Korean emergency alert messages on your phone

If you bought a phone in Korea, now and then you'll receive Emergency Alert text messages from the Korean government. These arrive as alerts that make your phone vibrate or sound multiple times, presenting a message on-screen, which then gets saved as an SMS text message. I received one tonight:

If you don't know any Korean at all, the above might make you panic. No, North Korea is not attacking. They're just precautionary warnings. For example, the one above reads:

[소방방재청]
7월25일20시서해중부먼바다 풍랑경보, 어선은 출항을 금지하고 출항 한 어선은 신속히 대피하시기 바랍니다

National Emergency Management Agency -
This is a storm warning alert for the off-shore Central West-Sea area [or in English, the Yellow Sea] for July 25th, 8pm. Fishing boats should not depart, and fishing boats already departed should return to shelter immediately.

Here's another example of one from a few months ago. This is the kind that is most common:

[소방방재청]
3월 14일 14시 민방위훈련 전국 실시, 민방공 경보 발령, 15분간 주민대피, 차량통제

National Emergency Management Agency
At 2pm on March 14th, a nationwide civil air defence drill will be issued [thus the air raid sirens you'll hear at this time]. For 15 minutes residents should seek shelter and vehicle use will be restricted.

If you've never experienced this sort of drill before, here's what you can expect:

• Air raid sirens
• People walking along the street should stop and wait patiently inside doorways, under awnings, or ideally inside. 
• Cars and buses will sit idle, as intersections should be kept clear (in some areas, neighbourhood civil defence coordinators, who are often old men in armed-forced-emblem baseball caps, will stand in the intersection, yelling at people to shut up, don't move, stay calm.

Here's a good short video demonstrating what to expect:

If you're caught in this situation, I suggest taking it in stride and enjoying this piece of Koreana. If anything, it's nice to see the crowded, ever-traffic-logged streets of Seoul in an artificially peaceful moment.

And if you just can't get enough of these alerts pushed to your phone and want more, you can follow the Korean NEMA on Twitter:

 @Nema_SafeKorea

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RSS feed for Reddit searches

I'm a big fan of RSS and Reddit. I follow all my subreddits in Feedly, and it turns out that you can also follow Reddit search results via an RSS feed. All you need to do is add ".xml" to the Reddit search results URL, right after the word "search".

For example, here's a Reddit search query for professional actor George Takei:
http://www.reddit.com/search?q=george+takei&sort=new&t=all

And here's the corresponding feed URL you can plug into your RSS reader:
http://www.reddit.com/search.xml?q=george+takei&sort=new&t=all

Note that you'll want to sort the results by "New" to get posts chronologically in your feed reader. Big hat tip to Jay Neely, from whom I discovered this trick over on Quora.

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Dragnet (1987) Korean subtitles - 드라그넷 한글자막

I'm a fan of most anything with Dan Aykroyd, so I decided to watch the 1987 film Dragnet with some Korean friends. But my usual source of subtitles only provided the Korean subtitles split apart two files (CD1 and CD2) which wouldn't work on my TV.

So after some hassle, I was able to combine the files into one. I don't know how exactly to submit files to the site, nor do I suspect many people are looking for these. But, in case you are one of those amazing few weirdos looking for Dragnet 한글자막, you've found it.

>>> Dragnet.smi

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RSS feeds for Facebook Pages

Facebook Pages have RSS feeds available for all their wall content posted by the admin. The feed URL follows this form, where XXXXXXXXXX is the Facebook I.D. number for the page:

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?id=XXXXXXXXXXXXX&format=rss20

Here is an example of a real Facebook Page RSS feed, this one for George Takei's wall:
http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?id=205344452828349&format=rss20

Finding the Facebook ID number of a page is actually quite easy.

Here's the normal URL for George Takai's page:
http://www.facebook.com/georgehtakei

Replace the "www" in the URL with "graph" like so:
http://graph.facebook.com/georgehtakei

You'll see a code page that looks like this:

You can see the Facebook I.D. number for the page right there in the first line. Just use that ID number in the RSS URL. Done! 

(Note that I used George Takei as an example. His RSS feed does not appear ideal because many of his posts are shared. Original posts of his appear more properly.)

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How to fix the graphics drivers on a Dell Inspiron 1501 on Windows 8

I use an old Dell Inspiron 1501 that I recently upgraded to Windows 8. Although it's an old computer, most all the features of Windows 8 worked fairly well right after installation. I had had only one problem: the graphics drivers. This laptop has a ATI IGP Radeon Xpress 1150 graphics card, but the Windows 8 system was using a generic driver for the display, resulting in a low-resolution picture. This wasn't terrible for using the system, but when it came to video playback, VLC, GOM Player, nearly everything, would freeze up and be unable to play at full screen.

It turned out that the solution was super simple, despite me spending hours that day trolling internet message board threads. Do NOT worry about trying to extract the .INF files and try to deal with them not being signed and all that. For me, it basically, it came down to two simple steps: (1) download the drivers for Vista, (2) run that installer in compatibility mode, and viola!

