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Michael Hunter

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Communicate in a foreign language on a computer ... Babelfish. http://babelfish.altavista.com. The first publicly-available service ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Michael Hunter


1
The Net Across the World
  • Michael Hunter
  • Hobart and William Smith Colleges
  • for Western New York Library Resources Council
  • Member Libraries Staff
  • Sponsored by the
  • Western New York Library Resources Council

2
For Today
  • Communicate in a foreign language on a computer
  • Locate gateways to Search Services in Foreign
    Countries
  • Search non-English services
  • Locate, use and evaluate free translation
    services
  • Explore Spanish language search services

3
Focus today is on PC (Windows)Information for
Macintosh at http//www.colby.edu/lrc/help/accen
ts.html
4
What are the languages of the Webs Content?
  • OCLCs Web Characterization Project
  • Of all unique websites in October, 2001
  • 73 English
  • 7 German
  • 5 Japanese
  • 3 French
  • 3 Spanish
  • 9 Other

5
Who is on the Web?From Global Reach Online
Marketinghttp//global-reach.biz/globstats/(form
erly glreach.com)
6
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7
Communicating in a foreign language on a computer
  • Two-way process (similar to us)
  • Understanding (Display)
  • Speaking (Output)

8
Displaying ContentUnderstanding the language
  • A computer must recognize non-English characters
    in a variety of contexts
  • Files, e-mails, web pages and more
  • Involves operating system, applications and
    browser settings

9
Output (from You!)Speaking the language
  • Creating files, e-mails, web pages and more
  • Involves operating system, applications, browsers
    AND keyboard layout settings

10
Displaying ContentUnderstanding the Language
11
Display
  • Applications (Word, etc.)
  • Check the help files
  • Multilanguage use of Browsers
  • Need to select language (font)
  • Need to specify appropriate encoding option for
    the languages you will be using

12
Setting the Language (font)
  • Netscape
  • Edit Preferences Appearance Fonts (set both
    variable and fixed)
  • NOTE Netscape may automatically link a font with
    the encoding you select)
  • IE
  • Tools Internet Options Languages
  • NOTE To activate settings, close the browser and
    open it again

13
Encoding
  • The method by which a document has been converted
    to computerized data (aka character set)
  • Not necessarily equivalent to a language.
  • Most Western languages use one (ISO 8859-1), but
    some languages (Russian, Chinese, Japanese) have
    several encoding schemes

14
How do I know which one is the current setting
and/or change it?
  • Netscape
  • View Character Set
  • IE
  • View Encoding
  • NOTE IE has an Auto-select feature which works
    with most commonly used languages

15
How do I know which to use?
  • For Western European use
  • Western ISO 8859-1
  • For Central European, Baltic, Cyrillic, Greek,
    Turkish-based and Asian languages try a Windows
    or ISO encoding scheme when available.
  • Some schemes are platform-specific check with
    your system administrator
  • If a document wont display, try to e-mail a
    contact person to determine the encoding scheme
    you need. ( You may need to be creative to do
    this!)

16
What is Unicode?
  • Encoding scheme that provides a unique number for
    every character
  • No matter what the language
  • No matter what the platform
  • No matter what the program
  • Required standard in XML, Java, and WML
  • Enables data to be transported across multiple
    platforms, languages and countries without
    corruption.
  • AKA USO 10646 AKA UTF-8

17
What are Dynamic Fonts?
  • Fonts provided with the document
  • Usually in a .pfr file that accompanies the
    document
  • Allows the user to view the document without
    loading the font, or re-setting the browser or
    application
  • Increasingly used in documents in Far-Eastern
    languages

18
Output (from You!)Speaking the language
19
Keyboards
  • The usual one is US 101
  • a qwerty standard
  • The US-International is a qwerty keyboard with a
    few added features (I recommend it for all
    Western European languages)
  • Other non-qwerty keyboard layouts exist
    specifically for individual languages

20
Output (from You)Speaking the language
  • Set language (fonts) and encoding appropriate to
    the language you will be using
  • Select a keyboard layout
  • FOR WINDOWS
  • Control Panel Keyboard Language (or Input
    locales)
  • US-International recommended
  • RESTART after changing a keyboard layout to
    activate the change

21
Output (from You)Speaking the language
  • Some applications have specific keyboard schemes
    for non-English characters
  • Creating Web pages
  • See Hunters Toolkit for html code for characters
    in Western European languages
  • Check help files in Composer, Front Page or other
    editor you may be using

22
Search Services in Foreign Languages
23
Why use Search Services based in another country
and/or language?
  • To find personal or business contact information
  • Addresses
  • Phone numbers
  • E-mail addresses
  • Sources for this information are often more
    complete from these services
  • For more detailed information about a business or
    organization

24
Why use Search Services based in another country
and/or language?
  • For more comprehensive coverage of news and
    economic, political and cultural information
    about a country
  • For alternate viewpoints about national and
    international events and issues

25
How do I know if a service is an engine or a
directory (or both)?
  • Some gateway sites may use the word Index to
    denote a directory or other indication.
  • Some gateways may specify this such as
    www.nationsonline.com
  • If the service is a portal, check results found
    using the search box against results found in its
    subject directory. If they are the same, it is a
    directory. If different, it may be crawler-based
    (engine) or a blend of engine and directory.
  • Test for freshness (engines are usually fresher
    than directories)
  • Try e-mailing the main contact (Good Luck !!!!)

