Jaa's Blog

Firefox 3 Thaana display bug: review and fixes

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:37:59 -0400

Maldivians who use Firefox would be aware that certain Dhivehi websites, such as Miadhu Online, no longer display the Thaana fonts correctly when they switched to the recently released version 3 of the popular browser. I would like to review the issue for the benefit of Maldivian web developers and put forward some solutions that could be used. Further, I would also like to make available a fix that ordinary web users can themselves use until website owners (or the Firefox developers) fix the issue.

Problem description:
Firefox 3.x series (and the 2.x series as well, to a lesser extent) fails in correctly displaying Thaana in web pages when certain non-Unicode Thaana fonts are applied to the elements using CSS. The same pages, however, render correctly without issue with Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera.

DOCTYPE - One contributing factor seems to be the DOCTYPE of the page. My guess is that this issue may have something to do with quirksmode rendering or standards compliance. The lack of a DOCTYPE in the markup gives correct rendering of the Thaana fonts on the page. However, omission of the DOCTYPE cannot and should not be considered a solution as DOCTYPE is required for most page markup and browsers need the correct DOCTYPE specification to correctly render modern pages.

Font - Another factor seems to be the font file used. The Thaana characters fail to be rendered correctly when almost all of the commonly used Thaana fonts, such as A_Faseyha, A_Waheed and A_Randhoo, are used. However, some fonts do work without issue - A_Ilham for example.

Here are some demo pages to highlight the issues. Each of the pages has three lines of Thaana - first of which is Thaana text enclosed in a font tag specifying a (problematic) Thaana font, the second is a H3 headline which has the font family set to a (problematic) Thaana font using CSS alone, the third is again a H3 headline which has the font family is set to a (problematic) Thaana font using CSS but has the text placed inside a font tag and finally the fourth line has a H3 headline whose font family is set to a (working) Thaana font using CSS alone.
View Thaana on page with: no DOCTYPE, HTML 4.01 DOCTYPE and XHTML 1.0 DOCTYPE.

Developer's fix:
There are two definite solutions that can be easily applied by web developers:
1. Add HTML Font tags around any and all text that is to be displayed in Thaana. Specify the font to be used within the "face" attribute of the Font tags as usual. The flip-side of this method is that it results in a significant increase in page size. Haveeru News seems to have addressed the problem using this method.
eg: <a href="somelink">bwlimIhunc aufulunc</a> should be transformed into <a href="somelink"><font face="a_faseyha">bwlimIhunc aufulunc</font></a>

2. Change font used in the CSS definition to "A_Ilham". It is, perhaps, not as clean and pretty as "A_Faseyha" but until there is a fix to Firefox it will have to do.

A further alternative solution would be for the site owners and developers to take this occasion to shift to Unicode Thaana. It is much more reliable and is the currently recommended method of displaying Thaana on the web. Jazeera Daily, Haama Daily and MvHeadlines, to name a few, are all using Unicode for text display and entry. You can utilize the PHP-based Thaana Conversions class I released to convert the existing non-Unicode Thaana text to Unicode - and you can do such conversion on-the-fly on page requests.

User's fix:
I wrote a quick bookmarklet-based solution several weeks ago for my use after getting annoyed with having to open Internet Explorer to view pages from sites affected by this bug. This solution will, or rather should, work on any affected site and on any computer.

Simply right click on this link - Jaa's Thaana Fix - and select "Bookmark this link" from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the link onto your bookmarks toolbar. When you are on a page that is messed up by the bug, such as Miadhu Online, Vaikaradhoo Live or Kavaasaa, click the "Thaana fix" link on your Bookmarks menu or toolbar. You will need to do this for each page you view.

Happy reading

Javascript Thaana Keyboard version 3.0

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:18:18 -0400

I released my Javascript Unicode Keyboard Handler for Thaana early this year as open-source software so that web developers producing Dhivehi websites can allow users to type Thaana straight into text entry fields without forcing them to switch keyboard using the relevant features on the user's computer operating system. The code has since made its way into many different Dhivehi websites. However, the code I released then was mostly as-is from it's original version which I had written back in 2003 which, sadly, means that its behavior could be a little bit unpredictable with certain modern browsers - especially Opera and Safari.

