Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll now Australianised.

One of the problems reading books from overseas, is often they use a different dialect of English than we do in Australia. If we read the different spellings often enough, we start to wonder about our own spelling.

As part of developing Kelvin's spellcheck dictionary of preferred Australian English spelling, I'm now using the dictionary to convert some of the famous e-books which are available. The first e-book I've released is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

You can find this e-book and other books from Australian authors on the JustLocal book page www.book.JustLocal.com.au.

Enjoy,

Kelvin Eldridge

JustLocal: Release of Western Australia postcode pages.

The following areas in Western Australia have now been released on JustLocal. This is a great opportunity to build the local communities in the area. FREE advertising is available for the local community.

6055: Caversham, Guildford, Hazelmere, Henley Brook, South Guildford, West Swan.

6056: Baskerville, Bellevue, Boya, Greenmount, Helena Valley, Herne Hill, Jane Brook, Koongamia, Middle Swan, Midland, Midvale, Millendon, Red Hill, Stratton, Swan View, Viveash, Woodbridge.

6065: Ashby, Darch, Gnangara, Hocking, Jandabup, Landsdale, Lexia, Madeley, Mariginiup, Melaleuca, Pearsall, Pinjar, Sinagra, Tapping, Wangara, Wanneroo.

6068: Whiteman.

6069: Belhus, Brigadoon, Ellenbrook.

6083: Gidgegannup, Morangup.

Enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge

PS You can also go to the postcode pages from the main page of JustLocal by entering the postcode.

Dictionary: American versus Australian spelling.

In the process of creating the Kelvin dictionary I come across words which I find interesting which you may find interesting. The following is a short list of some of the words which are spelt differently in America and Australia.

The first word is the American spelling and the second word is the Australian spelling.

skeptical, sceptical
color, colour
traveled, travelled
mold, mould
chiseled, chiselled
gray, grey
mustache, moustache
pretense, pretence
pajamas, pyjamas
checkered, chequered
math, maths
plowed, ploughed
tidbit, titbit
whiskey, whisky
skillful, skilful

Whilst some dictionaries list color as now equal to colour in Australia,  usage shows colour is still preferred by most Australians.

If you want to check if you're using the preferred Australian spelling of a word, you can now do this using Word Check. You can find Word Check on the dictionary project page www.dictionary.JustLocal.com.au.

By the way the words whiskey and whisky are particularly interesting. When talking about whisky it is Scottish whisky, American whiskey and Irish whiskey. The preferred spelling in Australia is whisky. 

Enjoy,

Kelvin Eldridge

 

JustLocal search for Eltham Victoria 3095 now available.

Further to our extended search trial for a local area, we are now trialling an extended search for businesses and other organisations in the Eltham 3095 area. As we find businesses and groups with web sites, we will include them in the search engine. This will enable residents and businesses to not only use the services of the businesses on the 3095 postcode page, but also to easily find businesses and services in the 3095 postcode area.

You can find the search facility in the menus at the top of the JustLocal 3095 page, or you can go straight to the 3095 search page.

Supporting local business has always made sense. Now it is much easier for those in the Eltham area.

Please enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Australian dictionary: How good is your spelling?

Feel like testing your spelling skills. Can you get ten out of ten for the following words?

leucaemia, leukaemia
whiskey, whisky
dakked, dacked
transshipment, transhipment
bonzer, bonza
wagon, waggon
organise, organize
co-operate, cooperate
ice cream, ice-cream
sulphur, sulfur

I'll reveal the answer sometime in the future.

Good luck.

- Kelvin Eldridge

P.S. If you are interested in Australian English spellcheck dictionaries visit www.dictionary.JustLocal.com.au.

JustLocal search for Templestowe Victoria 3106 now live.

The primary aim of JustLocal is to encourage residents and businesses in an area, to preferentially purchase from businesses in the area. We believe the more residents and businesses support each other in an area, the more the local community will benefit and grow. This will also mean reduced usage of cars and public transport, resulting in considerable savings for the environment, the community and the individual. 

