Ancient website front page updated

I have made some changes to the index page of my website that predates my earliest blog post (here actually) by several years.

• increased the width of the page from 800px to 1000px.
• added image background
• rearrangement of page elements
• added links to my blogs
• modified info at the bottom
• deleted links to Neopets pages and pkmn.co.uk

I currently have no plans to make changes to the other pages. However, I am thinking of putting up something relating to anime that I had watched since 2006. I'm going to use a HTML template from "somewhere" instead of the outdated and user-unfriendly page editor that came with it.

As the capacity has a total of 15MB (compared with todays 1GB), images are mostly to be hosted off-site like photobucket.

Of course, I can't gurantee that I would actually do that with my time commitments to other things.

myspace updates

I'm currently making some changes at MySpace as I haven't been logging into it since February (5 months ago).

For now, I shall only change the display image, anime watch list, and maybe the background image too (the ones you see now are either unchanged for months or are previously used elsewhere). Other changes will come sometime after MySpace have done their major revamp.

Constructing a new blog

Technically, it's not a new blog. It replaces "Archives of the School Papers". No point letting it rot but create a new one from scratch.

The current template is of the classic type previously used here, so to modify stuff, I have to go to the lengthy HTML layout. I currently have no clear idea on how the blog will turn out though.

Unlike the English and Japanese anime blogs (or Yukari's), the blog's post will not have any direct translation of what appears on the main blog (and vice versa) which will appear randomly. I don't want to be preassured on doing both to the point that I don't post anything at all.

As the URL of that blog will most probably change somewhere along the way, I shall not bother linking to it here. Just look out for the Japanese name of this blog listed in my blogger profile or click on the old link under the old name and hope it's still there.

Condition of my PCs

Note: This post was originally on my main blog but was moved to here 6 hours after posting as it was unsutable.

Brief summary: My main PC is getting closer to being unusable

Detailed summary: My 2002-era desktop computer seems to be failing as it has lately been making a lot of noise from the processor fan and primary hard disk drive. Also, the on board local area network port has malfunctioned and the only way to get on the network is via the universal serial bus port adapter. (Unfortunately, this also means that the maximum transfer speed is 12Mb/s instead of the intended 100Mb/s due to the USB2.0 limitations) Installing Linux or using another hard disk is not an option as a prompt message appeared saying that files needed to run Windows XP are missing and won't even allow me to boot from the CD. Due to the lack of space and non-standard AT-X power casing, placing it on another casing is out of the question, and I can't put primary or secondary slave drives.

Strangely enough, I was able to install Windows XP SP2 on a PC that came pre-installed with Windows 95 and installed a faster CD reader (that had been replaced by a DVD burner on a PC mentioned earlier) and several larger capacity hard disk drive (14 & 32 GB) on top of the existing one (4GB). I had also installed a sound card and a LAN card (10Mb/s instead of 100Mb/s sadly) too as it did not come with them. Mouse that uses a ball to detect movement, keyboard and display from that era are also use, though it can use the today's wireless USB ones with optical LED/laser detector and LCD display, though not with the DMI connection.

I couldn't think of anything to type at the moment. Sorry for the many technical terms that might have been used. I might also might not be going online until Thursday for various reasons that I might have mentioned earlier. Since I would be not staying at a hotel when overseas, finding an internet connection can be quite tricky, though not so if someone's home network is not secured.

English edition anime blog: Changed layout

I have changed the layout for the English version of the anime blog to match that of the Japanese version, which has been there for quite some time now. The navigation bar is blue instead of black to tell apart from each other without scrolling down.

In case you were wondering, the layout is a modified version of "Sand Dolar", one of blogger's default layouts. As for the one you are currently seeing on this blog, it is based on "Harbour", another modified default layout of blogger, was originally designed for my main blog. I spent a lot of time editing it until it doesn't resemble the original. However, due to limitations with the layout, I decided, at that time, to change the layout and dump the layout to here, which previously had an unmodified default layout.

