Japanese commenters on the WSJ's "Korea Realtime"

Check out the comments from this article:

Comments (3 of 3)

3:17 pm March 1, 2013
Anonymous wrote: 
Eliminate the Korean thieves in Takeshima 

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12:27 pm March 1, 2013
Anonymous wrote:
Same thing seen in Samesung vs Apple or POSCO vs Nippon Steel. Koreans are known thieves.

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11:09 am March 1, 2013
Bring out the hatchet wrote:
It’s time for M$ to use the ISD clause in the FTA to put the unruly Koreans into line.

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Top 5 Annoying Tech Issues in Korea

Because all of these REALLY annoy me, and small explanations for those who may not be aware, I present the Top 5 Annoying Tech Issues in Korea:

1. Active X in all its glorious forms.
   As SSL security methods are not used here, all online transactions must be handled through individual site plug-ins. Meaning once you proceed to check-out, you have to install 400 damn stupid little plug-ins, then repeat your order all over again. Grr. Until recently, this required the use of Windows and Internet Explorer, but nowadays plug-in frames are available for Mac, and Chrome/FF on Windows, but suck it Linux users. If only we'd voted for this guy.
2. Flash.
   The most important and necessary Korean websites that foreigners would find useful, aside from lacking English information, contain nearly all their Korean text in images or Flash animations/menus. Thus, one cannot simply pass the page through an online translator. Perhaps this made sense 15 years ago when browser text encodings were screwy, but there's really no excuse today. Apparently they haven't heard of Unicode/UTF.
3. No Right-click.
   Most Korean portal-hosted sites, particularly blogs and cafes, employ bizarre Javascripts that prevent or severely limit your ability to right-click on their sites. There are browser extensions to counteract this, but it is an unnecessarily annoying practice at the least. It reminds me of pens that are tied to the desk at the bank, except if there were infinite pens, all tied there. 
4. Android Market restrictions.
   I don't know about iPhone, but Korea places several restrictions on what can be accessed in the Market. Until recently, all Games were banned under the guise of being "unrated." Yet today, features of Google Maps such as Latitude, Check-ins (oddly still available in the G+ app), and Location History are blocked, citing "Privacy Concerns." The same applies to the Android app version of Google Earth. Other Google products (Music, Voice, etc) have at least semi-legitimate reason to be unavailable.
5. Porn Warn.
   Nearly all porn is blocked at the IP level, so changing your DNS is not enough. A VPN or proxy is required. As if Koreans weren't tech-savvy enough to figure this out. 

What do all of these have in common?
They are all meant to annoy you, while offering either no, or highly arguable, benefit.

End rant.

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Jailbreak iOS 4.2.1 on MC series iPod Touch (bought in Korea)

If, like me, you have an old iPod lying around and want to make use of it, read on:

I bought an iPod Touch (2G) (Model #MC086KH/A) in Korea a few years ago. After finally getting an Android phone, I didn't have much use for it anymore, and I nearly forgot about it in my desk. I recently rediscovered it, to find that it can only be updated to iOS 4.2.1. At less than iOS 4.3, there aren't many decent apps that can be used with it.

There is a custom firmware called whited00r, but it only works with the MB-series models of the 2G iPod Touch.
At least wanting to jailbreak it, I discovered that most modern jailbreak methods no longer support the older iOS versions. However, I had success using this method on Lifehacker.

So now, through a combination of Veency (on the iPod) and Android VNC Viewer on the android phone, I have the iPod permanently attached to a set of speakers above my refrigerator, and can control it from anywhere in the house (including MP3 playback and, most commonly, streaming radio). There's an excellent and simple tutorial for accomplishing this here.

Nice way to bring an old piece of tech back to life. Hope this helps others as well!

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Enable "Google Latitude" in Korea

UPDATE 2013-06-22: The same features of Google Latitude are now available in the Google+ App, under the "Locations" sidebar. You'll need to enable location sharing to a specific Google+ circle, and your former Latitude friends will have to enable their location sharing to you, but it works much the same. 

UPDATE  2013-02-23: A nice replacement app for Latitude is Backitude, which gives greater control over location updates. This app will only report your location. For your own Location History, you'll need to install a modded version of the latest Maps version with "World Navigation" active. 

UPDATE  2013-02-19: Apparently as of Maps 6.14.2, Latitude is now removed even from the English interface. Buzz among Korean bloggers indicates that, at the moment, the method below must be done while assigned a US-based IP address (i.e. use a proxy or VPN).

===============

Problem:
You want to use Google Latitude to obsessively stalk your Korean boyfriend keep up with your friends, but the version of the Google Maps app (Android)  in Korea doesn't have the Latitude feature.

Solution:
It actually does, but it's disabled in the Korean settings. Here is how to make it work:

1. Switch the phone's overall system language from Korean to English.
2. "Settings" -> "Applications" -> "Manage applications" -> Maps
3. Hit the "Clear data" button
4. Hit "Uninstall" (if it says it will revert to the factory version, that's fine)
5. Go to Android Market aka Google Play Store. Reinstall Google Maps.
6. DO NOT ALLOW IT TO AUTOMATICALLY UPDATE, or you'll have to do this all over again every single time. I suggest changing Play Store's preferences to forbid any/all apps from auto-updating.
7. Open Maps, Launch Latitude, change settings to enable "Location Reporting" and to allow friends (you) to view that Location Data. "Location History" is unnecessary.
8. TURN OFF THE PHONE. TURN ON THE PHONE AGAIN, WHILE STILL IN ENGLISH. If you do not do this, Maps will revert to non-Latitude status when you change the language back to Korean.
9. Now launch Maps again. Verify Latitude is still working.
10. Change phone's language back to Korean. Done.

Note that although Latitude will not appear in Maps anymore (because it's set back to Korean), the location will still be reporting and be visible to your Latitude friends or your Latitude dashboard. This can be verified by checking the phone's "Running Services."
Note also that this will only succeed in reporting the phone's location. It will not, so long as it is set to Korean, allow you to view your friends' locations.

Now when your boyfriend calls you at 3am, slurredly says he doesn't know where he is, then passes out drunk, you can go fetch him easily. Just be aware that Latitude updates rather infrequently, so the room-salon his location is reporting may only be where he was an hour ago. Thus, you are advised to check the local gutters in a half-mile radius, lest he end up on this site.

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Dokdo KakaoTalk theme

Thank god, someone has finally created a Dokdo theme for KakaoTalk. I haven't even installed it, but I'm giving it 5 stars! ✰✰✰✰✰

(I'm thinking I know where he got the English name "Bruce" from...) 

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Extend SubDownloader beyond 30 days

Problem:
You love using SubDownloader to download a lot of subtitle files for your media collection, but SubDownloader (for Windows) limits you to 30 days. Other versions do not.

Solution:
1) Open run (start menu -> run).
2) Type "regedit" (without ""'s)
3) Registry Editor should be open, press CTRL+F (find for something in registry)
4) Check, under "Look at", only "Keys", uncheck "Values" and "Data". Then also check "Match whole string only"
5) Search for "SubDownloader" (without ""'s)
6) When you find it, there should be folder named "mainwindow" under it. Click on it, then change the value of "size2" into "1861826968.484"

Source: http://forum.opensubtitles.org/viewtopic.php?t=1733

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Right-click on Korean websites that block it

Problem:
You want to copy or highlight text from a Korean blog/website, or right-click to save an image from it, but the site prevents you from right-clicking.

Solution:
I use this simple add-on for Firefox. One click on this non-obtrusive button in the tool-bar, and the page reloads will full right-click and highlight privileges.

RightToClick :: Add-ons for Firefox

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