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hieronymos · 11-23-2011, 11:35 AM

I'm learning Chinese. Looking up a word in a Chinese dictionary is painful. You have to count the number of strokes first, and then you also have to know where to start counting. Then you look into the index how the character is actually composed and get a page number where you can finally start looking up the word you're searching. Chances are, your dictionary is worth crap. On the touchscreen, I can simply write the character down and start searching for it. The dictionary, in return, gives out the exact stroke order so next time I could even look it up in the print dictionary. If the word is not in the dictionary, I can search for it on the internet and try to understand the meaning by context.

I use the Kobo as a remote for my PC (which also serves as TV).

I'm also an audiophile with a huge music collection in high quality. I hated it when I wanted to listen to John Coltrane and all I had on my MP3 player was Pearl Jam, because when I transferred the music I just felt like it. And I'm also a little geeky - but I hate cables. So I have a Logitech Squeezebox and an old MacBook in the shelf, which serves as NAS/Home Server. So I use my Kobo as a Squeezebox, the music plays in sync with my home stereo and the kitchen radio. When I'm out, I connect home with OpenVPN (when I was in China I swore to myself that I'd set up my own VPN) and listen to my music at home without the trouble of moving it here or there. Of course, the Kobo is also the remote for the different music players.

I read the US news and watch the German news podcast for breakfast, so I know what my father and mother, respectively, are ranting about on the telephone.
And occasionally I discover what other people are thinking about in the NFB catalogue.

My girfriend showed photos and videos with it the other day, out of our combined albums.

I've organized all scientific articles I had lying around on my computer in Calibre, and annotate them with Mantano.

I hate all these platform games. But I loved Eric Idle in Discworld, so much that I actually kept the CD, knowing I would never again go through the trouble to set up DOS or Windows 3.1. I play it again on the Kobo. Have to ask my sister to send Sam and Max over.

This might sound like a cheap advertisement - but what I mean is really: it's not just about Netflix and Facebook, getting everything served up ready-for-consumption. All the media bombard you with "Flash tablet", blablabla ready, make an account here, buy that. Nearly everything I'm talking about here is based on Open Source or some kind of Open Standard (the Chinese dictionary and probably handwriting as well are based off CeDICT; Squeezebox is open source, written in Perl; RSS and UPnP are based off the internet and are free as in free beer; the NFB is public and ScummVM and Calibre are FOSS)

And in the hacking thread, we still have a few nice ideas coming up :-)

11-23-2011, 11:35 AM	#6
hieronymos Groupie Posts: 186 Karma: 45172 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: Kobo Vox	I'm learning Chinese. Looking up a word in a Chinese dictionary is painful. You have to count the number of strokes first, and then you also have to know where to start counting. Then you look into the index how the character is actually composed and get a page number where you can finally start looking up the word you're searching. Chances are, your dictionary is worth crap. On the touchscreen, I can simply write the character down and start searching for it. The dictionary, in return, gives out the exact stroke order so next time I could even look it up in the print dictionary. If the word is not in the dictionary, I can search for it on the internet and try to understand the meaning by context. I use the Kobo as a remote for my PC (which also serves as TV). I'm also an audiophile with a huge music collection in high quality. I hated it when I wanted to listen to John Coltrane and all I had on my MP3 player was Pearl Jam, because when I transferred the music I just felt like it. And I'm also a little geeky - but I hate cables. So I have a Logitech Squeezebox and an old MacBook in the shelf, which serves as NAS/Home Server. So I use my Kobo as a Squeezebox, the music plays in sync with my home stereo and the kitchen radio. When I'm out, I connect home with OpenVPN (when I was in China I swore to myself that I'd set up my own VPN) and listen to my music at home without the trouble of moving it here or there. Of course, the Kobo is also the remote for the different music players. I read the US news and watch the German news podcast for breakfast, so I know what my father and mother, respectively, are ranting about on the telephone. And occasionally I discover what other people are thinking about in the NFB catalogue. My girfriend showed photos and videos with it the other day, out of our combined albums. I've organized all scientific articles I had lying around on my computer in Calibre, and annotate them with Mantano. I hate all these platform games. But I loved Eric Idle in Discworld, so much that I actually kept the CD, knowing I would never again go through the trouble to set up DOS or Windows 3.1. I play it again on the Kobo. Have to ask my sister to send Sam and Max over. This might sound like a cheap advertisement - but what I mean is really: it's not just about Netflix and Facebook, getting everything served up ready-for-consumption. All the media bombard you with "Flash tablet", blablabla ready, make an account here, buy that. Nearly everything I'm talking about here is based on Open Source or some kind of Open Standard (the Chinese dictionary and probably handwriting as well are based off CeDICT; Squeezebox is open source, written in Perl; RSS and UPnP are based off the internet and are free as in free beer; the NFB is public and ScummVM and Calibre are FOSS) And in the hacking thread, we still have a few nice ideas coming up :-) Last edited by hieronymos; 11-23-2011 at 12:04 PM.