Last Updated:  March 23rd, 2026 at 4:52:49 PM GMT+9 Today is:  Sunday, April 5, 2026

Bilingual IT consultant in Japan since 1987. Based in Yokohama, working in Tokyo.

I came to Japan in 1987 as a research student at the University of Tokyo. Programming turned out to be far more interesting than animal experiments, so I pivoted to tech.

My first job (around 1989) was at a telephone card ("teleca") design company, where I built and ran the office network. This was right when "DOS/V" machines were taking off in Japan after IBM released the PS/2 with its kanji processing chip. A PS/2 cost around ¥2M; a DOS/V clone was maybe ¥250K. That's where my technical career started.

From there I moved to a network support company doing helpdesk, user support, and network engineering. In 1993 I co-founded a PC training company, serving as CIO and building the technology operations side from scratch.

In the summer of 1999 I founded eSolia Inc., my current firm. We've been providing bilingual IT outsourcing and infrastructure services to international companies in Tokyo for over 26 years, and are working on ISO 27001 implementation.

Building web applications in TypeScript with SvelteKit + Cloudflare Workers. Full-stack on D1 (SQLite), R2, and KV.

Projects:

• cogley.jp — Articles on tech, business, and Japan (SvelteKit + Cloudflare Workers)
• svelte.cogley.jp — Interactive migration reference: React/Vue/Angular to Svelte 5 (bilingual EN/JA)
• rick.cogley.jp — Profile site
• pulse.esolia.co.jp — Security & compliance management. Tracks compliance against ISO 27001, CIS Controls, and other frameworks (SvelteKit + Cloudflare Workers)
• periodic.esolia.co.jp — DNS & email security monitoring. Drift detection for DMARC/SPF/DKIM and domain security (SvelteKit + Cloudflare Workers)
• courier.esolia.co.jp — Secure file sharing with PIN protection and auto-expiry for sensitive communications (SvelteKit + Cloudflare Workers)

"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences... That solves a lot of problems. Art is something that happens, a process, not a quality, and all sorts of things can make it happen ...what makes a work of art 'good' for you is not something that is already 'inside' it, but something that happens inside you." — Brian Eno

Working on: Centralized types in core package, scripts and rules in .github repo

Packed schedule, minimal interruptions

688 commits  |  120 this week  |  🔥 29-day streak

Languages: TypeScript (11) · Svelte (2) · HTML (2) · CSS (2) · Vento (1) Active repos (12): RickCogley/pub-cogley eSolia/esolia-2025 eSolia/codex eSolia/periodic eSolia/courier and 7 more

Themes: japan tech

Activity: 1 posts, 2 articles this week

📖 User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play by Cliff Kuang, Robert Fabricant

• 💬 Heading to Sendai tomorrow for an onsen soak with A.... _japan
• 📝 エンジニアリング・バックプレッシャー：AIが生成するコードの品質を10のSvelteKitリポジトリで守る _tech
• 📝 Engineering Backpressure for AI-Generated Code _tech
• 📝 AIに頼る前にまず自分の手でコードを書け：新卒エンジニアへ _tech
• 📝 Learn to Code the Hard Way First _tech

graph LR
    subgraph "Content Creation"
        A[Markdown Files] --> B[pub-cogley CMS]
        C[Quick Posts] --> B
    end
    subgraph "pub-cogley Platform"
        B --> D[(D1 Database)]
        D --> E[REST API]
        E --> F[api.cogley.jp]
    end
    subgraph "Distribution"
        F --> G[cogley.jp Website]
        F --> H[GitHub Profile README]
        F --> I[Syndication]
    end
    subgraph "Syndication Targets"
        I --> J[Bluesky]
        I --> K[Mastodon]
        I --> L[Nostr]
    end
    style B fill:#f9f,stroke:#333
    style F fill:#bbf,stroke:#333

flowchart TD
    A[New Post Created] --> B{Post Type?}
    B -->|Micro| C[Short-form Content]
    B -->|Article| D[Long-form Content]
    B -->|Podcast| E[Audio Content]
    C --> F[pub-cogley API]
    D --> F
    E --> F
    F --> G[cogley.jp]
    F --> H[Syndicate to Bluesky]
    F --> I[Syndicate to Mastodon]
    F --> J[Syndicate to Nostr]
    F --> K[GitHub README via Lume]
    style F fill:#bbf,stroke:#333
    style G fill:#bfb,stroke:#333

I'm generating this readme using the Lume static site generator, pulling data from my pub-cogley API. See this page for details to get your own!