I've now rewritten the code with the intent of producing cleaner, easier-to-use code that works without fail on all modern browsers. This version is (more or less!) guaranteed to work, and has been tested, on Firefox 2+, Opera 9+, Internet Explorer 6+ and Safari 2+ and has also been tested on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

I am a big fan of separating code from design, so in keeping with that ideal this new version uses a more modern way of assigning the Thaana keyboard functionality in favour of inline javascript event handling used by the previous version (look below for an example). Since everything needs a spunky name I've also changed the old name to the more descriptive "Javascript Thaana Keyboard", which future versions of the script will maintain.

As before, it is being released under the MIT License, which allows its use in both personal and commercial applications as long as the copyright and license permission notice remains intact - so what the guy at basfoiy.com has done is a definite no-no.

Usage:
1. Link the file in the HEAD section of the page:

<script type="text/javascript" src="jtk-3.0-min.js"></script>

2. For any text input element (i.e INPUTs or TEXTAREAs), assign them the class name "thaanaKeyboardInput". You can assign further classes to the elements without ill-effect, if needed.

3. Using CSS, set any Unicode-compatible Dhivehi font (and size) to be used for the fields. You can easily do that by adding a class definition for the "thaanaKeyboardInput" class or by any other method of your choice.

4. The Thaana functionality would be automatically applied to any elements with the required class name when the page is loaded!

Demo:
Check out the demonstration and testing page here.

Download:
- original full source version (7.34 KB)
- minified version (2.01 KB)
I recommend you use the minified version.

As always, drop a line here if you use it and/or have problems or suggestions. Enjoy.

Guide to blogging in Dhivehi using WordPress

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:52:00 -0400

Here is a short guide to using Thaana to make posts in Dhivehi using the free WordPress blogging service. I regularly get emails from different people asking me for help on this topic, so I hope this is helpful to all such people .

The solution presented here can be used on the free Wordpress blogging accounts available from WordPress.com and also on custom installs of WordPress. Please be aware, however, that there are much better ways to setup WordPress for Dhivehi posting if you have a custom install of WordPress or have a paid WordPress account.

Requirements:
You need to have the Dhivehi keyboard installed on your computer. If you already type Dhivehi, say using MS Word or OpenOffice, then you have this already. See this post by Fayid if you need help with getting the Dhivehi keyboard installed.

Steps:
1. Login to WordPress and click on the "Write" tab to start a new post.

2. In the post editor area, find and click the "HTML" tab to switch the view to HTML mode.

3. Copy and paste the following code into the editing area. It contains the bare minimum HTML/CSS needed to correctly display Dhivehi on all browsers supporting right-to-left text display in Unicode.

<div style="direction: rtl; text-align: right; font-family: faruma, 'mv iyyu nala', 'mv elaaf normal'; font-size: 14px;">Test</div>

4. Tinker around with the font family and font size settings if you know some CSS (or are feeling adventurous enough!). Faruma is probably the most decent Dhivehi Unicode font and is installed on most computers - hence is listed as the first preference. Different people like different font sizes for Dhivehi but 14px and 16px, I think, tend to be the easiest on the eye.

5. Click the "Visual" tab to switch the view back to the normal WYSIWYG mode.

6. Switch the keyboard to "Divehi" on the computer.

7. Select or delete the "Test" text on the post editor and start writing in Dhivehi.

That's all it takes!

Notes:
Unfortunately, there is no way to apply proper formatting to the post title with the free accounts on WordPress so you will have to settle for the out-of-alignment title display.

Video guide:
I thought it'd be fun to make a video guide for this and here is what thus materialized: View good quality | View crap quality (Youtube)

Good luck with the blogging!

