Archive for December, 2007
Former Eikaiwa teachers vent their frustration through video
On December 18, 2007 in On the J-web
My personal favourite:
and many more…
What are your favourites?
Disgruntle ex-Nova teacher? Want to be interviewed or comment on Nova?
Contact us at –>eaglelandgrace [att] gmail [dott] com
Or comment below
Email (and “to do”) Overload
On December 17, 2007 in Announcements
Hi all,
I have an inbox full of emails from Japan bloggers so I am a little overwhelmed.
That and other things on my “to do” list need my attention.
So for today I will give you a funny video and spend my time playing catch up.
(If you are a youtube addict you might have seen this one before)
Also, take this time to talk about whatever you want in the comments below. Have fun!
Helping Japan bloggers with their wordpress blogs
On December 16, 2007 in Announcements, Community building, DailyJ Mission, Helping Japan Bloggers
One thing that I would like to do here on Daily J is discuss, as Japan bloggers, how we can improve our blogs.
So I am going to post “Helping Japan Bloggers” posts from time to time.
*You can help by offering suggestions. And if you have solved a problem others are having SHARE your solution! *
I mentioned this to JapanItUp.com on his post about displaying Japanese on wordpress (my comment is at the bottom) and it is time to talk about it here.
I want it to be an interchange of help.
The idea is that we talk about what could be better and then we blog about how to do it technically.
Here is an example:
JapanItUp had a problem with displaying Japanese, so he figured it out and then he posted about it so that every one else could learn from it.
That is what I want this series to be about!
So here are two things I see on J blogs that I think could be better:
(btw, I am guilty of just about all of them still, so don’t feel bad)
#1
Wordpress bloggers need to install a mod that notifies commenters when there is a reply!
(If you have done this please teach the rest of us how to do it easily. I could search for the mod. But I am too busy already)
longcountdown.com has it! Not fair. Share the love Nick 
Work around (?) - (In case you want to know if someone replied to your comment but the blog doesn’t have auto-notification)
Take the URL of the post that you commented on and add RSS to the end:
http://www.longcountdown.com/2007/02/10/technical-problems-with-lc/
becomes http://www.longcountdown.com/2007/02/10/technical-problems-with-lc/rss
I think this should work. not sure.
#2
Prominently displaying RSS feeds.
I’ve been bugging a few bloggers about this one (you know who you are) 
I am a hypocrite though because my rss feed is still way at the bottom of this blog 
I need to stop being lazy…
What other things have you guys seen that we all could work on? And what do you think of this idea for helping each other out? Let me know!
Have a great day
Daily J
upcoming interviews
On December 16, 2007 in Announcements
I haven’t given you an interview in awhile and I know you are all getting restless.
You’re pulling your hair out and shouting random Japanese swear words uncontrollably.
You are suffering from a major lack of Vitamin J and it is all my fault…
But never fear!
New interviews are here! Well,… they are upcoming…
Look out for them this coming week, and for some special news!
(I love teasing you guys)
Some more possible gems of the Japan-related web
On December 15, 2007 in On the J-web, Resources
A couple days ago I posted a list of sites as possible “unknown gems” of Japan-related web. After posting the first list of gems I got some great feedback and suggestions for more gems. Here are those suggestions and some more possible gems from my wanders on the web.
#1 from Shane S:
I misstated in my earlier post that this weeks qoute was about fairy tales - it was Kotowaza or Japanese proverbs. The site that I refer to is here: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/5623/kotowaza.html and I think that is goes along with the fairy tale site and should be considered for your list.
By the way, Shane has just started a neat blog called A typical life. Each week starts out with a quote or Kotowaza. This week is:
<—click to read the post.
#2 Chris at Waikiki2Yanai
Do you know this place? It’s definitely not what I thought it would be.
Gaba teacher is a neat site. It is like theonion.com, but for Eikaiwa teachers!
Thanks guys for sharing these great sites with everyone!
And thanks to Thomas at NihonHacks. I got this idea of including reader comments in future posts from him. It is a great community building tip. See how Japan bloggers can help each other out?!
Here are some more sites I found that might be hidden gems. What do you think?
#3 Sakura House
(not so unknown) Cheap Accommodation in Tokyo. Another is Fontana Apt.
#4 The Japan section of Career.org
One interesting thing on the page is a Nova Teachers United group. Poor Nova teachers
Good resources on studying in Japan. wle-Japan is similar
************SOMETHING NEAT*****************
I found this panning virtual reality thing (awhile ago) on the site below
************************************************
#6 Kiku’s Cobweb Castle
All kinds of goodies. Lots of great pictures, panning VR, more. How about it guys? Gem?
