People with disabilities are your users too. Why not spend 20 minutes to learn accessible web design today. Watch Katie Cunningham talk about disabilities and making websites for everyone. I'll also recommend reading her Accessibility Handbook to learn more about making your website accessible to people with disabilities.
Katie Cunningham's talk: Making Websites for Everyone at jQuery Conference Portland 2013. View it on Youtube.
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.
My Toshiba NB200 netbook freezes on BIOS splash screen. Looks like the netbook was shipped with a faulty motherboard. Unfortunately I can't do BIOS update as suggest in this post. Removing the Hard drive, RAM has no effect.
Am not ready to throw away the laptop. Wonder if anyone has a better solution.
Google Apps Script started as functions for Google Spreadsheets. Today Apps Scripts have evolved into powerful development environment for extending Google Apps. Google Apps Scripts are written in JavaScript programming language.
Last week I attended the Google Apps For Education Summit in Hanoi. The event featured few tutorials about Google Apps Script. It seems that there is a need for simpler tutorials for teaching Apps Script programming.
Earlier this year I wrote these Google Apps Scripts Web Apps to fetch a RSS feed or web page, parse it and display its content. You can embed these Apps Script as gadgets in your Google Sites pages.
The more technically savvy readers will find the example code helpful in learning user interfaces(UI) development with Html Service and Ui Service. You might also want to read XML parsing with Google App Scripts tutorial as well. Please do refer to latest Google Developer documentation as Apps Script API change over time.
Google Apps Script to parse and display wordcentral.com's Daily Buzzword RSS feed.
Web App URI: https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycbwi3vmklN73Al0tXrtQIvfzwl6G3cGOBsTrY-0s1XQvN-zUhLw/exec | Source Code: https://github.com/arky/DailyBuzzword-AppScript
Google Apps Script to parse and display wordsmith.org A Word A Day RSS Feed
Web App URI: https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycbwbMrEhTkn-E3gqAMu7aS5PoMAOHYD62BnGpZFTGPxAY8aCsYW4/exec | Code: https://github.com/arky/awad-AppScript
First go to the page you want to add the Apps Script gadget. Select Apps Script item under Insert menu. In the next dialog box, copy and paste the Apps Script Web App URI into the provided textbox and choose select. The Apps Script Gadget will appear in your webpage.
In this blog I talk about technology world as built. Android phones are most selling smart phones all over the world. These phones and tablets are increasingly used for watching videos and listening to music. Transferring multimedia content on to your device is painful. The software tools made by phone vendors such as Samsung Kies have problems. Android MTP and Bluetooth software leaves a lot to be desired, making large transfers fail intermitingly. Developers like me use command-line MTP tools or use Android SDK's ADB program for transferring files.
For everyone I suggest buying a OTG cable that makes life easier. This cable allows you to connect USB devices to your phone and transfer files with ease. I brought this OTG cable in Hong Kong for $15 HKD (about US $2). Tested this cable with Samsung Galaxy S2 mobile phones running Android Gingerbread and Jellybean with couple of 8GB USB drives.
You might need to install a file browser like ES File Explorer File Manager app on your phone to easily navigate to attached USB device and copy files to internal memory. You can watch the video of below.
You can pick this OTG cable in your local computer store or order one from Deal Extreme (dx.com). For more other interesting Samsung phone accessories have a look at Samsung Galaxy S2 Accessories For Presentations post.
Summer sun shines on the green meadow full of dandelions and the huge Djangocon circus tent. The fantastic setting of this conference had one flaw. The roar of airplanes from the nearby airport overhead.
The ever creative conference organizers announced a photography contest dubbed 'Djangojet'. The contest required us to capture the picture of Jet planes and share it on instagram with #djangojet hashtag. My photograph bagged the prize.
I took this picture with Samsung Galaxy S2 smart phone while waiting in line for lunch. It captures the people enjoying the sunny day around the Django circus and the airplane in the bright blue sky.
You don't need fancy camera to take a good picture, your smart camera phone can do the job well. The composition and the story makes a good photograph.
Maithili is the native language 34.7 million people in Northern India and Eastern Nepal. In college I would try to follow the friendly banter in Maithili listening for similar sounding words in Hindi. It was only later while working on computational linguistics that I truly appreciated the richness of the Maithili language.
Firefox Maithili was released last year, making it 78th language to be added to Mozilla localization. The challenge of localization does not end after translating and shipping Firefox.Today Mozilla Maithili Localization team continues their efforts to promote Firefox Maithili by organizing workshops.
Maithili is not only a language, it is also a source of rich wisdom – Mr. Ajay Kumar Jha
On 29th May 2013, Mozilla Firefox Maithili workshop was organized by community of Maithili Computer developer working under Bhasha Ghar, a group of volunteers working for small languages having less resources. Mozilla Firefox Maithili workshop was a full day workshop where the community working with Mozilla along with some experts of Maithili language sat together to discuss the issues and challenges related to Firefox Maithili.
Read the complete Mozilla Firefox Maithili Workshop Report May 2013