Methinks they want us to spell ASUS without the 'U'
So I took delivery of an Eee PC today.
And indeed it is indeed very cute, and very Pearl White, and my fingers are are just about small enough for the UK layout keyboard complete with '£' sign, and it has the renowned stupidly large black bezel around the screen and everything!
But ummm, well the out of the box text editing experience lacks just a little something for we English speakers here on the right hand side of the Atlantic Ocean.
OpenOffice is very nice and all but it would insist on trying to make me conform to USAian spelling conventions by drawing squiggly red coloured, ahem I mean, *colored* lines under my words. This despite my having specified all the 'yes I am actually in Britain' options when starting the machine up for the first time.
Okay right, so the lil' cutey is not smart enough to poke the right settings into its individual applications when you set it up at the beginning, no biggie! I figured I'd just set them manually in OpenOffice's options, and proceeded to do so. This worked wonderfully, I could hit the spellcheck button and now receive a hearty 'document contains no errors!' message. Unfortunately my document at that point consisted of 'rfhdsflj jkljl;, zomnggu. Qaserts' and other such meaningful gibberish. Oh dear.
I look at the options again and notice that the 'English US' setting has a little 'tick+abc' icon, whilst the 'English UK' setting does not. Uh-Oh. A highly intuitive and obvious indicator -- to those of use who have been using computers continuously for the last 25 years of our lives and are thus used to their cryptic little symbolic ways -- that there is no 'English (United Kingdom)' spelling dictionary installed.
I was beginning to have nasty flashbacks to the first several release versions of Mac OS X which had the much touted feature of a spellchecker available in the standard operating system textbox, meaning every little app got spellcheck. However Jobs & Co. didn't deign to include any other English spelling dictionary than your Standard American one, so that this feature invariably drove every non-American English speaker in the world up the wall anytime we tried to type something and we got redlined for it.
Back to the Eee. Does the machine's 'add/remove programs' online update doohicky give any options additional spelling dictionaries? Nope, doesn't look like it. What about OpenOffice itself? Does it have it's own 'get more dictionaries' widget? Well I couldn't see one but...
...by that time I'd reached for the Google, and thus learned that OpenOffice does have such a widget, but instead of placing it anywhere near where you specify your language settings, or on some 'Tools' or 'Update' menu, it's actually under File/Wizards. Yeah, okay if they say so. *sigh*
I fire it up.
The relevant OpenOffice document opens, I click the hyperlink that says 'English' to navigate to the big press-button in the middle of page 5. Yes I said, The relevant document opens, and I click the hyperlink that says 'English' to navigate to the big press-button in the middle of the page 5. What? You are surprised that this functionality has apparently been coded by the developers of the software as the OpenOffice equivalent of a Word Macro? Well clearly you know nothing about modern consumer software design! Nothing!
Pressing the big grey button on page 5 launches an actual dialog box, the text of which suggests that it's a big no-no to install any more than 10 spelling dictionaries whilst implying that's precisely what's going to happen if you let it proceed. I laugh at it's grisly warnings and click 'next'. And I was quite right to do so, for the very next screen it gave me a button to download a list of spelling dictionaries, and told me to select the ones I wanted to install.
Doing this, I discovered that as well as your usual array of Frenches, Germans, Spanish, Catalan, Urdus, and Swahilis, I could choose from English (Australia), English (Canada), English (New Zealand), English (United States - even tho' I already have it), and English (South Africa).
Umm, guys? I think you're missing somewhere off that list there. And no I'm not referring to English (India).
I guess that's what happens when you conquer half the world over a century or two. Everyone hates you forever more and takes their revenge for your hideous crimes against humanity by hiding the dictionaries. Even after you've upgraded their Word Macro to that latest version in the vain hope that it might reveal what's hidden....
...what's hidden, *in plain* sight fifteen screens lower, on the same wiki page that told where the 'Wizard' hangs out, are actual linsk to an actual manual download of actual real actual files. Wooooweeee!
I download, I go back to the Word Macro, and as advised use the option on the post button-on-page 5 dialog to install dictionaries from a file, after having specified the Unix path to where I downloaded the thems through good old keyboard entry as the 'browse' button doesn't appear to do anything. Anything at all.
'Not a Dictionary File'
Hmmm, maybe it needs it unzipping first?
