Would you get behind a wheel if you didn’t know how to drive?

Bill Thompson, one of my favourite tech journalists of the BBC, recently posted an article about an emerging divide of those who can use a computer, and those who can’t.  He uses examples of things like not being able to install simple Windows updates to protect themselves, and how “computer experience” does not end at being able to word process.

Naturally gravitating towards friends with technical minds (I shan’t say geeks because I have geek friends who wouldn’t know a toaster from a computer) during school and university, I suppose I was living inside a bubble and did not see the reality of the technophobic real world.  Stephen Fry in the article uses the analogy of cars and computers, which isn’t a bad one to use.  Most people wouldn’t dream of sitting in the driving seat with some practical driving experience, yet people are happy enough to go online, shop on eBay, share their personal details with Facebook, and run their wireless networks unprotected without batting an eyelid.  Actually, it’s not really that they even know that they should be worried.  A colleague of mine recently revealed to me when he was having connectivity issues at home (AOL, need I say more) that he had been using a wireless network at home for over two years without any form of protection (not even MAC address).  I told him how dangerous this was and almost a month later, he still hasn’t taken any action.

I’ve started profiteering from this technophobia.  Colleagues have been coming to me and asking about so called PC health check services offered by PC World.  I blow them out of the water by offering a full OS reinstall with updates and backup of their files, all for £30.

I think for many people, they’re probably too far gone to give a toss about learning a trick or two about computer maintenance.  Living in the disposable society that we have now become and with laptops being had for less than £200, people seem happy enough to just buy a new computer every 2-3 years once the OS has become riddled with malware and spyware.

Mike, you do this for a living so what are your views on the article?

It’s almost as if it’s a new Mac

Finally got my replacement hard disk and RAM for my MacBook Pro yesterday.  Fitting the new hard disk was easy as pie and replicating the data from the old disk was as simple as a few clicks; even the Windows partition copied over nicely.  I now have over 200GB spare on the main disk for my growing digital media library.

Since I was in the guts of the MacBook Pro, I installed the 4GB of RAM that now makes it fly.  After initial launch and quit of apps, they all now open again in only one bounce of the Dock since the data is still stored in RAM and as long as I don’t shut the machine down, they should stay in this state indefinitely.  I did a resource test to see how much of the 4GB would remain after opening EVERY single app and the result hovers around the 1.8 to 2GB mark – plenty of room to play with.

All in all, these upgrades cost me less than £95 and just a little elbow grease.

Shock! Horror! Microsoft did something right!

Today was a big day for the Xbox 360, today was NXE (New Xbox Experience) day.  I don’t think it’s ever happened before in the world of gaming but Redmond decided to go and completely redo the entire OS dashboard in light of its growing platform.  Gone are the days of the blades and say “hello” to channels, which essentially do the same thing.  The new dashboard is much slicker than the last one, both in look and operation, combating one of the largest complaints that the previous format was slow and unresponsive.  The NXE utilises space much more efficiently over the same screen real-estate, giving a much less claustrophobic feel to it all.

The big feature for me though is the ability to copy whole games to the hard disk, making my 120gb investment a worthwhile piece of kit now.  It generally speeds up the loading of most games, though Halo 3 and Dead Rising are the same, if not worse than loading from optical media.  The major benefit though is that it makes the 360 much quieter in operation, since it’s the optical drive spinning up which causes a large deal of noise.  Running games from the hard disk should also prolong the life of the optical drive since it’s spinning and searching far less now.

It’s a double whammy of Microsoft news today because they also announced that they will be scrapping their One service and will be replacing it with a free antivirus for Windows.  This should be par for the course because it’s Microsoft’s fault that their operating system is riddled with security flaws and holes, and it should be their responsibility to protect its users.  I run a small 15gb partition for Windows XP and despite its small footprint and irregular use by me, I still have to run a fully fledged antivirus just to protect the damn thing.

Well done Microsoft, you did good!

Oh how times have changed

I recently outgrew my thumb drive and having a 2gb one really was claustrophobic, requiring creative movement of files.  Amazon have a 16gb version of the awesome Sandisk Cruzer for only £17.99, which is incredible considering it alone provides more storage than my first two PCs combined.  I now carry everything on there from various handy applications like TweakUI for Windows, through to full size software package installers like Office 2007, and even entire operating system images like those for Windows XP.

