Multilingual Kindle - Tips and Tricks to Read Foreign Language Amazon ebooks

Using an Amazon Kindle with “other” languages can be a frustrating experience, but there are also a number of things that actually work fairly well, once one has figured them out. By “other” languages, I mean languages different from the default language of your device. Here are some things I have figured out for multilingual reading. Unless written otherwise, the text refers to Kindle Paperwhite, second generation.

Rule 1: There are no rules. What works on one reader or device with one software version may not work on another.

The first thing you want to do, is to find and buy a book in another language. To do this, use the web interface and search for a word that is likely to appear in the other language. In the search results, you may get a possibility to filter by language in the left column of the page. If you get that, use the filter. Otherwise, just search again with other search terms until you find a book in the language you want. If you just want to try things out, sort the search results by price, and choose a cheap or free book. Buy it.

The next thing you want to do is to install a dictionary on your device. This ought to be easy, but can be a hit or miss. Open the book you just downloaded. Press your finger on one word. Let go, and there may already be a translation for you. If not, you may get the option to download dictionaries. If you do not get the option to download dictionaries here, you can try one of several things: On your device, go to the home screen (tap the little house icon in upper left corner). Tap Cloud. Drag repeatedly over the screen to go to the last (yes!) page of All Items. On some devices you can also tap on the page number in the bottom right corner, and type in the last page. You will get to a folder called Dictionaries. Open it. Tap the dictionaries you want to install.

Another option is to use the web interface. Go to your account. Go to Manage Content and Devices. Go to Your Content > Show > Dictionaries and User Guides. You can use the search box to limit the list. Look for a dictionary for the language you are after. Click on the three dots (...) to the left of the name. Select Deliver. Select a Device and Deliver.

Here Amazon has created a trap for us. If the device list contains greyed out items, those readers are unable to use that particular dictionary. I have found no way to figure out which dictionary works on which device, without trying, which often means buying the device. I contacted Amazon’s support team, and it took them more than a week to figure out that an old Kindle Paperwhite was not able to use a Dutch dictionary.

Some more examples: The Dutch and Russian dictionaries do not work on the first generation Kindle Paperwhite, but they work on the second generation provided it has the firmware version 5.6.5. Note that they do not work on the first generation, even with firmware 5.6.5. The Dutch dictionary works with the current (December 2015) Kindle reader for iOS (iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch), but the Russian dictionary does not work with the Kindle reader for iOS. It is basically a wild guess, if the device you buy will support the dictionary you need.

I currently have dictionaries in the following languages: Chinese (simplified), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. Some of them are bilingual like French-English or Italian-English, and some of them are monolingual, like French-French. You can let them work together, so if you do not find a word in the French-English dictionary, when reading a book, you can quickly change to a French-French dictionary, and see if you have more luck.

The dictionaries are not perfect. Far from it. The Kindle finds some grammatical forms, but not all. I have had big problems with this in both Russian and Italian. When the Kindle does not find a word, it reverts to Wikipedia. This means that it is a very good idea to get a 3G version of the Kindle if you use dictionaries a lot in locations where you do not have access WiFi.

Another issue is that the dictionaries may become incredibly slow over time. I have not figured out what causes this, but some things that may cause this are:

• Vocabulary builder and Word Wise. Switch them off in the settings, if you get problems.
• Switching between dictionaries. When I have read books in both Russian and Dutch for some time, both dictionaries seem to become slow. Solution: finish one book, before you start the next.
• Too long usage. If the dictionaries get slow, restart the Kindle. That speeds them up again, at least temporarily.

Next thing is to type in foreign languages, so you can search for text and add comments. If the language is a European language, you may be able to get away with the keyboard that is there by default. For example, to type ç, tap and hold on the c-key. Remove the finger. You will get the option to choose from variants of c, and among them ç.

If you want to type in Russian, Japanese or Chinese, that is not an option, so you need to activate the foreign keyboard. You can keep several keyboards at the same time, and switch between them while typing. To activate a keyboard, tap on the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner. Tap on Settings. Tap on Device Options. Tap on Languages and Dictionaries. Tap on Keyboards. Select the ones you need. For Chinese, there seems to be only pinyin input. For Japanese, I found only Romaji input. For basic short input, those options should be fine. Once you have selected the keyboards you want, tap on OK in the lower right corner. (This is a potential trap. You need to tap on OK. It is not enough to just leave the page with the list of keyboards.)

