Essential Aid To Language Learning

Of all the online translators available, I think the Google Translate is by far superior. I used the Yahoo Babel Fish all these days. To put it as mildly as possible - the translation stinks. You need numerous attempt to coax the desired result. And to think that I translated a 200 page document from German to English using Babel Fish! Some patience!

It was quite by accident that I hit upon Google Translate and I am mighty pleased. (Actually I feel quite dumb about it - this service has been in existence for some time now).

The translation is 'live' - the text get translated as you press "enter"(I find this aspect missing and terribly annoying in Babel Fish. After entering a text, you have to click on the translate button. At times nothing happens.)

Don't like the translation provided by Google? Go ahead and recommend a better translation.

Yet another good feature of the Google Translate is that it also displays a tiny dictionary that can be explored. You can also search the word in the web from a link.

A good test of a well translated text is to reverse the translation. Google Translate allows you to swap the languages at a click of a button.

And, oh yes, Hindi is one of the languages that you can translate into or from. This is yet another instance of Google coming in late into a domain and providing a better solution that all existing ones.

I think this is an invaluable tool in learning a language.

Now if only I could have a mobile version of this ...

5 Google Search Tips I Bet You Did Not Know About

1. You can use Google as a calculator. Just type something like (4/3)*pi*(seven)^3 and get the volume of the sphere with radius at 7 units, for example.

2. You can use Google as a dictionary. Try something like define serendipity and check out the first entry. I also tried define abidance - it works.

3. You can use Google to keep a tab on the world. For example, you would like to be the first to know about your favourite subject, say Gardening. Sign up to Google.com/alerts. You will get information on your e-mail as it happens (or once a day, if you are not so hot about it). I use this all the time to follow what I consider important at professional and personal level.

4. You can use Google to carry out research. Go to scholar.google.com and get researching. This is actually brilliant.

5. You can use the character "~" to widen your search. A search with ~horse gives you all results not only with horse, but also pony, stallion, equestrian, etc. (basically all the synonyms). I find it very useful when I am looking for a concept but not sure about the exact word.

I picked up these tips when I read the wonderful 'biography' on Google: The Google Story by David A Vise.

Do you have any tricks up your google-search-sleeve?
Would you like to share it with everyone?

Picture courtesy: jaylopez

Are the hits from Alphainventions.com for real?

Many of the Alphainventions users must be having the same doubt as I: How real are the hits referred by Alphainventions? Or are they just visitors passing by?

To find exactly this I a) recently installed Google Analytics in my blog and b) did not submit my blog to the alphainventions reading cycle.

Here are the results for the period 27th Feb to March 1st, both inclusive (basically 3 days)

No. of visits = 147
Pages / visit = 9.03 (note: repeated visit of a single page are counted)
Average Time on Site = 0:43:27
New Visits = 87.76%
Bounce rate = 23.13% (meaning, 1 in 5 visitor did not explore my blog beyond the page first visited.)

The answer to the question we all are asking is now very clear.

Yes, Alphainventions brings you new visitors.
Yes, the hits referred by alphainventions to your blog are real people.
Yes, the visitors stay on for a prolonged period of time exploring your blog.

Do you have similar statistics that can throw light on alphainventions?

Discovering Internet Through Books

No! I don't mean e-books. I mean the books that deal with some aspect of Internet. I avoided such books for a long time - for some strange reason that I have still not been able to put my finger on.

But before I go on here are a few interesting things ...

a) Have you heard of LAUNCHcast? It is Yahoo's online radio station. You can create your own play list. You can pick and choose. This is also where recording companies test waters.

b) Ok how about this? Machinima. Have you heard about this? You can make movies at your home on this using animation characters. All you need is a script and a set of good voices.

c) I am sure you have heard of Rhapsody. Yes? Congratulations because you are ahead of me. I just read about this.

d) Let's try something more basic. Go to Google. In the search field just type "25 * 30" and hit return. What do you get? Yes it works like a calculator. Ho hum! But wait. Now type "twenty five * 30". Hmmmm... it still works. What about "twenty five multiplied by thirty". Wow! It still gives you an answer. What kind of calculator is this?

The first book on Internet that I read was The Google Story by David Vise. Besides telling a story it had such interesting bits (such as the Google calculator) that I was hooked.

I am now reading LONG TAIL. by Chris Anderson. Equally riveting. But the interesting parts are the information on Internet that otherwise would have escaped me.

The best thing about such information is that you can immediately go to the Net and check it out for yourself.

The paradox: the best way of discovering Internet is through books. All this when Internet is threatening to displace books as a habit.

Note: The picture used here belongs to Ilker. To see more such images see gallery.

Google To The Rescue

Just when I thought I was on the verge of a great discovery ...
Thank God for Google, I stopped short of making a fool of myself.

This happened this morning when I was reading Against The Gods. As I was going through Pascal's Triangle, it struck to me that all the rows of the triangle were powers of 11.

For example the first row is 1 (=11^0). The 2nd row is 11 (=11^1), 3rd row 121 (=11^2), 4th row 1331 (=11^3).

This got me all excited as I had not read this pattern anywhere before. Obviously I haven't read enough. Before putting this up on my blog, I decided to google Pascal's Triangle. Good thing I did.

See here.
It has the Pascal's Triangle in terms of power of 11 and more.

Of course this site does not tell you why the probability of having at least 1 girl (or a boy) in a family of 2 children being planned by a young couple is 75%. This can be computed using the Pascal's Triangle. But I am sure you can Google this information too.