Wesley's Tool-Box

KTV 한국정책방송 취재에 잡힘

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:02:00 +0900

지난 3월 8일부터 10일까지 서울교육문화회관에서 '2010 범부처 녹색기술 포럼'이 열렸습니다. 팀장님과 차장님을 보좌하려 참석하였는데, 트위터로 알려드리기도 했던 내용입니다.
http://twitter.com/namuori/status/10144126600
http://twitter.com/namuori/status/10144643814

정부 관련 행사라 KTV 한국정책방송에서 취재를 당연히 해갔습니다. 3월8일 저녁6시에 방송이 되었는데, 친절하게 사이트에 동영상과 대본이 올라와 있습니다.
[ 정보와이드 6 관련 페이지 ]
[ 동영상만 보기 ]

방송 내용을 보니 아쉽게도 워낙 참여기술 수가 많다 보니 팀에서 진행하는 K-EMS 개발사업이 방송에 나가지도 못했고 팀장님의 장관 표창장 수여장면도 편집되었더군요. 그런데 유심히 보니 참석자 전체 화면을 담는 과정에서 저를 포함한 저희 팀 모습이 다 찍혔습니다. 1:23 ~ 1:25 사이에 나오는 화면이 이렇습니다.

1: 이효상 팀장 2: 김성구 차장 3: 정우덕 대리

화면 캡쳐에서는 너무 작게 나왔는데, 당시 행사 참석하면서 찍은 셀카와 비교해보시면 확실해집니다.

2010 녹색기술포럼에서 김성구 차장 & 정우덕 대리

참석 인증은 된 셈인데, 회사에서 홍보효과를 인정해줄지는 미지수이군요.

블루투스 키보드 BHK49 리뷰

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:52:00 +0900

두 손으로 쥔 BHK49

이것은 블루오션샵에서 나온 BHK49라는 블루투스 무선키보드입니다. 보시는 대로, 두 손을 잡고 엄지로 자판을 칠 수 있도록 만들어진 휴대용 키보드입니다.. 이 제품은 과연 저를 만족시켰을까요? 궁금하시면 계속 읽어보시기 바랍니다.
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Earthquake in Seoul

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:21:49 +0900

It might not be much to folks living in Japan or California, but Seoul and the neighbouring area had an earthquake that a lot of people were able to clearly feel a couple of hours ago. That does not happen very often. In fact, it's the first quake I was able to feel while I was in Seoul area.

Preliminary analysis from Korea Meteorological Agency states that the magnitude was 3.0 and the epicenter was at 37.45N 126.80E, which is 8km north of Siheung, near Siheung IC of Expressway #100. That's just southwest of Seoul.

It definitely ignited a flurry of twits from all over. I hope things don't get worse than this.

Curiously, the President was out of the Blue House to visit Chuncheong province today. Maybe he knew something?

3G망 VoIP 통화 차단노력의 '불편한 진실'

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:29:49 +0900

"스마트폰 공짜통화 편법 판친다"
"KT 탈옥폰, 아이폰 음성 통화 막는다"

위의 제목으로 미디어다음에 뜬 기사에 댓글이 폭발적이죠. 미디어다음에서 리플 수 많은 기사는 주로...

- MB 관련 소식
- 기자가 이상한 소리를 적거나 전달한 것

아... 둘 다 이상한 소리이긴 하겠군요. 아무튼. 이번 기사도 후자에 속합니다.

VoIP통화, 즉 쉬운 말로 '인터넷 전화'를 3G망, 즉 휴대폰 데이터통신망에서 하는 것이 불법이다, 차단하겠다는 요지의 기사들입니다.

트위터에서 이미 적어놨지만, 통신사에서 3G망의 VoIP 통화를 편법이나 불법으로 간주하는 데 있어서 기본적으로 2가지를 제시합니다.

1. 3G망 사용량 폭증에 대한 우려
2. '음성통화 수익' 악화에 대한 불쾌감

그에 따라, SKT는 이미 스카이프를 차단하고 있고, 얼씨구나 KT도 차단하러 들어가겠다고 엄포 놓았습니다.

