Updates From Vietnam

Greetings from Vietnam. Let me give you a quick update from Vietnamese Mozilla Community. Vu Hung shared his Mozcamp experiences and the Mozilla goodies at the informal gathering of Open Source communities in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Few days ago, I met Tuan and Yang to talk about Mozilla community activities in Vietnam. We spent the afternoon discussing ideas for more user engagement, Localization and future events in Vietnam. Mozilla community is well organized in the north Vietnam (Hanoi), however we haven't had much success in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

I'll be traveling to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) this weekend to participate in BarCamp Saigon Winter 2011. Planning to meet some of the open source community members at the event and hopefully build an active Mozilla community in Saigon.

Back in Hanoi next week for the FOSS@HUS on December 17, 2011. The annual Open Source fest at Hanoi University of Science (HUS), Hanoi, Vietnam.

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Ubuntu in Mandalay, Myanmar

ThanYalZin Min sends us this picture from Ubuntu day in Mandalay, Myanmar. You can see Min sporting the cool Mozcamp t-shirt in the photograph.

Mozilla Rep Chit Thiri Maung is planning the future Mozilla activities in Yangon and Mandalay. This year we launched the Mozilla L10N team during the BarCamp Yangon 2011.

You can follow Mozilla Myanmar Community here on their twitter page. I hope to see more Mozillians in Myanmar next year.

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BarCamp Vientiane 2011

The beautiful city of Vietiane hosted the second Barcamp Vientiane on Novemeber 19, 2011. Vientiane is capital and the largest city in Laos. Thomas Wanhoff the organizer of the event helped us distrubute Mozilla swag at the event. Unfortunately I couldn't attend Barcamp Vientiane this year but I hope we'll have more mozillians in Vientiane next year.

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FOSS Asia 2011

Vu Hung, Mozilla Vietnamese Localization contributor from Hanoi participated in FOSS Asia 2011 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He shares his experiences in this blog post.

Here is a short report for what I (Vu Hung) did present in FOSSASIA.

Arky, who has been helping our open source comminities, especially in
building Mozilla community in Vietnam was the best person to give a
talk on that, but he was busy with an event in Eupore, so there I go
:)

The theme of the event is "mobile".

I had 2 talks and a workshop in this event.

Mozilla:

An introduction to Vietnamese translation for Mozilla products.

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/vuhung16plus/an-introduction-to-vietnamese-translation

Narro is the tool the translation, and not like for translating
.po file Mozilla has a special format for language files
so Mozilla team (Arky is one of them) had developed Narror to help
translators.

Mozilla mobile technologies

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/vuhung16plus/mozilla-mobile-technologies

The title of the present was made by Ms. Phuc but the content of
the talk focuses on the technologies that Mozilla is using,
this will help audiences (mostly students) have a basic knowledge
on what is used and cooked in Mozilla.

I also pointed out that Mobile/Smartphone, cloud computing and
open web are the trends that Mozilla is working on.

Mozilla mobile technologies

View more presentations from vuhung16plus

LibreOffice

Sides: http://www.slideshare.net/vuhung16plus/mobile-libreoffice

I introduced two projects that LibreOffice is working on at very
begining stage:

LibreOffice on smartphone (Android) and LibreOffice on the cloud.
Imagine that the share of PCs is decreasing, while the number of
(smart)phones and tablets are increasing.

LibreOffice/ODF on Smartphone/Tablet/Cloud

View more presentations from vuhung16plus

Workshop

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/vuhung16plus/informationmanagementwithredmine-thai-nguyenfossnguyenvuhung2010112101-5877449

My talk is based on the talk I have presented at Thai Nguyen university.
The goal of the workshop is to show how to manage IT projects in an
agile way.

I have covered a lot of facets in software and non-software project
management.
100+ audiences have attended the workshop: Thank you for joining the
workshop :)

FOSS Asia 2011 Photos

You can view the FOSS Asia 2011 event photos on Vu Hungs Flickr stream.

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Mozcamp Asia 2011

Mozcamp Asia 2011 was held in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 18-20 November 2011. The two day event was packed with interactive presentations, discussions on new products, engagement opportunities, and community building.

