I consider phones to be gadgets, not just phones, because they are. I don’t like any one company over the other and I like to try new things.
I don’t like to spend money on gadgets. They lose value fast and I always find something more useful to spend my money on.
I never went over the 250 euro/phone limit and this post is about phones in that price range.
Last year I bought the Huawei P9 Lite 2017 and it was around 150 euros. Something similar from Samsung was around 250 euros. But people still buy more Samsung phones.
Why?
Why would I pay 66% more on something that has the same specs or worse, but has a more renowned brand name?
Let me tell you what happened to me.
I bought a second hand LG Nexus 5X. Spec wise, the Huawei has the winning spot for the RAM and CPU and it means that it should go more smoothly through apps … right?
Wrong.
Huawei doesn’t do two things right:
It doesn’t clean the extra data remaining from updating or uninstalling an app. I tried this with a clean reset install/login in apps and saw some serious space differences.
It doesn’t manage the RAM properly. After a week of using it, my phone would become sluggish and would behave like a Windows ME on a Pentium 1.
I didn’t saw these two issue reproducing on the Nexus or Samsung devices.
My next phone will be a Xiaomi. Let’s see if, in the same price range, it will do a better job.
In my first blog post I talked about making a difference in the real world with your programming skills by building useful products. Some people told me that all software makes a difference, and in a broader sense, it does. If you make just a little bug fix in a JavaScript library you impacted at least the lives of developers using it, not to mention the people using their software.
But lets stop for a minute and think not only about software that makes a difference, but software that does good. What is software that does good? Software whose main goal is to benefit the lives of others, not necessarily excluding profit.
I talked to my friends about this and most of them said that …
I’m naive
I can do this in my spare time
I should start my own business
There is no money in doing that
I don’t know which one is true, maybe all of them. All I know for sure is that I found some NGOs/companies that reached my goal and showed me that this is possible. Sure, maybe there is not a lot of money in doing this kind of work, but I think most developers don’t try to get rich, they just want a normal life.
I think that software is a tool that helps implementing ideas. Software would be nothing without ideas. Ideas are the base of a great project. In that note, let’s start our list (man, I do love lists).
Have you ever donated money without really knowing the impact of your donation? With Kiva, that’s not the case anymore. Not only you can help a lot of people directly, you don’t need to give money, you just have to lend it.
There are more de 1.3 million lenders, almost 1.7 million people helped by loans and they have almost 735 million US dollars in loans (more on metrics).
Starting point
Kiva was founded my Matt Flannery and Jessica Jackley. Here’s Jessica Jackley on a TED talk.
Ways they make money
All your money goes directly to the chosen person, Kiva doesn’t take any commission at all. They’re sustained only by sponsors, companies, grants and direct donations.
I’ve always wanted to be a handy guy, but I’m not. I tried building stuff several times and even the simplest things take me more than I estimate. Maybe I’m just inexperienced, but never mind that. Even if you’re a wannabe DIY guy/gal or an experienced handyman, this site is for you.
You can find detailed instructions about building all sorts of things, from knifes to robots. You can join interest groups or you can participate to contests.
Starting point
These guys started from MIT Media Lab and formed Squid Labs which at first started with a blog that gave instructions about creating windsurfing gear.
Ways they make money
From what I found their income comes from advertising and pro membership fees. They were also acquired in 2011 by Autodesk, that little company that has Autocad, 3ds Max, Maya etc.
As you’ve seen from their video, MiraRehab si about physical recovery through games. Most of the patients give up on recovery exercises after a short period of time, but this type of recovery keeps them engaged. Maybe as an adult you see the benefits of physical exercises for your recovery, but some kids don’t understand that concept and that’s why this software along with the Kinect is a great thing for humanity.
Starting point
The four founders (Team Simplex) won the Microsoft ImagineCup contest in 2013 with their project.
Ways they make money
MiraRehab has collaborations with clinics from UK and Romania and I think it won’t be long until they reach other countries. Until the autumn of 2015 the software is available only for clinics, but after that anyone can buy the software and a Kinect camera and hook them up to a PC.
If you know other software products that do this kind of work, please feel free to share.
