Finally, Zenfone 5 kitkat rolled out!

I was suprised today as I turned on my wifi. The long awaited and highly anticipated software upgrade for the Zenfone 5 has finally arrived!

And so far I think this update has finally solved the lingering problem of dropped wifi. Thanks for this one Asus! Please let us taste Android L in our Zenfones!

Calculate Age in Google Sheet

Problem

Several times I have personally encountered this problem and I did not pay any attention to it since I do not really need an exact information. But weeks ago I needed to solve this same problem for an event which uses current age to find out if their applicants are qualified on or before the event's date.

Below is a table containing individuals with different birthdates. Let's say the date of the event is April 23, 2014. If one tries to calculate the age of the participants by merely subtracting the current year and the birth year, only those individuals which have already celebrated and are celebrating their birthdays will have the valid answer. Below, the higlighted cells are wrong since Lina, Paulo and Annerle's birthdays are beyond or after April 23.

Some details about this table: Columns A, B, C, D, E (Name, Birthday, Date, Current Age(Current Year - Birth Year), Current Age) and Rows 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Name, Bernadette, Luigi, Kathrene, Lina, Paulo, Annerle). So Name is in A1 and Bernadetted is in A2. The birthday of Annerle is in B7.

Name	Birthday	Date	Current Age (Current Year - Birth Year)	Current Age
Bernadette	1/5/2000	4/23/2014	14	14
Luigi	4/22/1990	4/23/2014	24	24
Kathrene	4/23/1990	4/23/2014	24	24
Lina	4/24/1990	4/23/2014	24	23
Paulo	8/5/1988	4/23/2014	26	25
Annerle	10/11/1987	4/23/2014	27	26

So how do we solve this? We need to implement relational operations (>, <, =, etc.) as well as use a nested if statement. Luckily, google sheet allows us to extract the date, month and year given a complete date (mm/dd/yyyy). The following functions were used to extract information from the dates given in the table:

1. month(mm/dd/yyyy)
2. year(mm/dd/yyyy)
3. day(mm/dd/yyyy)

We use the functions listed above together with the if statement to calculate the current age. The if statement has the following syntax: =IF ( test, then_true, otherwise_value ). It is just similar to the usual if(test,then,else) statement.

The Solution

If we are to calculate Lina's age then we need the following code:

=if(month(B5)>month(C5),(year(C5)-year(B5))-1,(if(month(B5)<month(C5),year(C5)-year(B5), (if(day(B5)<=DAY(C5), year(C5)-year(B5),((year(C5)-year(B5))-1))))))

Now let's dissect this small piece of code.

1st part:

=if(month(B5)>month(C5),(year(C5)-year(B5))-1,

We'd like to be sure that once the given birth month exceeds the event's month then the current year will not be counted in the calculation of the age. Since Paulo's birth month is August, which is greater than or after the month of April, then we make sure that we do not count the current year in the calculation. Thus, in the second argument of the if statement a year is subtracted.

2nd part:


(if(month(B5)<month(C5),year(C5)-year(B5),

In the previous part, we made sure that all individuals with birth months after April have their age calculated correctly. Now we'll go to those who spent their birthdays prior to the month of April. Notice that this if statement is already the else part of the first if statement. Since their birth months are prior to April, the age of each individual can then be calculated easily by subtracting the birth year from the current year (current year - birth year).

3rd part:

(if(day(B5)<=DAY(C5), year(C5)-year(B5),((year(C5)-year(B5))-1))))))

Now we'll go to the third and final part. We've already established the correct syntax for those whose birth months are before and after the month of April. What's left are those individuals whose birth month is precisely April. Notice that this third if statement is the else part of the second if statement. This means that since we've established the age of those who were born before and after April, this else part (3rd part) already refers to the month of April and all we have to do is to establish the operations on the DAY of birth. So if the day of birth is less than or equal to the event's day, then by simply subtracting the current year and year of birth (current year - birth year) we'll come up with the correct age. Else (which means if the day of birth is greater than the event's day), the age is simply calculated by using (current year - birth year)-1 since they still haven't celebrated their birthday yet.