I also need to get myself a new external hard disk and have been looking at the Western Digital My Books.  I’m in need of at least 1tb and at £85 (also on Amazon), it’s pretty damn good value considering.

Yokohama – Day 6

After a night of wanting to throw up due to the room spinning, I woke up with a stinking hangover.  Jim-bob was also suffering and definitely in a state far worse than me.  Keiko didn’t hear us return, thankfully, but did later comment that Jimothy’s snoring did wake her up and despite being pushed and prodded, he was dead to the world hehe.

The day was gorgeous by British standards (and probably by Japanese standards, given the days before), with blue skies and a temperature of around 25 degrees.  Since we were both feeling fragile, we took it easy that morning and went for a casual stroll around the neighbourhood. Being the geeks that we are, an arcade was our first port of call.  It was incredibly priced, with Initial D costing only 100 Yen (50p or so).  It was also incredibly dead so I continued to load the machine up with the monies until the ushii came home.  Jimbo played some Virtua Cop 3 and something else that I don’t recall.  We found another arcade where Jimothy showed me his music game skills and had a few goes on Drum Mania, Guitar Freaks, and Beat Mania; don’t ask me to tell you the versions, I have absolutely no idea.  We made our way to the station where somehow, we ended up talking about women’s underwear for some reason or another.

To Yokohama we ventured, where we had arranged to meet Chikara.  Sawa and Keiko were after new laptops and we were going to have a goosey-gander in Yodobashi Camera for some netbooks from Asus, Acer, and so on.  We waited around by the street level entrance, but the usually punctual Chikara was late (shock horror!), so we took some photos to pass the time.  I’m actually very impressed with Jim-bob’s composition work, and a few of his shots on my SLR have impressed me.  Chikara eventually turned up and we made our way to Sogo for lunch.  Sogo is one of my favourite department stores, with my first introduction to the chain in Hong Kong.  There was a store in London many, many years ago, but that was taken over by Virgin, and it’s now an empty shop lot.  Once again, the department stores in Japan are all very plush and full-fat affairs, with the restaurant section on the top floor resembling an outdoor water and rock garden of sorts – all very intricate.  Chikara took us to his favourite ramen restaurant where we all had the regular ramen, with Jimbo and Chikara opting for their salt soup base (a house special) and shoyu soup base for myself.  The ramen was superb and not badly priced at 3200 Yen (£16) for the 3 of us.

After lunch, we had a look at the rooftop where there was some astroturf for football and a view of Yokohama Bay, which wasn’t all that impressive.  We returned to Yodobashi Camera for a look around and it really is heaven on Earth for geeks.  Looking at the mobile phones, I was thoroughly impressed by the variety available.  I even saw the phone which inspired the look of Tony Stark’s phone in Iron Man (the flippy-swivelly one).  According to Jimbo, the reason why there are so many phones on the Japanese market is due to everybody wanting largely the same features, but in a certain colour or a certain style; on Softbank for example, the new Panna (?) was available in at least 10 different colours.  The floor of camera equipment was also a sight to behold, squeezing the Birmingham branch of Jessops (second largest in the UK) into what is an electronics department store, with far more on the shelves at that.  During our perusal of the store, the highly addictive Yodobashi Camera theme (reworked Battle Hymn of the Republic) was playing on a loop:

After our geek-out, we decided to do some touring of Yokohama and headed over to the Sea Bass (Sea Bus) station.  The Sea Bass is simply a boat which takes you across Yokohama Bay and affords some great photo opportunities of the Bay Bridge and Landmark Tower.  Out came the camera no less…

We were all diseased or injured, with Chikara suffering from a sore knee, Jimbo with a sore throat, and me with a sore ankle.  All day long, we were chanting “my foot”, “my throat”, “my knee”, trying to get sympathy from the public and each other.  I miss the banter…

We arrived on the other side of the bay which looked fantastically shiney and new.  Got some great views of the ferris wheel, made famous for me by the wonderful anime, “Honey & Clover”.  Leo would have loved it and it made me feel some nostalgia for the Summer of 2005.

