Mei Bao's Asian Entertainment Blog

C2 - Takuya Kimura

2006-08-22T17:55:00.000+08:00

Voted "Favourite Guy" by "AnAn", a Japanese woman's magazine, 12 years in a row.

He is still one of Japan's more noted pop culture icons irregardless of his long career and idol status.

Full Name:	Takuya Kimura
Nickname(s):	Kimutaku (but he hates being called this)
Country:	Japan
Date of Birth:	November 13 1972
Other Info:	A member of Japanese pop group SMAP married with 2 kids
Albums:	With SMAP - 17 albums, 4 greatest hits, 1 remixed and 1 solo members' SMAP 001 (Jan 1992) SMAP 002 (Aug 1992) SMAP 003 (Jan 1993) SMAP 004 (July 1993) SMAP 005 - Gyoukai Jigoku Ichido wa Oide (Feb 1994) SMAP 006 - Sexy Six (July 1994) SMAP Cool (Jan 1995) ~ Greatest Hits Album SMAP 007 - Gold Singer (July 1995) SMAP Boo (Nov 1995) ~ Remix Album SMAP 008 - Tacomax (Mar 1996) SMAP 009 (Aug 1996) SMAP Wool (Mar 1997) ~ Greatest Hits SMAP 011 - Su (Aug 1997) SMAP 012 - Viva Amigos (June 1998) SMAP Le Festa (Aug 1998) ~ members solo album SMAP 013 - Birdman (July 1999) SMAP 014 - S Map (Oct 2000) SMAP Vest (Mar 2001) ~ Greatest Hits qamS - Ura-Smap (Aug 2001) ~ Greatest Hits SMAP 015 - Drink! Smap! (July 2002) SMAP 016 - MIJ (June 2003) SMAP 017 - Sample Bang! (July 2005) SMAP 018 - Pop Up! (July 2006)
Filmology:	Brother (TBS - 1990) Who Stole My Heart (Fuji TV - 1992) Dancing Girl (TV Tokyo - 1993) Asunaro White Paper/Asunaro Confessions (Fuji TV - 1993) All About Young People/Stay Gold (Fuji TV - 1994) Shoot (movie - 1994) Beyond Your Time (TV Asahi - 1995) Friends in Need/Life is Good (TBS - 1995) Kimi Wo Wasurenai/Fly Boys, Fly! (movie - 1995) Lieutenant Ninzaburo Furuhata (Fuji TV - 1996) Long Vacation (Fuji TV - 1996) Concerto/Sakkyoku (TBS - 1996) I Always Keep Control of Myself (Fuji TV - 1997) Good Person (Fuji TV - 1997) Gift (Fuji TV - 1997) Love Generation (Fuji TV - 1997) Oda Nobunaga ( - 1998) A Sleeping Forest (Fuji TV - 1998) Konya Wa Eigyouchu (Fuji TV - 1999) Beautiful Life (TBS - 2000) Food Fight (NTV - 2000) Hero (Fuji TV - 2001) Chuushingura 1/47 (Fuji TV - 2001) One Million Stars Falling From The Sky/The Smile Has Left Your Eyes (Fuji TV - 2002) Good Luck! (TBS - 2003) Pride (Fuji TV - 2004) Howl's Moving Castle (movie - 2004) ~ voice of Howl in Japanese version 2046 (movie - 2004) Engine (Fuji TV - 2005) Journey To The West (Fuji TV - 2006 - Ep 1 only) Hero SP (Fuji TV - 2006)
Website:	-
Credits:	D-Addicts, Jdorama

C1 - 5566

2006-08-22T12:21:00.000+08:00

One of Taiwan's more popular boy bands. They're also one of my faves.

Country:	Taiwan
Members:	Tony Sun, Sam Wang, Zax Wang, Jason Hsu and Rio Peng
Began career:	Jan 2000
Why this name?	Five members with six talents (singing, dancing, hosting, acting, modelling and stage performance)
Other facts :	Rio had to leave the band sometime after the release of their 2nd album due to back problems
Albums :	3 albums, 3 OSTs and 1 greatest hits
	My MVP Valentine OST (2002) 1st Album (2002) Westside Story OST (2003) 2nd Album - Boyfriend (2004) C'est Si Bon (2004) ~ Greatest Hits Mr Fighting OST (2005) Long Time No See (2005)
Website:	J Stars (in Chinese)


Member Profiles:

	Tony Sun Xie Zhi DOB: Feb 20 1978	Sam Wang Shao Wei DOB: Dec 18 1976
	Zax Wang Ren Fu DOB: Aug 28 1980	Jason Hsu Meng Zhe DOB: July 27 1985

Credits:	J-Stars, Asian Fanatics, D-Addicts

How Do I? - Clubbox

2006-07-08T14:58:00.000+08:00

This is a tutorial done by Happyroach over Soompi forums. I only included the relevant sections

I. Signing Up
II. Downloading Files
III. Redeeming Your Quick-Download Coupons
IV: Using Your Coupon
V. Download Capacities: How Fast and How Much You Can Download

I: Signing Up - Getting Your Own Account

The main benefit of having a Clubbox account is so you can download from protected Clubboxes (those that only allow members to download). To join boxes, skip to the bottom of this post.