근데 둘 다 말이 안됩니다.
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Thoughts on Apple's iPad tablet

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:59:49 +0900

The newly announced Apple iPad (Image courtesy of Apple)

Everyone's talking about the much-rumoured, and now much-talked-about Apple tablet, the iPad. Let me have my take on the device, relating to how it'll play out in Korea.

1. The 3G-enabled version will cost you $30/month on AT&T's network

The deal includes free use of AT&T's WiFi hotspots as well. This means it could be used practically anywhere with persistent internet connection. Plus, the device is unlocked out of the box, and the deal does not need a contract. KT, which introduced iPhone to its cellphone network in Korea, should follow this model, and match or best the pricing, although the price range for unlimited data is strikingly similar to what KT already offers for its Wibro modems. Which leads to my next point...

2. Apple plans to roll out the 3G-enabled model internationally around or after June

KT had been rumoured to be in talks with Apple to bring out a new Apple device by June, and everyone speculated that it'd be iPhone 4G. Well, looking at this iPad's planned timeline, it seems that the device in question was really iPad, not iPhone. Talks about iPhone 4G should be taken over by how KT should roll out 3G-enabled iPad in Korea, namely what sort of data plan it should introduce.

3. Pricing and app compatibility shows that it's targeting the netbook market

The base model with WiFi and 16GB storage is tagged at $499, which is about how much a mid-range netbook runs for these days. Meanwhile, iPad chose to be compatible with iPod instead of Mac. Mac's presence in PC market is insignificant, but iPod/iPhone platform is the biggest player in PDA/smartphone application market, so it seems logical that Apple wanted to ride on that wave.

Netbooks rely on PC (mostly desktop Windows) apps, but because of the poor performance, they are mostly relegated to casual web browsing. But iPad will absorb the responsive and lightweight apps developed for iPod/iPhone, so the choice to forgo desktop apps will pay off well. If iPad was a tablet version of Macbook, they could never have made the price point, nor the battery life (iPad will run for 10 hours on single charge), making the device an odd man out, much like how the previous tablet PC attempts turned out to be.

Another thing I'm expecting iPad to be huge in Korea is this - with the introduction of iPhone, a flurry of internet banking, day trading, and online shopping apps are soon to come out for the platform. Due to the special nature of the 'Korean internet', those things have not been possible for the most part on Macs, and the platform was largely neglected. But iPad will ride on the back of the iPhone, realizing the dreams Korean Mac owners had for years.

4. iPad is touting a new form factor in portable game console market

This one is a bit ambiguous. iPhone has lots of games that make the platform a good competitor to Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. iPad can make use of those games, as well as new games targeted specifically for itself. But to play a game holding a tablet the size of an A5 sheet? I'm not completely sold on the idea yet. I hope the game developers will come up with some innovative ideas.

There you have it. Looks like I'll be getting one in half a year, after I sell my notebooks.

iPhone 3GS camera's actual resolution

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:06:00 +0900

The dizzying ISO 12233 Test Chart

Point-and-shoot digital cameras have reached the end of the 'megapixel race' at around 12 megapixels, giving you a photo with the resolution of 4000x3000. One of the reasons for this peak is that the typical image sensors used in this class can produce only around 10 megapixels of actual data at best, and even less with internal post-processing applied. As a result, camera's 'actual' resolution will be far less than 4000x3000, even if the 'output' resolution is that large. Increasing output resolution any higher without better sensors would be no better than doing a digital zoom - bigger picture without more detail.

A smart shopper would therefore avoid blindly following the megapixel number on the spec sheet, and instead check the sensor size as well as the actual sample images posted in independent product reviews. In many professional reviews, an ISO 12233 Test Chart(partly seen above) is used to check the actual resolution of a camera. DPReview has been extensively using it.

