Vox Kajiai

Japanese Flash (JFlash) for iPhone/iPod Touch

I’ve become quite fond of the JFlash Japanese flash card app from Long Weekend. There are numerous flash card application both for the desktop and mobile devices and, in general, they fall into one of two categories--the multi-flash app (supporting an unlimited number of subject categories and/or multiple languages) and the single subject flash app. JFlash falls into the latter category, designed specifically for the Japanese language student, but at the same time it comes packed with so many subject area card sets that I times I want to think of it as a multi-flash app, too. To be specific, the basic installed app has 11 category folders containing a total of over 200 sets of words, covering a range of vocabulary from “Survival Japanese” to “Buddhist Religion” to “Manga Slang.” And, of course, you can add your own sets as well, but...more about that later.

What I really like about the app is that it is very Mac-like in its simplicity and sense of fun. As you can see in screen shots, the buttons are big and easy to tap. There are two themes, fire and water, with a cartoon water droplet or flame ball responding via facial expressions to your progress. In study mode, a tap just about anywhere will flip the card, and then you tap “right,” “wrong,” or “go away” to build up a virtual Leitner box collection toward terminology mastery. The words you study will gradually move from “Studying” to “Right 1x,” “Right 2x,” “Right 3x,” and eventually to “Learned.” You can also choose to add the card to one of your own custom sets along the way, which is something you will probably want to do soon.

The 200 sets of vocabulary are very rich, so you are likely to find more than enough to get going. In some ways they are too rich. For example, in the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level N1 set there are over 7500 words! Do you know how long it takes just to flash through that many words? JFlash will save your progress, which is a good thing, but there is something satisfying about “completing” a set of 200 Level N1 words, but that is not an option here. You can blow through 200 words, but still see 7300 in the “remaining” list, which feels like a daunting mountain left to climb. Feature request to developers: Allow me to generate a random subset of large word lists.

When you do decide to create your own list, it is pretty easy to do. Simply create a new list and use the Search tool to find vocabulary to add to the list. As mentioned above, you can also add words from one word set to your own while studying. Unfortunately, if it is not among the built-in words, you can’t create your own cards. You also can’t change the text of the cards, to correct a word or even to combine words and expressions that you feel need to go together. One example, while inputting some newspaper vocabulary, I could search and add “イラク” (Iraq) but Iran was only available in Kanji format (“衣蘭”). In addition, there are a few word definitions that are wrong, or at least wrong in the context of the vocab list you are studying, though that probably has more to do with their dictionary source than to the developers. For example, in the JLPT Level N4 set, the word あれ is defined as “stormy weather; tempest; chaps (of skin)”. I don’t believe that is what is being tested on Level N4 of the test.

One of the great decisions made by the developers is to design the app for multiple users. They recognized that an iPad or iPod could be used shared among family members, so they added the ability to have four separate JFlash user accounts on the app. Each user name can be customized as well. Additional settings allow you to flash the card either in English, to test your Japanese or vice versa. Your progress tracks the same way regardless of the prompt language, so there’s no way of distinguishing between J-E progress versus E-J progress.

All in all, JFlash is a great little app to study Japanese vocabulary. If someone ask, “I wonder if I can use my iPhone to study Japanese Sumo Wrestling vocabulary?” you can honestly reply, “Yes, there’s an app for that”!

JFlash

Developer: Long Weekend LLC http://longweekendmobile.com/tag/jflash/

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/japanese-flash/id367216357?mt=8

Pros

+ Easy to use

+ Over 200 vocabulary sets

+ User customizable sets

+ Pedagogical foundation for learning

+ Four user profiles on one device

+ Thorough built-in help

Cons

- No user-added vocabulary

- No way to “correct” existing terms

- No “list” view of set vocabulary [though “browse” mode is available]

- No way to import, export or share lists

Requests

• An iPad version would be nice, though the 2x upscaled version works beautifully otherwise
• Can a "rotatable" version be designed?

[Disclaimer: I did receive a license to review this software from Long Weekend LLC, though I believe my review remains objective.]