To switch between keyboards while typing, tap on the little globe symbol next to the space bar.

Those are the main points I figured out to read multiple languages on a Kindle.

There is just one more detail. You may encounter multilingual books, like Война и мир (War and peace), which is written in both Russian and quite a lot of French. If you want to look up a French word in such a book, the Kindle seems to be able to figure out which language it is. When the Kindles does not identify the right language, you can force it to choose a dictionary for another language, by tapping on the dictionary name at the bottom of the dictionary window. You will only see dictionaries installed on the device, so you may have to go through the install a dictionary section above again.

Hopefully, some of this information will apply to your particular device and your languages. Enjoy the multilingual reading!

War and Peace in mixed French and Russian. The French dictionary works on an iPhone, but the Russian one does not.

Apple Watch Six Months On

The Apple Watch on my arm is no longer a curious novelty. It is something I have actually used daily during the six months since Apple fooled me into buying one.

Expected delivery when I ordered at the beginning of May was supposed to be “July” so I would have plenty of time to cancel my preliminary order. But 11th of May, they suddenly delivered it without warning. I could have complained, but decided to keep it.

The Apple Watch tells the time. That is actually very useful. I had forgotten that from the time of the wrist watch. I no longer need to put away bags or whatever I have in my hands to dig out a phone from my pocket to tell what time it is. I just look at my wrist, and there's the time, time of sunrise or sunset, day of week or other things I could configure it to show.

It measures my physical activity and stores it. I can tell today how far I walked the first of June and it tells me my how frequently my heart beats when I climb a high slope.

I can use it to take notes when I walk around, telling Siri to “remind” me of free text. Siri is admittedly not always good with free text. She tries to interpret it in funny ways. Nevertheless, I can work with the shortcomings, and it still is one of the most incredibly useful functions.

I can use it as a remote control with preview for my iPhone camera, which means I can take selfies from ten meters’ distance and of the back of my head. I can also stretch out my hand with the iPhone to take photos in impossible angles from just a few mm over the ground or over dangerous cliffs. See photo below.

It alerts me of messages, both SMS, iMessages and google hangouts, and it gives me the possibility to give simple replies to SMS and iMessages.

I can check calendar and mails.

It gives me weather forecasts if I ask for it.

Maps show me where I am.

It can tell me where the nearest bakery is.

It tells me how much my SNCF train is delayed, and from which platform it will leave.

The Wallet shows me flights and addresses of booked hotels.

Shazam makes it possible to identify music tracks without taking out the phone.

I can use Siri to activate the timer when boiling eggs.

The above are all functions I use fairly frequently. Not daily mind you. I do not stay at hotels every night, for example.

There are also functions I use less than I thought I would:

• Playing music or podcasts. The interface is too limited and cumbersome. I’m not even sure one can play podcasts. I think one couldn’t in the first version, but that perhaps changed in some update.
• Directions. I never know when the watch thinks I have turned left or right, so I do not know where to turn next.
• News. There is room for too little information on the tiny screen.
• Ebooks. I had expected there to be a way to read some paragraphs from ebooks line by line using the Watch, but neither Kindle nor iBooks has any Apple Watch app.

Functions I was right in thinking I would not use very much:

• Twitter. It would probably be good if I had been a compulsive twitterer, but I’m not. I check Twitter once or twice a day, and I prefer a bigger screen for that.
• Games. I never was a big gamer, and I have not found any game that fits both me and the Apple Watch.
• Photo displays. The screen is too small to show photos to your friends.
• PowerPoint remote. There is no need to use a watch to do this in most presentation environments. I just use the phone.

The Apple Watch has its limitations of course. It is understandable why Apple waited so long with the release. They wanted to get things right that apparently are impossible to get right. Too often, non Apple applications lose connection. The small screen makes it quite common to press wrong buttons. Every now and then Siri pops up when I wanted to do something else. Once (but only once) I had to shutdown and restart my iPhone to restore the Bluetooth connection.

Considering the elevated price, it is not a product to recommend to anyone who does not have much more money than I do. I bought it “by mistake” and I enjoy using it. However, if I would lose it, I could not justify the expense buying a new one.

Photo taken with iPhone held in my outstretched arm while controlled remotely from the Apple Watch.

