At the December PLUG meeting, we were demonstrating OpenOffice Writer in Windows to give people a feel for how easy it can be to use free software. One attendee remarked that there was no "Translate" feature on the tools menu, like there is in MS Word. She was disappointed: the feature was essential to her work -- she teaches English as a second language. She uses the "Translate" feature to show students translations of words that are very hard to demonstrate by actions -- words like "like", "if", "how", etc. But she also types in entire sentences and MS Word translates them into Cantonese or Mandarin apparently well enough that her students answer the question correclty in English.

In software terms, this task is referred to as "machine translation". It is a very difficult artificial intelligence problem, and perhaps a tough one for an individual programmer to take a large enough bite out of for such a project to reach critical mass of developer participation. What options exist for "in document translation"? Is this feature on the roadmap for OpenOffice? Not that I can tell. But in looking around on the internet, I found OpenLOGOS which is an open source version of the commercial LOGOS translation engine.

OpenLogos uses a dual license for their software: if you don't want to abide by the GPL, you pay for a commercial license. If you like the GPL and you don't mind contributing your code back to the community, you get the source code for free. Same as MySQL. With access to the source code, it should theoretically be possible to link the translation service directly into OpenOffice. It may even be possible to do it using macros. Anyway, I'm just babblefishing now...

There will be a meeting for volunteers for OpenCity 2005 Thursday, August 4 at 7:30 PM at the University of Winnipeg Room 2M70. Room 2M70 is on the second floor in Manitoba hall (up the main escalators to the second floor, turn right and go through the corridor to Manitoba hall, then turn left. 2M70 will be on your right).

We need people for the following and more:
Poster
Door
Push tickets
Security
Setup/Takedown
Run A/V equipment
Conference registration
Fair Copyright evangelists / petition signature collectors
Art Exhibit security and setup
Free Software demonstrators and evangelists (anything - linux open
office firefox)

Background on OpenCity:

OpenCity 2005 is a festival of participatory culture bringing together artists, musicians, members of the Free Software movement, and activists. Participatory culture is the culture of involvement and activity rather than consumerism and passivity. Be part of the movement that puts culture back in the hands of the creators, rather than just a product to be bought and sold in a global economy.

The event takes place between August 17th and 20th at various locations in Downtown Winnipeg. There will be a kickoff Town Hall on the Future of Copyright at the West End Cultural Centre August 17th at 7:30 PM. The kickoff will feature an
adress by Russell McOrmond, Canada's most respected authority on fair copyright and the editor of http://digital-coypright.ca website. The conference and music events will take place at the Kismat Banquet and Conference Centre Aug 18, 19, and 20th. The spoken word performances (Thurs Aug 18 7:00 PM) and art exhibition (ongoing) will be at the Pool Room in the basement of Artspace 100 Arthur Street.

For more information see our website:
http://www.freeculture.ca
or call 633-3259 and leave a message in the PLUG (Press 3) mailbox.

It's time to raise a glass to a great Open Source project - the Mozilla Organization is celebrating the release of Firefox 1.0, and we're joining the party! There will be parties in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, but you don't have to travel that far to join the festivities. We'll be having our own little fete right here in The Peg. We'll be meeting at 8:00 PM, Saturday November 20th at Bar Italia 737 Corydon Avenue. Bring your own custom CDs if you want. We'll be bringing a few, too. And most importantly, bring your festive 'tude. All the great work the Mozilla folks have done deserves a great celebration.

I thought this was so funny I had to share it with the rest of the world. Hey we may be Geeks, but at least we can laugh at ourselves. Check out Switch To Linux. Warning: Flash plugin and Voluptuous Femme-Bots required.

While this post has absolutely nothing to do with Linux or Open Source Software it's very funny. It appears that the website www.shopinwinnipeg.com made a bit of a gaffe with thier template system. If you go to thier section "Home, Community Services, Abortion Alternatives" you will find only one link and it's to the TransX shipping company. I guess they would prefer delivery of everything even babies. ;)

Hey, is anyone planning a Mozilla release party? I mean Ottawa has two of them going on, Toronto has one and even Hamilton is going to have one. I just thought it would be an interesting idea, for the day after the MUUG meeting. the site for the release party is http://www.schnitzer.at/mozparty/ and to register one, you must add to the bug at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=100309. Just a thought.

Apparently Microsoft isn't the only organization creating web pages that do not work with Mozilla. The latest culprit I've stumbled upon is our own federal government. This past weekend I tried visiting the Government of Canada's National Atlas of Canada website only to discover that Mozilla is not welcome there. I sent a quick email to let the webmaster know how I felt. But does anyone listen? You'd be surprised...

A Web site sponsored by Microsoft and Unisys as a way to steer big companies away from the Unix operating system is itself powered by Unix software. The site, dubbed "We have the way out," runs on Web servers powered by FreeBSD, an open-source version of Unix, along with the Unix-based Web server Apache, according to Netcraft, which tracks Web site information. (Apache/Unix was being returned as of yesterday, now it appears they have changed the header output to say MicroSoft IIS/5.0 and removed the content). Now there's a new pro-OSS site called "We have the way in". Representatives at Unisys and Microsoft weren't immediately available for comment. Update [April 07 2002 @ 05:58 PM CST]: By dcepticon The website was taken down but is now back up (running win2k) and the propaganda war for information freedom marches on...

recently joined the Politechbot mailing list. Since 1994, politechbot has been run by Declan McCullagh, the Washington Bureau Chief for Wired News. A recent posting to the list refers to a bill introduced in US Congress last August, which forces auto makers to provide car buyers with enough information to fix their own cars. The bill is known as the Motor Vehicle Owners' Right to Repair Act of 2001.

The Canadian Copyright board is seeking huge increses in the levy paid on blank recoring media such as CD-R, CD-RW, CD-R Audio, DVD-R and even flash memory. The levy will effectively double the price of recordable CDs, in addition to extending the levy to cover new types of media.