Comme ça du Japon

Let me introduce my very first Widget for WordPress: YAACC, an Ajax powered currency converter ! Feel free to try the live version on the right sidebar. As you might have noticed, the user interface is dead-simple. The widget is also optimised with a smart caching system and with compressed javascript and css. The option panel of the widget let you customise the default currencies and the initial amount. Finally, this currency calculator allow you to cutomize the list of available currencies by commenting or uncommenting lines of the complete list of currencies (177 currencies).

Download YAACC, a free Ajax powered currency converter widget for WordPress ! Your ideas or questions are welcomed.

Changelog

• 20080301: 0.9.3 fixed a minor bug, fix for the title option, version and usage check
• 20070922: 0.9.2 fixed a glitch in the caching of ajax-working.gif.
• 20070909: 0.9.1 replaced the ajax-working.gif image with a transparent version.

If you are reading this, it means that the 切り替え (KiRiKaE) “transition” from “my” custom blog solution to WordPress went right. A little bit of tweaking is probably needed in some areas but overall the new blog should work as intended.

I did not include all the bells and whistles that where decorating the previous version of this blog. I tried to keep the most usefull parts. My selection and redesign might not correspond to your 期待 (KiTai) “expectation” so let me hear your opinion about the new version. Also, let me know if you find any bug with a descritpion of the circumstances and the result.

First, thanks for your patience ! The long period of non-blogging has ended. I have got a great news to share. If everything goes right, this adventure will continue ! My doctor course is about to end but my job research went well. I will have to leave 仙台 (SenDai) for 幕張 (MakuHari) “Makuhari” (between Chiba, Disneyland and Tôkyô) for a position as a Research and Development engineer. However, during my blogging break I have noticed that I was spending quite a lot of time to manage the comments from the spammers and what not. Up until now it was not a big problem because my blog is mostly custom made so I did not have problems with run-of-the-mill scripts targetting well known blog platforms. But recently I am literally getting “spam 津波 (TsuNami)“. This blog was built around a very simple script to synchronise post made on my Sony clié. At first I had to hotsync the device to post. Then I built an system based on FTP uploads, comments, rss, spam detection and so on. However, the workflow was not great. I had to write the posts on my japanese clié with HTML entitites for the accents. Then convert the encoding from Shift-JIS to UTF-8 on the clié, ftp the files, hit the browser to refresh the blog, check for mistakes, go back to the device, repost…

Let’s face it I will have less and less time very soon. I don’t have the time to program a simple way to manage the comments. I used to edit the files (I am not using database) directly !

I made my decision. I will switch to a different blog platform. This should give me more time to focus on the content. However, it takes time to install a new system. As it is the holydays season (at least in France) I think that this is the best time to do it.

I am thinking about using WordPress. The blog has to handle many languages. It seems that polyglot is the right plugin for the task. Let me know what you are expecting from the new design.

I am looking for some help so if you know WordPress please contact me. I want to keep all my articles and comments but I might do that later and just launch the new site.