Quinn

Japanese, English or both?

Posted by Quinn at September 12th, 2006 12:43pm under web 0 Comments Permalink

I've been wondering why there are no web services developed by the Japanese that get world-wide attention. I mean, there are lots of web services widely used but only available in Japanese. Those web services, somehow, never seems to bother to go beyond. How hard could it be anyway? Zooomr is developed by only a few people ( actually only one main developer ) and still its service is available in 15 languages.

I found there are two newly introduced web services developed by the Japanese while they are available to users who speak English.

I really can't predict how well they are going to do. But, I would love to see more excitements in the near future.

And, of course, the same thing applies to those web services which are only available in English too.

Gnome Desktop

Posted by Quinn at August 29th, 2006 5:22pm under OpenSource 0 Comments Permalink

This is the screenshot from my Gnome Desktop on Gentoo Linux system, which I recently set up on Dell C640 laptop. Doesn't this look very much like Mac OS X?

I am even able to watch Flash movies at YouTube and also mov videos. But those are just for fun. What I need the most is to be able to choose Japanese inputs while running apps/system in English. That's what I do with Mac OS X, and I was successful with this one too!

I am using Glossy P theme with Gorilla icons. I am sure there are more Mac OS X like themes and icons. I like the top bar of window which just looks like Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4). However, these blue scroll bars are too bright for me. I prefer gray or something else but I don't know how to change it at this moment.

I used Gnome's Configuration Editor to change the buttons on top bar of window. I chose Applications >> System Tools >> Configuration Editor, then it will launch the app. In the Configuration Editor window, I chose app >> metacity >> general, which finaly led me to edit button_layout to the value "close,minimize,maximize:menu", which will layout the buttons to just like Mac OS X.

I haven't really used Bluefish Editor or gPHPedit yet, so I don't know what's like to be using this environment as my web developing work, but it doesn't look bad at all.

So, am I going to switch my primary environment to this? Only probem at this moment for me is the hardware. I never liked any PC machines. So, it seems the chances are depend on this question - when will I able to buy a MacBook? Then, again I probably never can leave Mac OS X.. Anyway, I think it's good to have more choices and choose one over the others on whatever needed, right?

Blueberries!

Posted by Quinn at August 27th, 2006 12:14pm under hearts, Japan 0 Comments Permalink

Yes, they are blueberries! We live in the mountain and suppose this place is good for rasing blueberries. Our relatives living in the same town have blueberry farm. One day, our kids and my wife went early in the morning to harvest them and this was the result.

I remember blueberry muffines are very common to see in California ( not here in Japan ), though I don't recall seeing fresh ones. I first met those fresh blueberries and the trees when I moved here in Kumamoto. I think it's kind of ironic since blueberries are not Japan native.

I like living in the rural part of Japan since we have more oppertunities to get these ripe farm products and even some plants from nature. I think, coming from this kind of experiences, we have more appreciation to the nature, seasons, and our own lives.

Which OS?

Posted by Quinn at August 22nd, 2006 10:40pm under OpenSource 0 Comments Permalink

I am in the middle of setting up Gentoo on my PC laptop. It was taking over 6 hours compiling gnome. Oh man, this is looong. I've been using FreeBSD for my servers ( including this blog ). While FreeBSD isn't so good for desktop use, in my opinion, I thought Gentoo would be good for many uses, like desktop client, developer, server, etc.. Anyways, I made a list of open source OSes that I should give a try and some already gave a try. I wonder if anyone can tell me which one is for what and so.

I am very happy with FreeBSD as my server use. Debian is easy to use and fairly good in many way. Somehow, I don't like much of Fedra Core. I think it's good using SELinux as default and binary packages are mostly in good shape. I think it's probably too easy to use. ( Is this a compliment, a complaint or what? ) I am going to have fun to try them all!