News is back, fresher and faster

Just a short post to let you know that writeKA news is back online, fresher and faster than before. Take a look - http://news.writeka.net.

Newly Launched - writeKA News!

I've just launched the latest addition to writeKA - writeKA News. Here, you can read the latest news from multiple news sources. The content is dynamically created and refreshed constantly. As of now, news is available in English and Hindi. The number of supported languages will be increased as the application becomes more stable.

Hope you will like it, as always, please let me know your views via Feedback.

writeKA - now on Google's सबसे लोकप्रिय सामग्री

Yes! The writeKA Hindi Transliterator gadget made it to the blue list, the list of most popular Google Gadgets on the Hindi version of iGoogle. Its a volatile virtual world out there, so I'm going to enjoy my moment of glory. :-) When you read this, if I'm lucky, it'll still be there. Go to http://www.google.co.in/ig/hi and if you are NOT logged in, iGoogle will show you a list of most popular utilities.


Apart from this great news, I've updated writeKA's transliteration gadgets to use the new intelligent Scripton engine.

You can add them to your Google home page -
writeKA Hindi Transliterator for iGoogle
writeKA Malayalam Transliterator for iGoogle

You can also also add them to your website -
writeKA Hindi Transliterator for your website
writeKA Malayalam Transliterator for your website

Malayalam, now on Scripton!

I've recently added intelligent online transliteration for Malayalam using the new Scripton transliteration engine. Scripton tries to predict what word you are trying to in without using any fixed transliteration map. For example, if you type in malayalam ezhuthan eluppam, then you'll get മലയാളം എഴുതാന്‍ എളുപ്പം.

Go ahead and give it a try - writeKA Scripton - English to Malayalam.

Screenshots of Scripto

Just thought I'll post some screenshots of Scripto here so you can take a peek before you download...

Scripto with the names of the default languages in version 0.2.0...

The dialog box for downloading new languages or updating existing ones...

The Blog Account setup, Adding a new account by just providing the blog URL.

And Scripto does the config for you.... (except user name and password of course!)
Publishing to a blog is simple - select your blog URL and enter password, then click Publish...

So go on, download and give it a try now...

Introducing Scripton . . .

I just realised I never formally introduced Scripton, the new intelligent online transliteration engine on writeKA (and a distant cousin of Scripto from the previous post)! OK, now I did. :-)

Right now, only the Hindi version of Scripton is publicly available. Other languages will follow soon. (as soon as I get to work on it!) Why do call Scripton intelligent? Because, it does a moderately good job of trying to guess the words correctly when you write in Hindi. For example, if you write tamatar aur kabutar, it will give the correct output as टमाटर और कबूतर. This wouldn't be possible in a fixed map engine like the ones used earlier. The engine will only improve with time as more people use it and correct presently incorrect outputs.

Give it a shot - writeKA Scripton.

writeKA Scripto 0.2.0 Beta version released

I've just released the second beta version of writeKA Scripto.
Download Scripto.

It has a new look and feel and a lot more features, though the core transliteration mechanism has remained the same. I'll spend some more time on the core functionality in the newer releases.

The new features include:
1. Email using SendEmail
2. Publishing to all blog engines that support MetaWeblog API. This means you can now post directly to blogs running on Wordpress, MSN Live Spaces etc.
3. Auto configuration of blog accounts by making use of RSD.
4. A cool new icon set called Silk
5. Easy selection of (and shifting between) languages. Its also easier to add new languages.
6. Direct download of language maps from within the client - If you did not find your language and you would like to contribute to getting it included, please contact me or just post a comment here.

I also did a lot of clean up under the hood. I hope you all like it... please let me know!