The Wayfarer Blog

Interesting BusinessWeek article about how Google is racing to catch up to the mobile phone market in Japan.

Japan: Google’s Real-Life Lab:

Japan’s handset-toting masses, it seems, have a lot to teach the Net giant. The country has become a vast lab for Google as it tries to refine mobile search technology. That’s because Japan’s 100 million cell-phone users represent the most diverse—and discriminating—pool of mobile subscribers on the planet. While Google also does plenty of testing elsewhere, the Japanese are often more critical because they are as likely to tap into the Net with a high-tech phone as a PC and can do so at speeds rivaling fixed-line broadband. And because Japanese carriers have offered such services for years, plenty of Web sites are formatted for cell phones.

Cell phones in the US are getting better all the time, but Japan is still years ahead. Fingerprint and face recognition systems, video talk, and the ubiquitous barcodes that you can scan on advertisements and posters to go directly to the appropriate website…Japanese cell phones are pretty amazing. Then again, most people don’t seem to really use all those advanced features. In fact, cell phones here seem less like phones, and more like mobile email tools. On trains, it is considered rude to talk on the phone, so very few people do. Most people just use their phones to mail each other, while they swim through the throngs of people at the station, trying to locate each other.

Or just to pass the time on the train.

(This is the first of a two-part series on RSS feeds, written especially for a few friends and family members who are unfamiliar with what RSS is, and how it can help them manage their time online. Part One introduces RSS feeds. In Part Two, I will describe some of the most popular programs that allow you to take advantage of this technology.)

I have been meaning for a long time to talk about RSS Feeds, and why I strongly recommend that more people take advantage of them, but I keep putting it off. It has always seemed like such a daunting task, and so many other people have done it better already. Today, I’m going to give you a basic introduction, and if you are interested, I will direct you to a few additional sources of information. (See below)

Do you still go to each website, or maybe keep a list of bookmarks that you like to visit a few times a week? How 1999! There is a better way. What if I told you that, instead of wasting time going to your favorite sites to check for new updates, you could let that information come to you?

And it’s even easier to use than email.

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See? The Internet is more than just a collection of the latest monkey videos!

Dan from The Wrong Advices posted a really useful link to some free lectures that are available online. If you’re like me, you enjoy wasting time on the internet, but sometimes you also want to learn things.

A wide variety of topics are offered. Here a few examples:

• Laser Physics
• Ancient Philosophy
• How I Invented the Personal Computer (Steve Wozniak)
• Modern Poetry

You can even listen to lectures from Oxford, Harvard, or MIT. It looks like some of the lessons have video, as well as audio lessons you can download. So you could study on your iPod, as well.

Here’s the link:

www.lecturefox.com

(Via The Wrong Advices.)

it’s no secret that Japan is earthquake country. Every day, in places all over the world, earthquakes strike with alarming regularity. Many of them are so small that people might not even feel them. That is definitely the case in Japan. We have many small earthquakes; they often seem to hit early in the morning. Sometimes they wake me up, and sometimes I sleep right through them. Occasionally, I first hear about earthquakes in Japan from friends and family back home–even earthquakes that happened near Tokyo! (If you don’t feel an earthquake, you probably survived it!)

A while back, I came across a good way to track earthquake activity around the world.

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If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard it a million times, and it’s true: The chances are, at some point, your computer hard drive will fail and you will lose data. If you don’t want to lose important documents, pictures, or that report you’ve been writing for the past three days, you have to backup your computer’s contents regularly!

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Update (3/27/07): This issue should be resolved now. But if you notice and problems or have any suggestions, please click on the “contact” link in the header navigation bar above, and send me an email.

Hey Internet Explorer (IE) users: Can you see my sidebar on the right side? (It’s blue with a Flickr photo badge, and a bunch of links to previous posts.) I was talking with one of my friends, and he told me that my site was messed up, because the sidebar, which should be on the side, has been on the bottom for a long time.

