Changes the timezone to China (+8)

If you use mysql database, you will also need to use

mysql_query("SET time_zone = '+8:00'");

to change the the timezone of mysql database.

Pros: If you want to speed up your translation by taking advantage of Google Translate’s suggestions, this tool allows you to do it from within any program you are using to translate: just select the sentence to translate, hit Ctrl+J, and the selected source text is replaced by the Google translation. I tested it from within Workbench (using both the Word and the Tag Editor interfaces), and from within SDLX. It works, and can help speeding up your translation. The tool is cheap, and allows for a generous trial period.

Cons: Apart from the obvious (the quality of the MT provided), the tool sometime only translates parts of the text, if the selection is too long. Also, concerns have been voiced about the use Google will make of the texts you pass through their translation engine, and they also apply if the text is processed by Google through another interface such as this one.

As regards the quality of the MT provided by Google, your mileage may vary, depending on the type of text and language pair. In some fields I find it is good enough as a first rough draft. In others it is still quite useless.

Apache server provides a .htaccess file using which you can use to redirect URLs. For example, if you want to redirect all visitors to http://dallascao.com/cn/ to http://dallascao.com/en/, you can open the .htaccess file at the root, and then input:

RewriteRule ^cn\/?$ en\/

Translating the code in English, it means “Please replace ‘^cn\/?$’ with ‘en/’”. “^cn\/?$” is a regular expression, in which:

“^” matches the beginning of a string.
“$” matches the end.
“\” means “/” following it stands for “/” itself, not part of the grammar.
“?” means there can be one “/” or no “/”

So “^cn\/?$” matches two strings: “cn/” or “cn”. When visitors visit http://dallascao.com/cn/ (end with a slash) or http://dallascao.com/cn (end with no slash), they are redirected to http://dallascao.com/en/

Task two:

If you want to redirect all visitors to the root of http://dallascao.com/ to http://dallascao.com/en/, I can use this:

RewriteRule ^$ en\/

“^$” matches an empty string, meaning the root.

Task three:

Inputting the following code into the .htaccess of http://gt4t.net/, all visitors to http://gt4t.net/anything/ to http://gt4t.net/en/anything/. For example, visitors to http://gt4t.net/downloads/ will be redirected to http://gt4t.net/en/downloads.

RewriteRule ^(.*?)\/?$ \/en\/$1

“^(.*?)\/?$” means anything that either ends with one “/” or no “/”. In the second part, “\/en\/$1″, “$1″ stands for the 1st bracketed element in the previous string “^(.*?)\/?$” (in this case, the only bracketed element.). And it means replacing “ANYTHING” ending with “/” or no “/” with “/en/ANYTHING/”

By the way, if you want your redirection to be hidden, you can add the following option to the beginng .

Options +FollowSymLinks

In the example above, your visitors to http://gt4t.net/downloads is redirected to http://gt4t.net/gt4t_en/downloads/ but http://gt4t.net/downloads is still shown in the address bar.

Finally, here is is the complete .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks
 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^gt4t.net$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.gt4t.net$
RewriteRule ^(.*?)\/?$ \/gt4t_en\/$1 [L]

Confused? Contact me if you have such a need. I will be happy to help you.

Translating a loooong list of country names, for example, can be very tiring and time-consuming. With GT4T, you just need to hit the shortcut and the names will be translated and correctly typed for you automatically.

GT4T can be used as a dictionary integrated into your applications.

Let’s face it. We need to check the on-line dictionaries quite often. When checking on-line dictionaries and you are tired of typing, do you copy the source word and paste it into a dictionary and then paste the translation back? With GT4T, you ONLY need to hit the shortcut and then the source word is replaced by its translation. You don’t even need to switch between windows!

Surprise!

At least until now, no one believes machine translation can be as good as human translation. But more often than you think, Google Translate can surprise you. Especially when you are stuck and your mind goes blank, hit the shortcut to see what Google Translate can provide. I won’t surprised if you find that answers from Google Translate can be really awesome.。

The idea of GT4T is to bring Google Translate to your fingertip and everything is just one hot key away. With GT4T, to use Google Translate, you no longer need to leave your document, open your browser, navigate to Google Translate website… just hit the hot key, and the translation is automatically typed into our document.

Still not sure? Check out this (testimonials page) and this (a discussion at proz.com) to see what other users have said about GT4T.

This site is hosted on a server in Texas, the USA (not in Dallas though), yet I am using the host service from a Chinese guy known as Cosbeta. Cosbeta is a very busy man: a travel agency owner (or he works for it); the author of several popular WordPress plugins (cos-HTML-cache, ajax-comment-vote); and the sole-founder of blockxx (providing ssh service) and homezz.com (providing web hosting service). I am a customer of both blockxx and homezz.com.

By far I am a satisfied user of both services. No, Cosbeta never is  a sweet, courteous, patient service provider, instead he is always blunt, hopelessly laconic and even quite often sounds annoyed by your RTFM questions (he has promised to be nicer in the future). Luckily you will find much sweeter “staffs” who are willing to answer any of your questions, and it had not been very long until I found out that these “staffs” were also users who volunteer to help!

You see HomeZZ is a very special web hosting provider. It’s more like a cluster of friends headed by Cosbeta who want to take advantage of the much better web hosting services in the USA. HomeZZ also has a QQ chat room where users chit chat. I was addicted with on-line chatting many years ago – with my wife before we got married, but being attracted (or distracted, as I am usually very busy!) by chatting with a group of funny geeks is quite unexpected.

Why would I use HomeZZ.com, a second-hand dealer rather than directly use the web hosting providers in the USA? Very importantly for users in China, Cosbeta makes sure the shared IP I use will not be banned in China.  More importantly, I would prefer to trust a reliable individual to an impersonal company.

Here comes the keyword of trust: What would happen if Cosbeta lost interest and disappeared? This has been my worry for a long time but not any more. I trust him just like the other users who call him Dongge or Brother Dong, a name you would use on a close friend in China.

Homezz.com is not open for registration. Here are some registration code you can use to register at homezz.com. If one is already used, try another:)

1. 424755781
2. 434501781
3. 628189781
4. 721126781
5. 521661781

Now this is the problem:

If a cell in the Word table contains several paragraphs, i.e. hard returns (“Enter” key) or soft returns (“Shift+Enter” key), when pasting back to Excel, the returns will be interpreted as dividers for cells, dividing the texts originally in one cell into several cells.

Here is what I figured out:

1. In Word: hit CTRL+H, replace “^p” (standing forhard returns, no quotation marks) with “/el/” and replace “^l” (standing for soft returns) with “/el/”. Now the texts contain no line breaks.

2. Select the column and paste it back to Excel.

3. In Excel: Now we need to replace “/el/” with a Return. Here is the trick to do this: hit CTRL+H, in “look for” field, enter “/el/” (no quotation marks). And now move your cursor to the “replace with” field. Turn the Numlock on (if it is not). Press down ALT key and type “10″ in the number pad.—nothing appears in the text field, but THAT IS OK!—and then click “Replace All”

Done!