NOVA Teacher Killed

Wednesday, March twenty eighth, two thousand and seven

The newspaper says that a NOVA female teacher was murdered in the bathroom of her acquaintance's condo in Chiba prefecture, the right east of Tokyo. Apparently, she would often teach English to the guy on private, who is suspected of the murder. I don't think it's OK for NOVA teachers to have another job as far as I know. Anyway, Japan might not be a safe country nowadays... I'm really worried that many excellent teachers decide to leave Japan after this incident.

Massive Earthquake in Japan

Monday, March twenty sixth, two thousand and seven

A massive earthquake occured at the Sea of Japan side. According the the newspaper, one person was killed and at least 190 people were injured. Because I have some friend who live near the area the quake hit, I was really shocked to hear the news. Actually I got to know them on the Internet. All of them are my good friends, so I was really worried about how they were after the disaster. As far as I read their homepages on the Internet, they don't have any severe problems so far. I'm totally relieved to know that they are OK now. I wish that those who got serious injuries and the area's infrastructure become better soon. In fact, many major roads have got a lot of catastrophic damage.

Magic Word

July 21th, 2006

According to a Japanese book, whose title is "魔法の言葉(mahou no kotoba)" - means "Magic Words", it's the most important for having a good life to always think positively.
The book recommend you to say "Thank you. I'm lucky!" even if you have some terrible incidents or accidents.

For example:
You have just had a bad car accident and your car has just gotten a lot of damage. But you had better say "Thank you! I'm so lucky as I didn't have any serious injuries, even though I can't drive my car for a while and have to pay lots of money to repair it."

I saw some English idioms on the email newsletters which I often read on my cell phone.

One of them is "Every cloud has a silver lining." According to my English-English dictionary, it's used to say that there is something good even in a situation that seems very sad or difficult. I remembered the above magic words the moment(as soon as) I saw the idiom.
Another one is "That's water over the dam.(American) That' water under the bridge.(British)" It's used to say that what happened in the past should be forgotten.
And the other one is "batting a thousand" - means to be very successful.

Let me make a composition with those phrase to express "Magic Words".

This past Tuesday I had a terrible hangover; however, I had to take some English lessons. I had a lot of beer this past Monday with my friends.... I regret drinking too much whenever I have a hangover. But that's water over the dam! On the other hand, I was able to have a great time with my friends instead of getting a hangover. Speaking of "instead", every cloud has a silver lining! I'm so lucky as I had a great time and a hangover. :) Anyway, I took some lessons... I could speak English more fluent than usual! I guess the reason is thanks to the hangover, because there's no barriers in my mind [at] any time [when] I'm drunk or have a hangover. :) I was batting a thousand during my last lessons! Thank you! I'm so lucky! I could do well thanks to the terrible hangover! Plus it's Friday today. Thank God it's Friday! ＼(^o^)／

| English idiom |

A new package for Skype

◆ ノバック、「どこでもTV for Skype」発売
http://japan.cnet.com/news/tech/story/0,2000056025,20164007,00.htm
(CNET Japan)

Last week one of my acquaintances, who studies English at the same English school as mine and whose English is much better than mine even though whose age is on the wrong side of 60, asked me if there are good applications to watch Japan's TV programs from other countries.

Actually, one of his relatives lives in Australia and wants to watch our country's TV programs, because she misses Japan. He sometimes send some VHS-format videos to her by airmail, but he said that the way looks old-fashioned. I think so, too. :)
So he has tried some "Remote Desktop Applications" before, but he has never done well from what I know of it.

This week a new excellent software for Skype, which was developed based on "Voice over IP" technology and which is one of the most famous and popular Internet tools in the world as you know, has just been unveiled. It's called "どこでもTVパック for Skype", literally translated into English as "Everywhere TV package for Skype" maybe.

Let me tell him about that later. :D

| web |

Cool Slideshows!

July 9th, 2006

I've just found out a cool web service thanks to one of my American friends. It's RockYou.com.
You can embed some slideshows easily in your blogs, web sites and so on as below. Amusing! :)



| web |

Google Video

May 22th, 2006

According to some news web sites, Google has just released "Google Video" to the public, but they require us to have a Google account to try it. It's said that they used to release it to only journalists(newspeople).
It supports almost all formats of videos. Actually, the videos which I take with my cell phone are saved as ASF format. I tried to upload some videos on it as a test.

