IMUG Past Events Archive: 2008
2008 Events
- Dec: 8th Annual Holiday Bash & Potluck, Featuring the Agorithmic Art of Paul Max Payton.
- Nov: iPhone International Features & Apps
- Oct: One Laptop Per Child Update: the Smart Common Input Method and Other Recent Developments
- Sep: Chinese Sequence Code — An Innovative Solution for Sorting and Indexing
- Aug: Opportunities in International Markets: from Strategy to Sale with the US Export Assistance Center of Silicon Valley
- Jul: Internationalizing the Virtual World
- Jun: Open Source? The Advantages of Community-Driven Software in Content Globalization
- May: The 7 Habits of a Great Localizer
- Apr: San Jose Software Startup and Small Business Support
- Mar: Vertical Text on the World Wide Web
- Feb: Ideographic Variation Sequences: Implementation Details
- Jan: The LinguaStep Online Language Learning Platform
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2008 Event Announcements:
December 18, 2008, 7-9 PM
Nibbles and Bits: the 8th Annual IMUG Holiday Bash & Potluck
Featuring the Algorithmic Art of Paul Max Payton
Presentation slides: Paul Max Payton's Pixtile® Art (10MB PDF)
This year our traditional holiday bash will feature not only the usual food and good conversation, but also a very interesting presentation of computer-generated "
algorithmic art" by a very talented artist.
IMUG will supply all the free pizza and drinks necessary to easily fulfill the base tier of Maslow's (or anyone else's) heirarchy of needs. You don't need to bring a thing, but we always look forward to the fantastic variety of ethnic dishes the less culinarily-challenged among us can muster up for this annual food-fest. That always takes things to a higher level. You needn't prepare more than 3 to 4 portions worth, and in fact you needn't prepare anything at all. Come as you are, with or without a potluck contribution, but do come prepared to eat!
This year we are also honored to have Paul Max Payton join us to present his artistic creations. Paul's art has been featured at the Xerox PARC Algorithmic Art showcase, has appeared in solo and group exhibitions, and is in private collections throughout California.
Pixtile® art (pixel + tile) fuses ideas of computer science, image processing, crystallography, abstract geometry, Boolean algebra, and color theory into variegated mosaics of ornate pointillist tapestries. This presentation will briefly discuss some of the principles and techniques employed in this creation process, beginning with how an accident led to the discovery of a breathtaking collection of algorithmic art. Intended for both engineer and layperson, the emphasis here will be on the artistic process and will feature copious pieces of ‘eye candy’.
Paul Max Payton is a principal software engineer with Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center. At 38, he was the youngest person named as an ATC Technical Consultant. In his career of 25+ years in aerospace, he received a NASA commendation for his role as technical investigator on the Space Shuttle Columbia accident investigation team, an SPIE Best Paper Award, and numerous corporate awards for technical excellence.
Paul was a member of the team that produced and launched Iknonos, the world’s first one-meter commercial imaging satellite, and has written flight and ground software for numerous classified missions of national importance. He has authored or co-authored over three dozen articles in image processing and computer vision topics for SPIE, IEEE, and SPSE, including several book chapters in Geometric Invariance in Computer Vision (MIT Press) and Applications of Invariance in Computer Vision (Springer). He holds five patents in image compression and photogrammetry and has over a dozen integer sequences listed in the OEIS. He is listed in editions of Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World. Paul is a life member of Mensa and Alpha Gamma Sigma.
In 1982, at age twenty, he received his degree in computer science from San Francisco State University with departmental and all-university honors. His hobbies include creative writing (calligrammes) and algorithmic art.
November 20, 2008, 7-9 PM
iPhone International Features and Apps
Speakers: Lee Collins, Deborah Goldsmith (Apple Inc.), and Chuck Soper (Vela Design Group)
This event will feature three - count 'em, three! - back-to-back presentations:
iPhone multilingual support:
The Apple iPhone was designed from the ground up with great international support, with Unicode as the native character set, and now ships with a large set of language keyboards.
Lee Collins and Deborah Goldsmith from the OS X engineering team will demonstrate multilingual setup and keyboards, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian, and answer our many questions about iPhone language support.
