As you know that there are a lot of free…

As you know that there are a lot of free great lessons for students & teachers on iTunes.

This post will show you how to get free quality resources to support your studies, for example in studying foreign languages.

A- Fastest way (when you knew podcast name, keywords… NOT RECOMMENDED for first time users):

Certainly you need to install iTunes first. After installed iTunes to your computer, just open iTunes, click on iTunes Store, then search your podcasts.

Or you can browse like this:

B- Manual way (you can manually browse to many popular podcasts )

Step 1 : Certainly you need to install iTunes.

You can download and install it for free from here: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Step 2: Open your browser (Firefox, Google Chrome…) and visit Podcasts for Education> Language Courses with this link:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/podcasts-education-language/id1469

Certainly you can subscribe to other categories, here we focus on finding free educational  podcasts.

Step 3: You will see a lot of popular podcasts in step 2, select a letter to begin to find your favorite podcasts or simply try one of the popular podcast link if you do not know any specific course. Remember we here are talking about free podcasts only, so try to find the free one huh

For example here I have found one:

Free EF PodEnglish: http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/ef-podenglish/id214220712

Step 4: Click on the blue button “View in iTunes”

It will open the podcast in iTunes:

Click on Subscribe Free and confirm to subscribe again, iTunes will start to download for you. If you want to download a specific file, just double click on FREE under the tab Price.

Or you can download all click on Get All as the image bellow

That’s it!

Happy studying!

Solved – Import Address Book: Gmail Address Book field does not match Thunderbird's fields

Firstly we need to export Gmail address book from Gmail (you can searcheasily how to do it or click HERE ). Ok.
Run Thunderbird, go to Tool>Open Address Book (Ctrl+Shift+B), Tool>Import. Then check on Adress Books radio button, next.

As you will see, the “Adress Book Fields” and the “Record data to import” are not match! At the first time, I did not pay attention to that
so the Address Book of Thunderbird is not totally correct.

So one thing you should do is that we have to move up (//down) the Address Book Fields on the left to match with the “Record data to import”. There are two important fields we need to adjust correctly: Primary Email-Email Address; Second Email Address – Email 2 address (see the image)

TeamViewer – the All-In-One Solution for Remote Access and Support over the Internet

This is a free program that can help you access to other computers to help them.

Why TeamViewer?

TeamViewer is our solution for easy and friendly desktop sharing. You can remote control a partner’s desktop to give online assistance, or you can show your screen to a customer – all without worrying about firewalls, IP addresses and NAT.

Why TeamViewer?TeamViewer is our solution for easy and friendly desktop sharing. You can remote control a partner’s desktop to give online assistance, or you can show your screen to a customer – all without worrying about firewalls, IP addresses and NAT.

Download it freely from here:

http://www.teamviewer.com/download/index.aspx

Protected: The real life social network v2 – UX Team at Google

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Password:

Wikipedia Database – Freebies 2010 – Sunday Sep 5th,2010

He he he, here are what I am doing with my laptop on Sunday Sep 5th, 2010.

Download Wikipedia Database (WARNING: 6.07 GB compressed, up to 20 times that size uncompressed.))

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#Where_do_I_get…

http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/latest/enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2

Note: If you are lacking of technical proficiency or simply you do not know what is called PHP, SQL, database… or just because you are lazy now, but you want to use Wikipedia OFFLINE, you may use Software bundle for Mediawiki.

I personally refer to using this one: http://bitnami.org/stack/mediawiki

Note of note: Sure that is has some limited things when you compare to ONLINE Wikipedia, but it is still great for us ^0^),

Ok, here are some bonus for you. Some free things which may be useful for you! Click on Read the rest of this entry » bellow to read the whole post.

Hope it helps!

