ITO-Announce April 2005

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:

Survey: Proposed Community of Trainers
ItrainOnline partners IICD and INASP are proposing the development of an online community especially for ICT for Development (ICT4D) trainers. To this end IICD has coordinated the development of a questionnaire to gather information about community interest, needs, possibilities, roles and potential obstacles. To learn more about the proposed community and to complete the survey visit
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=116661068664

The following resources were added to ItrainOnline during April:

1. Collaborative Knowledge Sharing Tools
2. Searching
3. Multilingual Computing
4. Computer Basics
5. E-mail
6. Suggest a resource

1. COLLABORATIVE KNOWLEDGE SHARING TOOLS

ENHANCING INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS WITH BLOGS, WIKIS, AND MORE
In addition to offering an overview of wikis and blogs, this presentation provides interesting and creative examples of their use for knowledge sharing and growth in civil society organisations as well as private enterprise.
http://www.nickfinck.com/presentations/bbs2005/

UTILIZING WEB BLOGS FOR PROJECT EFFICIENCY
This presentation, from a corporate perspective, offers practical advice for launching and using web blogs in project information management and collaboration.
http://urlgreyhot.com/personal/publications/utilizing_weblogs_for_project
_efficiency

2. SEARCHING

COPERNIC DESKTOP SEARCH
As we have increased amounts and varieties of data on our computers finding files becomes more difficult. Now there are many different "desktop search" utilities that can be downloaded for free. Copernic Desktop Search can be incorporated into a Window's desktop and can search all types of files, including music, picture and video formats, as well as common office suite files, all email, recently visited web pages, favourites listings, etc. Available in English, French, German, and Dutch.
http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/download.html

SEARCHING ONLINE DATABASES
As your searching needs become more complex, simple search techniques will not suffice. Information Literacy @ Wesleyan University developed this online module to help improve search precision, understand the difference between "keyword" vs. "subject" searching, and use common searching methods such as Boolean searching, phrase searching or related terms identification more efficiently.
http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/infolit/modules/onlinedb/index.htm

3. MULTILINGUAL COMPUTING

BABEL NOT: MACHINE TRANSLATION FOR THE TECHNICAL COMMUNICATOR
Machine Translation (MT) is the automatic translation of text from one language into another. This article by the WTB Language Group, Inc. looks at when machine translation is useful and how to prepare documents for machine translation.
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/magazine/writing/babelnotmachinetrans.html

MULTILINGUAL COMPUTING RESOURCES GLOSSARY
A glossary of terms related to multilingual computing. The glossary details different standards as well as linguistic definitions to better understand the complexity of multilingual needs. In English and Japanese.
http://mlcr.nagaokaut.ac.jp/main1/glossary.html

INTRODUCTION TO MULTILINGUAL COMPUTING
The Center for Educational Technology's section on Multilingual Computing offers basic definitions of character sets and encoding, and overviews common encodings. The feature covers the use of multiple languages on Windows and MAC operating systems, and how to obtain special characters (i.e. characters with accents) in both, as well as how to facilitate multiple language character display on the web.
http://www.cet.middlebury.edu/rsrc_multilingual_intro.php

4. COMPUTER BASICS

INSTANT REFERENCE GUIDE TO CREATING DVDS AND CDS
A guide to the burning process for DVDs and CDs. It covers the basics of burning, including write speeds, drag and drop data, multi-sessions, and data verification. It also highlights "CD quirks" and how to copy VHS to DVD.
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,117720,00.asp

5. E-MAIL

YOUSENDIT!
Now you can send files of up to 1GB without clogging up people's inboxes! Sometimes sending large files is impossible from an email programme because internet service providers (ISP) must limit the size of files to send or receive to avoid mailbox congestion. YouSendIt is an easy online tool to send large files - such as print graphics, audio, or video files - and it won't clog up the recipient's mail box either, because "YouSendIt" stores the file temporarily on its website.
http://www.yousendit.com

6. SUGGEST A RESOURCE

If you would like to suggest a resource for inclusion in ItrainOnline, please visit
http://www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/english/submit.shtml or e-mail mmtk@apc.org