TDH: Portfolio » Japan

Stuck In Work Limbo

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:17:11 +0000

I should be setting up everything in the new office today, wiring and getting stuff in place. Well, I’m not, due to a broken elevator in the building I’m moving from. That means I’ve lost today as a work day, basically, and I’m bound to loose tomorrow as well, at the very least.

That’s not good for productivity, or my economy for that matter. Better get on the phone and start harassing the building’s owner. Again and again.

It’s already having consequences, this stint. BloggerTalks is not back on track today, I don’t want to commit before I’m properly setup, and I’ll have to reschedule client work, push it forward until Wednesday, tentatively.

My March 2008 goals, however, are still working out for now. I managed to close (more or less) on of the four client designs I was about to, will write more on that one later on, and that’s nice. Another one is in the coding phase, and the other two are awaiting feedback. And I did get two new photo sets from my Japan trip up on Flickr, now just to scan through everything to see if there’s anything else I should upload, or call it quits.

Ah well. Better do what I can, and not just whine about it.

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Two New Photo Sets From My Trip To Japan

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:13:45 +0000

I’ve uploaded two new sets of photos from my trip to Japan: Osaka jyou and Senrioka. Check them out if you will.

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March 2008 Goals, Half-Way There Edition

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:05:31 +0000

I realize that this post is a little late, but I figured I’d try a new way to put some healthy (as opposed to evil) pressure on myself, with public goals. So here they are, my goals for March 2008!

Finish and deliver four (4) client designs!
Reach beta for version 2.0 of my Swedish blog network template.
Closed beta for the Notes Blog theme. I’ll be offering it to a select few bloggers, to see how it fares.
Get BloggerTalks up to speed after my moving the office this weekend.
Publish part 1 in The Green Knight short story over at OrnTales.com.
Move the office!
~~Move my home!~~ Oh, I already did that…
Get the last photos from Japan up on my Flickr account.
Deliver the last freelance articles from my trip to Japan.

As you can see, I have a few things to do this week. It’s not as bad as it looks though, since I’ve planned ahead and everything.

Oh, and I have to plan April as well. That’s going to be an interesting month…

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Three Things I’ll Miss Eating In Japan

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:06:47 +0000

Just a few days before I go back home to Sweden now. About time I listed the best food this country has to offer, right?

Sushi! I just love it, and it’s way better here than anywhere in Sweden as far as I know. Quite a wider choice, and more sensible pricing, as well.
Japanese curry dishes! It’s not the same as Indian curry, rather a different spice altogether. They’re hard to compare, but I think I prefer the Japanese one.
Meron pan! Or melon bread, mostly sugar and air, but good nonetheless.

Overall I’m impressed by the food in this country, but that doesn’t really come as such a surprise. I like Asian food overall.

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The Problem With Linux

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:59:13 +0000

Yesterday I installed the Ubuntu Linux distribution on my Kohjinsha. Spent an hour trying to get it to boot correctly from an USB stick, then gave up and bought an external DVD, which worked right away. So now it’s running Ubuntu, boots up at 10 seconds or so (to login screen), and is way faster than Vista Home which was on it from the start.

However, the problem with Ubuntu, and all Linux distributions, is that they lack hardware support out of the box (or Live CD…). These things still don’t work:

Wireless internet was a bit tricky to get online, but it’s there now. ~~WPA still isn’t working though.~~ Got it working using these instructions, and the Rutit interface.
The touchscreen. Haven’t fiddled with it yet.
The launcher, shutter, rotation, and enter buttons to the right of the screen. I’ll have to map those to something suitable.
Changed keyboard settings to Swedish, but it’s not 100% since it’s a Japanese keyboard. Will have to edit the keyset, also, there are several buttons that don’t do anything at all, so I’ll have to map them to something cool.
It won’t wake up from hibernation.

I am, however, impressed by the fact that all Fn functionality, such as wireless on/off, supposedly Bluetooth, PgUp/Dn etc. are working right out of the box, as is the touchpad, extra mouse with buttons beside the screen, the scroll button, and so on.

