I joined a Japanese Debian users mailing list and was pleasantly surprised to find a thread about emacs-wiki. I jumped in, offered to help, tracked down the bug, posted a patch, and got confirmation that it worked. YAY! Of course, all of this was done in (slightly weird) Japanese. I think I'm getting the hang of it, though, and I really enjoyed it!

Gmane%20link%20to%20gmane.linux.debian.jp.user, Gmane link to message

They really, really like emacs-wiki, and were surprised to read a message from me. =) I'm looking forward to extending the same level of customization support to them!

Pictures up at http://www.kathychua.kom.ph/sacha

We had a field trip to CEATEC Japan 2004, a huge technology trade show. I quickly headed toward the software section I thought I spotted on the map. I was slightly disappointed to find out that the rooms were dedicated for software-track talks, although I was mollified to see Linux mentioned there. As I wouldn't have understood anything anyway, I headed back to the main exhibition.

I saw a UK company with wearable fabric keyboards and controls. They also produce moisture sensors for medical monitoring and contact sensors for smart furniture. Neat demos! There was a CD player case with a volume control on the black canvas cover, a PDA wrap-around case with built-in keyboard, a wrist-strap MP3-player controller.

I made sure I passed by the Transmeta, Sony, Panasonic and Sharp booths. The Transmeta booth was really cool. A few of the featured products had Linux on them. =) I saw the Sharp Mebius. Pretty computer. Really light! Nice form factor. Yes, yes, I went laptop-spotting...

The other thing that really impressed me was this large flat-panel TV from Panasonic. It was displaying a map at desktop-style resolution. I was astounded when the promo girl leaned over and touched the screen. Imagine what working with applications would be like if your computer monitor was that large! Gimp / Photoshop would be so much fun. Then again, I'm a text kind of girl... =)

I found the exhibits very interesting, and would've liked to spend more time there. I don't know why some of the other trainees found it boring. <laugh> Their loss, not mine! =)