Working at Amazon and MicrosoftBeen meaning to post this for a while now - a summary of my working career at Amazon as Website manager and Microsoft as CGM Product Manager. This article is a follow on (with a bit o overlap) of the Tokyo 1999 - 2001 article.
The first photo is...
The Complete History of the Internet in just 8 minsWhen I was a teenager, I had no Internets.
- To communicate with people I had to call them or send snail mail.
- To get health care I had to buy the Sun newspaper or reach for the top shelf in the newsagent for playboy. There was also the option of...
Tokyo CGM Night Episode 2The second Tokyo CGM Night hosted by myself together with comrade Andrew Shuttleworth took place last Friday night at Fiat Caffe.
The event was a most awesome success attended by the best in CGM (Consumer Generated Media) - well over 100 pro blog...
Good Smile CompanyIt gives me great pleasure to announce the beta launch of the English Good Smile website at eng.goodsmile.info.
Furthermore, we have decided to announce this to dannychoo.com readers first ^o^
Some of you are helping me work with Good Smile doi...
Portal DesignFolks who read the RSS feed instead may want to pop over to have a look at the new Gateway redesign.
Thank you to all members who provided input for the new design exactly one month ago today.
There are many reasons for a redesign and I will...
Your Definition of DC.ComThe new design is nearing completion. This is a screenshot of it running in FF3 - still need to tweak graphics including mirai-chan. Looks great in FF, Safari, Looks OK in IE7 and complete and utter crap in IE6.
First will release the Gateway (first...
New PortalsJust want to go over a few strategical updates today. First up are the portals - the mains ones being the Figure and Japan portals. The portals are designed for folks who are here for a particular subject. The Figure portal for example features past...
Move with MindHijacked from Tenrou who brings us to the attention of some most interesting technology...
Researchers said they have developed technology that allows computer users to use their thoughts to control the movements of avatars in a popular virtual wor...
Internet FilteringDecided to try out one of the public terminals for internet access when waiting for the train from Berlin to Munich. Payed two euros, headed for the terminal and typed "dannychoo.com" to be greeted with "You have tried to access a page which is in vi...
Image UploaderTook me ages to get round to it but its finally up - the image uploader. Members can finally upload images and soon videos too.
The screenshot below shows the new member widget on the top page. Each thumbnail represents the last post made and dis...
Startups in JapanIt gives me great pleasure in announcing that Hector Garcia has joined Mirai Inc as our Chief Technologist.
Hector brings to Mirai many years of technical experience and know-how on delivering high traffic sites like Technorati and Kakaku.com at...
Mirai GaiaYou probably notice some changes around the site by now and I probably should talk about them before the bugs start to get on your nut ^^;
Up until now, the site used to run on a platform that I built called Nav2.0 - a blog publishing platform....
History of dannychoo.comThe new up n coming design of dannychoo.com... Not.
The screenshot below is of the first version of this site back in the year 2000. The site was set up as an experimental ground for me to play with technologies like PHP and MYSQL.
The first v...
Gone FishingThe article widget on the top page is under maintenance for today but I will continue to update the News Items on the left which you can also subscribe to by RSS. The article widget should be back soon.
Yesterdays A Week in Tokyo 7 article is here...
Japan Online GamingA recent survey shows that the amount of Japanese who connect to the internet via their game console has dropped - in particular for the PS3. The larger version of the above results here showing comparisons taken in June 2007 and December 2007 - ye...
Media CoverageA quick going over the latest media stuff I've been in since the last update.
<a name="spajan15"></a> Below: First up is the Jan 15th issue of the entertainment weekly magazine SPA. They ran a feature on Second Life and asked me to say a few wor...
IE CSS HacksMany users write in and tell me that the column on the far right is pushed to the bottom of the page.
Here is a screenshot of my IE6 and IE7 which I use for testing the site - both running on Windows XP English. Not broken on my end so cant fix what...
Broadband in JapanThrough comments and mails that I receive, I see that quite a few readers are planning or scheduled to move to Japan. Apart from being surrounded by moeness, these folks are going to enjoy the worlds fastest internet speeds - according to SpeedTest.n...
Otaku.fmUPDATE: This post is outdated - please go to here for details and request. Requests left in this post will be ignored. Announcing the launch of the first site to join the DC Network - Otaku.fm. The DC Network will comprise of sites that use the dann...
ForumsThere have been some great conversations of late (yesterdays Loli Culture was a great one in particular) and I see many requests for a forum.
I have a general idea of what you want but I need your feedback to make it into what you would like it to...
YouTube MixUPDATE: video located here.
Following up with an extended report on yesterdays YouTube Mix party - starting off with girls!
My fave out of this selection of lovely lasses is the one on the far left of this photo - yum yum.
Steve ChenHector and I were invited to a private party held by YouTube called "YouTube Mix" a few hours ago in Omotesando.
There we had the opportunity to mingle and mix with a load of folk in the industry and listen to YouTube's up n coming promotion plans....
Gmail IMAPPretty big news. For years people have been trying to implement workarounds to get gmail to work with IMAP.
Google have just announced IMAP support for gmail - find out more.
I'm syncing apple mail with my gmail account as we speak.
Japanese BrowsersA sample of Japanese folks took a survey to establish what their browser home page was.
The results were as follows.
<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="5"> <tbody><tr> <td class="cdc_16bold green">MSN, Yahoo, other portal site</td>...
Japan InternetUnder current Japanese law, it's illegal to upload copyrighted material but as long as you are downloading copyrighted material for private use its perfectly legal. But not for long - the Japanese ministry of culture is going to pass law to make it v...
Firefox CarFirefox car taken by Nobi via Gen Kanai via Japan Probe.
I've been wearing my Firefox T-shirt that Gen gave me while I have been in the US and everybody is like asking me where I got it ^^;
Server RecoveryThe last time I felt like this was when I collapsed when working at Amazon - was in the hospital for a few days living off a drip.
Even though this was one of the worst ordeals I have been through, I live by my belief that ordeals dished up by f...
Otaku NewsYou may have noticed a new feature that I rolled out yesterday tentatively called "News items."
I have much otaku and Japan related news that I want to share but preparing a full blog post can take time. I wanted way to bring you updates within...
Imprint Culture Lab"There are ideas that change the way many people think, spend, and live. Some people ride these waves of ideas and are carried forward, while others tread water and let the waves pass through them.
A few harness these waves and channel them in new...
DiscoverabilityJust wanted to run through a few new features recently added to the site and talk about how "discoverability" is just as important as "userbility" when it comes down to web design.
Many talk about userbility for humans and end up with a site th...
Blog TemplatesThis has to be the worlds most expensive blog template - make your blog look like a Japanese news paper for a measly [currency=525000] - 4,441 USD! Its not even April the first.
The template is for a blogging software called Movable Type. It see...
Featured Feeds EXAnnouncing Featured Feeds EX - a program that is aimed at growing the online Otaku Sphere.
As you can see from the above screenshot, the average unique users for July so far has been 52,133 per day and I have already served over 2.5 million page...
Server MigrationWelcome to the new server folks!
Some folks who go to dannychoo.com will still see the old server. This is because that persons ISP still has not updated their DNS records. ISPs usually update their records every 24 hours - some less than, some mor...
My final postThis is going to be the last post that I write...
...on this server. The new dedicated server is ready and I have submitted the DNS and Name Server changes. When this post disappears, you will be on the new server. Some things may break for a wh...
Server OutageUsually when I get around 30,000 users per day with more than 100,000 page views, its usually because I've been Dugg or Boinged. My end of year goal was initially set to 20,000 which I revised to a stretch goal of 30,000 last month.
Looks like I wi...