The area was amass with shopping complexes, restaurants, conference halls, and sculptures.  In many ways, this particular part of Yokohama reminded me of the redeveloped parts of Manchester or the London Docklands as Jimothy’s already pointed out on his blog.  It was lovely to just walk around, taking in the sights and sounds.  Chikara mentioned that at Christmas, there is a massive tree indoors which is supposed to look absolutely stunning.  They don’t do things by halves in Japan it seems.  There was also a weird and whacky piece of installation art of a lad about to do the high dive…

I’ve already talked about having to pay to go to the top of Tokyo Tower in Roppongi and it’s no different for Landmark Tower, though at 1000 Yen a pop, we decided to give it a miss.  I kind of regret that decision now because it was such a nice day and it would have been a nice opportunity to take some photos which weren’t cloudy and overcast.  Apparently, there was also a Pokémon store inside the shopping complex for the tower; I know some folks who would have creamed themselves to have been able to set foot inside.

The 3 of us decided to make our way towards the Nippon Maru, which had opted to close in the next few minutes.  Due to meet Keiko after she finished work for the day, we headed in that direction, passing a baseball stadium (I forget the team) and entering a swanky looking part of town, with plenty of fancy western style cafes and restaurants.  Having some time to kill, we popped into a cafe for some drinks and a smoke for me.  The smoking and non-smoking sections of this cafe were laughable, with nothing more than some simple wood beams which were not even connected, separating the two areas.  We had a chat about possible places that Jimothy and Keiko could move to, making both of their commutes to work easier.  Since I’d been on my feet for most of the holiday, I didn’t really get much time to buy souvenirs for people back in Blighty.  For the folks back at work, I decided to get some Hi-Chus since they went down a treat the last time I brought some in.  We went to an Am Pm combini and I must have grabbed about 12 packs of strawberry and apple flavour which came to about 1200 Yen, which is still more reasonable than the £1.50 a pack in Covent Garden’s Cyber Candy (though the Japan Centre sells them for 78p each!).  We soon met up with Keiko and made our way to a station, somewhere in Yokohama…

We popped into an import food store on the way to meet Sawa, where they sold a decent variety of food stuffs from Europe and the US.  Prices were steep with a jar of Sharwoods curry sauce costing about 700 Yen (£3.50 or so).  They also had stuff which you could pick up in Lidl for less than a quid, but if you’re desperate…  There was a film crew shooting a scene for either a movie or drama of some sort, with 2 characters dressed up in Santa suits and surrounded in Christmas decorations.  How they were going to break the illusion of people walking past in t-shirts and shorts when it’s supposed to be Winter is anybody’s guess.  We eventually found Sawa who very kindly got me some pastries for my birthday (and delicious they were too).  The walk to the yakitori place took maybe 10 minutes, but involved walking inside a long and noisy tunnel, and nearly being mowed down by cyclists.

Chikara told us that he typically visits this particular yakitori place once or twice a year.  It looked fairly traditional and we were able to have an entire room to ourselves, so you can bet we were as noisy and silly as possible.  The food selection we chose from the menu was ecclectic, with such juicy morsels like yaki cheese (grilled/fried cheese), chicken heart, and yaki onigiri (grilled rice balls).  The most memorable dish for me though is without a doubt the chicken sashimi.  For those not in the know, it was essentially raw chicken.  Now having grown up in salmonela and E Coli infested Britain, this immediately raised alarm bells, but then you have to remember that Japan’s livestock are typically not raised or treated like they are in the West.  Everybody reassured me that it was perfectly safe to consume, though Jimbo commented that I might have a minor dicky tummy the next day (I didn’t in the end).  So, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”, as the saying goes since I’d probably not get the opportunity again.  And how did it taste?  Oddly, I quite enjoyed it though I probably couldn’t have had more than a few mouth-fulls.  Rather strangely, it all tasted very familiar which raises the question of where have I had raw chicken before in the UK??  I had a wonderful time, and it was nice to just relax and chat with everybody, which is now a real luxury for me.  The bill came to about 20, 000 Yen for the 5 of us, which ain’t too bad at all really.