Slightly more detailed instructions on what I found that works:

1. Visit the official Dell product support page for the Inspiron 1501 and ensure you're in its "Drivers and Downloads" section.
2. You'll see a list of all the older official Dell drivers for the 1501. Change your viewing list from XP to Vista (it will only offer 32 bit for Vista, but I used these on my 64 bit Windows 8 install just fine).
3. Down in the Video section, download the .exe file for ATI IGP Xpress 1150, v.8.31.100.3.2 VISTA WHQL 061124a2-053906C-Dell, A07 or just click here to go to that page directly.
4. Once it's finished downloading, right-click on the file and choose "Troubleshoot Compatibility" 
5. Windows 8 will scan the .exe file, and soon a pop-up will suggest running it in Windows Vista compatibility mode. You'll need to click "Test" before you can click "Next" but "Test" will launch the installer.
6. The Vista installer will come up. Follow it's instructions and just let it run. Afterwards you'll be prompted to restart the computer.
7. That's it! Your computer will restart in a higher resolution and you'll find both Catalyst Control Center and Catalyst Install Manager entries in your Start Menu (assuming you installed Classic Shell to get the old style Start Menu)

Hope this helps any other 1501 users out there, or anyone else trying to use modern software on aging hardware. Squeezers of every last drop, unite! 

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How to know if Homeplus or E-mart is open today

If you want to know exactly when Homeplus or E-mart is going to be closed, a very simple Naver search will tell you precisely, and you really don't even need to know Korean to do it. Seriously, it is SUPER simple, and it's what all the Koreans I know do. Don't bother trying to count which Sunday it is today. Ain't nobody got time for that. 

Here's what you do, so simple a monkey could do it.

1. On your phone go to the Naver homepage. You can do it on your computer too, but in that case I really recommend going to Naver's mobile site (http://m.naver.com). Otherwise you might not get the convenient "card" info. 
2. Type in the store name (홈플러스 for Homeplus or 이마트 for E-Mart), followed by your branch. It's more reliable to include 점 ("branch") afterward. 
3. Look at the red text next to 휴무 ("closed"). Those are the upcoming dates it's closed. 

For example, if you want to know when the E-mart in Yeoksam will be closed, just search 이마트 역삼점. 

For the Homeplus in Gangseo, search 홈플러스 강서점.

etc etc etc...

In other words, just replace the XX with your location in this link:

http://m.search.naver.com/search.naver?query=이마트+XX점

Here are some screenshots I took on my phone. Notice the red text for holidays, and you'll also see that it's not always Sundays that the place is closed. You know the days of the week in Korean, right? 

월(Mon) 화(Tues) 수(Wed) 목(Thurs) 금(Fri) 토(Sat) 일(Sun)

A search for the Paju-Munsan branch of Homeplus shows it's closed June 9 (Mon) and June 24 (Tues) 

A search for the Daegu branch of Homeplus shows it's closed June 8 (Sun) and June 22 (Sun)

A search for the Yeoksam branch of E-Mart shows it's closed June 8 (Sun) and June 22 (Sun)

I see a lot of people asking about this on Waygook and Reddit and Facebook, so hopefully this post has helped you. Remember after you've searched it once and got it working, be sure to bookmark the results page. Then you will NEVER AGAIN have to freak out about whether or not you can buy your adorable Tesco Penguin Frosted Flakes today. 

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How to save people's KakaoTalk profile photos

To save friends' KakaoTalk profile pictures, you don't have to rely on taking screen-shots. There are actually several apps that can save the photo files to your phone's storage, and they all work basically the same way.

What's the best app for this?

 

My vote goes to ProfileAlbum.

Yes, I blurred out my friends' beautiful faces

There are several apps that do this, but my favourite is "ProfileAlbum" because it is super simple, very minimal, and works with a variety of messenger apps:

• KakaoTalk, 
• KakaoStory, (and, theoretically though I've never tried them)  
• TicToc,  
• myPeople (how much longer will this remain a separate service?), and  
• Naver Line

How It Works

When you view your friends' profile photos, the file gets saved in Kakao's cache folder. You could, in theory, go snooping through these folders with a File Explorer, but it would be annoying because they are stored in weird folder hierarchies with weird file names. ProfileAlbum consolidates them in a clean list, and let's you check-box the ones you want to save to a folder that your Gallery app can see.

So here is the key thing to note: YOU MUST VIEW THE PHOTO AS BIG AS YOU CAN FIRST. The apps don't "download" anything; they just grab what is in your cache already. Thus, you should be sure to view the person's full-size photo FIRST, THEN run the app to save it. Got it? So you can't use it to snoop on people you blocked (unless you unblock them real quick, view their profile photo fully, then block them again before they notice Bob's your uncle)

Note that for best results in KakaoStory, don't just view the picture in its "story"-- click it to get it individual and full-screen, so that the version with the largest possible resolution will be downloaded to your cache.

Usefulness 

I find this a great way to set Android Contact photos that are then utilized across all my Google-sync services. Note that there are apps that will better automate this process, but I feel uneasy giving apps access to my Contacts.

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Kakao Story now available on the desktop

KakaoStory now has a desktop version via the web called, not surprisingly, KakaoStory Web (카카오스토리 웹).

You can find it at http://story.kakao.com

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Kakao Talk blog feed (RSS)

Kakao have their main Korean-language blog here, with an RSS link here. It has lots of information on the company and the technical side of Kakao services like KakaoTalk and KakaoStory.

But if you want English-language information, which usually concentrates on new feature releases and promotions, their Facebook page is your best source of information. So, since they don't really have an active English-langauge blog, you can just subscribe to their Facebook page feed in your RSS reader, at this link:

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=rss20&id=194588567231357

This is a good source of information, for example, about the new Mac version of KakaoTalk for the desktop.

