"Mashup Awards 7 (#MA7)", which is well-known Japan's No.1 Web Hack Contest, held the award ceremony on December 12 in Japan. 

And an exciting thing happened to me. SpeedMemo which I develop won an award! The details of the app and award is below.

SpeedMemo

http://www.speedmemo.net

• It won "Catch.com Award".
• Here is the introduction web page at the official MA7.

I'm very sorry about that I couldn't attend the ceremony in Japan, but I'm glad to join the great festival. The motivation I got must inspire me to move on.

If you have your iPhone, please try it! Thanks.

SpeedMemo 3.0 has been approved on Apple App Store! We just released it! Check it out!!!

 

Download this application on App Store now!

 

Here is the exciting thing at the end of this year. I got new MacBook Air (Late 2010). I wondered which option I should select, 11/13 inches, CPU, RAM, storage and so on. Finally I selected full-spec model that has 13.3 inch display, 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB Memory, 256GB flash storage and US keyboard. It took over 9 hours to transfer all documents and settings from MacBook black to new one. As you know, MacBook Air doesn't have FireWire port, so I used WiFi to transfer data. New MacBook Air is not so powerful but has much faster flash storage. All applications launch very fast and restarting system is also fast. It's comfortable and wonderful machine.

I'm pleased at getting NEX-5 finally. The reason why I got it in addition to DSLR-A900 is very clear. First, NEX-5 is extremely small and light as DSLR. And the flange focus is 18mm and it supports new E-Mount lenses. It's very important for many people who take pictures outside to get high mobility. When I bring A900 somewhere, I should think about camera bags and other baggage although I can take greater photos. Second, NEX-5 supports not only E-Mount lenses but also A-Mount lenses that I already have. The combination of small camera and great Carl Zeiss lens is perfect. It also looks wonderful. If you have some A-Mount lenses, you had better try it. Finally, I used to take photos with a digital still camera but I don't any more because iPhone replaces its position. I've never been satisfied with the quality of digital still camera. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. I think using NEX-5 with customer-changeable lenses must help me get better pictures as A900 does.

My three iPhone Apps have been updated. They are waiting for a review now. The biggest point of this update is supporting iOS 4 multitasking. You'll see them soon. If your application doesn't care for launching and terminating of it, you just compile and build it on newest SDK and it can support iOS 4. If your application needs to care for the lifecycle, you should add some source code for entering foreground and background. Especially you should pay attention to save some user data. Moreover you can add higher resolution icons, then your application supports Retina Display of iPhone 4. It must look more beautiful. If you're unwilling to support iOS 4, it's important for lots of users to optimize your applications for iOS 4, the current OS. Enjoy your development!

I've never written my blog for 3 months. What did I do? I was thinking about lots of things; iPhone apps, Android apps and web-based apps. I understand that it's very important for me to develop web-based apps that are open open sources. Of course developing iPhone apps such as SpeedMemo and Translator is also important in aspects of studying the architecture and making money. Developing web-based apps is challenging and exciting. I'm going to write my blog, that is "lab.kazuyayokoyama.com" in Japanese only, about what I'm doing and how I'm developing it. I'll show it to you soon. By the way my iPhone apps, SpeedMemo and Translator, will be updated for iOS 4 soon.

My second iPhone App "SpeedMemo" has been released on App Store. You're able to download this app here. Have you ever forgotten important ideas or to-do list? “SpeedMemo” is application specialized in taking the memo fast. You can take memo as soon as it starts up. After you save memo, you can e-mail memo, tweet it to Twitter and save it on Evernote. It supports the latest technology of Evernote. You know, Evernote launched "Emailing Into Evernote Just Got Better « Evernote Blogcast". It' very easy to save everything on Evernote. Please try this new app and review it if you like.

My first iPhone App "Translator - in your hands" and "Translator Lite - in your hands" have been released on App Store. They are very simple applications. You're able to translate lots of languages from your native language with these apps. "Translator Lite" is free, and helps you to translate quickly. It supports Google Translation Service and Microsoft(Bing) Translation Service, and you can select them as you wish. If you are foreign language learner, it must help you. Please try it. "Translator" is paid application. It has bookmark, Twitter and mail supports. You can bookmark the result of translation if you think the result is good. Twitter support makes you to tweet the result directly. It's very easy operation. If you have many chances to mail with foreigners, it must be great time saver for you. The back-end of these iPhone apps use Google App Engine with Python. Google App Engine is one of the best platform as a service in my opinion. It's easy to control the scalability of apps even though it's difficult to move apps on it into other platforms like LAMP. I need to learn it more.

A happy new year 2010!!! This blog began last year and I've posted some entries into it. It's not tough for me to write blog in English but it's really tough to think my opinion in English. When I write blog, I think what to write in Japanese at first and then write it in English with translating from Japanese to English in my brain so far. It takes longer time than blogging in Japanese. I'm going to change this situation. I'll complete 'just thinking in English and writing in English'. I'll write my blog a few entries a month this year. More entries I write in my blog, more experience I have. And I got a new communication tool, Twitter last year. I've tweeted over 2,500 tweets and gotton over 300 followers for a year. Thanks to my followers for supporting me. So my output tool in English is both Twitter and blog. I won't be afraid my mistakes and will publish my opinion aggressively this year.

I had a spare time today. So I went to theater and saw "A Christmas Carol: An IMAX 3D Experience" with my wife. Its story was so-so but its experience was wonderful. Guess what? We can see it as 3D movie at least in Japan. We were wearing 3D glasses through the 90-minute show. I've seen 3D animation movie before, blue and red glasses was needed. 3D experience already exists around us; movies, cameras and TVs. Many 3D movies and DVDs will be released according to releasing 3D-TV next year. I'm looking forward to how our life will be changed !

A Christmas Carol (2009) - IMDb