Easier way to disable other dynamic views in blogspot and select only one

Google has given us a great option of how we want our blogspot blogs to appear with different selections of dynamic views. One flaw though is that despite selecting only one type of dynamic view template we still find a dropdown menu containing all the other dynalic views. This maybe okay for some, but for many who use dynamic views this seems to be an annoyance.
I have tried the method from southernspeakers.net and it worked on my other blog but for some reason after deciding to use Timeslide dynamic view, I cannot get rid of the Classic view. Luckily, I found an easier method to remove the dropdown menu containing the views from suresolution.blogspot.com while adding just a little CSS code which can also be found in southernspeakers.net's post on this topic.

The method:

Go to DASHBOARD and then navigate to TEMPLATE. Select the dynamic view that you want as default and you want to be maintained. Now, go back to the TEMPLATE option and click CUSTOMIZE then ADVANCED and then Add CSS. Add the following CSS code and dont forget to press enter after the code:

#views{
display: none !important;
}
 
#header #pages, #header #pages:before{
border-left: 0px !important;
}

Done! Enjoy your dynamic view!

Google it - like a boss!

Found this floating around and I really find it interesting.

Philippines garner top spot for selfiest cities in the world

258 selfie-takers per 100,000 people - that's what made Makati and Pasig City the selfiest cities in the world according to a study by TIME.

258 selfies made Metro Manila (Makati and Pasig) as the selfiest place in the world.

Makati and Pasig are component cities of Metro Manila. Makati is known as the financial district of the Philippines with most of the known multinational and local companies holding offices in the area. Pasig city is also a major financial district in Metro Manila which houses the Ortigas district where companies such as San Miguel and ADB have their main offices in the area.




The availability of major smart phone brands in the Philippines such as Samsung, LG, and Apple as well as influx of cheaper alternatives in the form of China phones made it possible for Filipinos in every socio-economic class to have a smartphone in their hand. This could be one of the major factors why the Philippines topped this study. This is likely also influenced by cultural factors. Filipinos are known to be light-hearted, photo-lovers and internet-active citizens. That is why it is not unusual for us to take alot of pictures as well as selfies.

Mapping selfiest cities. Time's study on selfies with a geographical sense.

No. 2 on the list is Manhattan ,New York and no. 3 is Miami, Florida. Philippines has another representative on the list of top ten in Cebu city at no. 9.

For more information you can visit Time's map on the Selfiest Cities in the World.

App review: Textra

Over the course of years I was able to try different sorts of alternative for the native sms/mms messaging android app. Clearly at some point I am discontent with the native app and here are some of the reasons why:

1. Ugly

Honestly, I think alot of us think that the native sms app is ugly. I think it really is ugly. Though it packs the most basic and essential features, it lacks basic customizations such as color changes of the conversation bubbles as well as a popup tool for easy reading and reply composition.

2. Slow

Now I believe that everyone notices this one. Every now and then when you open your sms through your native sms app you have to wait for awhile for it to load. Some users are also experiencing auto close behaviors. Other users will say that you have to delete some or all of your messages so that the native app will not take ages to load but not everyone wants to delete their messages, right?




And then, weeks ago I finally hit a gold mine when I found out about Textra. Before that I also tried Handcent SMS, Chomp SMS and Hello SMS. So what separates Textra from the rest? Here are the reasons:

1. It really is a substitute to the Native SMS app.

Other SMS apps also feature free sms through wi-fi or if you buy credits from them. That feature is absent in Textra but honestly, I don't care at all. All I need is an app which can dethrone my native sms app and no more, no less.

2. Customizations

There are alot of customizations in Textra. The default state is having a white background but if you want to let your juice run up a little more then you can choose to use night mode which is also pretty nice. Other customizations include bubble colors as well as signatures.

