Japan - Serkan Toto is on fire. The Japan-based technology blogger I reported about last year not only has done an excellent job staying on top of the tech scene in Japan (in English) through his own blog at Tokyotronics and as a colleague at Asiajin, but recently was offered a position with Crunchgear as their now blogging reporter from Japan! Serkan will be covering all the cool tech toys coming from these islands and will provide understanding for those confused by those wacky gadgets from Japan. I caught up with Serkan this week to have a brief interview about this exciting new transition in his life. I decided to experiment AGAIN with Evoca.com s Skype recorder system and was not so pleased with the results. While Serkan s speech is tolerable, mine is simply annoying. Though I ve adjusted the volume to the best of my ability, my advice is to simply cup your hands over your ears when you listen to my part and enjoy some VERY interesting and enlightening information from Serkan as he describes his odyssey towards being a professional blogger . Listen (15 minutes) | Download Tags: blog, Crunchgear, interview, Japan, pacificIT Podcast, podcast, podcast, Serkan Toto, tokyo
Japan - Serkan Toto is on fire. The Japan-based technology blogger I reported about last year not only has done an excellent job staying on top of the tech scene in Japan (in English) through his own blog at Tokyotronic and as a colleague at Asiajin, but recently was offered a position with Crunchgear as their now blogging reporter from Japan! Serkan will be covering all the cool tech toys coming from these islands and will provide understanding for those confused by those wacky gadgets from Japan. I caught up with Serkan this week to have a brief interview about this exciting new transition in his life. I decided to experiment AGAIN with Evoca.com s Skype recorder system and was not so pleased with the results. While Serkan s speech is tolerable, mine is simply annoying. Though I ve adjusted the volume to the best of my ability, my advice is to simply cup your hands over your ears when you listen to my part and enjoy some VERY interesting and enlightening information from Serkan as he describes his odyssey towards being a web entrepreneur . Listen (15 minutes) | Download Tags: Crunchgear, interview, Japan, pacificIT Podcast, podcast, podcast, Serkan Toto, tokyo
Had a super day today visiting the Bryght / Raincity Studios in Gastown, Vancouver, Canada. Had a chat with Roland Tanglao, lunch with Kris Krug and a podcast interview with DaveO about technology in Japan (looking forward to listening to that!) Mobile post sent by pacificIT using Utterz. Replies. mp3
Was hoping to have a meeting with someone downtown today but something went wrong in the process and instead checked a few things out and made a few observations. Here is an audio of my muses. Mobile post sent by pacificIT using Utterz. Replies. mp3
Was hoping to have a meeting with someone downtown today but something went wrong in the process and instead checked a few things out and made a few observations. Here is an audio of my muses. Mobile post sent by pacificIT using Utterz. Replies. mp3 Tags: Vancouver, pacificIT, Robert Sanzalone, podcast Tags: Personal, Technology, vancouver, vancouver tech community
Canadians living abroad understand this. Non-Canadians have no idea what this is or why Canadians make a fuss about it. Tim Hortons. The one institution which remains constant from coast to coast to coast. It s been over nine months since I had my last Tim Hortons coffee. In this post I truly do enjoy my first cup of Timmies in a very long time. Ahhhhhhh! Mobile post sent by pacificIT using Utterz. Replies.
Santa-san beats bullet train in Japan. How cool is that? Great job by Google and Norad this year. Hoping Santa-san is good to you this year! http://www.noradsanta.org/ Mobile post sent by pacificIT using Utterz. Replies.
