Nate Oyama

New Type of Band-Aid

Some people believe a plaster is worse than nothing when they cure an injury. But in fact it is scientifically proved that a plaster is important:
Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid Popular Myth
And as far as my experience, a plaster provides effectively curing.

Last night I fell on road when I was chasing a drunken roommate, and as a result I injured my arm and leg. As I have a little big head and a thin body, I sometimes fall while walking.

Before leaving Tokyo, I bought new type of plasters. Johnson & Johnson Band-Aids Activ-Flex was sold in 2000 in the United States, and it has been also available in Japan.

Once I tried, I found it was very valuable! You can keep having Activ-Flex for up to five days! You may say a plaster can be taken off easily, especially when you stretch your injury. But don't worry, this Activ -Flex is enough tough and elastic, so you can't remove it unless you do it at will.

Though it is much expensive (standard size 660 yen ($6) with ten ones, ) it ought be spreading and getting popular in whole the world.

Powerflat HD-10DFL (Max) —Japanese Stapler—

You may say that there are very few differences in every staplers; Only for putting staples into sheets of paper. But it is wrong.

In Oshamambe, most things are more expensive than in urban. The fact is there are few cheap things. I forgot to take my stapler  in my house when I moved Tokyo. So I bought it in a small stationery shop near Oshamambe Station.

It was 1,260JPY (11.50USD)! Though it is made in Japan, it's extortionate!

The package says "Putting into 30% more paper (up to 26 sheets of plain paper) with 30% less power! Put staple is flat, not round!" Yes, it was correct. It let me staple much paper with little power. Moreover, flat shaped staple (if you don't understand what I mean, please look at the package in the picture.)  makes a stapled document thinner.

If you use a stapler so often, you should buy Japanese one while it is very expensive.

Powerflat HD-10DFL (Max)

• Price: Very Expensive
• Ease of Use: Excellent
• Design: Very Good
• Overall: Very Good

Lumix DMC-FX01 (Panasonic) —Most Popular Japanese Camera—

As I wrote on April 1st, "Portable Wide-angle Digital Camera," it was tough to decisition to choose Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01 or Ricoh Caplio R4. But finally I bought Lumix DMC-FX01 on April 4th for its image quality. Besides I realized that I rarely use a tele mode. Pictures in this blog has been taken by this camera since April 14.

Ease of Use: Very Good (****-)

You can choose six modes by turning its screw: play, normal shot, easy shot, scine shot, macro shot, and video. The easy shot mode allows you to use it easily even if you are not so good at using a computer. Its 2.5' display is clear and brilliant, even if you use it outside. Besides. "View from lower mode" is very interesting: you can watch its display from bellow it.

Image Quality: Very Good (****-)

Thanks for image stabilization and Leica's high quality lens, most pictures are very clear and very little noises, even if it is taken in a dark place. However, some pictures are out of forcus and bad white balance. Anyhow a wide angle lens is very useful! Why don't you buy such a camera?

Video Quality: Good (***--)

The motion JPEG is a very common video codec technology, plus you can use this old format on a dumb computer, including a point-and-shot camera. But its file size is big in its quality. Meanwhile, some camera by Sanyo and Casio allows MPEG 4 video. It's much efficient codec, though it requires a smart computer.

Battery: Very Good (****-)

Portability: Excellent (*****)

I don't care how it is tick, but I care only its width. I usually put it in my left pocket with a walkman.

Pricing: Expensive (**---)

36,000 JPY (327 UDS.) I bought it in a Japanese cheapest online shop.

Overall: Very Good (****-)

If only it didn't make mistakes so often!

Sony's Noise Cancelling Earphones

Since my friends in dorm are very cheerful, their shouts for joy sometimes make me uneasy. So I ordered my dad to buy and send me noise cancelling earphones as my birthday present.

The noise cancelling earphones are making interference waves to weaken noise around you. Bose invented and has been selling as a civil product. It is common in the Untied States especially in civil air crafts, but it is still expensive.

Three years ago, Sony released noise cancelling earphones, and it was much cheaper. But it was not so hit in both Japan and the Untied States.

That design is a little strange, and it's not my favorite. It needs one AAA battery and keeps working for 30 hours. If the battery died or turn the switch off, you can use it as ordinary earphones. The sound quality is very good. Its earplug like design cut off small noise, like a whisper. However it doesn't cut off ordinary noise, such as people talking, for safety issues. Japanese people including me often use earphones when we riding bicycles, thus we must hear some sounds not to involve a trafic accident. Yet it can weaken extremely loud noise correctly. Thank you dad!

Sony MDR-NC11A

• Pricing: Excellent, 7980 JPY (72.55 USD,) cf. Bose Quiet Confort 2: 41,790 JPY (380 USD)
• Noise Cancelling: Good
• Sound Quality: Very Good
• Portability: Very Good
• Design: Fair
• Overall: Very Good

Cellular vs. Public Phone

Before I left from my house in Tokyo, my dad gave me some telephone cards, but it is short these days. So as I often call mom and dad, I have a great interest in their rate. There are very few differences between each services, so that is the cheaper the better. Yet their services are complicated, so I investigated every inch of them.

