New Screenshots
Leave a CommentI have been working on the design of Oshi over the last few days, and in the screenshot section are the fruits of my labour. I am by no means a designer and will tweak the UI when it comes to the actual build and as is needed but I now have something to aim at and an idea about how the data needs to be presented.
The next stage is to start working on images and colours for the CSS files. Using the mockups helps a great deal and from these I can start to look at the div breakdown of the pages. The site will need to be accessible so the use of images with text displayed within it need to be kept to a minimum. Thankfully CSS has a text replace function that will allow the text to look great but also be accessible.
More updates as I get to them!
ja ne!
HTML 5
Having plundered digg for more information today, I came across an interesting article on the IBM website about the new elements in HTML 5. These seem to be moving HTML to be more developer friendly, the datagrid controls seem similar to those of ASP.NET in name and possibly functionality too.
The Menu and Command elements seem useful too, although as the article points out, these were available in older versions of HTML. Hopefully some of these new interactivity elements won’t go the way of blinking text and other superfluous/useless elements in previous versions of HTML. Hopefully the W3C have learnt lessons from previous mistakes/flashes of inspiration.
Some of the semantic elements are long over due; the blog friendly nav, header,footer,article,date/time elements will make semantic markup clearer and more obvious. Video and audio are welcome but it could make it easier to have MySpace style pages which play some inane tune over and over and over… We shall see!
If you want to read the article:
IBM Developer Works HTML 5.0 Article
ja ne!
Fleshing out Oshi
I’ve been putting together project Oshi in my spare time, after work and on Sunday evenings and it’s coming along slowly but surely. I’m adding new pages all the time, as and when they are needed. I’m slowly starting to realise that this will be a lot more complex than I first thought and will need to be reigned in to stop it from growing too large.
Last year I listened to a podcast which had a lecture/presentation by Jason Fried at 37Signals, one where he talks about “Getting Real”. When I was listening to the podcast it made me realise that what he said was completely true, by doing less, you can do more. By actually getting to work on something rather than planning it, you can see what needs to be done and change it quickly. Remembering this has helped me to get started and to try and keep the application focused. I think it’s also good for personal productivity, by actually doing something rather than thinking about it you are making steps forward and avoiding procrastination.
37Signals have made their methodology available via their website, I recommend it for anyone stuck in planning hell!
ja ne!
And so begins Project Oshi
I have decided to fully commit to making Project Oshi, a lesson picker/student file management system that will be based upon my experience in Japan and will serve simply as a personal project.
I’m developing it in PHP and going for an iterative build method. This is so that I am actually producing something on a regular basis rather than getting bogged down in methodologies/ER diagrams and normalisation etc!
I have started by creating the very first pages, add student and view student. At this current stage they are purely wireframes, no presentation/validation/verification or security has been added. By starting simple and getting the functionality right, it gives a good skeleton to build upon. The next part of development will be to flesh these pages out with CSS & Javascript to make it look more useable and to add some Client Side Validation.
Getting started means wracking my brains for what little PHP/CSS/JavaScript I still remember but it’s coming back thick and fast now. I should have screens in the next few days, maybe….
mata ne!
A faltering start
The development of my personal site has taken a back seat at the moment, with only 5 weeks left in Japan, I’ve been busy with other things but I’m trying to refocus and push forward the development. Having lacked a design inspiration for my own website, I have been trying to come up with a suitable design and concept for the site. I think I have found it and will be working on it today and over the next few days.
I will have screenshots online shortly. I’m also working on a larger project called Project Oshi. This will be a Web App that will be useful for English teachers in Japan. I’ll have screens and more info soon.
mata ne!
Gaijin Chicane
I’ve been off-line recently due to having no Internet connection. That’s been resolved thankfully but general progress in development has slowed due to a shift in focus temporarily. I’ve been working on the design for a logo, website and branding of a band called “Gaijin Chicane”. They formed in Japan and are currently working on an Album and getting their sound together. It’s been good fun to do some design work for a change.
