Text Summarization Tools and Translation

Today I was (again) requested by one of my clients to translate (the news reports I do for them) in a way that they are summarized. So the readers may not have to go to unnecessary details which they are not interested in. I've tried to go around this request previously, because it was hard for me to provide extra time for "summarization" of the text, then translating it. Being a translator means you do not need to read the passage twice. You keep on reading sentence by sentence and keep on translating. It is very rare when the text is not familiar and translator has to read it first to get an overall idea of it. So I was being selfish in the same way, because I had to be give extra time for same work.

Well, having said that, today when I received the request again, I tried to find a work around. Where I could be happy as well as my client. And I got hit by the idea of automatic text summarization tools. That was amazing, I was so too much excited. I went to google and started searching "creating summary of text". And it gave me a bunch of tips every time "how to write executive summary" and bla bla bla... Well, that didn't go well, I said to myself. And then I changed the keywords to "text summarization tool". And I found some clues, an offline application and then some very exciting online tools which worked for me. So I used automatic summarization tools online today for the first time. I summarized a news report (in English) and then translated it. This way my client got happy (I am hoping so) and I am a happy guy also. So I wanted to share these tools here, in case someone might need to summarize his English text before translating it.

Text Compactor

It is the best tool I've got today. It is based on an open source summarization tool. And I think a very good implementation. It works fine for longer texts as well as short. My experience with a 600 words or so text was that it summarized it almost half when I chose 50%. But for a 400 words text, it didn't shorten it to almost or exact half, but returned the same. Then I selected 30% (even 35 or 40 didn't work either) and it gave a very compact summary of the text. So I think next time I should get a one third of longer texts as well so to incorporate more news reports in my daily professional Urdu translation limit for that client.

Tools4Noobs Summarizer

It was pretty good too, but it is a demo version. Additionally it was not that good as the above one. So I left it.

SweSum

This one was what I got at number one. It is actually written for Swedish but supports a number of languages including English. The tool is pretty much old and looks like not maintained anymore. It gives some good options for summarization as well, but its result is not very good. After getting the summary of longer text (same as used for text compactor) I had a feeling that automatic summary may not work for me. It focused too much on data and statistics, two sentences were subject less, and the ending part (which I think should have been part of the summary) was also omitted. So I had to add it on my own. But later text compactor solved the problem. I am hoping it will go on solving the problem for me. Because I cannot afford providing extra time for summary and then translation, or deciding what should be included and what should not be (in translation).

So folks, if you even get a chance when you need a summary. Do try these online tools, they work good.

Creating an Urdu Translation Glossary with C#

After a long time I have come back to C#. My limited skills allow me to do some things only with text processing and as I trained my self, my little silly looking C# scripts deal with file operations, getting word frequencies, getting counts from different text files etc etc. As I use C# as Python or other scripting language should be used, to write small programs to do tiny miny things, so I consider myself less of a programmer. But still I am in between a layman and a programmer, and can write a few bits of code. This time, after several months when I came back to C#, it was the urge to create an Urdu Glossary which can work with OmegaT. OmegaT is an open source translation memory tool, and I use it for most of my translations. And I need dictionary constantly as well, but the dictionary I use Urdu Web Lughat which is written in C# 2 and fits my purpose very well, when I add this Lughat File instead of default file which has only a few thousand words. This file has 92661 words and expressions which usually provide me insight for the correct translation, not to mention several other Urdu lughats have been merged with original few thousand words file to create this file. Well it serves the purpose, but it creates problem as well. I have to type each word in its lemma form i.e. if it is a verb in with third form e.g. got, I’ll have to write fist form get to get the meaning. Other problems are with the application.

Urdu Web Lughat

As the picture shows, capability to search the desired word from Google, Wikitionary, and Urdu Wikipedia as been added to it. This is done by default Internet Explorer Engine provided for C# 2005, but it creates problem while using in higher versions of Windows e.g. Windows 7. Each time I seek a word, it will show 2 or more dialogue boxes showing this error.

Urdu Web Lughat Error

I think I’ve the source code and can fix the problem by simply disabling this feature. But my other problem remains, that is typing the word each time, it takes too much time. So I was seeking for a solution. The solution I figured out was simple, put the lughat file in OmegaT somehow. And that’s possible through dictionary or glossary setup of the program. I find the dictionary process of OmegaT quite complicated (it requires Star Dict format). So I think its more feasible to put a glossary file instead (which is in this format word-tab-meaning). This was easy for me. I wrote a regular expression to match the lughat file’s xml and to extract each word meaning node (Don’t tell me it would have been easy with xml parser, I do not know it so regex was best for me). So here is the code I used to convert the nodes of xml in tab separated text file with each word meaning pair on new line.

public static void test ()
        {
            string match = "\\<I\\>\\s*\\<w\\>(?<Word>[^><]+)\\</w\\>\\s*\\<m\\>(?<Meaning>[^><]+)\\</m\\>\\s*\\</I\\>";
            string text = File.ReadAllText(@"G:\Software\Dictionary\dictionary.xml");
            Console.WriteLine(text.Length);
            //Console.Read();
            MatchCollection m = Regex.Matches(text, match);
            StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(@"G:\Software\Dictionary\Glossary.txt", true);
            string word = "";
            string meaning = "";
            Console.WriteLine(m.Count);
            //Console.Read();
            for(int i=0; i<m.Count; i++)
            {
                word = Regex.Replace(m[i].Groups["Word"].Value, "[\\r\\n]+", " ");
                meaning = Regex.Replace(m[i].Groups["Meaning"].Value, "[\\r\\n]+", " ");
                sw.WriteLine(word+"\t"+meaning);
                Console.WriteLine(word);
            }
            sw.Close();
        }

I know it could be improved a lot, but it did the work and did it pretty soon. I put the glossary file in OmegaT project folder as it was required (/project/glossary/Glossary.txt) and that’s done.

OmegaT with Glossary 1

I was able to see the word meaning for each sentence in the glossary box in lower right box. It was quite a help for me and reduced my time. But then came the other problem: I still had to go to dictionary and type the lemma forms of verbs and plural nouns, so there was no meaning available for worked, working, works but only for the 1^st  form i.e. work. This was quite frustrating for me because the actual problem was still there. So I decided to add the other forms of the words which had more than one forms. I decided to add new lines in the glossary for each form of verb, and add lines for plural forms of nouns as well. The idea was simple enough, but to accomplish it I had to grab a lemma list. Fortunately, being a corpus linguistics student, I know one out on internet. E_Lemma.txt has been created for Word Smith Tools, but I used it for my purpose. The code I used to extract lemmas of each word, and add them to new glossary file is below.