Public Phone vs. Cellular

• View on your screen (frash paper)
• View as a PDF file

In my case, DoCoMo cellular, sub account, and 4 years membership, I'd spend 29.4 JPY (0.27 USD) for each minute. Therefore when I call somebody who is in farther than 40 km (24.8 miles) or in 40 to 60 km (37.3 miles) in middle of night and morning, I should use a public phone. In addition, my family uses the Yahoo! Broad Band (BB) service and its Internet Protocol (IP) phone service, so we have two phone numbers, ordinary and IP. I found that when I call to my home, farther than 160 km from Hokkaido to Tokyo, I should dial their IP phone number! To sum up, you should choose using from cellular and public phone, and dialing from ordinary and IP phone number. This documentation will guide you what's the best choice!

Portable Wide-angle Digital Camera

When you buy a digital camera, their optical zoom would be important point for you. But in fact most people, including me, take pictures with the wide angle zoom much more than with the telephoto zoom. So in Japan, wide angle camera is getting popular.

28mm with 35mm equivalent wide-angle lens allows you to take a wider sight picture, and you can take a picture in a small place, in car, small room, caridoor, for instance.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01 vs. Ricoh Caplio R4

	Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01	Ricoh Caplio R4	Comment
Size	94.1x51.1x24.2mm (3.7x2.0x0.95")	95.0x53.0×26.0mm (3.7x2.1x1.0)	Caplio R4 is little bigger than Lumix, though it has great lens and battery life.
Weight	160g (5.6oz)	165g (5.8oz)	Including battery and SD card
Battery	320 pictures	330 pictures	On a single charge, based on CIPA standard
Design	Very Good (****-)	Excellent (*****)	I love Caplio R4's very long lens!
Anti Shake	Available	Available	Panasonic is original.
Image Quality	6.0Mpx, Excellent (*****)	6.0Mpx, Fair (**---)	Compared with sample pictures on their web site. Lumix FX-01 has so beautiful color and so little noise, that their picture looks preasant! While Caplio R4 has a lot of noise and looks pale.
Lens	0.8x - 2.9x (F2.8 - F5.6)	0.8x - 5.1x (F3.3 - F4.8)	5.1x is incredible!
35mm Equiv.	28 - 102mm	28 - 200mm	28mm is very nice.
Video	848x480px (16:9,) 640x480px QuickTime Motion JPEG	320x240px AVI Motion JPEG	MPEG-4 is not available unlike Casio Exilim.
Internal Memory	N/A	26MB	An internal memory is quite useful when you forget your SD card.
St. Price	35,780 JPY (304 USD)	32,800 JPY (279 USD)	At Kakaku.com, Japanese most inexpensive online shopping center.

Well, I'll buy Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01, for its image quality.

Let's Note W4 —Typical Japanese Laptop Computer—

On March 16th, I bought a brand-new portable laptop computer. Panasonic Let's Note Light series is very popular in Japan, though is expensive. It isn't sold in overseas. Most Japanese white collar workers go to their offices by bicycle and train, not car. Therefore they carry their own laptop computer for one or two hours a day! Thus this should be light and tough.

Panasonic Let's Note Light W4 (CF-W4JW8AXR)

MPU	Pentium M Ultra low voltage 753 1.30GHz, 2nd cash: 2MB	Faster than I expected. This may be faster than my desktop, [email protected]
HD	60GB	The OS recovery program is in a DVD, not an HD. Thus you can use whole of the HD, and install the other OS, Windows Vista, Linux, etc.
RAM	512MB	The RAM slot is only one, so that if you want to upgrade it, you must buy RAM with larger than 512MB, and throw away the current one.
OS	Windows XP Professional (Japanese)	Only Japanese version is available. There are no English version!
Optical disc drive	DVD ±R/RW, RAM, CD-R/RW	Since 10.4'' display model is too small, I bought 12.1'' model. 12 hrs battery or an internal optical disc driver, I chose the later, as I sometimes use the driver and I don't need such a great battery. Moreover, the shell drive [picture] let itself tougher and lighter.
Card slot	PC card (Type II, CardBus enabled) Secure Digital (SD) card	I use SD cards as a camera film, and sometimes PC cards. It's necessary and sufficient feature for me.
Battery	8 hrs. 6 hrs. (eco-mode enable)	If you set as the eco mode, your battery's maxim capacity would be 80%, life will be 1.5 times longer. Thus if you don't mobile it, you should set as the eco mode.
Weight	1199g	Very light, and very tough: protects from 100kg shock.
Size	268 x 210.4 x 24.9 (front)/44.3 (Rear)mm	Thick for the big battery.
Screen	XGA (1024 x 768) 12.1'' TFT	Display quality is poor. Its brightness isn't equally.
Speaker	Monaural	It's no problem, unless you use a headphone.
Wireless LAN	IEEE 802.11 a, b, g (Intel Centrino)	Great power saving technology allows you to use mobile computing for a long time.
Street Price	236,000 JPY (2,000 USD)	Very expensive! The money is owing from my dad, so I have to pay it back!

Pros:

Very light

Long battery working time and life of itself

Tough body

Internal optical disc drive

Touch pad with scratch mouse wheel [picture]

Not including rubbish soft wares

Cons:

Very expensive

Keyboard design is not my favorite; Alphabet keys are too big, but their side keys (ie [Enter], [Shift], etc.) is too small.

Thick

I don't recommend this product for you if you live in Western. But this may be the greatest laptop computer for Asian users!