'Not a Dictionary File'
What about if I point it to the file with extension .dic *specifically*?
'Can't Unzip File'
Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!1!!11!!!
...
Well I guess that all goes proves the old adage if you want something done by a Word Macro, you'll just have to buckle down and do it yourself manually. With cd, ls, mkdir, nano, less and mv. Hey, look on the brightside, it could have cat and vi.
Or Windows Vista.
...
More Google-Fu having revealed the magic key combination to bring up an XTerm equivalent (Ctrl+Alt+T) on the Eee PC, I hit the Unix command-line the better to perform the software surgery for installing the darn things I just downloaded. Of course what the surgery required is, I haven't precisely determined at this point in the proceedings. I've found some crufty HOWTOs and forum posts from a couple of years ago and version 1.something of OpenOffice on where to put the dictionaries when OpenOffice used a *different* spellchecker and not really revised since then because, hey, we've got this swish new Word Macro that does it all automagically now!
I press forward installing in the wrong place under the wrong directory name! But I do remember to use sudo so they actually can be copied without running afoul of this users lack of permissions! Onward I go as my copying to the now determined to be correct location, is disrupted by my using relative paths involving symlinks to somewhere completely different. Boldly I proceed to being tripped up by the fact that 'sudo some-funky-openoffice-script' won't work because tho' /usr/sbin may be part of root's path, it's not part of the path of the user I'm sudoing from. Finally I get everything in the right place, run the right scripts, and go back to OpenOffice, tweak the options again, and yes, yes, Yes! I have an English (England) spellcheck.
Pity that this dictionary seem to think 'rationalize' is an actual word even if it will now let me type 'rationalise' as an alternative without throwing a hissy fit.
So my first impressions of the ASUS Eee PC...?
It is *indeed* 'Easy to Lean, Easy to Work, Easy to Play' for those values of Easy that involve dicking about at the Unix command line, understanding file permissions and ownership, what sudo is and does, reading man pages and online HOWTOs that assume you know your way around the default filepaths of an OpenOffice install so don't tell you what actually they are, and a certain dose of sheer bloody-mindedness. Or alternatively Easy for those of you in English speaking countries where they prefer spelling ASUS without the 'U'.
:)
And indeed it is indeed very cute, and very Pearl White, and my fingers are are just about small enough for the UK layout keyboard complete with '£' sign, and it has the renowned stupidly large black bezel around the screen and everything!
But ummm, well the out of the box text editing experience lacks just a little something for we English speakers here on the right hand side of the Atlantic Ocean.
OpenOffice is very nice and all but it would insist on trying to make me conform to USAian spelling conventions by drawing squiggly red coloured, ahem I mean, *colored* lines under my words. This despite my having specified all the 'yes I am actually in Britain' options when starting the machine up for the first time.
Okay right, so the lil' cutey is not smart enough to poke the right settings into its individual applications when you set it up at the beginning, no biggie! I figured I'd just set them manually in OpenOffice's options, and proceeded to do so. This worked wonderfully, I could hit the spellcheck button and now receive a hearty 'document contains no errors!' message. Unfortunately my document at that point consisted of 'rfhdsflj jkljl;, zomnggu. Qaserts' and other such meaningful gibberish. Oh dear.
I look at the options again and notice that the 'English US' setting has a little 'tick+abc' icon, whilst the 'English UK' setting does not. Uh-Oh. A highly intuitive and obvious indicator -- to those of use who have been using computers continuously for the last 25 years of our lives and are thus used to their cryptic little symbolic ways -- that there is no 'English (United Kingdom)' spelling dictionary installed.
I was beginning to have nasty flashbacks to the first several release versions of Mac OS X which had the much touted feature of a spellchecker available in the standard operating system textbox, meaning every little app got spellcheck. However Jobs & Co. didn't deign to include any other English spelling dictionary than your Standard American one, so that this feature invariably drove every non-American English speaker in the world up the wall anytime we tried to type something and we got redlined for it.
Back to the Eee. Does the machine's 'add/remove programs' online update doohicky give any options additional spelling dictionaries? Nope, doesn't look like it. What about OpenOffice itself? Does it have it's own 'get more dictionaries' widget? Well I couldn't see one but...
