iPhone App Localization and the China Smartphone Market
AdobeHQ, 345 Park Ave., San Jose, CA Park Conference Room, East Tower
Click here for directions: http://www.imug.org/adobe/

Bo Lin is COO and co-founder of iPhone Localizer
<http://www.iphonelocalizer.com/>. Her company, based in California
and China, localizes iPhone apps for all 31 iPhone supported
languages, develops cross-platform, multilingual mobile apps, and
distributes multilingual iPhone apps to all 77 country App Stores.
The company also offers in-country app support worldwide and
marketing services for apps in Asian countries.

For a full description of on this event, please see
http://www.imug.org/events

ADOBE will host up to half of our meetings this year, beginning with
this event. Many thanks to Ken Lunde of Adobe for making this happen!
And a big thank you and welcome also to Mihai Nita, who will be our
co-host with Ken. Click here for directions:
http://www.imug.org/adobe/

ADMISSION is free for IMUG members, $4 for non-members. IMUG
membership is only $20/year, $15/renewal, or $100 for lifetime
membership. Click here to join, renew or pay a single non-member
event fee. Cash and checks also accepted at our events.
http://www.imug.org/imug-membership-and-event-fees.htm

PLEASE RSVP VIA MEETUP. Adobe has requested RSVPs so that badges can
be prepared in advance. You won’t be turned away if you don’t, but
there will be a delay while your badge is prepared. If you RSVP at
least 24 hours in advance it will be waiting for you at the desk.
http://www.meetup.com/IMUG-Silicon-Valley/calendar/12710234/

Whilst you are thinking about this little puzzle you might like to consider the correct usage of Less and Fewer, Amount and Number

These words cause problems for many native speakers of English.

The incorrect usage can be seen everywhere, from car advertisements to supermarkets. A classic example would be the “10 items or less” signs in supermarkets, which should read “10 items or fewer” or better still “Fewer than 10 items”.

How do you know which to use? Here is a simple explanation.

Less:
The word “less” is used for items can cannot easily be counted: “We have less milk than we thought”; “The balloon contains less air than yesterday”; “The cleaning took less time than I expected”. These things can be measured, but not counted as such.

Fewer:
“Fewer” is for things that can be counted: “The milkman delivered fewer bottles of milk than we requested”; “There are fewer balloons now than yesterday as some have burst”; “I have to clean fewer rooms now that I live in a smaller house”.

The words “amount” and “number” work in exactly the same way.

Amount:
“Amount” is used for items that can’t be counted e.g “He tries to eat only a small amount of cheese”;”He bought a huge amount of food for the party”; “She only spends a small amount of money on cleaning products” .

Number:
“Number” is for things that can be counted: “She works with a large number of cheese makers”; “He invited a small number of people to his birthday”; “She prefers not to use a large number of cleaning products.”

Answer:
Princes, the plural of prince. When you add an ’s’ it becomes princess, a singular word.

Since Beijing has for most of the time been the capital of China and city of the emperor, the
dialect of Beijing has emerged as Standard Chinese, which is now the official language of
China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and Singapore, and a strong connecting force between all
those countries.

Unlike the spoken Chinese languages, written Chinese is much less diversified. Most notable
is the difference between the Simplified and Traditional Characters. While the People’s
Republic of China started in the 1950s to simplify a larger part of the Characters with the goal
of speeding up the learning and writing process, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao kept the
Traditional Characters.

Chinese differences

Converting a text from Traditional Chinese to Simplified Chinese and vice versa can be done,
more or less, with a few mouse-clicks. The real issue is not the characters, but where the
translation is going to be used. Even within Standard Chinese there are local variations in
terminology and grammar between China and Taiwan. These differences are similar to those
between American and British English, but much larger in extent.

Generally, consumers (and thus the industry) are very sensitive to such local language
variations. Especially in Taiwan, considering the history it shares with China, it is impossible to
use translations done anywhere else.

This is the reason why STAR has an office in Taiwan. Besides doing translations into
Traditional Chinese for Taiwan we also adapt documents into Traditional Chinese for Hong
Kong.

Spoken or Written?

Which Chinese dialect do you need?

Check out our easy table to decide…

NEWS RELEASE:

Monday – 8 February 2010

STAR Translation Services
Docklands Innovation Park
128-130 East Wall Road
Dublin 3

STAR Translation today launched a new section on its website for lovers this Valentine’s day.  It tells you how to say “I love you” and “Will you marry me?” in 28 languages. The text is translated and provided as an MP3 file to listen to for free. It has a dedicated web page:

http://www.star-ts.com/iloveyou.shtml

A team of over 30 people in 26 separate countries gave their time for free to the project to deliver the translations and voice-overs.