Using 4GB SDHC Cards with the TI PCIxx12 Integrated FlashMedia Controller based card readers

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:18:08 -0400

I recently bought a 4GB microSDHC card and had serious trouble reading the card using my laptop's built-in card reader under Windows Vista w/ SP1. The card reader had been able to read other cards of less capacity, including a 1GB card, just fine. Looking around on the web made it apparent that a LOT of people had the same issue when attempting to read cards above 2GB. It took a lot of reading through various forum posts on the subject before I finally got it working with the 4GB card.

The built-in card reader in my Acer Aspire 5673WLMi uses the Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Integrated FlashMedia Controller, which is a device found on a lot of laptops of various different models and brands. The latest driver version for the device currently issued by Acer, and most other manufacturers, is versioned 2.0.0.6. The two main solutions proposed on the forums is 1) an install/upgrade of the existing driver manually without using the installer software, and 2) registry hacks that supposedly fix the problem. Neither of these worked for me, though the forums postings indicate these "fixes" worked for many people.

I spent the better part of a day reading and checking various proposed fixes and, in the end, all it took was for the recent version 2.0.0.7B driver found on the HP Customer Care website to be installed...

Anyway, I thought I'd reiterate the solution in case it helps someone else...

Me on Twitter

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:25:19 -0400

Twitter is a free microblogging service that has been around for quite a while. I didn't think much of it when it was first launched and never thought it would become as popular as it has become now. It looked (and is, in some ways) like an appropriation of the likes of the "status" field found on Facebook and seemed silly. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a spin a few months ago and ended up finding it suprisingly fun and addictive.

Now, I find Twitter to be an amusing application/service that is more than just a status field - it extends the human. Telephones made the globe small and instant messaging (chat) applications make the world even smaller by keeping people easily in reach and in touch of each other regardless of the physical distance between them. Microblogging and status updates, like that provided by Twitter, I think, take another step to make the world tiny. Almost all of the people that I "follow" on Twitter update their status regularly and I remain aware of (some of) what they are upto and (some of) their thoughts - given that their Tweets are honest, ofcourse!. It is sort of like seeing, hearing or just "knowing" what a group of people are upto even though they are beyond and away from the capacities afforded by my biological sensory organs. It reminds me of the Borg collective conciousness as on Star Trek and the truth maybe just that these are modern day precursors towards such. Maybe that is letting my imagination run a bit wild but I can really see that happening if (and when) the man and machine merge further...

Anyway, coming back to reality, follow me on Twitter if you like... and perhaps join The Collective even.

Tribute to Randy Pausch

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:59:00 -0400

This post is a tribute to Dr. Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, who passed away a few days ago from pancreatic cancer at age 47. He became an internet phenomenon late last year after his "Last Lecture" on achieving childhood dreams (see below) appeared on YouTube and spread virally. I had watched it a few months ago and found it extremely inspirational and moving. He had been aware of his imminent death at the time of that lecture, yet had appeared very full-of-life, passionate and positive - and infectiously so.

The finality of death is an extremely initimidating fact of life to most of us. I've no clue how I respond if I were to suddenly find myself with an expiry date with a definite upper bracket. I hope I manage to make real atleast a few of my dreams before I die... which incidentally, as with Dr. Pausch, does include being in zero gravity!

Partial Solar Eclipse visible in Maldives on 1 August

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:08:20 -0400

A solar eclipse will occur on 1 August 2008 with quite a few cities being treated to a full eclipse.

Maldives scrapes the edges of the penumbra and hence is in for a view of a partial eclipse. However, only those islands to the north of Thaa (Kolhumadulu) Atoll will be able to see it and the northern-most atoll of Haa Alifu (Thiladhummathi North) Atoll gets the best show. The eclipse starts at 16:48 MVT and ends 17:23 MVT, with mid eclipse at 17:06 MVT. Remember that looking at the sun without the proper gear can and will damage the eyes, even during an eclipse. Sun glasses and used X-Ray paper aren't effective and should be avoided. The best way to view the eclipse (I would recommend) is to make a pinhole projector - it is cheap and easy to make and allows several people to view it at the same time. I urge Maldivian science teachers to take initiative and expose kids to the phenomena by arranging a group viewing of the event!

