So what is Fring you ask? From one of the creators of ICQ comes Fring. Just imagine Skype, Google Talk (Gmail chat thingi), MSN, Facebook chat, Twitter updates and loads more put together into a nice little package... called Fring which works BEAUTIFULLY on your mobile phone.

As a matter of fact, they've been around for sometime now... I found Fring when I was searching for a compatible version of Skype which would run off my mobile phone. Since I've got the unlimited data package thingy from my service provider, I might as well make full use of it.

Just imagine this... FREE Skype calls... and if you've got SkypeOut Service which allows you to call internationally and locally at SUPER low rates, you've got yourself one heck of a deal! You'd be virtually using no mobile airtime as far as your service provider is concerned because everything goes through the Internet on your mobile phone. All you pay is that monthly flat data fee with your mobile service provider.


Best part of it all, Fring is absolutely free and virtually works with almost EVERY mobile phone out there... At the time of this post, Fring is available on..

• All Windows Mobile 5 & 6 devices
• UIQ devices
• Symbian devices
• And if your phone is not 'canggih' enough, you get to use 'mini' FRING which works with most Java enabled phones...
  

How do you get started?

1. Get yourself a flat rate data plan... it ranges from 66 ringgit - 99 ringgit per month (depending on your mobile service provider)
2. Install Fring by downloading it off www.fring.com
   
3. Configure the different services you want enabled (ie. MSN Chat, Skype, Yahoo Chat, Google Talk, Facebook etc)
4. Enjoy!

Trust me, this is one software that'll change the way you look at your mobile phone EVER again.

The only bummer
To me, the only thing that'll probably stop people from using Fring is that additional monthly subscription of 66-99 ringgit for your unlimited data plan from your Mobile Service Provider.

YES - I agree, that's alot to pay just to experiment with a new toy like Fring but think of the possibilities... the FREE calls you'd be making, the SUPER cheap international calls you'd be making, chatting and keeping yourself online at all times...

Plus, apart from just using Fring, with the unlimited data plan,

• don't forget about the web browser you've got on your mobile phonesurf anytime without the worry of being charged a gazillion bucks
• sending e-mails whenever you want to using the e-mail client that's in most phones today
• uploading your pictures to flicker
• watching YouTube mobile another software you can download through m.youtube.com

The possibilities are truly endless...

What if you REALLY CAN'T see yourself spending that extra dough?
Good thing is, the people at Fring saw this coming. They knew there would be individuals who wouldn't spend a dime extra on anything. So be it they say... and therefore, they got Fring to work using your mobile phone's WiFi feature.

So long as there's a wifi access point around you, Fring will use that data connection instead. Make free calls, chat etc.

Drawback here is that your phone has to be WiFi enabled.

The choice is yours...
Get yourself unlimited data on your mobile plan and open yourself to unlimited possibilities, reviving the very essense of your mobile phone or not get it and not know what you've been missing out on all this time...

My advice, if finances permit, give unlimited mobile broadband a one month trial - if it suits your lifestyle... stick with it. If not, at least you've tried it.

Life is an adventure... give it that extra spice once in a while when you can :)

Wassup! If you've seen the newspapers lately, you'd have seen the station's birthday cake! Yes, it was custom made, custom baked by our very own Jules' mum – note, it's not Jules it was her mum who has the skills… Jules is just good at talking.

We had it as part of the Press Conference to tell the world about our 3rd birthday doo that'll be held on the 15th of November 2008 – Central Park Avenue 1 Utama. Checkout the cake – it just looks soooo good!

It's a 2-in-1 – a cake and loads of cupcakes. The candles you see on the mini cupcakes are actually edible – amazing. How often do you get to see edible candles? (just for you to know, they can't be lit – it's just sugar :P).

See you at our birthday party on the 15th! Remember, admission is absolutely FREE – and if you listen to the station often enough, you'd find cue to calls for VIP tickets – for the extra especial treatment :)

From Flyniversary to this – eggs. Yes, you'd know by now that I'm absolutely NUTS over eggs. It's got to be the perfect half-boiled eggs. This morning, Fabes and I ordered some from the mamak stall and it was just PERFECTLY done.

