My 77 years birthday

　　

 

Memorial service for my mother & father

Good old days.

Tokyo area gets coldest day in 79 years

Today is my birthday. My age have reached somewhere around mid seventies.
TV news is announcing that today is the coldest day in the Tokyo metropolitan area (12.3℃), this time of the year, in 79 years.
That means the coldest birthday in my life, so far.

 

My grandson is getting a handmade RANDOSERU, preparing for the elementary school entry

A randoseru (ランドセル) is a firm-sided backpack made of stitched firm leather or leather-like synthetic material, most commonly used in Japan by elementary schoolchildren. Traditionally it is given to a child upon beginning his or her first year of school, whereupon the child uses the same bag until grade 6. The term is a borrowed word from the Dutch "ransel" meaning "backpack", a clue to its origins nearly 200 years ago as used in the Netherlands.

The use of the randoseru began in the Edo era. Along with a wave of western reforms in the Japanese military, the Netherlands-style rucksack called ransel (randoseru) was introduced as a new way for the foot soldiers to carry their baggage. The shape much resembled the randoseru bags used today.

In 1885, the Japanese government, through the elementary school Gakushūin, proposed the use of a backpack as the new ideal for Japanese elementary school students. And this bag became the common use for all other schools, shortly after that.

It's very common to present the randoseru by grandfather/mother to their grandchildren, at the time they enter the first grade of elementary school, here in Japan.
So, I did the same thing, as my father did the same thing to my son about 35 years ago.

 

Tokyo area gets first November dusting of snow in 54 years

Snow was observed in the Tokyo metropolitan area today. The agency said the snowfall, marked 40 days earlier than last year, is the first such dusting in November in 54 years. If the snow accumulates on the ground in downtown Tokyo, it would be the first time on record.
The picture was taken from my house of second floor, looking for nearby neighbor's house and part of my garden. Snowfall was about an inch deep around here.

 

Shichi-Go-San Celebration

　　

Four years ago, I posted my grand-daughter, 5 years old, Shichi-Go-San picture, but this time, grand-daughter becomes 7 and grand-son become 5 years old. So the another Shichi-Go-San comes around to celebrate.
By the way, Shichi-Go-San (七五三 seven-five-three) is a traditional festival day in Japan when parents celebrate the growth of their children and pray for their future and well-being when their daughters turn three or seven and their sons turn three or five． Originally, this event was held on November 15th. However, these days people often celebrate it on their convenient day in Autumn because it is not a national holiday.

Parents usually dress their daughters in kimono and their sons in hakama, which are formal Japanese skirtlike trousers. They then take them to a shrine to celebrate their growth and pray for their health. They also take family pictures as a keepsake.

Here's my grand-daughter seven years old, and grand-son five years old, the Shichi-Go-San picture. Photo is taken from Tamagawa Sengen Jinja site, viewing Musashi-kosugi town, where my son's family is living.

 

Slideshow "Microsoft Windows History"

 

Slideshow "A story of the young birds"

 

Microsoft Movie Maker to Slideshow Conversion Tool

The other day, I wrote my slideshow on this Monologue and I wrote I was developing Microsoft Windows Live Movie Maker to Slideshow Conversion Tool, -wlmp2html.exe. But, since then I've not touched this project for 5 years, and I almost forgot that project.
Recent maintenance activity of my Slideshow tool recalled my old memory, and again, I am trying to complete that project now.



As I wrote before, the main reason of a tool development is;

　　　　1. Microsoft Movie Maker is so easy to use for making Slideshow like Movie. (using only still photos, not videos)
　　　　2. It has full of features, such as pan/zoom, transition effects, text display effects, background music, etc...
　　　　3. If you only want to enjoy the built show on your local PC, you don't need to build into MP4 or Video encoded file.
　　　　4. But, you can enjoy only on your local PC. If you want to upload the Show on to Internet, you have to convert it to Video encoded format.
　　　　5. Movie Maker conversion to Video style is very easy, but the problem is the size of Video file.
　　　　6. Small project using reasonable amount of photos becomes near 100 MB size, and almost eating up my WEB site space.

