Archive for the ‘Announcements’ Category

Semi-frequent blogging

On September 02, 1945 in Announcements

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A year, decade in review. And what I have been up to

On January 03, 2010 in Announcements, DailyJ Mission

I’ve started using my middle name online as it is more unique and therefore easier to find.

My new profile site with some explanation of what I have been doing recently (i.e. not much Japan-related) is TaiyoJohnson.com

I am a big fan of PersonalMBA.com, and in answer to his challenge I posted “A year and decade in the life of Taiyo Johnson” for anyone bored or interested.

I am secretly working on some interesting Japan-related things.

What have you been up to?

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Take JapanSoc on the go! J-web Community toolbar upgrade

On April 17, 2009 in Announcements, Japanese Toolbar

Hi all,

As part of my commitment to make the community japanese language toolbar a force for enhancing collaboration on the Japan-related web I’ve just added a cool new feature:

Floating JapanSoc Widgets! (see screenshot below)

“Why should I care?” you say?

Well, if you are a Jsoc’er you can use this handy tool to keep up with the latest Top and Upcoming stories on JapanSoc, without being on JapanSoc.

So let’s say you are “busy” watching Youtube videos but you also want to see if there is anything new on JapanSoc - now you can!

“Give me the widget already!”

First you have to have the japanese language toolbar. Once you have that, on the toolbar go to “japan links” and find the new “JapanSoc” section. In that section click on either “top stories popup” or “upcoming stories popup”

The popup can be resized using the resize thingy (what do you call those?) on the bottom right.

I hope it will be of use to you.

As always, let me know what you think! I’m all ears.

Have a great day,

DailyJ

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Reluctantly switching to Google

On April 07, 2009 in Announcements

I gave Nipponster a little makeover and made the changes live today.

This included turning my back on Swicki and using Google instead.

I really did not want to do that but I had to bite the bullet…

It’s not that I don’t love Google, I do. But I saw something unique in Swicki and their “social search.” I still believe that voting and searching ought to be together, especially in vertical search (like Japan-related search) where there can be a community built around searching.

The Swicki people were always very helpful and friendly but unfortunately the platform let me down too many times.

I’ll probably post more about possibilities for nipponster in the future. But for now that is all. Any thoughts you want to share are VERY welcome.

Thanks all

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Giving away a few Japan-related domain names

On March 18, 2009 in #The Japan-related Web Debate, Announcements, Blog Improvements, Suggestions Please

I have a few domain names that I’d like to give (yes, free) to anyone who will do good with them.

Going forward it will be important for me to focus my time and resources on the areas where I am already providing value (and can provide future value). And I plan to cut everything that doesn’t.

So, here are the domains available (all registered at godaddy):

Japanopedia.org - A Japan encyclopedia project was the original vision. Maybe you can make it work or come up with a better idea for it. Ganbare!

Japanopedia.com - was registered to protect the japanopedia name (which was probably pointless)

gaijinbook.com - I had so many ideas for this site. The first website I ever made was thegaijinbook.com in 2003 with the help of a friend. It was supposed to be a site where foreigners (mostly foreign exchange students) in Japan could post articles talking about their experiences. We even played with the idea of turning some of the experiences into a book (which could be done easily now with lulu) and giving all the published submitters a percentage of sales. But the idea didn’t take off (my vanity would like to think it was ahead of its time) and I moved on to other website projects. We forgot to renew the name and lost it. I always liked the name though and ended up buying gaijinbook.com (which was better anyway). I didn’t have a clear idea for it at first but finally planned to turn into a social networking site for foreigners. Probably not a great idea. I don’t know.

Anyway, maybe you can take it and do something awesome with it.

I’ve never sold or given away a domain before so I am not sure exactly how it works on godaddy although I know you can do it and supposedly it isn’t hard.

SO, if you are interested, just email me about the domain you want and we can figure out how to make the transfer from there.

eaglelandgrace Att gmail

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upgrades and improvements

On January 08, 2009 in Announcements, Blog Improvements, Japanese Toolbar

Upgrading the blog to wordpress 2.7. Holding breathe that it all works…

Improving the Nipponster Toolbar (based on suggestions. Thanks Nick!). More on that later.

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Back from the Mountain top…

On December 06, 2008 in Announcements

Tadaima!
I am “back from the mountaintop.”

November was a great month and I was able to take time to do some deep reflection on my life and where I want to go from here.

