The cheapest usable cellphone in Japan

Update

Now you can get a super cheap SIM-free cellphone in Japan by many companies (let me recommend "rakuten mobile"...), with a phone number and everything, so this is kind of outdated.

Japanese cellphone companies can be crazy.
They have some very hard to get bills, lots of plans which don't make much sense, and since the moment you sign the contract they usually will make you get in for some plans you don't plan to use but "need" to sign first in order for the campaign to apply, of which without it'd be even more expensive...

I used the Japanese company au's cellphone for a while, for about 7,500JPY per month. Then softbank, for about 9,000JPY per month...
That's pretty much my cellphone to receive emails, browse the web a bit while on the train, and get occasional phone calls. So it's pretty much a big waste of money...

Then, thanks to IP phones... we can get something a lot better, a lot cheaper! The services are:
Rakuten fusion smart phone (SIP phone number)
Rakuten LTE

LTE just refers to the (micro-)SIM chip you get to connect your cellphone to a Japanese cellphone network (docomo's) and use internet. And the SIP phone number is the thing that lets you do/receive phone calls via internet, you can also use it from your computer as you can guess (use Ekiga on GNU/Linux).

The SIP phone number DOESN'T have a basic fee per month. And you can make phone calls for free to most IP phone numbers (050- numbers). That means as long as you only receive phone calls, you'll be talking for free. And it's cheaper to make phone calls than from regular cellphone's phone numbers.
The bad thing, is that as you can guess, it relies on your network... If you are in a remote area, and your internet connection is kinda slow or doesn't respond very fast, you'll have a bit of a lag during the call. Kind of when you make a long distance phone call.

LTE works just fine, it has a basic fee from 875JPY to like 2,980JPY per month, depending on the bandwidth plan you choose. These are some very easy to understand plans...

The "bad" thing, is that you have to buy the cellphone in advance by yourself, and do the setup (put the SIM chip into the phone) by yourself. But that's pretty reasonable for the price you get, being that I pay like 900~1,500JPY monthly for this phone... about 6 to 9 times cheaper than I used to.

I met Matz!

I met the ruby founder, Matz! At the rakuten technology conference 2011^^.
What a great guy.

With Matz!!!! omg the real Matz!!!!!!

Some other pictures from the conference and the party we had after it...

Rakuten card business training

Oh, that was tiring.
In Rakuten, as freshmen, we have to do a Rakuten credit card sign up competition kinda thing...
I finally got the minimal amount of people needed for that.

I was so afraid I was gonna get fired!! And it's like my 2nd month here><.

Thanks all of you (my friends) who supported me and signed up. It's a great card I'm sure you're all going to enjoy using, and besides really helped me out!

My first day at work

Yesterday (4/1) was my first day at work!

Being one of the top IT companies in the world, and most employees being from Universities a lot better than mine, I was very nervous.
But it wasn't so bad. I met lots of cute girls, I even got their email addresses (one of them asked it to me>_< Never got that before!), and I got along with everyone in the development department. So far so good.

What did suck, is that I didn't understand all of the lots and lots of explanations we had. Rakuten is going to be using English as the official language since next year. But still being in a translation stage, English is used mostly in documents, and everything oral is mostly Japanese...
I speak a decent amount of Japanese, having studied here for like 6 years.
But really, the explanations were just too complicated to understand, especially in Japanese! So, I had to keep asking the people next to me when I didn't understand...

I have lots and lots of homework, which I can't talk about because is everything is "secret" and can't discuss...

Still, it's a great company, and I really liked it when they talked about their mission, and I just know there are lots of hackers there too, but still there are a few people who get in my nerve^^.

I hope I do OK in the training, and be able to learn all the what they are trying to teach me the easy way><.


At least, I apparently I'm doing good in my tests and online learning stuffs.

This is how I look now!!
I look so much as an adult^^ I still feel like in high school though...

Anyway, now that I work in a good company and have lots of chances I hope to a cute Japanese girlfriend.

Rakuten's initiation ceremony

I went to the Rakuten's initiation ceremony the other day.

There were a bit over 500 people including the staff and TV cameras taking the event.

I was a bit nervous. Especially since, even though the ceremony itself was in English, it was a Japanese style one! So, like, you have to image the army, because it's something like that. In the first five minutes nobody did anything but stay quiet looking straight ahead; that's right, five hundred people in the same room, and nobody was speaking...