7 Days with an iPad

Ever since I started watching Star Trek TNG I’ve been expecting (okay, hoping) to use the technology similar to that which arrived in my office a week ago, the Apple iPad. Well, the future may be here at last (except for my flying car, of course), but this jury of one is still out on the iPad. It is a device that I really want to love, and yet something holds me back. It is a device that I feel really does have a role to play, but not all niche fillers are runaway hits. I do believe that Apple will sell a ton of them and that they will thrive in the market, and that developers will continue to develop outstanding apps for them. I just don’t know if I’m ready to adopt one formally for my personal use.

What’s the problem? Well...size matters. And, in the case of the iPad, that is both its blessing and its curse. It’s the middle child, the Jan and Peter of Apple’s Brady Bunch of products. It the bizarro world version of Goldilocks’ chair, bed and porridge--just right, and somehow not right at all. It wins by being both more portable than my MacBook (smaller, lighter and easier to carry) and more functional than my iPod Touch (larger, faster, easier to type). And yet, it fails, too, because I don’t see the iPad replacing either of the other two devices in my life. Maybe you can’t quite tell, but I’m having a real love-hate relationship with this product, despite the fact that it is so good in so many ways. Perhaps I need to take a more Zen approach and accept that the iPad way is the Middle Way of technological enlightenment.

Okay, more precisely, the first generation iPad may be the first step on that particular path. It’s not slate-tech nirvana yet. Nevertheless, here are some of my first observations, based on the notes I’ve made to myself during this first week, along with some app reviews to round out the experience.

• The standard iPad applications are fully functional and generally benefit from the larger screen size. One minor disappointment, though, is the Mail app. Others have noted this as well, but while I like the hovering mail and folder navigation, I would prefer not to have the last mail message read be the default entry point for the application. Take me to a folder or list view, please. I want to be able to close out of reading my mail messages without exiting the application.
• Pages is a beautifully designed and very functional word processing and page layout application. Period. However, text input is still a chore without a physical keyboard (yes, I know a keyboard dock exists, as does Bluetooth, but at that point, give me a laptop!). Typing on the iPad is joy compared to the iPod Touch, since the added real estate benefits not only iPad native apps, but zoomed iPhone apps as well. That said, I desperately miss keyboard navigation keys, keyboard shortcuts, and even the Tab key. Also, a touch screen means no resting your fingers on the home keys.
• The New York Times Editor's Choice app and USA Today app offer great digital newspaper reading. The USA Today even includes quick polls that its readers can participate in and the New York Times free edition includes enough headline stories and photos to stay abreast of the latest events. Likewise, the BBC app has a nice mix of both text articles and live streaming audio. And the NPR for iPad application allows you to listen not only to favorite shows, but also broadcasts from your favorite NPR affiliate stations.
• The Guardian Eyewitness application serves up visually rich, beautiful photos that look fantastic on the iPad screen.
• The ABC Player is very good and the Netflix media player is at least satisfactory. I had some trouble with playback on the Netflix app, however, and navigating to watch multi-episode series was a bit of a chore. Sometimes the app would just crash back to the iPad main screen, but for the most part things went fine. Some queue management features are not available in the Netflix app, unfortunately, so reordering was a bit of a chore. This app will eventually work out its kinks though. I’m fairly confident of that. If anything, I think NBC and CBS need to get on the ball, or at least push Hulu to the iPad in short order. And while we're at it, Tivo should release a stream player for the iPad as well.
• The Marvel Comics app is beautiful. I like the option of reading page-by-page or in the more dramatic panel-by-panel mode. Unfortunately, I don’t see myself as a long-term customer. On the one hand, that comic consumption phase of my life has largely passed, and on the other, the comic world is much bigger than Marvel alone. Plus, how will comic collectors thrive in a world without sharing and trading?
• For digital books, iBooks and GoodReader are must haves! iBooks takes the prize for a generally faithful reproduction of the book reading experience, minus the smell and feel of paper. Buying books online with iBooks is a snap, and sample chapters of books are also readily available.  I’m sold on the idea that the iPad and technical books especially are a match made in heaven. If you are familiar with technical books, you know that they can weigh in at several pounds and 500-1000 pages, with color and text variations to differentiate narrative, code, and other highlights. The iPad’s ePub format presents the books perfectly without the excess weight and with no effort needed to keep the book opened to the desired page while you type out the code. I can’t tell you how often I search for something around my desk to keep pages from flipping on real books. GoodReader expands one’s digital library by allowing you to load up PDF documents to go. Again, the documents look great, even if the faux-book eyecandy of iBooks is missing here. To be fair, the heft of the iPad is considerably more than a Kindle, and a Kindle is much easier to read outside, but for visual reproduction, iPad is great. I’d liken the Kindle to a paperback in terms of portability and the iPad to a good hardcover. You may prefer to take the Kindle to the beach, but I read more at home and in the office, so the iPad works for me.
• I really need a cover for this device, something like the Kindle leatherette, but it needs to be thin, fold complete behind the device when open, have a kickstand, and perhaps the tilt-slant support option that Apple's cover has, for typing on a desk or lap.
• On the fun and games side of things, the extra screen real estate is a boon to game programmers, and older eyes, and a few of the first-to-store iPad games are quite entertaining. Harbor Master HD is a fun line drawing ship management game. Tap Tap Radiation, a tap-to-the-music game, is much easier for me to play on the larger screen that the Tap Tap Revolution games have been on the iPod Touch. I was really enjoying the match-three game Aurora Feint 3, which uses the tilt sensors to good effect in changing the game, until the in-game offer to BUY more lives popped up as I was about to die during a battle. I understand the need to make money through downloadable content (DLC), but I'm not going to spend a buck to add more lives to my game. My quarter-dropping arcade frustrations are years behind me. By far the most enjoyable game has been Mirror's Edge for iPad. The developers have created a beautiful, easy-to-control, yet challenging side-scroller game. It costs more than I would have liked to spend, but it has been a lot of fun and a good example of where games can go on this platform.
• Google-PLEASE enable Google docs editing on iPad. This is the perfect cloud computing device, but you're crippling it.
• We know that multitasking is on its way, so that's not even worth criticizing at this point, I feel. The only reason I wanted multitasking was so that I could have a persistent chat application open in the background, or a Twitter feed. Other than that I actually appreciated not being interrupted by push notification while reading a book or watching The IT Crowd on Netflix.

So, at week's end what does it come down to? The iPad is a great device to have on the coffee table, the bedside table, in the car, in the kitchen and, potentially, in another room in the house where reading sometimes occurs. The size, portability, battery life, functionality and purpose are all perfectly aligned for this device to have a home in your home in these areas. I’ve used my laptop, iPod Touch, and even a netbook in all of these locations and I really feel that the iPad wins hands down in these arenas (with the exception that for some tasks that I do in the living room, such as writing this post, my laptop may actually be a better choice). The iPad is a great device for reading, surfing the Internet, watching movies, playing casual games, finding and using recipes, streaming audio, and mapping out a trip. Unfortunately, the iPad will not accompany me to the dentist's and doctor's office, at least not yet, and probably not ever if I do get around to trading in my iPod Touch for an iPhone. Also, the iPad will not soon replace my desktop or laptop for getting "real" work done. I bounce in and out of too many simultaneously open applications as I write and edit, and managing all of that is still easier and faster to do with a keyboard and mouse.

As Apple has done in the past, the iPad will likely reinvigorate the tablet computing market and I'm looking forward to the competition from Android, in particular. For students, the iPad is a great starting point as textbooks go digital, and as more ruggedized incarnations appear I can see this form factor being a great alternative to the back-breaking volumes that K-12 students lug around. It will take some time for all of us to become comfortable and familiar with these devices, but I think it will happen, probably quite rapidly, and probably sooner than the appearance of my flying car.

iPhone/iTouch Apps for Japanese Study

I recently was asked to recommend iPhone apps for studying Japanese. In truth, I haven't really yet used the iPhone or iPod Touch to study Japanese, but have used my DS. So, it was a good question, and one that encouraged me to seek out some of the top apps through a variety of source. These are the 10 that I have been able to find recommended or ranked well. Many of them are paid applications and they all tend to fall into either the dictionary or flashcard category, but most if not all have the ability to customize one's study.

