Vietnamese Language Tools: Developing Keyboards and Spell-checker

Mentoring Mozilla Vietnamese localization team to develop Vietnamese keyboard and spell checker for Firefox OS. We built and tested Vietnamese keyboard during Mozilla Vietnam L10N sprints in Hanoi. We will integrate this into Firefox OS after Mozilla UX team improves the keyboard design to accommodate large set of alternative character keys.

Lewtds created Vietnamese spell checker using the Ho Ngoc Duc's word list. The Vietnamese language processing work is very limited. We haven't found any good data to that create a frequency list for the Vietnamese spell checker. Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Please read the Mozilla FirefoxOS keyboard documentation to learn more about developing keyboards in your language.

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African Network For Localization (ANLoc) Conference 2013

Traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, to attend African Network For Localization (ANLoc)'s Terminology and Localisation in Africa and Beyond Conference earlier this year. It gave me an opportunity to learn the history of African languages in cyberspace and meet the people behind various multilingual initiatives. The conference brought together language professionals, academics and open source developers to learn about terminology development and localization platforms.

Language is the key for unlocking the potential of Africa. The African Network for Localization (ANLoc) is a non-profit that supports African language technology development. The ANLoc partners were instrumental in the numeration and standardization of 100 African languages. The ANLoc partners and sub-projects developed Unicode fonts, keyboard input systems, translation tools and terminologies for African languages. They also devised training programs for building sustainable volunteer driven localization communities.

The conference featured technical talks, break-out sessions and brainstorming sessions. There were in-depth discussions on the various facets of multilingualism in cyberspace in context to African languages, the challenges of translating computing terms in African languages, the use of machine translation methods and the development of linguistics resources such language dictionaries and terminologies. The conference organizers maintained a good balance of discussions, along with practical hands-on workshops. The size of conference made interactions easier. It was good to meet Mozilla localization contributors from over 10 African languages during this event.

ANLoc's project localized widely used open source Mozilla Firefox web browser in many African languages. The ground realities of mobilizing and sustaining communities in Africa are apparent. Finding contributors is difficult. Most contributors refrain from volunteering due to economic reasons. The overall economic development and access to digital technologies is limited to few regions in Africa. The availability of Internet has improved but the cost is still prohibitively high. I shared my community building experiences from similar resource constrained environments across the world.

Identify, Engage, Empower: Tools for Community Building

Participated in break-out sessions on developing style guides for localization and Mozilla localization processes.

The FirefoxOS localization sprint was organized as part of the event. The localizers worked in groups to translate Mozilla FirefoxOS mobile operating system using Pootle web translation platform.

Talked about Android Internationalization and adding African language fonts and keyboard support to Android. Android currently supports few major African languages: Swahili, Amharic, Zulu and Afrikaans, but more African language coverage is needed. Cheap Android devices are flooding the African market. Today, the first internet experience for many is not on a desktop computer but on mobile phones. Mobiles play a great role in accessing information and even transfering money.

The brainstorming sessions were very interesting. The problems discussed were both at an economic and social level. These problems are similar in nature to the countries where I have been working for the past few years.

The lack of availability of African local content on the internet was a major hurdle. The African diaspora spread across the world and few local governments and non profit organizations were involved in developing local language content. The tide seems to be turning now, with increasing availability of the Internet on mobile phones. Social media and user generated content is now bridging the gap.

This conference gave me a framework for my future activities in Africa. I'll be traveling to East Africa to participate in Tech4Africa Nairobi Tech Day and organize localization hackathons. Such events will help us work on Mozilla Firefox in some of the major languages and help build sustainable Mozilla communities in Africa.

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Using Firefox Remote Debugger with Firefox OS Simulator

Firefox OS App developers can use Firefox Remote Debugger to quickly fix web app bugs. In this screencast Jeff Griffiths shows the current workflow of using the Firefox OS simulator and the Firefox Nightly remote debugger developer tool.

Don't see the embedded video, you can watch it on YouTube.

You can also use Firefox Remote Debugger with Firefox OS running in a desktop emulator, on a Firefox OS device and Firefox Mobile on Android mobile phone. Head over to Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) to learn more about Firefox Remote Debugging.

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Mozilla Community Engagement in Laos

Just across the border lies Laos. This country of fun loving gentle people had a tumultuous history. I recently visited Laos for the first time to help build Mozilla community in Laos.

Writer Thomas Wanhoff lives Vientiane. He is the organizer of Barcamp Vientiane. Mozilla participated in the previous Barcamp Vientiane. Thomas helped me understand the Lao history and culture over few bottles of dark Lao beer. Lack of infrastructure and resources hampered economic growth of Laos. Development aid that poured into this country had made very little difference. Recent efforts to develop internet entrepreneurship haven't been successful. Laos is slowly overcoming these problems. The 3G mobile network provides inexpensive internet connectivity. Large construction projects can be seen in Vientiane, new roads are replacing the pot holed dirt roads.

Visited ICT Association of Laos to talk about the Mozilla mission to promote innovation and choice on the web. Presented a demo of FirefoxOS and interacted with the team of localizers who are interested in localizing Firefox in Lao.

Also visited the ICT Center at Dang Dok Campus of University of Laos(NUoL). The university campus is connected with high-speed optic fiber network. ICT Center staff gave me tour of their new e-learning centers computer lab and digital multimedia studio and post-production facilities. The ICT center team expressed their interest to support Mozilla activities.

Now Lao web fonts are available Google web fonts (Early Access) system. This would enable Lao speakers to read localized content on computers and mobile devices that do not include Lao fonts.

The Mozilla Story with Lao Subtitles (Translated by Patthana Vilay)

Next step towards building Mozilla Lao community is get a core team organized and plan community events such as Mozilla Web Maker, Web developer events and Mozilla Lao Firefox localization sprints. Get in touch with me, if you want to get involved in Mozilla Lao community building effort.

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Speeding Up Software Rebuilds with CCache

Software developers who routinely rebuild large projects would love ccache. Ccache is a compiler cache. It speeds up software rebuilds by caching the result of previous compilations and detecting when the same compilation is being done again.

I use ccache when compiling Linux kernel, Debian/Ubuntu packages, GNOME applications, Mozilla Firefox, FirefoxOS and Android operating system. You could enable ccache by prefixing ccache to your compilation command or update your system path to include ccache.

# Add the following line to your ~/.bashrc file 
export PATH=/usr/lib/ccache:${PATH}

Alternatively you could create symlinks in ~/bin directory. GNOME 3 jhbuild documentation provides a bash script for this purpose.

cd ~/bin
for cmd in cc gcc c++ g++; do
  ln -s /usr/bin/ccache $cmd
done

To take advantage of ccache while building Mozilla Firefox, append the following line to your .mozconfig.

ac_add_options --with-ccache

If you are compiling Android(ASOP), CyanogenMod or Firefox OS. Android build system includes the ccache program, set the USE_CCACHE environment variable to enable ccache.

$ export USE_CCACHE=1

Further more in-depth information, read the ccache manual page. Please do comment and share your experiences using CCache.

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