Life of an IT Enthusiast

dodong flores

Saturday, November 20, 5:30am. His mobile phone alarmed. As usual, he woke up that early in spite of feeling a bit tired due to an overtime work last night. After having some ginseng tea, he felt like taking a walk and listening to music. He strapped on his D-Link MP3 digital music player and went out of the house. After thirty minutes, he returned back and attended the morning prayer. Just as the prayer ended, his mobile phone, a Nokia 7110, beeped. It's a text message from his superior, Engr. Jun Basuil, sending him as text message the shopping list of items they're going to purchase to be sent to Hong Kong. So, he immediately punches it in the "reminder" section of his Nokia 7110 and scheduled an alarm for it. He would have liked it if he could call him to confirm but it's still too early and he may still be busy for the individual preparation - the reason why he just set a reminder for that in his mobile phone memo directory. (Thanks for that feature on Nokia 7110!).

He took a shower, had another cup of ginseng tea, and again heard his mobile phone beeped. "You have 3 new mails", it's an alert feature of GlobeXplore in a form of text message, notifying him of new e-mails. So he cranked it up and proceed to read his mail. He found out that there are five; one comes from Beth, and the other one is from Jun Maglangit, two from Fe, and still, there was one from his superior, Mr. Alberio, asking him to prepare in advance the paraphernalia needed for the free consultation that would be held at Il Hwa SM Fairview the following week. As it was still 7:30am, he whiled the time away by making reply to the e-mails he just received. He changed clothes afterward, and just before stepping outside the room, he switched sim card (his N7110 has three sim cards inside in it) in a short while to check some messages from other contacts. There he was able to received some messages and an SCB iTXT - a text message notifying him of his available credit limit from his Standard Chartered Visa. He remembered he made an available balance inquiry last night. And since his available balance is too low, he decided he would use his BPI Mastercard instead for the purchases they would have to make at PureGold. When he switched back to his default sim card, he received another text message, as it turned out, it's his Kuya Mike telling him the company car is already available for him to be used. So, he took with him his 7110, pen, and credit cards, and went straight headway to Condo II just across the street where the company car is parked. As he was driving, he had his MP3 player plugged into the head unit via the CD input, enabling him to listen to 50 tracks without having to flip anything. While in heavy traffic way to SLM, his mobile phone "reminded" him of his scheduled purchasing of goods at PureGold, as this would already his way to go, he silent his phone off. Since sticking it out in the traffic would be more useless, he headed out for a drink to a nearest Globe Mobile vending machine in the corner. This guy is not fond of getting into a vending machine but since this kind of vending machine would only dispense canned soft drinks via text message, it would have become okay for him. In a short while, he already had in his hand a cold Sprite in can - that's without any cash out.

As he was about to pull out of the parking area, he noticed that the traffic was still backed up, so he spends a few more minutes inside the car. He plugs-in to wap and start surfing the net. First thing he did was to pay his credit card and mobile phone bills. He visited BPI Express online and reloaded his BPI Cash Express card, SMART mobile banking to transfer fund to his SMART Money card, Globe Telecoms, and paid all his bills online. He then checked for the latest news from his favorite site http://www.mb.com.ph/wap/. After everything was done, he speed off to proceed to SLM.

In the evening, after having dinner at Orient Pearl (just across SLM), he went home and there, together with the group, Badz, Melvin, Ricky, his Ate Mona, Kuya Carlston, and the rest of the gang, they exchanged "text jokes" while watching live news worldwide on TV. Due to tedious work on daytime he could not suppress the sleepiness that overwhelmed him. And since it would be Sunday the following day, he needed to take rest early in preparation for the Sunday Service. So while on his bed, he checked the latest NBA scores, latest news, latest local MBA scores and scopes out the latest messages from his favorite cellular forum. ...in which all of these become possible at present with the use of GlobeXplore. After that, he went sound fast asleep.

I guess, if we were to look at this scenario, while he was in the car - the author was able to listen to digital music, send and receive e-mails, text messages, surf the internet, pay the bills online, reloaded debit cards over-the-air (OTA), keep all his appointments, post messages in his favorite website, adjust his schedule, keep track of his time, manage his activities - AND have the occasional drinks and croissants at a nearby Globe mobile vending machine in the corner. He used a D-Link MP3 Player, a Nokia 7110, credit cards, and debit cards (the latest craze of the late 2000s). I must admit that all of that quite are expensive to acquire but they are just sheer number of tasks that so-called "high technology" can do nowadays.

dodong flores must have been able to do most of his tasks and functions using only one device. But there would definitely come a day when he would be able to remote control a car with his mobile phone, listen to digital music with his mobile phone, watch live news from his mobile phone, keyless entry in his house using mobile phone, charge all purchases using his mobile phone, and will be able to view the person he would talk to on the other line. And when that day comes, I'm really very sure he will still be using the same brand, Nokia. But I doubt if it would still be a 71xx series.

This article is just a reprint of the very few of dodong flores' online articles. This article was written in December 2000. The author maintain three cellphone numbers during those times, i.e.: +639174518787, +639175183693, +639188784705, all stocked in his Nokia 7110. Two of these numbers are already non-existent though, the other one is already used by somebody for some reason. He was also using these email addresses before: dodongflores@globexplore.com.ph or alternatively, dodongflores@my.smart.com.ph, all linked to his mobilephone.

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