Sadly, it was time to leave but that did give me a chance to get a shot of the funky tunnel and Jimothy…  We all made our way towards the station and after a few stops, we soon had to say goodbye to Chikara and Sawa.  I do miss them, Chikara especially for his sense of humour.  He really is one of the funniest guys I’ve met in such a long time thanks to his rather unique sense of humour.  Hopefully I’ll be able to see them again in the Spring if I can get myself out to Japan again.  It was soon time to bid Jim-bob and Keiko goodnight also.  I would thankfully be seeing them again the following night for dinner at an izakaya, after the original plan of dinner and drinks at the New York Bar and Grill in the <insert version> Hyatt fell flat (next time!).

This day and the previous one were my favourites from my trip.  Yokohama is a lovely place and has real character where ever you go.  I will most definitely have to give the place a more thorough look on my next visit.

Photos of the day can be found here, here, and here.

Tomorrow would be my last day in Japan, as well as being my birthday.  I planned to visit Asakusa, and made repeat visits to Akihabara, Shibuya, Harajuku, Omottesando, and Shinjuku, as well as dining with Jimothy and Keiko which I’d decided to name “the last supper”.

Tokyo – Day 2

Being jet lagged to fuck, I had an awesome night’s sleep at Keiko and James’ place.  I also finally got to have a melon pan, which despite what Yakitate Japan has taught me, it doesn’t actually contain any or taste of melon in the slightest!  The name simply comes from the shape, which resembles a melon (clutching at melons if you ask me, or is that a different game?).

We had a busy day ahead of us and Jim-bob was quickly becoming quite ill with his sore throat.  Keiko was also worried about me (bless her) since I looked like an express train had hit me the night before, so we played it by ear.  I actually outlasted Jim-bob but that’s besides the point.

We headed out towards the station where I noticed that McDonalds serve some breakfast burgers on sesame seed buns, talk about bizarre!  We got on a train line, which I sadly can’t remember.  Anywhere that I went to with either James or Keiko, I can’t for the life of me remember names or directions to.  Our first destination was Yoyogi Park.  Jim-bob likened it to Hyde Park and it was your average central city park.  Visually, it looked a bit downtrodden and gloomy.  I also got to see one of these infamous Japanese crows which are truly huge, no doubt an inspiration for the abundance of zombie crows found in the Resident Evil games.  It was a Sunday morning and there were plenty of people up and about, mostly in yoga sessions and power walking.  There was also a large gathering of dog owners participating in what I can only call dog play groups.  I couldn’t stop laughing at this one massive dog which was constantly trying to hump every other dog in sight; some sort of dominance thing, or so Jim-bob tells me…  The variety of dogs was impressive, and you would struggle to find a wider selection of canines short of going to Crufts or some other dog specialist convention.

Jim-bob and I headed towards Meiji jingu for a moment of spirituality (and plenty of photos).  The day was overcast but warm, and pretty much held out until the early evening; pretty much ideal for a day’s worth of sightseeing.  There were tourists aplenty since it was a Sunday, and I’m not just talking gaijin here; Jim-bob explained that ever since the economy went bust in the early 90s for Japan, in-land tourism has increased significantly which makes sense.  I saw plenty of adverts and posters for such places like Hakone and Hokkaido, and living in a small town but visiting Tokyo would be no different to me visiting London for the weekend.

We did the motions before entering the shrine: washed our left hands first, then right, and take a sip of the water (optional).  It was an impressive sight to behold, and was immaculately well maintained.  What was interesting was that there were plenty of modern refurbishments to the shrine, such as new storm drains and flood lights.  I wonder if Japan has the same sort of protected historic building mantra as the UK does, or whether they sensibly make changes where they’re needed?  I saw a tree where you could write a wish or a prayer on a plaque for 500 Yen; I didn’t bother with it this time but on a repeat visit, I decided it would be worthwhile.  I settled on just a simple prayer and went through the ritual which involved throwing in a coin with a hole (not so sure about this since the free guide says “a few coins”), bowing twice, clapping twice, and making your prayer before you let your hands go from the second clap.  Did I feel any more spiritual or at ease with myself afterwards?  Not really since it was so busy, hence the repeat visit at the end of my trip.

