Category Archives: Website

Updates and upgrades

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In my last post I mentioned that the flat3d.org domain would expire and I would be working from orumu.org from here on.  So I have started doing some upgrades and updates to accommodate that and make best use of the new domain.

My blog will still be Flat3D at flat3d.orumu.org but I plan to make more use of the main domain to pull together and keep tabs on facebook, twitter, mixi, flickr etc.  And to help those who come here to see how we are etc to keep track of what we are saying where etc.  Particularly those who don’t take part in the various social networks and such.

So the old design has gone out the window and a new design is in town, or at least might be in town if he can get on the right train and it isn’t delayed by snow, earthquakes and other inconveniences!

Please bear with me til then!  It could be a while, but at every stage the content will be readable and followable!  Feel free to leave comments and suggestions along the way too!

The end of Flat3D?!

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Not exactly.  In a few weeks flat3d.org will expire and I won’t be renewing it, preferring the orumu.org domain.  So if you want to see this you can point at http://flat3d.orumu.org/

I haven’t been very diligent in updating and blogging really.  But there has been some action on facebook and twitter!   To give a short update, we are in the middle of lots of snow here in Hokkaido, it seems to snow more in Oasa than in Higashi-ku, where I used to live, but that might just be because it is a bit closer to the country-side and so the road’s don’t get cleared so well…  But a guy in a digger comes and clears out the car-park, so we don’t have to shovel so much!

I will maybe post a bit more sometime soon!!  No really!!!

New domain again!!

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It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was writing about getting Flat3d.org as my nice domain. And while I really do like flat3d.org and like having it as my blog title, it isn’t really all that descriptive of me. At one point I lived in Flat 3D, Stranmillis Court, so it did have some actual meaning instead of just being geeky, but no longer. So I have got a new domain name that is more to do with me.

A bunch of missionaries have domain names that signify their calling to Japan, something of their background and their calling (German), or use their names so that people can find them easily.

But I didn’t really want something as generic as to be just about Japan, or even Jesus in Japan, it might also become dated and not be consistently usable if we leave Japan or God takes us in a different route… and risking offending people from other cultures, my Northern Irish sensibilities found something like “johninjapan.com” or “ormesinjapan.com” a bit cheesy, but I have noticed we are particularly sensitive to cheese in NI!
I thought for a moment about seeing if I can just get orme.com or something like that. But it wasn’t available! Apparently there are other Ormes in this world! Part of the reason for thinking about change is it would be nice to set up Google Apps for the domain and have Emily and I be able to use it once we are married, sharing calendars, contacts and such like as well… We will see if that comes to pass!

Anyways, all this to say that, in the end I settled on “orumu.org”. Initially as a playful attempt to play with my name, as Orumu is my name in Japanese (オルム), but as I let it lie it grew on me. It is my name, but as Emily and I marry it will become her name too, and she is Japanese. It sort of includes all of that and the fact that we are in Japan serving God all in the one domain, all the while sneakily avoiding the obviously-his-own-name-domain potential for cheese and self-importance, even though telling all this eliminates any benefit that might have had! So I will be able to have email addresses like EMAIL ADDRESS, EMAIL ADDRESS and so on under the Google Apps system, giving us all the benefits of apps without such abstract addresses. When I will start to roll over to that I don’t know yet, the old gmail address will hold forth for the time being!

So orumu.org it is! I have decided that, at least for the time being I will keep the time honoured Flat3D as the name of my blog, henceforth found at flat3d.orumu.org (ie here!), and until flat3d.org expires in February, it will also point through to flat3d.orumu.org and all it’s parts so links and so on will remain valid for a while at least!

I hope you haven’t fallen asleep reading. It’s a common problem on these kind of rambling blogs about nothing. This kind of waffle is exactly why blogs are a bad idea. But I am doing it anyway!

WereJohn

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Some of you may have heard of Wolfram|Alpha, the new “computational knowledge engine” that can be found at www.wolframalpha.com.
It is an interesting concept and, while I don’t necessarily agree with the precepts on which is was conceived, I think it could do some interesting things! For example, it has already told me I was born under a full moon… No wonder I’m so hairy… It is hard not to think of it as a search engine however, it is a strong habit when faced with a little white box to type in a bunch of search terms!

Go and try it out, see if you come across anything suprising or astounding!

Flat3d.org New Additions!

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There are a couple of new additions to flat3d.org.

I have switched to using FeedBurner to track the feeds from the site.  To be honest this is more just to see what is possible with FeedBurner than any real interest in keeping track of numbers or anything!  The site should make a smooth transition from the previous feeds to the new feedburner ones, so if you use feeds there shouldn’t be an issue…  I think!  If there are you can simply resubscribe, but please let me know if you had any issues!

The other addition is a new blog!  http://emily.flat3d.org/ is Emiri’s new blog.  She hasn’t started using it yet so it will probably change substantially… Oh, and it will be in Japanese, so it probably won’t be of much interest to many reading this!

I might make more changes as time goes on…  Having my own domain and space makes for a bit more freedom in messing around and having fun!