Mozilla communities from various Asian countries participated in this event. You view more information about various communities and their activities on the Mozilla Asia Community Quilt.

The event theme was "Many Voices, One Mozilla", and had three broad tracks of engineering, training and regionalization, the content for this MozCamp is now available online here

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Kick-starting Mozilla Communities with Localization Sprints

The talk was delivered at Mozcamp Asia. It describes the efforts to start new L10n communities and reviving those that lost core contributors.

Kick-starting Mozilla Communities with Localization Sprints

View more presentations from playingwithsid

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Barcamp Phnom Penh 4 event is mentioned on this weeks Mozilla Contributor Engagement Video. You can find photos and presentation from Barcamp Phnom Penh 4 in this blog post.

You can view this video on Youtube. Don't forget to subscribe to Mozillians Youtube channel.

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Hanoi Tweetup Announcement (November 2011)

Announcing the next Hanoi Tweetup at Hanoi Cooking Centre, Hanoi at 6:30pm on November 11, 2011. Please spread the word about the Hanoi Tweetup widely.
Remember, You don't have to be on Twitter to attend a tweetup :)

What's a tweetup?

A tweetup is an event where people on Twitter (and Facebook and Tumblr and any other social media platform) get together to meet in person. It's a great opportunity to match names with faces, and have a conversation at more than 140 characters at a time.

Event Details

We'll using the hashtag #hanoitweetup for the tweets, blog posts and photos related to this event.
You can also follow us using this twitter search page (#hanoitweetup).

• 6:30pm November 11, 2011


• Hanoi Cooking Centre,
  
  44 Chau Long Str., Ba Dinh Dist., Ha Noi, Viet Nam
  
  + 84 4 3715 3277 / + 84 4 3715 0088 / + 84 915092248
  
  www.hanoicookingcentre.com

Those of you who are invited to Word Vietnam (@WordVietnam) party can head there at 8 pm after the Hanoi Tweetup.

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Bollywood Afternoon In Hanoi

A lot can happen over a cup of Masala Chai. Sunday afternoon's are usually Indian food at Foodshop 45 in Tay Ho, Hanoi. After a good meal the conversation around the table turned to Bollywood movies. Hey, Next week lets do lunch and watch a Bollywood film. Now that sounds like fun. Lets do it!

Bollywood Afternoon @ PUKU, Hanoi

Do join us for some great Indian food and a Bollywood movie 'Kal Ho Na Ho (Hindi, with English subtitles)' at PUKU, Hanoi. Please don't forget to register for the event.

• Time: 06 November · 12:30 - 17:30


• Location: PUKU Cafe & Bar 16 Tống Duy Tân, Hanoi, Vietnam


• Cost: 250K VND (per person)


• Registration: Send email to puku.hanoi(at)gmail.com.
  You can also respond using the Bollywood Afternoon event page on Facebook.com.

Watch the Trailer of Kal Ho Na Ho (Hindi with English Subtitles 2003)

Life of a very serious girl, Naina, changes on the arrival of her new neighbor, Aman, who teaches her a new way to live. Takes place mostly in
NYC - with parts in Mumbai.
Starring: Preity Zinta, Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347304/

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Planning the next Hanoi Tweetup

It is time for another Hanoi Tweetup. Mien who organised the last Hanoi Tweetup has moved to Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City. So I decided to pitch in and organise the next Hanoi Tweetup.

What is a Tweetup?

A tweetup is an event where people who Twitter come together to meet in person. Normally we connect with our friends online after we have met them. At a tweetup you meet the people you might only otherwise know virtually. Like finally putting a name to a face, a tweetup is a great opportunity to really connect with the people who you follow on twitter.

When is it?

November 11, 2011 was selected as the date for the next Hanoi Tweetup by a public vote (doodle.com/4bn2isdxi5r4rv9z).

Where is it?

We haven't decided the venue for the Hanoi Tweetup. The Word Vietnam is throwing a party on the same evening. Am trying to resolve this conflict and would announce a venue in a few days.

Help Us!

