All info necessary to do so is readily available on http://code.google.com/p/softkeyboard/wiki/BinaryDictionaries

As a base, you need a wad of decent text, the more the better! The quality of the dictionary will improve as more data is fed into the file. The example on SoftKeyboard uses the Wikipedia for bulk text!

The dutch dump is available on http://download.wikimedia.org/nlwiki/20100813/ Considering the different dumps, I chose the one containing the Articles, templates, image descriptions, and primary meta-pages, but not the revision or user data..

2010-08-13 16:17:13 done Articles, templates, image descriptions, and primary meta-pages.
2010-08-13 16:17:13: nlwiki 1003105 pages (382.643/sec), 1003105 revs (382.643/sec), 92.5% prefetched, ETA 2010-08-13 16:59:24 [max 1971556]
This contains current versions of article content, and is the archive most mirror sites will probably want.
pages-articles.xml.bz2 549.0 MB

The SoftPedia explenation offers the following bash script to analyse the wad of text into a weighed word list.

My blog screws up code, check gertschepens.be or the original page for the commands
Code from Softkeyboard, contributed by Jacob Nordfalk

This creates a weighed and sorted list of the words in the file. The more data, the more reliable this set will be. (The database dump of a dutch forum would be a nice addition to get more of the common language in there, as a counterweight to the dictionary wording.)
The weighed values are between 194 and 8671269 (this is the # of times a word is found in the text) in case of this specific export. The sample.xml however speaks of a frequency value from 0 to 255.

So I created a perl script to fix the numbering; the script needs a sorted list, frequent words first, infrequent ones later. It cycles trough and replaces the initial numbering (in the correctly formatted xml) by the weighed alternative.

The source is not available here for formatting reasons; click the Perl script link!

Once we have a decent .xml, all we need to do is convert it to the necessary .dict format, which is described in the Softpedia text; and the necessary software is in their repositories.

After this, we have a valid main.dict file, ready to be compiled into a LatinIME pack. Compiling all languages into the pack will not be possible due to very limited space on the system partition (My magic has about 1 MB free space on its /system partition), so a solution will have to be found to store the dictionary files out of the LatinIME keyboard apk. (which is preferable at any rate!) My dutch dictionary was submitted to CM but will probably not make it in until the external/internal dictionary problem is solved! (in the mean while, Im using a home-rolled version! The default CM keyboard with added raw-nl, currently available here)

By opening /system/app/LatinIME.apk (as found in CyanogenMod), we find out that the dictionaries are in the .apk under the res directory. While we’re there, someone mentioned the availability of more dicts might be a size issue, but I dont think so since they’re all quite moderate in size:

• raw-de: 739K
• raw-en: 822K
• raw-es: 768K
• raw-fr: 775K
• raw-it: 688K
• raw-sv: 911K

Also, the custom words are saved in a database at /data/data/com.android.inputmethod.latin/databases/auto_dict.db

Now, looking to add a dutch dictionary, I went looking in the AOSP. The LatinIME source is in ./packages/inputmethods/LatinIME and contains a ./packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/dictionaries directory. I expected to find the dictionary files there, but it only contains a sample.xml file. So no .xml dictionaries. The aforementioned res directory is at ./packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/java/res/ but contains none of the raw-lang directories.
The dictionaries do not appear to be part of the AOSP. I guess Google is not able to open source these?

While searching (the interwebs and IRC) I also discovered that a lot of other people (Issue 1827: add dictionaries for other locales (or make it easier for users to do so) – Im d.gen… in that thread) were looking to add their language to the code tree and that some people had solved the problem by just rolling a custom LatinIME (Softkeyboard). I dont like that option, however since I’d rather strengthen the default tree instead of splitting from it and updating the code after each AOSP update.

CyanogenMod however does have the dictionaries and so I checked out the CyanogenMod tree. it took me a while to find out where they were as I was expecting them to be in the paths I mentioned before, but no such luck. Apparently (and this makes sense,) the CM specific files are in the ./vendor/cyanogen directory, the binary dictionaries in

./vendor/cyanogen/overlay/common/packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/java/res/raw-sv/main.dict
./vendor/cyanogen/overlay/common/packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/java/res/raw-de/main.dict
./vendor/cyanogen/overlay/common/packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/java/res/raw-fr/main.dict
./vendor/cyanogen/overlay/common/packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/java/res/raw-en/main.dict
./vendor/cyanogen/overlay/common/packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/java/res/raw-it/main.dict
./vendor/cyanogen/overlay/common/packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/java/res/raw-es/main.dict

So. How to add new dictionaries to Android?

