Generally speaking, we Brits are pretty poor when it comes to learning a second language. A variety of reasons are always given when we hear people from other European countries speaking two or more languages as a matter of course but ultimately, it comes down to one thing; The lack of desire to learn another language.

Personally, I’ve made a couple of attempts to improve (I won’t go as far to say learn) my Russian. I can read Cyrillic and understand a little but holding anything more than a very basic conversation is probably beyond my skills at present. At home, I have a number of books and even a couple of DVDs sitting on a shelf gathering dust so I felt it needed something a bit more comprehensive.

I came across the Transparent Language System which is much cheaper than the highly publicised Rosetta Stone. They kindly offered me a free copy to evaluate and promote as an affiliate. In my learning attempts in the past, I’ve found that I do better when I have the opportunity to read, write, speak and listen to native speakers. One consideration when listening to native speakers is what type of accent they have. Listening to someone with a strong regional accent will affect the way you speak a language. Fortunately, my wife is Russian and she assures me that the audio parts of the Transparent Language System is spoken by people with a ‘normal’ (ie – not a strong regional) accent.

So on to the system. I downloaded the files from the website and it took a while as there is obviously a lot of information included in the course. Once installed on my laptop, I started up the main program and set myself up as a user. Although I didn’t try it, the program does cater for multiple users who can learn at their own speed.

The main program introduces 4 different books; Beginner Lessons, Fundamentals, St. Petersburg and Getting Around Russia. Each book contains between 5 and 15 different lessons covering a wide range of topics. Each lesson has a number of words or phrases to learn. These are presented on a series of flash cards in either English or Russian along with audio so you can hear the pronunciation. You are prompted to given the answer in English or Russia, written or spoken. With the spoken answers, honesty on your part is required and I try to be strict as the only person I’d be cheating is me.

There are 3 steps to each lesson; Preview It, Recognize It and Produce It. Once you’ve completed all 3 steps, you can take a test. If you pass, you can move on. The good thing is you learn at your own pace and you can switch between any of the lessons. All scores are recorded so you can see your progress.

One feature I do like is the opportunity to refresh stale words or phrases and Transparent Language System keeps track of these for you too. Going back over phrases you looked at a week earlier gives you a good indication if you really did learn it properly or not.

There is a section on the Cyrillic alphabet which gives an excellent guide to the individual letters in the language. The Activities section presents the phrases in the selected list in a number of different ways such as multiple choice answers or filling in the missing word.

In the My Learned Items section, you can follow your progress through the course. In addition, there are a series of MP3 files with various audio learning aids you can upload to your smartphone or MP3 player and listen while you are on the move.

In summary, Transparent Language System certainly has given me a wide range of comprehensive learning tools to help improve my Russian language. I can’t really think of anything specific that is missing so the onus really is on me to get results.

Please note, the links in this review are affiliate links and if you decide to purchase the Transparent Language System, I will earn a small commission. In addition to Russian, a wide range of other languages are also available.

 

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A couple of weeks ago my trusty old desktop PC finally went to the scrapyard in the sky (but only after I removed the hard drive). I fear my laptop isn’t far behind so this has meant I’ve had to had a look at various replacement options.

I’m not really someone who will buy the latest piece of technology the day its released as its an expensive game you can never win.

I take a lot of pictures so I need a large disc drive that is also backed up. The backup isn’t an issue as I use a rather good program called Carbonite which allows me to back up as much data as I want remotely for a few dollars a year.

However, I’m also away from home regularly and so I need some sort of mobile computer. Until recently, that meant using a laptop but in the last year or so, the tablet computer has arrived on the market. Apple lead the way with the iPad and more recently the iPad 2. However, I’m not a fan of Apple to say the least. I believe its last years technology and next years prices but thats another discussion.

In recent months, the Android operating system has been adopted by a range of companies who will produce rivals to the iPad. Samsung brought out the Galaxy Tab (Picture: Public Domain Photos) but it still wasn’t something I was impressed enough with to part with my hard earned cash.

However, soon Android 3.0 will be released and that is designed specifically for tablets and no doubt, more devices will soon be on the market. That said, they won’t have the processing power of laptops so the jigsaw still won’t be complete. The good news is that I believe I have found the answer in Citrix.

Citrix will allow me to use my home computer from my tablet computer (or anywhere with an internet connection). For a very small fee, I can connect run all my software from my big, powerful PC which is back home. This gives me a nice portable computer with all the power, software and storage I need. Bandwidth use is minimal as all the processing is done by the PC at home. The only time there would be higher amounts of data being transmitted would be when copying files between the Tablet computer and my home PC.

It all sounds very promising so next I’m going to be looking at various options. When I’ve got it all up and running, I’ll let you know.

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I’ve been using Gmail (Google Mail) for a few years and I thought I’d share a few tips that have improved the ‘User Experience’ for me. Under the Settings > Labs option, there are a host of extras that enhance your Gmail making it easier to use.

Just be aware that Labs is a bit of a testing ground for these Gmail features but the ones I’ve used seem to be pretty stable. These are some of my favourites:

Nested Labels
This allows you to sort your email labels more effectively by nesting them. I’ve got well over 170 labels so this was really useful helping me keep things in some sort of order.

