Blog / March 2010

  • 24 March 2010Help with a little bit of testing

    I need a little bit of help with testing the staging website. Please note the "staging" website is an almost identical copy of this site! Your data there can be different, and if you're a new member your account probably does not exist there. That's ok, you can create new accounts or mess with your data any way you want there. Just double check the url if you have any doubts.

    I need help with testing because the website needs to be updated soon, to introduce the Open Source codebase, which is under version control. In plain english this means starting with the next update I FINALLY have the freedom to do quick updates without worrying about breaking everything, because I'll always have a "clean" copy of the site at hand, even if I do "refactorings" and so on.

    Another reason why you may want to help is that the version on staging introduces optimizations of the page load time for the Study page and the flashcard review page. It optimizes the "front end" only, by reducing the number of javascripts to just one! So the difference will be felt (I hope) mostly for slow devices. If you use a regular desktop computer, you will probably not notice too much difference (but if you do I'd love to hear about it).

    Please post any problems you find on this forum topic. Thank you!

  • 21 March 2010Introducing... iVocab Shuffle™ !

    iVocab Shuffle™ is a simple flashcard review mode that requires no registration to use.

    The idea is of a minimalistic test mode which you can do at any time of day. It is meant as an informal test, so please don't stress out :)

    Features:

    • discover new words
    • discover new Japanese websites by using the "Search on google.co.jp" option, see live examples of the word usage
    • gradually get a better feeling for the kanji meanings
    • simple memory test of the reading and meanings
    • you can point at the kanji to see the Remembering the Kanji keyword, if any
    • you can click those kanji to go straight to the Study page (hint: middle click to open in a new tab)
    iVocab Shuffle™ is the first experimental feature introduced with the new Labs page. I will use the labs page to try out some ideas, and of course by its nature, your suggestions are welcome.

    Please see the iVocab Shuffle™ topic on the community forums for more.
  • 6 March 2010Woops, I did it again

    This is for those interested in running the website on your local machine: I just realised that the .htaccess file had been missing all along, as it was excluded by one of the .gitignore rules. Woopsie! I'm really sorry... the website should work much better now ;) (see forum post with slightly more info).
  • 3 March 2010New, stable, Open Source repository

    The Open Source repository for Reviewing the Kanji has been corrected. It now reflects the fully working live site. Read more in this forum post.

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