public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines(@"G:\Software\Dictionary\Glossary.txt");
            string[] lemmas = File.ReadAllLines(@"F:\Corpus Related\e_lemma.txt");
            string word = "";
            string meaning = "";
            string lemma = "";
            StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(@"G:\Software\Dictionary\Glossary2.txt", true);
            int count = 1;
            foreach(string line in lines)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(count+" of "+lines.Length);
                word = Regex.Split(line, "\t")[0].Trim();
                meaning = Regex.Split(line, "\t")[1].Trim();
                lemma = giveLemma(word, lemmas);
                if(lemma!="")
                {
                    foreach(string lemma1 in lemma.Split(' '))
                    {
                        sw.WriteLine(lemma1+"\t"+meaning);
                        Console.WriteLine(lemma1+"\t"+meaning);
                    }       
                }
                else
                {
                    sw.WriteLine(word+"\t"+meaning);
                    Console.WriteLine(word+"\t"+meaning);
                }
                count++;
            }
            sw.Close();
        }
        public static string giveLemma (string word, string[] lemmas)
        {
            string toReturn = "";
            string lemma1 = "";
            string lemma2 = "";
            foreach(string lemma in lemmas)
            {
                lemma1 = Regex.Split(lemma, "->")[0].Trim();
                lemma2 = Regex.Split(lemma, "->")[1].Trim();
                if(word==lemma1)
                {
                    toReturn += lemma1 + " " + Regex.Replace(lemma2, ",", " ");
                }
            }
            return toReturn;
        }

As it can be seen, the task is pretty simple.

• Get each line from previously made glossary file.
• Split the word and meaning.
• Pass the word to another function, along with the lemma list (got from e_lemma.txt file) and return all possible forms of a verb or a noun.
• At the end write a new line for “word-tab-meaning” pair for each lemma form of verb or noun.
• And if there is no lemma, simply write the original word meaning pair.

The task was simple but the code was quite inefficient, so it took a long time to do this task. It took almost 1.5 hour to do it. But it was done and worked like a charm. See

OmegaT with Glossary 2

So a glossary for Urdu Translators working with OmegaT is available. And of course it can be downloaded from here.

Urdu Glossary in Zip

Killer Topics for Blogging

Bloggers are writers, but unlike traditional writers they are not supposed to be writing only when they have “mode”. If you are in the market, if you want to survive and if you want your readers to continue coming on your blog, you’ve to keep on pushing yourself. Blog posts get old in hours so you have to build new. Posts are read and forgotten, and then they demand more. Same as today people eat, and then demand more to eat. So the experts create “stimuli” for the land to produce quickly and efficiently i.e. fertilizers, they create medicine for cattle and chicken to “produce” faster whether it is milk or eggs or meat. So bloggers are like a commercially breaded commodity, they are supposed to produce, and keep on producing. This process of pushing themselves hard, writing more frequently even if one has no desire to write, extracting every bit of creativeness from the mind creates a hollow effect in the mind. Blogger does not spend much time in writing as much he spends on thinking what to write. The problem is not to create a post, problem is to create a topic around which the post will be woven. Don’t worry, I am with you in this barren land of blogging. When it is “blossom” or “spring” on me, I keep on writing, the topics keep on popping up in my mind and I keep on flowing on the fertile waters of this season. But the “spring” is not always like this. There are times, as there are times for Pakistan now rains are killing then drought will be killing, so there are times when “spring” ends, the springs of water become dry, rains stop pouring down, the sky is hot and bitter, and mind is barren. At these times a blogger feels helpless, or let me admit, I feel helpless, lonely, empty handed, drifting in a void, having a hollowness within me and visiting my blog’s admin page time and again, clicking on New Post button, sometimes opening it writing a few words and closing the opened tab, other times closing the browser just after clicking on new post, shutting down or putting away the PC, looking for a refuge from this emptiness, to seek something, anything to write about. Well, these are hard times for a blogger or perhaps a writer, he wants to write but he does not know what to write. So folks after this long, sad preface which most probably was not able to make a similar effect around you , I would like to share a few ideas to write blogs posts on.

• Surf the waves. Write on the HOT TOPICS. Write about what people are crazy about this time. Write on an update, a new OS, a new gadget, a new phenomenon, a new website, a new service. But make sure its hot for a wide variety of people, its not that you are having a hot thing behind your house and you start writing about it.
• Review a new gadget, OS, Linux Distribution, Smart Phone, Mobile Application or a Programming Language.
• Write about a problem you encountered, and managed to solve.
• Write your reactions what you see around you.
• Write about your life experiences, reflections, professional life and about your city, province, country.
• Read, read and lots of read then react and analyse what you have read.
• And if you can’t do it, go to Google and search killer topics for blogging

So if you were hoping for a magic, this isn’t anything like that, there is no shortcut to success. It’s a long way full of hardness, one has to suffer for a good creation same as a mother suffers for her baby. Posts are like children, and children are not purchased ready made, they are part of your soul, parted from you not so easily. If you do not write this way, then you are not a true writer, hence not an original blogger. Enjoy Blogging!

How to Improve Your English Pronunciation

Correct pronunciation is considered essential for language learners. It is true that 100% native like pronunciation is not possible for a non native speaker but one should try for maximum accuracy. A language is best learnt from its native speakers. So for the sake of good English pronunciation, the best sources are the native speakers of English. English has an advantage that a hell lot of supporting material is available, along with multimedia resources that can be used easily to make your English language abilities better.

The pronunciation and listening or in other words speaking and listening are interconnected. One cannot speak if s/he hasn’t listened. Listening is input for you, listening is the base on which the building of your speaking abilities is built. So good listening can not only improve your comprehension abilities but it ultimately helps you improve your pronunciation and speaking skills. If you are a good computer and internet user and spend your some time online, there are a lot of resources available online which can help you improve your pronunciation. Here I am going to discuss a few resources that I, being an English student and Language Teacher, found and got benefit from.

• Use free dictionary to get meaning and pronunciation of an English word. Click on speaker icon present next to the word.
• Use Google Translate to get English to Urdu (or your language) translation as well as pronunciation of English word.
• Listen to podcasts.
• Listen documentaries and other clips posted on Youtube.com. It will not give you pronunciation of specific word but your general listening and speaking will improve.
• Watch English movies. Torrentz.com is a good place to get pirated versions of English movies. Older movies (2 to 3 years old) usually have good quality as well as a subtitles file with them. This can help a lot initially to understand the words spoken by native speakers, and thus improve your pronunciation.
• There are not only movies available, but there are TV Series also available. A TV series is good as compared to movie in various ways, in my point of view. It has a long story, a TV series can last for several years, viewer can have better understanding of story, context and characters. A TV series is usually in Standard English (while movies sometimes get characters which do not speak in Standard Accent). So you may select a TV series of your own choice and get it downloaded, and watch an episode whenever you get time. You’ll feel that you’ve developed an interest, love the story and characters, and understand what the characters say. I love to watch Science Fiction series like Star Trek The Next Generation, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Stargate SG1. And it has helped me a lot in improving the pronunciation as well as listening comprehension.
• Listen Audio Books. If you love to read books, then do not read but listen. There are audio books available for every popular novel or story of today, and  you can get them from torrentz.com. I love to listen fantasy stories like Wheel of Time, Harry Potter, Codex Alera. This not only gives you very good pronunciation and listening practice but also improves your expression and vocabulary.
• The traditional sources: use Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary or Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. The CDs can be purchased from market or installation files can be downloaded from torrent websites. OALD is my favourite for pronunciation of different Standard Englishes. Currently it provides British and American English pronunciation which can help a beginner to distinguish the pronunciation differences.
• Real communication has no alternate. If you happen to have a friend in North America, Australia, Canada or England and s/he speaks English. Do contact her/him and ask for voice call on Skype or Google Talk. A spontaneous interaction with native speakers will increase your listening and speaking abilities alike. And you may get a very close net friend as well.