These are not in any particular order:

1. Human Japanese (Lite/Free version also available)
2. Pocket Japanese (many variations, tied to the JapanesePod101.com website)
3. Kanji (from Lima Sky)  
4. Japanese (a dictionary tool from Code From Tokyo)
5. Kotoba  (FREE!)
6. Japanese Flip  
7. Japanese 101: Giongo Gitaigo  
8. Japanese Phrases and Lessons  
9. ShinKanji  
10. KanjiBox

Now to determine which ones are worth purchasing to try myself.

eLearning Questions

If these questions are being raised by teachers in the K-12 arena, why is it so hard to raise these questions at the university level?

Crabapples

Blushing crabapples
Your kimono slips away
In the evening rain

James Kim...

I was very saddened today to read of the discovery of James Kim's body in the Oregon wilderness. More than other tragic events in recent memory, I can't say why, but his passing is having a deep emotional affect on me.

Except as a CNET watcher on TIVO and as a fan of the former TechTV network I had no relationship with James. I was merely one of his audience members.

I first learned that he and his family were missing last week via a story on Digg. I then followed the story daily, fearing the worst. I was greatly relieved when his family was found, and then was immediately disheartened to learn that James had finally struck out on his own for help. Like so many other people, I continued checking on the story via CNET hoping for the best, but somewhere deep down knowing that the odds were against him.

As the story of the first nine days came out, James and his family earned even more of my respect. James and Kati truly did everything they could to help the family survive. As a father myself, I don't know if I could have lasted as long before heading out.

The past several days, all I could think about were James' solitary thoughts as he headed out into the elements. He had no way of knowing that his family would be found before him. And so I play out the words that would surely be on my mind, "I must persevere for them. I must try. Please grant me the strength." And, ultimately in despair, "I am so sorry. Know that I love you."

That is the profound sadness that I feel.

His friends and family have my deepest sympathies. I'm sure that he will be missed.

CNET now has a memorial page.

Podcasting 2: I'm such a TWiT

So, even now my drive commute is fairly short, about 20-25 minutes. That doesn't give me too much time to listen to my Audible books, but I was usually able to get through a book a month. Now that I've become a fan of podcasts, my book subscriptions never get listened to.

What started it all? Leo Laporte's TWiT network of "netcasts" and Patrick Norton's DL.TV I was preparing for our annual sojourn back to Japan and decided to load up my Shuffle with some podcasts. I had been hearing so much about them but just had not made the time to listen. I had been a fan of Leo and the whole gang on TechTV, before G4 took over and killed most of the good stuff and, thanks to iTunes, I knew that their shows were available for subscription. So, in addition to my Audible book and a couple of CDs worth of music, I threw a couple of hours worth of podcasts onto my iPod.

On the flight over I listened to my book but finished it (it was a 12 hour flight afterall). Then on the train from Hiroshima to the ferry port to Miyajima I bypassed the music and tuned in to DL.TV (the audio version) and was hooked. I knew I was just listening, but it was very comfortable, like tuning in to the old TechTV. I listened to Leo's KFI The Tech Guy show, FLOSS Weekly, the Daily GizWiz (what a hoot! Go Dick!), This Week in Tech, and Security Now. And then I was bummed when I ran out. Thankfully the hotel had a connection and I could download more, which I did. That got me through the next week when I was without connectivity. Then, the day before heading back to the states I found a hotspot and downloaded enough for the flight back

I've been an avid listener ever since. I branched out to include almost all of the TWiT shows and the MacCast for my commutes. I also download a couple of video podcasts for on-screen consumption-Geek Brief, DL.TV, Ask A Ninja and PixelPerfect on Revision3.

And, it's because of Leo that I'm writing here on Vox. I'm such a TWiT.

