UBER: Everyone's Private Driver [via iPhone]

So glad Uber is finally here in Manila! 

I've heard of Uber some time ago and only wished our taxi apps were more reliable & safe. It's been available in major cities worldwide and last week I got excited after my friend Christine sent me an e-mail about it coming to Manila. It's only been 2 weeks since they've started it and they initially have 6 cars. 

It was very timely that last Tuesday I was scheduled to have dinner with my friends at Rockwell. I would normally send my driver home after 8 PM so I took it as an opportunity to finally use the app. The app is free and signing up is easy. It looks like this : 

Getting a ride is really easy:

1. Open the app and register with your name, email, mobile number and credit/debit card details- all transactions/receipts/trip details will be emailed to you. It tells you how much will be charged so you don't have to worry about putting in your card details. 

2. Wait for a few minutes (4 minutes in my case since I was just at Rockwell) to get the automated confirmation via text and track your car on the app itself with an estimated time of arrival, your driver's name, his photo and plate number

 3. The app will notify you when your car arrives. Just tell the driver your destination and that's it! 

Things I love about Uber:

•You don't have to hand in cash/pay the driver

• You can track the car on the app and cancel trips easily

• You can get the estimated cost of your trip 

• You pay with your credit card- you have no idea know how I've always wanted our cabs here to take credit/debit cards. I don't carry around a lot of cash since I know it isn't safe to be walking around with large sums of money here in the city! I also hate having a lot of money in my wallet since I'm always tempted to spend.

• It eliminates the problem of cab drivers asking for the extra Php 100-200 during long trips/busy days 

• It's safe- no crazy and creepy cab drivers who'll leave you hoping your seatbelt will save your life 

• You can SPLIT YOUR FARE as long as you all have the app! 

Right now, the service is available from 7am to 3am. It's so convenient if your personal driver/car isn't available or if you're not too sure about riding a cab late at night. 

Download the app and enter the promo code UberRaleene to get Php 1,000 worth of Uber credits! 

You can also click on this link to sign up and avail of the promo. It's valid for a whole month! 

And to my girl friends, you now have no excuse to skip our weekly dinner dates cos of "scary cabs". Get on Uber!!! 

It's only been 2 weeks since they've started here in Manila so spread the word! 

Follow them on Twitter and Instagram (@Uber_Manila)

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Hipstamatic addiction - rediscovered

Watts Lens + Big Up film

John S Lens, Kodot XGrizzled film

might as well be president of the universe

MOON Her whole album's been giving me good things to dream about.Why did I decide to get Biophilia just now? I am the worst fan.

A preview of her iPad app. 
It's a bad app to have. I've been staring at the animations and toying with each song's "instruments" for days now. You get to read about the influence/inspiration behind each song and all the animation's just so... hypnotizing. Made my sister want to have an iPad.
Fine, if you don't want to get it you can just... buy her songs or something. 

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Get raleene.com on Ovi

You can now get my app from Nokia's Ovi store! Click HERE to download this app for FREE!

My two blogs can be viewed on this app. Get updates from www.raleene.com and my Tumblr. You can also choose to view them separately. :)

Many thanks to Nokia!

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new app: SPELLDIAL!

A couple of my good friends from high school have been investing so much time, effort, money, blood, sweat and tears into this brilliant invention. I wouldn't blog about it if I didn't believe in it and if I didn't think it would be something that could make things easier for a lot of people. I can totally see big businesses using this, too- instead of those supposedly easy to remember numeric combinations that, i for one, still can't manage to memorize since I don't order food (or any other thing) for delivery on a regular basis.
I was fortunate enough to have witnessed the development of this. I remember Albert (the brains!) and Steven (also brainy, my other good friend from HS. LOL) giving me a run-through of the concept and plans sometime last year. They asked about my thoughts on patenting, privacy issues (I think I have enough stories about my accounts getting hacked) and other things a person like me (techy and highly dependent on the interwebz and my gadgets) would think about this new app. I quickly called dibs and registered the names I wanted, and did that again when they revamped their site and officially went to register/process SpellDial.

Imagine just having to type CHUCKS, TOPSHOP, RISTRAS, KFC, MCDO, JOLLIBEE, JUSTINBIEBER, ANNEHATHAWAY, etc. to reach different establishments/people!!! If you have a growing business, this will be super useful in getting clients/customers to remember how to reach you! No more country codes, no more "interesting" number combinations!

You guys should totally register your names already. As for privacy settings and concerns on how one can't be disturbed/bugged by annoying people anonymous callers- they're working on that right now. So what's there to lose? REGISTER NOW. I'm going to stop babbling and use their own words to explain to you this fancy new web app better:


WHAT IS SPELLDIAL?

We've been used to contacting each other through phone numbers for years. We frequently ask people we meet, "What's your number?". However, unless we save it in our phonebook, we barely remember their numbers. That's because our brains are not used to memorizing numbers, but we're pretty good with remembering names! That's why SpellDial was made.

SpellDial is a technology that allows you to call a person through a name, rather than a number. So you can actually say to your friends, "Call me at joninahottie! That's my spelldial." And that's way easier to remember.

Think that's cool? Get your own spelldial name. There's free and paid versions. SO GET THE NAME YOU WANT BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE TAKES IT!!!





Here's a live preview of the SpellDial WebApp widget you can try (shows you how it works, it won't really dial the names- do that after downloading the web app!)



So why is it only a web app? Well sadly, iPhone/android/BB apps take YEARS to develop and register, so for now we can all enjoy this through a web app! At least it's FREE and super easy to install!


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And so you can send them your concerns/find out more about the app:
Like SpellDial on Facebookvisit their website

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