Syntux the geek

After partially-converting to Ubuntu (I’m still dual booting) and fiddling with MS alternatives, one of the first things that got me frustrated was the lack of immediate native Arabic language support in the word processor or the spreadsheet applications under the OpenOffice.org suit. Granted, the latter recognizes Arabic characters and renders right-to-left documents and spreadsheets of existing files, but what about creating new ones?

Native support means that not only is the user able to type in Arabic, which is straight-forward, but also to be able to type from right-to-left for the characters alignments are in tune. (Example: try to type in the text editor of Gmail in Arabic, you will be able to type but if you place a full-stop or any other ASCII character, it will revert back to left-to-right and only the “arabic” portions of the entered text will be written from right-to-left).

If you take a look at the toolbar, you’ll find that part of the hidden icons that enables you to toggle from left-to-right and vice versa, but they’re disabled. Same goes to the spreadsheet application where under Format -> Sheet -> Right-to-Left which is also disabled. Along with the presentation utility.

What you need to do is from each application, you go to Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages. From there make sure you enable CTL (Complex Text Language) by checking the box below, and then selecting one of the choices of Arabic in the middle section of the screen as shown in the screen capture.

Repeat action in each of the three applications.

Enjoy OpenOffice.org in Arabic…

Basem Aggad (http://dontcallmesheikh.blogspot.com)

Tags: arabic language support, spreadsheet applications, spreadsheet application, ascii character, hidden icons, arabic characters, gmail, basem, language settings, dual booting, text language, screen capture, word processor, alignments, spreadsheets, choices, blogspot, languages

To all Free/Libre/Open Source Software lovers and enthusiastic in the Kingdom, we are planning for a FLOSS Ramadan Iftar day gathering for Jolug, Ubuntu Jordan and Jordan PHP.

We didn’t decide the day yet but it should take place sometime between 15-25 Ramadan/September and should cost around 20 JOD per fasting human in one of 3+ stars hotels.

If you are one of them, if you want to get to know them, if you want a prove that we eat with a GUI not CLI or if you just feel hungry and want to join bunch of geeks on Iftar, send me an email to blog (at) Syntux {dot} net including your mobile number to arrange money collection for reservation.

Ramadan Karim :-)

Tags: open source software, money collection, mobile number, jod, ramadan iftar, ramadan, floss, ubuntu, geeks, jordan, email, hotels

First let me give you a brief background of the current Arabic translation status, We have 167 contributor, 266742 untranslated string which make %64.72, 8847 strings that needs review.

I’m putting the following assumptions to build sort of road-map, one crucial way to way to boost the translation process is to get more contributors (I’ll talk about how we can double the number later), lets say we can double our contributors 334 lets assume that 300 of them will translate 30 strings a day and others will review the translation that makes 9000 translated string a day on the other side each reviewer will review 60 string a day which should be around 2000 reviewed string a day.

Having a 300 contributor translating to translate 266742 string would take 30 days to push our status 100% translated (which is kind of a dream) in the same month we will have 60000 string reviewed with 206742 strings that needs a review and by the way I’m putting the worst case scenario here which is we have to review all of translated strings and later if we were able to keep the same spirit we will have all translation reviewed within 103 days.

Of course we still have to find a way to export our translation to the upstream and hopefully make this automated in a way similar to Upstream bugs linkage.

Now, How to get more contributors?
People would do things for free if they have passion for it, if they need it, if it’s fun doing it and finally if they are making some money out of it.

Passion can be achieved by advocacy and encouraging new blood to contribute as translators, explaining why it’s important, the light-weight technical side of translation too and of course explaining how translating applications and documentations would help in spreading FLOSS.

Needing it and I wonder who don’t need to use an app or read a documentation in his native language, although most technical people tend to prefer English regardless of their native language but what about the community? they will definitely need at least the basic documentation that is enough for them to get started.

The fun part, if you watched Human Computation you would understand what I’m talking about, people spend lots of time online for fun and we definitely can make something that is fun and useful at the same time it could be via online translation game where people compete for points, scores or karma. someone might say but translation apps and documents is different which is true but we still have a room of doing something that is fun and useful at the same time but of course this would need loads of resources.

The money part, currently we’re discussing a sponsored translation campaign to boost the process and we already got some promises to get some cash from Jordanian companies that benefits from FLOSS however this wont be enough because if we want to pay $0.05 per string then we would need around 13,000 not to mention that we also have to pay for reviewers also payment processing fees which is still feasible if we got enough cash and if we can guarantee that sponsoring a translation wouldn’t introduce licensing issue.

Finally, no single approach can solve the problem but maybe all together can make a change and thinking of it again, passion, fun and needing it are the most feasible approaches.

Tags: worst case scenario, translation status, arabic translation, native language, new blood, documentations, floss, road map, linkage, contributor, assumptions, advocacy, bugs, passion, spirit, money, ubuntu, translation

Has anyone tried the Linux version of Google Gears? I installed it like week ago and tried it with WordPress, Google Reader and some other small apps that support it but I felt no effect in speed at all.

Is it just me or did anyone else experience this no speed effect with Linux version of Google Gears?

Tags: google gears, linux version, google, gears, apps, linux

We have been working on Ubuntu Arabic silently to merge all of the scattered Ubuntu related efforts in Arabia to establish one solid good team and I guess we just did it and we just reached phase zero. (Yes, we were working in minus degree).

First, we merged with ubuntu-alarabi.net and now waiting to hear from arabuntu.org, we are so excited and we want to put all possible efforts on this team.

Our goals includes but are not limited to the following

• Handling Arabic Support on discussion forum, mailing list IRC and LP answers.
• Provide hosting to Ubuntu LoCo Teams in Arabia and giving them all kind of possible help
• Translating available contributor guides to Arabic to get the more contributors from Arabia (Now we are working on new translators guide) next might be MOTU
• Taking Arabic translation into higher level, currently we have 165 translator, 266742 untranslated strings which make the status %64 untranslated.
• Providing Arab users with apps that doesn’t exists yet in official repositories in our PPA

We still need lots of time to get in shape and this is just the start, our team still small and of course we are in need for any tiny contribution, if you are interested in helping please join us

Website: http://Ubuntu-Arabic.org/
Blog: http://Ubuntu-Arabic.org/blog
Mailing list: http://lists.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu-Arabic
Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-arabic
Related Projects: Ubuntu Arabic Website – Stardict English Arabic dictionary
PPA: Ubuntu Arabic Personal Package Archive
Wiki: http://wiki.Ubuntu-Arabic.org/
Discussion Forums: Temporarly Ubuntu-Arabic.org/forum but soon we are moving to forum.Ubuntu-Arabic.org

IRC Channel: #Ubuntu-Arabic on Freenode network
IRC Bot – Ubuntu-Arabic / Arabot

The team would like to thank Kuwaitnet.net for sponsoring us with a one year dedicated server and a life time license of vBulletin (They are hosting the Arabic Open CD too!) , we also would like to thank DirectAdmin ControlPanel for sponsoring us with a life time license which will make it easier to provide Arabia’s LoCo teams with hosting.

Thank you Kuwaitnet and DirectAdmin, without your help things would be very tough on us.

Tags: english arabic dictionary, untranslated strings, tiny contribution, package archive, arabic website, arabic , support, arabic translation, personal package, time license, phase zero, irc channel, stardict, forum mailing, controlpanel, launchpad, ppa, org forum, life time, repositories, loco