Archive for November, 2007
Some fun sites and people we would like to interview
On November 30, 2007 in Interviews we'd like to do
If you or someone you know would like to be interviewed by Daily J, let me know!
Also If you have a suggestion for a website or person that you think would make a fun interview be sure to mention it in the comments or send an email to:
eaglelandgrace (atto) gmail (dotto) com
Here are two interesting sites that I will be contacting about interviews
#1
Brendon and Robert founders of theflyingpig.com
I love Costco Japan. And I love TheFlyingPig even more!
Costco Japan is the Japanese branch of the American wholesale supermarket Costco and home to all of the Western goodies you miss. The only problem: for most it is a bit of a commute. Not to worry, Flying Pig to the rescue!
TheFlyingPig is a website that let’s you order Costco goods online and then they ship them to you anywhere in Japan!! What an idea! These two must be some real dreamers. Must interview.
#2
I was reading an article over on SeekJapan.jp about foreigners with jobs that are not ESL (personally I think ESL can be very rewarding, but some grow tired. And of course there are A LOT of expats that come to Japan for completely non-ESL-related work. but I digress…). I noticed above the article an interesting ad that read “Don’t just teach English.” Okay. So I had a look and I found this brilliant site that helps people find gigs teaching other things. Good idea! I have a similar idea for a website, but that is super top secret 
. I think that a site MyClass is a great way to help foreigners in Japan.
Connections everywhere I look - and what would you love to see on the J-web?
On November 29, 2007 in Community building, DailyJ Mission, On the J-web
Earlier this week I posted about some neat links between recent posts on our interviewee’s blogs. If you missed it, click here.
I like doing these posts because I want to help Japan-related bloggers connect and collaborate to produce even better content. And better content helps everybody. I hope I am helping. Let me know.
Here are the links I see today:
#1
Updates and info on the fingerprinting of foreigners:
KeepingPaceInJapan talks about Re-entry Japan’s immigration tract <–>RisingSunOfNihon reports that 5 blacklist foreigners where caught by the new immigration system
So is it evil or not?
#2
Dread locks:
“dreadist”? I thought JapanNewbie was talking about depressed people. But, no.
JapanNewbie on the Japanese dreadist society <–>Jamaican + Japanese, hey isn’t that Jamaipanese?
#3
J-bloggers love the U.S. TV show “Heroes”:
RockingInHakata <–>Jamaipanese<–>KeepingPaceInJapan (talked about Heroes in his interview)
I like playing match-maker!
Okay, “and now for something completely different!” 
What would you love to see on the Japan-related web?
If anything were possible what kind of resources, tools, and pure goodness would you want to have at the click of a button?
One thing that I’d like to see is the free Japanese textbook over at wikibooks become a full textbook from beginner to advanced!
What do you want to see? Let me know.
What should Daily J be when it grows up?
On November 29, 2007 in DailyJ Mission
I’ve been doing some thinking about what Daily J can contribute to the J-web.
It reports on the J-web in general (whatever that means )
And it tries to bond J-bloggers together into more of a community.
But, like I ask interviewees about their sites, “who would love this site and why?”
You know the answer to that question better than I.
That is why I am always asking for your feedback.
So I do not know who all of you are.
But I do have an idea about where Daily J might want to go.
Daily J, the Japan-blogger’s blog. A news source on the J-blogosphere.
A work in progress, in need of feedback
On November 28, 2007 in Announcements, DailyJ Mission, Suggestions Please
<!– this post may be boring so here is something fun –>
##############################################
#
##############################################
I am still trying to gain balance with my blogging.
I’ve realised that I am only human and an interview everyday is more than I can handle, at this point (I think I knew that at the start but I’m always biting off more than I can chew).
Besides the heavy workload that daily interview posts require, I think that posting so many interviews in rapid succession makes the interviews a little shallow (less special).
On the other hand:
While posting an interview post everyday may be too much I definitely would like to have at least one interview series (an interview with one site divided into several parts) per week. what do you think?
So, in between interviews I am thinking about posting this type of content:
- “Connections” (like the ones in yesterday’s post) between Japan related sites
- Interviews we would like to do
- Interesting Japan related sites we stumbled on during our travels on the web
What do you think? What else would be good?