Unfortunately I have to travel to Berlin for Mozilla Camp soon. Anyone interested in helping us coordinate the Hanoi Tweetup activities on November 11 ?. Please leave a comment or tweet me back @playingwithsid.

Learn more

If you have a Twitter account, you can contact us with hashtag #hanoitweetup in your message. You can also follow us using this twitter search page (#hanoitweetup). Don't forget to bookmark this link.

PS: Don't worry if you don't tweet. Come and meet some great people at the next Hanoi Tweetup.

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Barcamp Phnom Penh 4

Travelled to Cambodia to attend Barcamp Phnom Penh 4 this week. It is the second largest Barcamp in Asia, over 1500 people attended the event this year. The barcamp's are user-generated conferences (or unconferences) with open, participatory workshop-events, the content of which is provided by participants.  Barcamp Phnom Penh 4 attracted dozens of foreign barcampers from all over the world. The barcamp featured talks related to Blogging, Entrepreneurship, Android Development, Web Technologies, Mobile App development, Security, Mapping Technology and Localization.



The young and enthusiastic team of volunteers led by Be Chantra organized a great event. Quite impressed with the spirit of Cambodian youth and zest for learning.  Last month Mozilla helped organize the Open Cambodia event.  My trip to Cambodia is to engage the Mozilla contributors and kickstart Mozilla Khmer Localization (L10n) team.

Mozilla Khmer Localization (L10n) Sprint 



Open Institute has been developing KhmerOS to provide local language computing environment for Cambodia. However their decision to change the name of Mozilla Firefox and other Open Source software has fractured the contributor community. I hope the Mozilla Khmer Localization(L10n) sprint and my interactions with KhmerOS team would pave way to remedy this situation.



Vannak (@evannak) of KhmerOS project has been spearheading the Mozilla Khmer Localization(L10n) work. The sprint was delivered in English and Khmer by Vannak and me on the first day of the Barcamp Phnom Penh 4. After my presentation, Vannak did a practical demonstration of Khmer localization by translating Firefox strings using Narro web based translation tool. A lively discussion about the linguistic nuances of Khmer language followed.



The response to the sprint was very positive. Many people expressed their interest to join the Mozilla  Khmer Localization (L10n) team. We hope to organize more such events to engage the contributors in Cambodia.

Mozilla Khmer L10n presentation, Barcamp Pnnom Penh 4

Mozilla Khmer Localization Sprint

Vennak (Mozilla Khmer L10n Team)

Khmer Localization Using Narro

Barcampers Enjoy Khmer Food

Barcamps are great! 

Khmer Translation Talk

Google App Engine talk by

Guy Flysher (Google)

Localization of 'Open Data' Cambodia

by John Weeks

KhmerOS's Norbert Klein makes a point

Khmer Unicode on Android by

Stephen Gibberd (finder.com.kh)

Mobile Learning with iPad by

Adrian Tan (Square Crumbs)

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The Search ends, Bastard Original Hacker TV Series

Few weeks ago I wrote on my blog Do you know this old TV Series about a hacker?. From the other side of the world Niko found the answer. This TV series called "Bastard (1989)" had started my fascination with computers decades ago.

Der Bastard (TV mini-series 1989) 

Niko found my blog post using google search engine and wrote this comment.

I remember watching this show as a kid in the 80's in Slovek TV, dubbed in slovak.

I remember a scene, where the main character is trying to hack into a computer with his Commodore 64 ans a vintage modem. As he tries to guess the password, he types in "bastard" and it works.

I think we're talking about the same show - because the dog in the main title is a bastard...

Gee I would LOVE to see it again, I just remembered it today and started googling... that's how I stumbled upon your blog.

As kids we knew about Brute-force attack. I used the method to guess our parents long distance Subscriber trunk dialing (STD) unlock code. Niko remembered the key detail of the show and correct password 'bastard' (amazing Niko!). Ten minutes later he found complete information about the TV show including the title track and few scenes from the TV show .

I found the show!!! It was called BASTARD, it was german, shot for the WDR german tv station.

Look at this! http://www.deutsches-filmhaus.de/filme_gesamt/s_gesamt/stark_ulrich.htm

there is an article in Der Spiegel magazine (in german) about the show here: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13495823.html

and this should be the title song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtI1Toq-N1A

And this is the imdb page for the series although the picture is not the right one I think... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096541.