• Either in AOSP under packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/dictionaries/ as .xml files (preferable),
• under packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/java/res/ as binary files
• or if that turns out to be impossible for some reason, adding them to CM in the respective vendor/cyanogen/overlay/common/packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/ directories (so that at least CM has the extended languages).

The ideal situation however would be to split the dictionaries from the keyboards and put them somewhere where any application might use them; making it possible to install new dictionary packs (eg DutchDictionary.apk) from the market, thus solving the whole dictionary problem. Maybe by adding them in /data/data/com.android.inputmethod.latin/databases/ although there is probably a performance reason for them not being there in the first place?
Anyhow, in the mean while, we do need the dictionaries! So lets not wait for this and add the data to AOSP now

Im wondering though why the Softkeyboard people dont add their dictionaries to AOSP.. I do see the benefit of keeping it available in the market as a separate app, ie making it available to every android user instead of those “few” tinkerers running the latest AOSP (or mods based on it.)

Then Why the Fuck do I have friends, paying more than I do, NOT getting that info?

The answer seems very simple.. because they dont want us to know exactly what the “Fair Use” numbers are. Keeping a foot in the door to stop anyone under the flag of data usage reasons (Your arrow points red, You only get 10Gb for the rest of the month,) whenever they like. Or can anyone point me to an official reason?

And oh yeah, you re paying more to have them treat you like that.

And there are some AMAZING things on here. Do read the dedicated pages however, the base video might be worth watching, but the epic part is what happens with it afterwards. Peoples reactions, follow up videos, remixes or parody..

From the very funny

Lying Down Game is a mass-participatory meme that involves having one’s photograph taken whilst lying rigidly face down in public space and then sharing the image via internet. Since becoming popular through Facebook around June 2009, the viral game has spawned thousands of photos of people lying flat in public landscapes across the world. The official Facebook Group hosts over 19,000 pictures.

to the Extremely Cruel (but, forgive me, also very funny)

Jessi “POP A GLOCK AND MAKE A BRAIN SLUSHY” Slaughter

What happened next?
Check knowyourmeme.com: Jessi Slaughter

Its brutal. Its what happens when a 11yo goes wild and unsupervised on YouTube. You done goofed!

and

Antoine Dodson

What happened next?
Check knowyourmeme.com: Antoine Dodson

All n all the guy is some sort of a hero. He saved his sister and Im very glad he s taking the whole thing very well. Also the rap Rules Kudos to Kidstatic and the Gregory Brothers! Hide ya kids, hide ya wife and hide ya husband too! Hillarious!!!

And our own Kimberley Vlaeminck is on there too!

Gotta love Youtube. Gotta love 4chan

In the end, “know your meme” is a cautionary tale to people around the world. And I guess, an extra reminder to parents too.. Watch the fuck out with the internets, coz once its on there, its on there! And if its a big cockup; EVERYONE ll know about it, everyone will have an opinion about it. And you can be sure there ll be some crazy ass derivative stuffs made on top of it!

Its great to see the worlds population create with whatever mad technologies are thrown out there! Its like a million monkeys with a typewriter and one of them accidentally writing Shakespeare. But with the internet bringing it to our homes and the rest of the monkeys flocking towards the awesome, weeding out the crap!

http://www.htc.com/europe/SupportDownload.aspx?p_id=283&cat=2&dl_id=996 pobeert u de bovenste link met uw serienummer dit zou moeten werken

Approximate Translation: Please try the above URL, this should work for your serial number

So I did and the download worked! I now have the necessary files and am preparing the Hero for updating. I dont like that it requires Windows, but Virtualbox up and running solved that too.

After some backing up (the upgrade apparently destroys all data and you cant be too sure so I backed up the SD too.) we re ready to Go! (More breaking news as the matter evolves!)

I guess the whole HTC sync to Virtualbox doesnt work as easy as I hoped – Sync and the phone dont find each other as they should.. I guess Ill have to find a Windows computer

But at least I now have what should be a working upgrade file for my wifes Belgian HTC Hero :s

Unlimited internet? Well, no.

Turbonet and up customers can enjoy “Free Downloading”. You can now choose to pay for the perception of unlimited downloading. There still is a limit but they promise that that limit is so far beyond what you would download as a normal person that you will never run into the limit. And they wont set the bar. They will tally the users with similar packs and see to it that you dont over-use (twice the average use) compared to those peers.

Thats not unlimited, they merely made the barrier variable and invisible!

(1) De term “Vrij downloaden” betekent dat je een zeer grote hoeveelheid gegevens via het netwerk van Telenet kan doorsturen en ontvangen. Enkel bij buitensporig volumeverbruik waarbij het comfort van andere abonnees in het gedrang kan komen, zal Telenet je vragen je verbruik aan te passen.

