Gadgets in Tokyo

I'm using Vista right now on two different computers - my media PC at home, and my laptop. I thought I'd give my impressions so far.

Firstly, I gotta say on a powerful PC with a good video card, Windows Vista is beautiful. It just looks great and handles like a dream. And when I ran a YouTube video, then did that cool WindowsKey+Tab thing, I was really impressed when the video CONTINUED PLAYING as I Aero cycled through the different applications. Very cool! The laptop is a different story.

So, why am I not as impressed with my laptop? I've been using a Dell Latitude Laptop D600 series - it ran Windows XP really well. It's a 1.73GHZ with 1 gig of ram. So I was pretty excited when I installed Vista to see the difference and how it would handle Microsoft's new flagship OS.

One of the interesting differences in Vista compared to XP is the installation method. Vista doesn't install - it decompresses an image of an install to your computer, much like ghost. I did this, and read the Marketing Blurb, which seems to get simpler and more "6 pack Joe"-like every version of Windows.

After it finished doing that, I booted up. I'm still not decided on whether I like this new pastel, washed out Windows theme. In any case, I excitedly checked my "Windows Experience" score : 1. My score on the other PC is 3.7. If you score 1, Aero isn't available - which is the fancy MacOS Style graphics I loved on the other PC. Strike 1.

I then tried to install some Dell specific drivers - uhoh, nothing available for Dell Latitude on Vista yet. I've had patchy problems that should be fixed with proper drivers. As of now, there are still problems. The system just isn't working properly. Strike 2.

I then tried the new "Vista Sleep", which is where you push the power button and it hibernates by writing the entire state to memory, rather than the hard disk. This means that when you boot it back up, it's super fast. Sounds great in theory. But on a Dell Latitude? Not so fast. It crashes continuously, I always get odd messages, like : "Your system recovered from an unexpected error" after it eats the state and boots fresh. The other thing that is crazy is if I try to hibernate when its connected via my wireless internet card, it crashes every time. It just doesn't power down - it turns the monitor off, and sits there with the power on. I have to hard reset, and it's very, very annoying. Strike 3.

Cisco VPN Client support is crap. I installed it and continuously get the error : "Couldn't enable Virtual Adapter", and it just bogs out. Extremely annoying. Strike... 4!

The Windows Search built into the start Menu (and Windows Search in general) is broken, and it doesn't work properly. And it's slow. Did I mention it was broken? Uhoh, Strike 5.

Well, thats Strike 5 so normally Vista would be out. The thing is, these problems nonwithstanding, it works pretty well. For the most part its quite stable. I'm still getting used to the new look and feel, but I think I like it. And the new file/device sync features are very nice.

So in the hopes that Dell will improve it's driver support, and that Windows will magically one day update itself and fix all these stupid irritating problems, I'm going to leave Vista installed for the next few weeks.

Microsoft, Dell, get your act together, and you'll have a loyal customer on your hands. Piss me off, and I'll be taking the plunge into Macland. Please don't make me go there. I hear it's full of people who talk like the "Mac Guy".

Background on myself : I'm the quasi IT guy for a foreign real estate company in Tokyo. I am a bit of an IT hobbyist, so all of the IT stuff that isn't done overseas gets filtered down to me.

Now - this is a quick review on Email Manager Pro, or email Manager 3.0, at http://www.email-manager-pro.com/. I hope this page reaches someone who is considering purchasing it.

The company I was working at bought this software, and it was my responsibility to set it up. I set it up. For basic test mails, it was functional. The design and use was confusing, but it seemed to work alright. HTML support was pretty patchy, but after a few hours of troubleshooting I managed to get it working.

We started to run into real problems when we imported our list of 3,749 customers (private and business) into the system. It handled the import no problem. 6 people in the office spent about 2 days putting the newsletter together; filling it with useful information about the market and local opportunities. I took all the information, and converted it into HTML, which took a couple of hours. So far so good. I checked, double checked, triple checked, quadruple checked all of the information and the HTML page. Looking good.

