photo credit: woodleywonderworks

So you’re learning a new language.  We’ve mostly focused on free or nearly-free resources that you can use to assist you in this process.   So now you find you are willing to spend a little money, but not a lot, or you need a little more assistance or you just need a little different approach than the free resources have available for you.  What kinds of things are available to you?

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photo credit: Joseph Robertson

If last week’s news is any indication, we’re all about to see an army of Droids to be released and hit the mobile scene — in a very big way. Even if you didn’t already pre-order through Best Buy, Big Red hopes you’ll be stopping by their stores this Friday to see what all the fuss is about.   Some good hardware from Motorola and a faster, much improved Android 2.0 should please quite a few Verizon customers by providing what could be argued as the carrier’s first eagerly anticipated smartphone.   But will it pose any real threat to the iPhone?

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photo credit: woodleywonderworks

In part one of “Learning a Language on a Budget” I talked a bit about the things you can do to get prepared to learn a language. A number of you offered comments and provided additional information about some resources that are available. Much appreciated!

In this second post in the series I’m going to focus on some of the Internet resources that are available for the study of Spanish and, to some extent, other languages. There are an amazingly large number of resources available to language learners on the Internet.  Many resources are free (or near free) and, with proper dedication, can go a good distance toward your goal of learning another language without spending any (or much) money!  So let’s take a little time and examine a few of these resources.

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photo credit: woodleywonderworks

So far, I’ve talked about dictionaries and dictionary sites, and other language-learning resources on the Internet.   There is, however, one Internet service that many of us will come across, even if we aren’t in the process of learning a language – online translation tools. Arguably, the biggest sites today for these services are translate.google.com, and babelfish.yahoo.com. This week, I want to talk a little bit about the differences in these sites and how they approach language translation and some things you can do to make your translation more effective and accurate.

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When I’m getting ready to travel, I have enough to worry about.  Did I turn off the oven?  Set the home alarm? Stop the mail?   One thing I don’t want to have to worry about when I hit the road (or skies) for travel is trying to remember the %@#$! combination to my luggage locks.    In the hustle and bustle of trying to just make it to the airport in time to stand in those long security lines, I may just have to pick up some of these luggage locks from Wordlock.

Instead of trying to remember another birthday anniversary historical date jersey numbers from your favorite sports team numeric code to use, you can simply use a word for your combination. Wordlocks are TSA accepted, and use a patented algorithm so you can create up to 10,000 different letter combinations with locks starting at $9.99.  That’s a lot of four-letter words!

[Wordlocks]

It is not a so-well-kept secret that I travel quite a bit for my day job. While 2009 has seen a slow down in travel for me, I still will easily make my American Airlines Platinum status for the 4th year in a row. As a reminder to everyone: Airline status is not something to be proud of. It means that you spend too much time on airplanes and that you know exactly which seats and rows have power outlets… but I digress. Since September 11, 2001 the single biggest challenge with air travel has not necessarily been the airlines but the security process you have to go through in order to get to your gate. I’m not complaining – security has kept us from having any significant airline issues since 9/11 – but it can be challenging, especially for seasoned travelers.

Normally when you go through the security checkpoint at the airport you are required to remove your laptop from your bag and put it in a seperate tray in order to be x-rayed amongst the other things you have to removed from your person – shoes, belts, etc. For most this is not that big of a deal but for people who have a lot of stuff in their bag along with their computer, it can take a minute or so to get the computer out of the bag and onto the belt. Meanwhile, the seasoned travelers are tapping their toe behind you waiting impatiently.

To help solve this challenge of travel, Skooba Designs has released a wide range of bags they refer to as their Checkthrough series. This series of bags are approved by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) for allowing your computer to remain in the bag and be x-rayed. It is a tremendous time saver, especially on those days when the airport security is exceptionally busy. Skooba Designs was kind enough to send me the Checkthrough Roller bag for this review and after several trips with it I have to say it is a winner. Not only does it help you get through security checkpoints but it is a roomy and functional roller bag.

The Skooba Checkthrough Roller Bag

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photo credit: woodleywonderworks

For a few weeks now, Judie has been writing about her experiences learning Spanish using the Rosetta Stone system.  It’s a wonderful language learning system used by diplomats and business leaders the world over.  But it has one big drawback – it’s really, really expensive!