So, why am I talking about this 'actual' and 'output' resolution today? I carry a nice compact digital camera - Kodak Z1085 IS - and an excellent smartphone - iPhone 3GS - with me at all times. The image quality is good for the given class, and they have the maximum native output resolution of 3648x2736 (10MP) and 2048x1536 (3MP), respectively. But I suddenly got curious as to what their actual resolution would be. Unfortunately, searching the internet did not come up with any resolution testing - it was time to do a little testing of my own...
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전력수요 폭등! 예비율 비상! 그 배경과 문제점

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:02:16 +0900

요즘 폭설과 맹렬한 추위 때문에 전력수요가 무진장 올라간 상태입니다. 언론에서는 전력낭비가 심하다면서 절약을 종용하는 기사도 흘리고 있고요.

하지만 여러분은 전력수요 폭등에도 딱히 뭔가 전기를 쓰는데 느껴지는 게 없을 겁니다. 정전이 되는 것도 아니고 말이죠. 그건 저희 회사에서 전력수요에 따른 공급량을 정신없이 맞춰주고 있기 때문입니다.

이게 잘 되려면 '버퍼'에 해당하는 '예비율'이 있어야 하는데, 지금 그 예비율이 사상최저로 떨어진 상태입니다. 그래서 비상이라는 것입니다. 보통 10% 이하로 떨어지면 안 좋게 보는데 어제 6.1%까지 떨어졌습니다.
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2009 comes to an end

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:37:08 +0900

Well, this is it. 2009 is almost history. Lots of things happened. Important people died, economy was in turmoil, and man... The flu scare. But lots of good things happened as well. I have a cute daughter now, and I got my iPhone to write this post on, among other things.

I wonder if I can return to posting Toon-Box soon. I have lots of things on my hands now that the whole thing was put on the back burner. Oh well...

So long, the year of the bull. Happy new year!

First day at work... NOT.

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:02:45 +0900

Snow: 1, Cars: 0

Rain and snow tend to slow down the traffic a bit, so I need to be prepared for that. I headed out to the bus stop about an hour early just so that I can beat the snow that's been falling since early morning.

Well, it seems that the massive snow blizzard effectively stopped all traffic in the nearby area. I waited about an hour in the freezing weather, but the cars on the road won't budge. My bus had been coming around a few hundred meters up, but never made it to my bus stop, as far as I was concerned. I reported the situation to the workplace and filed a half-day leave.

Out for the week with flu

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:38:00 +0900

The government-reserve supply of Tamiflu

Well, I thought I'd never see, let alone take in the extremely popular drug that's sweeping the nation - Tamiflu - in person. The so-called Swine Flu, 'New Flu', or Influenza A (H1N1), as it is formally called, is spreading out all over the world in epic proportions, and it turns out that I'm not one of the lucky ones to avoid it.

I've been having hot fever since last Sunday, and the body temperature had been creeping up for two days, peaking around 39.1C. Seeing that this isn't how my usual fevers go, I paid a visit to the local hospital to get a check-up. Quick (1-hour result) test showed that I was positive for the Flu A. I was prescribed Tamiflu, but in order for me to get a sick leave from work, I needed a formal, written diagnosis from a central hospital. So I went to one that's closest to home, and I got that as well. The paperwork was faxed to the company, and now I'm locked in at home for the week.

I still feel pretty lousy. Thanks to the ton of other medicine in addition to Tamiflu, the major symptoms have subsided for now, but that's not enough to make me feel normal. Hopefully, all will return normal in a few days.

Snow Leopard's NTFS read/write support

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:25:00 +0900

I CAN HAS WRAIT SUPPORT?

There had been mentions of Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) pre-release builds supporting read/write support for NTFS (native file system for current Windows versions). Read-only NTFS support was available since Tiger (10.4) days, so this was an interesting development. Unfortunately, read/write support was apparently dropped in the final release build of SL.