So, my concludion is to have a single tool, which works for both local PC and Internet WEB.
Whar is the intention of using Movie Maker? It is so easy to build the show. I will use that easiness, but once the Movie Maker project is done, I will use that project file, which does not have any binaries, instead text only. Then my conversion tool wlmp2html.exe will convert to Slideshow.
Of course, my Slideshow works on local PC and on Internet WEB. There's no binary things. Only a small amount of text javascript code.

As you can see from the following screen snapshot, I am using HTA file for local application, and HTML for Internet application.
What is the difference? Basically, no difference. The HTML file can be run on both environment without any change. If you really want to change HTML to HTA, you can do that by changing the file extention from ".html" to ".hta", but the reason I am using 2 styles is that the local application does not change or add any current file directory structure on PC and uses as same as Movie Maker does. While the Internet application creates the image and music directories and gathers photos/music files into these directoies for WEB upload easiness.
Uploadability to the WEB site and maintenability of the WEB site is the key of HTML style.

I've almost completed development, and is now verifing program functions for any existence of bugs. Soon, I will post this tool on download section of my WEB.
The following figure is the screen shot of the tool. You can download the tool HERE.
　　

Note: ¥ (Yen) character seen on the screen shot is actualy '\' (back-slash) character in English language environment.

 

IE9, IE10, IE11, IE12 or SPARTAN? causing trouble with my slideshow on Web pages

The other day, I wrote my slideshow on this Monologue. I used quite a lot of slideshows on my various Web pages. Since then, I've not payed big effort on this project, but slideshow worked fine for quite a long time without trouble, with the assistance of compatible mode feature.

Time to time, Microsoft and other Web browser makers have revised their browsers and introdued new versions. The main impact facter of the change, in paticular with slideshow, is HTML5 introduction the Audio tag, Microsoft propriatary filters and transitions out of support, audio control panel size change and some internal change such as navigator.appName, and depreciation of the document.documentMode.


One trickky fact that was caused trouble, for example, was navigator.appName. Up to IE10 Version, Microsoft IE was always internaly reported as "Microsft Internet Explorer", but IE11 now reported as "Netscape". If ＜meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=n"＞ tag is specified in the HTML file, IE11 is now reported as "Microsft Internet Explorer". Because of this fact, my Javascript Library caused conflict and does't act as expected. The IE11 Edge mode is now almost a Google Chrome, but not exactly. I fixed Javascript Library, and now working fine for latest versions.


IE for Windows 10 Technical Preview (Build 9926) version has IE 11.0.9800, as far as user visible version pop-up screen. But, internaly user agent string is different than Windows 8.1 IE 11.0.9600, and the part of the string has Edge/12.0 on it. So, I bleive Microsoft is going to release as IE12 in mind.
But, I don't know comming Windows 10's RTMed version will be IE12 or SPARTAN yet. Another trouble? Who knows. I will act again on that time, just in case.

You can find one of my slideshows on my Web page, as an example working on IE11 Edge mode with HTML5 compliant and Windows 10 IE HERE, if you are on Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 Technical Preview (Build 9926).

Note: I found Windows 10 (Spartan) has a problem with Pan/Zoom/Scroll (horizontal/vertical move function only).
As this function works fine for other versions of IE and Chrome without problem, so, I can't figure out yet, at this time,
whether this is caused by bug or new functional change?

Update: Above incompatibility issue have been traced to the style property pixelTop/pixelLeft handling change. Google Chrome have changed sometime ago and Microsoft IE have changed from Win10 (TP2). My code have changed to adapt this change, and now handling with the style top/left properties.

For, those who are interested to make Slideshow, I compiled a guidance manual HERE for your reference.
I embedded following demo slideshow here. The show can be started by hitting the left-most Start/Stop button on the slideshow progress-bar.
If you need another demo, please check THIS. (Note: some of the scripts are Japanese.)

 

　　

 

Halloween

　　

Halloween is a yearly celebration observed in a number of Western countries on October 31. It is not a traditional festival in Japan, though, it's becoming very popular here and many people selebrates Halloween, same as the case of Christmas.

My son's family have recently moved from Asakusa to Kawasaki area, the city located in between Tokyo and Yokohama, where the Country's biggest Halloween Parade is famouse for. About 3,000 people with varaity of costumes joins the parade and more than 100,000 peoples gather to watch this event. Actual Halloween day is the last day of October, but here, the parade event will be held on last Saturday and Sunday of October. First day is for kids, and Second day is for adults.

