A software solutions company currently focused on building mobile-based Marketing and CRM solutions. He has been dabbling in both web and mobile development since 2003. His interests include how technology can be used to improve the human condition, poverty alleviation through sustainable development, education and microfinancing.

And so here I am reviewing my resolutions for the year and *bam* I realise how far off I am from achieving stuff in almost all categories. That said, I think I can still hit most of it if I start working on them diligently from today.

How about you? How well are you keeping to your resolutions?

Ridzuan Ashim
Starting and maintaining Ridz.sg aside, Ridzuan is Co-Founder of Senseless Labs – A software solutions company currently focused on building mobile-based Marketing and CRM solutions. He has been dabbling in both web and mobile development since 2003. His interests include how technology can be used to improve the human condition, poverty alleviation through sustainable development, education and microfinancing.

Bringing together fitness and music into a wristband, the MOTOACTV is a lightweight, wearable fitness performance tracker and smart music player rolled into one. They’ve been made available since 5th May (yesterday) from Newstead outlets at a recommended retail price of SGD$399.

The MOTOACTV syncs with your PC allowing you to track which pieces of music you perform to best and, like many other performance trackers, allows you to track your workouts over extended periods, set goals and create workout competitions with your friends via MOTOACTV.com. With an easy to use UI, you can instantly launch a workout or find that one song you need to hear to keep you going.

“You only need to step outdoors to see that people in Singapore are passionate about fitness 

Whether you’re into running, biking, walking, or training in the gym, the new MOTOACTV music and fitness tracking device will help you to work out smarter and enjoy your music without using multiple devices or even wires.”

- Tracy Yeo, regional sales manager, Southeast Asia, Motorola Mobility

As part of the launch, Motorola Mobililty also announced an exclusive collaboration with True Fitness in Singapore. All True Fitness, True Yoga and Bikram Original Hot Yoga members will receive a 10% discount on MOTOACTV upon flashing their membership card at any Newstead outlet. Anyone who purchases MOTOACTV will also receive a complimentary 14-day access to True Fitness worth $130.

Some key features of the MOTOACTV:-

• Ongoing tracking of fitness performance stats, including pace, distance, calories burned, and map of route covered, with automatic wireless syncing of workout data to MOTOACTV.com
• 8GB of storage for endless playlists
• Sports a 1.6” full-color touch-screen display that auto-adjusts for indoor or outdoor lighting and is sweat-proof, rain-resistant and features scratch-resistant Corning® Gorilla® Glass
• Option to sync with the latest Android-powered smartphones to receive incoming calls and texts
• FM radio capabilities for more song variety
• Up to five hours of battery life for outdoor workouts, 10 hours indoors, and nearly two weeks on standby
• Supports both Bluetooth® 4.0 and ANT+ wireless connectivity for your existing fitness sensors and your future ones
• Size: 46mm x 46mm x 9.6 mm
• Weight: 35 g

Ridzuan Ashim
Starting and maintaining Ridz.sg aside, Ridzuan is Co-Founder of Senseless Labs – A software solutions company currently focused on building mobile-based Marketing and CRM solutions. He has been dabbling in both web and mobile development since 2003. His interests include how technology can be used to improve the human condition, poverty alleviation through sustainable development, education and microfinancing.

Gushcloud that is.

After almost 6 years of being self employed running various product and services based outfits, I made the decision to work for someone else. The exact reasons for it I’ll keep for a separate post but it’s as much about learning something new as it is about making sure Senseless Labs can move forward with as minimal distractions that consulting gigs often come with.

It’s been quite a ride this past month trying to learn as much about their system and fitting into the team’s workflow but all in all I’m slowly finding my place in the team. Like any other startup, there is always much left to be done.

That said, juggling my own startup and working for another at the same time is quite challenging but it’s forced me to think more critically when it comes to how my time is managed and made me even more appreciative of tools like Skype, Pivotal Tracker, Github, Yammer and good old email to be able to maximise the sort of output I can produce. Aaron now takes the lead in executing many of our deals with clients while I play more of a coordination and planning role.

Of course, you might also notice that the frequency of me writing has dropped quite significantly and that’s primarily because I haven’t found a way to properly put that into my personal workflow. I am still quite involved with Hackerspace and the organising of some of the events there. (On 26th May, there will another session of “Evening with Hackerspace” where we will have a Show & Tell session followed by another Movie Night.)

I have long been afraid of working for any other company because I’m afraid that as I learn someone else’s ways of doing things, it might also limit the way I see how to solve problems. But I’ve learnt that the reverse is also true – that not learning how others do things would also have a limiting effect.