Bavaria Media Television website provides further information about Bastard (1989) TV series.

Paul David, computer expert and ingenious hacker, is caught in the electronic meshes of a international data network and is confronted with criminals operating behind the scenes of a worldwide organisation, which uses the most modern communication technology for cleverly coordinated, criminal actions. Then Paul is suspected of double murder. When desperately trying to escape the noose he is surrounded by more and more people who obviously have the same aim in common: to catch him in a lethal trap. Only Dettmar Mushaake, expert for computer crime from the regional police department, seems to be on Paul's side - and, of course, Diddle, a mongrel who is anything but a lapdog. He tracks down ambushes, delivers messages and leads Paul's pursuers astray.

You can download full information about the show here.

Perhaps I should write to Bavaria Media Television to let them know that they have a cult classic, They might even consider a DVD release. :)

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Setup RubyGems path in ubuntu

Building Virtual Machines (VM) using Vagrant this week. Unfortunately the Ubuntu Natty does not add Ruby Gems directory to system path variable. Using Ruby Gems on command line is tedious if you have to type the full path prefix everytime. For example I have to type /var/lib/gems/1.8/bin/vagrant .

Instead I used the solution suggested in libgems-ruby bug #145267 .

sudo echo "PATH=/var/lib/gems/1.8/bin:$PATH" > /etc/profile.d/rubygems1.8.sh 

Perhaps someone could add this to Vagrant Ubuntu installation documentation.

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Gitbox Git GUI tool

Here is another post in the series of the posts about tools that makes developers life simpler. Git was developed as distributed revision control system with an emphasis on speed. However in real world developers are hampered by lack of good graphical tool to manage their git repositories.

Software developer David Clarke (@onecyrenus) discovered this the hard way. He started using Gitbox application to manage his numerous git repositories and found that it helps speedup his work. I love the simiplicity of Gitbox user interface and it really seems to make 'version control as easy as mail'.

I would love to hear about your experiences with Git. Do tell me about your favorite Git GUI and why.

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Do you know this old TV Series about a hacker ?

Update (20 Oct 2011) : Niko helped us find the answer to this question, read more about the search ends for the TV Show.

What has been your defining moment in life? It is a difficult question. Let me share one defining moment of my childhood. My fascination with computers started with a TV show about computer hackers on India's national television. It was dubbed in English, produced by some foreign (German?) television . I vividly remember the starting scene of the show with a dog running towards the screen, jumping over the opening credits of the TV show.

We'll the credits were actually in some foreign language. The characters looked like German to me, but I might be wrong. The name of show sounded something like 'Computer Spezialist'. The TV show was about a computer hacker who gets mixed up with some criminals who plan to rob a bank. The shows central character is a dog who lost its master in hands of these crooks. Does that ring a bell?

I remember looking up from the TV screen to ask my uncle 'How can this guy get into a bank using a computer?'. My uncle said banks in developed countries were all connected with phones and satellites. It seems so amazing to my young mind. In those days the TV had one channel and getting a telephone would mean 3 years of waiting-list and personal computers would cost an arm and leg.

Do you have any information about this TV series?. I would love to watch it again.

I couldn't find much information about this TV show on Internet except for this blog post. The comments on this blog post might give you more detailed description about the show.

Anonymous said...


It was very nice reading your blog. And you seem the right person to pose this question that i had for a long time -- do you happen to remember a German crime/thriller show that used come on DD1 sometime on Sat or Sun early evening (5 pm 'ish i guess) and involved some computer hacking as well ..and had a very nice soundtrack in its title song ..something involving these words - fighting for his life ..heart of stone. it does not seem Derrick, Der Fahnder, or Der Alte ..but i might be wrong as i really do not remember much ...except that i know the tune of the title song. thanks,

leoNYdassaid...


Yes I do remember that series and the catchy title music. I have vague memories about it since not many episodes were actually aired. It was a series about hacking and I am quite sure it's not German. Well I guess thats as much as I can remember.

asif said...


