Phil's Notebook 

Napster To Take On iTunes

Napster today launched it's new music subcription service called Napster To Go. It differs from other subscription-based services in that Napster To Go allows the service to be portable. That is the music you subscribed to is no longer confined to the PC. Every downloaded track can be transfered to a compatible portable player without having to pay extra for the transfer. This is made possible with Microsoft's Windows Media technology with DRM. Each music file is encrypted and encoded with the subscription information. Once the subscription expires (i.e. you stop paying) the player would refuse to play the file thus fulfilling the 'subscription-based' model.

A number of MP3 players should support this technology. There's iRiver, Creative Technology, Gateway and Dell. to name a few. More should be expected as the device makers try to gnaw away some of Apple's share in the portable music player market.

Would you pay 99 cents and own the music or have as many as u want for a fixed month fee? I wonder...

For now I'm just happy listening to free indie music from music.download.com

BTW monthly fee for Napster To Go is US$15.

Official Napster website: www.napster.com

For articles on Napster To Go check out this google search result

fwdOUT???

Bellster is now officially fwdOUT.. that's forwardOUT. Although the name resembles FWD (free world dialup) it's a totally different beast. This is after theats of lawsuit from the Bells.

New website is: www.fwdout.net

Read Jeff Pulver's (founder of FWD and fwdOUT) blog on the name change here

Geek Section...

I've been surfing quite a bit lately and a lot of the stuffs I read are IT stuffs (networking, operating systems, applications). I think I'll be good for me to take notes and then share them via this blog and maybe hear from you what your opinions are. From this day on, I'll be maintaining a new section called Geek to host all tech-related entries. The Main will continue to host entries on day-to-day experiences here in Japan.

Cheers!

New Cisco Certification Track

Cisco Certifications have just added a new Professional track called the CCVP. That's V for Voice.

Appears that VOIP is hitting the mainstream. I read somewhere that 2005 is THE year for VOIP to take off in the enterprise. I suppose Cisco Qualified Specialists (IP Telephony support in particular) would be quite interested in obtaining the Professional cert as well since one need to only take 2 more exams to achieve it.

BTW, the CCVP requires the candidate to pass 5 exams oppose to 4 for CCNP, CCIP and CCDP (not counting the associate level which is a prerequisite for all professional level certifications). CCSP requires 5 exams.

Read about this certification on the Cisco Certification site.

Recover XP Product Keys

One of the pain in supporting Windows XP is that when you reinstall XP on a machine, you're required to enter the exact same product key registered with Microsoft (or you'll have to re-register). Of course this isn't a problem when you know your key, but more often than not, this is not documented or perhaps was but couldn't be located quickly.

If that is that case there's a tool called ViewKeyXP that can help recover the original product from the product ID (the number you'd find when you right-click My Computer and select properties). This article from Techrepublic.com provides more details.

http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6270_11-5034981.html?tag=nl.e101

One of many sites where you can download ViewKeyXP...

http://www.pcshow.de/downloads/viewkeyxp,2045.html

Should be safe... turned out clean after scanning using both Trend Micro's housecall and Active Scan.

Thai Food in Shinjuku (not quite...)

My classmates and I went to Shijuku (新宿) to try out an eat-all-u-can (食べ放題 tabehoudai) Thai restaurant. Food was not quite the Thai I'd expect but it was ok.



For about 1000 yen it isn't such a bad deal (in Japan of course).

After finishing lunch we strolled along the busy streets of Shijuku (新宿) and checked out the street entertainment avaialble for the day.



Shinjuku street on a Sunday closed to vehicular traffic.



Musicians from Bolivia playing Andean music. The beat is somewhat jumpy and happy. Can really lift you up when you need a jolt.



This instrument (some type of pan flute) is called a Zamponia according to my Bolivian classmate. Listening with your eyes closed, you'd feel like you're right there in the Andes.



Entertainment comes in all forms. This one as an artist displaying his painting skills in real time.



Here's a fortune teller.



And here's an acrobat.



This band played really well (and they're pretty loaded too). They played english songs when I stopped by to watch. Too bad I didn't get to know who they are... If you happen to know, please drop me a message/comment.



The lead male vocal. Bob Dylan???



The lead female vocal.



A giraffe :-)

Photos of me and my classmates were taken using their digicams.. I'll post when I get copies.

Bellster Online!

Just learned today that Jeff Pulver of Free World Dialup has started a new peer-to-peer network for voice minute swapping last week. Unlike FWD (which Pulver founded in the mid 90s and which he still runs) and Skype, Bellster would allow members to place overseas calls from phone to phone for FREE.

Side note: FWD allows free overseas voice calls from PC-to-PC while Skype allows free PC-to-PC calls and paid PC-to-phone calls.

The concept behind Bellster is that Internet connection and local telephone lines are at times idle and could be contributed to a community where other members (usally from overseas) can 'borrow' to make free calls to fixed line networks (cellular possible too) via the Internet. To make calls, one must have a voice server connected to both the Internet and the local phone line/s and he/she must donate minutes to the community.

The server runs Asterisk (a freely avaialble linux-based PBX software). Servers talk to each other via the IAX (Inter Asterisk eXchange) protocol.