Please have a look at the following video, but I'm speaking Japanese in it, though. :)



According to some people who know so well about Internet services, YouTube is more popular than Google Video.

| Google Video |

Tired from Skype

May 13th. 2006

I'm extremely tired today. Actually I installed Skype on my desktop PC a couple of weeks ago. This morning I tried to speak to a huge number of non-Japanese! - such as Americans, British, Italians, Koreans, Chinese etc. So I had to speak a hundred languages at that time! It's definitely hard for me to have communication at once with many people who speak different languages. That's why I'm extremely tired today. haha. Just pulling your leg. :)

In fact, I occasionally try to have a chat with my friends on Skype. It's the most useful and convenient software I've ever used. Thanks a lot, Skype!

| Skype | joke |

Webcam

May 3, 2006

I bought a webcam with a microphone in order to try "Skype", a free Internet phone software, and to try voice chat on MSN messenger. Let me upload my video on my video space in myspace.com. It's my first time to upload my video on the Internet. I'm so embarrassed that I couldn't speak English without sunglasses. haha.

Please let me know if you aren't able to watch it.

Skype

April 26, 2006

Our busy season has just ended... I'm SO happy ! I'm able to try some interesting software from now on.

Today I installed "Skype" in my desktop PC. Actually, I've really wanted to try it for a long time but I didn't have enough time to do it. One of the reason that I want to try it is that it has supported "webcam" recently. I can have chat with my friends for free wherever they live.

Oops ! I forget buying a webcam.... (ToT) I'll purchase a good one this weekend at the electrical appliance store that I sometimes buy some goods.

| Skype |

SEO for Yahoo ! JAPAN

March 25, 2006

I have 2 web sites on the Internet, which is to describe what we manufacture at our factory. One of them is a normal type web site, which is built in HTML, and the other one is blog type.

Our main site, which is the normal type web site of our factory, comes up as the number-one site when you google with some Japanese technical words of the industry to which we belong. But the site never comes up as the number-one site when you search with the same words on the search engine provided by Yahoo! JAPAN. But on the other hand, our blog comes up as a better site than our main site. I think that's a little strange because our main site has more useful information than our blog, of course I don't know the structure of YST(Yahoo Search Technology), though...

I've just realized why the result comes up when searching on the site of Yahoo! JAPAN. I guess the reason is because of style sheets ! I didn't build our main site with any style sheets ! Many of blogs are built with some style sheets as it is generally known. Let me build our main site with style sheets one day !

P.S.
The search engine of Yahoo! Japan is more popular than Google in Japan. I think that's strange. I know Google is the most popular and useful search engine in the world.

NOTE: SEO is the abbreviation of "Search Engine Optimization".

| SEO | Yahoo! JAPAN | YST |

SNS - mixi

February 22, 2006

Do you know what SNS is ?

SNS stands for "Social Networking Site". It's been one of the most popular Internet services in Japan lately, especially "mixi(みくしぃ)" is the No.1 SNS in Japan. Actually, I have an account of it, but I don't access it these days due to my busy job.
Aditionally, I know "Myspace.com" is the most popular SNS in the States. I also have an account of it; however, I rarely access it because I suppose the UI(user interface) is a little confusing and there're so many advertisements on the site.
When I had more spare time, I would often access the site of mixi. I have many nice friends on it. We sometimes exchange our opinion on our respective diaries and some communities. I participate in lots of communities - such as "English Only" and "Sushi". There're so many native English speakers on mixi even though the site is built in Japanese. I guess they are very interested in Japan. As a matter of fact, I got to know some friends on it, who are native English speakers. I'm still tied up with my work as I posted recently on this site. I have to reduce the time of surfing on the Net in order to work so hard and to have the time of my English study. That's why I don't access mixi these days. I'm sad not to see all my friends on it. But, I'll get back to mixi as soon as this busy season has finished.

| SNS | mixi | Social Networking |

Interesting podcasting

January 20, 2006

One of my friends who lives in Toyama prefecture of Japan has an interesting blog, even though it's written in only Japanese.
She always posts lots of amusing and useful information on her blog, especially her podcasting. She sometimes podcasts about Toyama dialect of Japan.

If you are interested in the dialect of Japan, I recommend you to access and listen to it. I always have fun with listening to it. Thanks a lot, my friend ! I'll someday try podcasting like you if I'll have more spare time. I actually have to get used to speaking English before that.

Google in trouble ?