Link: Love from Mashable: Twitter Updates Now Connected to Facebook Status http://tinyurl.com/2gq4gy # Link: Link love: [TwitterSweet] Integration between Twitter and Facebook Status http://tinyurl.com/yogwz6 # Link: Link love: [AndrewTerry.com] Updating your Facebook status from Twitter http://tinyurl.com/24s5o2 # laughing how status links from Twitter come out in Facebook. # Wondering if this is going to change the way I write in Twitter until Facebook takes the IS out. # Link: MyToGo for Skype - Interesting but complicated way to make regular calls from ANY phone go t.. http://tinyurl.com/2lr77e # Link: TweetVolume - Measure words on Twitter against each other http://tinyurl.com/2jue9o # Playing with http://www.radiusIM.com # @theuer: the Social Media Samurai still uses pacificIT! # ブログネイション ジャパン 大好き！ # 日本 ブログネイション 大好き！ # 私はロバート・サンザローニです。 # Link: Terraminds micro search - Twitter Search Engine http://tinyurl.com/32abq2 # @AndrewTerry - Thanks for the link love. Enjoy updating your Facebook status with Twitter! # saying to @programwitch: Yes, that may be me. Just having a Japanese Twitter search spider my feed! # saying: That s it for tonight. Oyasumi! Nite! # Link: Twitter検索 : Search Twitter in Japanese http://tinyurl.com/24l4nb # Post: pacificIT Today - 2007-09-30 http://tinyurl.com/2ot4eo #
Japanese are polite BUT they rarely hold the door open for the person behind. # Feeling a little homesick today. Miss my family. # Skype still down? # Video post: Doin my chores http://tinyurl.com/2vo9pr # Skype down AGAIN?! Wow. # @Scobleizer: Gmail fine. # Video post: Kasado train back to Nagoya http://tinyurl.com/2hmamd # Video post: Off the subway in Nagoya, Japan http://tinyurl.com/2fhrh8 # See you there! pacificIT.ca/podcast - guest: Michael Pick. 7:00pm PDT. Listen: http://mp3.twittergram.com/pacificIT/gram01533.mp3 # Blog post: eJournal 2007-08-16 http://tinyurl.com/yv52d2 #
Presentation to the NIPCC This video was originally shared on blip.tv by NIPCC with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license. (more )
type= application/x-shockwave-flash width= 425 height= 350 In my quest to not promote Facebook, here s a video I thought was just too, too funny. Enjoy!
Loading... One of the best parts of living in Vancouver is the multicultural richness of the city. It s a relatively young city but the heritage of its people go back for centuries. When I was younger we didn t celebrate Chinese New Years so often. I m glad we now do. Here s a little walk around a popular Chinese grocery store the day before New Years. (more )
I don t know if it s my age or just that nostalgic feeling, but I m so impressed how I can now play one of my favourite games at the arcade as a kid on my own blog. Asteroids. Not that this is a technological breakthrough nor will it help you promote your business. It s just nice to have this little widget hosted on a WordPress blog causing a little distraction - and bringing back fond memories. It s great being part of the transitional generation. We ve enjoyed ALL the technologies as they were introduced. *sniff* Go ahead and try! It works. Spacebar = shoot | Keyboard arrows = move ship (more )
MJ Ankenman is a realtor in Vancouver. I met her a couple of years ago at a presentation I gave to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver on blogging and technology. MJ was enthusiastic from day one and has been at the forefront of learning and implementing the newest technologies in Real Estate. Today we put together a podcast/videocast interview in West Vancouver with Ron Sowden of Dekora, a real estate staging company. Yes, I wasn t aware there was such a job before myself which made this subject particularly interesting. The video runs for 7 minutes. It was shot with a Canon DV Video camera with no external microphones and edited with Windows Movie Maker. The files have been uploaded to YouTube and Blip.tv, where multiple formats and a RSS feed to Chat Realty is available. A days work but a lot of fun. Stay tuned for more episodes! (more )