So these were a few tips to improve pronunciation and listening skills. I would write a few tips for vocabulary improvement and other areas of language development in up coming posts. Stay tuned!

Add Open DNS in PTCL Broadband

PTCL Broadband sucks? Yeah it does. I am suffering from last two days. I cannot open a web page. Firefox just "Looks up" and Chrome tells me there is "dns resolve problem". I call them and file a complaint. After a few hours it gets restored but the next day same problem. It really sucks when you are in a mood to work and there is not internet despite of no loadshedding. So this time I changed the DNS server to Open DNS. It provides good functionality including content filtering and network stats etc. You can manage your home network very well through Open DNS. So go to Opendns.com and get their registered (its free!). Select Home for account type and then proceed with registration. Afterwards it will guide you to setup open DNS on your computer, router etc. Follow detailed step by step guide with screenshots and get rid of your ISP's crawling DNS service.

Enjoy!

PS: If you are already a geek and know how to change DNS these are the addresses. Go to your network properties, IPv4 properties and change DNS server address to these:

208.67.222.222

208.67.222.220

Pakistani Blog Aggregators

Once upon a time when I was a new blogger and didn't know very well about promoting my blog. And there was less trend to use Facebook, Twitter and the like to promote your blog and create reading community. People used to say that Blog Aggregators are the way to get traffic and reach wider audience. So for my Urdu Blog, and for this English one as well, I always searched for Blog Aggregators. The main focus was to get Pakistani Blog Aggregators but at times I tried to find other aggregators as well e.g. an aggregator related to Linguistics and ELT. During all this time searching for Pakistani Blog Aggregators I've found these (so far) which can help new and old bloggers to promote their websites. Because the way is old, but the effectiveness to reach wider audience is still there. People like things centralized, they don't want to visit blog to blog for updates so a Blog Aggregator is a good place to tell your reader that here is a new post. :-)

Ok let's come to business and start reviewing the Blog Aggregators I know so far.

Bloggers.pk 

Actually this is the very first aggregator I encountered while running my Urdu blog back in 2007. And until recently I was unaware of anyother ones. (That's another story that a Google search revealed a handful of them which we are going to discuss here, shortly.) This blog aggregator is good one and for a long time I've been a fan of it. I used to go to its link in my free time and read what English "Pakistanis" had to say. ;-)

Pros

• Simple and clean interface
• Listing of posts, no categories so reader can see every post regardless of category or blog type
• Rating Like or Dislike
• A ranking for top blogs
• Highlights in terms of top posts

Cons 

• In beta stage for a long time.
• No response to emails sent though dev@bloggers.pk (I've asked to add my English blog several times, didn't find an answer).
• No automatic way to submit your blog.
• No RSS feed icon visible

Tea Break

Well this one I got while maintaining Khawar's news website. As I work as a translator for this website, sometimes I've to post the news as well. While visiting the website I found out the link backs in comments from Tea Break Pk and followed the link. That's not to mention that I immediately submitted both of my blogs here.

Pros

• Interactive interface and good looking
• Featured posts
• Popular posts and comments
• Proper website navigation
• About, Join us, Bloggers everything needed by a new visitor
• RSS feed icon visible and present
• Feedback, Twitter and Facebook links
• Categorisation to choose for the reader

Cons 

• I felt difficult to go through segmented parts because I want to read everything until I am saturated. So might not be a negative point in your opinion.

Pak Positive: Pakistani Bloggers

Well this one I got from Google. It looked a kind of elite to me, when I saw appraisal notes from New York Times etc on the header of it. But that's my perception, let's see what it has to offer.

Pros

• Interactive and rich looking interface
• Positive reviews from world class newspaper and news agencies.
• Guest posts
• Member blogs
• Join us link
• Post snippets instead of mere listing (more appealing)
• Email subscription
• Social media i.e. food for Facebook, Twitter addicts on their very account on social media
• A collection of professional looking Pakistani Blogs.

Cons 

• Kind of restrictive and draining policy to submit your blog e.g. blog should be 3 months old, at least 25 original posts, place the linking badge where it is visible. Well, I should admit I was little bit annoyed on this much work :-D. As I am an easy going person, this may be a fault of mine not the blog aggregator.
• No RSS link. I cannot survive without an RSS, so I do not subscribe to Pak Positive.

Pakistan Blogs

Well this one was a surprise for me, perhaps you may find yourself amazed as well to see what they've done. I got to this one through google of course. The unique thing for it is that it is created using blogspot. I cannot imagine a more innovative use of a free blogging service. It is still unclear to me how the admin updates the posts, as a blog aggregator should update automatically and blogspot does not allow any such facility. If you know please leave a comment clarifying how does it work actually.

Pros

• Innovative use of Blogspot, a free service
• Presence on Social Media
• Email subscription
• A cool AJAX based interface to read blogs. Click on Read Full Post icon and it will open actual blog suing AJAX. I loved this feature.
• Comments, Tweet and Facebook Share for individual posts on the aggregator

Cons 

• No RSS. When I tried to use default blogger RSS (just add /rss after a blogger/blogspot address, it'll lead to the rss feed of the blog), I got the link but the subscription didn't go well. As this is not using a dedicated hosting and aggregating software, the feed is not well formatted and readable. You don't know where the blog title ended and post title started and where did the body start. So I had to abandon it, and use Pak Blogging instead.
• Looks like manually updated, since blogger/blogspot does not provide auto-update features (apparently).

Pak Blogging

Perhaps got its link from Cric Nam, or google but it looks promising. And more is that I sue its feed to read latest activities of Pakistani bloggers.

Pros

• Simple and clean interface. The one I like, list of posts no categories scroll down and read whatever you want.
• Contact, Badges, all the stuff a new visitor needs.
• Straightforward Submit Blog link. No worries, no restrictions.
• Categories and Recent Posts widgets for ease of browsing
• RSS feed link, the one I love to subscribe instead of emails

 Cons

• Well I suppose nothing is perfect so they should have something here as well. So Too Much Commercialization and adds on first page ;-)

Well I guess that would be all for today. I would suggest all of my readers to submit their blogs to these aggregators and every possible feed aggregator they come across on Internet (provided that it relates to their blog's field, origin and title :-D ). And do not forget to add to this list if I've missed something. Comments are always welcome. Have a nice day folks. :-)

How to Add Pics in Table in Blogger

The new Blogger interface is really cool and provides lots of features to handle image uploading. But the editor is still a pity and you cannot arrange the images. Last day I struggled for 1 hour to arrange a few pics in my post. The aim was to arrange 2 or 3 pictures in one row so they may be looking nice and cleanly arranged. But I could never do it in Blogger's post editor. You can change the size, you can change the alignment but you cannot change the position of the picture from 1 row to another. I tried another solution, i.e. to put each picture in a table cell and thus to arrange them. But again, we cannot insert a table, if we create one using HTML mode we cannot put our pictures in it easily. That's for geeks folks. So for an easy way to put pics on blogger. Follow me.