I miss Flash - I miss the Internet

Just a few years ago, it was really easy to get a spiffing internet experience. You just went into the browser settings and deactivated Flash. Once flash was gone, pages loaded quickly and most ads were gone.

Now, it is unfortunately widespread knowledge that Flash was trash - a security risk, a usability nightmare and usually impossible to use for people with disabilities.

The sad consequence is that servers nowadays remove Flash and replace it with HTML5 animations. Besides they do other clever and processor intensive things using HTML5.

The consequence is that each page takes longer to load, and there is no magic bullet to speed them up.

In the good old days, I could open twenty pages in separate tabs with one click on Firefox. I could then spend a fraction of a second to judge whether they contained anything worth reading today, and if they didn't I just pressed ctrl-W or ⌘-W on a Mac. In less than half a minute, I had seen what I wanted to see of updated sites on the internet, and I could spend the rest of the day doing other more productive things.

Today, without Flash to disable, the internet has become so slow, that I have come to mostly stop using it.

Big Bang Theory - Locomotive Manipulation - Some Train Notes

Some train notes from an Episode of Big Bang Theory.

Amy: We’re going to have Valentine’s Day dinner on a fully functioning vintage train.

Sheldon: Vintage? Be specific.

Amy: An Alcoa FA-4 diesel locomotive leading a train of meticulously restored 1915 Pullman first-class coaches.

That should have been “Alco FPA-4”.

Waiter: And for the entrée, tonight’s special is a seafood risotto. Do you have any questions?

Sheldon: Uh, I do. Uh, does this train car have the original link-and-pin coupler or the Miller Hook and Platform?

There are different techniques to couple two rail carriages together. Both link-and-pin and Miller Hook are really old. All still existing trains would use AAR, as the man behind Sheldon points out.

Man: Fun fact, it’s neither. They actually use the AAR type E coupler. If you listen carefully when the locomotive disconnects, you’ll hear the characteristic click-pshht-thunk of the knuckle.

Man: Okay. Here’s my impression of the Amtrak Acela barreling down the Eastern Corridor. Wch-wch-wch-wch-shhhh. Wch-wch-wch-wch-shhhh. Wch-wch-wch-wch-shhhh.

Sheldon: It’s like there’s a train in your mouth. I’ve got one. Um, the Amtrak Wolverine coming into Chicago. Bwch-wch-wch-wch-wch-wch, bwch-wch-wch-wch-wch-wch. Ooo-ooo.

Man: I’ve been on that train. And I just was again.

Those are not realistic sound imitation, considering that the Acela is electric and the Wolverine is diesel. However, they sound nice.

Man: In 1944, the Pacific Railroad built number 6131, which rearranged the drivers and cylinders, solving the problem of the Q-1, creating a duplex-drive 4-4-6-4.

Sheldon: In what world is a 4-4-6-4 a 4-10-4?

Howard: A world I don’t want to live in. Seriously, I no longer want to live in this world.

Man: Hold on to your conductor’s hat. You crank the second and third axles, creating a pair of internal connecting rods, and boom, four-ten-four. If you think about it, the Q-2 was like the 4-10-4 America never made.

The Q-1 was a locomotive built for the limited resources during the war. The Q-2 really existed. The numbers 4-4-6-4 and 4-10-4 are Whyte Notation describing the wheel arrangement in relation to the engine. Example:

4-4-6-4

Disclaimer: I do not know anything about trains, except where to buy tickets. It just miffed me to hear all those numbers without knowing what they were talking about, so I googled around to sort out some of the things out.

Limited Bandwidth, Apple and the Hell Caused by nsurlsessiond

I’m currently in pain, and Apple is causing it as usual.

My current internet connection has limited bandwidth, and Mac OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite has decided that it wants to make good use of the bandwidth when I am not even touching the computer. There have been discussions on the internet about this, of course. The main culprit seems to be a process with the menacing name nsurlsessiond. It is Apple software. It is legit. It is hell.

To see what causes background network activity one can launch Activity Monitor, click on the Network tab and sort by the Rcvd Bytes column.

What causes that particular process to devour the internet is not certain, but here are some suspects and possible fixes:

Photos. If you sync Photos, stop doing it, and they will not sync photos in the background. They will also be deleted from your Mac, but did you really think they were worth keeping? Apple doesn’t think so.

iCloud. Don’t use iCloud and it will not use any bandwidth.
This means that you do not get any benefit of all the iCloud setup you already have done. You will also lose access to data you have uploaded.

