Word Check will soon be restricted to clients only

Over the past few weeks I’ve trialling Word Check making it openly available to the general public. Word Check is the only tool of its type helping people to easily determine the preferred Australian English spelling. There are thousands of words in the Australian English language which have two or more ways they can be spelt. Word Check is also an excellent online spellchecker providing a list of suggested words.

My hope was that by helping others, others would assist by promoting Word Check by either providing a link on their site or sharing via their social networks. There has been no evidence in my logs indicating people chipping in, in any way. Of the thousands who use Word Check each month all traffic is as a result of my own search engine optimisation work. I’ve trialled many other approaches which have also failed to generate any result.

In the near future I’ll implement a password on the Word Check page which will continue to be freely available to clients. It is only because of the ongoing support of clients I can continue my work and pay my bills.

It simply doesn’t make sense to continue to give to others, where others don’t think to give anything in return. I know people mean no harm from this. It is just the way we all are on the internet.

I apologise in advance for any inconvenience.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

MyAnswers: Is it adaptor or adapter?

The following MyAnswers solution 2174 is now available:

Is it adaptor or adapter?

Click here to obtain the solution.

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Kelvin Eldridge
www.MyAnswers.biz
(An Online Connections service.)

Backflip on recent post. Word Check is now available for everyone

I've found over the years that we all believe when you help others, others will help you. I still believe that. But I think people need a nudge, a reminder.

Open source showed me when you give to others they'll take from one person but give to someone else. For example Google and Firefox took my open source work which had involved hundreds of hours and gave nothing back to assist me. But they do make their work available to others. I've falling into the same trap.

People are helping but they don't realise they're consuming the energy of those helping them and need to think about giving something back to those helping them. People need to be reminded to help those who help them and not just give to someone else, otherwise, those who give will soon run out of energy.

For a while I'll be making Word Check open for anyone to use. No need to register or use a password.

There is a notice on the Word Check page asking others to spread the word on Word Check. At the end of the trial I'll review my logs and see if the amount of referred traffic has increased or had some other effect.

It costs no one anything but a small amount of time to help promote.

If nothing else the dictionary work has made me realise the importance of giving back to those who help you. Now if someone helps me I make the effort to find out how I can help them. Then I can help others. I think that is a good outcome.

Kelvin Eldridge
http://www.onlineconnections.com.au/

Word Check and my dictionary work now only available to clients

After eight years of providing my work to the general public I’ve had to bite the bullet and recognise the small financial return is insufficient for me to continue. Very little income has come from the hundreds of hours of work over the years and I have to accept I need to focus my energy on my clients, as they are the people who support myself and my family financially.

I’d estimate that probably over a million Australians now use my work in open source projects, but unfortunately open source for most people is about obtaining free software and I understand that. I’m pleased however whilst I may not have received much financially, it is however pleasing to think in a small way I’ve made a difference.

By refocusing on my clients I’ll now be able to continue my work as part of my consulting activities.

Thank you for sharing this part of the journey with me.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Would you like the preferred Australian English spelling to be available for Microsoft Office?

If you’d like the preferred Australian English spelling to be made available as a spellcheck dictionary for Microsoft Office please make the effort to add your voice.

I’m currently in contact with Microsoft and to their credit, they are taking my request for assistance to make my work available with Microsoft Office and passing the request through their channels.

For Microsoft right now I’m a lone voice with a request. If you’d like my work to be available with Microsoft Office please help by adding your voice by making a comment on this blog post. I’ve tried this on a number of occasions over the last five years so this will be the last attempt at making the preferred Australian English spelling available to Australian Microsoft users. It is now or never so please make your voice heard.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

 

Guide to Grammar and Punctuation

I read this article from the University of Queensland and thought it may be of use to others. My written skills are constantly evolving. I’m not perfect by any means, but I enjoy learning to improve my written language skills.

Guide to Grammar and Punctuation... Read More

The area I would caution people are with the links provided. The final link is to The Writing Center website and that sentence alone flagged that you should be careful. The spelling of Center is obviously American and thus the site will be American. The problem is the spelling variations between Australian English, American English, and secondary Australian English spellings can be confusing. Secondly, in Australia, the preferred spelling of website is web site consisting of two words.

For me there is a lot of good information in this article. I loved the explanation of when to use I or me. I frequently used the non-parallel form of writing and more recently move towards writing in the parallel form and really didn’t understand why I previously used that as much as I did. I just now feel it is not as necessary.

I’m sure I will need to read this article a number of times to absorb the information it contains. For me it isn’t about being right or wrong, but to learn and evolve my writing skills over time.

I hope others find the article useful.

- Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Will I be providing an Australian English dictionary for Thunderbird V5?

I received the question today Will I be providing an Australian English dictionary for Thunderbird V5?

The answer is, unless I can see a change in Mozilla projects and how they use material from others the answer is no. I no longer support Mozilla projects such as Firefox and Thunderbird.

Open source projects take the work of others and consume the efforts of others for their own benefit. All an open source project needs to do is to link to the sites of others so people can get the work provided by others and then everyone wins. At the moment all that is happening is the open source projects take the work of others, incorporates that work and then the original developer becomes irrelevant and invisible.

Unless a mechanism is put into place to help those who help the projects there will be a constant of churn as people find for all the hours they put in there is no return for their efforts.

With my Australian English dictionary work for OpenOffice.org project I found that after three years I'd only been contacted by a handful of people. Almost no one contributed anything and almost no one paid anything. I recognised the situation was the same as working for a company. You're effort whilst at the company helps to build the company, but when you leave you have nothing to show for it. I recognised this was happening with open source projects. I decided to take the work outside of the project and at that point the project began to grow and I was able to build dictionaries for a wide range of projects. One by one each project came along and took my work and incorporated it into their project. First it was Firefox, then Google Chrome, next Opera let me know they were going to do the same but to their credit didn't proceed and then finally OpenOffice.org. The circle was complete and the hundreds of hours of time over the years had been wasted.

As a result I no longer support open source projects.

Each of these projects could easily link to the developers site. That way users get the latest and best version of their add-in. It helps the project, it helps the developer and it helps the community. The current approach used by projects of consuming the efforts of others only helps the project.

I apologise to those who I no longer make my work available to. I wish things were different but I need to accept the way things are.

Kelvin Eldridge

http://www.onlineconnections.com.au/