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Using Bash on Windows 10

Some quick tips on using Bash in Windows 10, based on my own experience. First I followed the guide at HowToGeek to install Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL). I picked the Ubuntu distro to install as I'm more familiar with apt-get. After that, launch Ubuntu. It's only the shell, no GUI. That's fine for my usage though, I'm using it to batch rename files with regex, and command line programs to process audio for my Japanese learning. Next I installed packages I needed. But you'll probably see error saying package not found. The solution: (thanks to a post at SuperUser) sudo apt update Then only sudo apt-get install <package> Packages I use when I process files for Japanese learning: rename sox libsox-fmt-mp3 ffmpeg I also bumped into an annoying detail when using the Bash shell: the blue is too hard to read! Whoever thought of the default dark blue on black is not thinking about readability at all -_- The solution: change to a lighter b...
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Creating Vocab Flashcards Easily with Firefox/Chrome Yomichan Add-on

Just a quick note on my current settings using Firefox/Chrome Yomichan Add-on (not to be confused with the older Anki Yomichan plugin ), when I'm reading Japanese material I can easily create Anki flashcards that has the sentence, the term I'm learning blanked out in the front (clozed), and audio replay. My Yomichan settings:  (I have the reading field but I don't actually display it in the card; I opted to use furigana on the term itself instead)   Example flashcard:
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Gamer Diary - Aug 2018

Kinda reviving my blog...but this is not going to be a substantial post. I've been collecting quite a bit of a gaming backlog over the years since I've started working, and since I'm quite bad at reducing it, I'm planning to do some short posts to track my progress. It's already halfway through August, but with a public holiday next week and a long weekend at the end of the month, hopefully I can put some gaming hours in. Games of the month: Persona 4 Golden (Vita) Mario + Rabbids (Switch) Especially Persona 4 Golden, I've already identified the culprit and am close to the boss fight, let's get on with it so that I can reach the story parts that I care more about, heh. Mario + Rabbids is for the times when I want a quick session, still at World 1 so there's a long way to go. Really fun and surprisingly quite deep in strategy, and much more colorful than X-COM. Now if only I can play X-COM on the Switch too...
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How To Find Out How Easy A Certain Japanese Text Would Be For You

Are you trying to up your Japanese reading skills? Have a set of electronic reading materials, but don't know which one to start with? One way to rate them is by how easy they would be for you to read, so you can pick the level you're comfortable with. To do that, you'll first need a text list of words you already know, and then use that as an input file to the Japanese Text Frequency Analyzer tool. An easy way to get the list is to use the Morphman plugin in Anki (I'm assuming you're using Anki. Find out how to export the list if you use another SRS/flashcard system). What you'll need: Anki Morphman Anki Plugin cb's Japanese Text Analysis Tool Steps: 1. Ensure your database of known words is up to date by forcing a Morphman Recalc. You can do this by using the Anki tools menu or the default shortcut Ctrl+M. If there are words you already know that are not in Anki, see this section of MorphMan Wiki . To make things easier for m...
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Anki flow to pre-study for a Japanese game/book

I've been trying to self-study Japanese recently by immersing myself in a Japanese game/book. There are various study strategies out there, mine is learning vocabulary strategically before playing/reading. By strategic, I mean I only learn a handful of vocab that is frequently used - any other vocab I'll attempt to pick up when I see them. This should enable me to understand a significant chunk of the game/book with minimal time spent studying. There are tons of forum threads on doing this, but I couldn't find a comprehensive and easy-to-follow tutorial while I struggled with the tools, so I decided to write my own flow down for future reference. Bonus points if this helps anyone else reading this ;) What you'll need: Anki Morphman Anki Plugin cb's Japanese Text Analysis Tool AntConc  Epwing2Anki Brief steps: Find the text scripts of the game. Usually <game> 台詞集 / セリフ集 will give you results. Save the game scripts as txt. Recommended to encode in...
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Useful Trivia: Fixed-width Fonts

Have you ever had situation where you copied something (usually from a command line terminal) that's aligned and paste it, and find that it's not aligned anymore?   This is because command line terminals usually use a fixed-width font, but the default font in Windows is usually not. A fixed-width font (also called monospaced font ) means that every character in the font will always have the same width. Hence, lines would always align.    See this example where 10 '.' and 10 numbers are used: Fixed-width (Consolas) .......... 0123456789 Non fixed-width (Arial) .......... 0123456789 So the simple solution for the aforementioned scenario is just to change the font where you paste it and viola, your text is aligned again.   A few of my favourite fixed w idth fonts: Consolas (comes with Windows), Bitstream Vera Sans Mono . Also notable: Courier New, Ubuntu Sans Mono , Inconsolata .
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A Sleek Look For Steam - Metro Skin

If you're a PC gamer it's almost inconceivable you don't have Steam. Did you know it's actually skinnable? My favourite is the Metro for Steam skin. Give it a try if you like the look, it's very easy to use and the download website also offers customization options. (click on the images for larger version)  Library screen Download screen   Small Mode
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