Some of that I might be sharing later on here on the blog, especially anything that relates to DailyJ, the J-web, and Japan. Those subjects will always have a special place in my heart. But truth be told they ranked in importance well below other things like family, livelihood and happiness/general well-being. And I’d say that is healthy.

Unfortunately, after much deliberation and soul searching I still haven’t decided exactly what I want to do with DailyJ. Oh, well…

But I do know that I want to keep it going on indefinitely. At the same time I cannot blog daily (daily blogging=burn out).

So, I will take the great advice offered by Shane and Nick (& others).
From now on I will blog when I want to and hopefully (with the burden of “I have to blog” removed) I will really want to blog often. I will also use that twitter idea Nick mentioned.

Give me a little time to shake off the rust (and catch-up with comments and email). Then I should be back commenting and enjoying the community in no time.

How are things on your side of the J-web?

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Gone to the mountain (see you in December)

On November 05, 2008 in Announcements, Japanese Toolbar

Life is keeping me from blogging…

In part that is a good thing because actually, despite how much I hype it, the J-web isn’t everything (did I just admit that? ). We humans need balance and that is what this post is about.

I have a life outside of blogging that is also very fulfilling and I am happy about that.

And then there is also work… Work is fulfilling in its own way too. I work at a small company where I’m fortunate to work often directly with the founder. I’ve learnt much on the job and it has helped me gain useful experience I will need on the path to what I ultimately would like to do (it also pays the bills). That said it really takes up my time.

I also have my own business. I incorporated a little over 3 years ago (I was still in uni at the time - I always bite off more than I can chew) and have been playing around with different business ideas ever since. Business is one of my passions.

My ideal business would be one that:

• is completely remote (I want to be able to work from anywhere with an internet connection)
• combines web technology with business ingenuity
• leverages application service providers (ASPs, also called Saas) and outsourcing so I only focus of the area where I add the most value
• engages my three passions: Japan, business, and web technology

When I started I was working on a few web ventures and I am still working on one of them (an ecommerce store). As I was working on these a friend asked me to develop a website for his small business (and do some online marketing), he referred his contacts and they’ve referred people and I’ve been focusing on that ever since. Maybe I’ll be able to quit my other job someday and just do this (although admittedly my web design skills need work).

Of course, if money was not an issue I would just create useful Japan-related websites and tools to help people all day… Who knows, maybe that is a possibility too.

I have a lot of thinking to do. So I am going up to the proverbial mountain top (I plan to post again starting Dec. 1) .

After this little sojourn of meditation I will hopefully have [rested and] asked myself some very deep life questions.

I like doing this type of internal reflection. And I’ve decided from now on to do reflecting of this level at least once a year. This year I will be making my first personal mission statement an idea I took from Stephen Covey’s very good book First Things First.

Two other good books that will be reviewing on the mountaintop are Good To Great by Jim Collins and Go It Alone by Bruce Judson. I highly recommend both of them (for anyone who enjoys business books).

See you in December,

The Chemist

p.s. Nick, thanks again for the toolbar suggestions! I will be working on them during the hiatus.

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Rikai Widgets on the Nipponster Japan Toolbar

On October 23, 2008 in Announcements, Japanese Toolbar, On the J-web, Resources, Suggestions Please

Working on too many things…

Thankfully I made time for things that matter too.

I have caught up with my email (inbox zero!) and replied to all comments (hopefully).

I also added some goodies to the Nipponster Japan Toolbar for you.

They are from Rikai’s “syndicate me” page.

By putting them on the Japan Toolbar users like you can access them right from your browser! (good for extra laziness)

Here is what it looks like:

Of course you have to download/install the Japan Toolbar if you haven’t already (it’s easy).

Here are the rikai widgets in action (of course with the toolbar you don’t have to come here to use them):

Kanji of the day -

Kanji recall quiz -

Japanese phrase of the day -

Japan photo of the day -

I have the sneaky suspicion that I have set these up on the toolbar wrong (they may not update daily), I will check them later to see if they update. If you notice any problems let me know, yeah?

And if you have any suggestions for the Japan Toolbar just let me know. I’m at your service.

Have a great day
DailyJ

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playing catchup, japanblogger.net, and some widgets from Rikai

On October 21, 2008 in Announcements, Resources

I’m still behind shedule with email and commenting, but slowly making progress.

I put up a link to JapanBlogger.net as a top link on dailyJ.  Jblogger is great and it seems to complement the other top links, plus I told Billy I would put it there if he relaunched the site.

I am working on something with some widgets I found on Rikai. You can add them to your website. Rikai language widgets

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