As part of improving the experience of those using JustLocal, we are now trialling an extended search for businesses and other organisations (such as schools and churches) in the Templestowe 3106 area. As we find businesses and groups with web sites, we will include them in the search engine. This will enable residents and businesses to not only use the services of the businesses on the 3106 postcode page, but also to easily find businesses and services in the 3106 postcode area.

You can find the search facility in the menus at the top of the JustLocal 3106 page, or you can go straight to the 3106 search page.

Supporting local business has always made sense. Now it is much easier for those in the Templestowe area.

Please enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge

JustLocal virus alert: Webmail Upgrading, OptusNet Customer Service

I just received an email into my Gmail account which had the subject, Webmail Upgrading, and appeared to come from OptusNet Customer Service.

This email is a phishing attempt and should be discarded. Do not take action based on the email.

If you check the returned email address you will see the user "suport@optusnet.com.au" is spelt incorrectly. It also has incorrect word usage in the message.

The problem I found is with Gmail I could not see the underlying URL for the link. The email was not identified as spam by Gmail. In Outlook you can hover over the link and the underlying URL is shown. I retrieved the email using Outlook which displayed the link text as https://memberservices.optuszoo.com.au/login/?target=/myaccount/, but if you clicked on the link you would actually go to a domain www.uauctionoff.com.

If you are using web mail services such as Gmail please take care. Gmail is easy to use, but the lack of information on the actual address for the link could easily trick a person.

For those who are interested the email I received was sent from Nigeria.

Take care

- Kelvin Eldridge

PS. Recently I decided to withdraw OzEfilter due to insufficient people purchasing the software to justify ongoing development. However the response has been very loud that those using the software to protect them from unwanted emails, would like OzEfilter to continue. If you are thinking about getting OzEfilter let me know. If enough people are interested I will release a new edition.

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 8, I think!

I don't know about you, but this feels really weird. Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 8 with no fanfare at all. Not a press release in sight. I still can't believe I have Internet Explorer 8 installed on my computer.

Whilst I use most of the browsers for different things, Internet Explorer is my preferred browser for general browsing. It works and includes most of the things I need built-in. In general I find the features such as RSS to be better implemented than in other browsers.

One feature I felt was missing in Internet Explorer 8 is a built-in spellchecker. Initially I felt this was a considerable oversight, but now feel that perhaps Microsoft's is a better approach.

You can install spellchecking using an add-on. Visit www.dictionary.JustLocal.com.au for information on adding spellchecking to Internet Explorer. I do a lot of work creating the Australian English spellchecking dictionary and most of the spellchecking engines I've found to have limitations. Being able to swap in a different spellchecking engine in the future may actually end up providing users with a much better solution, whereas the other browsers lock themselves into the same spellchecking engine by hard coding it in.

The first thing I do when installing Internet Explorer is to visit the Fun with Search page. I then click on the link to set the search engine to Google with the default being pages from Australia.

During these tough economic times it makes sense to support Australian companies first. The size of overseas companies dwarf the presence of Australian companies on the internet. I see many people overseas complaining about sites such as Wikipedia making search results less useful by consuming many spots on the first page of Google search results. Setting pages to default from Australia fixes this type of problem for Australians whilst at the same time often provides more meaningful search results.

Grab a copy of Internet Explorer 8, install the Australian English spellchecking dictionary, set your search engine to default to pages from Australia, sit back, relax and surf the net.

Happy surfing.

- Kelvin

JustLocal virus alert: You have got a new E-Card from your friend!

I just noticed dozens of E-card emails this morning and advise all clients to delete any E-card they receive. The subject for the emails I received contained the following:

You have got a new E-Card from your friend!

You have received A Hallmark E-Card!

These were supposedly from e-cards@americangreetings.com and e-cards@americangreetings.com but were obviously faked.

The attachment in one of the emails was e-card.zip and this was not stopped by the anti-virus program in my computer, or the anti-virus programs on the mail server. It has been submitted to the anti-virus company and they should update their signature files within the next 48 hours.

Do take care and please do not open any e-card. It is safest to delete them.