Well, I don’t have regular access to Internet Explorer (proud Mac user, thank you very much :razz:), but I also observed this behavior on Internet Explorer at an internet cafe once. The entire sidebar was on the bottom of the post! The thing is, I don’t know what causes it. I often use Windows computers at work, but I rarely look at my site on Internet Explorer. But most of the time, (other than that time at the internet cafe), it looks fine. It might be something from my site, like one of the plugins I use on my blog or maybe a CSS incompatibility, but I suspect it has something to do with their IE settings, since this doesn’t seem to be a problem for most people who view my site.

By the way, about half of my audience uses Internet Explorer. The other half generally uses Firefox, Camino, or Safari. I use all of those, plus I also sometimes use Flock and Opera, but I recommend Firefox for its security and extensibility. It has a huge set of powerful plugins and themes you can add to the main browser. I guess most people don’t think much about the browser they use (IE comes with Windows, so that is what they use.) That is fine. I’ve heard some good reviews of the latest version, but I haven’t used it. There are many, many browsers, so you should use whichever one(s) you want. But I am always surprised to hear people say they thought they had to use Internet Explorer. You don’t. If you do, you want to make sure you are running the latest version, Internet 7 (IE7), here. Older versions are less standards-compliant and may have security holes, which puts you at risk. Plus, IE7 finally has tabbed browsing, like everyone else! (Ok, I’ll be nice….)

If you want to learn more about the history and development of web browsers, check out this Wikipedia article. Wow…I remember using NCSA Mosaic. And I remember when Netscape came out. Some people on the internet were unhappy because they thought it was going to ruin it. Only time will tell if they were right…

Anyway, if anyone else is seeing the sidebar on the bottom, please let me know.

(I began writing this post last week, but got busy and never finished it. Better late than never…)

One of the things that has bothered me about using Flickr to host my pictures is that, short of asking everyone to sign up for a free Flickr account, I have had no way to easily share private pictures on Flickr with family and friends–until now.

Signing up for a Flickr account is a nice thing if you want to share photos and participate in the huge online community. It is a fun and interesting way to view pictures. If you take pictures, or if you want to comment on other people’s pictures, I would highly recommend it. But if you just want to see a couple of my private pictures, it might be a bit of a hassle. Now you don’t have to.

When I create a set of private photos, I can give out a guest pass to anyone who wants it, so all you have to do is go to the link I give you, and you can see them. Of course, you can still join Flickr if you want, but now you don’t have to.

Why is this important? My policy is, I don’t want to post pictures of family and friends publicly, unless they give me permission. I know many people might think that is silly, but I want to respect people’s privacy. I worry that the next time I whip out my camera, no one will want to let me take a picture, because they are afraid everyone in the world will be able to see it!

I have many private pictures that I have been holding back. When I have time, I will get them up and get out guest passes to everyone! If you want to read more about this, check out the November 21st post of FlickrBlog.

I have updated a couple pictures…I have been playing around with the beta trial version of Adobe Lightroom. So far, it is pretty nice. It doesn’t replace Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, but it is a nice addition–especially if you shoot a lot in RAW, as I have been doing recently. All digital cameras shoot in JPEG format. It is the standard. But some cameras, like my Nikon D70s, also allow you to shoot in RAW format, which is basically like a digital negative. The nice thing is that you have more control over the photo and you can edit it non-destructively. The bad thing is that you must do more editing and the files are larger. Programs like Adobe Lightroom and Apple Apeture make it a lot faster and easier to edit RAW files.

If you want to download it and try it, the address is here. I’ve had it on my computer for a long time, but only really started trying to use it recently. I think it also works for JPEG pictures, but I haven’t tried that. If you don’t know what I am talking about and/or don’t care, then just ignore this.

Anyway, I am swamped. I have tests at my high school, and of course they gave me a huge list of demands at the last minute, as always. And I am just really sleepy…so I need to finish things so I can go to bed early. I have uploaded a handful of pictures, which I can process while I am working on my tests, but I am really behind. Sorry about that. Please be patient. I made a few breakthroughs with my Nikon during our trip. I am starting to get a feel for it. So I am glad about that. And I still want to write more about the trip.

I am always behind, and I always write entries about how busy I am. But this is the busy season at my job, so….(better get used to it! :mrgreen:)