GoogleOS: What Not To Expect (or: Why Cars Don't Look Like Horse Carriages)
Posted on Thursday, 23 November, 2006
There has been quite some discussion going on over at my favourite blog Read/Write Web following Emre Sokullu's article GoogleOS: What to expect. I believe that, regardless of the much criticized misapprehension of the Ubuntu licence, Emre's post is quite representative of a line of thought that has lead to a lot of speculation among the web-savy for the last year or so. In this post, I would like briefly to summarize this line of thought and outline why I do not entirely agree with its basic premises. Disclaimer: This is going to be more of an essay than a short blog post.
Categories: Web Development and Programming
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Back to the top of this pageCucumis, a Social Translation Network – What Is It Worth?
Posted on Tuesday, 21 November, 2006
Today, Techcrunch featured Cucumis, a Paris-based free translation community. It is basically a platform for exchanging translations. To become a member, you have to know one or more foreign languages, and your translations will be rated by your peers. It is important to note that they do not sell translations, but merely act as a platform for exchanging services.
At first, I had mixed feelings. As a professional translator and a member of an association of professional translators, I should say something along the lines of how translators have an academic background for a reason and merely knowing a few languages does not make you a professional linguist. However, as a believer in all things Web 2.0, I cannot deny being intrigued by the idea. At the end of the day, it depends on the nature of your translation needs.
Categories: Language and Translation Localization and Internationalization
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Back to the top of this pageThe Huge CSV Internationalization Mess-up
Posted on Saturday, 18 November, 2006
So-called “localization professionals” like to point out how complex and difficult internationalization and localization is. I'll let you into a secret: it isn't. It's actually quite easy once you've got around a couple of basic concepts. There are only two mistakes that can make internationalization and localization a real burden: when you think too much about it and when you think too little about it.
Paradoxically, the comma-delimited file format csv, originally devised by Microsoft, is a typical example for both of these errors, at least in its variety as output by Microsoft Office and a lot of third party applications.
Categories: Localization and Internationalization
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Back to the top of this page“Am Ende des Tages” is an anglicism
Posted on Wednesday, 15 November, 2006
Time and again, I keep hearing the Austrian Minister of Finance say that “am Ende des Tages” the taxpayer will have to pay the bill for all those nice presents that all political parties like to announce these days. While I appreciate that he seems to be the only Austrian politician to acknowledge this fact, apparently he has fallen in love with a anglicism whose entry into the German language is quite recent, I believe, but that is about to become as wide-spread as the omnipresent “Das macht keinen Sinn” (instead of the idiomatically correct “Das hat/ergibt keinen Sinn” or “Das ist nicht sinnvoll”) or the annoying “Er hat einen guten Job gemacht” (instead of the correct “Er hat seine Sache gut gemacht”).
Categories: Language and Translation
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Back to the top of this pagechristianflury.com Relaunch
Posted on Tuesday, 14 November, 2006
As regular reader's may have noticed, I am almost done with the general overhaul of my old website. I have learnt loads of new things that I plan to blog about a bit in the future. In fact, my purpose was not “good design”, but a kind of design that would allow me to familiarize with a maximum of new concepts. The result is a CMS whose model is half database-backed (navigation) and half xml-based (main content), and a controller logic which is half object-oriented and half functional. However, I think, from the outside it looks acceptable by now, and so I have put the new site online.
Categories: Loose Talk Web Development and Programming
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Back to the top of this pageCrimson Editor, Unicode and Single-Malt Whisky
Posted on Wednesday, 8 November, 2006
When one has used a great, free text editor for years, it's probably about time to say thank you. Therefore, first of all, I'd like to thank the developpers of Crimson Editor, my favourite editor. It's free, slim, stable, offers a neat tabular interface, handy syntax highlighting, and a lot of other features, combined with great ease of use. I can only recommend it to anyone looking for a nice, user-friendly text editor.
I've just got two small suggestions and wonder if anyone shares my thoughts. Both concern Unicode support which was added just in time before I thought, working in the localization industry, I had to switch to another editor.
Categories: Localization and Internationalization Web Development and Programming
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Back to the top of this pageRepublican or Democrat? Neither!
Posted on Tuesday, 7 November, 2006
CNN keeps telling me I should be interested in the American mid-term elections because they “have an impact on the entire world”. I do not really care whether the Republicans or the Democrats get a majority. What the Republicans are doing right now under the pretext of security – stifling liberty and expanding government –, the Democrats would keep doing it under the pretext of welfare, equal opportunities or whatever other reasons they come up with.
In this post, I would like to elaborate on how the neo-cons alienated me from the Republicans, why the Democrats would not be any better, how American politics are becoming more and more “European” in a negative way, why it makes sense to vote for third-party candidates, and why Americans who value liberty and their constitutional heritage should vote Libertarian.
Categories: Free Thought, Free Markets
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Back to the top of this pageThe Nicaraguan Sign Language
Posted on Friday, 3 November, 2006
Today's article on the popular “Damn Interesting” blog – nomen est omen – by Marisa Brook is about a phenomenon that is of particular interest to linguists. Marisa writes about the spontaneous creation of a highly complex sign language by deaf, illiterate children without any appropriate training in Nicaragua. To learn more about this exciting story, you may want to read Marisa's article.
What I found most interesting was one particular aspect:
Categories: Language and Translation
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Back to the top of this pageHappy Birthday, Ehrensenf – Congrats, Ruud Elmendorp – Long Live Internet Video Journalism
Posted on Thursday, 2 November, 2006
What the heck is Ehrensenf, you are possibly going to ask. Since you're asking, it's more or less like the German equivalent to Rocketboom. If you don't know Rocketboom, check it out. If you speak German and don't know Ehrensenf, have a look. Right, I am writing about video blogging/Internet TV/geek TV, whatever you want to call it.
Categories: Language and Translation Localization and Internationalization Loose Talk Web Development and Programming
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Back to the top of this pageHow Intrusive Are Fake Pop-Ups?
Posted on Thursday, 2 November, 2006
In a recent post on O'Reilly Radar, Nat Torkington claims that the new, increasingly popular fake pop-up ads are about to become a plague as bad as Javascript pop-up windows were in their worst days. I agree that they are getting more and more widespread and annoying – but are they really that intrusive?
Categories: Web Development and Programming
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