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How to use Sony PMB software and a Rosewill memory card reader to read your Sony MS-PRO (and bring Windows-XP to its knees)

  1. The Rosewill rcr-ic001 card reader seems temperamental – you need to try several times to insert the card for the reader light to reliably flash.
  2. It seems you need the Sony-provided software installed to have Windows recognize the drive: sony pmb1.
  3. And offer an import:
  4. sony pmb2
  5. However, the import of videos fails for me (only images get imported)sony pmb3.
  6. But at least I can access the videos through Windows, from here (for non-HD):
  7.  sony pmb4
  8. Until things go bad (computer slows to a crawl, then explorer crashes): sony pmb5 data execution preventionsony pmb5 data execution prevention2    

Installing support for non-western languages in Windows XP

  1. You do not have them if your control panel / regional and language options looks unchecked like this: xp-lost -support-for-nonwestern-foreign-languages
  2. you need your Windows XP install disk
  3. The installer is not smart enough to find the i386 folder, nor to find all files around it.
  4. xp error installing nonwestern langauges cplexe
  5. Just point the installer to the directory manually where you located the file in question. xp error installing nonwestern langauges xjis.nl_
  6. The initial directory it is lookiong for is /i386/lang. The 2nd directory it is looking for is /i386.
  7. Additional complication: files in the install source are compressed, and their filename is altered (e.g. “.ex_” instead of “.exe”). So it is “Go figure”.
  8. Hm, I could have sworn this was the first thing I did here. Are downgrades being slipstreamed? I hope I did this now for the last time. Update: No, I did not…

Linguee dictionary lookup based on parallel corpora

2012/04/04 2 comments
  1. Support for more languages is planned (Chinese, Japanese):linguee parallel corpora dictionary lookup
  2. linguee parallel corpora dictionary lookup1
  3. The interesting approach based on parallel corpora provides a wealth of empirical data, albeit a bit raw  and of varying quality, e.g.:
  4. linguee parallel corpora dictionary lookup griff in die wundertüte

Find open access research on teaching modern foreign languages with Yazik Open

2012/03/28 2 comments

An inititative of an expert from the UK LLASYazik Open has the potential to become a welcome addition to our SLA research search options, especially if you do not want to run into a pay wall after finding an interesting abstract.

The currently sole contributor seems to be admin – same problem I had when I started a language learning resource links database in 1998, when will this change?

The keyword list looks somewhat rudimentary – when I worked with LLAS on a language learning resource metadata schema, complexity led to a grinding halt.

So the need to bring some of the advances in technologically fostered collaboration and information exchange to domain-specific fields like SLA certainly remains to be felt here.

Independent study with free language learning materials from the FSI?

The Foreign Service Institute language learning materials  – consisting of scanned documents and digitized audio of multiple courses per language – were still a heavily-advertised resource when I visited the Defense Language Institute in Monterey in 2006.

It is nice to see these resources be made available for free. It is also nice to see the progress that has been made not only in technological adaptation of textbook learning materials since these materials were made available (post WW II?).

This, however, comes at a cost. If you shun it, and do not take a course that works which requires (and entitles you to the use of) a textbook, here are easily accessibleviewable learning materials for a large set of languages, including many LCTL: Amharic, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cambodian, Cantonese, Chinese, Chinyanja, Czech, Finnish, French, Fula, German, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Igbo, Italian, Japanese, Kirundi, Kituba, Korean, Lao, Lingala, Luganda, Moré, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Shona, Sinhala, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Twi, Vietnamese, Yoruba.

The Forums , however seem to indicate that not too many still use these options. The transformation into a (technologically superficially) more modern format here is limited to very few languages and courses (and crashed my web browser).

Protected: New LRC Calendars/Equipment mailboxes visible to students

2012/03/22 Enter your password to view comments.

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Eva English Word Lookup against Wordnet

  1. Eva Word Lookup – not listed under the extensions, but run against Wordnet, the lexical database for English – enables you to study your English words in depth. This lookup gives you information organized by the following aspects of your word, linked from  an overview of each word type your search term can belong  to:
    1. the coordinate terms (sisters)
    2. the derived forms
    3. the synonyms/hypernyms (ordered by estimated frequency)
    4. the hyponyms (troponyms for verbs)
    5. the holonyms, for nouns
    6. the meronyms, for nouns
    7. sample sentences, for verbs
  2. Below is what results look like for example search term “design”: WordNet 3.0 Vocabulary Helper- design_1332435445059

How a teacher uploads a video resource to Moodle using Kaltura

  1. Moodle Kaltura facilitates making segments of video (created from e.g. source DVD with the video editor of your choice) available for film studies classes, within the bounds of Fair Use and the Teach Act, since it makes video 
    1. easily available (streamed to anywhere where Adobe-Flash runs),
    2. but only to those who have an account in the Moodle installation and are registered for the course
  2. In addition, access to the video segments can be restricted further (by choosing from the management options that Moodle affords),
      1. only to the teacher, for display during face-to-face teaching)
      2. only during a time window, for timed assignments.
  3. Here is a (somewhat longwinded, but authentic) demonstration of how to make a Kaltura video resource available through a Moodle course.
    1. The demonstration includes the server-side encoding which happens only once during teacher upload – you do not have to wait for it to finish, just if you want to check immediately, like I do on the example whether your upload went through.