“The news has been all about recession over the last few months. We wanted to do something fun to spread some smiles and happiness this Valentine’s day. I’m a romantic at heart so I loved working on the project” said Damian Scattergood, Managing Director of STAR in Ireland.  “We hope that people will enjoy it and we might get a few marriage proposals as a result!”

About STAR:
——————-
Based in Dublin, STAR TS provides translation services in over 40 global languages. It translates documents and websites to enable clients to do more international business every day. With more than 900 people worldwide in the STAR Group, we make translation easy.
http://www.star-ts.com

Damian Scattergood and Paul Quigley started their translation company in 2000 just after the dot-com bubble burst. The entrepreneurs joined the PDC, Hothouse program for new startups in Docklands in 2001. The company has grown successfully every year since then and is now part of the STAR Group Europes largest privately held translation company.

Further information:
——————–
Contact: Damian Scattergood
Managing Director, STAR Translation

email: info@star-ts.com
Phone : 01 8365614

WORLDWARE CONFERENCE

Keynote Speakers

March 16-18, 2010
Hyatt Regency Santa Clara
Santa Clara, California

The theme of the Worldware Conference is “The ROI of Software Internationalization.” This conference explores methodologies to get international product releases out on time and on budget.

An Entrepeneur in a Shrinking World will be the keynote presentation on March 17. The presenter will be Cliff Miller, chief strategy officer for DeviceVM.

Global Expansion in a Networked World will be the keynote presentation on March 18. The presenter will be Konstantin Guericke. Konstantin was most recently the CEO of jaxtr, a social communications start-up with over 10 million registered users, and co-founder of LinkedIn.

Visit: Worldware Conference

Export Credit Insurance :
This type of insurance policy covers your business against the non-payment of debts or bankruptcy of your customers outside your own country.

This is certainly worth considering if you are working with new clients and the sales value impacts your cashflow directly.

Domestic Credit Insurance :
You can also consider this type of insurance policy that covers your business against the non-payment of debts or bankruptcy of your local customers.

Factoring :
Third party finance provided by a factoring house. They buy your trade debts and advance you 90% of your invoice value. You pay a fee off the top line, but get payment immediately.

Invoice Discounting :
This is very similar to factoring. The difference is that your customers generally and not made unaware that you are doing this.

Legal Expense Insurance :

You can take out insurance that will cover your business against the cost of such things as legal advice and debt collecting costs for certain debts.

Service Pack 2 contains the following new feature and solved issues:

Support for DITA XML

A standard file type “XML_DITA” for DITA format is now available.
DITA is a standardized document format for describing information types.

Feature updates:

Transit NXT
- Spellchecker:  improved spellchecking functionality and procedures
- Arabic:  improved format check, improved segment display
- Markup:  improved markups display, improved search within markups, markup assignment in virtually joined segments
- Improved processing of Powerpoint animations
- Improved processing of binary resource files
- Reference material: improved maintenance and organisation of reference material

TermStar NXT
- Statistics:  improved field statistics
- Import/Export:  improved import/export functionality

For further information contact your local STAR sales office.
Ireland and UK call Dublin : +353 1 8365614  of visit www.star-ts.com

The word ‘unfriend’ has just been named Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary.

Unfriend is defined as a verb that means ‘to remove someone as a friend on a social networking site’. “It has both currency and potential longevity,” said Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary programme.

Other finalists included:

“Hashtag”: A method of tagging a topic on Twitter so it can be found by other twitterers!

“Intexticated” : When people are distracted by texting while driving.

STAR – helping you communicate in a complex world.

To support the development of the localization industry in Thailand, the Localization Industry Standards Association is collaborating with the Royal Institute in Thailand, AsiaOnline, and ProZ, to bring together the leaders in globalization process and strategy for a groundbreaking two-day conference on the role of the localization industry in Thailand and the Asia-Pacific region.

“Localization and Translation services Thailand: Bridging Asia with the World” (December 3–4) .

Visit the following URLs for more information:

• Registration (LISA members receive a $100 discount):
  http://www.localizationandtranslation.com/Registration.aspx
• Conference website:
  http://www.localizationandtranslation.com/
• Program details:
  http://www.localizationandtranslation.com/ProgramAndSpeakers.aspx
• Sponsorship and Exhibition opportunities:
  http://www.localizationandtranslation.com/ExhibitingAndSponsoring.aspx