Default Textra appearance

Textra in night mode

3. Fast

Why change your native sms app to a new one if it does not have this feature? Well Textra is really fast. I have no doubt about that. I have tried comparing my native sms app vs. Textra during loading and Textra consistently pops-up almost right away while I have to wait for my native sms app to load for at least five seconds.




4. Other features

MMS

An MMS in Textra

Group messaging

Group messaging using Textra

Plug-ins

Emoji and different plug-ins in Textra

Quick Compose and Quick Reply

This feature is what I love the most. Quick reply is of course activated when you open your incoming sms while quick compose is activated at the notification drawer provided that you checked the option in Textra's settings.

Quick compose

Quick reply

So that's it. We, android users, currently have alot of choices when it comes to sms/mms app. So far for me, Textra worked really well and I do recommend it to everyone who wants to change their stock sms app.

Why did Flappy Bird became a craze and why it was destined to flop

Zomby-eyed and half-awake. That was how one of my labmates appeared when I saw her smiling by herself and tapping on her phone (FYI she just had an overnight doing experiments or maybe busying herself with facebook and movie marathons). I sat in front of a desktop near to where she is and I checked my e-mail. I can hear familiar sounds of kung fu kicks from arcade games and every now and then I can hear Super Mario getting coins from the air and then finally I heard a kick landing into the other opponent. What was that, super mario and king of fighters?

Before going to my area, I was able to catch a glimpse of what she was playing. A colored blob with small wings and pouty lips (it took me awhile to realize that that thing is a bird) paddling in the air navigating pipes and once that thing hit the pipes, oh yeah it's game over! It was a simple game and I was confident that I can outrun my labmate's 79 pipes. I was able to try the game in her phone and it took me awhile to finally get through one pipe.

Fast forward weeks and weeks and weeks after that and that game called "Flappy bird" was nowhere to be found in google's playstore after topping the charts for several weeks. A statement from Dong Nguyen, the developer of Flappy Bird read:

I am sorry 'Flappy Bird' users, 22 hours from now, I will take 'Flappy Bird' down. I cannot take this anymore.
— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014

Popular it maybe, the game proved to be a double-edged sword for Dong Nguyen as many users curse the game.




So why in the world did such a simple game became popular?

1. Simple

Flappy Bird game. Just tap to control the fat bird's flight.

The game is simple. Every one who have played the game knows that. It's not as complicated as say PES (the football game I play). Just navigate the pipes and you're good to go. In addition to the simple concept of Flappy Bird, the graphics is also very simple. You have a pixelated and obese bird, a static background and some pipes which have a constant distance between ends but varying heights.

2. A game that does not let you win

We've been used to games that we usually win - racing games, tower defence, RPGs, etc.. All of the       games that we play were designed to have solutions, they were designed to let us win and feel good and for a moment make us achieve something. Just earlier, I thrashed Bayern Munich using Juventus with a five     goal difference in PES 2014. So games really make us win (virtually) and make us feel good and it invites us to play some more to win more. With Flappy Bird, no one wins. There's no second, third, new stage, unlocked series or whatever new. It's just plain and simple and it also makes you crave for that one more pipe to surpass your best record.

It does not let you win. My highest score was 79 in my brother's tablet.

Why was it destined to flop?

Given that Flappy Bird is so simple and it gives you nothing else new, it was destined to flop in the long run. Though many people still play it, myself included, the game's original appeal has already passed. As I've said, the game is simple but the gaming industry has set the standards so high nowadays with mind blowing graphics and exciting story lines and Flappy Bird does not offer such factors.




Flappy Bird is still popular despite the game being pulled out from playstore and itunes. In fact, the game's developer still receive a hefty paycheck due to the ad impressions that the game generates. And if for some reason you uninstalled your Flappy bird, you can still resurrect it since it's in your app list in Play Store or if you were able to sync your apple product to your pc, then it should also be in your app list in itunes.

Tip:

Want to increase your score? Play Flappy bird on tablet. I've seen one who navigated 200+ pipes. I was able to navigate through 79 pipes after playing in my brother's tablet.