Handy use for Apple’s black cleaning cloth
Everyone has one or more of those black cleaning cloths that come with a number of Apple products. Often ignored, this cloth does an amazing job at cleaning the screen of your computer or glass-based device. I also noticed that the cloth causes enough friction and traction to be used as a great bottle/pot opener. Any other good uses for the cloth?
How to fix some Wordpress e-commerce plugin annoyances
Here are some small fixes I found during Wordpress site development using the WP e-commerce plugin. Although the plugin is a quick (and free!) way to quickly put up a small e-commerce section on a website, it still requires a handful of improvement to make setup more simple to use.
Removing decimals to prices
This should be an option in the control panel, but unfortunately isn't. Not every currency has decimals (eg. Japanese yen), so the extra ".00" needs to be dropped. This can be done by first setting the plugin not to display decimals in the control panel.…
Read more »How to change the collation of a table and its columns
One of my ExpressionEngine 2 installations wouldn't accept multibyte characters (Japanese, to be exact) in the Discussion Forum module. Those characters would be displayed as question marks in thread posts. I thought that the default EE2 install created tables in Unicode (UTF-8) automatically, and that I shouldn't have any problems with multibyte characters. After a closer look at my database, I realised that the exp_forum tables were in latin_1! I had two options to fix the problem:
- Turn on the "Convert to high ASCII" option in ExpressionEngine's control panel (under Admin / Channel Administration / Global preferences). Multibyte characters…
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Cup noodle ads: funny lyrics of known music videos
2010/06/21I'm really digging the recent Cup Noodle commercial series in Japan. The commercial looks like a regular music video, but the lyrics are completely different and sung in Japanese. Check out this Jamiroquai gem:
Looks like the famous "Virtual Insanity" video, until Jamiroquai starts singing "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry... Oh Cup Noodle, I could eat about five!"
I only know of another music video from a Japanese song, but looking forward to more of…
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Addon updates for EE2, part 1
2010/06/14I have updated some my addons over the weekend for ExpressionEngine 2. Each addon will now have two download links for the 1.6.x and 2.x versions of the addon.
The updated addons are:
- Google Analytics (actually updated my Mathieu Fauveau)
- NB moji limit
- NB CSV to Table
- NB Japanese Year
I have tested these addons myself and they seem to be running fine. If you encounter any problems, please let me know.
Since ExpressionEngine 2 stores text in the database in UTF-8 format, I thought Ellis…
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Using twitter from a Japanese mobile phone
2010/06/10I remember a few months ago when I tried in vain to login on Twitter from my Japanese ketai, which most have only a simple WAP browser (meaning no Javascript or complex CSS, old school webpages only). I couldn't get past the login form, which wouldn't clear for some reason.
Looks like this has been solved now, with the whole Twitter interface translated in Japanese, little Japanese keitai-only emoji and all. Some mobile-specific functionality has also been added, including emailing a tweet from your mobile (like mobile blogging found in some CMSs) and keypad menu selection.
That…
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This site, now fueled with ExpressionEngine 2
2010/06/05It's done, the site has been upgraded and is now running using ExpressionEngine 2. The upgrade went very well, aside from a few minor hiccups (note: upgrade goes better if you don't leave the "save templates as files" option on in EE 1.6.x). You may have noticed a few more changes on the site as well.
Site redesign
I guess my green phase is over. The initial design was put together very quickly to be able to officially hold my EE addons and have a place to blog. I decided to go "purple" this time, and…
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My latest gadget: the washlet
2010/02/07
While everyone else is talking about the iPad, I would like to show off my latest gadget which I have purchased last week: the washlet.I'm sure a lot of people know what a washlet is, but personally, I didn't know about the term until I came to Japan. So, what is a washlet?
A washlet is a device that replaces your standard toilet cover with a high-tech seat containing a number of functions, such as sprinkling water on your bum, heating the seat, filtering odors, automatically raising/lowering…
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looool, i know this washlet’s. Thats soooo much better then an iPhone. If Steve Jobs is planning this for the next iPhone i buy one.
Keep in mind! Seat heater’s in cars are bad for the family planning. So don’t give to much heat
By Paradise on 2010/02/13
Addons and ExpressionEngine 2.0 “something”
2009/12/08ExpressionEngine 2.0 PB, formerly "Beta", formerly "Release candidate", now "Public Beta" (or was that Peanut Butter? maybe later), has been out for about a week now. A lot of developers are annoucing roadmaps, and I should probably do something similar... eventually.
Based on the developer's documentation, porting my plugins to 2.0 should not be too difficult. I hope to update those soon enough, although there doesn't seem to be any rush to do so right at this moment. The NB Show custom field data extension will be an interesting challenge, and I think this extension can come…
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Taking on the seven-patty Whopper
2009/10/24
Oh boy, what a feast! Along with the Windows 7 launch, for which I'm psyched just for Internet Explorer 8 and the hopefully hastened death of IE6, Burger King in Japan was offering a seven-patty Whopper. The first 140 visitors or so could get the whopper for 777 yen (about 7 bucks), but since I got there late, I dished out the full 1420 yen. Worth it though, being my birthday and a rare chance to see this…
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