Hey everyone, thanks for sticking with me and being patient for so long!
Volume six of Seikoku no Ryuu Kishi is finally done. I’ll be uploading it to Baka-Tsuki along with Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha volume 7 chapter 2, and I will make a full-volume PDF a week after that.
This is supposedly Rebecca’s volume, and I feel like we’ve gotten some good character development out of it, especially when it comes to her more vulnerable side and her worries as a woman, rather than as the <Scarlet Empress> or Student Council President. Oscar’s identity was also a bit of a surprise for me, and now I’m curious to see how things will end up with her. I haven’t read ahead, despite having all of the volumes, but I get the faint feeling that she’ll be joining Ash’s list of admirers.
Only a few more hours left until the Hagure vs. Shinmai vs. neither poll closes, but it looks like the outcome is fairly clear. So there you go, thanks for voting. I’ll keep translating Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha, Hagure Yuusha no Aesthetica will be lined up behind it when I catch up to all current content. I think I’ll also make a start on the first chapter or so of Seikoku no Ryuu Kishi before I take a break. It’s almost the end of semester for me, which means exam time, so I’ll be taking a break throughout the end of October and most of November.
Some of you may also be wondering about High School DxD…I haven’t dropped it, and my tentative plan is to continue starting from Life.4, sometime in November most likely as that’s when I’ll be free.
I’m sure quite a few of you may have been waiting for that Shinmai Maou update I said would be coming on the 9th, even though that was already pushed back a bit. Well, yes, I’ve finished translating it, and am still in the process of editing it. I don’t plan on uploading it until I’ve reviewed everything at least once and am satisfied with the quality. It is decently long with ~20k words, so that’s one reasons why it’s taking me a while, but I suppose the other reason is that I was planning to spend my Sunday evening going through it, but a few things popped up to stand in my way.
This next part is just me ranting a bit…so feel free to ignore it.
Working with others in a team or group is sometimes great…you’ll get along, have fun, and be productive. Unfortunately, when no one in a team is enthusiastic and no one communicates effectively with each other, everything falls apart. And that’s basically what happened today. I’m doing two courses this semester which heavily rely on teamwork, and one of those happened to have part of an assignment due on Monday. Three people in the team decided to do the same thing, but in three different ways, and on their own.
The task: A technical diagram (~3 hours of work). Person 1: Drew up a draft on paper and sent a photo of it to the group early on, and then said they would finalise it later, but never did, and didn’t tell anyone until the day before. Person 2: Drew the diagram up digitally, based on Person 1’s work, and then said it was complete and just wanted someone to look over it, the night before. Person 3 (Me): Offered to finalise the draft digitally when Person 1 notified the group, and started to do so when no one gave any reply. Got halfway through before Person 2 shared their work. Discovered that Person 2’s work was more complete, but totally incorrect and only met one of the four marking criteria required. Scrambled to redo the entire diagram using their software instead. Person 4: MIA.
Now, I’m just going to let this slide as a one-off. My team has been otherwise reliable so far. It’s just that I wish someone could’ve said that they only planned to do a draft or only that they were missing parts so that others would’ve been informed of the urgency of completion.
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I’ll have the Shinmai chapter up in around 24 hours from now…I’ve checked over around 40% of it, so I’ll leave the rest for tomorrow. Also, regarding the translation of future Shinmai Maou content…I don’t think I’m going to continue with the project at this point. A while back, I found a few other translators willing to do the project together with me, but a few backed out after I told them about the status of the project and the ‘content’ it would involve, whilst a few also began to require more time for RL. Only one translator was willing to go forth with the project after a few weeks of planning, and at that point I just decided it wasn’t worth it. Now, given that both J2270A and I have now stated that we aren’t exactly interested in continuing, I suppose that means the project is likely to be abandoned and any future fan-translations are unlikely. While Nomi has done portions of volumes eight and nine, she has not expressed interest in doing anything but the parts which have been commissioned. This does leave a rather bad aftertaste with me for not being able to see this through to the end…and so I decided to leave it up to you.
High School DxD and Seikoku no Ryuu Kishi are my long-term projects. I plan to translate DxD content whenever it’s available, and Seikoku no Ryuu Kishi whenever I’m free.
On the other hand, I also plan to do another project concurrently to the aforementioned, or whenever I’m free. This is going to either be: Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha or Hagure Yuusha no Aesthetica. If the translation of either one ever catches up to the latest release, then I’ll switch back over to the other.
Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha or Hagure Yuusha no Aesthetica?
Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha (62%, 305 Votes)
Hagure Yuusha no Aesthetica (29%, 142 Votes)
Drop them both and focus on other translations (9%, 43 Votes)
Hey hey so I just got back home this morning. Had a long nap, then started unpacking and getting ready for the new uni semester which starts in the morning. I’ll be getting back to the comments I missed very soon and translations this week.
