We’ve just had part 1 of Richard Dawkins’s documentary “The Root of All Evil?” shown on Australian TV, so I thought I’d give a really quick review.

Although I may agree with much of what he’s saying, Richard Dawkins seems to have been born without the tact-gene.

That’s it. :-)

I’ve been meaning to do a quick review on iWoz for a while now, having read the book back in December last year.

iWoz is the autobiography of Steve “Woz” Wozniak. For those who don’t know who this is, Woz created the Apple I computer, and founded Apple Computer (along with Steve Jobs).

Now, I’m a big fan of Apple as you know. And everyone loves Woz. So I really wanted to like this book. But the truth be told, the book was a painful read.

First, Woz may be a genius when it comes to electronics. But he is no genius when it comes to writing. Apparently the book was co-authored by a writer named Gina Smith, who you would assume cleaned it up to make it more readable. So I shudder to think at how bad it was originally. At least it makes you realise that we really all can’t be good at everything.

If you can get past the bad writing style, the next hurdle is Woz himself. My mum would put it this way: “Woz is a genius… Just ask him”. Woz seems to be void of humility – and though he does admit to mistakes where he loses money, it is still a difficult read with all the constant pats on the back. You get the feeling that Woz is taking credit for everything that has ever been created at times, and it is really a turn-off.

Further, it is clear that Woz was socially awkward as a boy (and may still be so). His sense of humour is, well, just not funny. Yes, it is mildly funny to make a TV jammer that messes up the TV of a group of students while they are watching it. The first time. Maybe even the second time. But if you continue to do it every night for weeks on end until all the students stop watching TV, it isn’t funny.

Now, part of this may be a cultural thing. I mean, in Australia, we tend to expect a certain amount of humility from geniuses. I suspect the English do too. If you compare the reviews of this book at amazon.co.uk with amazon.com, you’ll see the American’s don’t seem phased by Woz being such a fan of himself, while the English do. So maybe that is part of the problem.

Anyway, end result: not a bad book, but don’t expect a real page turner.

There are many age old questions that, even today, new generations continue to demand answers to. Questions like “Who would win in a fight between Superman and Spiderman?“, and “Could Bruce Lee beat Jet Li in a Kung Fu battle royale?“.

Well, thanks to Google Fight, we now have the answers.

I was surprised by the results of the first battle, but not the second. But Google Fight has spoken. The judge’s decision is final.

Basically, Google Fight looks at the total number of articles that a search of Google on your first “combatant” receives versus the second. He/She/It with the most articles wins.

For those who know their behind the scenes Kung Fu movie history, “Bruce Lee versus Sammo Hung” may be of interest (and I’m not talking about their film encounters).

Sometimes I question my own sanity – and it seems for good reason.

How about some local politics? “John Howard versus Kevin Rudd“. That’s a sad outcome – let’s hope that doesn’t reflect reality.  And here’s something for my US readers. :)

But you can also pick a fight between non-living entities. “Nintendo Wii versus Microsoft XBox 360“, for example.

Apparently my little sister continues to beat me in a fight, years after the last time she gave me a fat lip. Good times…good times…

Mac OS X is quite probably the best operating system in the world when it comes to internationalisation. It comes complete with language settings from all over the world, with the ability to easily switch to another language depending on user preferences. Applications have the ability to easily support languages other than the language the application was written in.

Which is why it is peculiar that OS X is so bad at localised English. If you don’t use US English, you’re a second class citizen.

I’m not just talking about the “Trash” icon. It is true that many English speaking countries don’t call the bin you put rubbish in to a “trash can”. Other countries call such things a “rubbish bin”, or “wastebasket”. In fact, pre-OS X Apple sold versions of the Mac OS with “International English” that labelled the Trash as the “Wastebasket”. However, the “Trash” on the Mac is so well known now, people have grown to accept it. It is all the other places that cause you distress as a non-US-English speaker.

