Temporary Update

In the Box.net applet on the left I uploaded versions that will install and work on Firefox 3.5 but without any of the new features, so this is just a temporary fix until the real version is released.

Now In Japan

Well I survived the smoother than expected move to Japan and am now up and running with my internet and all is good. Just getting settled down today to start my sprint of working on some of my development work, of which Perapera-kun is at the top of the list. I got some emails from Mozilla about the 3.5 version of Firefox getting close to dropping so, if all goes as planned I will have the next version ready by the launch of 3.5 and there wont be any gap in releases.

Rolling the dice…

Well it’s official now. Found sometime to take over my apartment lease, cancelled all my utilities, put a deposit down on a  place in Tokyo, bought the ticket, and just put in my notice at work.  I’m moving back to Japan.

Has been a really conflicted last 3 weeks with lots of mixed feelings and philosophical discussions in my head, along with reading  ’The Alchemist’ to help psyche me into making the leap. But I made the decision and am giving up a well paid job in the midst of economic depression to roll the dice on starting my own little dev group.

So #1 on my todo list is the redesign of Perakun with all the features I have always thought it should have had. So that will be my job for the next few weeks. I appreciate everyones feedback and donations as always and look forward to making even more useful and powerful language learning tools.

How do you use Perapera-kun?

There are alot of ideas and directions that I am thinking of going as I get back into developing the next version, and I am kind of curious how everyone uses these plugins.

Are many of you eastern language obsessed and would want 1 plugin that had the ability to do Chinese, Japanese, Korean and others? I know I would use that for at least 2/3 of those languages. Should they be separate plugins or consolidated into one to rule them all? Hmm…

ps. you might see some beta versions of pera-kun popping up soon silently in this box here on the left, they will be versions 1.1beta, in case anyone wants to test run them.

Of Things To Come

I’ve been progging now for ~3hours. Embarrassed to admit but one of the reasons I haven’t updated the plugins for awhile, is that I did update them and added some minor tweaks and fixes to them, then lost everything (including tons of my other files) in a accidental keyboard (or my brain) malfunction when I was reinstalling Vista on my comp. So I have been annoyed when I think of all I lost, including all my development environment files.

Well now I’m back to the point I was pre-crash, and ready to add some cool features. Based on some of the feedback, it looks like saving vocab easily to a list is pretty desired. I was thinking putting them all in the Sidebar for viewing and allowing you to export them to some kind of file from there. How does that sound?

Many of the issues this plugin had when ported to FF3 will now be fixed and some other minor features. My goal is to be more active with this, and keep adding on a regular basis from now on.

In other news, I have had alot of great feedback from the community and other developers and content suppliers. So I am teaming up with some good guys to bring more useful features, and hopefully a more useful tool to all the language learners out there.

oh and PS, I bought an iMac, which has been responsible for alot of my programming rejuvenation as of late.

Happy Studying!

Korean Pera-kun

I get about 3 emails/month asking me to do a Korean version of Perakun. I would totally be up for doing it, I guess theres only 2 problems with me doing it.

1. Is there a free dictionary available like the EDICT for Japanese, or CEDICT for Chinese?

2.This is the big one. I dont know Korean, so I would need an algorithm or way to convert verbs and adjectives to their dictionary form. I dont know how to conjugate Korean verbs and adjectives (if they are conjugated) or turning any other part of speech in Korean into their dictionary form. If someone knows if this software exists, or is studying Korean and would be willing to help with that part of the project, I would love to do this plugin.

Post a comment, or email me if you know the answers to these 2 or would like to help out with making a Korean Pera-kun. Thanks.

New Features for Perakun?

Ok, Im in the programming mood lately and am looking to update perakun and wonder what you guys think should be added.

Kanji In Context Anki File

Hello all,

Recently I got back into the kanji study so I’m reviewing them all (again) using the famous Kanji In Context book. So I made an Anki file to study from so I figured I would release it to all you guys who might also find it useful. I added it to my “Files” box on the left here so you can download it from there.

I tagged each entry with both the chapter (C1-C147) and section (S1-6) that it came from for easy sorting. I also tagged every entry with ‘mada’ and suspended all the entries with that tag. So the idea is to go in and remove the ‘mada’ tag from the ones you have done and as you complete the chapters to enable them.

To do this go to Edit->Edit all, then on the top right you can click a drop down on which tags to show, select either the chapter or section of the cards you want to enable, then select all the entries that appear (click one then ctrl+a). Now goto Actions->Delete tag, and type in ‘mada’  and click ‘ok’. Now the tag is removed and those cards will be enabled.

Enjoy!

ps. If anyone doesnt know what Anki is, its a great flashcard program with tons of features. Check it out: http://ichi2.net/anki/

Jobs anyone?

Just to put this out there. Im moving back to Japan (lived there 2 years before) real soon and sooner if I already had a job lined up, so I figured I’d see if any of you currently living in nippon could help with my jobsearch. I taught english over there before and am probably going to do that again, but I also have a Physics degree, am currently working as an engineer, and have been programming since I was 14, so I am looking for some leads on a more technical job too if thats possible. 

How is the job climate overthere? Things seem like they might be pretty tough and economically it doenst make a lot of sense probably to make a move internationally but if I dont do it now (again), more time will just pass with me not living where I want to. 

Anyways, if anyone does know of some kind of job in Japan, please do send, and I’ll more than pay you back a cup of coffee hehe

New Version of Firefox

Ive seen alot of action lately of box.net files and I really dont know why. Since google released their browser I havent even touched Firefox and dont have it installed on my new computer. I would update the plugin if some new version was released which made the plugins compatible but that doesnt seem to be the case yet. So im kinda confused why there has been download action. Because of work I have no time to work on this project, but still have things I would like to add when I do get time.