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Personal Technology

Region Free iMac

Momus recently got a new iBook, and in his post about it he mentions the annoyance of not having a region free setting for his DVD drive. This is something I can relate to as I’ve also got a DVD collection that spans the globe, and so I’m limited to watching on my Hong Kong bought DVD player (which is starting to show signs of aging and extreme use). I like watching videos on my iMac more and more, finding it convenient to watch stuff in small windows while I’m doing other things, and I always found it a shame that I had to decide on one region only for my DVDs (I kept it at region 2). From the comments on his post, I got the tip of using VLC, a program I use daily, to watch DVDs, as it bypasses the region locks. Seems like those locks are put into place by Apple’s DVD Player, not the hardware. I changed the settings in my System Preferences so as not to start DVD Player when I load in a disk, and voila, I can watch anything on my Mac. Just tested it out with a region 3 disk from Hong Kong (WASABI), and it worked fine.

Categories
Technology

Gmail

logoI forget to mention it, but I recently got a Gmail beta account (thanks again, KS). The big features are that you get 1GB of space for your stuff, and that since it’s from Google there are advanced search features. Haven’t played around with it that much, but I was mostly happy to get one because it’ll be nice for Yuko, who tends to use her webmail accounts (that are always full) to transfer her reports. Looks like it’s got Hotmail beat.

Categories
Personal Technology

Matching Mobiles

Yuko lost her mobile phone the other day. Well, she didn’t exactly lose it, she dropped it in the huge fountain in front of her library at Todai. It was impossible to retrieve (it’s quite deep), and so we had to get her a replacement. After some visits to Bic Camera and Sakuraya, we ended up getting the same model as mine (it’s now selling for half the price), in white, at an AU shop. The fun part about this is that she can show me how to do things, now that she’s completely read the manual (she’s got a thing for instruction manuals, loves them actually). She’s been showing me a few tricks I never knew about. Also, as I got bored with Arkanoid, I’ve now developed an addiction to Tetris, which I hadn’t played in years.

Categories
Technology

Moving Advertisements

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Tokyo Metro begins its new moving advertisements on the Ginza subway line Thursday. Special display boxes use still images and the motion of the subway cars to project moving images onto the car’s windows. (Japan Today)