Spell Checker

During installation of Mac OS X, you are asked where you are located. However, this apparently has no bearing as to what localised version of English you speak. If you say you live in Australia, you get the right time zone. But you’ll be surprised to find that the spell checker is using American English.

You see, there is an extra step you need to take. You need to go to your System Preferences, go to International settings, click on the Language tab, Edit the language list, and add Australian English to your list. You also need to add British English to your list – more on that later.

You then need to make sure that Australian English/British English is at the top of your language list. Only then will your spell checker stop telling you that “colour” and “minimise” are spelt wrong.

The history of the spell checker is interesting – and equally annoying. OS X 10.0 came with a spell checker that only had a US English dictionary. After much complaining, Apple released OS X 10.1, which came with an Australian/British English spell checker, that actually told you that “colour” and “color” were both spelt correctly! It wasn’t until 10.2 that we got a spell checker that worked in a useful way.

Printing

Most of the world uses international standard paper sizes (ISO 216). In fact, pretty much the US and Canada are the only ones who haven’t standardised. So, what’s the default paper size on OS X? US Letter!

It wasn’t until OS X 10.3 that you could easily change this default in the system preferences (in case you are wondering, go to System Preferences, Go to Print & Fax, choose the default paper size from the drop down list). And even today (10.4.9), the Address Book application ignores this and defaults to US Letter when you print.

The Finder

The Finder is arguably what makes a Mac a Mac – it is the first thing people see and interact with when they use Mac OS X.

Unfortunately, when using English, it only knows about US English. The interface is littered with US English spelling, and because the Finder is not a Cocoa application, it isn’t simply a case of adding in some simple localised directories to use more international English.

Why is “colour” spelt wrong for me? Why is “minimise” spelt wrong? I’ve set my Language preference to use Australian English, then British English, then English (which is US English by the way).

Other Applications

Few applications offer language support other than US English, though occasionally someone will put the effort in – BluePhoneElite, for example, used to offer British and Australian English (mainly because I helped them add it), and my own applications offer British and Australian English localisation.

Of course, you might be wondering “How different are all these other versions of English?”, “How can someone support all these differences?”. The truth is that British English, New Zealand English and Australian English, and most likely other types of English have only minor differences. An Australian English user is rarely going to notice or have a problem with British English as their default.

The difficulty is the way localisation works on OS X. You can have English localised strings – that’s US English. You can localise for British English. You can localise for Australian English. And the application will choose the English based on the order in your Language preferences, and what is available in the application’s language support.

This is why an Australian user needs to add British English to their list of languages, above English, and below Australian English. Otherwise, if an application has been localised for British English, and English, and you only had Australian English at the top, you’d get American English as the application’s language.  That’s not what you want, and you can’t say “My language is any English other than US English”.

What’s the solution

There are a few things Apple could do:

1. If your locale is not North America, default to A4 paper size in printing.
2. If your locale is not North America, add your localised English before English in the language preferences automatically, so that the user has a working spell checker from installation.
3. To avoid having every developer maintain an Australia English, British English, New Zealand English etc. localisation of strings that are in most cases exactly the same, add a new language to the OS called “International English¹“. Base it on British English. And if someone has a non-US-English as their first preference in languages (for example, Australian English), check the running application to see if it has an International English localisation and use that if the user’s default English is not available.²
4. Localise your own applications, including the Finder. This isn’t very difficult – you just need to hire³ someone who can localise your apps for you. A single person – someone in Britain or Australia say – could basically take each release and localise the English to “International English” before general release. It wouldn’t even be a full time job for him/her – they could work on building applications for you, testing releases, or even localising all those dashboard widgets that only work in the US (Business, People, Stocks, Flight Tracker) when not doing localisation work for the OS.

If Apple puts the effort in, people in other countries will feel Apple is really an International Company, rather than a US Company that sells internationally. That could make a big difference in sales, and can only make OS X even better than it is today.

¹ The term “International English” is a little controversial, since some people claim that US English is the “International English” of today. My understanding is that Apple once called the non-US-English version of the Mac OS “International English”, so I decided to stick with that for this article.