For those of us unable to view it and feeling left out (including me ), there is a planned live webcast of the view of the total eclipse from an observatory in China.

More info about the eclipse can be found at the NASA Solar Eclipses page. Find out if the eclipse is visible at your location using the interactive map tool found here.

Bodufenvalhugey Seedhee's house in HDh Makunudhoo

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:47:52 -0400

I had mentioned Bodufenvalhugey Seedhee in a recent post and posted a link to a photo of his now abandoned house in HDh. Makunudhoo. I found a short mobile video I had taken of the place and thought I'd share it. His "teleportation well", which supposedly connects directly to Kaashidhoo Kandu, is seen towards the end of the video.

MultiSSH 0.1

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:14:54 -0400

MultiSSH is a command line SSH client written in PHP that is able to conduct an interactive session on multiple SSH servers simultaneously. It is pretty handy if you have similar tasks to be run on a bunch of servers and want to control all of them simultaneously via one interface. Servers to connect are specified via a text file containing tab-separated listing of remote IPs and the username and password for each. Alternatively, if all servers have the same username and password, it can be passed as an argument when the script is run. It supports sending control characters to remote terminals through special commands.

I wrote this originally for a client project but since it got binned later I thought I'd throw this into the public.

Usage:
multissh.php <iplistfile> <defaultuser> <defaultpass>

Requirements:
- PHP 4/5
- SSH2 extension for PHP

Download MultiSSH 0.1 (Zip, 3KB)

Stochastic Diffusion Search for Real-Time Web Search

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:00:40 -0400

My third year project at uni (this year) involved investigating the application of Stochastic Diffusion Search to the problem of real-time web search by designing and implementing such a search engine in software. It certainly was interesting work and though the project had been completed successfully, there are a few things I wish I had explored and experimented with a bit more. I have another major project to tackle for the last year of my M.Eng degree in AI and Cybernetics which begins next month.

Anyway, here is a short presentation I had given based on a research paper I had to submit on my work as part of the course. I hope you find it interesting...

Radheef for Facebook passes 200th user

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Thu, 22 May 2008 12:10:21 -0400

Radheef for Facebook, the little Facebook application that displays random words from the Radheef on the Facebook profile, has reached its 200th user. It took the whole of three months since its launch in February 2008 for it to get there! :S

- View the application's About page on Facebook

And here dwelleth 300,000 invisible beings

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Sat, 17 May 2008 09:50:11 -0400

Most Maldivians are by now familiar with the drama unfolding in Makunudhoo. It has been on the news a lot and has been blogged about a lot but photos haven't been very forthcoming - well, except for a blurred image on Haveeru Daily and a photo stolen from my Flickr stream published on Miadhu News. So here are some images of the historic Makunudhoo School where Man and Jinn live side by side and study side by side, though not always in harmony as has been revealed. The school may replace the island's currently most famous landmark: the residential ruins of the infamous Bodufenvalhugey Seedhee (known for various supposed supernatural feats such as "walking on water" between islands, "helping" the infertile conceive etc) including its "teleportation well".

And yes, in case you wonder, it is ridiculous to believe this is a battle between invisible Jinn and humans, especially when there are good explanations.

Enjoy... stand awed.

Makunudhoo Jinns: The story

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:39:00 -0400

Yesterday, I called up a friend in Makunudhoo who is pretty familiar with the mass hysteria (or jinn possession, depending who you ask) that has gripped the students of the island's school for the past month to have a little chat about the events taking place there. Some of the events, including the digging of the school grounds, are missing from here because we had talked about it an earlier conversation which I sadly didn't record. I am posting a transcript of the later conversation here (with permission). It is a translation from Dhivehi ofcourse but I've avoided doing the sort of fancy rephrasing and rearranging that is advocated in Dhivehi translation classes in the hopes of preserving the original as much as possible. The bits inside brackets were added by me to help make subjects and contexts clearer.