Lee Collins has been working in the area of software internationalization since before it had a name. He started at Xerox in the early 80s and has been at Apple off and on since 1988, with side trips to Taligent and Ariba. He is one of the co-founders of Unicode. His current position at Apple is Manager OS Engineering Asia.
Deborah Goldsmith has been working at Apple since 1986. She began working in international SW in 1994 and now is now a senior engineer in the Frameworks department.
iPhone developer perspective:
VelaClock is a world clock that quickly displays time of sunrise, sunset, or twilight (civil, nautical, and astronomical), duration of daylight, moon phase information and more.
See a demonstration of the VelaClock iPhone app, hear the story of migration from VelaClock widget to iPhone app, and learn about development plans and localization challenges.
Chuck Soper is founder and lead developer of Vela Design Group. He has twenty years commercial software development experience and has been on development teams for products such as JMP, StatView and MacDraft.
iPhone App Store overview:
An introduction to the iPhone App Store for developers and users, including advice on how to submit localized App Store content. (Speaker tbd.)
October 16, 2008, 7-9 PM
One Laptop Per Child Update: the Smart Common Input Method and Other Recent Developments
Speaker: Edward Mokurai Cherlin/Czerwin (Founder, Earth Treasury)
OLPC has committed to replace the standard X keyboard mechanism with SCIM, Smart Common Input Method. This permits a single keystroke to generate more than one Unicode character. We have a new GUI keyboard layout editor, which will be made into a Sugar activity. Mokurai will show the state of language support, and give examples of SCIM and the keyboard editor.
We will also review the latest OLPC news, including the Windows XP on XO trial in Peru, and the new GiveOneGetOne offer, which will be available starting on Nov. 17, and will include the US, Europe, and parts of Asia.
About Edward Mokurai Cherlin/Czerwin
גרשון בן יסעף
Эдуард Георгеевич Черлын
장 영구/張 永久
法 雲默 雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज
Morukai (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai) volunteers at OLPC and Sugar Labs as a volunteer coordinator, localization administrator (Khmer and Kreyòl), and general knoker (an especially Yiddish know-all, the kind who did math homework in pen), based on his training as a mathematician, classroom teacher, amateur musician and linguist, philosopher, and Buddhist priest plus his lifetime of encyclopedic reading, many years in high-tech market research and technical writing, and work in Unicode and Free Software.
Visit http://www.linux.com/feature/147070 for a video of the speaker at Linux World talking about his take on OLPC and its potential to end poverty, along with a few other requisites that we can work on.
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September 18, 2008, 7-9 PM Chinese Sequence Code — An Innovative Solution for Sorting and Indexing Speaker: David Chai, Ph.D. (retired; formerly with Bell Labs / Bellcore) Unlike alphabet-based languages, Chinese ideographs do not have a “natural” sorting sequence. The 16-bit internal codes that are currently used in computers are essentially randomly assigned. As a consequence, one cannot sort Chinese text, such as names in a column of a spreadsheet, nor produce a sorted index of a book written in Chinese. The Chinese Sequence Code (CSC) provides an algorithm that maps every Chinese character that is internally represented by a standard 16-bit GB code [for simplified Chinese], Big5 code [for traditional Chinese] or Unicode [an international standard for multiple languages, including simplified and traditional Chinese] into a unique alphabetic sequence using the 26 English letters and 10 Arabic numbers, based on the sound and the shape of each character. The methodology that produces such a mapping was co-invented by Dr. Sing Lin and Dr. Andrew Soong and has received a patent from both the US Patent and Trademark Office and China’s State Intellectual Property Office in Beijing. |
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David Chai retired from Bell Labs / Bellcore after 30 years of service. He moved to the Bay Area in 2004 to be close to his children and grandchildren. Besides technical work, he volunteered in his local community of Holmdel, NJ, by serving on its Planning Board and Zoning Board. He was also elected as a Council member and served as its Mayor. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for a number of non-profit organizations in the Bay Area. He has a Bachleor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan. He lives in Foster City.
August 21, 2008, 7-9 PM
Opportunities in International Markets:
from Strategy to Sale with the US Export Assistance Center of Silicon Valley
Speaker: Mari Felton-Beal, US Department of Commerce
Presentation slides & handouts:
- Mari Felton-Beal IMUG presentation slides (PDF)
- Digital Media Indicators (PDF)
- Digital Media International Trade Shows (PDF)
The U.S. Commercial Service has been called the "best kept secret in the federal government," but it is an open secret and one that can help you and your company enter new foreign markets and grow sales around the world. Come learn how the US government's network of local and overseas trade offices can help your company develop an effective international marketing strategy.