Linux in general, and Ubuntu in particular, have come a long way since I installed the first Fedora distribution on my old Acer laptop. In most cases, Ubuntu will work out of the box. Problem is, whenever you’ve got special stuff, or an unique brand that isn’t widely used, you’ll have problems. Like the Kohjinsha, released in Japan and Korea only (?), that’s certainly a problem. Luckily, there’s a great community backing Ubuntu, so I won’t give up yet.

After all, it’s actually really fast, and an ultra-portable laptop should be a greased lightning machine!

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Back In The Land Of Kings

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:05:22 +0000

I’m sitting in the familiar chair in front of my three TFT screens, behind my desk. Back in Sweden again, after a horrible day of traveling (I won’t fly intercontinental in economy class again), and a good night’s sleep in a room beyond 5 degrees Celsius. It feels good, albeit a little weird, since I was in Japan long enough to get into an everyday routine.

I’m jetlag free at the moment, a bit tired but that’s all. Flew in the right direction this time. I do believe I will be feeling a bit funky come afternoon, so I’m glad I planned on this day to be pretty unproductive. Gonna catch up on e-mails, finish writing my freelance gigs related to my Japan visit, and install Ubuntu on my Kohjinsha UMPC that I picked up. I was originally going for the Asus Eee PC, but it was sold out everywhere, so I’ll have to wait a bit on that one. The Kohjinsha is a bit cooler though, being a 7″ ultra-mobile tablet PC, but it runs Windows Vista in Japanese, and could be a bit more responsive, so I’m gonna wipe it out. A fun little project. More on that in later posts for sure.

I’ll upload my final photos to my Flickr account as well, didn’t do that this weekend, and I’ve got a bunch from Saturday and Sunday that will go up.

By the way, you certainly know when you’re back in Sweden. Getting off the train from the airport in Copenhagen, Denmark, at Malmö Central, it’s all elbows and people trying to trample you to get either in or out. Not like in Japan, where everyone keeps their distance and got a bit more patience with these things. There you go, cultural differences yet again.

Better get started then. Hello world, from Sweden.

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Three Things I Won’t Miss About Japan

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 05:00:38 +0000

Not everything was good in Japan, some things were weird, others disturbing, and so on. As it is with every culture, be it your own or not.

The cold apartment. Due to humidity issues in the Summer, there’s no isolation to speak of in most Japanese homes. That includes my friend’s apartment. It was dead cold the first two days, then it got better, but sleeping fully dressed isn’t all that nice.
The schoolgirl lolita fixation. It’s everywhere, more or less sensual, but everywhere. On magazine covers, in commercials, on posters while riding up the escalators – not to mention all the products that are associated with this weird little thing.
The amount of people. Osaka’s got more inhabitants than all of Sweden. I can live with that, but I really don’t want to be among this amount of people all the time. It’s too much in the long run.

Curiously enough, I don’t mind being gaijin (non-Japanese) or having people ogling me all the time.

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New Japan Photos on Flickr

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 05:16:26 +0000

I’ve uploaded a bunch of new photos from Japan, and also reorganized a bit in my sets. Check out my Flickr page for the latest, and the Japan collection for a set list.

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Regarding The Notes Blog Theme

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 02:28:04 +0000

Observant tdhedengren.com readers have seen this text in the footer already:

the tdhedengren theme is based on the notes blog theme and powered by wordpress

What is the Notes Blog theme then, and why didn’t I design a theme myself, being a designer and all? Well, that’s just the thing: I did. The Notes Blog theme is a project in the works, I’ve mentioned it in passing before. This blog is running on a modified version of it.

I’m addressing this because of several e-mails asking me where to find this theme. Nowhere, is the answer at the moment. I will, however, make the Notes Blog theme available in the somewhat near future. When I’m back home from Japan I’ll post some screenshots of it, and share my plans.

If you really don’t want to miss it, nab a subscription to this blog. I’ll be talking more about it here. You might also want to bookmark notesblog.com if you’re so inclined, the actual theme will be hosted there.

And yes, the basic theme will be free.

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Four new photo sets from Japan

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:28:24 +0000

I’ve published another four photo sets from Japan to my Flickr account:

Had to upgrade to pro for this to work. Lots of photos… Anyway, follow my Japan 2008 collection for the latest from my trip to Japan!