Let me know if you have any probs with the new feeds…  big brother will be watching you…  well at least counting you…

Mozy on there…

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Just a quick post about something that has come to my attention recently, probably a bit old hat, but still worth a mention perhaps…

I’m giving Mozy‘s free home user service a go and seeing how it goes.  I am very aware however that Mozy have a disclaimer on the free 2GB that states they can change or withdraw the service at any time they like, so I might not be able to use it forever, but for the time being it is looking like a neat little service for backing up documents, spreadsheets, contacts, mail, etc automatically and in the background.  Not for photos I reckon, they are more suited to archiving than continnual backing up, and not a replacement for a proper regular backup, but certainly an extra layer of protection for the bare essentials, and probably (definately..) a more regular backup than my lazy self will do with an external drive!

.org

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Yes we’re now a .org!
In my last post I talked about registering a domain and getting some hosting, so that’s what I did! The old site is no longer updating, but the flat3d.co.nr points here so people can get here easily enough I hope, but I hope you have updated your feeds and links and so on… It’s a bit of a hassle, but the .org should be more a permanent feature!

Marvellous!

Webhosting…

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I have been thinking recently about shifting where this site is stored, also about getting a decent domain for it!

At the moment it is on the free hosting that comes with my brother’s broadband connection (a throwback to being in Antrim!). I had hoped I could move it to Biglobe’s space but it doesn’t support php or DBs unfortunately.
I can buy a package from F2S for £25/year and flat3d.net for £12/year (or flat3d.co.uk for £7.50/year, but that doesn’t seem to be right when I am in Japan!)

The space is pretty minimal (200mb w/10mb database) but it is the same as I am working with now…
Can anyone suggest a decent host (not too pricey and supporting php/providing db)?

answers on a postcard… or just comment below…

Snow festival and more…

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This is a little bit late, the Sapporo Snow festival finished last Wednesday…  But here are some photos from it!

Sapporo Snow Festival 2009

You can see some pretty awesome snow sculptures at the festival!  I got to go twice, once during the daytime on Saturday, then again on Tuesday evening with Alex, but a mix up in meeting and communications meant I didn’t meet Alex in the end, but still got to see a few of the sculptures all lit up…  The ice ones look much better by night!

Last Wednesday, a Public Holiday here in Japan, a Singaporean student at the language centre (Wan Jee) arranged for us to go to a Singaporean buffet-banquet at a hotel in Otaru.  It was delicious and we all ate far too much!  I had to leave slightly earlier than the others to prepare to give a speech on Friday morning.  The others went to the Otaru candle light festival in the evening.  My speech went well on Friday, it was all about electrocuting myself when I was little.  We have to do speeches each time we finish a section of the course in front of all of the students and teachers at the centre!

Then just the other day my internet began working!  The NTT (Japanese equivalent of BT) came and put in the line a couple of weeks ago, but it took Biglobe (my provider) a little longer to get it up and running.  The line is an optic fibre link to the exchange which promises a maximum ability of 100Mbps, but in reality it is giving 12-15Mbps downstream and almost as much upstream at the moment…  Which isn’t the 100Mbps, but still isn’t bad for a consistent connection speed.

The final bit of news is I am on Twitter!  If you are on twitter you can follow me at flat3d, I’d love to follow you too…  I’m building up my links (it’s all about the links…)
For those who aren’t or don’t know what it is, it is a bit like facebook’s status updates, but made viable.  In reality it seems to be a bit more like one huge chatroom, with a whole lot of conversations going on at once, the nice thing is it sort of tunes in your friends and tunes out everyone else, so you can follow conversations.  It’s also possible to use it to simply let people know what you are upto, which might sound pretty dull or dim, but I like the idea that I can communicate daily life to folk and friends at home.

The big surprise for me is that it is actually pretty big in Japan.  It seems to be filling (bridging?) a gap between the all out geekiness of IRC (internet chat) and the more mainstream social users of Mixi (sort of Japan’s answer to myspace or facebook…)  At the moment I am much to illiterate to make much use of it in Japanese, but as I learn more hopefully it will be a valuable resource in learning about the tech world/culture in Japan and even help me with studying the language!

I will sometime link it into the site here, a twitter updates jobby or something, but I am not sure the best way to do it yet, or even if it is actually worthwhile…  Some more thought required I guess…

The Grand Tour

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Now the new blog has been online for a bit, I thought I’d show you around the new layout and some of the nifty stuff!
Ok, so here where you are reading right now is the main blog bit where the blogs go for blogging.
Then over on your right you can see some lovely photos, that is the latest 4 photos of my flickr Flat3D set, it is going to be a bit of a “heres an interesting/nice/funny picture I took recently” kind of area.
Just above that are a row of tabs to take you to various blog archives and suchlike.
Below the tabbed box there are a couple of menus:  the right hand one has my links and some admin guff for the blog; the left has some interesting articles I have come across while surfing/reading and below that are category links etc for finding things more easily.
Speaking of finding things, the top right of the page has a slightly hidden away seach box for searching (no really) and a nav bar listing pages that are fairly constant (FAQ and About).

So welcome to the new stylee and enjoy your stay, may I particularly recommend the amusing Wired article on lego photographs in the Interesting News section, accompanied by a browse through the links to its right.

If you are reading this on a syndicated site (Facebook or OMF Social) you’ll just have to follow the relevant link to the real blog to see what the craic is!

Hurrah!