Here's the picuture of my grand-daughter and grand-son, who joined the Kawasaki Halloween Parade 2013 for the first time.

 

Shichi-Go-San Celebration

　　

Shichi-Go-San (七五三 seven-five-three) is a traditional festival day in Japan when parents celebrate the growth of their children and pray for their future and well-being when their daughters turn three or seven and their sons turn three or five． Originally, this event was held on November 15th. However, these days people often celebrate it on their convenient day in Autumn because it is not a national holiday.

Parents usually dress their daughters in kimono and their sons in hakama, which are formal Japanese skirtlike trousers. They then take them to a shrine to celebrate their growth and pray for their health. They also take family pictures as a keepsake.

Here's my grand-daughter's photo, three years old, holding Chitose ame（千歳飴）in her hand. Photo is taken inside the shrine, Asakusa Jinja, after the celemony of norito by the shrine's priest. Chitose ame literally means "thousand year candy", and is usually given to children as a gift, which symbolizes the parent’s wish for their children’s health and longevity.

 

After a Quater Century, NCR is ...

　　

I visited Atlanta a couple of times. The most unforgetable event in my memory was that I received a Telegram message (there was no e-mail yet at that time) from my wife while I was in Atlanta for long term business trip, which was saying "our girl baby was just born this morning". That was Mar 1980.

This picture is the NCR Retail Division in Duluth, Goeogia. I worked there in 1990 and 1992, for developing MICR/OCR Reader/Sorter in Reader/Sorter Bussiness Unit (which actually belongs to Waterloo Division in Canada).
Later in 2009, NCR have moved the headquaters from Dayton, which have had well over Centennial history (125 yrs), to this Plant. My car is on Satellite Blvd. and the hill top place seen on side millar is the Gwinnett Place.

Atlanta Retail Division, at that time, was a new facility and the center of companies retail products production, but I never thought that NCR would move the headquaters from Dayton, Ohio to this Atlanta plant, Duluth, Georgia.
It have past almost a quater Century since I have engaged an MICR reader/sorter project in this location.

Pictures for this trip are HERE.

NCR have changed a lot those days. Purchase of Teradata corporation, aquisition by AT&T, spin-off from AT&T, Teradata separation, ...
These days were gone, but NCR is ...

 

Document editor for my personal use

These days, Personal Computer is almost a must standard tool, such as a pencil. Everybody need to have one on the desk, home or office. Even at the time of trip, regardless of personal or business, they'd like to carry one, mobile or notebook type.
For long time, I used to use Text Editor "note, or notepad" for writing down personal memo such as, todo list, programing hints, name and address, meeting memo, etc....
It is very light-weighted and very fast to launch, comapare to professional type word editor. Of course the nature of this simple text editor, features of word processing capability is limitted. This is OK. But, one incovenience of "notepad" is that lack of text color, image clip and links handling.

Becuase of these lacking features, I was difficult to decide long time, whether I should change to other editor such as Write, WordPad, Word, or some others. Each one has pros and cons. My decision was to make my own Editor, satisfies my requests. I don't need feature rich Microsoft Word like word processor.

Some of my required features are:

1. Text type editor. (Rich-Text, and not binary)
2. Default is Mono-space font. (Consolas)
3. Font, Color, Size, Bold/Underscore/Italic are selectable option.
4. Image and Link pasting, and Link activation.
5. Menu/Tool bar area is minimal (1 line) and Option is selectable in minimum click(s).
6. Supports pure text (.txt), Rich text (.rtf) and BOM (utf-8). note: Associate rtf extension to MyNote.exe for ease of operation.
7. Light-weight, fast launch.

I developed this editor quite time ago, and using it without any incovenience, though I had a plan to complete not-yet-implemented features, such as Print and Find. I posted 'MyNote', as is now, HERE.