Dear leoNYdas


i m really thankfull to God ..i came across ur blog


i am desperate to find this tv episode-this wud fall under the categories(drama,thriller and suspense).the name of the series is Computer Specialst(the second word SPECIALIST was spelled differently so i guess this wud be some russian or some other language-european series)...the beginning of the series shows a little dog running towards the screen.the series has beautifull title song..bit metallic or rock ..


"Hearts of Stones".i can faintly remember the lyrics but heres wat i can recall the best

"hearts of stones..ready for hearts of stones ..there is one man....

compromise..."


also the main character i think is a hacker..and he gets in touch with the bad men...of these one the opposite lead character's name is Elizabeth..she is a european police officer..a female spying i guess.also the other names i can recall is Powell..a bald guy i think is the main villian.


the hacker stays with some lady called "teresa" if i m not wrong and is totally involved in computers...


there are few scenes i can recall: the one of bomb explosion ..they kept under the keyboard and the hacker is made to drive a car into some remote place .. a castle ..where the victim who survived the bomb has been under house arrest.


also the female police officer her name elizabeth(she speaks in some other language at times) in the series kills a man in the hotel room with cyanide (she breaks a bit of the cyanide from the pill and mixes it in the drink,she carries the cyanide pill in her finger ring,,,this was shown cleary).elizabeth also has a locket or necklace with the two letters EP...and when the hacker asks her wat does this stand for ..she replies Elizabeth Powell..to which the hacker replies that its European Police.



there is also one scene when a male police officer is hanging from the window from the hackers home and the bad guys are unaware of thi police officer hanging.


in some other episode a man is murdered who comes in to investigate..he orders the hacker to remove his trousers and the man is killed as some one pulls off the carpet beneath his legs and he dies instantly..later his body his dumped in some remote place wrapped in the same carpet he was standing on....and also when the other detectives arrives to investigate the matter ...a person walks in the room and brings in the carpet of same type and he says that he is a carpet cleaner....



plz mail to me as i believe this series was aired in the 1990s ..plzzz somebody help and if u recall these series and let me know-


thanking you

Abhishek said...


Nice Post..

can anyone recollect the name of another detective/thriller..again agerman serial..where the protagonist was a techie guy...it had a very good title track..

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Mytop MySQL Monitoring Tool

If you are a developer or systems administrator who know the MySQL server performance in real time. MyTop tool is just for you. Designed like the traditional 'top' unix program Mytop displays MySQL server information, current mysql processes. It also lets you view complete query information and allows you to kill any MySQL processes. You can get mytop program using systems package installer or download it from mytop project website.

Usage:

You can launch the mytop in the system terminal using the following command line options.

$ mytop -u username -p password -d database

Press f to view full description of selected MySQL query and k to kill the the MySQL process.

You press ? anytime to view more keyboard commands.

 $  mytop -u username -p password -d database

MySQL on localhost (5.1.54-1ubuntu4)                    up 0+06:01:44 [16:26:50]
 Queries: 91.0    qps:    0 Slow:     0.0         Se/In/Up/De(%):    21/00/00/00
              qps now:    0 Slow qps: 0.0  Threads:    4 (   2/   0) 00/00/00/00
 Cache Hits: 17.0  Hits/s:  0.0 Hits now:   0.0  Ratio: 89.5% Ratio now:  0.0%
 Key Efficiency: 100.0%  Bps in/out:   0.2/ 19.0   Now in/out:   8.3/ 2.1k

        Id      User         Host/IP         DB      Time    Cmd Query or State 
        --      ----         -------         --      ----    --- -------------- 
        50      root       localhost      narro         0  Query show full proce
        53     narro       localhost      narro        24  Sleep                
        54     narro       localhost      narro        24  Query SELECT DISTINCT
        45      root       localhost                  543  Sleep                

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Help Test Narro Online Translation Tool

Narro is a web application that allows online software translation and coordination. Some of the Mozilla L10n teams use this tool for their localization work. The tool was developed by Mozilla Romanian L10n team member Alexandru Szaz to make localization simple and easy to use.

