Kudos to Edvard Ananyan for his GTranslate program found at: http://edo.webmaster.am/gtranslate. I've been looking around for a language translator for my Joomla blog but haven't been satisfied with either the function or graphic look of the software. GTranslate so far is the first to satisfy both requirements and runs on a variety of platforms. As you can guess, GTranslate uses  Google's translation service to power the translation. In addition to Joomla, Edvard developed versions for Drupal and good ole' php as well. I'm using the free version but figure I'll pony up the $80 once I've thoroughly tested the software.

As you'll see if you click on the "Languages" tab on the upper right corner of my blog, GTranslate provides both a drop down list of languages and tiny little flags representing the country/language.

Just the fact he included Filipino was an instant winner for me. Here's the complete language list:

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Bill Vass, president and chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems Federal, Inc. and the chief technology officer of Sun’s Global Accounts and Industry Organization provided his take of the top six benefits of open source software at Solutions Developers’ May WFED Technology Leadership Breakfast. He makes a few references to his blog, which can be found here: http://blogs.sun.com/bvass/

Since I’m such an open source groupie, you can rightly conclude I agreed with all that Vass had to say. Confirmed. But he definitely made an even stronger believer out of me with several points he made, mostly about security. I'll also share how the Society of American Florists (SAF) has leveraged open source as testimony to each of the benefits - mostly in the backend of our IT operation. SAF plans on expanding our use of open source into the desktop environment. We’re in the process of testing Open Office to replace Microsoft Office installations on both PCs and Macs and plan on replacing the venerable XP operating systems with Ubuntu installations.

Here are the six benefits as presented by Vass:

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Quick links: Check out the DigitalNow Blog or DigitalNow Live!

I've been investigating cloud computing for the past couple of months so of course I had a few expectations of this session. I've confirmed after sitting in on this session that cloud computing is still undefined. Despite the session title, the session focused on primarily on Google apps. It was still very well presented by Sig VanDamme and has peaked my interest as a potential solution to break out of the continuing Microsoft licensing cycle.

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Can a floral business really go paperless? This is what I'll be exploring today and tomorrow as I pen next month's Plugged In column for the Society of American Florists magazine, Floral Management. Today, I'll be gathering resources online which I'll post to this page as I find them. So come back to check out my progress and learn from my search. COMMENTS with links/leads APPRECIATED!

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