...by that time I'd reached for the Google, and thus learned that OpenOffice does have such a widget, but instead of placing it anywhere near where you specify your language settings, or on some 'Tools' or 'Update' menu, it's actually under File/Wizards. Yeah, okay if they say so. *sigh*
I fire it up.
The relevant OpenOffice document opens, I click the hyperlink that says 'English' to navigate to the big press-button in the middle of page 5. Yes I said, The relevant document opens, and I click the hyperlink that says 'English' to navigate to the big press-button in the middle of the page 5. What? You are surprised that this functionality has apparently been coded by the developers of the software as the OpenOffice equivalent of a Word Macro? Well clearly you know nothing about modern consumer software design! Nothing!
Pressing the big grey button on page 5 launches an actual dialog box, the text of which suggests that it's a big no-no to install any more than 10 spelling dictionaries whilst implying that's precisely what's going to happen if you let it proceed. I laugh at it's grisly warnings and click 'next'. And I was quite right to do so, for the very next screen it gave me a button to download a list of spelling dictionaries, and told me to select the ones I wanted to install.
Doing this, I discovered that as well as your usual array of Frenches, Germans, Spanish, Catalan, Urdus, and Swahilis, I could choose from English (Australia), English (Canada), English (New Zealand), English (United States - even tho' I already have it), and English (South Africa).
Umm, guys? I think you're missing somewhere off that list there. And no I'm not referring to English (India).
I guess that's what happens when you conquer half the world over a century or two. Everyone hates you forever more and takes their revenge for your hideous crimes against humanity by hiding the dictionaries. Even after you've upgraded their Word Macro to that latest version in the vain hope that it might reveal what's hidden....
...what's hidden, *in plain* sight fifteen screens lower, on the same wiki page that told where the 'Wizard' hangs out, are actual linsk to an actual manual download of actual real actual files. Wooooweeee!
I download, I go back to the Word Macro, and as advised use the option on the post button-on-page 5 dialog to install dictionaries from a file, after having specified the Unix path to where I downloaded the thems through good old keyboard entry as the 'browse' button doesn't appear to do anything. Anything at all.
'Not a Dictionary File'
Hmmm, maybe it needs it unzipping first?
'Not a Dictionary File'
What about if I point it to the file with extension .dic *specifically*?
'Can't Unzip File'
Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!1!!11!!!
...
Well I guess that all goes proves the old adage if you want something done by a Word Macro, you'll just have to buckle down and do it yourself manually. With cd, ls, mkdir, nano, less and mv. Hey, look on the brightside, it could have cat and vi.
Or Windows Vista.
...
More Google-Fu having revealed the magic key combination to bring up an XTerm equivalent (Ctrl+Alt+T) on the Eee PC, I hit the Unix command-line the better to perform the software surgery for installing the darn things I just downloaded. Of course what the surgery required is, I haven't precisely determined at this point in the proceedings. I've found some crufty HOWTOs and forum posts from a couple of years ago and version 1.something of OpenOffice on where to put the dictionaries when OpenOffice used a *different* spellchecker and not really revised since then because, hey, we've got this swish new Word Macro that does it all automagically now!
I press forward installing in the wrong place under the wrong directory name! But I do remember to use sudo so they actually can be copied without running afoul of this users lack of permissions! Onward I go as my copying to the now determined to be correct location, is disrupted by my using relative paths involving symlinks to somewhere completely different. Boldly I proceed to being tripped up by the fact that 'sudo some-funky-openoffice-script' won't work because tho' /usr/sbin may be part of root's path, it's not part of the path of the user I'm sudoing from. Finally I get everything in the right place, run the right scripts, and go back to OpenOffice, tweak the options again, and yes, yes, Yes! I have an English (England) spellcheck.
Pity that this dictionary seem to think 'rationalize' is an actual word even if it will now let me type 'rationalise' as an alternative without throwing a hissy fit.
So my first impressions of the ASUS Eee PC...?
It is *indeed* 'Easy to Lean, Easy to Work, Easy to Play' for those values of Easy that involve dicking about at the Unix command line, understanding file permissions and ownership, what sudo is and does, reading man pages and online HOWTOs that assume you know your way around the default filepaths of an OpenOffice install so don't tell you what actually they are, and a certain dose of sheer bloody-mindedness. Or alternatively Easy for those of you in English speaking countries where they prefer spelling ASUS without the 'U'.
:)