Marufuji

I decided to DIY my daughter's room lighting. I need things such as the light switch, flat wire (size 16), wire cover, glue, led light (5 watts), light socket and electric socket. She only has phone and power bank to charge and an electric fan. Although, she is requesting for an air-conditioner but our budget is too tight  so, she'll have to wait for a little while.

My daughter and I went to Wilcon Depot Centre located along Visayas avenue in Quezon City. Bus as it is already around 12nn, we decided to eat first before buying the electrical items.

We checked the restaurants/fastfood and ultimately decided to try the newer one - Marufuji which is located at the ground floor. The front look similar to Wendy's as well as the menu. We are the only customer during that time. My daughter ordered the one piece chicken meal, i.e. friend chicken, rice, royal float and fries. I had the burger meal, i.e. cheese burger, royal and fries. 

The chicken is quite ordinary. Similar to what mini stop offers. The burger? Not sure where to compare. But definitely better that burger machine. My daughter said it is juicy (maybe because it has so much mayonnaise on it). Fries are ok although not as crispy as the one from McDonalds. 

The place is clean. New tables and chair. The crews are not as friendly as those working in Jollibee or McDonalds. We finished our meal after 30-ish minutes. At this time, there are already other customers ordering at the counter.

I think I should mention this giant ceiling fan. This works great when the building is still not air-conditioned. 

Sky Cable Broadband

I am currently subscribed to Sky Cable broadband. The subscription is bundled with cable TV in which 4 channels are in HD. I have the line for more than 2 years now. It is not because of the good customer service or speed of the internet but because of the price. I am only paying 999 pesos per month.

We have a couple of gadgets now plus my 2 beautiful daughters love to watch Youtube and Netflix, 2mbps is now not enough bandwidth for our family. I can hear complains from my wife and occasional sigh. So, I thought we should now upgrade our plan to faster internet speed. I discussed this with my wife since she is the one doing the budgeting. I thought we should get PLDT Fiber since it offers larger bandwidth but without cable TV. But my wife said that we should still get the plan with cable TV since our youngest daughter love to watch kiddie channels such as cartoon network. So, we ended up sticking with Sky Cable but with upgraded line.

I called Sky Cable to enquire about the plan that I think would make us happy (hopefully), i.e. plan 1599 with 8mbps and 8 HD channels for cable TV. The customer support I spoke with told me that for upgrade I should call billing department. So, I did. 

The billing CS told me that she can schedule the upgrade in the following weekend. She explained to me that there will be no cash out but only upgrade fee of 350 pesos. The technical support team will have to change our cable modem with the modem that support 8mbps. After some security check, i.e. providing my address, middle name and birthday, the contract was partially sealed.

The current plan that I have is fine when use for browsing and watching Youtube. But it is a pain to use it when the time hit 5pm until 7pm and during weekends. Maybe because I am sharing bandwidth channel with other subscribers and during that time and day, the internet activities are at its peak?

As I am working from home on Wednesdays, I need to have a decent connection to connect remotely to our office in Makati. 2mbps is really frustrating to use especially when I am using remote desktop connection. It will take 5-10 seconds for the display to refresh. So, I normally ended up connecting to my brother-in-law's PLDT Fiber internet.

As the plan upgrade is underway, I thought I should benchmark the download and upload speed of my current line. This is for me to be able to know if I am really getting my money's worth for the upgraded line.

I ran this test around 12 midnight, Thursday. So, as expected the download speed is quite good while the upload speed is just... ok. I think Sky Cable has a good infrastructure in Quezon City area.

Speed test at 10.30am, Friday. Slightly lower download speed but higher upload speed.







Plan 1,599 8mbps Broadband

Sky Cable technical support activated our new broadband plan today. They just changed the cable modem to the one that support 8mbps. I just provided a photocopy of my driver's license and LOI that says I requested for plan upgrade.

Here's now the download and upload speed of our internet. So far, I haven't hit 8mbps. I have a test where the line went down to 2mbps.

Speed test at 2.29pm, Saturday.




Speed test at 7.01pm, Saturday.




Using MacBook speed test app. Time is 7.12pm, Saturday.





Using iPad speed test app. Time is 10.48am, Wednesday. Speed is way too low!

iOS Battery Health Feature

I just updated my aging iPhone 6 plus iOS to 11.3. One of the feature added is the battery health. As Apple admitted, it throttle the iPhone CPU when the battery can no longer provide peak output to prevent damaging the electronics due to sudden shutdown when large current is drawn from the battery.

My iPhone is now showing some sign of old age. It will take a couple of second to open an app, e.g. Spotify will take around 10-15 seconds to open. I thought that the battery already need replacement which will cost me 29 USD or around 1,500+ pesos. But Apple delivered on its promise to release a feature that can detect the holding capacity of the battery and to know if it still can support the phone peak performance. The feature is included in iOS 11.3 that I installed. I am now able to know how much power my iPhone battery can still hold and luckily for me that battery is still in pretty much good shape.

I am happy that the battery can still hold 85% of power. No need to worry for now although it need to be charged more frequently that before. I think I should replace the battery when it hit less than 80% capacity. To check the battery health, go to settings > battery > battery health menu. 
A description will be displayed whether the battery still support peak performance or will be prone to sudden shutdown. If the battery is no longer functioning properly, a disable link will be available.