In these times especially, many of us are living on a budget and need more cost-effective options.  So, I decided to pull-together some things I had already been working on and go on a mission to learn Spanish as well, but I’m going to try to do it on a more modest budget.  Along the way, I’m going to look at some moderate and even low-cost options for helping you learn a new language.  I’m going to focus on using the computer, the Internet, and even my mobile devices to get the job done.  Who knows?  We may even uncover some valuable tools and resources you may not know about!  I’ll also be reviewing some the products I’m using along the way!

This week, I want to start by looking at a really basic tool you should probably have, no matter what language you want to learn, or how much you plan to spend – your bi-lingual dictionary.

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Buenos Noches.

This week I began Unit 3, Lesson 1, and as had happened when I began the previous other two, I was immediately immersed into a new world where unknown words were being thrown at me as if I should understand their meaning and context. But this time was armed with something I hadn’t had before — an ever expanding vocabulary.

By paying attention to what was being written or said, even when I couldn’t understand much of it, I was able to pick out words I knew that helped put the unknown words into context, even when their meanings weren’t immediately clear. This made things go a lot more smoothly. Continue Reading

I have been traveling once or twice a year for conferences for my job.  I have always been one of those who checked their bag.  That even became more common once I added CPAP to my load.  Well, this time I challenged myself.  Can I survive with only One Bag plus my CPAP machine?  Let’s find out.

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¡Hola!

When I left off last week, I was near the end of Unit 2, which meant a lot of review work and another upcoming milestone. Would this milestone slay me as the first one had? Would I finally “get” the difference between morado (purple), marrón (brown), gris (gray), conoso (gray) and conosa (gray)?

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I. Am. A. Mobile. Computing. User… Period.

I live for converged devices, laptops, netbooks, and data on the go. I’ve got unlimited data on my Smartphone account; and have tethered my laptop to my phone when I need to be online in a pinch. When I travel, I need to take it with me; and when it comes to airport security, I dread the TSA required aerobics and mandatory disrobing… Thankfully, to help make things easier, Skooba Design has created the CheckThrough Backpack.  Let’s take a quick look to see how (and if) this thing makes traveling easier…

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¡Hola mis amigas!

This week, I was greeted by an instructional video that started the minute I signed into TOTALe. It gave a great overview of what the different parts of the course entailed, and how to navigate the various sections…and I couldn’t help but wonder why it didn’t show the first time I started the program!

Of course, the likely culprit is my slow satellite connection of doom; it is totally possible that the screen tried to show when I first started the program five lessons ago, but was reset in all of the screen refreshes. Ah, country living…

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No, it’s not a new F1 racing team sponsor, it a line of luggage for the F1 aficionado who can’t get enough of a good thing. I suspect that like most luxury goods, if you have to ask how much it is, then you can’t afford it…

This initial phase of the collaboration takes in to consideration the rigorous travel schedule encountered by the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes race team, giving them a collection of luggage which is tough, secure, light weight and in keeping with the technology associated with advanced motorsport.

The SBL MclarenSport collection comprises 9 individual pieces all with their own unique design attributes and common functional traits. All items are finished in black nylon with the distinct Mclaren rocket red accents. The perforated leather carry handles, black nickel metal hardware and linings in grey and rocket red come as standard. The wheel suspension system which some of pieces employ has been through rigorous testing courtesy of the Mclaren team and has proved its prowess over thousands of miles of grueling travel.

Due to drop into Selfridges in London and Manchester on 2nd Nov and a month later it will go into Harrods.

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¡Hola Amigos!

Even though I had the new Dan Brown book, The Missing Symbol, delivered wirelessly to my Kindle DX this week, and even though I have spent every spare moment I could trying to sneak in a few chapters, I still managed to get a good chunk of my TOTALe lesson done. Yay me!

Now I can tell you that “Me llamo Judie,” which will probably not sound as elegant as Julia when pronounced properly, since the J’s in Spanish are essentially H’s. Hoolia verses Hoodie…guess which one wins?

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After a solid week of rain in Middle Tennessee, the graves must have opened, as the undead arose to walk the streets of downtown Nashville. Tourists and natives called it the Nashville Zombie Walk of 2009.

The flesh-eating mutants zombies staggered in from all directions, via train, plane and automobile.

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