This the start of a cross-language archive look at the current state of UX design presenting Content generated in Language Documentation.
http://www.rnld.org/archives
http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/language_archives
http://paradisec.org.au/
http://repository.digiarch.sinica.edu.tw/index.jsp?lang=en
This post is a open draft! It might be updated at any time... But was last updated on at .
The online version of the SIL Bibliography contains a subset of over 29,000 citations from the more than 40,000 publications representing 75 years of SIL International's language research in over 2,700 languages. [1] SIL Bibliography Online. April 2012 version. SIL International on Ethnologe.com. http://www.ethnologue.com/bibliography.asp [Accessed: 21 August 2012] [Link]
Finding Resources through SIL.org's (as of 2 August 2012) Bibliography can be a challenge at times - Maybe even a time-wasting endeavor. Time wasting because it might not be very useful to consult the online Bibliography.
The challenging aspect which affects usefulness is primarily three fold:
I found for some of my blog posts I need a screens shot plug-ins for my browser. So I first downloaded and installed, Awesome Screenshot Capture. However, after a recent update my browser was running slowly. So I investigated and found each page load was being referenced to superfish.com. I knew that I had not installed a plug-in which should be contacting superfish.com. So I had to look around I did some Googleing and discovered that superfish.com has a package which can be used by plug-in developers to monetize their Open Source software. Basically the developer gives away their product for free, while superfish.com gets their user browsing data and pays the developer some sort of fee for helping them collect the data. (The best review I can find explaining how this works.)
While I have nothing against the business model and the plug-in works well, I feel a bit undercut. See, when I installed the plug-in it did not contain the superfish.com addition. My update program told me I needed to update so I did. I trust Firefox, and I trusted the developer. So, I feel that this was a bit of a switch-and bait tactic used by the developer, or certainly a “change in business direction”. While the plug-in is technically Open Source, unless one is code savvy, the code is not going to change. While one could say that I should have read the reviews, the reviews were not necessarily there when I installed the plug-in.
In my case superfish.com was still being contacted when the plug-in was was told not to activate that part of the plug-in. So I went and found another plug-in in the FireFox extensions repository.
superfish.com and screen shot FF extension.
This is the lesson:
Not all Open Source software is good for you, and sleazy things can happen with updates. So read the update notes and the reviews when updating.
EOM seems to be the rage. That is an email with just something in the subject and nothing in the body, or a statement like [no reply necessary] or [end of message] at the end of the subject line.
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Recently I have also started using MailChimp to manage and send my E-mail correspondence for a newsletter I do. Today I followed a couple of tutorials and managed to add a “sign-up for my newsletter” pannel right on my Facebook Page.
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I have been thinking through some of the presentation issues for presenting SIL International’s work on the web. As part of this I have also been looking at other organizations which are part of the language documentation and minority language revitalization movement. I recently ran across several nicely done web sites.
National Geographic Genographic Project
National Geographic Genographic Project
Lets say it this way, If you want reader to comprehend the things you are trying to communicate to them, and then to act on something then when you write for the web:
Several months ago, I posted a question to Facebook about digital literacy.
What is the role or place of Digital Literacy in a company that values literacy as being vital to reaching its goals?
I have had several months to contemplate the question and I realize that I was a bit ambiguous in my question, or rather my question could not have been understood concisely. Digital Literacy can and is used to mean Continue reading
I have been playing around with data available from the iPhone (and also separately visualizing Map data).
I came across a project, iPhoneTracker which was done to show iPhone users the kind of data that the iPhone collects about a users travel and whereabouts. I downloaded the app and ran it. Looks like about a complete history since I activated the phone… The interesting thing for me was that this app did not collect the data from my phone directly but rather from my computer.
iPhone location history from my iPhone
Becky and I were looking for some notable quotes about Bible translation and the importance of the Bible for our website – hughandbecky.org I was visiting WycliffeUSA’s website and I noticed a quote from Bishop Desmond Tutu.
If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There’s nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Quote by Desmond Tutu on Wycliffe.org
I wasn’t quite sure who this fellow was – I mean he could have been Desmond from Lost for all I knew. But alas no, he was Desmond Tutu. A really influential activist who is generally well respected among world leaders.
But the thing with quotes is that they can mean what every the quoter wants them to mean when they are removed from their original context. In the context of the WycliffeUSA’s page where this quote was found, it makes sense as it is positioned as an appeal to people who might be interested in giving to Wycliffe through the Federal Government’s matching donation program.
However, I wonder does it make sense to use the quote at all? Here is the reason – Does using the quote in some way put the organization WycliffeUSA in a position where it equally is endorsing Desmond Tutu? This is an interesting situation given the reported position that Desmond Tutu, also a world recognized church elder, has on homosexuality. (Specifically, Desmond Tutu is pro gay rights by having an anti-discrimination of gays position, granted these two points of view not be the same thing depending on where in the world one is viewing the situation from and what the social/cultural attitudes are surrounding LGBT issues in the ego society.) The interesting position is that WycliffeUSA takes an anti-LGBT postion, as many christian conservative organizations do.
The question of inference I think is one where perhaps Desmond Tutu is a better diplomat and politician than conservative christian Bible expositor (as others from South Africa point out).
But in terms of orignal context, it is still interesting that WycliffeUSA, wants to be known by this quote, because it was not a reflection directly of or on them – the only connection is, well the Bible.
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