I’m certainly looking forward to the next year or so as I juggle between being a developer at Gushcloud, a co-founder with Senseless Labs tasked to roll out Streetegy, a blogger with Ridz.sg and helping out with Hackerspace. I also hope to be able to spend more quality moments with my family and good friends.

The road will be arduous.
And the days will be long.

But I guess most things worth doing are rarely easy to do.

1. Access to your magazines while on the move.
2. Read while online or download them for ease of use when not connected (which is really useful since the PlayBook is WiFi only)
3. Read your magazines in full colour

The app is free but you will have to purchase the individual magazines. For a limited time, PlayBook users will enjoy access to free titles such as Esquire and Elle.

Click here to go to the BlackBerry App World.

From TED:

Shame is an unspoken epidemic, the secret behind many forms of broken behavior. Brené Brown, whose earlier talk on vulnerability became a viral hit, explores what can happen when people confront their shame head-on. Her own humor, humanity and vulnerability shine through every word.

Brené Brown studies vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame.

Well since this the first few “Making the Cut” posts, let me list again how I’ll judge each important factor to me:-

1. I’ll list all the attributes I look for in a device
2. I’ll go down the list and rank each one of them

• Win! ( 4 points )
• OK ( 3 points )
• Pass ( 2 points )
• No Good ( 1 points )
• Fail! ( 0 points )

What am I looking for in an uber awesome laptop?
It shouldn’t weigh a ton, it should preferably be able to last at least 12 hours and it should allow me to plug in all the stuff I need at the same time. Oh and of course it should have WiFi (which laptop doesn’t have that these days) but if it has a 3G module, that makes it awesome. Everything else really depends on how well designed it is to make functional. Extra points for being cool and making everyone envy me.

1. Weight – OK
It weighs around 3kg I think and to me, that’s pretty alright.

2. Battery Life – Pass
On a full charge and at minimum brightness, it can last around 4hrs 15 mins and I think that’s pretty decent. Not great. But not bad. Enough to last me one or two meetings where I don’t have power but definitely not enough to allow me to camp out at a cafe to do work without worrying if I have a shot at the power socket.

3. Connectivity – No Good
I’m not talking about the lack of ports here but more the quantity of USB ports and it’s positioning. Like i’ve mentioned multiple times across the review series, I hate the fact that the USB ports are all on the left side and there are only two USB ports. I plug in my mouse to use and my phone to tether and I’m all out of ports for my portable data drives. At least 3 please! And on both sides!

4. Screen Size – Win!
15 inch. Awesome! It’s not too big for it to become bulky but it’s not too small to not allow me to enjoy watching movies and seeing lines and lines of code.

5. Keyboard – Pass
I’m not too sure how to describe this one. The spacing of the keys don’t go well with me. And I have a gripe that I need to press “Fn”+ “Home”/”End”/”Pg Up”/”Pg Down” all the time.

6. Aesthetics – Pass
The shell is like macbook wannabe that’s not really there so it ends up looking like a pleasant looking industrial device. Not ugly, but not something that would turn heads either.

7. Coolness – Pass
What cool thing does this laptop have? As far I’ve been using it, none. And since it has nothing uncool about it, it bags a “Pass”.

8. Trackpad – Fail
I couldn’t find a way to turn off the trackpad and I keep ‘tapping’ it with my palms when typing causing the cursor to jump. I type a lot when I code and write my entries. I cannot have this.

9. Others – Pass
Is there anything else about this worth considering? Well there’s the facial recognition application to facilitate profile logins at startup but I don’t think I really need that. So yeah, neutral vote for me here.

Overall – Pass (18 points)

Does it make it into my list dream gear? Sadly, nope. But it’s a pass so if you’re not as picky as me, it might still be a good laptop for you.

• Dell XPS 15z – A work machine you can carry around
• [Pictures] Dell XPS 15z
• [First Impressions] Dell XPS 15z
• 24 Hours with the Dell XPS 15z
• A week with the Dell XPS 15z
• [The Review] Dell XPS 15z

Ridzuan Ashim
Starting and maintaining Ridz.sg aside, Ridzuan is Co-Founder of Senseless Labs – A software solutions company currently focused on building mobile-based Marketing and CRM solutions. He has been dabbling in both web and mobile development since 2003. His interests include how technology can be used to improve the human condition, poverty alleviation through sustainable development, education and microfinancing.