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Set Naver as your browser's default search engine

To set your browser to use Naver as its default search engine (i.e. it will bring you to a Naver search results page when you type search terms in the URL link bar aka "omnibox"), simply add a custom search engine in your browser's settings using this string:

http://search.naver.com/search.naver?where=nexearch&sm=osp_hty&ie={inputEncoding}&query=%s

For example, I've recently converted some of my friends over to using Chrome instead of IE, but they want as "Korean" an experience as possible. Thus, in Chrome:
Menu -> Settings -> Search -> Manage Search Engines -> Other search engines
In the box for "Add new search Engine" just enter "NAVER" and in the box for "URL with %s instead of query" just enter the URL link from above. Then click to set it to "Default" and you're done.
In Firefox there are various ways, but I prefer:
Enter about:config in the URL bar -> find the entry for Keyword.url -> replace the string with the the URL above.

I personally also prefer setting the Chrome homepage to Naver's mobile site. That way you get the benefit of a Naver homepage with Korean news and predictive search while you type, but minus so much gaudy Flash clutter.

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"21st Century Family" (21세기가족) download link

I'm usually not a fan of K-drama, but for this I made an exception.

"21st Century Family" (Korean title: 21세기 가족) is basically a Korean version of ABC's "Modern Family" and pretty funny. It features that wild old guy with the nice (fake) hair from those health insurance ads as the Jay (wealthy, conservative, cranky grandpa figure) and enough real humor to keep you interested. Of course there's the hot stay-at-home mom (aka Claire) with the childish husband (aka Phil) and the 1-son-2-daughters mix (dumb boy, hot slut daughter, smart daughter), and of course the grandpa married a much younger hotter woman (aka Gloria), but instead of the gay son there's an ugly slut daughter, though I would definitely do her don't get why she's ugly and her brother who basically is a manchild that still lives at home and despite his heart of gold fails at every job interview. I like American Modern Family, and I like this one too. The plot is different of course but still pretty funny. I like it because it's so unlike normal Korean melodrama.You'll forget that what you're watching is Korean. Or, it will make you think that Koreans aren't so different from "us" after all. Aww.

You can watch this show with burned-in subtitles on various streaming websites, but why be a chump? Just download the whole season at this link that someone *ahem* graciously put up.

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The eeriness of the Sewol ferry's name (세월)

The ferry that recently sunk in Korea was named Sewol, or 세월 in Korean. I had not thought much about this until a Korean friend pointed out how creepy a name it is, given the circumstances.

세월 literally means "time" but with a connotation of its movement; i.e. the passing of time. I've tried to come up with a good translation. Let's look at some examples from Naver and Google:

From Naver:

세월 (歲月)- Time

• 세월이 가는지 오는지도 모르다 (무사태평하다) be unaware of the passing of time
• 세월 참 빠르다 Time flies
• 세월 가는 줄 모르고 바쁘게 살았다 I've been so busy I didn't even notice the years go by. 
• 그녀의 병이 회복되는 데 오랜 세월이 걸렸다 It took her ages to get over her illness
• 세월이 약이다 Time heals all wounds / Time will take care of this.

Google translates 세월 as Years, Time, The Years, Ages


My friend and I decided that one of the best ways to translate the sentiment of nostalgia or reflective longing of 세월 would be something like "As time goes by".

You can see why this would be a suitable name for a slow-paced, relaxing, easy, reflective, sentimental journey to Jeju. I imagine the old people, celebrating their 60th birthdays, sitting on the deck at sunrise and sunset, reflecting on their long, happy lives.

It also becomes a horribly apt and disgusting name, when you consider the children trapped, floating in their cabins, awaiting rescue as the crucial moments of the "golden hour" slip by.

-------------------------------------------------

Author's commentary:

I'm sorry to write something so morbid about this. During this discussion of 세월, I realized the depth of my own uneasy feelings about this event. Perhaps that is why something so trivial as the name of the boat, and its tenuous connection to the event, blew up in my mind. It seems a horrible microcosm of what happened. I don't like to add much opinion to this blog, but all those kids, scared, not knowing what to do, looking to the adults for help. It's too much. I apologize for any discomfort this post causes. 

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Yellow ribbon to support Sewol ferry disaster families & victims

You may have noticed this image appearing as Koreans' KakaoTalk or Facebook profile pictures recently:

This is a "Yellow Ribbon Campaign" (노란리본 or 노란리본 달기). The text says 하나의 작은 움직임이 큰 기적을 which means something like:

• One's smallest movements can make a huge wonder, or
  
• The smallest steps can have a huge impact, or
• If we all do a little, we can do a lot, or
  
• The littlest things can make the biggest difference, etc.

It's been adopted as a semi-official badge or "yellow ribbon" (thus the bow-tie picture) of goodwill regarding the recent sinking of the ferry Sewol off Jindo to show solidarity with the families of the lost students. 

Source: 카톡 노란리본…‘노란리본 달기’ 확산 “하나의 작은 움직임이 큰 기적을”

UPDATE

Another one that seems to be popular is this:

 This one features the same text as above, but adds at the bottom 다시 돌아오기만을 기다리며 기원합니다 which is something like "Hoping for your return" or "We're waiting for you to come back" "Wishing for you to come back again."

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Naver's English <> Korean Translator now available

Naver has released a Translation program that appears very similar to Google Translate. It operates, much as Naver Dictionary, as a mobile-friendly website at this link:

http://m.translate.naver.com

Here's what it looks like on my phone:

Here it is in operation:

You can see that it translates in the "card" style Google now uses. It can pronounce the words, has a "conversational" feature where the translation is displayed full-screen (again, much like Google Translate). It also lists several sample usage sentences displayed in both Korean and English.

 Once you've translated something, you can then "Share" the translation through a variety of apps, though this sharing feature utilizes short-links (via me2.do) as a share medium:

 It also features a row of emoticons, though I don't understand what they're for. They are apprently for feedback: Press them, and you are asked to submit your comments and feedback, so I guess the emoticons are to indicate your overall satisfaction with the translation?