For those thinking about sending e-cards, you should be aware that whilst they are a good and novel idea, they are regularly used to trick people into infecting their computer. I personally no longer send anyone e-cards and prefer to simply send an email greeting instead.

- Kelvin

PS. For more information on virus issues check the virus section of MyAnswers. In particular solution 1890 shows the online service I use to submit files for checking which results in my clients software being updated.

Word Check British English now available.

For our friends in Britain, Word Check is now also available for British English. This brings to three the number of versions of Word Check which includes Australian English and American English.

I decided to extend the versions of Word Check to also cover British English, since quite a few visitors to the site are from the UK. Many dictionaries only show the way to spell a word, but often not the variations (inflections or plurals) of the word. Word Check British English for example confirms the following as correct spellings.

cancel, cancelled, canceller, canceller's, cancellers, cancelling, cancellation, cancellation's, cancellations, cancels.

You can bookmark Word Check, add Word Check as a search engine to to Internet Explorer or Firefox using the search engine links at the bottom of the Word Check page, or add Word Check manually to other browsers.  Checking the correct spelling of a word can now be part of your browser.

The following are some tips which will assist in using Word Check.

1. Word Check only checks words. It does not check sentences and phrases. 

2. Use the correct capitalisation. For example names and places start with a capital.

3. If you find a word that is in the dictionary that you feel should not be there then after checking, then word press Challenge! All words challenged will be reviewed.

4. If you find a word is not in the dictionary and feel it should be, then after checking for the word press Suggest! All words suggested will be reviewed.

5. Feel free to make a donation. The dictionary behind Word Check is open source and donations will be used to enhance the dictionary with the assistance of professional editors skilled in the British English language. Updated versions of the British dictionary will be made available periodically.

6. Add Word Check British English to your browser as a search engine. For Internet Explorer and Firefox the links at the bottom of Word Check enable you to quickly add Word Check as a search engine. Then any time you want to check a word, type or copy the word into the search field at the top right of the browser and select Word Check as the search engine using the drop down box. For other browsers you can manually add Word Check as search engine which is also quite easy to do.

7. For Australians who are not quite certain if they are about to use the British spelling of a word or the preferred Australian spelling, checking both Word Check British English and Word Check Australian English should help answer the question.

Additional tips will be added to this post as we find things which may assist you.

Please enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge 

Word Check American English now available.

For our friends in America, Word Check is now also available for American English.

Many dictionaries only show the way to spell a word, but often not the variations (inflections or plurals) of the word. Word Check American English for example confirms the following as correct spellings.

cancel, canceled, canceler, canceler's, cancelers, canceling, cancellation, cancellation's, cancellations, cancels.

You can bookmark the Word Check page, or easily add Word Check as a search engine to Internet Explorer or Firefox. Checking the correct spelling of a word can now be part of your browser.

The following are some tips which will assist in using Word Check.

1. Word Check only checks words. It does not check sentences and phrases. 

2. Use the correct capitalization. For example names and places start with a capital.

3. If you find a word that is in the dictionary that you feel should not be there then after checking the word press Challenge! All words challenged will be reviewed.

4. If you find a word is not in the dictionary and feel it should be, then after checking for the word press Suggest! All words suggested will be reviewed.

5. Feel free to make a donation. The dictionary behind Word Check is open source and donations will be used to enhance the dictionary with the assistance of professional editors skilled in the American language. Updated versions of the American dictionary will be made available periodically.

6. Add Word Check American English to your browser as a search engine. For Internet Explorer and Firefox the links at the bottom of Word Check enable you to quickly add Word Check as a search engine. Then any time you want to check a word, type or copy the word into the search field at the top right of the browser and select Word Check as the search engine using the drop down box. For other browsers you can manually add Word Check as search engine which is also quite easy to do.

7. For Australians who are not quite certain if they are about to use the American spelling of a word, checking in both Word Check American English and Word Check Australian English will answer the question.

Additional tips will be added to this post as we find things which may assist you.

Please enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge 

Justlocal Dictionary: Is your name in the Australian spellcheck dictionary?