What can I say about Europe? I think I’ll break it down by country as that makes things easier.
UK/England: One of the most enjoyable places I went to, and I felt like I’d never really be bored. While on a Thames River cruise, I was told: “To be tired of London is to be tired of life”, and that really is quite true. There is simply so much history and heritage in the UK that makes it worthwhile. Of course, there are also many current things which make it rather fun. Highlight: Wimbledon 2016.
The Netherlands/Amsterdam: I was only there for a day but I felt it was a very clean and beautiful city. Everything is about green energy and there are hordes of bicycles everywhere. Zaans Schans was very nice to see, but probably filled with more tourists than I’d like. On the other hand, the city itself was more enjoyable as it seems to have so much liberty: people smoking marijuana on street, bongs for sale in convenience stores, and a rather inviting red light district. Highlight: The city itself.
Belgium/Brussels: I had about half a day here as it was just a stopover on my way from Amsterdam to Paris. I do apologise, but I found Brussels somewhat less interesting than other cities, perhaps due to time constraints. Highlight: Traditional cuisine.
France/Paris: Paris lived up to all of my expectations and a bit more. The first day I spent hitting out most of the top tourist attractions, and it was rather fun listening to French and just exploring the city. Days two and three were mostly spent in museums, as there are simply so many famous works and museums all over Paris. We also happened to be there while the Euro Cup was on, and that really made everything much more lively. I was on top of the Arc de Triomphe on the day of the finals and flags were fluttering about everywhere, horns were blaring, and people were fired up. It felt like French pride and patriotism at its best, which was accentuated even further by everyone’s depressing expressions the next day.
Italy: Well, there was just so much to see here. I visited Milan, Pisa, Florence, The Cinque Terre, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, The Amalfi Coast and Venice. Florence was quite a beautiful city and also where I had the best homemade pasta. I did an AirBnB stay at an apartment in Vernazza and it honestly felt amazing to be living like a local would in the Cinque Terre. Rome felt like another place all together because it felt “Roman” rather than “Italian”, and there was so much to see and do there. Naples was the least enjoyable place, probably because I had the wrong impression of it before I arrived. I thought it would be just another major city like Rome or Florence with tourists out and about, but I was wrong. It felt seedy, dangerous and dirty wherever I went and there were very few tourists around. Just a short train ride away and we were in the ruins of Pompeii, which was an incredible sight to behold, especially those body molds. Taking the train to the end of the line, we came to Sorrento, which was an pleasant place to stay and certainly quite nice. Of course, Positano and Amalfi were even better, and the Amalfi Coast really lived up to my expectations of how beautiful the coastline was. I went kayaking and swimming around there and the water was simply beautiful. My last stop in Italy was Venice, and I found it rather boring. Sure, the photos will look nice and I’ll have been there but the experience itself wasn’t that enjoyable as it was way too touristy. Highlight: Vernazza.
Spain: Madrid was a pleasant city, and a nice place to be in. The Spanish I learnt in Peru certainly paid off in communicating with some of the locals and the food was also great. Of the two cities I visited however, Barcelona was definitely much more enjoyable. Barcelona felt fun and lively at any time of the day and it was filled with interesting spots all of the city such as the Parc de Laberint, and Gaudi’s architectural works. Being able to speak Spanish was again quite helpful, although most signs were actually in Catalan. That’s also why I found it to be a peculiar city, as that is the only place (correct me if I’m wrong) where Catalan is used, yet it seems to be the dominant language there. Highlight: The Tapas.
So, that roughly sums up my trip. I had a great time, so thanks for being patient. I’ve probably visited the countries that some of you live in, so feel free to let me know about what you think.
So, it’s now my turn to be hit with exams and etcetera which means I’ll probably slow down immensely or stop with translations very soon, but the good news is that daniel Yang, our DX translator will soon be translating the short stories of DX2!
On another note, has anyone read “Another Story of Panatea”? I bought the first volume a while ago because it was on some super clearance sale for ~ $2 or less, and was wondering if there could be something wrong with it.
I’m making this guide for all those out there using WordPress.com sites who may want to move to their own hosted service. There’s also moving from one self-hosted site to another, which I recently did, but that’ll be covered in another guide.
So, to start off, you should have a wordpress.com site that you want to move. This is one which is hosted by wordpress.com and probably has a url such as “blog.wordpress.com”. For this guide, I’ll be using my old site: triplezerox.wordpress.com as an example. At this stage, nothing needs to be changed with it. We’ll first need to find a new hosting provider and (optional) your own domain name.