1. Go here: http://client.clubbox.co.kr:8002/capp/join_abroad.cgi

2. Click this:

3. Fill out the form.

If somehow you can't get to the next step (you get some internal service error, etc), refresh the page or go back and try again

4. Check where it says and click this

5. You should be brought back to Clubbox's homepage. Sign in with your ID+PW and you're set.

6. No, you don't have to fill in real information. Also, uncheck all the mailing options boxes if you don't want Clubbox/PDbox to email you.

II: Downloading

1. Make sure you're working with Internet Explorer. As much as I'd prefer to use Firefox, unfortunately, Clubbox only works with IE (and a few other IE-based browsers).

2. In your IE, go to Tools > Internet Options > Security > Trusted Sites > Sites > Add "https://clubbox.co.kr" > OK.

3. Install this: http://www.clubbox.co.kr/neo.fld/ClubboxSetup.exe

4. If you're at a certain Clubbox (http://clubbox.co.kr/blahblah), read on. If you only see a 1/4 screen window with a file link, skip to Step 6.

5. You see a list of files like the screencap I made below. Check the one(s) you want, and press the light blue button

6. You see a new window pop up. Press the big white button on the bottom.

7. You will now see this window below. Technically it should disappear within a second and start your Clubbox program, but sometimes the server gets busy and it doesn't respond.

What you should do if the window gets stubborn and doesn't go away:

Press Alt + left arrow, then Alt + right arrow. Your Clubbox download manager should pop up now.

8. And it looks like this (most of everything is in English, so you shouldn't have problems maneuvering around):

After your file starts downloading, the progress bar should move and show your download speed. CB regular downloads are capped at 55kb/s. There's a thing called download coupons which allows you to do certain amounts of quick downloads (+500kb/s).

9. Preferences. Go to the Config. tab and adjust for yourself. The tab is in English, so you shouldn't have any problems.

III: Redeeming Your Quick-Download Coupons

This is only available to people who signed up with CB and has an ID.

For every hour you leave your CB open, you get 10 mileage points. Once you reach 1000 points, you can qualify for a quick-download coupon

1. In your Clubbox window, go to the Mileage tab

2. You should be brought to a page displaying the available coupons you can "purchase" with your points. Choose whichever you feel like (and whichever you can afford). Do mind that the coupons expire in a certain period of time:

2GB: 5 days
5GB: 10 days
10GB: 15 days
30GB: 20 days
100GB: 60 days
300GB: 90 days

If you use up the n gigs before the n days pass, your coupon will expire early. If you don't use up your coupon, it'll still expire in n days

3. Confirmations: click OK

IV: Using Your Coupon

1. Click instead of
to queue a file to quick-download.

2. New window pops up:

3. Your box would look something like this:

Download speeds vary depending on your internet connection and file popularity. I have Comcast Cable in Northern California and my highest quick-download speeds are around 500k/s. I tried it on campus (UCB library) and got speeds around 1000k/s. People in Korea are known to get speeds around 5000k/s. So it really depends.

Word of advice:
If your normal download speed does not exceed 50k/s, don't use quick-download coupons. It's not gonna make things any faster. Read the FAQs to see why.

V. Download Capacities: How Fast and How Much You Can Download

As I mentioned in the quick-download topic, your download capacities depends on the kind of internet service you have and the status of your computer on your router if you are using a router.

1. Internet service:

T1-T3: very good. Quick connects AND quick downloads. Abuse your coupons liberally. For me.
Cable: very good as well, though not as good as T connections. Quick connects and quick downloads. Abuse your coupons on popular files.
DSL: mediocre/crappy. 3.0Mbit > 1.5Mbit. I used to have excellent cable, so I totally spoiled myself with quick connects and high download speeds. Now I am stuck on 1.5Mbit SBC DSL, which is utter crap. So it's quite difficult to get files started, though once they start, they download at normal speed (~55k/s). Quick-downloads suck here as well, because with 1.5Mbit DSL, you can get as much as ~100k/s with quick download if you are lucky.
Dial up: my sympathies are with you.

2. Router settings:

DMZ host: if you do not care about being hacked or maliciously used, and you do not care for anyone else on the network, set yourself as the DMZ host. Your computer would download at the maximum capacity while all other computers on the network would suffer with near eternal 0%'s.
Port forwarding: Clubbox uses TCP port 19101 for transfers, PDbox (very similar program) uses TCP ports 15000-15099. (source: wikipedia)

With optimal router settings, expect these download speeds:

T1-T3: normal: 55-60k/s; quick: 1000-5000k/s
cable: normal: 55k/s; quick: 500-800k/s
3.0Mbit DSL: normal: 55k/s; quick: N/A (I have yet to test this myself)
1.5Mbit DSL: normal: 55k/s; quick: ~100k/s (slow connects. Expect being stuck at 0% often)
Dial up: 5k/s (slow connects as well)

Note: where you live often determines what kind of internet service you have or can get.
The speeds stated here are all based on people's experience living in the US.

I think someone mentioned that speeds in Malaysia are capped at a maximum of 50k/s (correct me if I'm wrong).
Speeds in Korea are the best (well, duh ;D). Tina and co. have reported speeds around 3000-5000k/s.
Speeds in China are decent. Friends in Shanghai tell me they get 1000+k/s
Speeds in Canada are good (at least for Lisa unni ;D). Normal downloads and around 300k/s for quick.
Not sure about any other country. Inputs will be appreciated

Category Listing

1990-01-01T00:00:00.000+08:00