Mari Felton-Beal, an international trade specialist who works with companies in computer hardware, software and related services, will present free and low-cost programs designed to help small and medium-sized businesses determine which markets offer the best opportunities, find pre-qualified resellers, distributors, and other partners, all with the goal of growing your international sales. Business large and small also often rely on the Commercial Service to resolve problems with foreign governments standing in the way of completing business deals.
Mari will share examples of how her clients have succeeded in the global marketplace with the help of the Commercial Service, and will offer an update on what's in the pipeline for upcoming trade events in which you may be interested.
About the speaker:
Mari Felton-Beal is an International Trade Specialist with the Commercial Service of the US Department of Commerce. For the past 10 years she has worked in the Silicon Valley Export Assistance Center, assisting local technology companies in developing their overseas sales strategies. The U.S. Commercial Service is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce founded in 1980 to promote the worldwide export of U.S. goods & services. The USCS network includes 107 export assistance centers nationwide and more than 150 offices in 87 countries. Please visit http://www.export.gov for more information.
July 17, 2008, 7-9 PM
Internationalizing the Virtual World
Speaker: Ben Gertzfield, VMware.
Presentation slides: Ben Gertzfield IMUG Talk (PDF)
Join Ben Gertzfield, lead developer on VMware Fusion, for an in-depth discussion on the challenges of internationalizing virtualization software for Mac.
Virtualization breaks down the walls between your computer and its software by letting you run Mac, Windows, Linux, and other operating systems all at the same time. With virtualization, it's simple to develop and test software on Japanese Windows, French Mac OS X, and Russian Linux, all without leaving the comfort of your Mac.
Crossing the boundary between operating systems presented the VMware Fusion development team with lots of fascinating problems to solve, including:
- Drag-and-drop of files between Windows and Mac OS X, handling the difference in Unicode filename normalization and case-insensitivity rules between the two
- Supporting international keyboard layouts in Windows that require keys that don't exist on a Mac keyboard
- Internationalizing and localizing messages in a cross-process environment written in a wide variety of languages, including C, C++, Objective-C, and Objective-C++
Ben Gertzfield has been developing open-source and commercial software since 1995, when he joined the Debian GNU/Linux team. In 2001, he moved to Japan to do international software development at Global Media Online, where he developed the internationalized email package for Python and Mailman. Ben developed PayPal's Unicode and internationalization infrastructure in 2003, and now leads software development and internationalization on VMware Fusion for Mac.
June 19, 2008, 7-9 PM
Open Source? The Advantages of Community-Driven Software in Content Globalization
Speaker: James Urquhart, Alfresco Software, Inc.
In website authoring, an enterprise Content Management System, or CMS, is used to create, edit, manage, and publish documents and content using a shared, well-organized interface that usually does not require any specialized technical skills.
Alfresco, the leading open source enterprise content management system, has been built from the ground up for an international market, and--as expected--significant work has been done to support localization of the user interface itself. However, with CMS the problem extends to localization of the content produced and/or managed by the system. This presentation will explain why every enterprise CMS should include both forms of internationalization support, and the advantages that are gained by open source platforms that leverage their international communities for translations and other localizations.
This presentation should be of interest to anyone involved in global software, content or document production, including both creative and technical professionals."
James Urquhart James Urquhart is Director of Solutions Services, Alliances at Alfresco, and a widely experienced enterprise software field technologist. Over the years, he has held positions in technology consulting, software engineering, product marketing, and program management (the latter for the global developer communities of one of the world's largest developer sites). His admittedly schizophrenic background is driven by a desire to work with technologies that are disruptive, but that simplify computing overall.
James is also an avid blogger. His primary blog, recently renamed "The Wisdom of Clouds" ( http://blog.jamesurquhart.com ), is focused on so-called cloud computing and its effect worldwide on enterprises and individuals. For more information on Alfresco, visit http://www.alfresco.com/
May 15, 2008, 7-9 PM
The 7 Habits of a Great Localizer
Speaker: Anna M. Schlegal, Director, Globalization Program Office, VMware
It sounds obvious that you should plan ahead, but globalization is often treated as an afterthought, something that can be simply tacked on at the end of the product-development process. The results are usually disappointing and needlessly expensive.