1. Download Windows Live Writer.
2. Install it, afterwards you will be asked to setup blog account.
3. Enter your Blogger.com credentials and setup for the blog you want to post on with Live Writer.
4. Now open up the pictures folder in a new Explorer window.
5. Start writing a new post in Live Writer name it Test Post.
6. Go to Insert tab (the interface is familiar for Office 2007, 2010 users: Ribbon Interface).
7. Here you'll find Table function. Click and it'll open up a new dialogue for table configuration.
8. Select number of cells and rows as per your arrangement scheme. Select cell width, default width worked well for me by the way.
9. Click OK and a table is inserted in the blank post body section.
10. Now Drag and Drop each picture (from pics folder) in each cell. The picture will be automatically adjusted as per cell width.
11. When you are finished. See in Home tab, second separator Publish. There is an option Post Draft to Blog. Click it and Live Writer will start publishing your draft post to your blogger account. It will not minimize but you can do other things in meanwhile.
12. As soon as it is finished, go to Posts section of your blogger dashboard, and see there is a draft named Test Post.
13. Click on Edit and the pictures are in front of you arranged cleanly in table cells. You can see the Preview to make sure that they'll look nice on your blog. And now you have two ways.
14. Continue editing this draft, rename it and add your other content and Publish it.
15. Or you can copy the pictures code by clicking on HTML mode in post editor and paste that code in your original post (of course through HTML tab). And you are done :-)

You may decide to use Live Writer as your default post writing tool as well but I like to do online things in my browser and leave it if it is absolutely necessary. Enjoy Blogging!

Making Money Online in Pakistan

In this post I am not concerned with how they do things in other countries to make money online. I want to discuss a few trends of online money making in Pakistan. And most of them I would rather avoid to use personally (or simple words I don't much like them).

The first way of making money is the so-called online money making companies one can see in every city. I've never worked for them, but from the rumors and second third source opinions I've made a picture. They provide several kind of jobs e.g. Form Filling, Typing, Article Writing (wrote to build links for SEO, in other words creating meaningless junk to promote your website), Adsense Click. First two ones can be justified somehow, but they require a lot of time and effort for very little money. Article writing for SEO as I mentioned, its just creating junk to promote a website on internet. The intention is not to promote knowledge, but to create formula articles, so people do it very efficiently. The last one is that you make a website, place adds on it and ask your users to click on adds once or twice per day. The clicks yield money for your website and you in turn pay them in rupees. I hate this method of earning. This is unlawful.

People start websites. They are link building directories, article submission sites etc. That's a good idea to promote websites, because link building is a significant part of SEO. But frankly speaking, I always have a stingy and smelly feeling of these websites. They have nothing but links, and copy pasted introductions of websites. And upon all this junk you've placed the adds from Google. It reminds me of a trash yard which is fully decorated with multicolour banners as if it were a cricket stadium before a match. Forgive my imagination, I just wrote how do I feel about these so-called link building directories. And let me explain one thing, some of them are doing great job, the older ones actually. They are descent and have a simple, clean, elegant GUI to categories websites. My 'negative' feelings were evoked by a recent such 'creation', clearly in the wake of making money online, but with least experience. The site seemed to say I AM CREATED TO MAKE MONEY. I am not providing site link, you may find such site around you while walking on facebook, google+ etc, just keep your eyes open.

People start article submitting directories in hope to make money. As you can see the effort is from Pakistan, they try to target Pakistani writers/ bloggers to write articles for them. And again they place adds on it. They have no guidelines or rules, just write something and dump into the hell yard they've created to make money. Sometimes these 'directories' look like an empty showcase with just banners of adds and nothing to view upon. I hate such newly and inefficiently created money making machine sites which are created because there are 'other' out there making money same way. I know there are some good examples of article submitting directories, but my experience have been quite unpleasant with them. Sometime back google could be easily deceived by such formula articles and they appeared on first page. I do not feel good about such things since then. Although search engines have now got the ability to bypass such material and provide quality material. But me is me... me still feels taste of a bitter almond whenever comes across an article directory, and it worsens when a newly created article directory is seen from Pakistan screaming with its full strength of lungs CLICK HERE SUBMIT HERE WE SELL LINK BACKS WE SELL LINKS BACKS.

Hopefully you are not bored with my jealous talk, because I cannot create such things so I prefer to 'hate' them. :-D Well there is an other thing, and that's to start writing on technology, and keep on writing, citing everything that appears on internet, writing about anything and managing to create relevance out of anything irrelevant. I have an eye to recognize such 'formula' blogs which are solely created for money making. And I (sorry again) feel rather unsatisfied from such 'things'. I cannot write on technology alone (perhaps cannot write on anything consistently, built in fault ;-) ), I cannot start a blog which announces on first arrival that its made for money making (forgive me, perhaps its my perception that there is a difference between money making and non money making blog, but that's how I feel). For me, blogging is to write your own feelings, blog is personal expression and you can add a touch of technology, your own professional experiences and tales, thus making your blog more live. On this blog, I try to to the same. I do not (actually cannot) write solely on linguistics. Because there are lots of topics at a given time T (lets make it a bit mathematical), which keep on dancing in upper portion of my body in the number N. So I select from the total of T*N to write on my blog each day. ;-)

Ok, expressed my hatred for every professional who is trying to make money, what's next? Well there is nothing more. I just wanted to say that make money but don't label on your website that you are here to make money only. Make it a bit descent, or become a high level professional e.g. start writing a blog on Ubuntu or any other very specialised area. This way the content wouldn't be available readily on internet, you'll have to create e.g. tutorials, analyses. Simply mentioning news reports from primary sources is not a challenging thing, at least for me, to earn money (I've a subscription of top technology magazines online as well in my google reader, and I usually know what has happened today on internet because I happen to check it several times a day). My apologies if you think my words are inappropriate, that's what I thought about it and I wrote. Perhaps a very big reason of this, is my background, when it comes to writing I like to sit down, take a while to think on the topic, add my feelings to it, try to make it lively and then write it down. Its not just reporting something from a primary source. That's why I could not continue this formula blog. Even if I see it today, it was a good effort and if I had continued since then, it could have yielded me lots of dollars from Google. But I couldn't, there were other reasons obviously, time, interest etc but one of the reasons was that I couldn't simply report from other sources, I couldn't add content for the sake of content to make money.

So folks, make money but do not write for money making only, write for both i.e. your personal pleasure and expression of thought and money would be there as well. After all this is English, the elite language, you can make money even by coughing in English :-D.

Happy (Previous) Eid

Thanks to Almighty, this bruised nation was rewarded with Eid once again. Thanks to His blessing that He rewarded us with Ramadan and provided us opportunity to ask for forgiveness, to cure our souls and eliminate our sins. Thanks to Almighty that he granted the precious moments of Ramadan and Shawal 1st.

