I’ve just moved back from the US and all the major websites have suddenly decided that I would prefer to read everything in Tagalog. Hell no! I love the three different local languages I know, but English is just so much easier to read. Words are shorter and things are easier to express. For example, in Tagalog, the word “worrying” is “nakakapagpabagabag.” Now, even if you were Filipino, would you rather read the short word with fewer similar syllables or would you rather read the long word that’s all a’s? Heck, we use a’s in so many words, we even joke about our ability to have conversations with just that vowel. (an extreme case is “Bababa ba? Bababa. A, bababa.)

When I first came home, I had missed speaking in Tagalog so much that I spoke only in Tagalog and emailed only in Tagalog. While folks were happy enough to talk to me in Tagalog, EVERYONE complained about the emails. A majority of the Filipinos who have access to the internet would rather read in English.

I really don’t like all the websites changing my settings to Tagalog without my permission. It slows me down and even when I know where the settings button is, I have to remind myself that we call English “Inggles” so it’s in the languages starting with I, not E.

Thanks & Regards,
Farzana.

Meanwhile, the Mac App Store and iTunes are my main pet hate. There is NO option to change it to English, so any apps I buy will probably be installed in French. I don’t want the French versions – and I don’t want to do the installation in French! Same goes for iTunes – now all the TV shows I might have bought are only available to me in French. I really don’t want a dubbed French version when I could understand (and prefer) the original English version just fine. Why the hell won’t these dumbarse companies let us choose our own preferred language, huh?

Also, I agree with what you said about Google. In the beginning I see them bending to the manufacturers and carriers just to get Android out there. Well, it’s out there. Now, Google needs to start demanding that consumers have a choice, on startup, original Android or Custom carrier/manu. skins ala Sense, Motoblur, TouchWIZ etc. Additionally, they need to include bloatware as part of the “choice”. I hate Nascar, I shouldn’t have three apps on my Sprint phone dedicated to that crap. Google needs to take control of their OS before it’s a confusing bloated mess.

Thanks for the cool blog, lotsa good stuff here.

Twistdiff

It’s the 16GB model, which is *internal storage*, ie. not including an SD card if you insert one.

The 16GB is spread out as roughly 2200 MB for the /system and /data partitions, and then the rest shows up as an “internal SD card” for putting apps2sd and music etc onto..

I used to have an HTC Magic, which has the same 512MB storage as the Desire, but running Cyanogen’s mod, and that always had plenty of space free on it too.

Edit: Yeah, pretty close to rooting. I nearly did it the other day, until I realised there wasn’t a simple package for Tiger. But still, this shouldn’t be my best option. Google’s apps should be smaller and/or App2SD – and they should keep tighter reign on what phone providers can do to their OS before selling it. This is ridiculous!