badmigraine 0 Posted September 14, 2004 Share Posted September 14, 2004 For me the holy grail of personal computing is an OS where you can switch the user interface into any language you want. All menus, dialogue boxes, system and error messages, etc. would be in the language you select. Right now, this is Apple OSX, which I can't use because I don't have an Apple computer...and it's MS Windows 2000 Pro or XP Pro combined with the MS MUI ("Multilanguage User Interface"...not available to single or retail users, only for volume licenses of 5 seats or more). People like me are left out in the cold. I can't buy a PC at Bic Camera, secure in the knowledge that I can flip the Japanese XP into English XP, and cope with the barrage of weird network and error messages that I am bound to get over the months of installing and playing with various apps and utilities. My Japanese Win XP will only ever be Japanese. I could buy English XP for 25,000 yen. I could dual-boot my system with, say, English Win2000, which I already own. But I don't want to dual boot and reinstall all my apps on the new partition. Ho-hum. What a drag. I just want my wife to be able to use a fully Japanese machine, then flip it to English for me. And running native Japanese apps on an English OS doesn't work very well. Heck, even the MS IME on an English OS screws up the Japanese often enough. The e-mail body displays correctly, but the subject line is mojibake. The e-mail displays correctly in Outlook, but is mojibake in Notes. Who knows what it is? Wrong character set selected I guess. Some web pages lack the correct META tag. Ho-hum. This is arcane hobbyist stuff, not a seamless solution to a simple problem. The technology is still not ready...unless you own a Mac. Anybody know of a version of Linux that does the multilanguage user interface trick? Link to post Share on other sites
stripper on coke 0 Posted September 15, 2004 Share Posted September 15, 2004 badmigraine, just get a mac...... Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted September 15, 2004 Author Share Posted September 15, 2004 Here's my take on Macs...I've always admired them, but even when I've had plenty of money and needed a new computer, I never bought a Mac. I guess I just don't want one. I can't picture myself using and enjoying a Mac. Just like I can't picture myself riding a Harley, wearing three-button suits, or being attracted to blonde women. It's just not me. Unless somebody gives me one for free of course. Link to post Share on other sites
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