　　

Sample screen-shot for MyNote

 

EmEditor Syntax file automated creation for PowerShell V2

I previously uploaded EmEditor, the Emurasoft's text editor, Syntax file for PowerShell. PowerShell V2 has been available for Microsoft Workstation/Server OSes for quite some time now. There's some change and addition to PowerShell V1. So, I updated. You can find it HERE.
If you have an interest about What’s New in PowerShell V2, Joel “Jaykul” Bennett's presentation is HERE.

One noticable uniqueness of the PowerShell language, is that the keyword such as, Cmdlets, Alias, Function, etc are user definable and extensible, not like the other languages. Because of this nature, static definition wil be discouraged. I made a small PowerShell script to extract necessary keywords from your current system, to create syntax file matches with your system. But, if you are not extending basic set of PowerShell, you can use uploaded V2 syntax file AS IS, of course. If you are an advanced user and adding some import modules, and like to reflect these additions, you may do so. I posted my script 'CreatePSesyV2.ps1' HERE for your convenience.

 

Slideshow built for my own purpose

Last couple of years, I have had happy times, because of my Son and Duaghter's weddings, birth of grand-children and ... For each son and duaghter's birthday, I planned to make a happy birthday slideshow which has recent happy evens and memories. First I tryed Microsoft Windows Live Movie Maker. It's not actualy using Movie, but a lot of pictures with pan and zoom, blend filter, transition filter, picture and text effects and embedded music. Making slideshow with this software is quite easy, and yet built show looks like professional work. And easily can output to .WMV format file. I love it.

There's always exists pros and cons. One of the most discouraging point was that produced product (.wmv file) is so BIG! My slideshow for my daughter became 70Mb with 640x480 resolution video. If I upload this file to my Internet provider's WEB site, only one this file eats up about 70% of my contracted space. I can't put two files for son and daughter!

I love the features of Microsoft Movie Maker, so I tryed some other slideshow products which have same kind of features as Microsoft, simple and powerfull. None of the trial satisfied my interest. As I was once a computer engineer, and develped quite complicated big project (it was long time ago, and old main-frame computer, though), I decided to make it by myself.

Some of the key features:

- HTML and Javascript program
- Javascript portion is re-usable library
- User just define the image data and image effects in small HTML
- Support music with progress control bar
- Support slideshow control bar
- Support music and show synchonization
- Support blend/transistion filters
- Support pan/zoom effect
- Support title/caption/comment/date text with effects
- Support YouTube
- Simple and small size, but powerfull

Most easy way to describe the product feature is to show the actual sample. Slideshows that I uploaded for my families to their Web site are, as a nature of internet, public. Any persons can see it, if they know the URL address. (but, some privacy concern is still exsists, though ...) Instead of giving that address, I give you a Sample HERE.
I have an interest of Flamenco and I used to play Flamenco guitar as a hobby. This sample that I made shows you Flamenco related pictures and music. Music is taken from YouTube, Jose Tanaka's Guitar lesson video. YouTube URL is HERE. Thanks to Jose.

Another sample, which does not use Youtube music, instead using MP3 audio file is HERE.

User HTML coding is less than 30 lines. Data size is just the sum of the pictures, plus 30+ lines html and Javascript library. Reducing great deal, compared to Microsoft Windows Live Movie Maker generated file. Here's the cording. This is a template. You can change or fill in the defaulted parameter values as you like it, and fill in the image FileName and it effects. That will complete your slideshow.

Html portion (user cording)

　　

Effect parameters

　　

If you want to use my javascript, it's free to do so, just include following one line in between <body> and </body> section,
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.geocities.jp/heizodani/download/slideshow.js"></script>
or if you want to modify the script, download this javascript and modify it as you like. But, I am still improving my slideshow script day to day, so if you use my script from my site directly, you can enjoy my improvement also.

PS: By the way, I am developing Microsoft Windows Live Movie Maker to HTML Conversion program "wlmp2html.exe" Once I complete this project, user can now develop his/her slideshow using Movie Maker and then convert to Html and can publish the show, without efforts.

 

Re: Floor Plan Designer -Lite Updated

On August 14, 2007, I posted 'Floor Planning Designer -Lite' (post was written in Japanese) made for my reletive managing small real estate company, and quite a few time have passed since then. At that time, latest version of OS was the Windows Vista, but now, as most of you may start using Windows 7 already.