Anyway, I'm very pleased to see Naver continuing to come out with English-language interfaces for their services. Naver has a wide variety of great features and services; wider, I'd say, than Google ever since Google's streamlining efforts. Google's main advantage, like Facebook's over CyWorld, was multilingual (thus international) support. Here's hoping that Naver continues to provide services in English (Naver Maps, perhaps?)

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RSS feeds from Daum Cafes

It sometimes isn't obvious, but most Daum Cafes have RSS feeds available, which follow this format:

Homepage:
http://cafe.daum.net/CAFENAME
RSS feed: 
http://cafe.daum.net/xml/rss/CAFENAME

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Google Maps Pokemon found in Korea

Today for April Fool's Day, Google Maps had a Pokemon challenge. As best I could find, there were two Pokemon to be found in Korea.

The first, which I found at Gangnam District Office in Seoul (map link), was Raichu. In my excitement to capture him, I only took a screen cap after he'd been caught:

 The second was Luxray, which I found while zooming around Busan. He was chilling in a park next to a statue of 송상현 (map link).

 

I tried this on my friend's phone (set to Korean language) but it didn't allow me to "Start" the chase, so I guess they hadn't translated the Pokedex into Korean?

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Configuring imhangul options on Linux

In a previous post I suggested using imhangul rather than ibus in Lubuntu 13.10 because of issues with the latest version of ibus. imhangul has been working well for me, except for one problem: by default, the combination of the shift key and the space bar ( shift+space ) toggles the language input. This was a real pain as I often unintentionally hold down the shift key after typing capital letters. As a result, each time I wrote "I " it would switch to Korean. Super annoying.

Luckily, I finally came across a solution. Though imhangul seems not to have a way to modify its settings, you can do so by creating your own config file. This was my first time doing so (Ubuntu noob), and here's how I did so:

In your home directory ( /home/yourusername ) create a blank text file and name it .imhangul.conf (the initial dot is needed, as the file will be a hidden file).

Next, paste this text into the document:

# 상태창은 안보이게. imhangul의 상태창은 Nabi가 알아서 보여줌
enable_status_window = false

# Nabi에서 한영,한자키를 설정하고 그 이름을 그대로 아래 값으로 복사해 오면 됨.
# 한영키
hangul_keys = "Hangul", "<Shift>space", "Alt_R"

# 한자키
hanja_keys = "Hangul_Hanja", "F9", "Control_R"

Now you have a basic config file for imhangul. Because I don't want the shift+space combination toggling the language input, I just removed the

 "<Shift>space", 

Done.

If you're looking for more advanced options for imhangul, try here.

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Korean maps on Google Map Gallery

Over at Google's new Map Gallery there are a few interesting old printed maps of Korea aligned and laid-over Google's maps. Hopefully more will appear in time. Check them out here:
https://maps.google.com/gallery/search?hl=en&q=korea

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RSS feeds for Waygook boards/threads

I sometimes browse Waygook.org to see what all the foreigners in Korea are complaining about now. Recently I discovered that you can actually get RSS feeds for most Waygook sections, which makes browsing much easier. I scroll through in my RSS reader on the subway, find something that looks interesting, then save it so that when I get home I can open my computer, log-in to Waygook, and leave disparaging comments. Then I log-in with my other account and troll my first account. Then I sit back and watch the feeding frenzy as everyone takes sides. Yes, minions, yes...

Here's the basic RSS feed URL:
http://www.waygook.org/index.php?type=rss&action=.xml&board=##

Just replace the ## with the number of the board you want to follow, which you can find by visiting that board on Waygook and checking the URL. For example, the Gyeonggi-do board is at
http://www.waygook.org/index.php?board=72.0 so the RSS feed for the board is http://www.waygook.org/index.php?type=rss&action=.xml&board=72

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Typing in Korean on Lubuntu 13.10

I recently updated my Lubuntu netbook to version 13.10 and was appalled to discover that iBus is now a mess. If you check the forums, you'll see loads of horror stories about this new version of iBus and how many Asian script users (Japanese, Chinese, Korean...) are having difficulty making it work. Most are switching to alternate input methods. For me personally, I got iBus working for Hangul typing, but I had to keep manually switching between English/Korean by clicking with the mouse on the keyboard input icon in the toolbar ("panel" I should say). That is annoying. I have a Korean keyboard and want to use the 한/영 character.

I don't know if this is the best option out there, but this is working for me and I'm satisfied. Here's what I did:

Changing iBus to imhangul

Basically it boils down to: install Korean language, remove iBus, install im-switch, activate hangul

1. In the Language Support (or whatever it's called for you) settings, I installed the Korean language pack.
2. Using Synaptic Package Manager, I searched for, and removed, all entries relating to iBus.
3. Using Synaptic, I installed the packages im-switch and imhangul which will ask for the removal of im-config and the language config settings
   Yes, this will remove the Language Support entry from the System Preferences Menu, but if you already installed Korean langauge pack, you won't need it. You can always manually re-install it later too. 
4. Log out and log in (or restart)
5. To access the settings, run im-switch in a terminal. A settings dialog will pop up asking to choose your input method. I chose imhangul
6. Log in and log out
7. Go to Keyboard Layout Handler
   (I no longer have this setting in the System Preferences menu, but it's still present in my toolbar/taskbar/panel)
8. Under the Keyboard Layouts section, click "+Add", scroll down to Korean, expand the arrow to choose "Korean 101/104 key Compatible" and enable it. I also removed the entry for English. 

