Thursday, January 01, 2004

Keitai RSS reader A couple of posts ago I made a todo list, which included coding a Keitai RSS reader. I was gonna do it in ColdFusion, of course. WINKsite beat me to the punch and in ColdFusion too! I tried out their service, but unfortunately I can't access it from my Vodafone keitai. Normally I wouldn't have tried again and probably forgotten about the site, but an interesting thing happened. When I signed up I mistakenly entered my email address as chriskk @ NO S P A M pixic. om, whithout the N O S P A M portion. A company rep emailed me using pixi.com and explained that I might've mistyped my address. WOW, great service! It made me feel like they wanted me as a user. A valued customer! Now they're helping me so that I can actually see their service through my keitai. They're also a ColdFusion house. Another major plus. Some links to help with getting my Sanyo J-SA05 Vodafone (formerly known as JPhone) work with their services: CGI variables of my unit List of keitai phones with browser version, supported image formats, and colors supported. Official Vodafone spec of Sanyo J-SA05 Another interesting note is that Adam Greenfield of V-2, the organizer of the 1st International Moblogging Conference (See previous blog post, and google search), is now on WINKsites' board of advisors (See v-2, and Wireless Ink PR page 12-30-2003 Announcement). 4:42:58 PM    comment []

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu I just got back from Meiji Jingu, which is next to Harajuku station. I knew it would be crowded, but I needed to experience it anyway. I wanted to try starting the new year in a Japanese fashion. It took us around an hour in line to get to the front of the temple where you can make a prayer and toss some coins. Full crowd control made things flow pretty smoothly without any pushing or shoving until the very end, where the area to throw coins from becomes like the closest point to the the front at a concert. Everyone trying to get there, but people who are there and want to get out are stuck. It was amazing to see so many people at the temple and on the streets of Harajuku at 4am. Harajuku looked like it got a matsuri make-over. The trains usually stop at around midnight, but runs all night long New Year's Eve. The shedule is not as frequent as normal business hours. Other common Japanese Oshogatsu traditions that we followed: Osoji - Haven't finished cleaning the house, but getting close. Toshi Koshi Soba - Right after midnight we had this dish. We had our noodles with Tsuyu, Negi, Nori, and Wasabi. Plain, but seemed just right for the moment. The noodles made the dish. Kohaku Uta Gassen - switched between this, the Pride fights, and the K1 w/ Bob Sapp Vs. Akebono. I wasn't too thrilled with watchin the singing ;) New Years Eve was a nice change to what I'm used to. There's a Japanese community in Hawaii, so these traditions are not totally new to me. Just not on this scale. Seeing so many people into Osoji, or writing Nen-ga-jyo reminded me of the Christmas spirit that I missed. Christmas seemed more like a couples thing, and New Years more with family and good friends. At least I started 2004 with a clearer head. Usually I'm pretty intoxicated and partying with friends. Make that F*CKED up.  This time we got to reflect on 2003, and see where we want to be in 2004. 6:14:55 AM    comment []