'Floor Planning Builder -Lite' is using Microsoft Paint as a core base. What happen to the Windows 7 version of the Microsoft Paint? As all of you may know, the UI is quite changed compared with Windows Vista version, and adapting so called 'Ribbon Interface'. Does this change impact to the current program? Well, not much, but small modification is to be applied to the program.

As though the Ribbon Interface changed the user interface very much, but still most of the menu functions are remain same, as far as short-cut ky concerned. If the short-cut key remains same, there is no impact to the program coding. My close verification of the short-cut key revealed that there is a change in key assignment in Windows 7 Paint, compared to Vista and XP. That are (Ctrl+PgUp) and (Ctrl+PgDn), the image view % size cahnge function. Win7's assingment is somehow reversed. I just don't know whether this is because of the coding bug or Microsoft have intentionaly changed this. Anyway, because of this fact, my old program is not 100% compatible with Win7 Paint.

In detail, as a fact, this function has some other slight difference in between three Xp, Vista and Win7 OSes. Xp has only two modes, standard or enlarged. But, Vista has more modes and 1 hit makes 200%, and another hit makes 400% enlarged view. And Win7 adopts 200% -> 300% -> 400% -> ... the +100% incremental method.

XP Paint	Vista Paint
Win7 Paint

Based upon this, I made a small modification to the current coding with VS2010, and now can handle OS differences. And posted on downloads section. Those who are interested, take it.

 

Now these days are gone - My first computer engagement

This week of the year is called Bon here. A Buddhist festival for honoring the spirits of ancestors. My case is not ancesters, but the memory of my old gone days. I just happen to find the picture of my first computer I engaged, while surfing on Internet. That is THIS. (Thanks to Cumputer Museum site.)

　　

In 1957, General Electric and NCR jointly developed first transistorized solid state business computer NCR 304. As shown on the Museum site's description, this computer have been installed in Government, Military institutions, Mega-banks and major institutions. Two systems have delivered here in Japan, one to country's leading bank, The Sumitomo Bank, and the other to leading steel manufacturering company, Fuji Iron & Steel (later this company became The Nippon Steel Corporation by the merger of two giants, Yawata and Fuji). My first computer career was to maintain this system at Fuji Iron & Steel company, as a customer engineer.

System shown on picuture seems to be small. The big box seen on the front row looks like a mainframe cabinet, but, that's not true. That is the magnetic tape handler's controller. Mainframe cabinet is not seen on this picture, and much much more bigger than that box. As the magnetic tape handler was the typical external memory device, no disk yet, and generally system had more units than the picture. Speed of the sorting data depends on the number of magnetic tape device. That's why system had so many MT divices. There's no CRT console, of course. Flexo-Writer, shown on the side of console was the system console in/out device.

Latest PC, or even larger server, has only one board or two. But, this computer have had hundreds PIBs (Plug-In-Board), or more than that, I've never counted. And I mastered the function and meaning of every logic on schematics, even to the level of gate. By the way, schematics were blue print copy, and the size was large as tatami-mat. And was folded many ways to make it small. At the time of the trouble-shooting, I used to unfold the blue print from the big piles of schematics, in a second, a professional way....

Macro Assembler (not Machine level Assembler) was used for programing. But, my programing style at that time, was to use Machine Instructions directly, for making small program. I used to memorize all Machine Instructions, and entered directly into memory using Flexo-Writer. Debugging? Of course, I read code directly from Memory Dump....

I am now just murmuring with a small voice, with sigh, "these days were gone".

Here's my old day's pictures at the Fuji Iron & Steel company.

　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　My old day's picture 1 (back)
　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　My old day's picture 2 (left)

 

簡単「間取図・設計図作成ソフト」の試作

当方の近い知り合いで不動産業をやっている人がいる。　どこにでも有るような、町のアパート・マンションの賃貸を扱っている不動産屋である。 若い時には大会社の社員で不動産関連の仕事に従事していましたが、定年近くに独立し自分で不動産屋を始めたのである。 社員と言ったらも家内と二人だけだ。どう言う分けだか家内の方が社長だが。 今までと違って一から十まで全て自分でマネージしてやらねばなず、結構大変のようです。