Top VoIP Service Providers in The US

Updated: If you have to make calls to Singapore a lot, you may use this one (can not cheaper price!!!): http://www.pfingo.com/home/downloads/downloads.jsp

Here are the list of Top VoIP Service Providers in The US (I JUST COPY AND PASTE FROM HERE FOR ARCHIVING PURPOSE)

For phone users that want a type of VoIP that is more or less like their existing landline, with traditional phones, the most suitable of the types of VoIP services are the subscription and hardware based services. They are aimed primarily at households and small businesses. Upon subscription, the user is sent an adapter (ATA) and is given a phone number. This requires anInternet connection, which adds up to the cost, but the overall cost is relatively much lower. Added to the benefits are the numerous features that come with VoIP.Here is a list of the most prominent VoIP services providers of this type:

1. Vonage

Vonage tops my list because it delivers the goods. The price is not the lowest, but not the highest as well. Call quality is great, as well as the service and all it entails, including the features and customer service. The adapter is provided for around $40, refundable on returning it. 14-day trial.

Vendor’s SiteRead Review

2. Lingo

For $21.95 a month, Lingo offers unlimited calling to the US, Canada and 22 other countries. There are around 25 features with the servoce, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Equipment comes free.

Vendor’s Site

3. Voip.com

Voip.com offers VoIP service at a price lower than most of the competition, $16.95 per month. Among the strong points are a huge amount of features, the softphone that ships with the service, and a second line and voicemail for your mobile phone. They provide a Grandstream ATA, shipped free. A 30-day money back guarantee allows you to try the service.

Vendor’s Site

4. BroadVoice

If you make a lot of international calls, Broadvoice is the company to subscribe to. It offers service plans that are specifically tailored to users that call mostly outside the US, without however sacrificing local calls. Another interesting thing with Broadvoice is its BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) scheme, whereby you can bring along your own device and sign up with a fee starting at $5.95 a month. The service works with most SIP-capable devices. The money back guarantee period is 30 days.

Buy DirectRead Review

5. Packet8

Packet8 is an important player in the VoIP market as it has a series of services, including a hosted PBX and a mobile VoIP service called MobileTalk. The price is the standard $24.95, and with $5 more you can call unlimited to 40 countries. It has an activation and a termination fee and 30 days trial period. They provide an IP phone instead of an ATA. You can use their softphone SoftTalk for free.

Vendor’s SiteRead Review

6. ViaTalk

What draws most people to ViaTalk is the price, even though they have to commit themselves for a year to get the cheapest price. ViaTalk also stands out with the long list of features it has. It also allows users to use their own devices (BYOD), which saves them from paying for activation and shipping. It has a money back guarantee of 14 days.

Vendor’s SiteRead Review

7. AT&T CallVantage

CallVantage shares a lot of its focus on small business and enterprise VoIP service. The cost is slightly higher than that of competitors, but the service is somewhat worth it, with great features, good call quality and good service. An ATA is provided with the service, and $29.99 applies for activation and termination fee. No money back guarantee.
Update: AT&T has closed subscription to the CallVantage service, but existing users can still use it.

Vendor’s SiteRead Review

Introducing to Pāli-English English-Pāli and Buddhism dictionaries for Stardict

The aims of this post is to introduce you to Stardict, a free & opensource international dictionary, provide some useful and free dictionaries including Pāli-English English-Pāli. Whenever you visit a web page in Pāli, just select or double click on a Pāli word, Stardict will auto look up the meanings of that word in English, you do not need to type the Pāli word.
If you want to type Pāli word, please see part 5. And if you just want to read the Tipitaka in Pali, you can use Pāli Text Reader, Pāli Text Reader itself contains Pāli-English dictionary.

This post has 5 parts as listed bellow:

1-What is Stardict
2-Downnload& Install Stardict
3-Add dictionaries to Stardict
4-Stardict pronounces English words
5-More Pāli resources

1-What is Stardict?

StarDict is a Cross-Platform and international dictionary Software. It has powerful features such as “Glob-style pattern matching”, “Scan selection word,” “Fuzzy query,” etc. Stardict Version3.0 has developed a lot of new functions, such as Full-text translation, Net Dict.