It turns out the support is still there, but disabled by default. This post by Chrysaor at MacRumors shows how to modify fstab to force an NTFS partition to mount in read/write mode. The drawback of this trick is that you have to manually do it to every partition you want to mount, and you need to unmount and remount the partition after applying the trick to get it to work. Hardly elegant, mind you.

Luckily, there is a much simpler and elegant way. Click below to find out.
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She's here at last!

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 12:21:46 +0900

Isn't she lovely?

After nine months of waiting, and 7 hours of labour later, my first child has come out to the world. We've decided to call her Celine. Born on 10:33AM Korea Standard Time, she weighs 2.6155kg and is 45.8cm tall right now. She's really tired right now just like her mom, but I'm hoping to see her smile soon.

First baby is almost here!

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:40:47 +0900

I'm waiting outside the local hospital's delivery room as the nurses get to prepare my wife for delivering our first baby. She's been having acute contractions since around midnight and couldn't sleep, so I drove her to the hospital to check the progress... and the nurse told me that we'll probably see the newborn by this morning.

I hope all goes well. It's exactly one week earlier than expected.

Snow Leopard testing in progress

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:14:13 +0900

I've gotten Snow Leopard on the server a week ahead of schedule. Yes, this website is running on Snow Leopard right now. My wife is expecting the baby in a couple of weeks, so I decided to get on with any time-consuming stuff early. The website seems to be running okay, so far...

Snow Leopard is here, but...

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:51:54 +0900

Snow Leopard retail box. Growl...

Bringing newest development in the age-old war of the operating systems, Mac OS X 10.6, better known as Snow Leopard, came out last Friday, almost 2 months before Microsoft Windows 7 officially hits the shelves.

I've already gotten my hands on Windows 7 via TechNet+ subscription, and a copy has been happily running on the main laptop at home for about 2 weeks now. So it is natural that I would like to jump into Snow Leopard as soon as possible to see what improvements this release brings to my iMac. But since the iMac is a mission-critical system, I compiled a list of compatibility for the Mac software I have, using Snow Leopard Compatibility List at Wikidot as the primary source and then checking the developer's website to double-check.

Of the 100 software (the round number is purely coincidental):

Compatible - 54
In Progress - 6
Incompatible - 11
Unknown - 29

I'm expecting at least half of the 'unknown' ones to be compatible, so that's about 70% compatiblity right at the release time. The problem has to do with the 11 incompatible ones. Half of these software are being used daily, and I consider them to be rather important. So they need to be made compatible before I make the big move.

In conclusion, I'm holding off the transition for about two weeks until the dust is settled. Sigh...

Today's "The Toon-Box"

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:45:55 +0900

Eclipse progress in one picture

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:20:31 +0900

Moon eats, then spits out the Sun in just two hours

While the overhead cloud hampered the observation of the solar eclipse at its peak (around 10:48 AM) and beyond, I was able to manage a few shots at the Sun as the eclipse progressed. Here's a ten-photo crop of the photos I took. There has been no retouching or resizing. Enjoy!

Solar eclipse!

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:20:05 +0900

Tasty, tasty Sun gobbled up by the Moon

Too bad Korea didn't fall into the total solar eclipse zone (that prestige went to southern China and India), but this eclipse is the best one I've seen with my own (shielded) naked eyes yet. Good thing the office had spare floppy disks lying around. It's a very good filter.

Tmax Window 9: Korea's answer to MS Windows?

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:25:09 +0900

Tmax Window 9 - the cardboard box. Where's the real thing?

Well, a Korean software company called TmaxSoft is announcing their latest product, Tmax Window today at Grand Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Seoul. For some bizarre reason, this version 1.0 software starts off at version 9. That's hardly the most bizarre part of it all. The company is claiming full compatibility with existing Microsoft Windows operating system, and is even offering their own office and web browser, each supposedly fully compatible with Microsoft Office Internet Explorer, along with it.

I wonder how much of this is true? We'll find out soon enough.

Today's "The Toon-Box"

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:33:00 +0900

Today's "The Toon-Box"

wesley96@gmail.com (Wesley) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:44:01 +0900