Internationalization Webseminar Announcement

Is your software global-ready?

- Can it be efficiently translated into multiple languages?
- Can it support Asian languages?
- Can it work in multiple date/time formats or handle address, phone number and other information that will vary worldwide?

Not sure? This interactive two-hour online course is definitely right for you then. Join us for a live WebSeminar and learn how to make internationalization - the process of adapting source code to support worldwide locale requirements - a smooth effort and avoid iterative, pernicious, and expensive delays to global releases and revenue.

WebSeminar: Global-Ready Applications / Programming for the World

Please email webseminars@lingoport.com for information on a GALA discount.

Localization Certification Program and Localization Certification Test

This first-of-its-kind Internationalization, Localization and Global Ecommerce Certification Program was designed for busy professionals that cannot attend live classroom training. This complete and practical courseware on CDs offers more than 8 hours of training, 212 slides, detailed narration and extensive written commentary that cover the same topics presented in the live training programs for a fraction of the price. All courseware is in a multimedia format, with audio, graphics, slides, and a lot of content in 2 CDs. This program has been used by leading technology companies such as PalmSource, Medical GE, WebMD and many universities. See a list of academia customers below. Also the US Library of Congress has recently acquired the certification program on CD.

“Before taking the Localization Certification Program I looked around and this course is the best one I found regarding internationalization and localization” - Ivбn Arredondo-Castro, Software Engineer, Healthcare Services Group, WebMD Health.

Relative information: http://www.tgpconsulting.com/certification-program.htm
http://localization.blog.co.uk/2007/08/09/the_world_s_foremost_network~2783044

The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) version 1.0 has just been published as a W3C Recommendation. You can read the W3C press release.

ITS is a set of attributes and elements designed to help in the internationalization and localization of XML material. It can be used externally to the documents (a bit like the “DTD Settings” file in Trados), and it can be integrated within the XML documents themselves.

The ITS 1.0 Specification can be found here: www.w3.org/TR/its

You can find extensive examples, descriptions and links to implementations of ITS on the ITS Working Group page: www.w3.org/International/its.

The next step for the Working Group is the publishing of the “Best Practices for XML Internationalization” which is currently a Working Draft.

We are a Singapore software internationalization and localization provider with one of the branches in China. Currently we need the Trados training to our staff. However, we searched the webs but couldn’t find such training courses locally..

-Stefan
ESS Software (www.essware.com)

The Last Call Working Draft of the Internationalization Tag Set has been published.

Along with it a new document the Best Practices for XML Internationalization has also been published as a First Working Draft.

I would encourage anyone who develop translation tools that provide support for XML to review the ITS Specification document. Part of the specification addresses some of the XML localizability issues, offering a common way to specify localization information:

• what should or should not be translated,
• some terminology identification mechanism,
• identification of inline codes and sub-flows,
• localization notes,
• and more…

You can use Bugzilla to point out issues and provide comments. The review period lasts until June-30 (6 weeks).

ITS (http://www.w3.org/TR/its/) is a set of elements and attributes that supports the internationalization and localization of schemas and XML documents. This first draft addresses the following type of information (called data categories in the document):

• translatibility
• localization information
• terminology
• directionality
• and Ruby text

For example, ITS provides attributes to identify within your XML document parts that should not be translated, or words/phrases that should be treated as “terms”, as shown below:

<para>
And he said:
You need a new <span its:translate='no'
its:term='yes'>motherboard</span>.
</para>

Each data category can be used in schemas, in-situ (within the content), or dislocated (defined somewhere else than where the corresponding content is located). XPath is used to provide all the scoping mechanism.

I think it is important for the localization and translation tools vendors who are not part of the ITS working group to provide feedback on this draft, so the final version of ITS can be well-suited for their applications. You can send your comments to www-i18n-comments@w3.org. Use Comment on its tagset WD in the subject line of your email. The comments archives are publicly available.

I recently learnt about the release of a beta of Windows Workflow Foundation, a .NET library which is currently in the works both for Windows client and server operating systems.

Among other more sophisticate possibilities, workflow can be sequential, which to a large extent means that the computer is in charge and outsources some tasks to human beings, or state-oriented, which means that the human beings decide the actual transitions from state to state according to their own judgment and the role of the computer is basically to limit the acceptable transitions for each state and track the status. But this is probably easy to say but awkward to code in a model that gives the level of flexibility that LSPs need. Hopefully this library in the pipeline comes to help to make it simpler for developers.

The RTM (Release-to-Manufacturing) version of this framework is still a few months away, but I think that its mere existence increases significantly the chances that both Tool Vendors consider workflow in their product roadmaps, and other existing frameworks (or future copycat frameworks) empower developers so that they can add more features to their tools.

At the Localization World conference last week in Seattle, this topic has been identified as one of the “hot topics” in the industry at this moment. There have been controversial discussions about buying an off-the-shelf product (such as LTC Organizer or project-open) or creating your own tool, which suits the needs of the company best.
In the Technology discussion group at the GALA Annual Meeting, we have decided to pick up this topic and start a web blog on it.

We therefore welcome any comments you have regarding this topic, or any experiences you would like to share with the rest of the world:

What tool are you using, what are the pros and cons from your point of view?
Did you create your own tool, what are the obstacles to look out for?
Are you validating tools at the moment, would you like to share some of your results?
Do you consider implementing such a tool in your company, what information are you looking for?

We do appreciate an open and frank discussion about this topic, but please no bashing of any kind.