E-mail Me!

I welcome e-mail with comments, suggestions, and criticism of my tools and also general questions about Chinese and Chinese computing. Please take a moment to look at the FAQ I have prepared below to see if it already answers your question. Also, if you are e-mailing due to a problem with one of the tools, please give me as much detail as you can about the nature of the problem, your web browser, and your operating system. This will help me solve the problem as quickly as possible.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I display and type Chinese on my computer?

There are several approaches to working with Chinese on computers. First is to have the entire operating system support Chinese. This is the most popular option where the user only deals with Chinese and not other languages. Microsoft sells both traditional and simplified Chinese versions of its Windows operating system.
  If you already have an English operating system, then you can use a program that adds Chinese capabilities to your existing programs. Program like this include TwinBridge Chinese Partner and UnionWay for Windows and the Chinese Language Kit (CLK) for Macintosh. I don't know of a program like this for Unix.
     For an increasing number of programs, all you need is a Chinese font to display Chinese. These programs incude Netscape Communicator, Office 97, and Microsoft Explorer. You can find both simplified and traditional Chinese fonts from Microsoft.

Could you send me the source code for ??? tool?

I have made much of my source code available under the Chinese Programs section. This includes the code for the segmenter, Chinese web counter, HTML escape converter, and the Word97 input macro. I consider requests for other tools on a case by case basis.

Could you tell me how to say ??? in Chinese? Could you send me a picture of ??? translated into Chinese?

Translation is an exacting process and it can be hard to tell what meaning you want, even for a short phrase. Also, as a non-native speaker of Chinese, I might miss the nuances and proper way of saying what you want. Finally, producing pictures of Chinese is a time-consuming process. For these reasons, I generally do not respond to requests for translations or tattoo help. However, I do make available many resources you can use to look up words. Most useful of these is the Chinese-English dictionary. You can also try the Chinese Discussion Board at Zhongwen.com.

As a final note for tattoo seekers, I would caution people against trusting a stranger to give them a picture that they will have permantly drawn into their skin.