The Webmechs Press

I just realized tonight why my internet usage billing on the iPhone seems excessive compared to, say, when I was using my Nokia XpressMusic 5800. I’ve seen a lot of complaints on the internet about such incidents and contrary to what many are suspecting it is most probably NOT the telecom carrier’s sneakiness/dishonesty, nor is it exactly the iPhone hardware’s fault.

The most likely reason you are getting billed for internet usage that you don’t believe you’re using is actually rather simple but easily overlooked, and it is: ADVERTISEMENT SERVED BY FREE APPS! Whenever an application shows an ad it loads it from the net and if you do not have wifi turned on, it will do a data connect using either 3G or GPRS (so turning off 3G will not help).  One way to make sure you don’t connect is to just stick an invalid Access Point Name (APN) in Settings -> General -> Network -> Cellular Data Network. If you have SBSettings, you can enable toggling of 3G and EDGE and toggle both off which is a more elegant of turning your data connection off as well as making it faster to turn on as well.

Paypal now lets you withdraw the balance in your account into your Philippine bank account. Yay!

But… the withdrawal has to take place in PHP, which means your USD will be converted into PHP before being deposited to your account. Currently, you cannot withdraw USD even to a Philippines based USD account. Unfortunately, the exchange rate Paypal uses is terrible (2% supposedly). See http://www.yugatech.com/blog/the-internet/the-mysterious-php200-paypal-withdrawal-fee/

So how does one get around this? Well, what you can do is withdraw your Paypal balance into a USD account in a US bank. But how does one get a US bank account?? Ever since 9/11, opening a US bank account if you are a non-US resident has become very very difficult. If you do a search for “non-resident US bank account”, you will get a LOT of shady sites offering the info on how to do this (if you pay them). I ignore them all. Instead some more diligent searching reveals the following articles on how to solve the Paypal to USD withdrawal problem:

Opening an Etrade account is a widely suggested method:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/03/19/how-to-add-etrade-investment-brokerage-trading-account-as-paypal-bank-account-for-withdrawal-and-deposit/

http://moneyblogger.net/blog/three-methods-to-withdraw-paypal-fund/

There are caveats to Etrade however, one of which is a USD40/quarter “Account Service Fee”, which is waived based on the following conditions:

https://us.etrade.com/e/t/estation/pricing?id=1206010000#AAF

Opening an E*Trade may be considerably easier than opening a US bank account but it supposedly serves as the same thing for the purposes of Paypal withdrawal.  Since this might be a loophole, I’m not sure if they will eventually close it.

If you don’t mind withdrawing as PHP, a list of banks and their bank codes are shown here: http://pages.ebay.ph/bankwithdrawal/bank_codes_ph.html and replicated below

ALLIED BANKING CORP 010320013
AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND 010700015
ASIA UNITED BANK 011020011
BANGKO SENTRAL NG PILIPINAS 010030015
BANGKOK BANK 010670019
BANK OF AMERICA 010120019
BANK OF CHINA 011140014
BANK OF TOKYO 010460012
BANCO DE ORO (& EPCIB) 010530667
BANK OF COMMERCE 010440016
BANK OF THE PHIL ISLANDS 010040018
CHINA BANKING CORP 010100013
CHINA TRUST COMML BANK 010690015
CITIBANK N.A. 010070017
DEVT BANK OF THE PHILS 010590018
DEUTSCHE BANK 010650013
EAST WEST BANK 010620014
EXPORT & INDUSTRY BANK 010860010
FUJI BANK 010640010
HONGKONG AND SHANGHAI BANK 010060014
INTL COMML BANK OF CHINA 010560019
INTL EXCHANGE BANK 010680012
JP MORGAN CHASE BANK 010720011
KOREA EXCHANGE BANK 010710018
INTL NEDERLAND BANK 010660016
LAND BANK OF THE PHILS 010350025
MAYBANK OF THE PHILS 010220016
METROPOLITAN BANK & TRUST CO 010269996
PHIL BANK OF COMMUNICATION 010110016
PHIL TRUST COMPANY 010090039
PHIL NATIONAL BANK 010080010
PRUDENTIAL BANK 010150018
PHIL VETERANS BANK 010330016
RIZAL COMML BANKING CORP 010280014
SECURITY BANK & TRUST CO 010140015
STANDARD CHARTERED BANK 010050011
UNITED COCONUT PLANTERS BANK 010299995
UNION BANK OF THE PHILS 010419995
UNITED OVERSEAS BANK 010270189

One of the greatest frustrations I have had with using the Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard with my Modbook is that it sometimes gives out inexplicable error messages when trying to pair with Windows 7 and refuses to go forward with the process.

I was able to find an article on the net (forgot the link, unfortunately), explaining why and how to deal with the problem.  It turns out that if the Apple Wireless Keyboard got paired with OS X, it needs to be unpaired from OS X first.  Otherwise, for some reason (it keeps wanting to be with OS X ?)  it will fail to pair with Windows 7.  Remember, this means that the Apple WIreless Keyboard not only needs to be disconnected but also unpaired.  You should be able to do this by clicking on Bluetooth in the System Preferences, selecting the Apple Wireless Keyboard and clicking on the “-” button at the bottom.  This should both disconnect and unpair the Apple Wireless Keyboard.

Driver-wise, you should ensure that you use “Apple Built-in Bluetooth” under “Bluetooth Radios”, and then install the Apple Keyboard Driver from Boot Camp in that order.  If you can’t get them work, uninstall these drivers and reinstall them in the proper order.