A website for ‘taboo-free” journalism on Japan. Looks pretty interesting and a bit like our past interviewee, gyaku.jp
So what is the verdict? Which are gems and which, well… aren’t?
Not dead. And thank you Chris for appeasing the powers that be :)
On December 14, 2007 in Announcements, Community building, Suggestions Please
Not dead, I forgot to set my posts to schedule (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). I think I worried poor Chris:
- Chris B Said,No posts for 3 days?You leave me no choice,
***The following was announced on Thursday December 13th at apprx 9:39 (Tokyo Standard)***
The “Society of Japan Bloggers†( formerly known as “GODâ€) regrets to announce the temporary suspension of “Nipponster, Daily J, and any other registered or unregistered associatesâ€.
O.K. Stop crying!!
It is just a warning this time but next time my substantial influence may not stop……… “themâ€.
Post dammit!!
For the love of sweet Jesus post….POST!!!!
Love you man! As far as it is in my power, I won’t leave you without your Vitamin J again.
Now about that name,… “Society of Japan Bloggers,” I like it!
What do you think about these for rules:
#1 The first rule of SJB is, you don’t talk about SJB
#2 The Second rule of SJB is, you don’t talk about SJB
#3 If you see a way that you can help your fellow Japan blogger, do it!
Numbers 4 to however many… Suggestions anyone?
It could be a good, leaderless, way to get everyone to help one another.
Great ideas from Daily J readers
On December 13, 2007 in Community building, Future of the J-web, JapanBlogMatsuri, Suggestions Please
Daily J readers are some smart cookies!
(Makes you wonder why they are reading this blog )
Here are some of their great comments and suggestions:
#1 (link to original comment) Chris from Waikiki2Yanai:
There is a “japan blogroll†thing I was on before but it was littered with old abandoned blogs.
A newer version of that which ranked on post freq or something like that would be maybe good? There is a extreme lack of cohesion obviously, since I have to hunt for others in Japan.
A hi Quality icon based link would blend better than text links.
Thats what I want. Can you get on that and have it ready by tomorrow?
Great!!
While I don’t know about having it by tomorrow (and I would already be late anyway), I definitely would like to make something like this! What do you think guys? Can we build it?! I say, “Let the brainstorming begin!”
#2 (link to the comment) Shane from Atypicallife
Rather than just do interviews why not due features on Japan. You could do informative pieces on arts&crafts, tech stuff, etc with a Japanese twist. You could use guest bloggers for these posts or challenge everyone to do a piece on a subject and highlight the good ones in a post here….I would be happy to consider co-ordinating this if you want to contact me.
Yes and yes. This is a great idea and is similar to the old Japan Blog Matsuri. I bet RockinInHakata would be interested too.
#3 (link to the comment) Harvey from JapanNewbie
I want to see an organized Japan Blogger get together! In Kansai.
You can have one in Tokyo too if you like, but all the cool people are in Kansai.
How about it Osaka bloggers?
These are just a few of the great ideas readers have had. Hopefully I will get the chance to post some more of them soon. And I always appreciate them so keep them coming.
Let’s make the J-web a brilliant place by helping one another!
Recap. What I am working on currently for DailyJ
On December 12, 2007 in Uncategorized
Oh boy. There is so much to do!
To keep myself organised and to keep you “in the know,” here are the interviews I want to do that I need to ganbaru on:
I have a few others that I have been meaning to contact for awhile:
Japanisdoomed, Re-entry Japan, and Evan (BaBiBuBeBo.com)
But,
I have been in contact with a few bloggers and those interviews should be coming up soon. So stay tuned!
And always feel free to ask us to cover your story or J-web news.
Thank you chaps,
Daily J
What do you think of Taka and Mana?
On December 11, 2007 in Interviews we'd like to do, Rights of foreigners, Uncategorized
As an aside, a few days ago I posted a video about Taka and Mana. I didn’t say much about it in that previous post or ask your opinions so I wanted to talk about it again. Taka and Mana are two young children who were abducted by their Japanese mother from their Canadian father.
Basically, under Japanese law there is little recourse in these disputes for the non-Japanese parent. Japan is one of the few major countries where this is the case. From what I have gathered, even in a normal divorce/custody battle (w/o an abduction), custody is given exclusively to the Japanese parent. Taka and Mana’s father is making a documentary about the issue and there is an article with more details on Debito.org.
Here is the trailer to the documentary:
What do you think about this? Leave a comment.
Oops.
On December 11, 2007 in Announcements
oops. Not dead, just forgot to schedule the posts for the last few days.
I use the post scheduling feature on wordpress to write posts in advance and then set them to post on a given day. It is a life saver if I am really busy. Well, that is as long as I remember to do it
:embarrassed:
Anyway, I’m posting them up now.