This will also help me stay organised, because:
Interesting sites –> Interviews we’d like to do–> Interviews–> Connections || (so it all flows nicely)
I also want to discuss how we can use our websites to help people interested in Japan, create better Japan-related content and tools, build community, and have lots of fun in the process!
My love and hate relationship with wordpress
On November 28, 2007 in Blog Improvements
If you are a [wordpress] blogger you probably can relate. If not, you can skip this post unless you are for some strange reason curious, or bored, etc.
So, I mentioned yesterday that I was going to do some tidying up of the categories (on the right side bar).
I am used to having to make tedious changes to sites so I figured that I had to go to each old post and change the category to a tag. So I started doing that until half way through (and slightly frustrated) I found the following hiding at the bottom of my administrator page:
“Categories can be selectively converted to tags using the category to tag converter.”
Good to know, now that I am almost done…
Connections on the J-web and some tidying
On November 27, 2007 in Community building, DailyJ Mission, On the J-web, Suggestions Please
Since my first posts about “connections” (similarities) between Japan-related sites got such good feedback I have decided to keep it up and post short “On the J-web” posts listing connections I have found. Like I’ve said before I think this will help build a better Japan-blogger community (shall we call it the Japan blogosphere?)
And today is a perfect day for that in my book because it seems that our past interviewees have been cooking up a storm!
Here are some of the great connections I found:
#1
Jamaipanese is offering to guest blog <—–> Digital World Tokyo has asked for guest bloggers
Okay, Jamai, how did you miss that one?! You must not be taking your Vitamin J. For shame…
#2
Gaijin Tonic has a post about finding authentic western goods in Japan (at Tesco branches) <—–>NihonHacks is always looking for good tips like this (like Thomas’ post on finding cheese in Japan)
(also I commented on Gaijin Tonics post that you can get Costco Japan’s goods shipped to you anywhere in Japan from the site theflyingpig.com)
#3
KeepinPaceInJapan is being honored for a photograph he shot <—–>Evan at Babibubebo.com (who was also a buddy of mine at Jouchi U.) does photography and is looking for photos for his Japan photo contest.
btw, Evan I want to interview you (I’m just all over the place right now but I will email you).
#4
Checking your Japanese-English translations with Google Fight - JapanNewbie responds to NihonHacks’ response to JapanNewbie, and so on…
Tidying - I am planning to delete some of the categories that would be better as tags (now that I have tags - thank you wordpress upgrade). I am still not sure which I should make tags and which should be categories. It is confusing having both. Any thoughts, bloggers?
How the NihonHacks idea was born - an exclusive interview
On November 26, 2007 in Interviews, bloggers
So far we’ve heard about the NihonHacks concept and how we can contribute, but I bet you may be wondering how Thomas came up with such a great idea.
Wonder no longer:
Daily J: Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what motivated you to start Nihon Hacks?
Thomas: Sure. I graduated from the University of Texas with a BA in Religious Studies. I had studied abroad in Japan at Kansai Gaidai in Osaka and thought it would be fun to come back, so I applied for the JET program during my last year of college and got accepted. During the Tokyo and prefectural orientations I attended some seminars on living in Japan and picked up a lot of cool tips. I remember thinking “I wish I had known all this back when I was an exchange student.” I had no intention of starting a blog back then, but it might have planted the seed for the idea.
Later, one of my friends back home and I came up with an idea for a project - some web 2.0 thing that’s still hush hush - and we started coding it in our free time. When it looked like we might end up finishing it someday, I decided I’d better read up on internet marketing, traffic building, online communities, stuff like that. I wanted a fun way to get some hands-on experience and that’s where the idea of starting a blog came up. I wrote down a bunch of blog ideas and the “tips for living in Japan” idea was one of them. I was subscribed to some blogs like lifehacker.com and parenthacks.com and thought it would be cool to make a similar blog focused on Japan. Not long after, nihonhacks.com was launched. You can read a little bit more about the story on my first post, located here: http://nihonhacks.com/japan
-hacks/domain-name-check -webhost-check-nihonhackscom -launched/
Daily J: So do you run any other sites?