Did you know, that since 1930 in Victoria there have been around 4 million births registered using 100,000 first names?

What is really interestingly is the top 100 boys names and the top 100 girls names cover 2.4 million of the 4 million births.

This means by including just 200 names out of 100,000 in the dictionary, more than 60% of first names would be covered by the dictionary. 

It is not possible to enter all names into the Australian English dictionary as the volume would overwhelm the dictionary. However it is possible and desirable to include the more common names.

The following sites provide lists of the most popular names.

ACT - http://www.ors.act.gov.au/bdm/WebPages/bdm4.html
SA - http://www.ocba.sa.gov.au/bdm/babynames.html
NSW - http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/births/popularBabyNames.htm
QLD - http://www.justice.qld.gov.au/4704.htm
VIC - https://online.justice.vic.gov.au/bdm/popular-names
WA - http://www.justice.wa.gov.au/B/babyname.aspx?uid=1698-5030-2186-7313

For a limited time, if your first name is in one of the top 100 lists of names from any of the sites, and is not already in Word Check, let me know by adding a comment with your first name, the state listing your name and the year.

If you or a friend are having a baby, you may wish to keep in mind the list of popular names can make for very interesting reading.

Please enjoy,

- Kelvin

Dictionary: Word Check Hints and Tips

This blog entry aims to provide a collection of hints and tips for using Word Check. Word Check is an online service which enables you to check if you are using the preferred Australian English spelling of a word. Word Check is based on the Kelvin version of the Australian English spellcheck dictionary (also known as Kelvin's dictionary).

Kelvin's dictionary aims to:

• Include only the preferred spelling of Australian words. Where there are two or three ways to spell the same word, only the preferred spelling is included.


• In general, American spelt words are not included. For example mom is not included, as mum is the preferred spelling in Australia. The word ranch however is included, as it is not considered a non-preferred spelling variation of an Australian English word.


• Archaic and obsolete words are not included.


• Many words which should have a space, such as "ice cream", are included.


• Many words which should have a hyphen are included.

Word Check is currently alpha and many hundreds of hours of work on the Kelvin dictionary are still required before it reaches the general release stage. Word Check has been released early, as even now, it is providing a very useful tool for Australians and those wishing to write for an Australian audience.

Word Check is not a spellchecker. If you wish to have a list of suggested words, please obtain the Kelvin dictionary files for your application when they are available. It should be kept in mind most spellchecking programs and word processing programs, are not as accurate as Word Check. They introduce errors in their implementation. For example, enter the word non-non in most writing programs, and you will find non-non as a correctly spelt word, which is obviously not correct. Word Check only contains correctly spelt words (subject of course to our own errors and omissions). By limiting Word Check to a single word, words which contain spaces or hyphens are included in the Kelvin dictionary and are now correctly handled. In a program performing spellchecking, hyphenated words and words with spaces (such as deja vu, which allows typing vu as a word) are often mishandled.

Please feel free to suggest words, or to challenge existing words (in a nice way of course). The Kelvin dictionary is a growing and evolving resource, and as I find evidence of word usage change in Australia, the Kelvin dictionary will be updated.

Word Check can easily be added to your browser as a search engine, so you can use the search field in your browser to check a word. In Opera and Internet Explorer it is fairly easy to add Word Check so you can highlight a word on a web page, check the word and then check the meaning of the word.

I accept Word Check is not yet comprehensive enough to be live and I apologise in advance for any inconvenience. If you feel a word should be spelt in a certain way and it is not being found, the word may not have yet reached the dictionary. Use Wiktionary to confirm you are correct and so you know it is Word Check that is currently lacking. Words that are entered but not found, will be reviewed and if they should be in the dictionary, will in most cases appear within a few days time permitting.

Please enjoy the fruits of my labour.

- Kelvin Eldridge

TIPS:

• Word Check does not offer a list of suggested words. If you require a list of suggested words, please obtain the Kelvin dictionary files for one of the applications you use.


• Word Check in some instances is more accurate than a spellchecker, as it allows you to check against the list of actual words, which can include spaces, hyphens, periods and apostrophes.