Podcasting 1: Death of Audible

I've been a long-time fan of audible books. Well, for me long-time goes back about eight years. That's when I started borrowing books on tape from the school library and listening to them on my 15 minute commute to and from work. It takes a long time to get through an unabridged book with only 25-30 minutes per day, but I really enjoyed it. I've "read" more books this way than I've been able to get through with bedtime reading, not including all the books I read to my son up until he started 6th grade.

Nevertheless, when I moved back to the states one of the first things I did was sign up for an Audible.com subscription. It seemed like a great way to get an mp3 player as well as pick up at least a book a month. Things went well for three years and my Audible Otis continued to serve its purpose through several Audible updates (there was one update along the way that was problematic). Last year Audible wanted to forcibly change its subscription options, so I finally bowed to pressure in order to pick up a free iPod Shuffle and switched to their new terms. Now, I can't wait for my 1 year commitment to end.

The problem is not with Audible. The problem is that I finally discovered podcasting, and my books-on-tape "reading" has taken a nosedive.

Singing again

A couple of weeks ago I started singing again. Don't get me wrong, I'm always singing, but it is more of the "singing in the car" or "singing in the shower" variety. But, more recently I have started to sing with a small chorus under the direction of someone who teaches music. And, I'm having a blast with it. Coming up in December will be the annual Gakugeikai for the Amherst Japan Language School. This is the event at which the students present/perform something they've been practicing in class. Usually this is a reading from the text or maybe a script the students have prepared. There has even been a kanji quiz with the audience a couple of years ago. At this event also a group of parents will also perform. In the past we have avoided participating merely because we did not have the time to practice. This year, almost by accident, we agreed to participate. So, three Saturdays ago we headed out to the Morimoto family home for an informal farewell to the Shinya family. After eating and talking for a while, a number of us gathered around the piano to begin singing. The song is an acapella version of Sakura by Naotaro Moriyama. Things went very well and last week we met after Saturday school for another practice. The number of participants increased and the harmony is starting to come together. And, I'm having fun.

How do you reach your maximum?

J. Angelo Racoma at Forever Geek pointed me in the direction of another blog at Restiffbard, and both deal with the simple difference in how Windows and Mac differ on a feature as simple as maximizing a window and how users operate given this behavior of the OS.

For those who may only have experience with one platform or the other, clicking the maximize button in the top right of a Windows window (next to the "x" close button) will make the active window fill the screen, completely obscuring everthing but the task bar. On a Macintosh, clicking the green maximize button in the top left of a window will zoom the window to maximally contain the contents of the window.

I work on both platforms throughout the day, and although I've adapted to each, both behaviors please and aggravate me depending on the circumstance, though as a longer term Mac user, I am more accustomed to that platform's approach. For me, in general, the primary reason I need to maximize any window is to see as much of the contents as will fit on the screen. Web-page too wide to fit the window? Maximize it. Document text slipping past the viewable margins? Maximize it. Zoomed photo not fitting? Maximize it. Scrolling through icons in a folder? Maximize it. And so on.

Back when monitors were only 800 x 600, this behavior on either platform worked about the same. Now that we are at 1280 x 1024 standard and higher, the Windows version of this tends to annoy me more. The problem? I don't need 4 inches of gray gutter around my documents in Word. I just want my document to fit the necessary space. The same with web pages, PDFs, and Windows Explorer. I do tend to multitask, with a number of windows in different applications open simultaneously and I am often comparing, copying, or referring to the contents of all of them, so I will often resize and position windows to accomodate this mode of working. At least once a day while on my PC I will accidentally hit the maximize button (or double-click the title bar) and BOOM, all windows save one are blocked. I know that clicking again will restore it, but I do find it frustrating, especially when the zoomed window invariably shows nothing but vast areas of white space.

So, when do I like the full-screen effect? When I am absolutely, positively working with a single application on a project requiring concentration. When I am reading a PDF on screen. And, when I am watching a DVD. In short, when I am uni-tasking. Except for the last one, that's when the Mac maximize fails me, and it is click-and-drag-to-resize time.

What about you?

Cheers,
Kajiai