Well, I'm actually quite accustomed to that kind of ceremony so it wasn't that hard for me, but since Rakuten is even doing the ceremony in English and all, I thought a more "American-like" ceremony would have been more welcome.

In Japanese ceremonies, you have to respond in a loud voice, and then go to the front of everyone. In this ceremony you had to do that too, however in English, and you had to say like "here" and then go forward, which I found rather unnatural.

But still, it was a great ceremony.

Except maybe for a chinese guy who did a brief speech. I don't get why chinese people can't get well-fitted size suits. Or stand up straight... or don't behave like assholes when on ceremonies... but I guess they're just not to good with formalities...

Anyway, the best part was after the ceremony, when we got a team get together kinda meeting. All the new guys (obviously including me) were there. And I just gotta tell you, nowhere in Japan have I seen such beautiful Japanese girls. They are all extremely beautiful, cute, and they're like from the Universities of Japan!! The best of the best if you ask me.

Obviously I was a bit shy because of that and couldn't speak very much, but knowing that I'm gonna work with such beautiful ladies just really makes me want to work as soon as possible!!^^

Hooah for Japanese women!!!

got in

Rakuten officially hired me^^ I'm very excited.

The guy that interviewed me and asked me linux/open-source related stuffs was Mr. Yoshioka who is apparently like the Linux kernel developer no1 in Japan... I had no idea!

I met the other guys who got hired too, but most of them where from the University of Tokyo... there was even one guy from Stanford, omg><.

And there was me, from Gunma University lol, as you can guess, very exciting for me.

I'm sure I'll be learning from the best hackers in Japan, and I'll be working for a company I feel proud for, which is a LOT more than was I expecting!

Rakuten2

I went to the "third selection" today.

As I like linux, and pretty much all I'm writing in the entry sheets (curricula) is about free(GNU) software, they sent like a super hacker to talk to me... damn, I never thought I would really have a hacker in front of me.

He asked me to introduce myself, I was so nervous it didn't go so well^^.

And the guy just wouldn't make any reaction x( so it was a bit hard to talk to, but we could relate about emacs, and emacs related programs, as well as with a few linux stuffs.

But he was like, the real thing... so he started asking me about how many programs have I written, and about how long is the longest program I've ever written and stuffs...

I don't even remember^^. But that's obviously because I haven't written that many programs, mostly for college assignments only. But everything I do for my self, is mostly shell script (bash), or emacs lisp.

I made my own script to download porn for me from a site, but I couldn't talk about THAT, right?:D

I got to show him my FSF related items, like my "GNU pin", and he really seemed interested in that.

At least he apparently liked that I'm very motivated towards free software stuff, and although I haven't written any "real" programs, I do want to.

And I passed!! Incredible!!! lol they called me like two hours after the interview.

Now I only got one more to go... the last interview, where only important guys show up, and I think ask me about the company's motto and how do I fit in with it. I've read so much about this company I feel rather optimistic.

But you never know... I just hope I do well, I really don't want to keep looking for a job, and I really like Rakuten (that company).

Rakuten

Wow Rakuten is amazing!

They say they started doing every meeting in English and stuffs...

I passed the first selection, which was "group discussion". They made me discuss with a lot of mostly Chinese exchange students which were so forcedly trying to smile they were starting to creep me out^^.

The thing is, apparently that selection was more for trade/operations directed, rather than for the development/software engineering job I was looking for. And the guy realized that!!

So when the selection was over, they called me over the phone and told me to have a "little" interview right away. And I met the engineering recruiting guy, who was a very nice guy, and we had a talk.

He asked me stuffs I'm usually well prepared for, but as I wasn't expecting to have an interview that day, I really wasn't^^.

That really sucked, but he ended up even giving me some advice in case I passed (which I did^^).

Apparently Matz (the guy who created ruby) works there too! I was so surprised.

Anyway, I have to bring something nice to show, and think of a very good reason why I want to be hired there for next time. I'm really going for this one with all I've got!! This has to be the best change I've got so far, and the best I'll maybe ever have.

One guy in the station even told me the way to the company's tower when I was looking at the map! He just asked me in English "Are you looking for Rakuten?" with a bit of an awkward intonation but a really good pronunciation. The guy was Japanese, and an employee there! Outstanding...