しあわせ

I may have more time again to develop my little application Kanji Sieve.
While I still can’t solve my display problem on the PC to allow use of the Chuta dictionary, I can parse returns from Chuta so text can be broken down into words. Therefore for the time being (maybe longer. sorry) I’ve bypassed this feature and PC Users will have to use another dictionary and do searches manually. Once I’ve gotten the cleanup done for PC (and maybe toned down the colour for perhaps my only user!) I’ll post Kanji Sieve 0.3 for Windows within the next week or two.

In related news, FileMaker have released Filemaker Go. This is an app for iOS4 to allow you to run FileMaker databases on iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. I think this is potentially exciting. It’s at the more expensive end of the app price scale (£13, $20) but it looks fantastic and can open runtime solutions. It certainly had none of the issues I had going from Mac to PC. I tried Kanji Notebook on it and was surprised at how it looked and behaved. Mostly it behaves and looks exactly as it does on my MacBook, although because of the screen size you need to zoom around like in the iPhone version of Safari. The transfer was quick and easy, and according to the manuals the unsupported features are quite few. Lack of support for plugins though means that Kanji Sieve wouldn’t work as I really on external grep functions and Internet routines. On a more standard solution initially the bigger drawbacks are the lack of support for top to bottom Japanese text and a speed issue in running some scripts. But with a bit of thought and design specifically for an iPhone I might be able to make some useful and portable applications.

Amy Murphy has started a web site guide to Leaving Certificate Japanese. Having taught herself Japanese successfully for the 2009 Leaving, she is now passing on her enthusiasm and insights to other candidates.
If you live in Ireland, Leaving Cert Japanese is worth a look.
Self-motivated and self-led learning is a completely different experience to the rigidity of most secondary school language programs.

Now with added Kanji Sieve. Or rather the way Kanji Sieve has evolved means I’ll be incorporating my Kanji NoteBook project with it.
Unfortunately I think the direction I’m heading in means an awful lot of work on the interface. And a lot of time I don’t have to spare at the moment, but I am working on it and am excited about the way it’s progressing.
Read the rest of this entry »

It has taken me a little longer than I thought to get to version 0.2 of Kanji Sieve. Mainly due to getting it to look better cross platform and avoiding problems for a user that wouldn’t be an issue for me as the developer.
However, as someone actually downloaded, looked at and commented on my initial little solution I looked at Kanji Sieve again. A little encouragement will always prompt me to continue projects. Read the rest of this entry »

Two years ago mixi started requiring a Japanese email address in order to sign up to mixi. It seems that what they are doing is filtering for undesirable domains. Hence google mail etc are being barred, Japanese keitai are not.
Koichi at Tofugu has found an apparent crack in mixi’s filters. dot-edu domain addresses are not being blocked. (for the moment). Which is good news if you have a .edu email address. He has even found a way to get a .edu address via an Australian site. Details can be found on Tofugu.
Apparently (I haven’t checked) .ac.uk addresses work as well.
You also don’t need an invite to join mixi anymore according to Tofugu. But play nice please; mixi is different from Facebook et al. and the social conventions around friend requests are different.
I wouldn’t liken it to the Black Ships yet. No one is forcing mixi to open up (and no-one should really). More like some Jesuits being snuck in.

I found some more information about the new JLPT exams starting in 2010.

Firstly it seems not every exam centre will have twice yearly exams. It looks as if only centres in Japan,China and Korea will definitely offer it twice a year. SOAS in London seems to be keeping to December only. It’ll be worth checking with your nearest centre. It may also help them gauge interest and encourage them to offer it biannually. Hopefully the Japan Foundation will update its listings soon.

More interestingly, although official workbooks won’t appear until 2012 according to the official JLPT site, Bonjinsha already has a few textbooks available for the new JLPT specifications. They aren’t part of the full listing on Bonjinsha’s site. However I did find them under their (unweildy) Japanese title 新しい「日本語能力試験」ガイドブック概要版と問題例集 (New Japanese-Language Proficiency Test Guidebook: An Executive Summary, and Sample Questions).

Finally, although this isn’t exactly new, Ireland now has it’s own JLPT exam centre at DCU. Although they have the typically rubbish websites common to a lot of universities.