Then I created the first mailing, select the entire 3,749 person list, held my breath and clicked send.

A window popped up, and was immediately squashed by my pop-up blocker. AARGH. I immediately disabled the pop-up blocker. Should have been that coming. Damn. I hope it's not sending the mails in the background. Hm.. I'll try again.

Do the same series of motions. Hold my breath. Click send : a popup window comes up. It starts flicking through names as it sends the mail out. Great! I check my address and it's come through. Time to go get a coffee. But wait - I look at the screen, and it's frozen. Must just be pausing before the next batch. 10 minutes later, it's the same. Uhoh.

I contact the support number that is listed on the site. I would have called that number about 30 times - not a single answer. This is calling at every hour of the day - during the day and at night as well. I emailed the support. Nothing. I sent many more emails. Nothing. Finally, I sent a last email demanding our money back and threatening to complain if I didn't get an answer.

I was about ready to go crazy, but then I got a reply from support. "Please give us acess to the system."

I replied : "No, sorry. It's a secure system and I don't have authority or the ability to give you access."

The reply "It's hard to help without access. Try increasing these two values."

What "support" didn't seem to understand was that we couldn't just increase the values and try sending it again. What if it didn't work? The only definite thing that would happen, is all of the first 500 people that got the newsletter would get pissed off since they would get it again.

Intensely dissatisfied, and the worst money I've ever spent on a defective product with crap support. Thats a pretty harsh review, but it's damn well true.

After this, we got http://www.activecampaign.com/12all/, which is absolutely amazing. More expensive, but it does the job and the statistics are intelligent and it works great. Highly recommended.

Thats right. For all the details, click here :

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=287119

Thats right. For all the details, click here :

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=287119

Softbank has been irresponsible with my emotions. Through their actions, I have been on a constant roller coaster ride. Just over the past few weeks, my emotions have :

hit the height of joy a couple of months ago when they released the HTC from Tytn at a reasonable price.

hit the depth of sorrows when I discovered it wasn't available in English.

Joy when I found out I could change my number from Docomo to Softbank.

Sorrow when the system crashed after waiting 5 hours at a Softbank shop to register my phone.

Joy when I got my phone into the office, and managed to change it to ENGLISH with the help of http://forum.xda-developers.com.

Sorrow when I discovered I couldn't do the most basic of business functions, an Exchange ActiveSync connection.

Understandably peeved and awash with a sea of conflicting emotions, I angrily called Softbank. "What the fuck," I said.

They explained to me that Exchange ActiveSync is not provided through their 3G service.

"Don't give me that. Exchange ActiveSync was the reason this device was built." I exclaimed.

"We provided this information about the service limitation in the box, and also on the catalogue about the phone." Softbank calmly continued.

"But that information was in Japanese. I'm a foreigner. And I didn't check the catalogue before I bought it. And it's not a requirement to check the catalogue before purchasing the phone, I do all my research on the internet." I enunciated.

"Too bad, suck our collective corporate balls." Softbank used polite Japanese to say this however the effect and feeling were the same.

"Not acceptable."

At this point I got quite miffed and really started laying into them. I bought this phone to use for business, and I'll be damned if all that money was wasted.

After bouncing around most of Softbanks customer service, and slowly but surely moving up the ranks of customer service peons, we finally managed to speak to a manager.

"Oh right. Don't worry about that, you'll be able to use Exchange ActiveSync probably around January, or at the latest, February." He explained in a friendly manner.

"So who is going to compensate me for the lost productivity between now and when it's working? I have wasted money on this phone. The money will continue to be wasted until Softbank gets on the level and makes this service available. We are a business, this is a business phone, and this sync function is the most basic of business services."

"Look guys, what do you want me to do? I've done everything I can." He started getting exasperated.

"I'm glad you asked. I have discovered (thanks xda) that the ActiveSync works fine through Active Internet, a Vodafone 3G service. I demand that you give me free access to Active Internet until such time as I can use ActiveSync through the regular open.softbank.ne.jp connection." I demanded.