Now I can type in English or switch to Korean by using the 한/영 key on my keyboard, which I just did right there. Look I'll do it again 다시 사용하고 있지 wow that was much faster than clicking.

For some ways to configure the settings in imhangul, see my post here.

I hope to switch back to iBus at some point, but I think I'll wait for the 14.04 release. Hopefully it will be sorted by then. 

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Default Wi-fi Passwords in Korea

A Korean friend sent me this list of default Wi-fi passwords.

와이파이 비밀번호 모음

KT_Wlan - 1234567890
헬로우 디 (HellowD) - 534f4b4354
맥도날드 (McDonalds) - 16005252 or that branch's delivery phone number
세븐일레븐 (7 Eleven)- 2127393302
SK - a123456789
일반 Egg - Password
파리 크라상 (Paris Croissant)- vkflzmfktkd
부영컴 - 15444352
myLGnet, myLG070 - 123456789a , 987654321a ,1234567890 , myLGNetfe07
KT SSID , KT_WLAN - 1234567890 , 123456789a , 1234567890c
KT QOOK AP - 1234567890
SO070VOIP - 534f4b4354
Tbroadnet - 123456789 또는 a123456789
      에러 - 신호는 잡혀도 미연결시, MAC 이 원인임
      방법 - http://게이트웨이주소 치면, 관리자 암호 입력에 admin/admin or admin/password 입 력.
스타벅스  (Starbucks) - 매장별 전화번호 (영수증 참조)   (branch phone number, or check your receipt) 
Hellowireless - 534f4b4354
tobis - 1234
KWI-BxxxxT( Egg 택시) (Taxis) - SHOW3382 , password
Egg 택시, 친절콜 와이브로(KWI-B2200T-XXXXX,KWI-2200) - SHOW3382 (대문자 필수)

디폴트 Egg 뒷번호는 제품 시리얼 넘버와 일치. 이건 디폴트라면 ssid 뒷자리와 동일.

iptime (192.168.0.1), anygate(192.168.10.1), zio - 비번 필요없음. 암호설정시, 주인 임의
admin - password
LINKSYS 설정(192.168.1.1) - 사용자명은 없고, 암호만 admin
  SK(T-spot) - sktelecom

U+존 - a0123456789
U+100 : 단말기 시리얼 번호(무선 100MB)
T world zone - T월드 홈페이지 방문 mac등록(타 통신사도 가능)

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You can find lists like this all over the place, but this one seems a bit more comprehensive.
I always feel sorry for the newbie teachers here, stuck in a shitty apartment with no way to contact their family or even other foreigner friends here. Hopefully one of these will work to get you at least a temporary connection. If you haven't got anyone to help you out, I suggest going with KT as they have a good English-speaking service. For example, check out @olleh_expats

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Adjusting scrollbar width on Lubuntu

I recently updated my Lubuntu and noticed that the scrollbars are now nearly too thin to see. On a netbook, it's almost impossible. Fortunately, it's easy to fix.

1. Run this command in a terminal:
   sudo leafpad /usr/share/themes/Lubuntu-default/gtk-2.0/scrollbar.rc
2. Edit this line in the resulting document that pops up:
   GtkRange::slider-width = 20(replace "20" with your choice. 20 is a bit thick but that's how I like it. That's what she said)
3. Logout and Log-in again. Done.

Source: http://forum.lxde.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31638#p48810

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Find the Korean names of foreign / English / American movies

PROBLEM: 
You are chatting with your Korean coworkers at the bar after work. Everyone is going around the table talking about their favorite movie. It comes to your turn. You confidently say "Ernest Goes to Camp" but they have no idea what you're talking about. What was this called in Korean?

Nowadays "western" movies tend to carry their titles directly over into hangul. Thus, Robocop is 로보캅, not 로봇 경찰관. But others have had their titles translated into Korean. Frozen, for example, is 겨울왕국 (Winter Kingdom). This is especially true with (1.) children's movies, and (2.) movies released prior to 2000. What's the easiest way to find these Korean titles?

SOLUTION:
Simple. Use the Naver Movies site. Just type in the film's name in English, and the results page will list the name it goes by in Korea. Thus you can do a quick check on your phone and explain that your favorite film is called 어니스트 1 - 캠핑 가다 and take in the spray of comically/exaggeratedly spit beer as the shock of someone liking this movie overwhelms them.

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Watch current Korean movies with English subtitles at the cinema

PROBLEM:
You're living in Korea, and want to experience the culture by going to the cinema (or theater for you culture-less drones) and watching Korean movies. But of course, you don't speak Korean, and the theater (yes, theater, f*ck you for judging me) websites are a filthy mess of flashing navigation even if you could read Korean. But you know movies are showing with English subtitles along the bottom.
How is the lonely expat to know where to watch these films?

SOLUTIONS:
Frequently check the KOBIZ website (http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/jsp/schedule/subtitMovie.jsp). If a Korean film is playing with English subs, it'll list it here. Sometimes this page is blank (no showings listed) and other times it will randomly spring to life with information, so bookmark it and come back to it now and then.
and/or
"Like" this awesome Facebook group "All in Korean: with English subs please" (https://www.facebook.com/AllInKoreanWithEnglishSubsPlease)These fools straight up keep the 411 flowing. Updated way more often than the KOBIZ site.
Or if you are an RSS OG like me, get their page RSS feed here (https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=rss20&id=405107282941022)

And, if you're looking for foreign-language films with Korean subs other than Hollywood crap, I suggest this place.