Our next stop was to Shinjuku to visit the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building.  At the base of the tower was some sort of girl scouts meet.  There were plenty of stalls and girl scouts about, and even Ampan man made an appearance!

There are two towers at the TMG building and I believe we opted for the North tower. Admission is free, though bags are prone to search before you’re allowed to enter.  Going up to the observation deck, there is a cafe of some sort and a souvenir store which seems to sell everything remotely Japanese. The view from the deck is incredible; all you can see is urban sprawl right into the horizon.  On a clear day, it is apparently possible to see Mount Fuji.

I think we had lunch at this point.  We went to a chain ramen place in Shinjuku near the station and Yodobashi Camera.  Like most chain eateries, you go to the ticket vending machine near the entrance and insert your pennies, and make a selection from the menu.  It’s an efficient way to run a restaurant, and removes some of the problems with taking orders.  We both settled on a basic cha-siu ramen, which were indeed very good, which I found surprising for a chain.  Chikara later explained to me that ramen restaurants are a dime a dozen, and that they have to at least be decent to remain competitive and stay open, so there you go.

We decided to head back to Harajuku bridge to see some goths and rock-a-billies.  It was a bit crazy and there were tourists aplenty.  I enjoyed it but it’s the sort of thing that I’ll only ever need to experience once, Harajuku on a Sunday that is; any other day and it’s your normal shopping district.  Harajuku is one of the many youth fashion camps in Tokyo.  There are plenty of shops and stalls selling the sort of stuff most students rock most of the time.  I actually ended up buying a pair of jeans in Harajuku since my trusty pair of Ralph Lauren’s had given up on me.  The flies had broken and there were several large holes in the crotch area; I semi-flashed Keiko the night before haha…

We headed back to Yoyogi Park to see us some rock-a-billies.  There were only two gangs there, and both wouldn’t have looked a miss in a Grease musical.

Once we were done with Harajuku, we headed over to Akihabara.  I wanted to get a particular lens for my camera and this was the place to get it.  The one I wanted is simply a high-end version of the stock 18-55mm lens I was given, but with a bit more zoom and a bit wider (17-85mm).  We found a Laox discount store, which also offered duty free shopping (why it was discounted, I don’t know), and all in all, along with a protective filter, came to about 68,000 Yen (about £350).  The other bonus is that it’s definitely made in Japan, since there are rumours of some Canon lenses being made in Malaysia depending on the batch you end up with.  The customer service was also exemplary; the sales guy gave me the lens to test out on my camera and he tried his best to communicate with a few English words and phrases.  I’m also certain that he said that my lens was ideal for “gravure” photography…

According to Jimbo, Akihabara is no longer the place it used to be.  Despite only ever having seen Akihabara in pictures, film, and third person accounts, I did get the vibe that Jimbo described was lacking.  The place had become full of tourists and there were very few authentic otaku about; most had moved to the back streets or other locales.  It is still a great place to shop for electronics and other anime related goods, but don’t go expecting it to be as crazy as it once was.  There are still plenty of maids about though near the train station, though I did not visit a maid cafe sadIy.

Next up, we hit a few arcades on the main street.  I finally got to try my hands on Street Fighter 4 which isn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be.  The visuals are a lot nicer once they’re in motion and the jarring Westernised look isn’t quite so obnoxious.  The joystick was something I could not get along with though; it had an odd square gate as opposed to a regular circular one so it was very difficult to do smooth motions.  We also played Taiko no Tatsujin where we both got down with the Evangelion theme.  I got to play Initial D too so I was a happy bunny.  All of the arcades allowed smoking which was like heaven for me.  What is a bit odd is that it’s easier to find somewhere to smoke indoors in Tokyo than it is outdoors, due to various restrictions in place.