UP Technohub Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

I hate Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

I had a bad experience at this branch on Father's day. As my wife and I are a regular coffee drinkers, we always bring our own mug. At Starbucks we get 5 pesos cup discount and indirectly, we also helping the environment.

I brought my mug at this branch and ordered a coffee. But they did not accept my mug because it has Starbucks logo on it! I explained to them that it should not matter whether I use Starbucks branded mug or not. They should be able to pour the coffee into it. But the crew did not accept my explanation, so I ended up using the CBTL paper cup. Bad CBTL.

My daughter wanted to try the double chocolate. I am not sure why. But she is asking for it for almost 2 weeks. As I love my daughter (as all Father do), I bought her this chocolate drink. One thing that I noticed though, Starbucks offer a bigger sizes for its drinks compare to CBTL. But I think, CBTL chocolate drink taste better than what Starbucks offer. The price in CBTL is also quite expensive, regular double chocolate is 155 pesos while green tea latte is 165 pesos. 

My daughter request is now granted.

Starbucks green tea latte taste better. This one taste like the one blended from 'Zagu'.




Expensive green tea latte.

Mypro Ipad Mini 1st Generation Smart Case

My wife upgraded her iPad mini 1st generation  to an iPad 4 retina with 128Gb storage and 2 Gb RAM. Her previous iPad is a non-retina, so, pixel is noticeable and display color is not as bright as the latest one. It has a measly 16Gb of storage and a 512Mb DDR2 RAM. The CPU is the old 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9. It only support iOS version 9.3.5. The lag is noticeable with some display scratches as it was also used by our youngest daughter.

The iPad is now lying around as our daughter found that the iPad 4 is more nicer to use due to its larger storage and more shiny display. She installed a lot of kid apps which she enjoy playing, especially when we are in coffee shop relaxing. She also love to take picture and video of everything. With 32Gb storage, she was able to take loads of them.

As no one is now taking care of the iPad mini 1, I asked my wife that I use it for watching Netflix when I am travelling going to and from the office. With 9Gb available storage, I can download significant number of episodes of my favorite series. Currently, I am watching Designated Survivor. Nice series especially if you would like to understand how politics work. Major gripes are slow response and I cannot do split screen. But if you will not nitpick, watching movie from this  device is quite decent.

As the case of the iPad is now quite banged up, I ordered one from Lazada. The price is cheap and look nice in the picture. Also, the review of the product is positive which encouraged me to buy. Here is my review of the product.

I placed my order last April 01 and received the item after 5 days. I think it took quite a long time for them deliver.

Good packaging... The case is pretty much safe during shipping.

From  pink case to black one :-)

The iPad mini exactly fit the case. Look and feel like those known brands.

Hard plastic back cover. Case is quite light.I like that all holes are exactly cut out especially the one one covering the speaker.

Display cover double as stand. The case is quite sturdy and look like would last for a long time.

Little Bridge Resort at Lemery Batangas

Got a few days off from office work courtesy of lenten break. We went to my brother's place at Brgy. Butong, Lemery Batangas which is two hours drive from Manila. The travel is fast as most of Manila folks took advantage of the holiday. We travel via C5, South Expressway, Eta. Rosa and the zigzag road going to Lemery. 
As it is summer time, swimming is one of the activities that is surely on our list. Luckily, there is a resort near my brother's place. It is owned by the healing priest father Fernando Suarez. The place is quite crowded since it is holiday break and a peak season. 

The place has two swimming pools (I heard one is for the overnight guests) and a beach front where you can swim if you like the salty water instead of a chlorine filled pools. As we went in the afternoon without prior reservation, we painfully settled for a table and a few chairs. But my youngest daughter seem to enjoy the beach and beside we only stayed for about 4 hours.

But I am really worried about the beach due to its proximity to houses which probably making the water dirty. I think it is like swimming in Roxas Blvd? I am not thinking of trying to swim at this beach again. I hope we were able to wash away all the bacteria we lifted from the water.

Beach seems ok...

See the houses? Not a nice place to swim...

Wrist band to make sure outsider can't enter the resort...

Pepper Lunch at UP Town Center

Hungry stomach? Why not try Pepper Lunch? They offer a good set of menus at not so affordable price. We ate at this restaurant a couple of times already. I personally like the beef pepper rice though the amount of beef is shrinking but taste great nonetheless.

I tried their lenten promo, i.e. salmon pepper rice with miso soup for 275 pesos. The soup is fine but not as tasty as the one Tokyo Tokyo offers. My wife and my daughter ordered the tasty beef pepper rice. If you are cutting down on the amount of cholesterol intake, salmon pepper rice is one of the of the food to consider. It is not as tasty as the beef pepper rice but at least your heart is safe.

Rice serving is quite large and not for person in diet mode, plus the margarine and additional calories courtesy of shredded corn. But I think indulging yourself sometimes should be ok.

The place is quite big and located at the ground floor near the entrance. If you are going to visit UP Town Center, this is a good place to eat after shopping.

Sizzling hot as always... See the few salmon? 

Mixed and ready to eat... Where's the beef?