Happy almost previous Eid to the readers of this blog. Hopefully you enjoyed yourselves, met friends and relatives and had a good time. Or perhaps you enjoyed the time in my way, lying down on the bed in front of laptop staring at facebook, watching for technology news, downloading and watching new episodes of Star Trek Deep Space 9 and Stargate SG1 :-).

Well that's what I did today for the whole day, except 1 case when I left home to say Eid Mubarak to my teacher. I ate, drank, watched movies, read struggle of new technologies (just the skirmishes of HMTL5 with Silverlight, Flash etc and developers worrying about the future of proprietary technologies, pretty much cool topic :-D ;-)), and experimented my new laptop stand. Wanna have a look? See for yourself.

Well as you may have figured out. It is an old portrait (not a portrait it was an add from a medicine company pasted on a portrait like frame, I removed the add and used the frame). I attached a Rs 5 foota (wooden scale 1 foot long) with nail at one side of the frame to prevent laptop from sliding down (picture 3 for an unclear glimpse). And to make it look like a stand, I raise it using a box or a piece of wood (whatever is readily available) :-D. So here is what I've done on Eid.

Planning Your Career

As I've seen in short period of my life, there are two types of people in the world: the lucky and the not-so-lucky. The lucky ones are those who get an early breakthrough in their career. This boosts their career and they can fly on new horizons. The not-so-lucky ones are those who do not get an early breakthrough, or any breakthrough. So either they can become pessimist and stay where they are, or they can become hard workers and start to build up their career bit by bit and step by step.

I've seen the live examples during my MSc Applied Linguistics. Two lucky people were among my teachers. Sir Hafiz Fazl-e-Haq always fascinated me, so does Madam Rabia Yasmeen. Both were just MSc Applied Linguistics at the time when they got University job. So I considered them best examples as people who get breakthrough, and specially an early breakthrough in their career. Another example from the same university, GCUF, is my friend Sir Noor-ul-Qamar. He is a lecturer in English Department. He got his job when he just was completing his M Phil. And now he is a well settled person. I am also fascinated by him when I see my own career. Well, when I talk about my career, perhaps I was not able to get a breakthrough. For me, the maximum one can get as a MSc Applied Linguistics degree holder, is to get university job, specially public sector university. The teachers were required actually, but I couldn't apply for the job because of my incomplete thesis.

So we get that sometimes we are not so lucky, or we miss some chances to get something. How to rectify any such error? Well, in my limited experience and knowledge I've seen that you've to build your career step by step. It is a 10 years plan actually which starts after you get your graduation/ masters degree. This plan, as I see it, can be build considering following points.

• As a first step you look for a job. At this time your priority is not to get a handsome salary, but you look for 'a job', which can give you the right to be called a professional. In language teaching field, you will get the kinds of jobs as I mentioned earlier. As a trainee teacher, a school teacher, a private college teacher, you do not seek for handsome salary, but here your purpose is to seek knowledge to survive in market. You seek the ways to move in a professional environment. This experience gaining helps you in your future work.
• As second step you seek for a better job. Here the questions come what is the better job and WHEN? The choice of 'what' is totally person dependent because some people are comfortable with teaching, others are not so they may pursue for other fields and start from zero again. 'When' is a crucial thing to answer. Because your first job is very important for you to teach youself professionalism. But at the same time not all first jobs are so generous to offer you good income. So you've to move along. This move along can be tricky and context dependent (see for pragmatics here folks ;-) ). A few things should be kept in mind in this regard:
• You are being offered by a more prestigious organisation with a more suitable salary package.
• You think that you've gained as much as you could from your current institute.
• You think that you've spent reasonable time in the institution.
• You think that you wouldn't be able to survive in this institution any more (this can be due to some unfortunate reason)
• You think that you should concentrate on further studies instead of the job.
• Today's professional world offers you no generosity but 'cut throat' competition. If you are best, you'll survive otherwise you'll be left behind by the natural selection process. So you need to improve yourself constantly. In teaching you should be aware of latest techniques of teaching, use of technology and other gadgets which keep on emerging every day. Along with it, you need to improve intellectually as well. Being a teacher does not mean you've stopped learning yourself. You learn even when you are teaching in class. But that's 'learn to teach', what I want to focus here is to continue your regular studies. Masters degree is nothing today. Hundreds of universities across this country produce thousands of masters degree holders every year. So you are no exception. For improvement, to be exceptional, to be better, you will have to pursue for higher studies. When I see for myself, I have a plan for PhD and Post Doctorate (if possible) in next 5 to 10 years. You should also plan for yourself that what you want to get more along with your masters/ graduation degree.
• Reflection and Hope are two elements which are crucial for career advancement. You should, after a reasonable period of time e.g. 1 year, reflect on your previous time, sit and think about it. What have you gained, what have you lost and where did you overestimate about yourself. Hope is something which keeps you alive, and urges you to move forward. Never let the hope die. Because time is meant to change. Today if something is unfavourable, it wouldn't be so for long. In past 1 year, I always hoped for the best, that I would be no longer in that miserable school. (That's a different story how 1 year teaching in school benefited me and on what cost). But I never let the hope die. I had an urge that after some time I'll move forward. And to remind myself of this, I thought myself as water in a pond, which if stays long in the pond will grow algae in it. So I constantly reminded myself that if I stayed there for long, I'll rot and corrupt myself, because I've never seen myself as a school teacher. At least what I can bear for myself is a university lecturer. But to get this goal, I've to struggle and work hard, measure each and every step, move forward bit by bit, be patient, and keep on getting expertise in terms of education and experience of the field. Then with the Grace of Almighty, soon enough I'll see myself on the desired goal. And perhaps I wouldn't stop there as well, and will set new goals for myself.

So folks keep on moving, never stop and never let the hope die, plan well, be positive and patient, and keep my company ;-). You'll keep hearing such babbling from me in future as well. And your comments are absolutely desired. Correct me if I am wrong at some point, suggest a better way and add in, if I forgot something. What I said was just my experience, maybe you've something better to share.

What to do after a linguistics degree

I’ve been tempted to write something for youngsters who have just completed their degree in linguistics from GCUF and now angry from the whole world about their fate.

There are some problems, no one has denied that. For example linguistics graduates (MSC Applied Linguistics) cannot apply for PCS Lecturers seats. The problem is because PCS only considers MA English in this regard. The solution is to change the name of the degree as BZU Multan, Islamia University Bahawalpur and UMT Lahore did. They have these programs for longer time as compared to GCUF, their students faced the problem and they have made appropriate changes to compensate. As per my knowledge the same is going to happen in GCUF. The degree name would be changed to MA English (Specialization in Linguistics). There would be a few basic courses of literature as well, to give a general idea of English literature to language students.

But the changes are being made as of 2011. The masters program started in 2007 with first batch in 2009, so there are three batches out with degrees. They are at a loss this way. But solution is there, only that it would take some time, and some effort. We, the old students from Applied Linguistics with MSc degrees are going to apply for PCS. We know that we’ll be refused. Then we’ll go to Supreme Court filing a Writ Petition. This way we would request the court to: instruct the university to change the degree name for old students; instruct PCS to allow us the right of application.

