Posts categorized under ‘Reviews’

Coffee Reviews: Boss Silky Black

Coffee Reviews: Boss Silky Black

The lengths some of us will go for a good cup of coffee can be quite extraordinary sometimes, especially when we’re in another land.  As a person who enjoys coffee perhaps more than is normal, I’ve tried my fair share
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That's Some Good Eel

That's Some Good Eel

土用 (どよう), the day people all over Japan eat うなぎ (eel) to bring good luck, was a few weeks ago but the Mrs. and I were unable to partake in this relatively new tradition for a decent price.  So, instead
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Fast & Furious – Perhaps the Greatest Movie of 2009

Fast & Furious – Perhaps the Greatest Movie of 2009

With each passing year, movies get bigger and bigger.  Very rarely can we walk into a cinema and see something lacking the touch of computer animation, and rarer still can we watch something that isn’t a remake of some other
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Ditching The Proxies

Ditching The Proxies

There’s been an incredible amount of spam running throughout the Blogosphere recently and, judging from the IPs of the messages getting through Akismet, over 90% of these messages are coming through anonymous or open proxy servers.  These very same servers
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Tilana Reserve: Poor Man’s SourceSafe and Backup Friend

Tilana Reserve: Poor Man’s SourceSafe and Backup Friend

“What’s the diagnosis?” he asked with a touch of hesitation in his voice. “Not good. I’m afraid that there’s not much we can do at this point,” the man in a white lab coat replied. “You don’t mean ….” “I’m
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Review: Maidenagoya’s Romeo & Juliet

Review: Maidenagoya’s Romeo & Juliet

“Japan 1877. The Meiji era is in full swing as Japan transforms from a feudalistic land of warlords into an industrialized global powerhouse. However, many are angry about what is happening to their proud country – among them, former daimyo
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Why Defragmenting Your Computer is a Good Thing

Why Defragmenting Your Computer is a Good Thing

When was the last time you defragmented your computer? Last month? Last year? Never? Defragmenting our systems’ hard disks should be an important part of everyone’s computer maintenance schedule, but it’s amazing how rarely this function is actually performed. Then
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Using SuperMemo to Study Japanese

Using SuperMemo to Study Japanese

Unless you happen to be some sort of linguistic genius, a talented musician, or some unfair combination of the two, chances are you will have trouble learning a new language and the little nuances required for accent-free pronunciation. I’m lucky
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A Review of 崔の上のポニョ (Gake no Ue no Ponyo)

A Review of 崔の上のポニョ (Gake no Ue no Ponyo)

Hayao Miyazaki’s (宮崎駿) latest film hit the theatres this weekend.  His first in four years, the tale of 崔の上のポニョ (Gake no Ue no Ponyo — Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea) end the speculation that the animation great had
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WordPress 2.6 – A Release Worth Jumping On?

WordPress 2.6 – A Release Worth Jumping On?

It’s almost that time of year again. The developers at Automattic and elsewhere around the world have been putting together the latest version of WordPress, a blogging platform used on this and a billion other sites, and it’s just about
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Using Japanese on an English PDA

Using Japanese on an English PDA

A few weeks ago I had tested a possible solution to display Japanese characters on my Worldwide English-version of Windows Mobile 6. Although it didn’t quite work the way I wanted, it provided a little hope for the future, as
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Canadian Web Hosting Done Right

Canadian Web Hosting Done Right

With all the competition in the web hosting market, you’d think that companies would be working tirelessly to maintain a 99.9% uptime and offering superior services for rock bottom prices. However, for reasons I can’t understand, most hosting companies lean
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Wasted Time – WordPress 2.5 Upgrade

Wasted Time – WordPress 2.5 Upgrade

This site is back online! After suffering nearly 8 hours of downtime over the last few days. What was the reason for this downtime? An unnecessary upgrade. I’ve been monitoring the progress of WordPress 2.5 for the last little bit
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