January 17, 2005

I think the site of Google was funny this morning.
I tried to connect up to the web site so as to research something related to my job. But I wasn't able to connect. Something was wrong.... So I researched it on the site of Yahoo! Japan instead.

Then I checked out the ranking of our factory web site on Yahoo! Japan in passing. Wow ! The ranking when searching with a technical word has moved up ! Great ! It's a result of the SEO that I've ever given to our site.

Thanks Yahoo! Japan ! But, your blog service in Japan is absolutely awful.

Google is a spelling error.

December 13, 2005

I tryed to upload my English diary on this space(blogger.com) and check the spelling by the spelling checker offered by the blogger.com. But the verb "google", means searching information on the Google site, is notified as a spelling error by it. Why is that ? The blogger.com are managed by the Google, right ? I know the verb "google" is a new word. But they should add the word as a correct English word into their dictionary in my opinion. :-)

What do you think about it ?

Come on spam !

December 1, 2005

There are many spam comments on my English blog. They are not fun, of course. :-(
But, they sort of look informative for me. Because most of them are proper English !
I can study for free ! Thanks spam ! :-p

I came up with the idea of this article after I posted a comment on the later article yesterday.

I'm sort of drunk, he-he.

SNS - Myspace or Friendster ?

November 14, 2005

I often use "mixi" that is the most popular SNS in Japan. (SNS stands for "Social Networking Service".)
The users can find people who likes the same stuff on SNS.

So, I'd like to make some more chances to meet nice guys on the Net. And now, I decided to try to use SNS in the US such as , Myspace or Friendster.

Actually, I don't know which is better now. However I've heard Myspace is the most famous SNS in the US, I don't know the detail until I've tried it myself.

I've changed.

November 3, 2005

I've changed the blog service which I usually post in Japanese.
I've been using the Yahoo! Japan blog service until now. But it's mostly heavy to access. Almost all of the visitors can't access smoothly and sometimes some errors occurred when I posted new articles on it.

I decided to change my usual blog posted in Japanese a few days ago, and researched some blog services in Japan. In the result, I've changed it to the Seesaa blog service.
The Seesaa blog service is a little heavy, however not as heavy as the Yahoo!. In addition, we can customize the design of the style sheet and use almost all of the HTML tags. The capacity of the files we can upload is 2 gigabytes, and there is no limit on posting articles. The specification is the same as Yahoo!.

I tried to use many functions of the Seesaa last night, of course changed the style sheet of my new blog a little bit. Well, I'm lack of sleep today. :D
I'm going to try to post some articles with some pictures tonight or tomorrow. I never tried it yesterday.

I'm considering about blog services.

October 20, 2005

Do you think the Blogger.com is heavy ? But I know a much heavier blog service than it.
It's "Yahoo! JAPAN blog service" which provides for Japanese.

The blog service is always heavy every night. I know most of web sites are heavy at nigh. But its heaviness is exactly out of the ordinary. So, I'm considering whether I should use another Japanese blog service.
On the other hand, I often get some comments on my current Japanese blog. That's the reason why I don't change my Japanese blog right now.

By the way, which is the most famous blog service for native English speakers ? I've heard that the Blogger.com is the best before. If you know which it the best now, let me know. :-)

Would you like to do SEO ?

September 2nd, 2005

I gave my factory's website SEO today.
You know, "SEO" stands for "Search Engine Optimization".

When I was doing it, I had a telephone call.

The calling person said, "I was wondering if we could build your website. Of course the cost would be cheap."

I replied, "No thank you. I've already built myself my factory's website."

He continued talking. "I understand, sir. Also, we would be able to deliver SEO. After giving your site SEO, the rank of your site at any search engines would go up. For example, Google, Yahoo...."

I additionally answered, "I've already done it. And my site is displayed as No.1 at Google, but not No.1 at Yahoo. So, I'm doing it myself for Yahoo right now. No thank you, SEO. By the way, I used to be a computer system engineer. Why don't you send me e-mails as the approach ? You're computer system company, you should approach it on the Internet. That's the ordinary method as website developers in my opinion. Anyway, I really hate such sales approaches by phone. Because, phone calls sometimes interrupt my time without thinking a convenience. I've decided not to buy anything approached by phone."

He got off the line after replied in a small voice, "I'm so sorry...."

After that I thought I had to say, "Thanks to your providing the idea of this diary." LOL

What do you think about telephone sales ? :-)