Thomas: One of my friends and I run a little language learning blog called Babel Hut ( http://babelhut.com). It’s not focused on Japan, but I do write about Japanese there. Recently I’ve started a series of posts that follows a little project I’m doing to boost my listening skills. I’m watching Fight Club in Japanese, one DVD chapter at a time, transcribing every line. I listen to each chapter over and over again until I can follow it without my script. I write about interesting differences between the Japanese and English scripts, interesting words, my experience doing it, etc. Although I haven’t done it yet, I plan on putting the Japanese script up on the site in case other people want to learn Japanese by watching Fight Club. Check it out:
- http://babelhut.com/languages
/japanese/project-mayhem /project-mayhem-learning-a -foreign-language-through -movies/ - http://babelhut.com/languages
/japanese/project-mayhem /chapter-2-how-to-say-testicula r-cancer-in-japanese/ - http://babelhut.com/languages
/japanese/project-mayhem /chapter-3-japanese-men-mumble/
The first rule of fight club is… 
Daily J: What is your favourite NihonHacks post so far? And why?
Thomas: My favorite post is the one about 300 yen steaks ( http://nihonhacks.com/japanese
-food/how-to-find-300-yen -steaks-in-japan/). I had actually planned to post it weeks earlier than I did, but I had trouble getting pictures. Every time I tried to hit up the store for steaks, I couldn’t find any discounted ones. It’s a good thing too, because it forced me to figure out why and I ended up writing a better article for it. Before I used to go to the store randomly at night and just hope the cheap steaks would be there. Now I know to pay close attention to the sell-by dates. My hit/miss ratio for cheap steaks is way higher now. Steak is my favorite food, so that may be one reason I like this article the best. Other people seem to like it the best too - it has the most hits out of all the articles on nihonhacks.com
Daily J: What part of running NihonHacks is the most fun for you?
Thomas: Interaction with the readers. It’s fun to get comments and tips from people who stop by. I like to check the stats at the end of the day and see how many people came and where they came from. It feels good to know that some people find the site useful. It’s only 2 months old, so the fun is only just beginning really.
“The fun is only just beginning!” A BIG thank you to Thomas from NihonHacks for giving us the interview! And thank you all for reading.
Have a great day,
Daily J
How we can all help ourselves by helping NihonHacks - an exclusive interview with NihonHacks.com
On November 25, 2007 in Interviews, bloggers
If you are a blogger and you were here for yesterday’s Nihonhacks post you either dropped everything and blogrolled NihonHacks.com or lost my respect forever 
If you fall into that second group you might be able to redeem yourself today because, as promised, we are going to find out how you can help NihonHacks help foreigners.
But first a really cute baby picture!
Ahhh. Little Noah is so cute!
Okay. Focus. We have foreigners to help. Imagine having access to the collective wisdom and life tips of every foreigner in Japan. Wouldn’t that be awesome?! It is possible and you can help (yourself). Here’s how:
Daily J: Who is your site perfect for and how can they get the most from it?
Thomas: The site is aimed at foreigners in Japan, specifically English-speaking foreigners in Japan (though I’m looking into ways to make the site more accessible to non-English speakers). I think the site is perfect for the foreigners that rotate in and out of Japan: exchange students, short term (1-5 years) language teachers, temporary workers. I think the best way to get the most benefit from the site is to subscribe to the RSS feed ( http://feeds.feedburner.com
/NihonHacks), read and post comments, and send in tips of your own. A lot of readers submit related tips in the comments, so you might miss some good ideas if you don’t read them.
Daily J: How can interested people best interact with the site and contribute to “hacking Japan”?
Thomas: Write comments! If you have a good tip related to a post, write a comment and share it with everyone else. You can also submit tips to hacks@nihonhacks.com. I often make posts that are just quotes of tips that have been sent in to me. If you have something that you think would be helpful to other foreigners in Japan, send it in!
Another way to help is to spread the word. Nihon Hacks is still new. We launched on September 1st. It’s only 7 days older than my newborn boy. If you like the site, tell your friends and colleagues about it. If you like an article, Stumble it or submit it to some other social bookmarking site.
So there you have it, friends: go forth to NihonHacks.com, comment, submit tips, and spread the word! Let’s put our heads together and make things better for one another and all future foreigners waiting to brave Japan!
And come back tomorrow to hear more about Thomas, how he got started with NihonHacks, and why he loves it.
