Archive for March, 2006
Spring Cleaning
It’s only a few days away from the beginning of April and a new Japanese school year. If you’re one of the lucky few who are allowed to take secret spring break vacation, count your blessings. Otherwise, you’re probably trapped at your school or office being forced to either look busy or help with spring cleaning. Or, if you are my wife, you’re doing both at the same time: her spring cleaning chore was to lug two dozen old computers down a flight of stairs and then lug them back up after she was done. Seriously.
Since I’m not a JET, I’ve been spared pointless computer lugging, but I do have some tidying up to do. I’ve been hoarding a collection of links that, until now, haven’t fit in any of my previous articles. I might as well join with the spring cleaners and take care of those links here. Enjoy.
(Read the rest of this article)
Gospel Choir Performance
The gospel choir Golden Angels, an “Asian group from overseas,” will perform with three other choirs from Saga on Sunday, March 26 at Avance in Saga City. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the show starts at 7 p.m.; admission is free.
(Read the rest of this article)
Free Software: Tastes Great, Less Filling
In the world of computer applications, there are three kinds of free software, and three weird catch phrases that always go with them. Software can be “free as in beer,” “free as in speech” or “free as in illegal.” Technically I made that last catch phrase up, but does it sound any worse than “free as in beer”?
Software that’s “free as in speech” also goes by the name “open source software.” These programs are written by computing do-gooders who believe that the code used to power their programs (called the “source code”) should be available to the public to encourage collaboration and innovation. It’s actually a pretty noble idea, made even nobler by the fact that most “free as in speech” software also costs nothing to use.
Software that’s “free as in illegal,” on the other hand, is the kind that usually isn’t free but can be not-really-legally downloaded via file sharing programs and used with hacked or stolen registration keys. Downloading this software has the advantage of giving you a free copy of sometimes very pricey programs as long as you don’t mind (a) the off chance of getting hit with a big fine and (b) the horrible, horrible guilt of being a software pirate, matey. Okay, so the guilt isn’t that bad, but there’s usually at least a little twinge of remorse involved.
The final category of free software, the kind that’s strangely been dubbed “free as in beer,” is my favorite. This is the kind that’s available completely legally and completely free. Much of this software is also open source, so people nerdier than myself can marvel at all the source code then can handle. The best part about “free as in beer” software, though, is how far its come since the term “free as in beer” was coined. A lot of these free applications are advanced enough to rival their costlier cousins. Free software has gotten so usable, in fact, that I often prefer it to purchased software.
Since a computer is only as useful as the software you have on it, here are five “free as in beer” programs that will make your computer really, really useful without costing you a single yen.
(Read the rest of this article)
Happy Vernal Equinox Day!
The official start of spring and a holiday. What could be better?
(Read the rest of this article)
Trivia Contest
The Bangladesh Habitat for Humanity group is putting on a pub trivia night to raise funds for their trip. Competition starts at 5 p.m., March 18 at the Celtic Heart in Saga City and costs 1500 yen to enter. Details and rules are on the message board.
(Read the rest of this article)
Hina-matsuri Tour">Arita Hina-matsuri Tour
Go on a guided tour (in English!) of Arita, learn about its hina dolls, have a giant meal, paint some procelain. You can get more information on the message board.
(Read the rest of this article)
Travelin’ On
When I first came to Japan from America, everything was new and exciting. Signs were unreadable! Food was raw and fishy! Cars drove on the left side of the road! I was living in a different country for the first time, and it was great.
My enthusiasm lasted for a couple of months, and then reality hit: I was living in the middle of nowhere in a different country. I’d left the breadbasket of America to come to the rice basket of Japan and, once I’d learned to read the signs, things weren’t all that different anymore. It was time a vacation.
Although at that point I was so accustomed to my Japanese home that I wanted to leave it, I didn’t want to see the rest of the world with a tour group like many Japanese travelers do. Rather than turning to a travel agent to help plan the trip, then, I turned to the internet. (Who am I kidding, I would have turned to the internet even if I came from a family of travel agents who would disown me if I ever booked an airfare online.)
Since most JETs I know get a similar wanderlust while they’re in Japan, I thought I’d share a few good resources you might be able to use to plan your next getaway (even if it is only a prefecture or two away).
(Read the rest of this article)
International Cooking Class
Come make Jamaican and American desserts (Jamaican rock buns and pancakes!) in the latest installment of the Saga City International Cooking Class Series. Sunday, March 12, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., third floor cooking classroom in the Saga City Avance Building. More info is posted on the message board.
(Read the rest of this article)
AJET Elections End
Final day to vote for your AJET national representative. Go to the AJET voting page to cast your ballot.
(Read the rest of this article)
News Feed Me
When I got my very first internet connection about 10 years ago, the only online task I did daily was check email. Back then, only a few major news outlets and a couple of very early adopters updated their websites on a regular basis. Most sites I knew about were either static advertisements for companies jumping on the web bandwagon or places for angsty nerds to publish their “poetry.”
Then man created blogs, and it was, well, if not good, at least more interesting. Suddenly everyone was writing on the web, and some people were even writing things worth reading. Angsty nerd poetry pages were replaced by sites offering fresh, interesting content that could develop a real readership. I started visiting more sites than just CNN.com every day.
But from frequently updated blogs arose a problem precisely opposite than the one I had when I first started using the internet: now I had too many sites I wanted to keep up with. Instead of just checking email and being done with it, I would check email and then go through all of my bookmarks to check for new content. Sure, it was only a matter of a few clicks, but I was living in the internet age, and a few clicks were too many.
Then, man created the news feed, and that was good. Now I only had to make one stop to be able to tell at a glance which sites had been updated since the last time I checked (probably five minutes ago, but that’s just me). And the more I played around with news feeds, the more I found they could actually be used for things more productive than finding out when my friends were writing about me.
(Read the rest of this article)
WordPress Upgrade
Over the weekend I updated WordPress, the system that runs SagaJET, to the latest version. WordPress runs entirely behind the scenes, so the upgrade won’t be noticeable unless something went wrong. All seems to have gone well, though, so you shouldn’t come across anything out of the ordinary. If you do come across an error, let me know by either posting a comment or using the contact form.
Also, WordPress only runs the non-forum parts of this site, so nothing at all has changed with the message board. If you see a message board error, then I should never be allowed to work on a computer again.
(Read the rest of this article)
Saga Music Extravaganza
Open mic night at Rebeers in Saga City to benefit the Habitat to Humanity trip to Bangladesh. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., music starts at 7:30 p.m. Admission is 1500 yen. You can find more info on the message board.
(Read the rest of this article)
J.E.T., Phone Home
If the internet is to be believed, there are something like 2.5 billion phones in the world. Chances are, you’ll want to call at least a few of them while you’re a JET.
If the phone you want to call is in Japan, no problem: just dial area code and phone number, get connected and wait patiently for your perfectly reasonable phone bill to come.
It’s when the phone resides abroad that you get into trouble. Calling anywhere else in the world from Japan can be an experience that ranges from mildly tricky to hugely expensive. It took me a while after I first arrived in Japan to figure out all the ways to call home. It took me even longer to figure out how to work the answering machine, but that’s a different story.
What I learned (about calling internationally, not about working the answering machine) is that there are quite a few options, and with just a little research you can find the one that works best for you.
(Read the rest of this article)