-----
Me: Hey, this is Jaa. You busy?
ZZ: No. No. Excellent time.
Me: I just wanted to get some more details on what's happening in the island. I am hoping to write it up on my blog.
ZZ: Great. Go ahead.
Me: Can you tell me how this happened. Did it happen to many at once or was it just one kid?
ZZ: It was one kid at first. It was about a year ago.
Me: Is it! How does that relate to this event?
ZZ: It happens to this kid every now and then. But it got so serious only this month.
Me: So the kid has fits? Regularly?
ZZ: Yes. There are about 3 or 4 kids in the school that gets fits.
Me: So what happened this time?
ZZ: What happened this time was that one of the kids got possessed, by Jinn. Following that, a boy in Grade 10 said it was happening because of a tree in the school. He said he was going to hit the tree with a ball and went ahead to kick a ball into the tree. When he did that the ball is said to have hit the hand/fingers of a Jinn child and broke it. The boy fell unconscious immediately following that.
Me: I see.
ZZ: The boy's hands were contorted as well.
Me: Uhuh. So that was the first two kids?
ZZ: Those two escalated the situation. There are a total of about 6... err 10, 12 kids now. 10-12 have been admitted sick now.
Me: I see. The kid that this first happened to... you say it's regular... Had a doctor been consulted earlier?
ZZ: They went to a doctor even the first time. They didn't call it a Jinn event then, it was diagnosed as fits then. It is only now this became a Jinn possession. So many kids had fallen sick at the same time so it wasn't believed to be fits.
Me: Newspapers made it seem that this happened to a lot of kids, at the same time. Did it happen that way or was it gradual... one by one... a few at a time?
ZZ: No no. This school is 40 years old. And in this 40 years, about every year or every six months a kid would fall sick. That is fall during assembly. Whether that's because of fainting or something else, it's not known. But since talking to the Jinn (by the fanditha/blackmagic practitioners), it has appeared that the school is also attended by 1000 Jinn children. And that the Jinn parents number to 300,000...
Me: Uhuh
ZZ: And that their kids are not as good at studies as us Dhivehi, us humans. They are taking revenge because they haven't been improving and also because when our kids play ball during assembly, err PE, the ball hits their kids.
Me: How did this spread to other kids?
ZZ: Apparently the Jinns have made a list... those Jinns. So all kids on the list are to get sick and it's been happening that way.
Me: So the first day this happened, a lot of kids fell sick and the second day more kids fell? Is that how it happened?
ZZ: Yes that is how it happened this week... this month.
Me: I see.
ZZ: Yea.
Me: Has any of the kids gotten better?
ZZ: No. None of the kids have gotten better.
Me: But the fanditha is still going on?
ZZ: The fanditha is proceeding very strong. They have now put 150 Jinns into a can and sunk them into the sea... the fanditha men have said.
Me: I see.
ZZ: A psychologist came to the island last night. The psychologist assessed the kids and said it wasn't related to Jinns. But the parents didn't believe that. They say it was caused by Jinns and no treatment by the psychologist will treat that.
Me: I see.
ZZ: So the psychologist had to leave (the island) immediately.
Me: Hehe. I see. Umm. Is there any news if any sort of change, like that of odour, was noticed in the area?
ZZ: This is happening not because of a change in odour. There are no smells. There were a number of trees. Even the affected sick children are saying that something lives in those trees and they see it as their land. So when the tree was cut, those Jinns got furious and many more children fell sick.
Me: But wasn't the tree felled recently?
ZZ: Yes. Things got this bad when the tree was felled.
Me: I see. But why did the tree have to be felled? Didn't one of the kids say things would get better once the tree is felled?
ZZ: No no. Not that because it would release the kids. It was done with the intent of sending the Jinn off. It was assumed that they wouldn't stay there once their home was destroyed and so when the parents requested for the tree to be felled it was done so.
Me: Uhuh.
ZZ: Now the Jinns have moved to the largest "nika" tree in the island.
Me: So how far has the fanditha proceeded? How long is it to take?
ZZ: It is going on full speed. They had a 40 man chanting last night and they are going to do chants tonight too. He (the fanditha practitioner) says he doesn't want to "cure" the kids just yet because he still needs to question the Jinn over certain things. He assures though that he is going to leave only once he "cures" the kids.
Me: Did he say how long he is going to take?
ZZ: He hasn't given a date yet.
Me: So hopefully the Jinns would go away soon? To a nearby island.
ZZ: (Laugh) People have asked for the Jinns to be sent off to another island.
Me: How about the two near uninhabited islands?
ZZ: Not those two islands. People have requested the Jinns to be expelled from the island, to make it so that they are unable to enter the school. People would like a (magic) barrier to be placed around the island to prevent the Jinns from coming in. The fanditha men has now created the wall around around and they have expelled around 300,000 Jinns from out the wall. They say that only a few infidel crippled Jinn remain now.
...
Me: Thanks!
--------