"You understand thats absolutely impossible." He said.

"I don't understand that at all. In fact, thats the only reasonable outcome, and about the only thing that would stop me getting very upset."

There was a silence on the phone as he contemplated his options, and balanced the impact on his career of changing the entire corporate policy for one customer, against having a totally ape-shit crazy gaijin on a rampage.

"....Let me think about it," he weakly offered.

3 hours later he called back to offer me free access to Access Internet until the regular connection, open.softbank.ne.jp, works with Exchange ActiveSync. I graciously accepted his kind offer.

That was about 3 weeks ago. We got a call from him today saying that Exchange ActiveSync is now working. Full of suspicion, I tried it. And it seems to work!! I'm going to continue testing over the next couple of days, but things are looking good.

Somehow, I feel like I have made a difference. A tiny dent in the corporate behemoth of the Japanese Mobile Phone Industry.

In any case, Softbank screwed up initially, but seem to have fixed their mistake in a professional and acceptable way. Depending on future limitations that they may impose on the "all you can use connection" my opinion may change, but for now everything is looking good.

Things are getting more interesting for this meeting - we now have 5 people confirmed, and 2 people who are very interested. If you can make it, please drop me a note. Here are the details again :

The date is Tuesday, the 12th of December. The time is from 7pm at the Toranomon Dubliners. Information and a map is here - http://r.gnavi.co.jp/fl/en/g008215/.

Hi there - there will be a small Tokyo event next Tuesday the 12th of December for X01HT users in Tokyo. More information here. Leave a comment if you're coming!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1068342#post1068342

It's official - for fun I managed to get a Japanese Wii game and put it into my American Wii. After a few seconds where the Wii seemed confused, it came up and display "?? Unable to read disk".

So, if you wanted to play Japanese games on your American Wii, you're out of luck.

I would imagine that it is due to the Japanese language, and the American Wii not being able to display it. My Wii has never shown any hint of being bilingual Japanese/English, or having any language capabilities beyond English, Spanish and French.

By the way, I would imagine that a Japanese Wii cannot play American games either. It would be good if someone could confirm that though.

Hope this prevents someone from making a buying error.

I finally got my Softbank X01HT working in English. I uploaded a Dopod ROM, and it works a charm. There are only a couple of very minor issues - the , key and the . key are around the wrong way. And the manner mode key is not as polite as before - it simply redirects to the Connection screen.

2 extremely minor things I can certainly live with, since I now have a fully functioning, fast, English PDA phone. Finally, Japan has caught up!

** Note - I spoke too soon - I've been having all sorts of dropouts on my Softbank connection - calls aren't going through, internet isn't working properly, ....aaargh. Hopefully everything will be fixed soon.

Well, the Nintendo Wii was released to America on the 19th of November, 2 days ago. The release date for Japan is set for the 2nd of December. Thats annoying. I thought Nintendo was a Japanese company...! What happened, Nintendo Japan?

Anyway, I'm a foreigner living in Japan, so I'm going to want to play English games. It's great to learn Japanese, but I play a game console to relax and have fun, not to get a headache looking up kanji in my dictionary. So, I called Nintendo Japan to find out my options.

Unfortunately, Japanese Wii systems will not play English games.
Thats irritating, but workable. Ok, so if I buy a Wii internationally, and ship it to Japan, what happens with my warranty?
No warranty. The American warranty may cover it, but you'll have to ship it back to America.
Thats really annoying.
Sorry.

So, if I want to play Wii games in English in Japan, my only choices are to pay some guy on Ebay a ridiculous amount of money to ship me a system without a warranty.

Thanks Nintendo. I feel screwed twice.

Hi there

My pseudoname is Jim, and I'm a complete gadget freak. In this blog I hope to tell you about all the money I waste and all the crazy shit that I buy, and all the new funky technology available in Japan.

Soon I'll be writing about my new Softbank X01HT that I bought, and all of the warranty busting stuff I've been doing to it recently.

See you soon!

Jim

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