Pretty much clean and simple solution eh? Everything perfect and smooth. But that’s not the case. Firstly do not expect that you’ll be granted whatsoever you want. Secondly do not expect that you will get a job in PCS even if you have got the permission to apply. There are less than 250 seats from all over Punjab and thousands of degree holders are waiting for an opportunity. So only the best and fortunate will be selected. Now there are two ways:

• Sit down and start grumbling about the conspiracies, injustice, misguidance done to you by the world, the seniors, the university, the department and the teachers.

OR

• Start building your career by gaining experience and getting what you lack at this moment. So if you want to grumble the floor is open start is right now, if you want second option stay with me.

As a linguistics graduate your plus point is that you know how to teach English. You are not merely having a degree in literature which teaches you old English Drama, Novel, Poetry. It does not teach you “how to teach”. But you have to figure it out yourself. So use this plus point, don’t degrade yourself and start building your career. Let me start with myself. I never expected to be a super hero after getting highest grades in masters. I know life does not yield so easily, you have to be so lucky to gain such a favor. So in the meantime select an alternative path for yourself and start acting on it.

1. Create your CV. A simple 1 pager which would tell what is your qualification and areas of specialisation. I’ve a few samples, drop your email in comments or through Contact Me page, and I’ll forward you the CV samples.
2. Get copies of all of your documents. Attach them to 1 copy of CV and make bundles.
3. Drop in all good institutions of your city. At this moment your target can be Beacon House, The City, Little Angels, The Educators, Lahore Grammar School, and for colleges almost every private college. And be quick because the session is going to start and they need teachers.
4. If you get a job this would teach you how to behave in professional environment, deal with parents, deal with students and you’ll get experience.
5. There is a program for Trainee Teachers in Govt. Colleges. Several of your seniors has been benefited from it. It gives you a reasonable salary as well as experience of teaching at college level. Aisha Chouhdary (BS 2006-10) worked in this position at a govt. college, Sadaf Maqsoof from MSC 2008-10 i.e. my class fellow, worked at a govt. college in her city. From MSc 2009-11 Berg-e-Hina is selected as a trainee teacher at a govt. college in her city, Tahir Imran from BS 2007-11 has been selected in Govt. College of Commerce Faisalabad (he informed me today). And Mudasir, one of my class fellows, secured a similar job at Govt. College Samanabad. But don’t be so excited, the opportunity is over for this year. The interviews held on 19 August, 2011. Like you, I got this news after 4 days and regretted not applying for a college trainee teacher job. But never mind, better luck next time (next year actually). Keep an eye on the newspapers in this regard.
6. Make a habit to read news papers and find job adds. Make a habit to apply for jobs.
7. You want to pursue for CSS, and regretting not having read literature in your masters degree? MA English Literature course is available in market, buy books and start reading works of Shakespeare, Novels and Poetry so you may have some idea of literature. Remember reading is a habit, good books always provide you something. So start reading while you have sometime before getting a job. And who knows while reading the books casually, you decide to go for another MA i.e. MA English. Personally I would like to have a Post Graduate Diploma in English Literature in next years of my life so that I can compensate for not reading literature. But it does not mean I do not read now. I read but my taste is a bit different. I like to read Fantasy and Science Fiction and so far have listened audio books of Harry Potter, Wheel of Time, Codex Alera. Roughly they make 30 books.
8. Be in touch in HEC and see for any foreign scholarships.
9. Pursue for M Phil in Applied Linguistics if you want to go forward for University Jobs. I’ve a similar plan as well.
10. And thank ALLAH for what he has granted you. See what you have now, see around yourself to realize how you are blessed. Even you existence is a blessing. Its you who can make your life heaven or hell. By fretting you’ll make your life hell and nothing would change around your. By Thanking ALLAH you will be obliging for what HE has given you. It will create a positive attitude and give you strength to move forward.

May ALLAH bless us all.

How to make your blog SEO UN-friendly

1. Use a theme which is unreadable by occasional reader of your blog. Use a colour combination that is impossible to read e.g. Dark Blue over a Dark Background.
2. Never place a navigation pane on your blog. It may help the user to jump from post to post and browse your blog easily.
3. Never add social sharing buttons. They might help increase your blog traffic by socializing.
4. Never submit your blog to any search engine.
5. Write your posts in یل بللڑ (Yall balallar) words i.e. obscure and if possible non English words, that reader may not understand what the hell you wanna say.
6. Your blog title must not tell what your blog is about.
7. Your post title should have least connection to post content.
8. Write your posts in long single shot mode with no paragraph breaks. This way your reader will not be able to dive into your post and understand what you wanna say.
9. Disallow comments, trackbacks and pingbacks. They can harm your blog by increase the traffic and by creating user interaction.
10. Never mention your blog URL when commenting on other blogs.
11. Never try to socialize with other bloggers. Do not attend blog summits. Instead stay home, cheer and relax.
12. Never submit your blog address to a blog directory and a feed aggregator. It might increase your blog traffic.
13. Never add an About page.
14. Never add a Contact Me page.
15. Never answer emails from users if they fortunately find your email ID.

Misguided Attitude of our Students about Professional Life

He blames me of misguiding him. He thinks that his degree is a piece of s**t, wastage of money and time, killer of the hopes of his parents. And for this he blames me, because as a senior I motivated them to continue their career in linguistics, because I told them that linguistics was going to have a bright future. So he blames me for all that. But you, the reader, be just, and tell me. Was I wrong doing so? But first of all let me explain in detail so you may understand what do I mean when I say “he blames me”.

I was one of the lost children of my nation who didn't know where to go, what to do, what is the career, how to move in life, how to plan for future, what would be the consequences of studying science, arts or commerce. I studied science in matric because “intelligent” students were supposed to study science. It was in fashion, and as I was unfortunately considered an “intelligent” student I opted for science. Thank God there were no further choices in science, it was just Biology, Chemistry, Physics with Maths as compulsory subject. I studied and got good marks, 79% actually.

When I encountered a college first time in my life, and got prospectus again I was confused to select. My friend, actually best friend at that time, was opting for science and per-engineering (Physics, Chemistry, Maths). So I opted for science as well as per-engineering. Science because I had started thinking myself “intelligent” and per-engineering because my friend was also opting for it. That's another story that our sections were separate, we just met in the morning we were coming to college or in afternoon while going home on bicycles. My performance was rather poor in intermediate and I only managed to get 62% something marks.

Two years passed like two minutes and again I was standing there, thinking what to do next. I was not “intelligent” as I used to be. I had financial issues in front of me. My friends moved to engineering, telecommunication, repeating intermediate examination to get good marks and so to get admission in engineering university. I was left behind, thinking what to do. Then someone told me opt commerce subjects in graduation. And I did. I'd never studied commerce in my life. There were subject choice available in intermediate named Intermediate in Commerce (I. Com.) but as I had studied science, there was a little problem for me. But I got it as a challenge. I worked a bit harder, and tried to get good marks in Bachelors of Commerce (B. Com.) part 1, 62% actually. I found in this period that accounts, commerce, business, economics were not that difficult as they looked like. In second part, however, I couldn't maintain my percentage and finally I could barely secure 60% i.e. first division.

