スノーフレイク株式会社・snowflake

TYPO3 activities in Japan: July - September (Q3/2011)

It was a long, hot and humid summer this year. During the summer months, the participation at exhibition and conferences were limited. Yet, we all enjoyed summer, including BBQs and cold beer!

Still, we inspired more people to get to know TYPO3 in Japan and were participating in the 2nd biggest open source conference in this country - the Kansai OSC, this time in held in Kyoto.

Open Source Conference Kansai/Kyoto - 15 & 16 July 2011
TYPO3 was present with a small booth. And TUGJ community member Hidefumi Okumura demonstrated the newest version of TYPO3 4.5 LTS with long time support to the audience.

TYPO3 Association in contact with Japan

The TYPO3 Association (T3A) has been publishing regularly activity reports, including updates of the international activities of communities worldwide... namely in Germany, France, Italy, USA, Canada, Romania, Cambodia and Japan. In 2011, these T3A activity reports received a focus of activities only at the association. But the community gets a new and more frequently updated (most probably monthly) news container for publishing and announcing their updates.

I think, it's a good move to bring more attention to the community, the many worldwide activities and also its members.

I've been asked by Ben - TYPO3 Community Manager at T3A - about activities held in Japan. While writing the activity report, I was very happy to see that the TYPO3 Users Group Japan (TUGJ) - and we at snowflake as a part of that - have had a good and active first half-year 2011.

Here an overview of TYPO3 activities in Japan 2011:

Donate.

After being shocked and horrified, then in safety but yet worried about the situation in nuclear plants in Fukushima, I felt today for the first time that daily life seems to come back.

I went to a local supermarket and was surprised how many fresh vegetables, fish, eggs, milk was available. It was not there on Monday. Still… many food items are not in the shelves such as natto, cup noodles, some pickles and bread. Also the gazoline stand was first open, but after about an hour I came back from the supermarket closed again: sold out. The supply chain is not yet fully recovered.

Also during the time I was in the basement of the supermarket, sign boards started to shake. There was another aftershock of magnitude 6.0, epicenter just off the coast of Chiba - the prefecture were I am located. The number of earthquakes since Friday is countless.

But what amazes me most is how Japanese people stayed calm and did not panic over the last dramatic days. I have great respect of their strength and ongoing support! 頑張れ日本 - Ganbare Nihon! Therefore, I would like to help and assist to rebuild what has been hardly damaged.

Many friends and partners have been contacted me in the last days, some I had no contact for many years. Thank you very very much for your ongoing thoughts and support!

Now it is the time to help. And I encourage all to do the same.

Help Japan earthquake and tsunami victims by making a monetary donation.

Thank you very much!

An update from snowflake

Dear customers, business partners, friends and blog readers,

We strongly hope that you and your family are safe. Still, the disaster - specially in Fukushima - seems to continue. We would like to give you an update from snowflake.

Office
The snowflake Japan office is located in 21 floor of WBG east (World Business Garden) in Makuhari, Chiba. We were visiting there yesterday to plug out all electrical devices as requested to all tenants by Mitsui Fudosan Building Management due to planned power blackouts and to conserve energy. There was no damage at the office itself, whereas the area around Kahin-Makuhari station has many cracks and ground levels are shifted. Because it is reclaimed land, there was water and slick pushing up. Due to the problems in Fukushima, we will not be in the office today.

Hosting, Server
Web and email servers are NOT located in our office. The servers are placed in a secure and safe data center with emergency power outlets in the Chugoku region. Being located around 600km south-west of Tokyo, the operation continues smoothly. Also we are continuously making daily backups to our server farm located in Zurich, Switzerland. Please be assured, that your website and email server will be up and running also during possible power blackouts in the Kanto region.

Contact by Phone, Fax
Due to plugging out all electrical devices at our office, forwarding calls to our mobile phone might not work properly. The safest way to contact snowflake is by email. Also we use Twitter and try to keep everyone informed.

Help and assistance
Please continue to use your website and e-mail to publish and send information. In case you need any assistance on content updates, please let us know. Also, if we can be of any other assistance and help, please contact us anytime.

This are difficult und uncertain times, please stay safe!