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Posts with tag translator

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.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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