Onder buitensporig volumeverbruik verstaan we verbruik dat minstens het dubbele bedraagt van het gemiddeld volumeverbruik van alle abonnees van je internetproduct. Telenet behoudt zich het recht voor om bij buitensporig volumeverbruik, wat dynamisch bepaald wordt en afhangt van het beschikbare lokale netwerkvolume, de downloadsnelheid te verlagen naar minimaal 512 Kbps tot wanneer de volgende aanrekeningsperiode begint.

“Vrij downloaden” mag enkel voor privédoeleinden gebruikt worden en in volledige overeenstemming gebeuren met de algemene voorwaarden en de gedragscode van Telenet. Dit betekent ondermeer dat de abonnee enkel legale gegevens mag verspreiden.
Source: http://telenet.be/219/0/1/nl/thuis/internet.html

My main problem here is the perception. This new formula is utterly misleading and frustrating. They appear to be offering unlimited data but instead they offer an invisible and variable barrier. One could say that this is necessary as to not slow down other users (in fact they say so themselves) but that’s turning things around. The consumer pays for a service, if that service-level is impossible to maintain on the current Telenet network; that network is at fault and not the users for using it. Ergo upgrading the network instead of throttling the users.

Now, There is nothing wrong with a more communal approach. We, the Telenet users, use this service as a group; the resources are limited and we all want decent speed. (And if memory serves me well, Telenet did start out like that..) so we ll just all be social about it and not overdo the downloading. And its even better if Telenet provides us the tools to do that..
But thats not what they re selling; thats not what they re advertising!

On top of that, their whole concept of fair use is measured using a set of parameters that are not exactly clear. Their meter shows your behavior up till the time of the month where you check it. If the meter is red, that means that if you keep up that downloading behavior they might throttle your speed at some time till the end of the month. Or at the very least you will be asked to change your use. Green means you’re up to par with your fellow users. (Telenet Helpdesk Page: Hoe interpreteer ik de nieuwe Telemeter voor abonnementen met vrij downloaden?)
“Buitensporig Volumegebruik” means more than twice the average your fellow users are downloading. But since the time of day still factors in, its obviously not that simple? So how is this number being computed? And where can I see the numbers and all the data that factors into it?
Today? Nowhere.

A quick search trough the dredges of their online support quickly turns up the introduction of the “Fair Use Policy” concept. With tips on how to use the service fairly. The question about what the actual limit finally is, is answered in the help: “Dat hangt af van je internetgedrag en wanneer je vooral surft: tijdens drukke of minder drukke periodes. Aangezien niet iedereen hetzelfde internetgedrag heeft, is het niet mogelijk om er 1 cijfer op te plakken.” Which is about the same as saying “we ve got some math to get there, but we d rather not tell you..” Sure sounds a lot like the Nighttime/Daytime counter renamed to regular and peak time.

Its a play straight out of their American colleagues book. They call it unlimited, add a vague “Fair Use” clause and sell the same product as before, but with a higher limit, less information, a different meter and a new point of view.

The new provider commercial buzz words all float around unlimited downloading; no caps.
Yet these are invisible, variable download caps that we re getting instead.

I got the card out of the phone (gotta love the fact that android doesn’t mind the hot swapping) and connected it to a reader and the laptop!

My hope that the files were there but just not being shown when using the phone was quickly squashed; the directory only contained the small amount of files I was able to see when connected to the phone

LOST.DIR
Android apparently has a LOST.DIR construct (reminiscent of EXT3s lost+found) where they attach files that are on the disk but not attached to some valid directory.

Which is where all my lost pictures were (needless to say I cried hot tears of joy – LOL)

This does of course screw up your filenames, timestamps, file extensions, whatnot.. luckily the picture meta data has all the date and in most cases even gps data you might need

Gotta love android & teh linuxiez

Not so for my wife however since she wont be getting that upgrade.

The upgrade is Over The Air for every Hero owner with ROM version 2.73.405.5. Viona however was early to the party and does Not have this version. No problem, there is an update on the site; you need windows to update but Ill even ignore that part for now. The page checks your serial number and if its found to be valid, you ll apparently be able to download the update. When I put Vionas S/N, the site answers: “Sorry, this software download is not suitable for your device.” Annoying; since I know of other Belgian Hero owners who did get the OTA upgrade already.

I was of course sad, I’m on CyanogenMod 5.0.8 with my Magic, so Ive been enjoying the 2.1 for a while now and I was really happy that the annoying issues that she s been experiencing would be solved. (She only sees One Google calendar, not the other ones like mine; thus really denying her most of the reason why we got it, namely being able to see each other agendas.)

