14 June 2011
Worsening Situation in Syria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BpOfw9lVL50#at=11
27 April 2011
Arabic (unicode) support on the Kindle 3 -- not on the DX
I've been using a Kindle 2 since July 2010 and been highly impressed with this product.
It allows a massive library collection on the go and free unlimited internet access virtually anywhere on the Amazon Whispernet network. The Kindle has network access across Australia using the mobile phone network even in remote locations, though it doesn't seem to be fully operating on Telstra Next G. The International version is meant to work across the world as well but I've not yet verified that.
On the Arabic support side of things, I've been somewhat disappointed. I've saved a few pdfs that have Arabic stored as images which is a big drain on battery life and is tedious to navigate, but still somewhat useful. Opening Arabic text directly displays only big ugly squares.
Unfortunately I got the Kindle 2 right before the price drop and release of the Kindle 3 in July 2010 which brought a faster, higher contrast screen, is slightly slimmed down size and has unicode support.
Today, after reading about Kindle 3's unicode support, I grabbed a friend's Kindle 3 and was pleasantly surprised to find it opens aljazeera.net (arabic) perfectly.
Currently the Kindle Store has fairly limited Arabic learning resources - the Arabic support only being done by text stored as images, but with the Kindle 3 unicode support there shouldn't be anything stopping publishers from releasing searchable, resizeable, battery friendly Arabic unicode texts. The only potential road blocks I can see is backwards compatibility with the older Kindles and the lack of international keyboard layouts on the Kindle.
So if you'd googled, as I had, and been under the impression the Kindle does not support Arabic, take a look at the Kindle 3rd gen.
I went and ordered a new Kindle DX and expected it to have the same 3rd gen features as the Kindle 3. But it doesn't!
It allows a massive library collection on the go and free unlimited internet access virtually anywhere on the Amazon Whispernet network. The Kindle has network access across Australia using the mobile phone network even in remote locations, though it doesn't seem to be fully operating on Telstra Next G. The International version is meant to work across the world as well but I've not yet verified that.
On the Arabic support side of things, I've been somewhat disappointed. I've saved a few pdfs that have Arabic stored as images which is a big drain on battery life and is tedious to navigate, but still somewhat useful. Opening Arabic text directly displays only big ugly squares.
Unfortunately I got the Kindle 2 right before the price drop and release of the Kindle 3 in July 2010 which brought a faster, higher contrast screen, is slightly slimmed down size and has unicode support.
Today, after reading about Kindle 3's unicode support, I grabbed a friend's Kindle 3 and was pleasantly surprised to find it opens aljazeera.net (arabic) perfectly.
Currently the Kindle Store has fairly limited Arabic learning resources - the Arabic support only being done by text stored as images, but with the Kindle 3 unicode support there shouldn't be anything stopping publishers from releasing searchable, resizeable, battery friendly Arabic unicode texts. The only potential road blocks I can see is backwards compatibility with the older Kindles and the lack of international keyboard layouts on the Kindle.
So if you'd googled, as I had, and been under the impression the Kindle does not support Arabic, take a look at the Kindle 3rd gen.
I went and ordered a new Kindle DX and expected it to have the same 3rd gen features as the Kindle 3. But it doesn't!
The DX Graphite (DXG) is generally accepted to be of the 3rd generation, yet it is a mix of 3rd generation hardware and 2nd generation software. The CPU is of the same speed as Kindle 3 but it is of a different revision. Even though DX Graphite has a larger case, it has only a half of system memory (128MB) than Kindle 3 (256MB). Due to these hardware differences, DXG runs the same firmware as Kindle 2 (currently at version 2.5.8). Therefore, DXG cannot display international fonts such as the Cyrillic font (Chinese or any other non-Latin font), PDF and the web browser are limited to Kindle 2 features.I'm very unimpressed to find this out after buying the DXG for $400. I'll be weighing up now whether to return it and wait for the DX model refresh.
13 February 2011
Arabising Nokia N8 PR1.1 Update - Arabic V13.16
29 November 2010
Arabising Nokia N8
I just received my new Nokia N8 early last week and so far have been fairly well impressed.
The interface isn't as smooth as the iPhone 3GS, particularly when it's multi-tasking a few apps but the features rock. Flash, high quality camera, JAVA apps support and integrated FM transmitter are some of my favourite features. Plus micro SD support now up to 32gb, 16gb internal memory, USB flash drive / external hard drive support and pentband compatibility make this phone almost the perfect fit for me. I miss having physical QWERTY keyboard as with the E71, E72 but the on-screen keyboard isn't too bad and the tactile vibration feedback when a key is pressed is a nice addition.
Tonight I Arabised the phone. Here's how to do it.
0. BACKUP your phone! I missed this step :) but you can skip it if you don't want to keep any data.
1. Download and run Navifirm. The full list of Nokia products will load, then select the N8. Go to RM-596 and select the product code Syria 0599460. Download all the files.
2. Grab the Phoenix Flash Program
3. Copy all the files you downloaded in step 1 to c:\program files\Nokia\Phoenix\Products\RM-596. Phoenix will flash your phone with these files.
4. Shutdown Ovi Suite or PC Suite if you have them running.
5. Open Phoenix. Click File -> Scan Product and then click on Flashing -> Firmware Update.
6. On the right of the Product Code section click the three full stops "…"
7. The files you put in the RM-596 should show up. Click ok.
8. Click Refurbish.
9. A warning will pop up about a "16G" file being missing. This doesn't matter. Click continue anyway.
10. Your phone will restart a couple of times and Windows may end up installing a few extra devices. After a couple of minutes the flashing will complete and your phone will start up all shiny and new. Now you have an Arabic keyboard and you put the phone language into Arabic.
The interface isn't as smooth as the iPhone 3GS, particularly when it's multi-tasking a few apps but the features rock. Flash, high quality camera, JAVA apps support and integrated FM transmitter are some of my favourite features. Plus micro SD support now up to 32gb, 16gb internal memory, USB flash drive / external hard drive support and pentband compatibility make this phone almost the perfect fit for me. I miss having physical QWERTY keyboard as with the E71, E72 but the on-screen keyboard isn't too bad and the tactile vibration feedback when a key is pressed is a nice addition.
Tonight I Arabised the phone. Here's how to do it.
0. BACKUP your phone! I missed this step :) but you can skip it if you don't want to keep any data.
1. Download and run Navifirm. The full list of Nokia products will load, then select the N8. Go to RM-596 and select the product code Syria 0599460. Download all the files.
2. Grab the Phoenix Flash Program
3. Copy all the files you downloaded in step 1 to c:\program files\Nokia\Phoenix\Products\RM-596. Phoenix will flash your phone with these files.
4. Shutdown Ovi Suite or PC Suite if you have them running.
5. Open Phoenix. Click File -> Scan Product and then click on Flashing -> Firmware Update.
6. On the right of the Product Code section click the three full stops "…"
7. The files you put in the RM-596 should show up. Click ok.
8. Click Refurbish.
9. A warning will pop up about a "16G" file being missing. This doesn't matter. Click continue anyway.
10. Your phone will restart a couple of times and Windows may end up installing a few extra devices. After a couple of minutes the flashing will complete and your phone will start up all shiny and new. Now you have an Arabic keyboard and you put the phone language into Arabic.
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