Reading & writing Chinese on XP

Like many others, I’ve spent ages trying to get Microsoft to show websites correctly and actually be able to read and write Chinese characters on a non-Chinese version of XP.

There’s bits and pieces on the web on how to overcome this but I found them not so useful (especially as I don’t have the installation discs to hand for Chinese character support or ahem.. am running a pirate installation…:-P)

Unfortunately you have to have admin rights to be able to set up Microsoft IME via the control panel and be able to write characters using the MS pinyin imput method. You also need admin access to be able to change windows so it defaults non-Unicode programs to use simplified Chinese – if you don’t do this when you load QQ all you see is squares…

There is a way around this if you don’t happen to have admin access to your machine i.e You’re at work . You can install NJStar CJK Viewer .

Continue reading

eBooks…Overrated

ebook reader

I got to try one of these out the other day, It’s a Sony ebook reader which is meant to be the future for digital publishing. It’s really slim and about the size of a paperback and can hold over 100 books on it depending on the size of the hard-disc.  I work in digital publishing so hear a lot about these things and how they will revolutionise everything but I’m not so convinced ?:-)

Granted It’s very clever and lots of design has gone into the screen which looks as crisp as I’ve ever seen a screen – apparently it uses real ink to make it look more like a real book.  Having said this I am yet  to stare at it for hours on end in order to see if my eyes hurt just as they do when you look at a computer monitor for too long. ..The battery life is almost endless with 7500 page turns before it needs changing.

I do see the advantage of being able to have 100 books on one reader, for students it could be a very useful resource and would alleviate the need to have textbooks for everything. For the traveller who can’t get editions abroad, they could have all the books they ever want stored in one location.  So for a select few it could prove to be a very useful gadget to have.

The problem is that at the moment there are very few e-format books that can be bought and downloaded from the major publishers. And so part of what I’m doing in my current job is to help get all the titles converted so they are available in E format.

As you’ve probably guessed, I’m quite cynical about this.  I don’t really think many people (beyond those in digital publishing!) will go out and by one of these devices with their own money. Firstly they’re really expensive, £250 is the figure going around, just for the reader – then you need books and they cost the same price as the print equalivant!

There’s no way I’d pay £30 for an eBook, even if it was the best book ever written. :X-P:

Continue reading

SNOW!

Some pics from the snow this morning.  I’ve haven’t seen this much snow fall in London since I was about 5.  It hardly ever snows here and when it does it seldom gets cold enough to settle in the city. 🙂  Perhaps the rareness of it all has caused everything to temporarily shut down…Snow on Sydenham Highstreet

There must be 3 inches at most, but there are no trains and the buses have all been cancelled on ‘health and safety grounds’.   I daresay in the summer when there’s

a coupe of days with +30C temperatures, people will be dying from sunstroke, hosepipes will be banned and trains won’t run ‘because its too hot’.

It Just shows how useless people in the south of England are at adapting to different types of weather.

Other countries with far fewer resources at their disposal manage just fine. Afterall, the roads in Changchun are frozen for 3 months of the year

but they manage so much better than people do here, and on far fewer resources.    The media gets into such a hysteria over it all, making the situation worse than it really is.  Perhaps they just want something to report on?? ?:-)

I did actually try to get to work and started to walk the 6 miles or so, but I turned back and gave up as I was  constantly thinking  ‘who else in my office would bother walking this far to work‘ .   It’s cynical I know, but why bust-a-gut when you know that no-one else has bothered and you’ll get paid regardless….

In a better place  people would be rewarded for getting into work in such situations or simply would not get paid for not being there.

No excuses!   I’m sure if this was the case then most people would find a way into the office, I know I would!

Perhaps one day, people on this little island will learn to get on with life when the weather isn’t overcast and grey, (aprox 50 days per year) though I feel this will take such a seismic cultural shift, I doubt it will ever happen in my lifetime.