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Rooting your Android phone in Korea with Tegrak Kernel

PROBLEM:
You bought an awesome Samsung phone in Korea, and want to root it. But because it's the "Korean" version and not a US or International version, it's a pain in the butt. Custom ROMs like CyanogenMod don't seem to work. Fret not: here's the easiest way to do it.

SOLUTION:
In two words: Tegrak Kernel.

Disclaimer: Everything here is my personal opinion. I'm neither an Android developer nor paid endorser. I am just a guy who spent a hellofalotof time trying to figure this out. There could be an easier way out there. For me, this worked, and I hope it might work for you.

I'm not going to lie to you-- there is a huge variety of custom ROMs out there for Korean-model phones. The Korean developer community is, unsurprisingly, extremely prolific. But if you're like me, you don't really care about all variety of custom builds and wacky configurations and bleeding-edge features. Also, you don't read Korean. You just want your phone rooted so you can get rid of the bloatware and make it as speedy as possible.

Why choose Tegrak?

It works on almost all Samsung smartphones, from the humble Galaxy S1 to the Note and S4. I also like Tegrak because it's relatively low-risk: it is NOT a custom ROM per se. It's only a kernel, so you are still keeping whatever stock ROM your phone came with. In addition to giving you root, it has Overclock features and a Lagfix, though in my experience the lagfix is less noticeable on newer models.

How do I install it?

Basically the whole process boils down to this:

1. Download the files for your phone from the internet.
2. Install them via Odin (see below).
3. Install the Tegrek app from the Google Play Store.

That's it.

Tell me more, tell me more

What? You don't know what I'm talking about? Alright, I'll give you a bit more.

Step 1: Though there are many mirrors, hosts, fileshare lockers where you can find the files from a Google search, skip that crap and go to the source. Find your phone's model ("SHW-M110S" for example), and click through to that page. Scroll down.

See what he did here? There are multiple version of the Tegrak Kernel files, for each phone model and even for each Android version for each phone model. Therefore it's important that you PAY ATTENTION here. Don't go downloading any old "Tegrak Kernel Build" files. You need the ones for YOUR phone and YOUR Android stock software. So double-check that you're downloading the right files.

Scroll down to where the files are available for download (near the bottom of the page, just above the comments section. You'll see the little zip-file icons). Again, find the files for YOUR PHONE MODEL. Only the latest verisions will be displayed, so you might need to click the blue bar reading 이전 버전 다운로드 접기 to expand the list to see all the offerings. Check the end of the filename before downloading to make sure that it matches the software version displayed in your phone's "About Phone" (or similar) settings. You might not need (or even be able to use) the "latest build" but whatever.

Download the files. Note that some are in 2~3 pieces, so you might need to combine the files with 7zip after downloading.

Step 2: Shit just got real. Time to flash. You are going to need a copy of the Windows program Odin, which Tegrak conveniently makes available here:
http://pspmaster.tistory.com/attachment/cfile26.uf@250F504551E3A519103474.zip
This will allow you to flash the kernel files to your phone. THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO DO THIS, AND ALSO THIS COULD BRICK YOUR PHONE but it always works for me so please do not complain if it does something wacky. If you are seriously in trouble, there is a lot of useful information at the XDA forums. Search there for your model number.

Turn off your phone and put it into recovery mode (I feel lazy, so Google it yourself to see how to do this; on mine it was holding down the Home button and Power button simultaneously).

Oh, by the way: You're going to need to Samsung USB drivers for your phone and you need to ensure that KIES is not running. How?

1. Install KIES. Somewhere there is a menu option for installing USB drivers. Do it.
2. Uninstall KIES. Done.

IT IS TIME. You might want to follow along visually by looking at the screenshots he provides.
Load the Tegrak Kernel files in the "PDA" option of Odin. Connect the phone (which is in recovery mode). The yellow light in Odin should show up. "Start" the process. Let it do it's magic for several minutes. When it's all done, the phone should reboot. Let it do it's thing. Don't get antsy. Hopefully, you're done.

Step 3 should be obvious. Note that there is a free version and a "donation" version. Both are identical except for ads in the app itself, which you will only likely use once. This guy has done an amazing job, so once the process is done (and you've used the free version to set it all up), please consider replacing the app with the Donation version (like I did). It's a couple bucks to bring new life to your phone (I used my prior phone, Galaxy S1, for over 3 years thanks to the speed boost from Tegrak).

Open the app, enable rooting, and feel the rush of power surge to your brain. Enable lagfix and enjoy a speedy phone. Enable overclock and burn a hole in your pants don't bother.

Final thoughts

Again I am NOT an Android developer. I'm just sharing what worked for me. Please do not ask me how to fix X, Y, or Z because I, like you, am just a normal guy who scoured the internet looking for information. XDA Forums have it. I hope this little guide was helpful.

Major props to Tegrak for making this possible. Donate to him, minions!

P.S. If, like me, you did all this and discovered that your Galaxy S1 now had very little space for installing apps (an unfortunate side-effect of the lagfix process), I recommend Matpclub Hackpunch. It plays nice with Tegrak and gave me a much larger install space.

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Open Hangul (.hwp) files in Microsoft Word or HWP Viewer

Let's say a Korean co-worker sent you an .hwp file, but you don't have Hangul Word Processor on your computer. You can choose one of these methods to open it:

1.  Stand-alone HWP Viewer application 

Windows

The 2014 version of Hangul Office seems to no longer offer a stand-alone viewer. However, for now, viewers for previous versions seem to be working well. While no longer officially available (I can't find them on the Hancom website, at least), several other sources have them for downloading such as [here], [here] or [here]. You could also try the 60-day trial but no thanks.

