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Akatombo Web Log

Friday, May 07, 2004

Tokyo PC Users Group

I had a very good time at the Tokyo PC User’s Group meeting yesterday which was pretty much a Q&A session about websites.  Anyway, many of the questions were right up my alley, and we didn’t have time to go through them in much depth.  If any of you are visiting from that session and would like to have us go into a little more depth about a question you have about the issues involved in having a web page, we’d be happy to do it.  Please comment here and we’ll put up an answer as quick as we can.  Also, we generally know what we like and are not afraid to make reccomendations, so we’ll tell you what we think is good.

Thursday, May 06, 2004

Server Improvements.

We apologize to any of you who have noticed the site being unavailable for short periods during the past week.  The brilliant, genius, guru Tod McQuillin who helps us with our server administration had some time, and was generous enough to help us out, and we take that help when we can get it.  We’ve been taking steps to improve our server’s reliability and security (we haven’t had any problems but you know what they say, an ounce of prevention...) as well as to clear up a few minor issues that had been irritating us.  Things should be pretty much settled now, and you shouldn’t see much more downtime until the possible office relocation that mayy be coming up in the not too distant future.

If you notice any strangeness or have any suggestions for improvements, please Let Us Know.

Friday, April 30, 2004

Usability Issues on Japanese websites

We are going to be writing an article on common usability problems on Japanese websites in the near future.  Some of the main items for discussions are:

• Use of English for parts of the website crucial for navigation
• The use of frames
• failure to specify language encoding

The problem with pointing out usability problems is that generally you stop using sites that are hard to use and forget all about them.  We are trying, over the next couple of weeks, to make a note everytime we have problems figuring something out on a Japanese website.  We will then compile together these notes and try to find solutions to the most common problems.  We hope to publish this article in a Japanese language web design publication, but we need your help:

If you are using a Japanese website, and find something that is confusing, please take a moment to leave us a comment on this post.  Let us know the url of the site, and what was confusing to you.  We really appreciate your help!

Thursday, April 22, 2004

CEATEC 2004 Site - First Stage up

The first stage of the CEATEC JAPAN 2004 website has gone live in English.  The German, Korean, French, Spanish, and Chinese versions will be up soon.  This is a collaborative effort with a couple of other companies and there are some things that we would definitely like to improve, but we’d really like your input and suggestions.

Please take a look at the CEATEC website as if you were a potential exhibitor, and tell us what improvements would make the site more effective for you.  We will release these requests for comment each time we release a new version with a new target audience.  You suggestions will be considered deeply and acted upon, so please let us know what you think.

the CEATEC JAPAN 2004 website

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Odd Slogan

Heard (may not be exact wording) on a Diner’s Club card commercial:

“The world is open for business, you have the key.”

This seems like a strange slogan to us.  What kind of open businesses generally require keys?