My Sweetie and I went to see Letters From Iwo Jima last evening. Since we spent the last part of 2006 in Japan AND had already seen a lot of previews of the movie from that side, we thought it would be interesting to watch. We were disappointed. The movie is by Clint Eastwood (wha?) who attempts to show the last days of one of the most bloodiest battles in the Pacific war. I studied about the relevance of Iwo Jima in school and knew the role it played in convincing Truman to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His decision was based on the apparent Japanese unwillingness to surrender. Something most people outside of Japan still don t understand. Clint Eastwood attempted to show the human side of Japan. They are people too. They have families too. The usual American perception is that Japanese are sneaky, suspicious liars who, after all, caused the war with their attack on Pearl Harbor. Their behavior in the Prisoner of War camps in S.E. Asia again shows how horrible those people are. Did Clint succeed? I m afraid not. The movie is almost completely from the Japanese side. It s also completely in Japanese (with subtitles, of course). This inherently should make it alright then and give the true feeling of what was going on. Well, showing Japanese blow themselves up with grenades still doesn t tap into what really was going on. Yes, many didn t want to kill themselves and truly wanted to return to their families in Japan, but there was a mentality going on which can t be captured from a 2007 mentality. This war NOW was to save their homeland - their families back in Japan. From a British perspective, it was for King and country. Shouts of Banzai! were (and are) the same as shouts of Hip-hip, hooray! . These glimpses into Japanese behavior without meaning or context leave the viewers even more puzzled about Japanese behavior and steers the audience to more questions than answers. My favourite part of the movie was when a soldier spoke to another saying a letter from an American soldiers mother to his son was no different than what his own mother would have written to him from Japan. It was one of the only moments in the movie which may have reached Clint s objective. The rest was just a lot of shooting and blood. I m glad I saw the documentaries of this story from the Japanese side. While there is no excuse for any country s behavior during war, the message was: No one is without guilt for their past. Let s try to learn something from this . Then, with a wink and a nod, they show scenes of present day Americans in Iraq. Those sneaky little Japanese. grin iwo, Jima, letters, from, Clint, Eastwood, review, movie, disappointed, Robert, Sanzalone, pacificIT, Japan, Japanese, America, Americans, war, world, II, 2, two, suicide, army, navy, opinion, review, 1945, banzai, Pearl, Harbor Share This
In this installment I rant a bit about the things I like and don t like about Apple s new iPhone. Enjoy the video. Tags: iPhone, Apple, Steve Jobs, video ipod, video, videocast, podcast, mediacast, pacificIT, Robert Sanzalone, Sanzalone, PocketPC, Pocket PC, PPC Download Tech Talk - January 2007 Share This
Yes, I decided to spend my first day of 2007 with some crazy people here in Vancouver. I decided to attend the annual Vancouver Polar Bear Swim. Me jump in? No way! But really enjoyed the festival setting around me.. as I have many years previously. Please note: this isn t just any video. This one is special. If you watch it from this post you will see the annotations and notes pop up - some are even clickable! You re also invited to leave messages on it as well. Enjoy! Tags: Vancouver, Polar Bear Swim, New Year, New Years, New Years Day, 2007, English Bay, swim, swimmer, swimmers, swimming, ocean, cold, crazy, people, crazy people, Robert Sanzalone, pacificIT Download Portable (iPod) Share This
I ve now been away from my home in Vancouver for almost a month. A bit longer than my usual trips away from home. This disconnection from my daily or weekly routine has certainly given me an opportunity to see what things you want to have when you re away and what things you can have when you re abroad. 1) Can you even plug your laptop in? The first difficulty I was hit when I arrived in Japan was how to connect the Internet. No wait actually it was whether I could plug in my laptop at all. After visiting and living in Japan before I was aware of the basics - the prongs are the same as North America and the power was almost the same - being 100 volts instead of the standard 120 volts (which works most of the time though home hair dryers run noticeably weaker). What I wasn t prepared for was that this time I had a three prong cord for my laptop (changed since my last trip). This third prong or ground wire receptacle rarely is available in Japan. Therefore, no place to plug the laptop in unless you have an adapter to bring it down to two. This also can be a challenge since not all receptacles even are polarized (one of the prongs slightly fatter than the other). Fortunately I was able to hunt down both these adapters and was back up and running. 