 Mac

Interstingly, Hancom does still officially offer the Mac (.pkg file) version of the viewer. [Click the disk icon in item #2 to start the download]. Or you can grab it from the Mac App Store.

Android

There's an Hancom Viewer app and a full mobile Hancom Office app. Sure, if you're desperate.

2. Microsoft Word converter

Microsoft themselves seem to offer a converting program that will let you open .hwp files in Word (File -> Open) or batch-convert files to .docx.

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Automatically post you Blogger, Blogspot posts to Twitter, no 3rd party app needed

PROBLEM:
You have an absolutely amazing blog, but no one uses RSS anymore. Google will automatically share your Blogger posts to Google+ but come on, who actually uses that? You could have your Blogger posts sent to Twitter using IFTTT, but why bother?

SOLUTION:
Ok, well it's sort of a 3rd-party app. The sort answer is: Feedburner.
If you enabled "Subscribe via Email" then your blog's feed is already burned.
Login to Feedburner -> click blog's title -> "Publicize" -> "Socialize"
Here you can connect your Twitter account. Voilà!

More here: https://support.google.com/feedburner/answer/167800?hl=en

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Fixing encoding problems with Korean subtitles

So, you've managed to get a legal, paid-for copy of your favorite film, and want to share the moment with your Korean-speaking friend. You dim the lights, turn up the speakers, and hit play, only to have the mood ruined by this:

Ah yes, the random characters that ruin any 미드 (= 미국 드라마 = American dramas) viewing. Your face now looks like Hotch here. What can you do about this?

I can recommend basically two choices:

1. Use GOM Player.
   Seriously. I know you love your VLC or whatever, but trust me, fighting with your video player to make it accept your subtitle file is more frustration than it's worth. Just download GOM Player: it's free, it's fast, and it handles subtitles files better than anything I've ever seen. Continue to watch your porn educational content on VLC; but use GOM for anything with subtitles. 
2. Change the encoding or format of the subtitle file yourself.
   This might sound like a hassle, but it's not. I highly recommend Batch Subtitles Converter. This app rocks because (1) it's self-executable, i.e. you don't have to install it; just double-click it (2) it's super lightweight and clean (3) it does multiple / batch conversions (4) it can convert both the file type and the encoding type.
   For example, I had an old set-top box with a USB port. I'd copy movies onto a USB stick, but that damn set-top box was so picky. The subtitle files had to be named identical to the video file, they had to be in EUC-KR encoding, and they had to be in SAMI (.smi) format. Loads of subtitle files I downloaded were UTF-8 and SubRip (.srt) format. This app took did it all no sweat, in a flash.

Good luck. And by the way, if you're looking for where to get subtitle files from, check out this post.

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Korean subtitles for English movies/TV

Let's say you want to show your favorite English-language movie or TV show to your Korean girlfriend as a prelude to hot sex friends, but her their English is not very good. So, you want to show it with Korean subtitles. But where can you get them?

You basically have two options: (1) GOMPlayer or (2) manually download them yourself.

1. GOMPlayer

GOMPlayer is by far the most popular desktop video playing software among Koreans. I'll be honest: I've never gotten GOMPlayer to work properly when it comes to its feature of automatically downloading Korean subtitles. My friends say they just load the video and something pops-up saying "ooh you want Korean subs for this? YOU GOT IT BUDDY" but I've never had such luck. Maybe they are using the Korean-language version of GOM (I use the English), or a newer version, or a magic version. Whatever. I'm stuck with the manual route. Not like it's that hard anyway (that's what she said).

By the way, GOM (곰) is Korean for "bear" thus the paw icon, and although I can't get me some automatically downloaded subs, I still choose it for watching the videos once I've got them, as some apps (I'm looking at you, VLC) seem never to get the encoding right. GOM Player has always displayed the subtitles correctly the very first time.

2. Manual downloading

For manual downloading, ignore any English-langauge sites; only the Korean sites will have a decent selection. There are many out there, but my go-to site is Cinest. Add the title of the movie you're looking for in the search box (the smaller one, next to 제목 ("title")) and hit search. A list of subtitle files comes up. Click one, and download the .smi or .srt file on the resulting page. I usually download 2~3 as the timing will be off on some. Load it in your favorite video player after loading the video.

For example, here's the results page for a search of Korean subtitles to the critically-acclaimed 2009 film "Bruno"

UPDATE - JAN 2014:

Here are some additional useful sites (for television and/or movies):

• Subtitles Archive (sample search)
• GomTV (sample search)
• Jamak Nara (sample search)
• nScreen (sorry, can't copy the search URL directly) 

Usually you can search for the film/show's name in English, but if no results are coming up, you can try it in Hangul. In this case, Naver Movies is your friend. You can also sometimes do a YouTube search for the name in Korean + "자막", and might find it with burned-in subtitles.

Once you've got the subtitle files, check this post if you have any issues with encoding.

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Korea Times' mobile site for faster reading, less ads

Although you hate yourself for it, deep down you know you prefer the absurd, poorly-edited, barely-news "journalism" of The Korea Times to its serious and seriously bland sibling The Korean Herald. But you hate all those damn flashing ads and don't give a poo-poo about the side-by-side Korean translation. There's just got to be an easier way to get your fix of hard-hitting articles like this.

There is! Just bookmark the KT's mobile site and browse there instead. Way less ads, no Korean translations, full-size photos, no stupid comments section.

http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/

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What men think about

The title of this book reads: "What men think about, other than sex."