Hosting set-up and Domain Names
There are an abundance of hosting providers out there, each with different plans, etc. A standard WordPress blog does not need anything fancy, and the cheapest plan will usually do. Specifically, WP only needs PHP5, MySQL and a web server such as Apache – this will generally be included and configured by your web hosting provider. Spend a good amount of time researching which provider you want – read reviews about their service, support, compare pricing, etc. Once you decide on one, you are usually with them for at least a month, but pricing is usually better when you sign up for longer period such as one year. There are plenty of reliable US based hosts, such as Bluehost but there are many available outside the US as well such as UnitedHosting and AltusHost. The main features of a plan that you should keep in mind are disk space, bandwidth.
Disk space will limit how much content your site can store. Text usually does not take up much space, but if you intend to have many images or other content on your site, it can really add up and so I’d recommend at least 500MB.
Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred to and from your site each month. This will vary according to the number of visitors and the content you have. Each time someone visits your site, they are (probably) downloading all the text and images which show up on it and that could amount to a few hundred kilobytes or a few megabytes. As a rough indicator, my site has averaged about 150k hits per month since it started, and my average traffic has varied from 30-50GB per month.
I‘ll leave the choice of a host up to you, but would be happy to provide my opinion on a host that you have in mind. I’ll be using Bluehost’s basic shared hosting as an example. This particular plan includes a domain name (e.g. “zxzxzx.info”) as part of the plan. Some other plans may not. If one is not included, you will have two options: ‘buy’ your own domain name, or use a free one. Free domain names are usually in the form “myname.hoster.com”, and as such, are not “top-level’. One thing to note is that the prices shown when signing up are usually a sign-up only price that only lasts for a year, that is, the renewal cost will generally cost more. In the case of bluehost, I believe it was $7.95 per month afterwards.
Now, regardless of which hosting provider you went with, the next steps will likely be the same. It will take some time for ‘propogation’ and set-up after you sign-up and pay for hosting until your site is ready. This will generally take several hours, but can take up to 48 hours. If you bought your own domain name separately, you will need to point your nameservers to your hosting provider.
WordPress Setup
Once everything is setup, you should be able to visit your site’s url and see a sample page which indicates that it is ready. You’ll now need to login to your hosting account to set things up. You should look for a “dashboard” or “cpanel” where various features and applications can be accessed. From there, look for something like “one-click installer”, “softaculous” or “installatron”. These are tools which will help you install everything you need for a WordPress blog without getting into the technical details. In the case of bluehost, I simply had to click on “Install WordPress”. You will want to install it at the root directory e.g. http://blogname.com/ so that is is accessible from that url.
Fill in any extra options that there may be with your own details. There’s no need to enter the username as I have, it could be anything you like, Installation should take just a few minutes. Once installation is complete, you will either see a coming soon page or a blank new WordPress blog. You can then login to your new site by appending “/wp-login.php” to the end of the url.
Login to your new site with the credentials that you made during setup and you will be presented with the familiar WordPress Dashboard.
First things first, we want it to be clean, with only what we need. Visit the Posts section, and delete any of the sample “Hello World!” posts which are there. I would recommend permanently deleting them by emptying the trash as well. Proceed to do the same for Pages and Comments.
Head into Appearance > Themes and click to add a new theme. You’ll then want to search for, install and then activate the theme which is on your old site. The name of your old theme can be found in the footer and this step is purely to maintain compatibility.
Feel free to customise anything in the Settings area to your liking. One particular setting you may want to change is “Permalinks”. Next, go to Tools > Import, and select WordPress. You will likely be prompted to install the WordPress importer plugin, which you should do. After installation is complete, head into the Plugins section.
Akismet, Jetpack, and WordPress Importer are what I see as the basics to get started. You can always add more as you go. Anything else which was pre-installed can be deactivated and deleted. It would be a good idea to activate Akismet (set the slider to $0) and connect to WordPress.com with Jetpack now – you can use your existing WordPress.com account. Feel free to customise your Jetpack options.
Back up and Import your old WordPress.com site
Head back over to your old site at wordpress.com and go to the admin panel / dashboard. From the sidebar menu, go to Tools > Export > Start Export. Make sure that all content is selected and then click on “Download File”. That file will contain all your data up to that point, and any new comments or changes afterwards will not be included so it would be best to let your site readers know.
Once that is done, simply go to Tools > Import > WordPress and select that file to be imported.
You will want to ensure that the settings are as I have above. This will import the original authors exactly as they are, and retain them on all their posts and also download all the images which were on your site. Once done, head to the Users section to ensure that the roles and other details are correct.
Not everything will be perfect, but all the important things should be there. If you had any sidebar widgets, those will need to be redone, but that’s usually just a copy paste job. Any header and featured images will probably need to be set again. Menus should also be functional, although you may need to tweak them a bit.
Most things should now be complete, and you should stop using the old site so that only one of them remains up to date. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Also, I’ve realised that I may have used a lot of technical terms in this post, so just let me know if anything is unclear.
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