The band wanted a look which incorporated the “Chicane” into the look of the logo and wanted a website that prominently featured the debut album. Below are pictures of the logo, the mock-up of their website and some t-shirt designs for merchandising.
mata ne!
p.s. You may see the connection to this site…
Being Open, using Open
I’ve started using Ubuntu recently. It’s an attempt to expand my knowledge of other operating systems and different development environments and because I’m on a budget when it comes to software. Not being able to afford Photoshop and the Abobe Creative Suite means having to use the alternatives or illegally downloading and using them (obviously not a good idea!). I prefer to stay on the right side of the law.
For the development of my website and the projects I will embark upon afterwards, I’m going to be using Quanta Plus Web Development Environment, The GIMP, MySQL, Apache and PHP (oh and Firefox of course!). I have to admit I’m not terribly au fait with them but it’s going to be fun learning to use them.
Below is a screenshot of my set-up. Just for the curious!
(click on the pic to see full size)
mata ne!
Getting Started
I’m running an Ubuntu Feisty Fawn setup for my development, using Apache 2, php5 and MySQL 5.0.38 for the backend development. The current project I’m getting started on is my own website, something that I was working on before coming to Japan but lost due to a hard drive failure on my old laptop.
I’m planning to build a site that will showcase my work and will give potential employers an opportunity to properly assess what I’m capable of. The site will be written in HTML, CSS and PHP all mixed together and will also use Web API’s to link to Flickr and Google for a little mashup experimentation. I’m trying to be strictly standards compliant for accessibility and ease of use.
I’ll regularly post screenshots and once I have hosting organised, links to the actual work I’m doing so keep checking back for more updates.
ja ne!
A change of direction.
I created this blog as a way of talking about things I’m passionate about and making observations about how the web is different in Japan. Admittedly with working as an English Instructor, I’m not best placed to make those kinds of observations. So a change is on its way.
From here on the blog will be used to chart the development of my own work, to be able to inform potential employers and to showcase what I can do. Expect posts regularly and with screenshots and general banter about my ideas.
Fridays will be the time for action, for coding and for progress (I hope) so check back regularly to see whats up!
ja ne!
Mobile Japan
Phone, originally uploaded by damien_m_in_japan.
Mobile phone technology in Japan is definitely leagues ahead of the rest of the world, technologies such as 3G, mobile payment methods, debit cards and travel passes are all combined into sleek, small and relatively cheap mobile handsets that also often include television too.
It seems that the Japanese people readily adopt and embrace new technology and so it means that the pace of development is quick. The journey to and from work each day brings new posters for the latest mobile phones, each more colourful, feature laden and smaller than the last. I have only been in Japan for 6 months but have seen the number of handsets offering the option to watch TV increase two or three fold.
The handset I own (see above) is a very lowly and feature lacking phone by comparison. It`s features include:
Bluetooth, Video Calling, 2MP camera, Mp3 player, Java games, Internet Access, Push email, 3D Java games, Micro SD slot, Video playback and standard PIM features (Calander, Contacts etc). The cost of such lowly features? 1 yen (240yen = £1).
My phone is on a 2 year contract, something that is more common here and was the main reason the handset was only 1 yen. It seems the phone companies are willing to subsidise the cost of the phone to try and push more services, one of which was offered was flat rate Internet access, something that in the UK and maybe the US is a contentious issue at the moment. Data rates are very low anyway, and the Yahoo! Keitai (Yahoo! Mobile) service offered is excellent, giving quick and easy access to essential information such as train routes, news and other standard mobile services.
Email is more popular than texting as there is no unified SMS service, meaning that if you have friends or contacts on another networks (other than Softbank it seems), you have to use email. The benefit of this is that you can receive attachments, long emails and email PC users (and vice-versa). The cost is extremely low too, 1 yen for an SMS and about 3/4 yen for an email. It really makes email ubiquitous and the most convenient way to communicate.
Over the next few posts, I will delve deeper into the mobile web and the services offered, check back soon.
Damien