Source: https://twitter.com/ma6bong/status/389632870202884097/

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Massive loads

Best news article line I've read in ages (emphasis mine):

Four artificial insemination plants are set to start pumping out massive loads of pig semen next year.

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Seoul Players RSS feed

If, like me, you love:

1. RSS readers
2. The Seoul Players

You'll want to subscribe to their RSS feed. It's not featured promenantly on their website, but you can find it here:
http://www.seoulplayers.com/feed

UPDATE 1: the website is updated infrequently, and this is reflected in their RSS feed. For more up-to-date news, subscribe to their Facebook page RSS feed, which you can find here:
https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=atom10&id=168275539886268

Here also is their Twitter feed, if you're into that sort of nonsense:
http://www.twitter.com/SeoulPlayers

UPDATE 2:  If you fancy the Seoul Players, you may also be interested in the Seoul Shakespeare Company blog.

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korean trolling: shutdown

Let it never be said that Koreans don't understand that trolling is a art.

This is a cute comic illustrating how one would make an icon on the desktop that apparently launches Internet Explorer, but actually makes the computer shut down. Nice troll. Also illustrates the sad fact that so many Koreans use IE...

Source: https://twitter.com/Dajal01/status/312402042603851776/

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Monthly doses of K-boob exposure

Here's a tip: bookmark this search to keep "abreast" of the past month's Korean indecent exposure pics! This link will pull up all the slow-motion animated near-nipple titty shots that lonely netizens have pieced together from the past month's TV viewing. Give it a click, then don't forget to do so once-a-month. Better still, set up a Google Alert for it so you don't miss any near misses.
Note that you can also customize the URL if, like me, a month is too long to wait and you need a daily dose (or, a girlfriend).

https://www.google.com/search?q=%EB%85%B8%EC%B6%9C&safe=off&tbm=isch&tbs=qdr:m,itp:animated

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VICE "Motherboard" says Baidu top in Korea?

On principle, I don't support tourist travel to North Korea, when its a useless quirky luxury that does nothing to help the impoverished people there and only lines the pockets of a corrupt regime. Nonetheless, the videos shot by VICE while there was fascinating, even if their condescending neo-colonialist attitudes were not. Seriously guys, if you're going to play along with that whole facade, then don't act like you're above their whole game. When you're there, financing that corrupt system; you're not whistleblowers, you're their temporary pawns; especially when you dress like hippie bums and speak/act with arrogance, providing fodder (like Dennis Rodman does) for their propagandic notions of WhiteMen™. Yet at the same time, I feel there's a certain value in engagement, if it's done right. The people of NK should see that they are not forgotten, not fighting for survival on their own: that the world is watching and encouraging. That's why I'd much rather spend my time/money (were I as generous away from the keyboard as I am in front of it) on efforts like these. 
 
But anyway, back to the point. VICE's magazine feed "Motherboard" a few months ago ran a piece on the dominant websites in countries around the globe. It's a fairly interesting piece, with one glaring misstatement, easily spotted to anyone with the remotest familiarity with Korea (emphasis mine):

A second map shows the same data but the countries are drawn according to population instead of geographic size. Viewed through that lens, it’s clear that Baidu, which dominates super-dense China and South Korea, shouldn’t be discounted

Since when does Baidu have any but a negligible presence in Korea? South Korea is dominated by its homegrown search portal Naver, a simple fact discovered by any web search. Some estimates place Naver's dominance at between 70~80%. This, in addition to the presumably obvious fact that the article's author, Meghan Neal, seems to have overlooked: Koreans speak Korean, not Chinese. Granted, international behemoths like Google provide localized language versions, but Baidu has only limited resources available in English (notably, a blog in English and a developer-only site), and as far as this author can tell, does not provide any Korean language option.

Now, the Motherboard article is essentially a puff piece, reprinting the results of a study apparently undertaken by Information Geographies at the Oxford Internet Institute.These guys (smarty pants Oxford scholars that they are) were awake enough to catch-on to this, and offer this caveat:

The situation is more complex in Asia, as local competitors have been able to resist the two large American empires. Baidu is well known as the most used search engine in China, which is currently home to the world’s largest Internet population at over half a billion users. At the same time, we see a puzzling fact that Baidu is also listed as the most visited website in South Korea (ahead of the popular South Korean search engine, Naver). We speculate that the raw data that we are using here are skewed. However, we may also be seeing the Baidu empire in the process of expanding beyond its traditional home territory.

I for one indeed suspect the data to be skewed. Unless Korea's population of 조선족 has somehow overwhelmed the internet savvy native Koreans, there's obviously something amiss. Perhaps data is being misinterpreted from undersea cable lines between China-Korea? I'm certainly no data network analyser, but as a longtime resident of Korea, I do know that Baidu's "dominance" of South Korea is a highly questionable claim.

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RSS feeds from specific Wordpress / Blogspot searches

PROBLEM:
You love RSS and use a reader like Feedly to keep up with your favorite blogs. But, you only want to see posts with a specific label (Blogspot) or posts from a specific search (Wordpress).

SOLUTION:
It turns out, you can subscribe to specific RSS feeds just for the posts with those particular labels or from those search results.

For results from a Wordpress blog search, subscribe to this sort of RSS url:
http://blog-or-site-name.com/?s=SEARCHTERM&feed=rss2

For results from a specific Blogspot label, subscribe to this sort of RSS url:
http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/labelname


Check these sources for much more on this:
https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/97933?hl=en
http://thedeadone.net/blog/wordpress-tip-get-an-rss-feed-from-a-tag-and-from-a-search/

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