Strong Earthquake hit Japan

Posted on Monday 16 July 2007

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A level 6 earthquake caused a fire in an electrical power station. Its on almost every japanese tv channels.

japan earthquake

There is a huge black smoke cloud comming out of the central. At this point I don’t know if the smoke pose a danger.

Electrical Central on fire

This area is far from Okazaki, so I don’t think they felt anything overthere. There is no risk of tsunami for this earthquake.

whitewhip @ 7:56 am
Filed under: Daily Japan News and Japan and travel
I-O Data TV Tuner Setup

Posted on Sunday 15 July 2007

English instructions for I-O Data Tv Tuner GV series Model TZ ( sold in Japan only )

1. Make sure your system is set to have “Restaure Points” when installing  drivers. ( They wont unregister properly when installed incorrectly)

2. On Japanese operating systems, the correct driver detection is done without any problems. But for other languages, windows pops-up a dialogue window asking to choose from 3 drivers. One is for Vista and can be ignored, the other is in the root of the Cd -do not install as it will screw your setup. The right one is in the Driver folder, (fun reading the kanji, no katakana!)

3. The TV tuner is dephased of one channel. Add +1 to area channel number ( configured in the mAgic Manager)

4. In “mansions” the channels are set to other frequencies than those of the local area. Compare with an already installed Tv.

5. This model is “CopyGard” enabled, thus preventing the recording of pay channels like Midnight Feel. This CopyGard signal is analogic and is passed over STBs (setup boxes) also.

whitewhip @ 5:34 pm
Filed under: electronic
I am alive

Posted on Monday 25 June 2007

Somewhere on planet earth.

whitewhip @ 7:34 am
Filed under: Canada and Japan and Nagoya and guam and tokyo
Flight to Montreal Confirmed

Posted on Sunday 10 June 2007

Another fun ride… After I decided to reject this crazy route, I went somewhere else and got almost better.  The first plan was to transit to the Arab Emirates, New York and then Ottawa. Does not sound very good. So I made my reservation like this; Nagoya – Narita – Toronto – Montreal instead. I don’t know what to expect with Air Canada. Maybe I will report on that later. I am almost done with the packing.

The refund policy at Yamasa sucks … I have to wait 2 months? So fast to take payments, so slow to give it back.

2 weeks to go until I leave.

whitewhip @ 6:36 pm
Filed under: Japan and life and travel
Leaving Yamasa, Return to Canada

Posted on Saturday 9 June 2007

Going back to Canada… leaving Yamasa

Postal Program Personal effects by mail, personal possessions you bring to Canada.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) may mistakenly assess duty and tax on them.

If this happens, you have two options:

  • Return the mail item to the CBSA for reassessment.
    • Canada Post will write your phone number on Form E-14, Customs Postal Import Form, give a copy of it to you, and return the mail item to the CBSA.
    • We’ll contact you once we’ve received the item from Canada Post.
  • If you prefer immediate delivery of the item, pay the amount indicated on Form E-14 when Canada Post delivers the item.
  • Canada Post’s $5 CAN handling fee will be refunded if it’s determined that the goods should have been duty-free and tax-exempt at the time of importation.
    • However, the handling fee will not be refunded on Priority Post items.
  • The CBSA will not refund any broker’s fees or any shipping and handling costs.

Sounds like fun as usual :-)

whitewhip @ 8:31 am
Filed under: Canada and Japan and immigration and travel
Direction Guam

Posted on Sunday 3 June 2007

Some kind of big news, this blog should be called direction … Guam for a while. More to come in the next days. 19 days left. What will happen? Is this the end of okazakijapan.com? The beginning of a new adventure? The end of a Yamasa chapter?
Stay tuned.

whitewhip @ 6:13 pm
Filed under: Japan and Yamasa and guam
Unlocking the Sanyo W33SA

Posted on Monday 28 May 2007

Those damn cell phone, there is nothing that makes me grind more than a cell phone that I fully paid and still I can’t do what I want with. I own a Sanyo W33SA from AU in Japan. I have a 2gig SD card and I wish to listen to music I already own the right to. But no, the Sanyo phone refuses to read from the card anything that was not created by it.

I thought it was something to do with DRM, but I manage to encode my mp3 files with the Nokia Internet Development kit. I created .dm files but the stupid phone just ignores them. After that I thought I should check how images files are handled. So pictures I took with my W333SA, are exportable to the computer and importable but other pictures from the computer are not readable. I tried renaming, coping the EXIF data, ect.

The images file created by the phone have a creation date, but the ones made on the PC have one. Could it be the reason? Also it looks like the phone has an index of created files. I need to find where it is stored.

As of yet with the software provided by AU, I haven’t been able to communicate with the calendar software. Something is broken with the Japanese software. I really hate SANYO and AU. I don’t want to buy Jpop on Lismo…help?

Sanyo W33SA:
Status: unlockable
Date: May 28th 2007

sanyo japan w33sa

he Sanyo W335A is a swiveling clamshell phone that sports a 1.3 megapixel camera. Other features include: * 2.4-inch QVGA TFT LCD display, 262K colors * FM radio * TV capability * 50MB internal memory * MiniSD memory expansion slot * Pictbridge * USB * weight: 150g

whitewhip @ 7:02 pm
Filed under: Computers and Japan and W33SA