• Word Check doesn't allow you to create words using prefixes and suffixes which may not be actual usage. For example typing non-non as a word is often valid when using a spellchecker, as the word non has been included in the spellchecker, as have many other partial words. This does mean many more correct variations need to be identified and entered into the Kelvin dictionary.


• Word Check is case sensitive. Enter the word as you would write it. For example Anzac can also be ANZAC, but it is never anzac. Type in Australia and not australia. If you type in australia without the first letter being capitalised, the result will be Not Found.


• In general enter words in lower case and with the letters correctly capitalised. For example enter Melbourne and not melbourne. Entering melbourne will result in the message Not Found.


• If you enter a word in all capitals, as would be used in a heading, the word will be compared with the words in the dictionary converted to capitals. You should avoid entering words in capitals so you can determine the correct capitalisation. You shouldn't assume that if you now use the word which was in capitals in lower case it will be correct. For example AUSTRALIA will be found, but australia will not be found.


• There is quite a bit of confusion as to whether some words should be a single word, a hyphenated word, or contain a space between two or more words. Word Check aims to provide the correct variation. Try all three variations to determine the correct spelling. For example "ice cream" is the preferred spelling, but to determine which is the preferred spelling, you may wish to try "icecream" and "ice-cream". This is not an easy area, since in many instances the two or more words, will only be in the dictionary as separate entries, that you can test separately.


• You may wish to check the meaning of a word. Many words which are very similar, only differ by one letter, yet mean different things, such as meter and metre, or confirmation and conformation.


• Word Check aims to provide the correct spelling variations for a word, including possessives and plurals. These are not readily available in other dictionaries and can often be the hardest to determine as being correct. For example Word Check includes: dog, dogs, dog's and dogs'.


• If you wish to look up the meaning of a word keep in mind the case and whether the word is a plural or a possessive can affect whether the meaning is found or not. If the spelling is correct change a plural into the singular form and a possessive into the non possessive form. For the case use the appropriate case for the word.


• As I find things of interest to share with others, I will add further tips as comments via this blog entry.

Virus: Commonwealth Bank - Account lockout.

I've received an increasing number of these emails of late.

Account Lockout 
Please note: Your Netbank account has been locked after a pre-determined number of unsuccessful attempts.

This type of email is known as a phishing email. It is most likely attempting to trick you into revealing your bank access details. You should immediately delete this type of email.

My suggestion is to seriously think about not providing your email address to your bank. Provide other means for them to contact you. My banks don't have my email address and I've not had any issue with them contacting me. I know all emails that pretend to be from one of the banks I use, is then definitely not from the bank.

- Kelvin

Dictionary: Is it whiskey, whisky, wisky or wiskey?

The words wisky and wiskey are easy. They are incorrect spelling. The two words whiskey and whisky, are more interesting. A check of the authoritative dictionaries for Australia show whisky to be the preferred spelling in Australia, with whiskey being American and Irish.

Always one to enjoy seeing the language used in the real world, a trip to the local liquor store showed American and Irish whisky used the spelling whiskey, and Scotch whisky used the spelling whisky.

In general, when referring to whisky in Australia, the spelling would be whisky. But if you specifically wanted to refer to Irish or American whisky, then you would use whiskey.

For the Kelvin version of the Australian English spellcheck dictionary and Word Check, you will only find whisky as the preferred Australian English spelling.

- Kelvin

PS. Word Check is a great way to check the preferred Australian English spelling of a word. The Kelvin version of the Australian English spellcheck dictionaries, will be available shortly for many of your favourite programs such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera 10, Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey and many more.

Australian English Word Check

For those of you waiting for the next release of the Kelvin Australian English spellcheck dictionary, you may be interested to know the Australian English Word Check is now available as alpha. 

The Australian English Word Check allows you to check a word to see if it is the preferred spelling used in Australia. Word Check uses the word list for the next version of the Australian English spellcheck dictionary also known as the Kelvin dictionary. The next release is still some months off and requires a great deal of work. In the meantime, Word Check will enable you to check words and find the meaning of the word. 