With critical mass, this network could be a force to reckon with. The philosophies behind Bellster are:
- The love you take is equal to the love you make from the beatles song "The End", and
- Build it and they will come. from the "Field of Dreams"

Bellster website: http://www.bellster.net
Asterisk website: http://www.asterisk.org
Jeff Pulver's blog: http://pulverblog.pulver.com

Anyone of you running Asterisk or plans to? Please let me know by email (meikic at gmail dot com) and let's compare notes. Thanks.

Sunday in Chinatown

Some of my classmates and I visited Chinatown (aka 中華街 chuukagai） yesterday after our class. We went from Shibuya by train on the Toyoko Line that connects to the spunky new Minatomirai 21 Line in Yokohama and took about 35 mins. The fare is 460 JPY one way for the full 28.3 Km ride.

The streets are lined with restaurants and groceries. Street food is available but not anywhere close to those you'd get in Hong Kong or Taiwan. Two prominent items I see being sold and with people lining up for are: nikuman肉まん (or its variety the あんまんanman ) and broiled ｃhestnuts (甘栗amaguri).

The nikuman is basically the 'dabao' 大包 one would find common in Shanghai. While the anman is a similar bun it's got a sweet red bean filling. The nikuman I got wasn't bad at all, reminds me of the 'bola-bola siopao' sold near school back when I was in Manila.



Busy Chinatown street. Probably the cleanest Chinatown in the world :)



My Latino classmates.

For lunch, we went to this chinese restaurant with about 10 tables spread across three floors. There were dimsum (pork, beef, shrimp dumplings, srping rolls), a variety of stir-fried dishes and of course the ever famous chinese dish 'sweet and sour pork' and the 'mixed fried rice'.

I must admit I wasn't disappointed at all. It was as bad as I'd expected :-)

Somewhere in the middle of Chuugakai is a temple (関帝廟 kanteibyou) dedicated to Guan Yu ( 関羽）, a famous historical person from the Three Kingdoms (三国）. It was a good day except for the rain which made the cold day, so much colder.



The main gate to the Kanteibyou. The temple was constructed in 1873.



A snapshot of the interior.

I also dropped by Shibuya on my way home (since the train from Chuugakai stops there) and took this picture with the statue of a famous Akita (a native Japanese breed) named Hachiko (ハチ公).



In a nutshell, Hachiko was a dog who would wait for his master at the train station everyday. One day, his master, after leaving the station to work, fell ill and died. Hachiko, oblivious to his master's death, continued to wait at the station everyday for a span of over 10 years not knowing his master will never return until he finally died. The people who saw Hachiko everyday learned about this and were so moved they erected a statue in memory of Hachiko.

Read about Hachiko: http://www.fabuloustravel.com/globe/hachiko/hachiko.html.

A Beautiful Day

It's a beautiful Saturday! I woke up around 10 this morning and was able to do my laundry, clean my room, pick up dry cleaned slacks, buy my groceries for the week and prepare and finish lunch all by 1 PM.

Juat taking it easy now and will go play some hoops around 5 PM.

Just for fun, I took pictures of my exploits at Marugo Supa (Japan-speak for Supermarket) and also of my room today (before and after).



Queue to Marugo, I got there 10 mins they open. They open at 11 AM. As you can see, it's a beautiful sunny day.



Exploits from Marugo.



Before



After

Free Movies!!!

This must be the longest week for me ever! I don't really know why but it felt like the days are just going by very slowly. I'm just glad it's Friday and I have the weekend to recharge and refresh myself.

One positive note about the week though is that I've discovered how to use the cable and VOD (video on demand to the uninitiated) that's available in my room. (yeah after 2 full months!!!)

It's based on the network (ethernet) and video is played-out with a Windows-based set-top box (STB). And since there is only one cable and no hub, I can't watch and surf at the same time... bummer.. :-(



The STB looks like a VCR without the tape feed. I'll take a look what's inside one of these days. My guess is it's an XScale or Via based embedded box.

There's a basic 'free' cable package comprising of channels like espn, MTV, Animax, a news channel and a few others (7 or 9 in all, I forgot). But they're all in Japanese. The premium package includes programs like Bloomberg, Cartoon Network, some movie channel and of course adult programming. They all cost 3000 yen per month each. Crazy... it's likely I won't find myself paying to watch MORE TV. It's interesting to know though that they all cost the same. I would have expected adult programming to get premium pricing.

CORRECTION I learned that the JPY 3000 monthly fee includes all premium channels - which makes more sense. (2005/01/24)



The main menu.

About the VOD, it's really cool. It's just what I had been thinking about setting up before. STB to allow the user to search through movies and play them anytime, on demand. It even has pause, rewind and fast-forward - just like having a VHS or DVD player sans trips to the local video rental store. Movies costs 300 - 500 yen and is available to be viewed as many times as yoiu want within 3-5 days. I've never tried renting yet. I don't know if I will though... rather use my time to study.

Payments are via prepaid cards you buy either online (using the STB) with a credit card or from convenience stores (Family Mart, AMPM, Lawson, etc.).

I found out they have free VOD movies (3 selctions) about every 10 days. I was able to watch 'The Last Samurai' 2 days ago and 'South Park' tonight. Luckily the limited options offered something that suited my interest. They're all in English by the way and with Japanese subtitles. I hope the selections remain interesting.