This time round 10 EA games will be made available for free together with the Atrix 2– One pre-installed and the other 9 downloaded from the Market. The 10 titles include:-

• Need for Speed™ Hot Pursuit
• Need for Speed™ Shift
• Dead Space™
• EA SPORTS™ FIFA 10
• THE GAME OF LIFE
• MONOPOLY
• The Sims™ 3
• Tetris®
• Worms™
• Bejeweled® 2

The Motorola Atrix 2 also has a 1080p HDMI output allowing you to connect the smartphone to a TV and enjoying the gaming experience on a full screen.

Official Specs

Ridzuan Ashim
Starting and maintaining Ridz.sg aside, Ridzuan is Co-Founder of Senseless Labs – A software solutions company currently focused on building mobile-based Marketing and CRM solutions. He has been dabbling in both web and mobile development since 2003. His interests include how technology can be used to improve the human condition, poverty alleviation through sustainable development, education and microfinancing.

In case you don’t already know, Sony had already released the 3G version of the Sony Tablet S back in mid-January. The new model was made available in a 16GB version at SGD$798.

The pricing of the non-3G versions have also been revised to SGD$618(16GB) and SGD$748(32GB)

Ridzuan Ashim
Starting and maintaining Ridz.sg aside, Ridzuan is Co-Founder of Senseless Labs – A software solutions company currently focused on building mobile-based Marketing and CRM solutions. He has been dabbling in both web and mobile development since 2003. His interests include how technology can be used to improve the human condition, poverty alleviation through sustainable development, education and microfinancing.

Here’s the good news. The XPS 15z didn’t show any signs of slowing down in the two weeks that I started bombarding it with various applications. The only gripe that gets worse with time is the inability to turn off the trackpad. It’s really quite irritating when you do a lot of typing and end up having to backspace or reposition the cursor constantly.

Weight
It’s not light. But its not heavy either. For a 15-inch device, the feel of the weight is, to me, perfectly acceptable. It’s a little bit straining when I need to grab the laptop with one hand and keep it level (you know for those moments when you’re doing work and suddenly have to shift to another table?).

Battery Life
On standard use with average brightness settings and no heavy lifting like World Community Grid running in the background, the laptop lasts around 5 to 6 hours.

Usefulness
What differentiates one laptop from another, to me, is how it balances portability with utility – A really small and slim machine that’s seriously underpowered (think netbooks) will be pretty but useless while a power-packed device that takes a crane to lift is also pretty impractical to use. Do I think the XPS 15z gets the balance right? Pretty much so. I think it could be lighter, but it’s good enough.

Aesthetics
The smooth finish of the aluminium shell makes it really good in the light (provided you kept it clean). And when in the dark you brush your hand over it, it feels like a tiny bit of the door of that car you couldn’t afford. Is it going to turn heads? I doubt. But are you going to feel good carrying it? Yup.

In terms of positioning of the various ports, I think it would have been wiser to have at least one USB port on each side, with one side also having two ports (a total of 3 ports). This would mean your mouse can be easily connected on either side and with a double port on one side it would allow those external harddrives that need two USB ports to be plugged in to be able to draw sufficient voltage without having to split the USB cable to opposite ends of the laptop.

Connectivity (Data and inter-device operability)
With a HDMI output, Mini-display port, ethernet and standard audio ports, the main gripe to me here is that it only has 2 USB ports. I really think a 3rd one would help. (Note: In their recently released XPS 14z, this has already been addressed.)

Performance (Processor and Memory. and actual field performance)
The set that I test with runs with 8GB RAM and the i7-2620M processor and I suppose that’s pretty pimped up specs. Anyhow, over the past two weeks, this probably means you must always get pimped up specs because, that’s when the device is at it’s most awesome

Durability
Unlike tablets and netbooks, the XPS 15z feels solid such that you can throw it in your bag without worrying something might cause it to break or crack or something.

All in all, I think the device is a decent one. Able to deliver most things while not causing too big a whole in your pocket.

Does this device make the cut into anyone’s Dream Gear? Stay tuned…

• Dell XPS 15z – A work machine you can carry around
• [Pictures] Dell XPS 15z
• [First Impressions] Dell XPS 15z
• 24 Hours with the Dell XPS 15z
• A week with the Dell XPS 15z
• [Making the Cut] Dell XPS 15z

Ridzuan Ashim
Starting and maintaining Ridz.sg aside, Ridzuan is Co-Founder of Senseless Labs – A software solutions company currently focused on building mobile-based Marketing and CRM solutions. He has been dabbling in both web and mobile development since 2003. His interests include how technology can be used to improve the human condition, poverty alleviation through sustainable development, education and microfinancing.