Speaking of the above, the current layout is not permanent: I have plans to change the background to something that is nice, but yet readable with the text on top of it. For the header image, I have plans to use a non-anime related image with a layout smillar to the anime blogs: a spillover effect above the Navbar and the sidebar, but on the right instead of left.

Major changes to friendster profiles

If you had visited all of my profiles today, you would have noticed that there are changes to the display images and in some cases, change of name/url.

Do note that the following has been changed (profile no. remains unchanged):
# 西沢雪穂 Yukiho Nishizawa (42670116) >>>>> ￜ小林春奈 Haruna Kobayashi (42670116)
/nishizawayukiho (4623690) >>>>> /hashimotokonomi (4623690)
/hashimotokonomi (42670116) >>>>> /kobayashiharuna (42670116)

You might have also noticed that ￜ高橋陽子 (54253582) no longer uses anime images and instead uses photos, somewhat like my main profile (32399691) these days.

Due to growing number of people wanting to add me and the limited time and space to accommodate everyone (as you can tell from me not logging into all of them, except the main account, between February and May), I am going to let you know how I handle them:

• I only read the 10 most recent testimonials, after deleting duplicates
• I don't check the message inbox because if I do, I would see forwarded messages making up a large majority of it anyway
• I am very particular on the primary display image. For all cases, I should be able to see it clearly on both the thumbnail (45x45) and actual size (the latter should be larger than the former), with a face (if any) visible in the thumbnail-size version.
  
• For anime images, , and are acceptable, but and are not because they are: a) images are more suitable as wallpapers and are therefore too small as display images, b) for the 4th image: the characters in it are too common, c) for the 6th image: I see it almost everywhere and I don't want all the emo or gothic stuff to appear d) there should only be between 1-2 people in an image and their heads and/or the upper part of the body should make up more than 50% of the image, as you can tell from the first 3 images.
• I would appreciate if characters from the following anime are not used: Cardcaptor Sakura, Maria-sama ga Mieteru, Prince of Tennis, Naruto, Bleach, Gundam Seed series, Tengenn Toppa Guren Lagann, Shaman King, Pokemon, Digimon, Inuyasha, Detective Conan, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball series, Touhou (game) series, Shuffle!, Jigoku Shoujo. Others, including Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu and Hatsume Miku, are acceptable.
• For others I would accept , and but not , and . You should get the general idea behind it: The rule mention above, lighting, how people pose at the camera (including how close), decent camera quality (picture taken at VGA quality (0.3MP) is not the same as one taken taken at 7MP and resized to 640x480), text on the image. Borders should also be avoided
  

change of display image

I have changed the profile images of Blogger (1, 2), Friendster, and Facebook to several different images that all used to have the exact identical image. Part of the reason is that the replaced image has been there for quite some time. I do apologize for the confusion that may have been caused due to this change.

Profile images elsewhere (eg. imeem, myspace, flickr) remains unchanged.

Review of Spring 2008 anime

(Originally posted here a while ago)

With Summer 2008 anime approaching and have been paying attention to my anime watch list since early April this year, you would notice that those mentioned here (and here) are hardly mentioned under "likely to watch" are currently there and some of "not likely to watch" are actually listed.

For most of them, I would just watch 1 episode and see if it's good. But for some of them, I might watch more and sometime more than half-way through the series before dropping it. For anime that falls into the latter include:

• Neo Angelique Abyss (just plain boring)
  
• Kanokon (far too much intolerable sexual scenes than To LOVE-Ru; character design is decent, but the picture quality is like crap)
  
• Kamen no Maid Guy (same as above; storyline doesn't seem to go anywhere; character design and picture quality looks like crap)
  
• Wagaya no Oinarisama. (I actually fell asleep watching this)
  
• Persona -trinity soul- [Winter 2008] (It looked like it had a lot of action, but there were hardly any; fell asleep watching the episodes prior to dropping it)
  
• Special A (storyline doesn't seem to go anywhere; character design and picture quality looks like crap)
  
• Vampire Knight (all of the episodes seems to be talking about the same thing with no major progress on the storyline)

[when I say that the picture quality "is like crap", I meant that it looked like it was for Standard Definition TV (640x480 with horizontal black bars), but the so-called HD version is actually an upscale of the SD version. So in the end, the picture is not as sharp. Use the SD and HD of CODE GEASS Hangyaku no Lelouch R2 or Lyrical Nanoha Magical StrikerS as a comparison.]