At this point, Jimbo’s throat got significantly worse so we headed to a very pretentious cafe at the station.  After a drink, he decided to head on home and we parted ways until the following Wednesday.  Leaving me alone in Akihabara is a dangerous thing to do…

I continued to do some solo exploration and ventured further up the main street.  I popped into a cool electronics department store called Sofmap because I needed a new camera bag since my old one no longer fit with the new lens.  Cutting a long story short, I bought the wrong one and needed to buy another one .

I checked out a few anime stores and found one in particular that was very good, they had their merchandise sorted by anime so it made it very easy to look for stuff.  Sadly, most of the merchandise was for the most recent of shows, leaving me out in the cold.

I was getting quite hungry at this point so I decided to hunt down the Mos Burger which Kiyomi had recommended.  I opted for the seafood rice burger which wasn’t bad, but it was very bland.  I had to douse the thing with so much salt just to give it a kick, which I found myself doing quite often whilst in Japan.  The food is good, but generally very flavour neutral so if you like your spices, I’d pack a travel bottle of Tobasco.  I ended up talking to a random German guy who was in Tokyo on business, who shared my thoughts on the food.

Conveniently, there was a smoking shelter next door to Mos Burger.  I don’t know about the rest of Japan, but in Tokyo, you can be fined for smoking on restricted streets (majority of Shinjuku falls into this category).  As I mentioned earlier, it is actually easier to pop inside somewhere for a smoke than it is to traipse around looking for a smoking shelter or an ashtray outside.  As a result of this, the streets of Tokyo are generally very clean.  I wear jeans which tend to drag on the floor a bit and after a day of walking around London, they would be ready for the wash, but in Tokyo, there was plenty of wear left in them.  One other perculiarity I noticed about smokers in Japan is that few ever smoked the cigarette to even remotely near the butt.  Most would get to about halfway or 2/3 and would then put the cigarette out.  They simply are that cheap out in Japan that it’s possible to do this, hence why I’ve come back to the UK with a fair few more cigarettes than I should have hehe…

At this point, the heavens began to open up so I decided to walk home.  On my way there, I passed a store which had a meaty looking queue outside so there must have been some sort of DVD, or game release at midnight on the Monday.  I’d had a hardcore, but thoroughly enjoyable day and felt enlightened.

Photos of the day can be found here and here.

Tomorrow, I will visit the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Shibuya for some fashion and music goodness, and Omotesando, where I would end up getting lost for the first of many occasions in Tokyo.

The legend is true!

Krispy Kreme donuts.  I personally don’t get the fascination with them but being the human dustbin that I am with food, I won’t turn them down if they’re free.  And free they were this afternoon!

I was in the Bullring with mum killing time before dropping off my MacBook Pro for repair at the Apple Store when mum asked me about Krispy Kremes and what’s so good about them.  I told her that they’re just donuts with nothing in particular about them and offered to buy her one to let her see what all the fuss is about for herself.  We strolled up to the counter and the chap by the conveyor belt just went and handed us two; rather confused, we kinda just stood there slack jawed with donuts in hand.  I went and asked if they were free and he nodded.  Then I walked back over to the front of the store and the Krispy Kreme rotating sign on the roof was glowing bright red; I remembered reading about a number of branches offering free donuts for the time that the sign is switched on.

So there you have it folks, another urban myth answered!

Apple woes

Why, oh, why do you forsake me Father Steve??

For some reason or another, my beloved MacBook Pro’s Superdrive has given up the ghost and now refuses to burn DVDs.  I only have DVD+Rs to test this with but it refuses to even start burning any of the discs I have.  I’ve burnt maybe 5 or 6 discs since purchasing the machine, though I have read a fair few discs through it.  I am not convinced that this has caused the drive to fail though because modern day DVD burners use different lenses to read and write discs; the drive still reads everything perfectly and still burns CD-Rs.  I’m gonna have to drop it into the Apple Store on Saturday to the Genius Bar for them to sort out – hopefully it won’t take too long for them to replace the drive…

Twitter

Just a quickie to see if anybody’s a Twitter user?  Signed up to it after hearing how great it is and how there’s a fantastic iPhone app for it.  My page can be found here or simply wait for updates to appear here automatically!

Flickr

I’m finally on Flickr and I’ve set up uploading via email so expect more iPhone photos to be found at the following:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrandyyu/

Enjoy!