I made a short post earlier about this incident in Makunudhoo and linked to a few interesting research papers related to mass hysteria in hopes of putting things into a more scientific perspective. MaldivesHealth has since posted on the amusing case of the genitalia vanishing epidemic in Nigeria and more. It maybe true that it really are the Jinns that are at the root of the problem Makunudhoo is facing, yet centuries of (global) experience and amassed knowledge tells us that it is far far far more likely to be a ...

Browsing the sky with WorldWide Telescope (and Google Sky)

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:57:58 -0400

I am hooked... to WorldWide Telescope! I love Google Sky and am an avid fan of it, but this new software from Microsoft Research kicks it all up a notch. WWT gives access to images of the sky from various different databases including the DSS optical, infrared and even the WMAP microwave imagery in a really slick, smooth interface. I've spent a good few hours today browsing through the sky, literally, and reading up.

Here is an image of the Orion belt I snapped from WTT. These three stars are part of the Orion constellation and are among the most prominent and easily identifiable stars in the skyscape. In fact, any Maldivian who has ever looked up at the night sky should recognize them. It is one of the first star constellations that I had learnt of and was a source of great wonder when I was a kid.

And here is an image of the planet Mars - the (almost) unmissable bright red dot in the sky. Many Maldivians seem to have a special relationship with Mars - as demonstrated by a habit of falling for the Mars sunrise-from-west doomsday fantasy hoax and the Mars as-large-as-Moon hoax. I think it might be appropriate for all those people to see the planet up close.

It is amazing that through modern technology, merely equipped with free software like the WWT or Google Sky (and its web version), that anyone of us can now zoom on these and other objects in the sky and enjoy a whole new level of awe and appreciation of the world around us...

Thaana date formatting for PHP 5

nospam@example.com (Jaa) — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:37:00 -0400

Here is a PHP 5 class that provides a drop-in function replacement/equivalent for the built-in PHP date() function to output formatted dates in Thaana/Dhivehi. It follows the standard method of writing Gregorian dates in Thaana by using transliterations of the English month names and using the native Dhivehi names for the week days. It accepts all the usual formatting arguments permitted by the original date() function thus allowing the same degree of formatting freedom as the original. The output returned from the function uses ASCII Thaana and, if needed, can then be converted to Unicode/UTF-8 by using the Thaana Conversions class. This class does not support Hijri dates (yet).

The class is being released under the Open Source MIT License.

Functions exposed:
format()
Returns a Dhivehi date string formatted according to the given format string using the given integer timestamp

Usage:
$thaanatoday = Thaana_Date::format('j M Y', time());

Download:
- Thaana_Date.zip (v0.2, 1.4KB)

Drop me a line if you have comments/queries. Enjoy