Anime that was listed as "unlikely to watch" and "some chance of watching" that I ended up watching are:
(those in italics were dropped later with reasons to why I dropped it listed above)

• To LOVE-Ru (I actually wanted to watch more of it)
  
• The Tower of Druaga ~the Aegis of URUK~ (quite interesting)
  
• Kamen no Maid Guy (I was expecting fighting off evil, but what I got was completely different)
  
• Toshokan Sensou (nice animation, soundtrack and decent storyline)
  
• Kanokon (wanted to know how different it is from "Wagaya no Onarisama.", but turned out to be worse than "Kamen no Maid Guy" and "To LOVE-Ru")

Friendster profile no. 5 updated

As I had an unsually long school lunch break of 4 hours, I decided to check all my emails, do stuff at Facebook and eventually logged into my 5th friendster account, which I haven't logged in for a very long time. In fact, I think since March.

When I last logged in, there were several friend request, messages, and requests comming every few minuites. Multiply that with my other accounts, including another 4 at friendster, well, the number would easily enter into the tens of thousands. Which is one of the reasons why I never logged in for a long time as I have my end-of-year exams around that time.

I currently have no plans to update my friendster profiles, except "currently watching anime" and "newtype monthy anime rankings". I have done new drawings, but I haven't uploaded them yet, though some of those that are already uploaded but not edited appears on my 3rd friendster profile's media box (and one of my blogs). Not sure how many there are to edit, but I have done about 2 (3 if you count this in) new ones for this month.

Of course since I found a lot of images since then (namely 2chan and flickr), I have acess to better images and possibly make a major revamp of those never-log-in-for-so-long accounts. It's just a matter of whether I feel like doing so or have the time to do so.

Dropdown list links and other changes

I have replaced the regular link list with a drop-down menu with a "Go" button next to it due to an already long list of links (mostly other people's blogs) and possibly add more. This would save a lot of space as the sidebar alone is so long that you can fit 12 (twelve) of my longer-than-average posts in it. Kind of a waste of space actually, especially when you are viewing only 1 (one) post.

I have moved "RSS feeds of the sites I go to", "My Profile" and "IMEEM music player" to the side where the posts normally appear, so less space is used since they are text and uses less vertical (top to bottom) space if there is sufficient horizontal (left to right) space. The height of the music player mentioned above and the "Tagbox" are reduced and the width.

For some of the elements of my content, I have switch to percentage (%) based width, so how big a thing will appear in your browser depends on your browser window. You would notice the size changing if you were to adjust it with the % based element in the window.

The YouTube videos of my friendster media box (an exact copy of it's HTML can be found on my main blog as a widget, though might appear different) are now percentage based so that I can put the exact number in a row and not bother with the pixel-based measurements. The last I looked, it looked fine, except that on my main blog, there is an unusually large empty space in between videos after every 2 videos. Also, adjusting its height using the percentage-based measurements doesn't make any difference.

Seeing that I can't think of a nice title, I just used a French (to make it cool) translation of "Through the eyes of someone" and "Hoping for a better future". The area where the title appears on the blog itself is replaced with an image. Besides the current one, I have yet to come up with another one. Not sure which, but it should be no wider than 1000px and the thing between the IMEEM player and the posts (Due to the rules and regulations, I can't say what it is exactly) should be visible, with an aspect ratio of around 16:9 or wider. Images might need to be resized and/or cropped to meet this requirement.