2) Access, access, access! Even when I travel to conferences in the US, the biggest complaint I hear is about access. That is, either it is too slow or doesn t exist at all. Japan is a country with too much technology. In fact, I started getting tired of having a remote for EVERYTHING from cars to toilets to bathtubs to literally the kitchen sink. The wow factor wares off pretty quickly, especially when it may be saying something to you important and you don t understand the language ( sit on this toilet seat and it will zap you, come on, I dare you! ). Internet access is available as it is elsewhere in the world BUT in a slightly different way (as is everything in Japan). Public cybercafes come in the form of comic and internet shops which are OK but of course don t allow talking on Skype. Private cyberbooths are also available (and are very cool) with free drinks and food delivered to your cubicle but again do not allow talking. Public Wi-Fi is truly non-existent except for some very difficult places to find. The result - you can access the Internet from almost anywhere BUT you can t use your own machine. High speed internet is available to home users available through NTT or YahooBB (Yahoo Broadband). It works really great in every aspect - you just need to be in a home which has it (which much of the time, I wasn t). The older system used in the country was an archaic ISDN system which is only slightly faster than dial-up. Dial-up has the double whammy of local courier charges so is hardly worth it. 3) VoIP - Yes, it really does rock! One of the happiest successes of my trip to Japan has been VoIP Pacific IT. OK, it s my own company so I will brag about it but wow, it really, really, REALLY does work! There were numerous calls I both made and received and the quality was as crystal clear as if I was in Vancouver. Most people I spoke to actually thought I had returned to Vancouver. When I called, of course, the caller ID shows up as a 604 number so everything seemed to be as normal (could be a problem if I have to PROVE I m in Japan!). If you are thinking of getting VoIP, either for home or for travel, it is such a money saver and the technology just works. Nuff said. 4) Getting news from home This evening a member of my new family told me Vancouver was in the Japanese news because of the dirty water from the Capilano watershed (boiling water, three day rations, etc.). It s quite late in Vancouver so there s no need to call family members. All I did was click on the CKWX Radio News live feed over the Internet to get up to the second news from my home. The technology again worked perfectly. It was the same as if I had it on the car radio at home. It gave me vibe of what was happening at home without bothering anybody about it through my international reaction (the news is always reported differently from abroad, just like when people call me to say there s an earthquake in Japan as if the whole country just shook). These have been only a few of my observations and experiences over the past month. Please feel free to share your experiences here. I d love to read them. Tags: Japan, Japanese, travel, Internet, Robert Sanzalone, radio, VoIP, Pacific IT, VoIP Pacific IT, access, Internet access, telephone, NTT, Yahoo, YahooBB, dial-up, Sanzalone Download Robert in Osaka, Japan
One of my objectives while being in Japan is to see what is hot and not in technology. While the usual hot things still remain the keitai (cellular phones), something as a North American technology guy I DON T want to talk about because we re SO BEHIND, other areas are more familiar and easier to accept. Such as operating systems. Other than the slightly different keyboard accommodating hiragana, katakana and kanji, (the three other alphabets the country has other than Roman characters or romanji) the stuff inside the computer is pretty familiar. The landscape is pretty much dominated between Windows and Macs (don t see the proprietary Word Processors predominant in the early and mid 90 s anymore - thank goodness). The fun part is seeing the advertising. Macintosh Japan has chosen to mirror their North American ads using Japanese actors and nuances. Presently there are three videos running nightly which are all funny so I decided to see if they were posted on YouTube. You bet! Here is one of my favourites which I have posted through Mojiti, a VERY COOL Web 2.0 service which allows you to annotate or translate videos already posted on YouTube. Love the Internet!. Tags: japan, mac, pc, windows, macintosh, commercial, tv, television, translation, ipod, funny, youtube, PC vs Mac, Mojiti, operating systems, technology, Japan technology, computer, computers, Japanese computers, Japanese, English Download PC vs Mac Japan
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