Takumi's Blog

Wow, I remember over the summer last year I read up on Orkut, and I did some quick searches to get invites, and no success. And up until today, it’s just been lingering at the back of my head, when I got an email from Multiply about their site update.

So, I went to their site, checked it out again, totally forgetting I signed up because my sister invited me. And I was pretty suprised, it had improved a lot. It’s better then it’s competitors (MySpace, and Hi5). And I would actually like to spend more time, except for all the teens in this world seem like like MySpace more (for some reason I do not know why).

I wanted to meet some more people on Multiply so I would give myself a reason to go back again, so I searched the groups, when an Orkut Members group popped up. That totally just clicked in the back of my mind, and I was like “I MUST get an invite to this.”

So I’ve been browsing along, and it seems a lot of people have already invited tons, and the posts are at least half a year old. So…. for those few readers I have, if you have an Orkut account, could you send me an invite? Thanks.

Well, I’m very excited about the new updates from Apple.

• MacBook Pro, which is Apple’s Intel laptop replacement for the current PowerBook G4.
• iMac, which is Apple’s Intel desktop replacement for the current iMac G5.
• iWork ‘06
• iLife ‘06 with iWeb

Well, I’ve been forced to cut short on this for now. I just read up on some speed tests at macrumors.com here and it’s just blowing my mind away. Enjoy.

Well, I’ve made progress on the Grantonian website ( grantonian.takshimada.info ) and it’s looking pretty good. Maybe some last minute changes, and moving the old articles to the new one and we’re ready for the final release.

As for the JMP one…. well… that’s next on my list.

Well, lately I’ve been beta-testing some new stuff:

• Newsvine
• HipCal
• Writely
• BlinkList
• Remember the Milk
• Meebo

Newsvine is a newsite. It competes with Digg and Slashdot, but it has a much nicer interface. Like Slashdot users can contribute and write articles, and like Digg, users can add links to categories. It has the benefit of both, and I think it’s awsome. Even has a great interface. If anyone wants to try out Newsvine, email me and I’ll send you an invite (I only have 20).

HipCal is a community calendar. Each user gets their own calendar, and can also participate in a user calendar. Very user friendly, and you can search for other users to create a group with too.

Writely is basically Microsoft Word/OpenOffice for the internet. It brings it a step better though, you can collaborate with other users and keep saved copies, etc. I like the quick features so far.

BlinkList is okay…. kinda hard to use, i find it a pain when i have to submit a link for it to be saved… I prefer the drag and drop method.

Remember the Milk is a to-do list, or a reminder thing. Pretty cool, lets you import from calendars, and sends notices to email/im/phone.

Meebo is like Trillian/Adium online. Pretty neat features, great AJAX integration.

Some cool articles on Newsvine:

• Flash versus AJAX versus the Future
• Digg hurt Slashdot. Will Newsvine hurt Digg AND Slashdot?
• Windows Vista: First Kind of a Features?
• Top 10 Sites You Should Know About

Added: Oh yeah, Izzy is an exception because this wasn’t up and I didn’t read the guidlines carefully, but anyone I invite, I am basically vouching that they are good writers. So, I don’t want to invite a spammer by mistake. Please leave your blog address so I can check it out and if I feel like vouching for you, then I’ll send you an invite. If I don’t… well, your inbox may feel lonely.

Well, I’ve recently started development on a Grantonian website, and a JMP website. Both are based off of drupal. I think the JMP one is coming together better, but the requirements for it aren’t as hard to accomplish as the Grantonian one. The grantonian one needs to have categories like the “NYTimes.com” website, and it needs to have groups (ie. regular readers, unregistered, newspaper staff, administrator) so that the newspaper staff can post articles, and the members in general can participate in the community forum.

While I was doing the website for the JMP, it hit me. It can do everything I wanted to be able to do for my all-in-one site. (it as in drupal). So i’m working on another beta that will have a forum, gallery, and blog for each user… Hopefully I’ll get all the structural work done by Sunday, then over the week I can get to work on a template for all three of my projects.

Well, it seems like the guy doing the website for Grant High School is working with some students at Grant to keep it updated.

I’m still kinda biased against it, especially since he’s using Movable Type for it… I just have a grudge against MT. But oh well, I hope I’ll be able to do the site for the Grantonian. Ooh, while I was getting my Japanese teacher to help me with naming teachers, she “showed interest” in me doing a website for the Japanese Magnet Program!…

That sounds really cool, and I’m very interested in doing it, I just hope I’ll be able to actually finish the project. I have a tendancy to start one, and not finish it (well, that’s happened half the time). I guess I’ll work on a demo and suprise her with it :P.

School is back in session!  That’s good + bad… I still have some homework I didn’t finish, but overall, I’m glad I’m back.

Mr. Leeman, our Journalistic Writing teacher is back again after a two week break to take care of his new baby.

Um… The school’s internet system is too restrictive. I don’t see any problem with students going to myspace.com. Lucky for me, I barely use MySpace

As I’m sitting here, wondering how in the world did this happen. How did I end up living like this, away from home, without my mac, with my best friend. I remember something, a… strange memory.

And I just now realized, that this memory is what motivates me to go to Japan. It goes something like this:

Summer of 2004, I was in Japan for a month as usual, visiting family. Had a blast, though, I only remember it by pictures, which are at my grandmother’s in Japan.

I come back to Portland for school, which, I was actually excited for, my friend Rama (college student) was living with us at the time. For the first month or so, I was able to keep up my good attitude from returning from Japan. That quickly deteriorated because of the situation between me and my mom. We never had a good relationship ever since we moved to America.

That’s when one day Rama takes me asside and says “What’s wrong? You were so happy after you came back from Japan, did you have another fight with your mom?”…

Well, that’s the memory… glad I wrote this down right when it came up, feels like it’s slipping already.

I guess uncontiosly this gave me my motive to go to Japan and live there. I wanted to be happy, and I still do. I don’t want to live a miserable life.

This is all I can get off for now… time to get to bed… new parents eh?