Right here on Daily J
Why I want every Japan-related blogger to blogroll NihonHacks, right now! - an exclusive interview with NihonHacks.com
On November 24, 2007 in Interviews, bloggers
I am 100% serious. If you blog about Japan I want you to stop what you are doing, go over to your blog and add NihonHacks to your blogroll. Now pat yourself on the back because you’ve just done a great service to foreigners throughout Japan.
I was tempted to stop the post there for dramatic effect, but it is an interview after all! So let’s hear from the man himself, Thomas from NihonHacks.com.
Daily J: What is Nihon Hacks’ mission/purpose and how do you see it developing/changing in the future?
Thomas: The tagline for Nihon Hacks is “Time- and money-saving tips for easy living in Japan.” The purpose of the site is to share day-to-day life tips with other foreigners living in Japan. I want to answer questions like “How do I go about doing <something>?”, “Is there an easier/faster/cheaper way to do such-and-such?”, “How do I find <something> in Japan?”, “What’s a good way to avoid/fix <some problem>?” Some things I’ve written about on Nihon Hacks are how to avoid wasting old rice, saving on cleaning products, cheap steaks, and how to find cheese in Japan.
As for how I’d like to see the site develop, I’d really like to have something similar to what parenthacks.com has right now. They have a big, active community of readers who send in parenting tips everyday to share with all the other parents reading the blog. Because it’s so active, you get to see a lot of different approaches to common parenting problems and issues. It would be awesome if nihonhacks.com could get that level of participation. I’d be thrilled to have my inbox flooded with tips from readers who want to share their discoveries with other readers.
Right now, I think most of us learn our tricks from our personal circle of gaijin/native-friends. It’d be cool to have that circle expand to be Japan-wide. There are a lot of great solutions to everyday problems out there. If we can collect them all in one place I think a lot of people would benefit. The small group of readers I’ve gathered over the past two months has been really generous in sharing their tips. I’ve learned so much from them already. So the potential is there. All that is needed now is the numbers. That’s the dream anyway.
Do you see why I told you to blogroll him now?! I know why I did.
I blogrolled him because I know that his site is going to help foreigners in Japan (and already is). But I don’t want to just stop there, I plan to personally contribute to all of the great work that NihonHacks is doing. Like I have said before, I believe that as J-bloggers we have a responsibility to help Japan-enthusiasts… because with great blogging comes great responsibility. 
So how can we help NihonHacks help foreigners?
Find out tomorrow,
here on Daily J
Baby Noah vs. The Elephant - an interview with Thomas, proud father and blogger @ Nihonhacks
On November 23, 2007 in Interviews, bloggers
Over the next couple of days I will be helping you get acquainted with a very special website and project called NihonHacks. There is no doubt in my mind that this site will make things easier for foreigners in Japan. But more on that later. Today we are hearing from the proud father of a bouncing baby boy.
Daily J: First of all, congrats on the little tike! When are we going to see pictures of little Noah? That has to be very exciting!
Thomas: Thanks! It’s very exciting. I remember holding him for the very first time and he had this big question mark look on his face like “where the hell am I?”. It must be a crazy experience to get pulled out of the dark, cozy womb and into the lights and faces of the world. That first gasp of real air. I think it’s too bad we don’t get to remember that. Noah is about 7 weeks-old right now and he’s a real brawler. All day long his arms and legs are flailing around. My mom sent him a toy stuffed elephant from home and he has a new favorite game “Throw The Elephant”. We place the elephant’s head on wherever his hand happens to be and he launches it with all his power. It’s hilarious. He’s also good at “Punch The Lion In The Face”.
Having a baby in Japan is an interesting experience. The doctor had special software for choosing an auspicious due date. We went to a Shinto shrine to get the belly wrap blessed for an easy birth. You also pick up a lot of interesting words like 胎盤 (たいばん - placenta), 点滴 (てんてき - IV drip), 帝王切開 (ていおうせっかい - “emperor cut” = Caesarian section) and 羊水 (ようすい - amniotic fluid). How “sheep water” equals amniotic fluid I have no idea.
I never thought to post baby pictures up on the blog. It didn’t occur to me that readers would be interesting in seeing them. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to throw some up in a post though. I’ll see what I can do.
Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! We want pictures!
Hopefully Thomas won’t hold out on us.
I won’t hold out on you (bar some freak occurrence). So be here tomorrow for more Nihonhacks!
