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translator posts

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Web services, Microblogging

Translate before you tweet, using Twinslator

As Twitter's worldwide growth continues, non-English-speakers are adopting it in larger numbers. And when we don't all speak the same language, it might sometimes be necessary to translate a tweet into something other than your native tongue. Twinslator makes that very easy, by providing what's essentially a mashup of Twitter and Google Translate. It's a translator you can tweet from.

If you don't translate very often, it might not thrill you to save a minute or so and a little copy-paste from the regular Google Translate site. If you do it frequently, though, Twinslator could be great for you. Twinslator also wisely gives you the option of double-posting the original tweet and the translation, so the maximum number of your followers will get the message. Even if it's not likely to be wildly popular, it's still nice to see someone acknowledging the global scope of Twitter and attempting to connect cultures

Filed under: Audio, Fun, Time-Wasters

R2-D2 Translator - Star Wars Time Waster

As a protocol droid, C-3PO was the only character in Star Wars who ever really understood what poor R2-D2 was trying to say. But, with this neat little R2-D2 translator, you can speak R2's language, or at least get a good audio file of it. Put in any word, and it'll be translated into droid-speak for you to download as a ringtone-ready mp3 file.

The most disappointing limitation is the 30 character limit on text. I mean, come on: you can't even put in "the Force is strong with this one!" However, if you have some audio editing software, you could certainly splice multiple Mp3s together to make one longer ringtone. If it's not edited exactly, no big deal. To be perfectly honest, only C-3PO is going to know what your R2 ringtone is really saying.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Web

Two ways to translate to the NATO phonetic alphabet


I spend a lot of time on the phone with tech support personnel that don't understand ticket numbers and product codes I'm reading, so I find myself using the good old NATO phonetic alphabet fairly often.

Sometimes, though, I have a hard time remembering some of the letters. P, for example, is not Peter, it's Papa.

Thankfully, developer Nicholas Wagner has two handy utilities to help. Phonetic is offered as both a desktop application for Windows and Linux and a web-based utility. The RealBasic source code is also available for download.

The web version displays translation on the fly directly the text field. It's a tool well worth bookmarking for anyone that needs to spell things out to, say, computer software or hardware support workers.

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Web services, Education

Frengly does translation, but does it beat Babelfish?


The biggest players in the online translation game are Yahoo! Babelfish and Google Translate. They both have their unique charms, but a site called Frengly might offer a little competition. Its selection of languages isn't quite as extensive as Google's -- you won't find Hindi, Latvian or Catalan, for example -- but it does offer more languages and more combinations than Babelfish. Frengly's killer feature is auto-detection, though.

Frengly's language detection is even cooler than Google's, for a couple of reasons. First, you don't have to select auto-detection from a language list, like you do in Google Translate. If it's automatic, why should it take an extra step?
Second, you don't have to select a target language from a menu. You can just click it, and the original text remains on screen. If you want another language, just click again.

Frengly doesn't do webpages, and doesn't have a bookmarklet. If that's the bulk of what you want to do, stick with Google for now. On the other hand, it does save a list of your translations. If you're looking for a translator to help you do homework or understand a few words in a book you're reading, look no further.

Filed under: Fun, Internet

Learn to speak like a lolcat (you know you want to)

Unless you've been living under a scratching post lately, you've probably heard of lolcats and the shiny craze it has inspired. Visitors to I Can Has Cheezburger?, the website that started it all, often converse with each other in lolcat-speak, and some of the more rabid fans even use it when texting or instant messaging their significant others. Or, um, so we've heard.

Anyway, if you're not fluent in lolcat-speak but want to have some fun with other lolcat-fanciers, Speaklolcat can help. It's a web-based translator that helps turns any English phrases into lolcat language. For example:

Lolcats are in your world, planning your domination

becomes

Lolcats r in ur wurld, plannin ur dominashun

Though it's fun just to play around with, the lolcat translator is also handy tool for creating captions to put on your own cat photos. If you want to eventually move beyond the translator, you can always learn LOL-Kitteh as a second language. Kthxbai.

Filed under: Business, Utilities, Windows, Office, OpenOffice.org

OpenXML Translator launched

openxml translator launchedVersion 1.0 of the OpenXML document translator launched this past Friday. This initiative translates native document formats into OpenOffice and Microsoft Office. The translator will work between Microsoft's OpenXML, and OpenOffice's OpenDocument formats. The project took eight months to complete and ensure it met a high quality and standards level. So far, over 8,000 copies of the translator have been downloaded on SourceForge. Although the translator is not being shipped within Office products, Microsoft said that it has tested it with Office 2007-2003, and Office XP. The next version of OpenOffice will carry the translator, which is currently available on SourceForge. The decision for Microsoft to be involved with the translator has stemmed from customer demand. Support for both Excel and PowerPoint documents are scheduled for November 2007.

Filed under: Fun, Web services

AJAX Translator: Text translation in real time

AJAX TranslatorI try not to post every cool AJAX gadget that turns up, but this one, though just a proof of concept, is pretty fun: AJAX Translator translates the text that you type in almost-real-time. You choose your "in" and "out" languages, type into the top box, and as you type a translation is printed in the bottom box. Perhaps not especially useful, unless you're trying to communicate with someone in the same room who doesn't speak your language, but neat nonetheless.

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With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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