A quick look at Anycall’s Haptic

Written by admin on April 5, 2008 – 11:36 pm -

I was at the COEX mall today and had a chance to have a quick test drive of Anycall’s (Samsung) latest phone to jump on the iPhone bandwagon. I had 10 mins. to play with it so don’t consider my observations as an extensive review. Good news first, the Haptic can be switched to English. I would consider the UI to be good but nothing to write home about, you can drag and drop apps onto the desktop to create shortcuts. It had a number of games installed but I only played with a pair or dice by shaking the phone. I wanted to test typing a text message on the Haptic and much to my surprise and disappointment, the Haptic and on onscreen version of a mobile phone keypad as opposed to a qwerty keyboard that I was expecting. I also felt that scrolling was not that responsive but it could be due to the screen protector that was attached. I didn’t have a chance to see if the Haptic was capable of playing MP3 files or if you had to use a proprietary format such as SK Telecom’s Melon player which is a deal breaker for me. I’ll be looking more into this phone in the days to come and post updates.

 

 


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Posted in Seoul, Tech | No Comments »

The elusive F3 visa

Written by admin on April 2, 2008 – 11:00 pm -

There were no bookings for me today so last night I decided to finally stop procrastinating to apply for my family’s dependents (F3) visa. I woke up early that morning to head to the immigration office in Mokdong.Traffic was heavy on the Olympic (88) expressway and the heavy rain was making it worse. Despite the gridlock I was lucky enough to find a parking spot when I arrived. I grabbed my documents and went to the information counter and inquired which forms I needed to apply for a dependents visa. The person at the counter was very polite and told me that I had to go to a different office which was only a few blocks away. 

Upon arriving at the general vicinity of the Immigration office I had to circle the block a couple of times as there was so signage until I found a small one which indicated that the office was 50m away. I decided to park and find the place on foot which would be easier. When I finally found the place, I filled up all the appropriate forms and got my cue number, the wait wasn’t that long and I was soon being serviced by an officer. After looking through my documents, the officer said that my family would have to apply for the F3 visa. I explained to the officer that my wife had already been to the consulate and was told that I would have to apply in Korea for them, but she politely insisted that there was nothing she could do about it, unless they were already in Korea. 

While driving back I was so frustrated and trying to rationalize why it was so difficult to arrange for a dependents visa while all the other countries I’ve worked in practically give them away once the principal’s work visa is approved.

That day I sent an notarized invitation letter, work contract, photocopies of my passport, work visa and alien registration card. My wife received the documents the next day and went back to the consulate. This time she was told that she also needed to provide an my employment certificate, an invitation from my office. So I that’s what I did and sent her documents the very next day… Now its wait and see if more paperwork is required.

Here come my comments..  Don’t they already have all of my information, the fact that I have an alien registration card, visa and re-entry permit should be proof enough that I’m a legal resident alien. So what’s with all the invitation letters? 

Getting a visa while in the country is different from other wherein you cannot change your status while in the country, you have to leave and get your visa from your country of origin thats the reason why I was counting on being able to process the visa from overseas so as to avoid all the expenses of coming and leaving. Why won’t they process dependent’s visas in overseas? 

 

 


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Posted in Immigration, South Korea | 3 Comments »
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