This presentation is for anyone who is working to market, develop or sell a product outside of the US.
Anna N Schlegel is Director of the Globalization Program Office at VMware.
San José Software Startup and Small Business Support:
Business Incubators and Other Help for Growing Your Business Idea
Speaker: John Lang, City of San José, Califorina, Office of Economic Development
The City of San José is home to the largest concentration of business incubators in the United States, including the Software Business Cluster. San Jose is also home to a wide range of other government and non-profit economic development and assistance programs to nurture startups from young companies into global powerhouses.
The Software Business Cluster, recognized by the National Business Incubator Assoc. as "Incubator of the Year," attracts up to 25 early-stage software and mobile technology companies at a time. Stars of the program include Agile Software, which has grown from two to 678 employees.
Another example is the Entrepreneur Center, which provides entrepreneurs with a full range of business services, including finance programs, technical assistance, management training, assistance with procurement programs, technology training, and international trade counseling. And another organization, the Software Development Forum, provides software and Internet professionals with a one-stop location in downtown San José for information, connections, and education.
John Lang is a Development Officer with the City San José Office of Economic Development. John will describe these and many other local and international trade programs organized in cooperation with many partners, including the Commercial Service of the US Department of Commerce and the Small Business Development Center.
The City of San José Office of Economic Development is committed to a vital, competitive San Jose economy that increases prosperity for people and companies and enhances city revenues. For more information, see http://www.sjeconomy.com/ or call John Lang at (408) 535-8178.
March 20, 2008, 7-9 p.m.
Vertical Text on the World Wide Web
Speaker: Stephen Zilles, Standards Architect, Adobe Systems
Originally presented at the Internationalization & Unicode Conference in October 2007, this talk will describe some of the features that enable the use of vertical text that have been or are planned for inclusion in the W3C formatting standards, such as CSS, SVG and XSL. The presenter will describe facilities for placing vertical text, aligning mixed texts, such as Western alphabetic or Arabic texts with East Asian texts.
Steve Zilles has been involved with the W3C since 1994 and has been a participant in both the CSS and XSL Working Groups. He has worked for Adobe Systems, Inc since 1992 in areas related to text formatting and rendering. He was active in the design of the ISO print description language and in the use of Postscript and PDF as standards for publishing.
February 21, 2008, 7-9 p.m.
Ideographic Variation Sequences: Implementation Details
Speaker: Dr. Ken Lunde, Adobe Systems
Originally presented at the Internationalization & Unicode Conference in October 2007, this talk will be updated to include the latest news on Adobe-Japan IVS registration.
Ideograph Variation Sequences (IVSes) allow glyph distinctions to be made at the "plain text" level, through the use of the Variation Selectors (VSes) in Plane 14. This presentation thoroughly describes the implementation details for supporting IVSes in the context of OpenType fonts.
In addition to the implementation details for IVSes, the experience of registering the glyphs for the Adobe-Japan1-6 ideographs will be covered during this presentation. Proper handling of IVSes and VSes, from a text-engine perspective, along with real-world application of the IVD and IVSes, are part of the overall picture that is painstakingly painted.
Ken Lunde is a Senior Computer Scientist in CJKV Type Development at Adobe Systems Incorporated, headquartered in San Jose, California. He has been with Adobe for over sixteen years. He is also the author of "CJKV Information Processing" (O'Reilly, 1999), and is currently working on writing the Second Edition.
January 17, 2008, 7-9 p.m.
The LinguaStep Online Language Learning Platform
Speaker: Loren Siebert, LinguaStep
LinguaStep is an online language learning platform that works in conjunction with existing language textbooks.
Meet the developer, Loren Siebert, and hear how an eight-week summer program in Arabic motivated him to develop this innovative language program, first for his Mac and then as an online application. Only one year after that beginning course, Loren became an instructor in Arabic and continued to develop the concepts and coding behind LinguaStep.
Loren, a Marshall Scholar turned entrepreneur, will describe the experience of launching his new online service, for which he has reportedly closed deals with about 30 universities, including Stanford and UC Berkeley.
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