Using mobile internet, iPhone or iPad in Japan for tourists This April I am planning a trip to Japan, and as we know Japan is one of those countries where there aren’t that many English speakers around. Given how complex the city itself is with language issues, an internet connection which tends to be my last resort of survival in a foreign country, is needed. Here comes the problem: Japan is a country that doesn’t primarily use GSM mobile phone technology, which means obtaining SIM cards isn’t exactly the easiest thing for short-term traveler. I also heard that obtaining and filling down local paperworks isn’t one of the things I’d love to be doing on a 8-day trip either. After an extensive research (yes, I did spend 2 hours on this), the easiest and the cheapest option for me is to rent either a SIM card or a device from this company. The rates are probably the best you can get if you live in Japan for less than a month and they even let you rent devices.  Since I’ll be traveling with my parents this time, I’ll just go with the Mi-Fi that lets me connect five of the devices to the internet on the go since I can route all the calls via Skype or Viber anyway so there really is no use to get a plan with local calls. And after seeing what my hotel is going to charge me for 24-hour internet access, it’s a no brainer. Oh, and the link: Global Advanced Communications

Using mobile internet, iPhone or iPad in Japan for tourists

This April I am planning a trip to Japan, and as we know Japan is one of those countries where there aren’t that many English speakers around. Given how complex the city itself is with language issues, an internet connection which tends to be my last resort of survival in a foreign country, is needed.

Here comes the problem: Japan is a country that doesn’t primarily use GSM mobile phone technology, which means obtaining SIM cards isn’t exactly the easiest thing for short-term traveler. I also heard that obtaining and filling down local paperworks isn’t one of the things I’d love to be doing on a 8-day trip either.

After an extensive research (yes, I did spend 2 hours on this), the easiest and the cheapest option for me is to rent either a SIM card or a device from this company. The rates are probably the best you can get if you live in Japan for less than a month and they even let you rent devices. 

Since I’ll be traveling with my parents this time, I’ll just go with the Mi-Fi that lets me connect five of the devices to the internet on the go since I can route all the calls via Skype or Viber anyway so there really is no use to get a plan with local calls.

And after seeing what my hotel is going to charge me for 24-hour internet access, it’s a no brainer.

Oh, and the link: Global Advanced Communications

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2011

Summary of events in 2011 in a very well presented three minute video from Google Zeitgeist. The soundtrack playing in the clip “Sooner or Later” by Mat Kearney.

Zeitgeist is a Google yearly publication summarising its search terms over the year. And this year tops the list are Rebecca Black (*facepalm*), Google+, iPhone 5, Battlefield 3 and not surprisingly Steve Jobs.

2011 will be remembered as a remarkable year for liberation, and for me it has been a year of personal reflection and discovery. Life decisions have been made and postponed:

I’m going back to school in 2012. Fuck yeah :D

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“Occupy Flash” - Time to move the web forward Flash used to be the platform that enriched the web experience. But today, it’s a mess. It loads very slowly, consumes a lot of your computer’s resources for no reason and it is just annoying especially when it’s being used to just waste your time and energy. Don’t you hate it when you enter a website and find that you have to wait 30 seconds plus for that Flash page to loads up its intro animation? By and large, I don’t find Flash to be useful to average users today apart from playing interactive web-based games like Farmville. Apart from this, Flash really hinders web development particularly when there’s a superior standardized platform available: HTML5. Convinced? Head over to occupyflash.org and see what you can do to join the cause. Even its maker, Adobe, admitted that it sucks!

“Occupy Flash” - Time to move the web forward

Flash used to be the platform that enriched the web experience. But today, it’s a mess. It loads very slowly, consumes a lot of your computer’s resources for no reason and it is just annoying especially when it’s being used to just waste your time and energy.

Don’t you hate it when you enter a website and find that you have to wait 30 seconds plus for that Flash page to loads up its intro animation?

By and large, I don’t find Flash to be useful to average users today apart from playing interactive web-based games like Farmville. Apart from this, Flash really hinders web development particularly when there’s a superior standardized platform available: HTML5.

Convinced? Head over to occupyflash.org and see what you can do to join the cause.

Even its maker, Adobe, admitted that it sucks!

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