If you're reading this, you too probably want to get your impossible-to-unlock iPhone carrier-unlocked.  You did some googling and found officialiphoneunlock.co.uk (also doing business as iphoneimei.net).  You read a lot of positive reviews.  You saw their Facebook page with a flood of comments from satisfied customers.  Their site looks comparatively legitimate because they have an address and phone number published.  Maybe you're planning on placing an order with them.

Don't.  It's a scam.  Allow me to share my story.

Read more: Scam Alert - officialiphoneunlock.co.uk

NOTE: Yes, I know that Netflix is now available in Japan.  However, the services I explain below have proven extremely valuable to me for viewing streaming services from other countries, such as the USA.  Since Netflix Japan doesn't have nearly the content library that Netflix USA has, I am most definitely keeping my Smart DNS subscription.

Living abroad in Japan I often miss out on cool stuff that my home country comes up with.  Netflix USA and Pandora are prime examples.  On one trip back to the States, my friends demonstrated the infinite advantages of an all-you-can-watch flat-rate streaming service.  I wiped the drool from my lips.  I too wanted this magic boom stick; however, for various legal reasons various streaming services do not work in various countries.  My next home IT project was clear...

Read more: How to Watch Netflix in Japan

I've been a hard-core Untangle fan for several years now, but I recently wanted to explore other firewall options.  Being wrapped around a commercial product, Untangle charges money for its high-end features.  However, I figured since most all those features are covered by the open source community, there must be non-commercial options out there.  I began my hunt for the best free firewall.  I scoured the internet, downloading any and all offerings from 2 principal types of entities: 1. companies with an open source community branch or free non-trial version, and 2. open source community projects ("free as in speech" or free software / paid support biz models).

I tried just about every ISO I could get my hands on.  I thought I had my work cut out for me since I found far more of them than I had expected.  But I did notice some common themes--several of them seemed to share common ancestors / packages (e.g. Squid, Debian, FreeBSD, etc).  Here's a list of what I found along with my impressions.

Read more: The Hunt For the Ultimate Free Open Source Firewall Distro

NOTE: I now document my favorite iOS apps for studying Japanese in the directory: http://www.mondaiji.com/directory/entries/category/view/64-japanese-study

The Best Apps
Flashcards Deluxe
by OrangeOrApple.com
If you plan to study Japanese (or any foreign language for that matter), you have loads of new words to learn.  You're gonna need a solid flashcard program.  Sure, there are Japanese-specific study programs that have volumes of included flashcards, but there's a significant memorization advantage to making your own customized flashcards.  Namely, the words you'll study are relevant to your current Japanese study--they're words you're working on and/or covering in class.

I tried a bunch of highly-rated flashcard app demos before settling on Flashcards Deluxe because it was the only one I found with a critical feature I was seeking.  It allows you to create cards with up to 5 "sides."  So I put the kanji on side 1, furigana on side 2, meaning on side 3, and a mnemonic hint or note on side 4 (if I can come up with one).  This feature alone sold me on Flashcards Deluxe, but awesome also is the "spaced repetition" study algorithm and ability to import cards via the developer's website.

Flashcards Deluxe is now my go-to app for studying Japanese vocabulary.

Read more: The Best & Worst iPhone Apps for Studying Japanese