One person simply removed "/usr/libexec/nsusrlsessiond" after having made a backup of it. I suspect that causes all kinds of other problems, so I would not recommend anyone to do it except on test machines.

One person made a trivial shell script to stop nsurlsessiond:
#!/bin/sh
launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.nsurlstoraged.plist
launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.nsurlsessiond.plist
sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.nsurlsessiond.plist
sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.nsurlstoraged.plist
That probably also causes secondary problems, but they should go away with the next reboot, when nsurlsessiond will be reactivated.

There is a program called Little Snitch, which apparently can help limiting network connections.

One person has suggested to disable ”Spotlight suggestions" and "Bing Web Searches" in System Preferences > Spotlight. Personally I think that is a very unlikely culprit, but who knows? When Apple is out to inflict pain on its users, they can use very devious methods.

App Store may download updates in the background. To disable this, go to System Preferences > App Store. Disable everything.

If you have an iOS device, like an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, they may have switched on the Backup feature without telling you. This will not only choke your bandwidth, but it will also fill up your iCloud storage, so Apple can fool you into buying more storage than you actually need. To switch it off, go to Settings > iCloud > Backup.

If this post helps at least one frustrated Apple user, it was not written in vain.

Computers and Eye Strain - Eye Exercises

These are some suggestions regarding work environment and eye exercises to help with eye strain due to too much time at computer screens - computer vision syndrome (CVS).

Possible symptoms

Blurred vision. Red eyes. Dry eyes. Wet eyes. Burning eyes. Hurting eyes. Head aches. And so on.

The symptoms may be symptoms of CVS, but they may also point to more serious eye problems that should be treated by a doctor. If you have any reason to suspect that computer screens are not the only cause of the problem, see a doctor. Or at least ask someone who knows more about this than I do.

Environment

Make sure the screen brightness feels natural. Make the lighting in the room the same as the computer screen, not lighter, not darker, but the same. Make sure the size of the text is big enough to be easy to read, but not so big that it feels awkward. Avoid constant draft that may dry out your eyes. Sit or stand comfortably.

Eye exercises

Cover your eyes with your palms - right hand on left eye and then the other way round. Do this for as long as you feel like. Relax.

Roll your eyes with closed eye lids. Move them as if you were looking at a slowly spinning wheel. This can help distribute tear liquid over the eyes.

Look away. This is the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, take 20 seconds to look at something 20 meters away.
(Or 20 feet away if you are American. It does not really matter. However, if you do 20 inches, you are doing it wrong.)

Scan outlines far away. Consciously move your eyes following an outline at a constant speed. Look for example at a bookcase or a distant mountain.

Blink! (Some people have a tendency to blink less than they should when they watch a computer screen.)

Disclaimer

The "information" here comes from the internet and my own experience. It is not intended to be complete, and it is not more reliable than the rest of the internet. If you have access to a competent professional, or any competent person, ask for their advice.

I have no idea if computer glasses help. I have no idea if the distance to the screen or the height of the screen can affect CVS. I have no idea if physical exercise helps. I'm not even sure the suggested exercises above help everyone, but they feel good to me.

What's the use of Creative Cloud? Beats me.

For about three hours this morning, I have tried to figure out what Adobe is up to. Considering that hardly anything works except my laptop applications, my conclusion is: they are abandoning everything else.

Photoshop Touch for iOS which previously sold for 9.99 is no longer supported. No other application has come in its place.

Lightroom for iOS does not import RAW files from the device. Other applications happily import the JPEG version of RAW files, so you at least can visualise them, but Lightroom blocks them. 

Lightroom for desktop/laptop has a bug (?) which prevents you from syncing files with Creative Cloud. The first help pages you find on Adobe's site describe how it used to work with options that no longer are there. 

The result of this is that the RAW editor Lightroom for iOS has no way to import any RAW files to edit. 

Well, what do you expect from free software? 

Well, well, indeed. 

I expect free software to work better than Adobe's software, which I actually pay for.

Update: In a help forum, Adobe asked me to try some things to get the sync going. I did try and synching now works fine. I lost all my previous Lightroom files on all my iOS devices, but at least, I can now put new RAW files in Lightroom for iOS.

