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NETSPEAK GIVES an account of some concepts and activities encompassing the web globalisation phenomenon that aims to make web adaptable to the requirements/expectations of people with different language/culture backgrounds. One of the consequences of the widespread acceptance of the Web worldwide is that it provides companies with a cheap and efficient mechanism to reach markets that are beyond their traditional boundaries. But as the Web was initially developed and nurtured by people in English-speaking countries, English has become its main language. So, the challenge faced by a web designer now is to remove this English orientation so that a company's web content can be accessed by people all over the world without any language or culture barriers. This process of making a web site truly universal so that it can be accessed by anybody in the world is generally known as globalisation of the web. As mentioned in Globalisation.com (http://globalization.com/), the objective of globalisation is to make a web site "linguistically and functionally useful to more than one country". The accepted abbreviation for the term is G11N (11 letters between the first letter (G) and the last (N). The globalisation of the web involves two complementary components: internationalisation and localisation.
Internationlisation (I18N)
When we design a web site there are many aspects that depend on a specific location. These culture specific parameters such as offensive words, pictures, currency symbols and regional preferences are isolated and removed. This aspect of globalisation that separates out culture/local dependent aspects of a web site is called internationalisation (abbreviated to I18N) of the web. If the abbreviation, I18N, of the word internationalisation amuses you, here is an interesting story that explains the genesis of this abbreviation (http://www.i18n. com/ article.pl?sid=02/03/02/0345215)
Localisation (L10N)
Now, to complete the design so that the product can be accessed to people of a particular locale, we need to add local-specific parameters to the web site that has been internationalised like translating the text to the local language, inserting pictures and other parameters that are suitable only to a specific location. This process of adapting a web site to local specific elements is called localisation (L10N is the abbreviation — 10 letters between L and N). BBC World Service is an example of a site that has gone global. The news service can be read in 43 languages that include Bengali, Hindi and Tamil. Check out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/index.shtml For more details on web globalisation, check out: LISA: http://www.lisa.org/: web site of Localisation Industry Standards Association (LISA). Here you will find valuable articles and reports on this subject. i18ngurus.com: http://www. i18ngurus.com/docs/984813401.html: Several links to articles and white papers on globalisation related topics. Globalisation portal: http:// globalization.com/ W3C internationalisation site: http://www.w3.org/International/ An article on I18N and L10N with PHP: http://www. onlamp.com/ pub/a/php/2002/11/28/php_i18n. html
On-line free books
Net is slowly but steadily being transformed from a free-Net world, where many useful services are available free of cost to a fee-Net world where services are available only at a price. But still many free on-line services are available. Let us take a look at a few tools and services that enable us spot free books hosted on the Net. One of the salient features of the web is that it can be used by authors/publishers to publish their works without incurring any additional cost. Many authors publish the electronic version of their books on-line for netizens to read/download them for free. Though several books that cover almost all subjects are available on the Net, spotting the web locations of books that are relevant to us is a challenging task as general search engines are quite inadequate for this purpose. To remove this bottleneck, special search services have been developed. A few of them are featured here:
Online Books Page
The Online Books Page (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/) can be considered a search tool that will take you to various sites that host different kinds of books. The service has a huge database that contains information on books published worldwide. You can get the list of books according to such factors as subject, author and title. For example, if you are looking for books related to computer science, access the `Subject' button, and then move on to the `Mathematics and Computer Science' section.
Internet Public Library (IPL)
IPL is another web-based service that offers links to over 20,000 free books. As per the site, books are "available on topics from Russian fiction to Keynesian economics". Check out: http://www.ipl.org/div/about/
Books-On-Line
Books-On-Line (http://www.books-on-line.com/bol/default.cfm) is another service that allows you locate free books on several subjects stored in its server as well as other servers on the Net. A highlight of the service is that from its `Movie Script' interface, you can access scripts of famous Hollywood movies that include Godfather and Star Wars. Project Gutenberg (http://promo.net/pg/) that aims to make "lots of famous and important texts freely available to everyone in the world". From this site, you can download digital version of many old books.
Free Tech Books
In the FreeTechBooks site (http://www.tcfb.com/freetechbooks/) you will find many links to free books on such technical subjects as C/C++, Perl, Python, UNIX and Linux. A feature of this site is that when you select a particular subject, the service displays some external resource links related to the subject selected. For example, if you opt for books related to C/C++, the site would display web addresses pointing to homepages of famous persons who developed these languages like Brian Kernighan and Bjarne Stroustrup. Students of computing may find this site valuable.
TextReader: A tool to read plain text files
Many of the free books are available in normal text (. txt) format and one may find it a little uncomfortable to read them through normal text editors or word processing packages. In such cases the best solution is to read the material through a text reader tool. For example, try out the shareware software TextReader (http://www.filematrix.xnet.ro/) that enables you read plain text files as books. Another software that can be tried out in this regard is the Brandt Innovations, free Text Reader (http://ww3.brandt-innovations.com:85/scripts/website.dll/?page=reader) that scrolls through Text and Rich Text (.RTF) files. The program lets you change such parameters as font size and scroll rate. J. Murali
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