Message Sneak Peek
You can preview messages but right-clicking on a message in the Inbox

Got the wrong Bob?
A handy lab that offers you suggestions to help ensure you have chosen the email recipient you intended. Sending emails to the wrong person can be a really bad thing. Trust me, I know.

Google Calendar gadget
Adds a little box on the left side of your Gmail window showing upcoming appointments.

Inserting Images
Allows you to insert images into the body of your message by either a URL or from a path on your computer.

 

To find the labs, enter the title (in bold) into the search box and it should appear providing you’ve typed it in correctly and Google haven’t removed it.

I hope you find these useful and if I’ve missed your favourite Lab, why not share it with us in the comments?

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UPDATE: Tragically, on 7th March 2011, it was confirmed that Phil had died in the earthquake. My condolences to Phil’s wife and family.

—————————————

Phil Coppeard is one of the many missing people following the terrible earthquake that hit Christchurch in New Zealand on Tuesday 22nd February at 12:51pm.

Phil moved to Christchurch a few months ago with his wife who was interviewed on Thursday 24th February on Radio New Zealand National. She talked about where Phil was going and what he was wearing.

You can hear the interview here:
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20110224-1038-Suzanne_Craig-048.mp3

Phil is 41 years old. 6′ tall with green eyes, brown hair and sideburns. He was wearing jeans and would have been carrying a backpack, probably listening to music on his iPhone.

He was on his way to Canterbury University and had left home between 12:15 and 12:30 to catch the #3 bus from their home in Redcliffs in the eastern outskirts of the city. The route meant Phil would go through the Bus Exchange on Litchfield Street in the centre of Christchurch. Its just a couple of blocks from the Cathedral which you may have been on the news.

Given the times, it is likely Phil was on a bus in the centre of Christchurch at the time of the earthquake.

When Suzanne tried to call Phil initially, the phone just rang through to voicemail and now it is going straight to voicemail which almost certainly means the battery has died. Suzanne and friends have been doing the rounds trying to see if Phil has been registered by any of the emergency services or hospitals but so far without success. Apparently, some of the injured have been take to hospitals in other parts of New Zealand so there is no guarantee Phil is still in area.

Phil is the type of person who would do anything he could to make contact if he were able so the concern is he is injured or trapped somewhere and has not been identified.

Obviously there are a lot of people missing in Christchurch but if you have any possible leads about his whereabouts, please leave a comment or contact me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/robatherton

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One of the best TV shows growing up in the 70s was without question Hawaii 50. The dramatic music and Detective Steve McGarrett with his famous catchphrase “Book ‘em Danno”. The series ran for 12 years with just under 300 episodes being screened. It was fantastic.

McGarrett played by Jack Lord was a proper cop. Rugged good looks and a manner that meant you knew who was the boss. His sidekick was Detective Dan Williams along with another detective, Chin Ho. Together, they fought crime on the tropical island. No criminal was safe – it was great. The last episode was aired in 1980 and occasionally old episodes would be shown.

Now we move ahead to 2011. Its the age of Simon Cowell and his world of crappy Karaoke cover versions. Big screen films rely on special effects and 3D rather than story lines and in the last few weeks, Hawaii Five-0 has been remade and is appearing on British TV.

The modern Steve McGarrett is pathetically complete; Alex O’Loughlin is younger than Jack Lord (bit of eye candy of the girls), a former Navy Seal, a grandfather who was on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbour and former college quarterback. Did I mention he also goes by the rank of Lieutenant-Commander rather than Detective?

Danno is has family issues and doesn’t seem to get on well with McGarrett while the 2011 Chin Ho is around 15 years younger than in the original series. A new character is rookie detective Kono Kalakaua (a bit of eye candy for the boys).

Out of morbid curiosity and low expectations, I decided to watch a couple of episodes. My fears were fully realised. I recognised the music and the opening titles even had that scene where the camera zooms in on McGarrett standing on the balcony of a tall building as he turns to face the camera.

However, as I eluded to earlier, the 21st century appears to be devoid of decent script writers. The last episode I watched saw McGarrett fly a helicopter in pursuit of a bad guy (obviously piloting helicopters is a key skill in the Navy Seals) and when he lost contact with a car he was chasing, he does what any good policeman does….call a contact on a US Navy Aircraft Carrier on the other side of the world and gets a girl (young and pretty of course) to use a military satellite to find him.

It gets better as the US Navy girlie beams the live feed straight to McGarretts iPhone. I wonder how much the app for that cost? Jobs will be pleased getting a 30% cut.

However, the worst thing (so far) makes all this seem insignificant. Its the new McGarretts voice. As in the original series, he still uses the phrase “Book ‘em Danno” but its not the voice of the tough, rugged Jack Lord. The 2011 Steve McGarrett sounds like John Inman and if you don’t know who I mean, trust me, its not a good sound for a detective.

CBS had tried to restart the series in 1997 but the pilot was never taken up. In 2011, this poor relation of the original show finally made it back to our screens and somewhere a unicorn died.

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© 2011 Rob Atherton Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha