Thinking Sands

Category: Japan

  • Using your ISP’s built-in VPN in Japan

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    wmeddie
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    It’s a little known fact that the routers in Japanese ISPs are incredibly full featured when compared to the gateways you get abroad. One feature that is standard in most of them is VPN. In this post I’ll show you how I set-up my home network that allows me to access my GPU desktop from…

  • Apple’s JIS Keyboard layout and the ADM3A

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    wmeddie
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    A few weeks ago a blog post on catonmat.com showed pictures of the old terminal that Bill Joy used when he created VI.  Terminals back then didn’t have arrow keys so if you wanted to move the cursor around you held down some kind of modifier and hit the H, J, K or L keys.…

  • My first Arduino

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    wmeddie
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    Yesterday my wife decided to buy yet another sewing pattern book and I decided to tag along.  As a Kindle user, there’s usually very little for me to do at a bookstore.  I usually just look around the IT section of the magazine rack and thumb through the amazing Ubuntu magazine, or Nikkei Linux.  This…

  • Announcing Better Mail

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    wmeddie
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    Better Mail for Android on AppBrain http://www.appbrain.com/api/api.nocache.js About a year ago I bought the first Android phone available in Japan for the sole reason of making apps. Unfortunately I’ve had very few itches that needed scratching. About a month ago that changed, because the built-in Gmail app has a fatal flaw. The Problem If you…

  • Valentine’s Day

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    wmeddie
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    I got Valentine’s day Chocolate from my Girlfriend!  I’m so happy. 🙂  It’s a box from Kobe Morozoff.  The company that brought Valentine’s Day to Japan. I need to work double hard now to work off the calories.  f^_^;

  • EMobile D01NE on Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn

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    wmeddie
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    The EM D01NE is a (I think) HSDPA PCMCIA card. The driver for the modem comes with Ubuntu 7.04 (Maybe before). I get about 2Mbps from it (max is 3.8). Getting this setup in Ubuntu is easier than getting it setup with Windows. The only gotcha is that you have to install Gnome-PPP first, since…

  • Japanese Keybaord-Fu

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    wmeddie
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    For the benefit of the Internet, the key combination Control+Shift+Hiragana_Katakana puts the keyboard to and from the qwerty layout. Unfortunately the story doesn’t end there. Control+Shift+Hiragana_Katakana actually alternates between half-width katakana layout and qwerty layout modes. If you are unlucky enough to accidentally press that key combination while in full-width character mode (Like I did)…

  • 久しぶり

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    wmeddie
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    Well, it’s been a really long time since I’ve written an entry but I’ll try to get everyone up to speed about what I’ve been up to in the last few months. The biggest news is that I’ve been accepted to do an internship at Matsushita (The parent company of Panasonic) for 6 months. It…

  • リアクション

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    wmeddie
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    Today I made myself a chicken curry rice so good I nearly had a Yakitate Japan style reaction!

  • Miss Universe 2006

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    wmeddie
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    This post is all in Japanese this time. 今日ミス ユーニバスというビューティ パーゲント行われた。今度のMiss Japan （知花くらら）がめっちゃ美人です。 結果はMiss Puerto Rico（Zuleyka Rivera)が勝って、二番目が知花さんでした。日本の方がもっときれいで、頭よくて（スペイン語、フランス語，英語も話せる）、ドレスも素敵だと思い ます。 何点でPuerto Ricoが勝ったか分からない。（＞＿＜） でわ春菜からのバトン行きます。英語の言葉使います！ 【Ｑ１】自転車のことを何と呼ぶ？ Ａ＞ Bike 【Ｑ２】マクドナルドのことを何と呼ぶ？ Ａ＞ McDonalds (also sometimes Micky Ds) 【Ｑ３】パソコンのことを何と呼ぶ？ Ａ＞ Laptop, PC 【Ｑ４】お父さんのことを何と呼ぶ？ Ａ＞ Papa 【Ｑ５】お母さんのことを何と呼ぶ？ Ａ＞ Mama 【Ｑ６】合同コンパのことを何と呼ぶ？ Ａ＞ ごこん。。。 【Ｑ７】セブンイレブンのことを何と呼ぶ？ Ａ＞ (The) Seven Eleven 【Ｑ８】ファミリーマートのことを何と呼ぶ？ Ａ＞ Family Mart 【Ｑ９】自分しか使わないであろう、呼び方を教えてください Ａ＞…