Please take a moment to test the Narro 2.0 and report any problems and offer feedback to make Narro better.

https://l10n.mozilla.org/narro/projects.php

Please use Narro issue tracker file to your bug reports.

http://code.google.com/p/narro/issues/list

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Mozilla Contributor Engagement Video Update

Featured in Mozilla Contributor Engagement Video update during my visit to Mozilla San Francisco Office.

You can view this video on Youtube.
Don't forget to subscribe to
Mozillians Youtube channel

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Software Freedom Day 2011

Software Freedom 2011 is a yearly celebration for Software Freedom! Every year there are thousands teams organizing Software Freedom Day in different countries and cities. Let have a look at Software Freedom Day 2011 event in India, Singapore and Vietnam.

Chennai, India

Dwarak published his Software Freedom Day 2011 experiences in this Mozilla India blog post. Mozilla project won the best stall award.

Hanoi, Vietnam

Ha Quang Duong gave a talk about Mozilla L10n activities in Vietnam. Mozilla swag was given away at the event, Thanks Yang for taking care of Mozilla swag distribution.

Photos by Phan Trọng Khanh

Singapore

Preetam Rai represented Mozilla at SFD2011 in Singapore. You can view more picture of the event on Preetam's facebook album.

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Wordpress Blind SQL Injection Vulnerability

My friend a Bay Area entrepreneur had a nasty surprise, his website was defaced. Updating the wordpress content management system to stable version and resetting the default theme from backup fixed the problem.

So don't forget to keep your wordpress CMS updated to latest release and secure your wordpress website to avoid such nasty surprises.

The vulnerability effects WordPress version 3.0.4. Malicious script kiddies exploit the remote blind SQL injection vulnerability in comment_post_ID to deface the wordpress websites. You can learn more about this vulnerability on packetstorm.


packetstormsecurity.org/files/104989/WordPress-3.0.4-Blind-SQL-Injection.html

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Malaysian Newspaper Interviews Mozilla Rep Hilary Ho

Malaysian Mozilla Rep Hilary Ho Jia Hao was interviewed by English-language Malaysian newspaper New Sarawak Tribune . Here is short excerpt of the interview.

Mozilla Firefox recruiting contributors

Mozilla Firefox, a well known and widely used web browser is planning to set foot in the state by recruiting local contributors to make the web browser more user-friendly and community-based.

A representative of Malaysia Mozilla and Mozilla Web Programmer, Hilary Ho Jia Hao, 21, when met by New Sarawak Tribune yesterday said the recruitment is open to everyone who has interest in making the web browser more local based with no limitation on the recruitment as long as they are able to contribute.

A student of Cognitive Science at Univerisiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), Ho revealed that there are more than 40,000 people in the world who are involved in it.



Read the full interview on New Sarawak Tribune website.

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Mozilla Localization Camp, Hanoi

Last week we organized the Mozilla Localization(L10n) sprint at iWay in Hanoi. The event is first in series of Mozilla Localization (L10n) sprints across Asia. The sprints try to increase contributions to mozilla localization and engage Mozilla Localization (L10n) contributors.

Few active contributors from various localization projects; Tuan(Fedora), Vu Hung(Mozilla), Yang (Ubuntu) and Dung (Sahana) joined the sprint. The small gathering of experienced contributors provided an interactive sessions. We expected more participant however those who confirmed their participation at Mozilla Localization coffee meetup didn't show up. The sprint lasted for more than 3 hours. Later we head to nearby Bia Hoi for round of beers and light lunch.

Narro is web based wiki-like collobrative translation tool. The participants of the sprint were happy with simple interface of Narro. They quickly understand the basics of Narro. I explained how to use commenting, review and voting options to do peer review of the localizations and pointed out feature that would speed up localization. Working with Narro with increasing connection time-outs. During the Narro downtime, Tuan and Vu Hung shared their translation workflow. Tuan found Narro easy to use than Pootle and Yang suggested numerous improvements to the Narro UI and workflow.

Clearly the positive response to the mozilla localization sprint. Tuan expressed interest to talk about Mozilla localiztion at SFD 2011 and having more community driven localization sprints. The goal of such sprints to generate interest and have more community driven localization events.

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