You can find Word Check via this link - Australian English Word Check. You may have noticed I've added Word Check at the right of this blog.

You can also add Word Check as a search engine to your browser using the links on the Word Check page. This effectively turns the search field of your browser into an Australian English dictionary.

Why use Word Check? 

There are a large number of FREE dictionaries available on the Internet. The problem is they are all based overseas and this makes it difficult to determine if the spelling is for Australia. Word Check helps to confirm you are using the preferred spelling of a word in Australia. 

Remember, Word Check is currently in alpha, and requires many thousands of words to be checked and added before it reaches general release stage. Your feedback and comments as always are welcome.

Enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Virus alert: Pravda reports “Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age”

I've now received four of these emails which were sent to four different email addresses. I've called the telephone number in the email and confirmed the email is a legitimate email.

Without verbal confirmation, the links in the email, and the fact the emails were all sent from the same Australian location, would allow me to infer it was most likely not malware, had I not been able to contact someone.

The sender in this case is a political party. The spam Act as I read it, allows political parties to send spam. 

The emails however do raise a very interesting question for me. Where did the party obtain their email address list from?

Political parties have made it legal for themselves to send spam. It is however illegal for businesses to harvest email addresses and one of the addresses used, is only available via the Internet site and never given out by any other means. That begs the question, is the mailing list created internally, or purchased from a business who has harvested email addresses?

How you handle this type of email is ultimately your choice. If you don't wish to receive this type of material click on the unsubscribe link.

- Kelvin Eldridge

No more NEC in Australian retail

I read this article and thought it might be of interest to clients. It appears NEC is pulling out of the retail market in Australia. Whilst I've not previously sold NEC products, my first portable computer was an NEC and IT resellers I've known have sold NEC products.

As this applies to not just IT products, I felt clients may like to know about NEC's retail position change in the Australian market.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Virus alert: IKEA's New Planning Software

I noticed an increase in the number of emails with the subject IKEA's New Planning Software.  The email contains the following offer:

IKEA has a Fantastic new FREE tool for home decorating. Introducing our Home Planner software which allows you to plan your home in a 3D environment.  Simply follow the instructions in the attachment and start planning your dream home today.

Also attached is a zip file with the file name ikea.zip and this file contains the executable file ikea.exe.

Using OzEfilter we can see we have received emails with this subject from China, the USA and now Australia. OzEfilter enables us to delete these emails at the mail server, safely away from our computer before we receive them into our computer. The antivirus software did not detect the harmful attachment. We have found over the last few months this type of email to be an issue with most of the antivirus software packages available on the market today.

The attachment has been submitted to the antivirus company we are our clients use, so our clients will soon be protected.

We would advise to immediately delete this email should you receive it.

- Kelvin Eldridge

PS. We use OzEfilter and CA antivirus to protect our computers. We've found no antivirus software to protect 100%. This combination, plus common sense, offers us an excellent level of protection. The online service for submitting suspicious attachments, can be found in MyAnswers solution 1890.

PPS. Do you need a solution to repair an infected computer manually?

I'm interested in finding out if you would be interested in knowing how to repair an infected computer and if so, how much the solution would be worth to you. If there is sufficient interest, it may be worth the time to provide a step-by-step solution. Let me know if it would have interested you if a solution was available.

Virus alert: Limited Edition Merchandise

I noticed an increase in the number of emails with the subject Limited Edition Merchandise.  This email contains the following offer which is a bogus offer.

Have yourself a Merry Christmas with Jack Daniel's. Print the coupon and head for your local outlet for limited edition merchandise.

Also attached is a zip file which pretends to be a coupon and is mostly likely a malicious executable. As with many attachments over recent months, this attachment (jackdaniels-coupon.zip) is not detected by the antivirus software as being malicious even though it probably is.

You should immediately delete this email.

- Kelvin Eldridge

PS. We use OzEfilter and CA antivirus to protect our computers. We've found no antivirus software to protect 100%. This combination plus common sense offers us a good level of protection.