I was thinking myself to be a teacher somewhere in some college, teaching commerce. So my intention was to pursue for M. Com. (thank God I was a little bit clear about my career after 20 years of my life). But this was not the case with fate. My fate led me to Linguistics. It was really ironic for me when I was informed that I couldn't get admission in M. Com. at Govt. College University, Faisalabad. The Commerce Department had conducted test plus interview. I passed test, and they failed me in interview with 0 mark. If they had given me 1 mark, I was in. But I couldn't get admission because there was someone else who had a giant behind himself endorsing him for admission. So I, a refused Shakir, turned to Allama Iqbal Open University for MBA, and started looking for jobs. What kind of Jobs? Job was to get a home tuition, to teach in an academy, to work with someone as a computer assistant.

I did these jobs for a few months. As mentioned earlier, I was working as a computer assistant with someone. And here happened the most ironic twist of my life. The people I was working with as assistant (now my teachers) convinced me to leave commerce and study linguistics. OHH MY GOD :-@. Can someone has such a twisted educational path as I have? But I accepted that and 3rd time in my life changed my field Science > Commerce > Linguistics. So I worked for them in the morning, and took classes in the evening. It was not a regular program, just a post graduate diploma in which I was granted admission on continuous insistence of the teachers I was working with. Other member of the Department of English, including the head weren't convinced that I could be allowed to study English Language Teaching. But I did it, I got admission, I completed the degree.

Here, before coming to this degree, for the first time in my life, I was crystal clear. I knew where I've to go. I had a path in front of me. I knew that there was not going back. I had burned my boats. I was now a linguistics learner for whole of my life. My job was to teach English, research on Urdu and Punjabi and translate (as I later became). I had started a 10 year plan for my life. Because PGD was not enough, so after PGD, I went for MSc in 2008. In the mean time, thanks to a very kind person, Talmeez, as I mentioned above, I started working as translator. With the passage of time I got better, my interests developed in corpus linguistics, computer assisted linguistic research, computer assisted language teaching, research on Urdu and Punjabi. And now I am here, after one year of my masters, seeking to get admission in M Phil, working as a translator, having worked as a teacher for 1 year, looking forward to PhD.

And now, today, he says to me that I betrayed him. He thinks his education is just a piece of s**t and I am one of the responsibles. But how he can blame me for all this? Hadn't he a mind in his head? Couldn't he think of a better way at the time of admission? The reality is that he was like me, like one of thousands of students who are left behind, because they are not “intelligent” so they can't study science and can't be doctors or engineers. So they move to arts, they complete BA, then they move to specific areas of arts, Sociology, Psychology, Islamic Studies, Business, and English (to include now Linguistics as well) etc. They don't know where to got, they just follow others, sometimes they seek some department to get admission in because their marks are not enough for merit in certain other departments. We faced this dilemma for last several years in Applied Linguistics Department. Students who came here for admission had lowest grades, no idea to move where to, seeking for some magic degree which could give them employment. We as old students motivated them, told them about the benefits they could get after becoming a linguist, ones who convinced took admission and got degree. And now one of them blames me. Is he right doing this?

Sir Asim used to tell that Winners have place in linguistics not Loosers. So I ask them all, are they winners? Are they having something in them? Any spark? Good grades? Abilities? Motivation? Courage? Patience? If they don't have all this, then they should blame all of the world which is against them.

Our students need to realise the world is not a bed of roses. They think that every thing would be just fine once they get the degree. The employer will be standing at front door of their house requesting them to honour him by joining his organisation. This is not a Utopia, an ideal world. This is real life with all cold bitter harsh realities of life. You have to struggle, you have to be a winner, if you are not, you have no place here. I would suggest my juniors do not expect miracles for themselves. 1400 years ago Angels have stopped coming to this world to create miracles, now we are on our own. You should have faith in Allah, thankfulness for what He has given you, and courage to struggle patiently. This is not the end, this is beginning of a new degree, Masters in Life. Here you will learn for all of your life, you will get good grades only if you are capable. And remember in the tests of life, there is least chance of cheating. May Allah be with you all.

How to Add Google Authorship Markup in Blogger Posts

Noumaan shared a good information about blog authorship and all the stuff behind it. According to google's Webmaster Central Blog, they are going to add this link relation to Blogger and Youtube content in future automatically. Until then, instead of waiting do this simple tweak and you are on your posts with your google plus profile link as author link.
1. Copy this link to Notepad

<a href="https://plus.google.com/107301882632607014913/about" rel="author">Muhammad Shakir Aziz</a>

2. Replace the name with your name, and link with your G+ profile link.
3. Go to you Layout tab of Blogger.
4. Go to address bar. Replace blogger.g? part of the link with html?. Refresh the page, you are at html edit tab of old Blogger interface.
5. Check Expand Widgets check box.
6. Search for this line <span class='post-timestamp'>
7. Add the hyperlink for author created by you after this line. You can add "Posted by" before the link as well, without quotes.
8. And to make it perfect go to Page Elements tab, click Edit on Post Widget and uncheck "Posted by" check box.
9. You should be able to see you Google+ profile link instead of blogger profile link as your authorship link.
Enjoy until Google adds automatic linking to your G+ profile.

How to Transcribe a Spoken Text for ICE

It was our second semester as MSc Applied Linguistics, when we were assigned to collect video/audio recordings from Internet or record our own, and then transcribe them. This project was a hell lot of difficult and some of my class fellows were so angry due to the difficulty level. The details were simple: You were assigned a topic e.g. Lectures, Speeches, TV News, Radio News; Record your specific genre or take it from Youtube.com; Listen and Transcribe it; and Tag it with appropriate tags.

Well the process is not difficult. The time which it takes to complete all this annoys people. Transcription is one of the most time consuming jobs of the world. Normally 1 minute of spoken recording can take upto 6 to 7 minutes for writing it. So you can see for 1 hour of spoken recording one will have to spend upto 7 hours of listening and typing it. This is not that simple, it is not just that you play it and start typing. You will always have to stop the recording again and again, sometimes it would be because your typing speed will not match with that of speaking speed of the speakers, other times you may not get the clear idea what the speaker is saying so you'll have to replay the audio to concentrate on it and get what the speaker is trying to say, still other times you'll have to stop and think how to write down uhmms, errrs, overlaps etc. The situation gets worst when it comes to Talk Shows, Telephonic or Live Conversations, Lectures, Question Answer Sessions. Remember the more the speakers, the more the distractions and more time consumption on transcription. We considered those people lucky ones who got Speeches, TV News, Radio News etc. Because all these genres are spoken by one person, and secondly they are usually scripted i.e. the spoken material is written in front of the speaker so s/he has to speak it out only. But in spontaneous talks like Talk Shows this is not the case. There are more speakers, there are overlappings i.e. two people start speaking at same time, there are errrrs, hmmmmmms and other unnecessary sounds which the speaker utter. But we cannot ignore these sounds. We can understand two people speaking at same time in spoken audio, but when it comes to transcription we have to devise a method to show that these particular sentences or words were uttered by both of the speakers at same time i.e. overlapping. Here we have to use Tags to show this phenomenon. Now either we can devise our own tags or we can use tags which are devised by someone else. Since as students we work for the completion of International Corpus of English i.e. ICE Pakistan Component, we have to use their devised method of Tagging. The tagging scheme is available here.

