sketch by xperia

xperia has redeemed itself in my eyes! after removing the doodle function from their photo editor they released the sketch app and i'm having quite a lot of fun with it ^^

default scene for any trial drawing whatsoever. ang dakilang landscape with the rolling hills, sun, and clouds.

my personal take on van gogh's starry night with halo, cover by ane brun, in the background :)

apparently it was out since sometime around august. i have no idea why i missed it.

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sightseeing in style

ever wondered what's the best way to check a place out? yup, do it with ingress and a bike!

so, why ingress? one, it's a game, it's fun! two, it's overlayed on a real map so you don't necessarily have to get lost along the way. three, the portals are all public-accessible landmarks that, popular or not, have interesting stories on their own. also, it's a pretty good way of finding hidden gems only locals know about and it's actually one of the best "spotted by locals" database i've seen so far, sans restos and food bars of course. and one other thing, it makes jogging and biking a lot more interesting - finally, those boring jogging sessions have a destination and an end goal.

i've created my account ages ago but i've started being active only recently because brussels is not as biker-friendly compared to gent. as of today i'm officially level 3. woot! 13 levels more to go, hahahaha.

yes, ysa0. i cannot put into words how much i regret this username but that time i registered i wasn't exactly thinking of playing the game. i just wanted to look at the interface because it's cool haha and, like i said, i've been mainly using it to spot interesting places. besides, "ishi" and most of its common derivatives were already taken :(

first portal i own! not a very strong protection but who cares, i owns it hahaha.

the downside of playing the game though is, first and foremost, it drains your battery extremely fast. let's say, from a fully-charged battery, i can only do 2 hours tops on the field which is why serious gamers should probably invest in reliable power banks. secondly, you'd need mobile data, of course. thirdly, it could be too exhaustive as a tourism information. if you're visiting only for a day it would be better to seek interesting places ahead then use ingress to check out smaller attractions in between to save time (and battery, and mobile data hehe). also, if you bike around like i do, carrying your phone in one hand is cumbersome in the long run, which is why i apparently still need that smartphone holder for the bike i thought i wouldn't need anymore the moment i stopped getting lost on my way to cmst.

all in all it's pretty fun. i've tried explaining the concept to some friends last year but i couldn't seem to capture their interest haha. oh well, time to look for new friends >:) jowk.

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dear diary on the go

I tweak my phone in between study breaks. Now I've just finished installing blogger app on my phone and currently trying it out :)

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calendar syncing issue

i tweaked my phone again. i wanted my phone calendar synced to my google calendar, but unfortunately no matter how much i set it to sync automatically, it won't. actually, it wouldn't sync at all and i get this error icon on my google settings screen which is annoying because it's red..plus it has an "!" on it. i could install google calendar, it has no problem syncing the data with my browser. the only problem is, i kinda like the phone calendar UI better.

google calendar vs. phone calendar

the agenda for the selected day shown at the bottom of the phone calendar is most convenient. plus you can set the view (month, week, or day) in one click unlike for google calendar where you have to do it in two clicks (press "October 2013" then select view).

so the only workaround i could think of to get the best features from both is to have both apps installed on my phone. what it does is, i edit tasks in the phone calendar which gets automatically synced with my google calendar which, in turn, is also synced with the cloud. a waste of memory space, yeah, but i don't suppose i'll be doing heavy scheduling of tasks for now so it should be okay. should i need space later, one of the calendars needs to go haha.

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