26
A few tips for exploring the Net ourside our
borders
  • Begin with subject directories (if available)
    when you are unfamiliar with the country or topic
  • Seek out experts in an area or field identify
    websites that are run by them and e-mail them for
    further leads
  • Make use of support staff at US or foreign
    embassies. They often know the best Internet
    source for different types of information

27
A few tips
  • Watch for hidden assumptions and be culturally
    sensitive. Just because it LOOKS like any other
    search engine or directory doesnt mean that the
    people and information behind it have the same
    cultural conditions and background as US users.

28
Evaluating Sites in Foreign Languages
  • Be especially cautious about reliability check
    for authors credentials, quality of links to and
    from the site and date. Contact the author(s)
    via e-mail if you feel the need. Most are happy
    to hear that their site is visited and might be
    helpful in your search.
  • Many foreign-language sites lack top-level
    domains (edu, com, gov and others). In these
    cases, link relationships and credentials are
    especially important.
  • NOTE In the UK TLDs are
  • co com ac edu

29
Evaluating Search Services in Foreign Languages
  • Check for freshness by searching for a recent
    event
  • Check for comprehensiveness by comparing findings
    for a topic with the same search on Google or
    FAST
  • If you want to see which services are the most
    popular in European countries, consult Jupiter
    Media Metrix data at
  • http//www.jupitermmxi.com/europelanding.html

30
Free Translation Services
31
Globalization and the Internet
  • The Net (and the World) is increasingly global
    in content
  • Non-English content is growing at a faster rate
    than English content
  • For the first time, in 2001 less than half of all
    people online were from North America
  • If present growth trends continue by 2004 70 of
    all Internet users will be outside North America

32
Babelfishhttp//babelfish.altavista.com
  • The first publicly-available service
  • Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese,
    Russian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese to English and
    vice-versa
  • French to German, German to French
  • Translates
  • Any Altavista search result
  • Any URL in the supported languages
  • Supplied Text up to 150 words
  • Auto-translates linked pages (new feature)

33
Freetranslationhttp//www.freetranslation.com
  • Offers Spanish, French, German, Portuguese,
    Italian to English and vice-versa
  • English to Norwegian
  • Offers drop-down menus for vowels with diacritics
  • Text and URL both accepted
  • Good Help file

34
Translate.ru Russia-basedhttp//www.translate.r
u
  • Offers Russian, French, German and Spanish to
    English and vice-versa
  • German to French and vice-versa
  • Russian to French and vice-versa
  • Russian to German and vice-versa
  • Accepts Text, URLs in supported languages and
    e-mails
  • Auto-translates linked pages (????)

35
GoogleGoogle.com
  • Offers German, Spanish, French, Italian,
    Portuguese to English and vice-versa
  • German to French and vice-versa
  • French to Spanish and vice-versa
  • Google search results auto-translated into
    English
  • Also accepts text and URLs in supported
    languages

36
Online Translation Dictionaries
  • Martindales Collection (highly recommended)
  • http//www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/Language.html
  • Lexicool
  • http//www.lexicool.com/

37
When terms arent translated
  • Gisting translation process
  • Automatically translates terms that can be
    translated with a low degree of ambiguity
  • Idioms and other terms that cannot be
    unambiguously translated appear in the original
    language

38
Gisting
  • Why might you need this?
  • As a filter to determine if a document is worth a
    finer, more costly translation
  • Useful in dealing with documents in multiple
    languages (eg. an e-mail message with several
    comments from people using different languages)

39
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40
Evaluating Translation Services
  • Choose a site that has a bi-lingual version
  • Eg. The Louvre has French, English, Spanish and
    Japanese versions http//www.louvre.fr
  • Enter the URL of a page from the foreign language
    version and compare the translation to the sites
    own English version
  • OR, simply compare the translations of any URL or
    text among various services

41
Compare these
  • French
  • www.mbam.qc.ca/orangerie/index.html
  • German
  • www.transgen.de
  • Italian
  • www.roma-intercultura.it

42
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43
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44
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45
Spanish-language Search Services
46
Google Spanish Search Tip
  • In Google Advanced Search, search for significant
    words or phrases in the TITLE (eg. museos,
    cultura, negocios, noticias)
  • Limit the search by DOMAIN
  • Country code (es, mx, co -- Spain, Mexico,
    Columbia)
  • Top level (gov OR gob government or
    gobierno)

47
Internet Censorship in ChinaHuman Rights Watch
Report
  • Chinas government has over 60 sets of
    regulations governing Internet content
  • Individuals have been put on trial and sentenced
    to prison for downloading or posting politically
    sensitive material on the web
  • Government censors monitor Internet cafés
  • Politically sensitive topics are prohibited in
    chatrooms

48
Internet Censorship in China2002
  • August Chinese Government requests Google,
    Altavista, Yahoo and other services to remove
    Falun Gong sites from their database.
  • Yahoo does so, aas it operates an office in China
    and as policy obeys laws of country of operation.
    (Google and AV have no Chinese offices)
  • Sept 2 - Access to Google and Altavista blocked
    in China by Chinese Government
  • Sept 11 - Chinese government restores access, but
    continues to monitor Google

49
Foreign Search ServicesA few added values
  • Personal or business contacts in that country
  • Primary source material about a foreign country
    or topic
  • More detailed coverage of political, economic and
    cultural issues in that country
  • Alternate viewpoints about national and
    international events and issues

50
Thank you and Best of Luck in your travels
  • Michael Hunter
  • Warren Hunting Smith Library
  • Hobart and William Smith Colleges
  • Geneva, NY 14507
  • (315) 781-3552
  • hunter_at_hws.edu
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