Now what should be done here? It is simple you'll have to go through all of this document. Because you are going to listen and transcribe your spoken recordings not me. So if you do not understand it, it wouldn't work. I can only provide an example by transcribing a few lines of a video from Youtube.

<$A> is by the federal government
<$B> Ok uhmm <}><->I've<=>I've jsut lit literally about half a minute Mr. Babar. Let me just ask you this question that is come uhm from Asif who is watching from Canada....

 I've just covered first 12 seconds of the above video and it took me 5 minutes to cover all the things, to WRITE DOWN what these people were performing as a routine speaking activity. The video starts with an unclear word. I had to replay it several times when I couldn't get exactly I put "is by" by my own guess and put tags around it. You can see in first line the tags , they show that the words were not intelligible. Of course I've consulted the ICE Manual (link provided above) for this tag. Even before this tag you can see the <$A> tag, which shows the first speaker. And this tag I have also got after going through the manual which says that every speaker's utterance should be started on a new line marked with speaker identity i.e. first speaker would be A, second would be B and so on. And you can see there involve two speakers in first 12 seconds and I've shown both separately with their utterances on new line with <$A>, <$B> tags. And then you may be able to see that the hostess says 'uhmm' after saying 'Ok', we cannot ignore it while transcribing. Because these hesitations and uhmms can be helpful in Discourse Analysis of this transcribed text. So I had to write this nonsense and apparently meaningless utterance. And then there is 'I've I've' with these weird looking tags <}><->I've<=>I've. They show actually repetition, and of course again I had to search in ICE Manual for tags of Repetition and I got these. So I pasted them and added the repeated words according to the example given there in the manual. And this way it goes on. You listen, you type it. When you see overlapping, repetition, hesitation, uhms you mark it, when you do not understand a spoken word you replay it, and in the mean time you consult the manual as well for every new phenomenon you encounter so you can record it properly. Now you may understand why it is very difficult to transcribe a text, and why it is necessary to TAG it. But as you practice you will be more faster and accurate, you'll consume less time.

Hopefully this small effort will help. Ask me in the comments of this post if you are still unable to get what I wanted to say, or if you want details of some specific area.

Selecting Range of Filled Columns and Rows in Calc

In Microsoft Excel you have to select End Mode by pressing End button on Keyboard. Then Shift + Arrow keys let you towards the end of the series of rows or columns which are filled with data. I was looking for same solution for OOo Calc and it was pretty straightforward. In Calc you just have to press Shift key which will tell it that you are going to select every thing and then press Ctrl + Arrow keys, the range of cells which is filled would be selected. :-)

Regular Expressions: Facility, Ability and Haste

Regular Expression or regex is a powerful tool for text processing. People like me who encounter with text processing on daily basis know the ease and power they provide. Regex are full fledged language actually, a mini language with its own rules and very systematic and organized structure. Regex as they are known today are mostly borrowed from early days of Perl, that's why they are mostly called Perl Compatible Regular Expressions. No high level language can ever miss this most demanding feature in today's circumstances, and even the parent of many new languages C++ will have regex library in its new C++0x version/standard.
I came to know about regex 3 years ago when I was working with my teachers on their corpus research work. I was unable to grasp the meaning of regex initially and the power they had behind them. But after some time I got books and article on the topic and started learning them. The book most helpful for me was Friedl - Mastering Regular Expressions 3e (O'Reilly, 2006). I completed only 2 chapters of this book but it made me speedy panther in text processing from a lame lamb. Being a linguistics student and a corpus linguist I am always seeking ways to get text patterns automatically with least possible time. And regex provide me this facility. Along with regex I use C# 2005 which gives me a powerful capability to do everything I want with the texts.

Regex are good but they are like knife in your hand which can be used to cut your own hand also. You should be very well aware of the pros and cons of using regex. The very first thing you should consider as a corpus linguist is to search the regularities in the text. These regularities or patterns will help you find the perfect regex for the purpose. The best strategy is to analyse the data manually e.g. by inspecting concordance lines in search of the required constructions. After you have inspected and found the ways in which the construction is occurring, you can create a good and regex. But remember cross check, double check and recheck your regular expression to verify does it doing the maximum? Does the loss is minimum? And finally does it affordable? Affordable here I mean if it is hasty to add every construction and thus increasing your work. Regex give power and flexibility but they should be carefully used. They should be constructed with great care and also verified with manual analysis. And the most important thing, use regex to get concordance lines which you will inspect manually thus you can reduce your work as well as quality would be maintained.

Sorting a Dictionary in C# 2

During corpus processing tasks, I need to create and sort dictionaries for very simple tasks of frequency list generation. For this purpose I always have to seek on the web for solutions. C# is now at version 4 and it has lots of variations and innovations in its syntax. There are additional typing conventions, keywords, namespaces like powerful System.LINQ and extension methods. But being a linguistics student I am unable find time to upgrade my skills from C# 2005 a.k.a C# 2 to latest versions. It is not necessary perhaps also because I need C# for text processing tasks which is done very easily with C# 2 and its System.Collections.Generic namespace.
So here is a code sample which can be used to sort a dictionary with respect to its values. I have blended 2 or 3 methods into one so that it takes input as dictionary and gives output as dictionary. Code may be inefficient due to my inabilities in programming but still it works for me. Hopefully for you it would work also. :-)

public static Dictionary Sort (Dictionary dict)
{
List> list = new List>();
foreach(KeyValuePair kvp in dict)
{
list.Add(kvp);
}
list.Sort(
delegate(KeyValuePair firstPair,
KeyValuePair nextPair)
{
return nextPair.Value.CompareTo(firstPair.Value);
}
);
Dictionary d = new Dictionary();
foreach(KeyValuePair kvp in list)
{
d.Add(kvp.Key, kvp.Value);
}
return d;
}

sudo apt-get upgrade -d

If your update manager is not working and a new LTS version of Ubuntu is out there. Follow this method as I always does.
Hit Alt+F2 and in the run box type

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Now replace 'karmic' with 'lucid'. Save the file and now write in terminal

sudo apt-get update

and then

sudo apt-get upgrade -d

Put your computer on a scheduled shut down and sleep. As I always does. :-)

Ubuntu Sources List Generator

Ubuntu Sources List Generator is a simple web page based GUI which helps you to generate a sources list for your Ubuntu installation. It includes official repositories, partner repositories and other 3rd party tools' repositories like Skype. If you are new to Linux, and wondering what is a repository? A repository is a software store for a Linux distribution which contains all the software packages you can use on that distribution. Thus you use reliable sources for software installation. This strategy increases the security and defense against badware.