Automatic translations in Google Talk

Meeting new people and chatting with them on Google Talk can be a very enriching experience. The problem comes when that person and you don’t speak the same language and the communication flow is frequently interrupted by vocabulary lapses and constant dictionary look-ups. Google became aware of this issue and decided to solve it in a really handy way: by enabling a bunch of bots that automatically translate any text you type in into the target language.

The translating bots in Google Talk work in a very simple way. You only have to select the ones you’re interested in from the bot list and add them to your Google Talk contact list, as if they were just another friend. There are quite a few combinations to choose from, and the email address you have to use to add them always follows the same pattern: [source language]2[target language]@bot.talk.google.com. Thus a bot that translates from English to German would be en2de@bot.talk.google.com, one that translates from Spanish to English would be es2en@bot.talk.google.com and soon.

Bot List

Languages	Bots	Bots
Arabic - English	ar2en	en2ar
Bulgarian - English	bg2en	en2bg
Czech - English	cs2en	en2cs
Danish - English	da2en	en2da
German - English	de2en	en2de
German - French	de2fr	fr2de
Greek - English	el2en	en2el
Spanish - English	es2en	en2es
Finnish - English	fi2en	en2fi
French - English	fr2en	en2fr
Hindi - English	hi2en	en2hi
Croatian - English	hr2en	en2hr
Italian - English	it2en	en2it
Japanese - English	ja2en	en2ja
Korean - English	ko2en	en2ko
Dutch - English	nl2en	en2nl
Norwegian - English	no2en	en2no
Polish - English	pl2en	en2pl
Portuguese- English	pt2en	en2pt
Romanian - English	ro2en	en2ro
Russian - English	ru2en	en2ru
Swedish - English	sv2en	en2sv
Chinese - English	zh2en	en2zh
Traditional Chinese - English	zh-hant2en	en2zh-hant
Traditional Chinese - Chinese	zh-hant2zh	zh2zh-hant

* don't forget to add @bot.talk.google.com.

Once you’ve added a bot, open a chat with it and type in the sentence you want to translate. The bot will reply with the translation, ready for you to copy on your friend’s chat window. Needless to say, you can use these automatic translations for multiple purposes: from being able to communicate in several languages to playing a joke on a friend or – only for the most cheesy ones – saying “I love you” in a dozen different languages.

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Show a custom message beside the Windows clock

I like customizing my computer to a certain extent – wallpapers, fonts, a few colors and that’s it – but some people seem to be addicted to customization. They change almost every element on the PC, from a complete visual theme to the icons used for every single app. Thinking about these customization addicts, I’ve come up with a simple trick that lets you put any text on the system tray, beside the Windows clock. Want to know how?

All you have to do is open the Control Panel and click on the Regional and Language Options icon. Then click on the Customize button on the window that’s just opened and select the Time tab.

This is the Windows time settings menu, but we’re going to use it in a slightly different way: simply use the “AM” and “PM” fields to enter whatever text you want to show up on the system tray. You can type in anything up to 12 characters.

When you’re done, click on the OK button and the text will immediately appear beside the Windows clock. Besides being an ultimate customization tip, you can also use this trick to play a joke on someone.

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How to: Downgrade from Vista to XP without reformatting

It’s a crazy situation - and one that you feel only Microsoft could have created - but there are many users who feel that Windows Vista is so bad, they’ve actually gone to the effort of  replacing it completely with Windows XP. It’s a controversial step that shouldn’t be taken lightly because Microsoft have now discontinued production of XP.

However, if you’ve decided you just can’t take Vista resource hogging, sluggish performance and software incompatibility issues anymore, here are some steps to downgrade to XP. Windows doesn’t allow you to install an older version of it over a newer one so normally, downgrading would involve a lengthy and drastic blanking and reformatting of your hard drive. However, here’s how to do it in 6 steps without having to reformat anything at all.

1. Backup your entire hard drive - Just in case - I recommend using Norton Ghost.

2. Get an XP installation CD - You’ll either have to buy this or borrow it from a friend.

3. Insert the disc into your drive - You’ll be prompted if you want to to “boot from disk”

4. Press “R” while XP is booting - Enter your admin password to get the XP Recovery Console

5. Prepare your hard drive - Type the following commands remembering to press Enter after each one: “fixboot, fixmbr, cd \, ren windows winvista, exit”.

6. After restart boot from the XP CD - Continue with XP setup normally and you’re done!

The only thing that’s left to do is manually move all of your old folders and documents from the old C:\Winvista folder to your new C:\WinXP folder. Of course, you’ll also have to install any programs or applications again but this is a far more expedient and hassle free way of downgrading to Vista without formatting your hard drive.

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