New Microsoft Office 2016 for Macintosh

Hooray! A new version of Microsoft Office for Mac! The reason this is worth an upgrade is... is.... that it is an upgrade! Hooray for upgrades!

Just look at what they write about Word:

• Word’s powerful writing and reviewing tools make it easy to create great-looking documents. The new Design tab lets you easily apply designer-quality layouts, colors and fonts throughout your document.

It is "powerful"! Hooray! Finally a powerful program. Just what I had been looking for. Some power. And not only any amount of power, but it is full of power. This is magnificent! Powerfulness to the user!

It makes it "easy to create great-looking documents". It is easy! Who'd have thought? It is 2015, more than thirty years after the first mainstream GUI was introduced, and Microsoft has introduced something that is "easy". I must have this product! A day without easiness is a lost day.

And the documents are "great-looking"! No matter the content, they will look great. Finally a tool that will help me make my upcoming Great American Novel look great. I can use designer-quality fonts. Not those rubbish fonts Charles Dickens used to use, but designer-quality fonts. Take that, Charlie!

Designer-quality colours will also help. The black of my text has never felt quite as full of designer-quality as I liked. Finally, in the year 2015 anno domini, Microsoft will help me with some designer-quality black.

And who is the person with all these insights in what new and important features to put into a writing tool? It is Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office Client Applications and Services team. He is in charge! And he thinks that powerful, easy, great-looking and designer quality are words that actually mean something.

Dear Kirk, I would really like to buy Office 2016. It is not that expensive. I could easily afford it. But please give me real reasons, and do not dilute them with all that wishy washy phluphph.

Pathetic attempt at writing before Microsoft gave us designer-quality fonts.

Using Siri and Apple Watch for Multilingual Users

If one uses several languages in life, there may be some issues when using Siri and Apple Watch. However I found some solutions and some nice surprises. If you speak more than one language and use Apple Watch, some of theses hints may be of help.

Activating Siri on an Apple Watch can quickly be done by pressing and holding the Digital Crown. (You can also activate the watch and say "Hey Siri..." However, that behaves a little erratic when you frequently change languages.)

Changing Siri's Language is very easy on the iPhone. Just go into Settings > General > Siri > Language. Here you can quickly change language for just one request. These settings are taken into account instantly on both the iPhone and the paired Apple Watch.

For example, I have still not been able to ask English Siri for the bank Société Générale, but it works fine in French:

"Where is the nearest bank?"

If the nearest bank is not the one you want, change to French.

"Où se trouve la Société Générale?"

As there is no easy way to change Siri's language on the Apple Watch itself, it is still good to determine which language you are most likely to use, and set it using your iPhone. You can change it later, but to do that, you need to take the iPhone out of your pocket or wherever you keep it.

There is no need to worry about forgetting which language Siri expects. Siri's first screen shows some text in the language that is activated as a reminder.

Creating Notes from your Apple Watch is in theory not possible. However, you can create Reminders with text, and that is basically the same thing. Here are the words to create reminders in some languages I tried:

• Remind me...
• Rappelle-moi ...
• Påminn mig...
• Ricordami ...
• Erinnere mich...
• Напомни мне...
• 提醒, tíxǐng...
• リマインダー...

Example: "Rappelle-moi Les bus sont verts" creates a reminder with the text "Les bus sont verts".

As it is free text, Siri may get the text slightly wrong. If so, one can keep the reminder and correct it later. Siri may also get the text completely wrong. If so, it is of course better to cancel and try again.

What Siri knows in different languages is not obvious, but one can often get an answer asking Siri things like: “What kinds of things can I ask you?” "Qu'est-ce que je peux te demander?" "Que puedo preguntar?" “可以问你什么” 「何ができるの？」etc. 

A question like "What can I do with Siri?" asked on an iPhone gives a different list, which still may give some inspiration.

Replying to SMS and other messages may be confusing, as the offered language may seem random. You get a mail from someone in English, and when you tap "Reply", you may get options in French.

The snag is that Apple Watch uses the language of the keyboard set in the Messages app on your iPhone for this message conversation. 

If you have a conversation for Brian Smith on you iPhone, but the iPhone language is French, then you will only be able to reply to Brian in French on your Apple Watch. Or send an emoji. If you want to reply in English, first go to the iPhone and change the keyboard there. Or reply using your iPhone.

Examples of some things Siri did for me on an Apple Watch in a few different languages within a couple of minutes, changing language between each request: