Georgian transliteration rules

As you might have seen, I have built some transliteration rules for various alphabets. As of now, I completed rules to transliterate the Georgian alphabet to Latin.

This time, I used a combination of orthographic and phonetic transliteration.  This was achieved through heuristic evaluation with native speakers and through monitoring social media. One could say the result is a simplified mix of the Georgian government’s proposed romanisation and ISO9984.

Georgian→Latin:

Georgian to Latin (results may have been improved since the screenshot was taken)

Software and Choice

This post is going to discuss whether users really have a choice on which piece of software they’re using. The initial stimulus was this post about users not reading licence agreements: http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/eula.php

In the beginning, I thought I’d post a comment there. But it would be too big, and slightly off topic. In short, I’m one of the people who always read licence agreements. Always. And I’d urge everyone to do so. To be fair, I pay more attention to the privacy part than to anything else. I have rejected this or that software because of something I read in their licence agreements; examples include Facebook and veoh (I use Twitter and Vimeo instead). I won’t go into details here, because it has to do with my needs and not software being bad or evil per se. My point here is that the user does have choice.

The examples above are web apps, but also desktop software providers almost always provide trial versions. These versions have the same licence agreement with the final product. That is, one has the opportunity to read the licence agreement of a piece of software in the trial version, before buying the full version of the software. Moreover, some licence agreements of desktop software are online, so you won’t even need to download the trial version.

In general, I’m in favour of giving the choice first thing; then your users will be happy.

However, other events also got my attention, like tech in Tunisia and Egypt: http://twitter.com/#!/ekapros/status/30273057469763584

http://twitter.com/#!/tarekshalaby/status/30084055890395136

What happened there is that the people chose to use various technologies–particularly open ones–to disseminate information about what was happening in their countries during protests against their rulers. The rulers tried to filter or cut access to the Internet, the users, though, found a plethora of ways to communicate with the outside world.

Of course, that couldn’t happen with any technology or software: it had to be open enough to allow the dissemination of information. However, since web software is built to allow communication–in contrast with a lot of desktop software–it was the people’s choice to find ways to access this software.

Extreme occasions need extreme measures, and what happened in Tunisia and Egypt (is Iran next?) was an extreme use of tech due to the filtering. Other parts of the world might never have to take such measures, but these show that there is more choice in using software than we usually think there is.

Greek and Ladino transliteration rules

Deep Informational Technologies (Deep IT) have built Transliteration for Mac OS (only). As you may have imagined already, this software does exactly what it says on the tin: it transliterates! That is, it maps strings of text from one writing system to another (e.g. from Greek alphabet to Latin).

Download it here!

Having used and liked this software, it was more than natural to contribute some rules for it. In particular, rules to transliterate Greek to Latin, and Ladino to Hebrew. From Transliteration 2.1.1 and on, these rules are included in the download and need not be downloaded separately.

Examples:

Greek→Latin:

Greek to Latin (results may have been improved since the screenshot was taken)

Ladino→Hebrew:

Ladino to Hebrew

The rules are built in an XML file in the PLIST format. Here you can find information about each set.

TODO: Armenian, Georgian

SEO Tools

I have contributed an article in Flash & Flex Developer’s Magazine concerning SEO (search engine optimization) for websites created with Flash and Flex. The first part covers the basics: finding suitable keyphrases, including them in your HTML, and presenting visible-to-all content. In this article I promised to give you here links to tools I have used.

Note, however, that there are many tools for each task. The tools presented in the article are tested and have helped me improve my SEO for websites in various fields; I do not claim that I have tested every tool, nor do I claim that I present the best tools. I present tools available to all, because every website deserves to be search-engine friendly. In the same way, each user deserves to get back useful results from search engines.

Finding Keyphrases

• Wordtracker
• Keyword Tracker

Setting <head> Tags

• SEO Analysis Tool

Visible-to-all Content

• Lynx
• SEO-Browser

I am not, in any way, affiliated to any of these products, I am just a user. Feel free to comment on their use, or propose your own favourites.

Enjoy!

Information as Action (Informaction?)

in·for·ma·tion (nfr-mshn)

n.

1. Knowledge derived from study, experience, or instruction.

2. Knowledge of specific events or situations that has been gathered or received by communication; intelligence or news. See Synonyms at knowledge.

3. A collection of facts or data: statistical information.

4. The act of informing or the condition of being informed; communication of knowledge: Safety instructions are provided for the information of our passengers.

5. Computer Science Processed, stored, or transmitted data.

6. A numerical measure of the uncertainty of an experimental outcome.

7. Law A formal accusation of a crime made by a public officer rather than by grand jury indictment.

---

infor·mation·al adj.

hm()

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

 

 

It is wonderful to see one of the definitions of information to be an action (#4). Is this definition actually neglected nowadays? According to my humble opinion, yes!

I will give an example to make my point more easily understood: moving to another country. When Alan Dix was a guest of the Irish SIGCHI here in Trinity, he quoted a saying: “If you want to find out what’s wrong with your country, ask a foreigner!“. I completely agree with that, a foreigner can spot the catch-22 procedures that every local has got used to.

In most countries, I know that you have to show a valid student ID to get a student discount. Transportation, cinema, anything. In Ireland, though, you have to get an extra Student Travel Card in order to get a discount in various stores. Moreover, if you’ve got a student ticket on the bus or the Luas (tram) and you have your student ID, but not this card, you get fined!

1. The reason why this card exists is, at least, obscure. Doesn’t my student ID prove that I am a student? Why pay extra 15€ to get this thing?
2. Why doesn’t anyone actually inform students that they need one? Do I have to get a fine or be lucky enough to overhear a relevant conversation to find out?

If you ask these questions to the People In Charge you always get the same answer: “it’s all in our website“. Give me one reason, though, why I should search your website for something I do not even know it exists! I have been asking since all international students about this and a lot more than half of them are unaware of the existence of that card.

It’s as simple as that. If there is no narrative, nothing to urge you search for something, you will not find it. It is unimportant that it exists in a website. You don’t have to read specialised journals to understand that.