Being kiasu, Nadia decided to order her set and it came out like this…

Phrase of the day – DON'T BE KIASU when it comes to EGGS… otherwise you'll get Nadia's eggs… ewww… that sounded wrong.

Have a great weekend!

Friday was Halloween and possibly the sickest thing came before my eyes…

To be REALLY honest, I was terrified, petrified, sickified and whatever fied have you – this THING was scary. It had blood splatter all over the apron, the face looked as though it was made out of FRIED SKIN, the face was painted BLACK (and no, I'm not trying to be a colour-ist here) – and if that's not enough, it's got rubber gloves, a strange walk and voice… NOT exactly the coolest looking thing on the face of this planet.

It turned out to be Moe Nasrul – yes, the dude who goes on air telling you about traffic conditions on the station. This man really went all out to get the who make up done. Apparently it was black face paint and he got some form of wax to create his mask…

Okay, enough of Halloween costumes and such – so on Halloween night, I decided not to freak myself out no more – so I headed to the Curve to checkout the Ice Bar… the place was AWESOME! Freaking -15 degrees in the heart of Petaling Jaya – and trust me, you won't be able to last 1 minute in there without a jacket – my ears were freezing, so were my cheeks (and I'm talking about my face cheeks – the other one was well padded) – it came to a point where it started HURTING!

Then of course there were the drinks, it was served in LITERAL ICE CUPS! Since it was -15 in there, nothing made out of ice would melt… and so the cups lasted as long as we were in there… Great experience but I wouldn't stay any longer than 10 minutes in there – now I know how it feels to be in the North Pole! I feel so blessed to be living in a country with such 'BEAUTIFUL' weather… it could be super warm at times but it sure beats the cold that would freeze and hurt your cheeks!

Many many many moons ago, Sony came up with an idea...

Hey! Let's create a feature which integrates with our latest Mp3 Walkman! When a user is playing a specific song, wack a button (we shall name it "Artist Link") and voila, all songs in the mp3 player that's related to that song he / she is listening to will be put in a playlist for him / her to enjoy!

Absolutely GREAT idea. It was implemented to some of their mp3 players - problem was, many people hated Sony's now debunked, exterminated, deleted, thrown away, cast to the other end of the world software - SonicStage. This was their iTunes competitor. A software that marriages their mp3 player with the music on the user's PC. Little by little, their market share got eaten away by Apple and so Sony decided to listen to their market, throw away the crappy software and let users either drag and drop or use Microsoft's Windows Media Player which is light years away from their original SonicStage software - great move BUT "Artist Link" was exterminated along with the software.

Many many moons later today...

Apple computers decided to implement something similar... in fact extremely alike - the name... GENIUS.

If you own one of Apple's latest Mp3 players, that includes the latest generation of the iPod Touch (or if you've got a 1st Gen iPod touch with it's software updated to version 2.0+), iPod Nano etc., you'd notice this new "Genius" logo - similar to the one above.

Every single time you play a song, just wack it - and VOILA! Genius goes through your entire library on your iPod or computer (if you're using Genius in iTunes 8) and display a list of songs that would match the similar genre / artist you're listening to.

I've found this to be one of the coolest things ever! I've got such a massive library of music that I would probably listen to about 20-30% of the music I have leaving most of it forgotten. This is where Genius brings everything back to life, helping me pick from the entire library - bringing back long lost favourite tunes... absolutely GENIUS.

So how does it work you ask?

• Load all your favourite music to your iTunes 8
• iTunes 8 will send out information about the kind of music you have in your computer and retrieve matching information for each of your songs
  
• Have them saved in a database that's both in your iPod & computer
  
• Next time you are listening to something, just wack the "Genius" button and voila, it gets into the database and finds music in your computer that matches what you're listening to
• Done!
  

The best part of all of this is you DON'T NEED to own an iPod. Genius works even in standalone iTunes mode. Just load the songs and away you go!

Once again, I must say, congratulations Apple... you've excelled in areas where others failed... now where's my free iPod touch? :)