Monday, 29 January 2007

Simpy International: Browser Language Settings How-to

Here is a little tutorial about setting your language preferences in your Web browser. Although the explanation uses Simpy for examples, the tutorial is really applicable to any Web site that offers content/UI in multiple languages. I hope you find this useful.

By default, Simpy's user interface (UI) is in English. Besides English, Simpy's UI is currently available in almost a dozen other languages. As the number of languages/translations supported by Simpy is growing (I'll announce a few new languages in the next 24 hours), and now that several people have already emailed me to ask where and how they can switch to using their language of choice, it's time I show how to see Simpy in a language other than Simpy.

To set your preferred language, you need to change the language settings of your Web browser. In other words, you do not need to look for the language setting in your Simpy preferences - it is not there - your language preference is set in your browser. Thus, what you need to do is configure your browser and tell it what all the languages you can read are, and tell it which language you prefer. For example, you may read Spanish and a little bit of Traditional Chinese, but French is your native tongue, so you will probably want to add all three languages to your browser: French as the preferred language, followed by Spanish, and finally Traditional Chinese.

To help you understand what happens after you add multiple languages to your browser, let's go through an example. Let's assume you added French, Spanish, and Traditional Chinese to your browser, as I described above. This is what happens when you access Simpy.com:

Your Browser: My user can read French and that's his/her preferred language. He/she can also read Spanish, and Traditional Chinese. Thus, if you have the UI in French, please show me that French UI. If not, give me the Spanish UI, if you have it. If you have neither French nor Spanish, give me Traditional Chinese, if you have it.

Simpy: OK. I don't have a translation for French, but I do have a translation for Spanish, and also for Traditional Chinese. Since your user prefers Spanish to Traditional Chinese, here is the UI in Spanish.

Thus, by adding language(s) to your browser, you instruct it to tell the sites you visit which languages you can read, and what your language of choice is. If this explanation (in English) doesn't help, take a look at the screenshots below. The first screenshot shows how to add languages to Internet Explorer 7. The second screenshot shows how to add languages to Firefox.

Internet Explorer: Language Settings

Firefox: Language Settings

Both screenshots are clickable, so if you need a bigger version of the screenshot for easier reading, just click on the image.

Posted by otis at 6:09 AM in Tips & Tricks
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Tuesday, 16 January 2007

Google Buying Simpy in 2007 Again

Funny, folks over at Pandia insist on Google buying Simpy. Apparently, Simpy is getting bought by Google (again!?) in 2007 (hm, that's the current year, isn't it?), and immediately merging it with Google Bookmarks. Weird, I didn't even know about this. How come nobody told me? Nah, it's not April 1st, and I'm not buying this. See also: Pandia Suggests Google Buys Simpy.
Posted by otis at 5:11 AM in /
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Sunday, 7 January 2007

Simpy International: Simpy auf Deutsch

By now, Germans, Austrians, and the Swiss should be back from holiday skiing, so here is something for them and all other German-speaking people out there.

Several weeks ago, Benjamin translated Simpy's user interface from English to German. He said he was doing it to make it easier for his wife to use Simpy, and I hope he succeeded. I also hope this German version of Simpy makes Simpy more accessible and attractive to all other German speakers. Halo! Wie gehts? Willkommen zu Simpy! Or something like that... Once again, thank you Benjamin! Is anyone keeping track of how many times I've thanked Benjamin for his work so far? I'm not, but I must have thanked him at least half a dozen times so far, and I have a feeling I'm nowhere near done thanking him.

To give you an idea what a German version of Simpy looks like, here is a sample of the user interface:

If you would like to translate Simpy to your language, please email me. As always, contributors names and link go up to the contributors page. Plus, I clearly like thanking people.

Posted by otis at 11:47 PM in News & Announcements
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Simpy Welcomes RawSugar Users

Here is a little announcement.

A few days ago several influential blogs (see below) announced RawSugar, another social bookmarking service, has stopped all R&D efforts, as it is out of funding. Technically, RawSugar is not closing down, but looking for a new home for its technology. While it is sad to see RawSugar go, this was not news to me. As a matter of fact, I have been in close contact with Frank Smadja, RawSugar's VP of R&D, for some time now, working on a migration path for RawSugar's users. As the result, RawSugar users can now easily import their bookmarks into Simpy. If you are a RawSugar user, the import tool is at http://www.simpy.com/3p/rawsugar and it works just like the del.icio.us import.

The import is done in real-time and "in the background". Upon completion, an email is sent to the email address stored in the person's Simpy account. For each bookmark in RawSugar, the following attributes are imported: URL, title, note, tags, visibility (public or private), and add date (n.b. if the bookmark add date from RawSugar is before the creation date of your Simpy account, then the current date is used as your bookmark's add date).

Just as I was happy to provide de.lirio.us users with a new home 6 months ago (see De.lirio.us migrates to Simpy), I am happy to be able to provide RawSugar users with a new home for their bookmarks. Welcome RawSugar users!

Some blogs that covered the recent RawSugar changes: TechCrunch, Mashable, Micro Persuasion, /Message

Posted by otis at 1:11 PM in News & Announcements
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Friday, 5 January 2007

Alexa Says: Simpy in Top 10K

Just before the end of 2006, I noticed that, according to Alexa, Simpy was very close to being in top 10,000 sites by its traffic rank. I mentioned that in 2006 Finale: Alexa Top 10K. Because the end of 2006 was so close, I didn't think Simpy would make it into top 10K by the year's end. A few days after that, I hopped on a plane and went half-way around the planet, to China (it is sunny and over 20 Celsius here in Panyu, outside Guandgzhou). I took a few days off and stayed away from the computer and the Internet. Then, right after New Year's I looked at Simpy's Alexa chart and found that I got a great New Year's present - Simpy made it into the top 10,000 sites on the Web! In addition, I see all "3 months change" numbers for Simpy on Alexa are up:
  • Traffic rank: up 5,112
  • Reach per million users: 45%
  • Page views per user: 16%

Of course, climbing up in Alexa is easier the further down the "long tail" the site is, and gets progressively harder as the site gets closer to the "short head". I wonder what commercial web site traffic tracking services say about Simpy, if anything. Does anyone with access to ComScore or HitWise know if Simpy is listed with any of those services?

I'm not patting myself on the back, but I clearly can't hide that I am pretty happy. After all, Simpy is my side project, has not been marketed, and has no VCs or any other investors. What it does have are some passionate users and contributors! Thank you!

Ok, enough of this euphoria. It's time to go back to work.

Posted by otis at 3:34 AM in News & Announcements
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