Just select the Pali word on the website, Stardict will look for its means in English

• Mouse Inquiry: When “scan” option is selected, you can capture the words via mouse to translate.
• More Powerful!: Thousands of free dictionaries can be found on the internet. Choose your own favorites.
• Net Dict : Dictionary installation on your own computer is not necessary any more. Click the main menu icon on the top right of the corner, choose “Preferences” option. Here you can set Net dict. Register or log on your account, then you can use the Net Dict with your own dictionaries.
• Full-text translation: Click text translate icon on the left. With google, yahoo, Altavista, Excite Janpan translation engines you can tranlate from one language to another with satisfactory results.
• My other posts about Stardict can be found Here

2-Downnload& Install Stardict

According to which OS you are using, you can downloa d 1 of these versions and install Stardict. For the Window OS and Linux system, just double click on the downloaded file to start to install. (If you can’t downloa d the files here, please try this link.)

For Linux (Debian, Ubuntu) stardict_3.0.1-1_i386.deb 1.6 MB (Or you can install via terminal: sudo apt-get install stardict)

For Window OS:  stardict-3.0.2.exe 10.6 MB

For Mac OS http://sourceforge.net/projects/stardict/files/stardict/3.0.1/StarDict-3.0.1-MacOSX.zip/download

3-Add dictionaries to Stardict

Here are some of Stardict Dictionaries that I am using:

Pāli-English-English-Pāli-Vietnamese

1) English-Pali của ngài A.P. Buddhadatta

2) Pali-English của ngài A.P. Buddhadatta

3) Pali-Việt của ngài Bửu Chơn

4) Thuật ngữ Luật tạng Pali-Việt của Sư Giác Nguyên

5) Abhidhamma Pali-Việt của ngài Tịnh Sự

6) Việt-Pali của Sadi Định Phúc

7) Pali-English English-Pali Dictionary

8) Pali-English Dictionary-Pali Text Society

9) CKJ Buddhism Dictionary

Download links:

http://cid-2aaf1aaefb464249.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/stardict

Mirror links:

1- Pali Dictionaries and Buddhism Terms:

http://cuongdang.info/stardict/pali/3Buddhism-and-8Pali-dicts.zip

2- Some useful dictionaries for Vietnamese (En-Vn, Vn-En, Fr-Vn, Vn-Fr, Vn-Vn, Rus-Vn) 6 dictionaries

http://cuongdang.info/stardict/6dics-En-Vn-and-others-for-vietnamese.zip

For other language dictionaries you can download them from

http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries.php

or

http://reciteword.cosoft.org.cn/stardict-iso/stardict-dic/

A- Install Dictionaries in Linux:

If you are using Ubuntu Linux and new to Ubuntu, you can use this method:

Firstly, right click on the downloaded compressed file and choose Extract Here, you will get a new folder (*).

Using sudo nautilus to copy dics to /usr/share/stardict/dic

Now open the Terminal (Go to the menu Applications/Accessories/Terminal)  type:

sudo nautilus

provide your root password, then the nautilus (like window explorer on Window^^) will be opened. Now just browse to the uncompress folder (*) and copy them to  usr/share/stardict/dic.

Or you can use this method:

To install these tarball dictionaries, do this:

tar -xjvf a.tar.bz2

sudo mv a /usr/share/stardict/dic

B – Install Dictionaries in Window OS:

Use free uncompress program 7 Zip or other unzip softwares like Winrar…. to extract the .tar.bz2 file, which you get a directory, then move this directory to the dic\, such as C:\Program files\stardict\dic\

C- Install Dictionaries in Mac OS X:

tar -xjvf a.tar.bz2 -C /opt/gtk/usr/share/stardict/dic

4-Stardict pronounces English words

WyabdcRealPeopleTTS package make StarDict pronounce those English words. It is just many .wav files. In Linux, you can extract(tar -xjvf) the tarball at “/usr/share/”. In Windows, you can use  7 Zip or other unzip softwares like Winrar to extract the tarball and install it at “C:\Program Files\” or “Program Files\StarDict\”.

5-More Pāli resources

0-  Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana Tipitaka Version 4.0 (CST4):

CST4 is a desktop client for browsing and searching the Pāli Canon

http://www.tipitaka.org/cst/cst4-2008-04-20-beta15.exe

Noted, Window XP users, need to install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 first to be able to run CST4 properly: Download Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 from:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=79BC3B77-E02C-4AD3-AACF-A7633F706BA5&displaylang=en

More details and updated version: http://www.tipitaka.org/cst4

1- Pāli Text Reader http://sourceforge.net/projects/palireader/

2-Pāli Dictionary by Tong Phuoc Khai (now available Window version only) http://sourceforge.net/projects/pali/

3- Pāli Keyboard and typing (now Window version only): http://www.tipitaka.org/keyboard

4- Typing Pāli on Ubuntu: http://cuongdang.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/pali-dict-stardict-ubuntu21.pngtype-romanized-pali-and-sanskrit-in-ubuntu-9-10-windows-and-openoffice-org-3-2.html

UPDATED on Aug 26:

5- Digital Pali Reader (cross-platform)  http://sourceforge.net/projects/digitalpali/

A Pali-English text reader Firefox Extension that allows Pali students to read the Pali Canon. Automatically recognizes pali words and gives definitions from the CPED and PED, as well as DPPN if available. Includes text search and dictionary lookup.

If you meet difficulties in installing or using Stardict, don’t hesitate to  leave a comment here or send an email to me:

info @ cuongdang  .info

Thank you!

Rainlendar – free calendar on desktop for both Window and Linux

Rainlendar (having both Window and Linux versions)

Download: http://www.rainlendar.net

Events and Tasks

Rainlendar supports events and tasks which both are kept in separate lists. This helps you to keep your life better organized and makes it easier to see what are the upcoming things you need to do.

Alarms

Get notified in advanced before the event is due so that you don’t forget your important events. It is also possible to snooze the alarm if you want to get reminded about it later.

Standards Based

All the data is stored in the standard iCalendar format (RFC2445) which is supported by most calendar applications. This makes it easy to transfer the events between applications.

Highly Customizable

The look and feel of the calendar can be changed with skins. You can also mix the skins together and have as many windows visible as you want.

Localized

Rainlendar has been translated to over 50 different languages so you can use it in your native language. It’s also possible to use any language when entering the events.

Platform Independent

The application works in all major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. All the data, skins, languages and scripts are the same in all platforms so you can easily migrate between them.

Shared & 3rd Party Calendars

With Rainlendar Pro you can subscribe to online calendars and share your events with other computers. You can also see and edit your Outlook appointments and tasks in Rainlendar.

Events and Tasks
Rainlendar supports events and tasks which both are kept in separate lists. This helps you to keep your life better organized and makes it easier to see what are the upcoming things you need to do.

Alarms
Get notified in advanced before the event is due so that you don’t forget your important events. It is also possible to snooze the alarm if you want to get reminded about it later.
Standards Based
All the data is stored in the standard iCalendar format (RFC2445) which is supported by most calendar applications. This makes it easy to transfer the events between applications.
Highly Customizable
The look and feel of the calendar can be changed with skins. You can also mix the skins together and have as many windows visible as you want.
Localized
Rainlendar has been translated to over 50 different languages so you can use it in your native language. It’s also possible to use any language when entering the events.
Platform Independent
The application works in all major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. All the data, skins, languages and scripts are the same in all platforms so you can easily migrate between them.
Shared & 3rd Party Calendars
With Rainlendar Pro you can subscribe to online calendars and share your events with other computers. You can also see and edit your Outlook appointments and tasks in Rainlendar.

Or you can use the Ubuntu default calendar

How to forward email from Window live ID to other emails

Tonight I have just figured out something cool aboout Window Live email. Oh, you can easily forward your Window live emails to other email accounts (gmail or yahoo mail…) by starting from the bellow link. It seems that Microsoft hid this option carefully ^^ ):

http://mail.live.com/default.aspx?rru=options

You will see the first option like this:

Manage your account
View and edit your personal information
Send and receive mail from other e-mail accounts
Forward mail to another e-mail account

If you have more than 1 Window Live ID account, you can link them together from here too.

Free offline English thesaurus

http://sourceforge.net/projects/artha/files/

Artha is a handy thesaurus based on WordNet with distinct features like global hotkey look-up, passive desktop notifications, regular expression based search, etc.. Artha may be used as a free open-source replacement to the proprietary WordWeb Pro.