So I sent a friendly email to the HTC people; asking what up.. And received a friendly answer within days:

Dank u wel voor uw vraag over de HTC Hero. Uw probleem is inderdaad bekend bij HTC, en momenteel wordt er hard gewerkt aan een oplossing. Dit zal waarschijnlijk een ROM upgrade naar 2.73 voor Belgische toestellen betekenen, en ik raad u aan de website in de gaten te houden. Ik verwacht dat de oplossing spoedig zal verschijnen

Which sums to

• Your problem is known within HTC
• We are working on a solution
• This will probably entail an upgrade to 2.73 for Belgian machines
• I advise you to watch the site and expect the solution to appear soon

More indefinite waiting? Thats a pitty; we ve been waiting for some months now :/ I guess keeping an eye on the HTC Hero Support page is all I can do :/

crontab
30 17 * * * curl -s ‘http://www.htc.com/europe/supportdownloadlist.aspx?p_id=283&act=sd&cat=2′ -o /home/gert/htc_moni/nu && echo DIFF $(diff /home/gert/htc_moni/oud /home/gert/htc_moni/nu) | /bin/mail -s “HTC Monitoring” “me@guesswhat” && mv /home/gert/htc_moni/nu /home/gert/htc_moni/oud

Lets hope this doesnt take too long

And Why not upgrade to Vilainrom or whatever? Trying to keep the waranty in tact for once And certainly since the official Hero 2.1 is SO close

The tunnel is a “Direct to Torrent” movie. The movie will be 90 minutes, which makes 135k frames and they re selling their frames at 1$ a frame!

I care a lot about exploring new ways of paying for music. The old system is passe, we ve had it, paying 20 euro for a stupid disk that barely works; stuffed with commercials back and forth; .. And this could be the solution. Think of a movie; write a script, make a trailer with nice actors and wait for the public to tell you they want to see your movie. Then put it up on the interwebs!
This could be the future!
And in the same spirit.. Pioneer one: An object in the sky spreads radiation over North America. Fearing terrorism, U.S. Homeland Security agents are dispatched to investigate and contain the damage. What they discover will have implications for the entire world. Pioneer one is a Direct To Torrent series. The first episode was made, want them to make the 2nd ep? Donate some dough; and when they ‘re able to afford it, they ll make the next one.
With a model like this, Deadwood would have had its final 4th season! As would Jericho. And the Global Frequency series would ‘ve seen more than just a pilot!
Im curious to see how this turns out!

And I cant wait to see our frames!

Edit: We own frames 113813 and 96797
Check the tally to see who s on the list and how far they ‘re along!

The linux package is called gish153-1.tar.gz or something alike. You will of course need this to install the Gish! Buy it at http://www.chroniclogic.com/gish.htm (its worth it!)

Installing it is pretty straight forward, as it is simply extracting the archive and putting it where you want to keep it. The .tar.gz (or .tgz) file is an archive file; a lot like the more known .zip or .tar files and extracting them is really simple.

You can extract the file in several easy ways

• By double clicking it. This will open the file roller or whatever its linked to depending on what linux distro you have. Click extract, choose where you want to extract it and done.
• By right clicking the file and selecting “Extract Here”; this will extract Gish in the map you have the archive in.
• By navigating the commandline to the map where the Gish archive is and typing “tar -xvzf gish153-1.tar.gz”. If this doesnt work, check that the archive is in that map and check if the archive name in the command here is correct. This will extract the Gish archive in the map run the command in.

After extracting, you ll have a map with all the Gish files in. You can simply run the “gish” file to play. You can store this map anywhere you want, but do it somewhere logical because you ll navigate there every time you want to play it.

And thats how its installed. Simple, no

Now, you ll probably also want to launch it from your Gnome menu and simply adding the link will have the Gish start without any graphics (this is because the paths are relative and the app as such doesnt find the files it needs.) You can create a new launcher using the menu editor under System > Preferences > Main menu; there select the Games menu and click “New Item”. You can quickly solve this by following the guide on their forums Gish Launcher in Ubuntu or by using the following starting link for your app menu launcher command (The command assumes you have the Gish installed in your home directory; for example “/home/yourname/gish153″. If this is not where you put it; change that Bash will probably be in /bin but if it doesnt work, do check that too.)

/bin/bash -c “cd ~/gish153/ && ./gish”

The mechanics are that you have bash change the working directory to the right path and start the gish from there. Ill see about posting this to the forum thread too, but I honestly dont have the time right now to do the registration dance & all..

Id never have thought of writing this, but since there was a search hit for it, I guess its something people have questions about. I hope its of use to someone!

Edit: As blogs are a fleeting medium, this is maintained at gertschepens.be