WEBページで物件の案内、物件紹介雑誌での広告、店頭での物件案内掲示、契約書の作成‥等全てPCを使うケースが多々 あり、PCの能力如何によって生産性に大いに差が出るようだ。しかし、コンピュータのことは全く無知で、当方が知り合いの誼で よく相談を受け、色々面倒を見てやっている。

例えば、物件案内をWEBで公開するにしても、物件紹介雑誌での広告を出すにしても、物件の間取り図を載せなければならないが、 これが意外と面倒のようである。勿論、巷には高機能のグラフィックスソフトや設計ソフトが多数存在し、 機能が満載されたものもあるが、必要以上のものがかえって手軽に、手早く作りたい要望を満たしていません。 金も出したくない、難しいものは使い切れない、なにか良いものな～い？　などと相談を受け、マカシトケーと一役かって出る ハメになった。昔取った杵柄だ、プログラム開発など御茶の子さいさい。

要望に応えるべく当方の考えた「間取図作成ソフトー間取Lite」とは、Windows　O/Sで標準で添付されているペイント ソフトを使用して、作成します。ただし、ペイントソフトはツールとして利用可能な作図機能はごく基本的な直線、 四角ボックス、円などに限られ、一般の方々がこれらの基本機能のみから、手早く設計、間取図作成などは無理です。 間取Liteは設計に必要な作図機能をペイントに追加提供して、ペイントの手軽さで設計図の基本パーツ、すなはち、 洋室、和室、台所、バス、洗面をはじめバスタブ、便器、コンロ、ドアなど166種類の設計部品の提供、マウスで選択、 移動、配置するだけで設計出来るようにしている、ペイントの補完ツールです。

何はともあれ、次のScreenshotを見て頂ければ、一目瞭然、なるほどと理解できると思います。細かい説明は不要かと存じます。 要は、右ペインで選択クリックした部品が左ペインに送られ、マウスで必要位置に配置するだけで完成出来るのです。 高価な何とかソフトなぞ不要です。「間取図作成ソフトー間取Lite」を ここに置きましたので興味のある方はどうぞ。

　　

配布形態として、Installer付きPackage版と、Installer無しのものがありますが、Installer無しのものは、 プログラムとHelpファイルとの2個構成（Help不必要なら、ExeのみでもOK）で、適当なDirectoryにコピーで使用可能、 Registory等も使用しないので、アンインストールは、ファイルの消去だけです。

先物好きなためか、VS2008(Orcas)/NetFramework3.5にて作っているので、Package版はNet3.5が無いとMicrosoftから自動Downloadに なりますから、注意して下さい。但し、Net3.5独自の機能は使用してないので、Installer無しのものはNet2.0/3.0が入っていれば動くと思います。

 

EmEditor Syntax file automated creation for PowerShell

I've been using EmEditor, the intuitive Emurasoft's text editor, for long time. From the time my main programming language was C/C++.

Of course, I am talking about PC era. To tell the truth, I was started computer 'several decades' ago. At that time, there was no PC yet. And programing was normaly written on papers (coding sheet). As though the host computer was huge machine, there was no terminals such as CRT. Even, time sharing system had not invented yet. We have to key-punch the program coding by card punch machine. There was no text Editor! Believe me. A man who lived in stone age is still alive, and learning utmost object-orientated Shell. What a great story!

Thanks to the modern text editor technology, keyword hilighting based upon syntax grammer is availabe for most of the latest text editors. As you may know, EmEditor supports this feature. Additional convenience in this editor is that the user can define the new languages syntax file by herself. So, I did it.

The PowerShell will be the next generation script language, and will getting population sooner or later. But, so far, no one seems to be develping EmEditor's PowerShell Syntax file yet. Please find HERE my PowerShell.esy file I posted. And HERE is the sample screenshot.

One uniqueness of the PowerShell language, is that the keyword such as, Cmdlets, Alias, Function, etc are user definable and extensible, not like the other languages. Because of this nature, static definition wil be discouraged. So, I did it. I made a small PowerShell script to extract necessary keywords from your current system, to create syntax file matches with your system. I posted my script 'CreatePSesy.ps1' HERE.

Script is simple and straightforward. As you may noticed, the static definition of the keyword portion is minimal.

Portion of the script is as follows.