I won't repeat the lengthy story of the site and the ups and downs but needless to say a few years ago in 2019 I began production of the new Jappleng that would support HD, 2K, 4k and mobile devices all-in-one but this took a lot longer than anticipated. I expected a few months but it became a few years. I built everything from scratch except I used jquery which is a Javsacript library to make things easier but I regret using it. I should have just used pure javascript or even better, used a system that was already made.

Building websites is not easy. The dashboard with the new chat for example (when you click on your avatar at the top right) took a little over a month just for that one feature and this is working on it almost every day except weekends. Unfortunately that feature isn't complete and it doesn't even work 100% on across all platforms because it's really difficult. 1 + 1 doesn't always equal 2 with web browsers. Microsoft Edge doesn't render the same as Firefox which doesn't render the same as Chrome which doesn't render the same as Safari. Mobile browsers are really limited as well, especially on Apple devices because they don't allow those features to work so developers are forced to release apps on their devices which costs a lot of money.

Life also takes an unexpected turn. I had cancer, I lived overseas for a while, I had to do a lot of property work and currently just finished preparing my mini-farm in preparation for the coming food shortages for next year. That alone was march all the way through June! Yikes! I also have other projects, one which is far, far bigger than Jappleng. I vowed not to build something as big as Jappleng on my own but here we are... I even half-way built a mobile game but stopped because I had an opportunity to work somewhere that paid well but the person that offered me the job didn't get the management promotion and as a result couldn't hire men directly so I had spent months last year just preparing for that which lead to nothing.

So what's the status on Jappleng?

I'm learning mobile development using a programming language called DART. I started with JAVA, then Kotlin and I came across DART which is perfect for Jappleng. It uses a framework that Google built so it'll be easy to build the mobile app. At the same time I'll be working on the website AND I'll also be working on my other project which as I said before, is bigger than Jappleng.

Why so many projects?

Jappleng mobile is necessary for Jappleng's success. About 70% of the visitors now are from mobile devices, compared to 3 years ago which was about 10% - 20%. The demand has changed. Jappleng isn't well ranked like it used to be on search engines so I'm hoping mobile support will help boost its popularity and also make it a more enjoyable site to use. It shouldn't take too much time to build mobile support since the framework is already built (by Google) and the functionality of Jappleng is almost fully complete anyway.

My other project is a business, unlike Jappleng which is a passion project, the other project is what will put food on the table. It's the perfect time to release it just like how Jappleng released at the perfect time in 2006 (but I didn't have the capital to hire staff). That project is my priority right now but I'll also mix in Jappleng stuff as I can.

When will everything be completed?

I want a beta of my other project to be ready by September. I also want the Jappleng mobile app to be "getting there" by then too. I don't know just how quick I can make the Jappleng app but I do want to put more time throughout the week and weekends for these projects. I've been taking too much time off as well, although that's my wife convincing me, I want to really put a lot more effort into everything. I want things done ASAP. I want to fulfill my promise to everyone in completing project Jappleng. There's still over 140 items left to do to Jappleng (web). If I can push for an average of 1 item completion per hour, that's only 140 hours! But if it takes 3 hours on average then ugh-- I hope not! lol

Anyway, I wanted to share this info in case you guys weren't following my J-Spot posts. I do have a lot planned for this project and while I have no interest in living in Japan anymore as I have already settled down, it can still be a respectful hobby of interest for others to enjoy.