The scene in the office on that sad day reminds one of sort of a virtual shiva; now-former employees make the last copies of their resumes on the office copy machine, the last paychecks are distributed, the boss signs letters of recommendations for workers, and whatever is left of the office supplies are distributed. And, of course, there’s the last lunch, with employees and managers reminiscing on their time together, and promising to keep in touch.

Then there are the assets. The hardware that the service ran on are often taken by creditors, or the VCs who will not be seeing a return on their investment; the patents are either sold, rented out, or frozen, in the hope that they will be used to innovate on another day. And, of course, the final monetary accounting is taken, ensuring that former employees’ pensions and other savings plans are kept safe.

What about the data? Ah, there’s an interesting question. We would expect the information on hard drives and databases to be wiped; indeed, there would seem to be little use for user data after the service has closed down. Of course, someone could mine the database for email addresses and sell them, but the reputation of the company – and especially the management, and super-especially the CEO – would be severely tarnished. It’s hard to imagine an internet startup whiz, who was able to raise millions of dollars to fulfill his or her vision, would stoop that low – or be that hard up for cash.

But there might be other information that could come in handy – depending on the nature of the service. Here is a quote from a well-known internet service, where you can store information, documents, and ideas, for yourself or for others. “By submitting to [service] any ideas, suggestions, documents and/or proposals… you acknowledge and agree that… your contributions automatically become the property of [service] without any obligation of [service] to you; and you are not entitled to any accounting, compensation or reimbursement of any kind from [service] under any circumstances.”

I’m intentionally not naming the service, because in truth this terms of service (TOS) agreement is not unique; Gmail’s, for example, says that they have a right to use your information in all sorts of ways. Gmail, the classic cloud application, stores all your information online, and nowadays many people are using Gmail for their main mail account – meaning that they transmit all sorts of sensitive information right to Google’s waiting claws, which the company can theoretically use for nefarious purposes.

But I’m not worried about Gmail; any company whose stock price is in excess of $600 doesn’t need the petty business ideas and thoughts we may send through and store on their servers. Whatever we can come up with, I’m pretty sure the Google people have already thought of, and they either have a pilot program going based that idea, or have rejected it as not being applicable to their business model.

But what about a service that stored information like Google does – including sensitive spreadsheets, business plans, communications, thoughts and ideas – shares of which are not trading at $625 a share, and in fact are no longer trading at all, because they’re bust? Could one of our business ideas – a really good one – end up the property of an ex-CEO, or to whomever said CEO or the board of directors sells the intellectual aspects of the former service provider?

Concerns over computer application and internet service TOS  are nothing new, and there have been many celebrated cases of user TOS protests – such as the one against Facebook, where users got nervous when Facebook claimed the right to use any user content posted by anyone, in any way they wanted to. According to the TOS that every user agrees to (but few bother reading before agreeing), the Facebook people have a perfect right to take your photos and sell them to an advertising agency. By clicking “yes” on a page that links to an agreement that says that “You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense)” and use in any way “any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service,” you’ve given them all the permission they need to use you in a “Don’t let this happen to you!” style ad campaign!

Partly as a result of the protests, Facebook has updated its privacy settings, making it easier to opt-out of any potential use of your content for purposes you didn’t intend them to be used for. But what are those Facebook-posted photos and updates worth anyway? It’s not like the company is going to auction off your photo to an ad agency for millions – and if your image is worth that kind of money, you’ve probably beaten Facebook to the ad agency and made your own deal, anyway.

But Facebook and Google are in leagues of their own; besides the fact that they’re wallowing in cash already, both companies would have far more to lose if they were caught selling, renting, or otherwise profiting from user content. As both companies make clear on their  websites and in numerous blogs, the legalese in the TOS agreements is for their protection, such as when data gets cached (and used) on a server not under their control, and ends up being linked to by an undesirable website. Numerous articles of mine, for example, are linked from the Jerusalem Post server to sites of less than savory individuals (anti-Semites and the like), but it’s clear that I couldn’t hold the Post responsible for that.

But when it comes to smaller web services whose future is iffy, beware. We want the convenience of the cloud, but not all cloud data and information storage services are created equal. I’m sure no CEO would be the type to want to rip off an innovative business plan or idea I posted/stored on his or her service/servers. And under normal circumstances it’s almost impossible to conceive of such a thing happening. But when the chips are down and said CEO is down and out, it’s entirely possible that his/her next Big Idea will be the very same one you jotted down and posted in your (private) account – an account on a site where the TOS says that “your contributions automatically become the property of [service] without any obligation of [service] to you.” It hasn’t happened yet (to my knowledge), but on the day it does, that fluffy white Cloud will turn dark and angry, and become the harbinger of a hurricane.

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Funny – we consumers are being squeezed all around, too! And if companies don’t have a grush (that’s an old-fashioned Israeli penny, for those who don’t know) to spare, we consumers are doing far worse – we’re in overdraft!

In one sense, the modern relationship between consumers and service suppliers (or even manufacturers) has become a see-saw. Companies are anxious to attract customers, so they offer rock-bottom prices for their products or services. But prices can only be cut so much; there are expenses that have to be covered, and somehow, companies have to make that money back.

For example: When a supermarket offers a “loss-leader,” they know that hordes of people will descend on the store for the on-sale product. But they’re also counting on those customers to buy the higher-priced items, to make up for the expense of the sale items. Airlines also provide an object lesson in this: Fares are historically low, but with crowded planes and iffy (if non-existent) service, flying is hell!

You’re always compromising something – either quality or service – when you buy cheap. But it’s not just the bargain providers who are stinting on service these days; full-price stores and service providers, encouraged by the example of how consumers sheepishly accept second-class as the norm, figure that they can save money on quality and service, too. The result: The whole concept of quality and service has been mortally wounded, with consumers expecting to get the proverbial “finger” at every turn.

Of course, you can always pay “premium” for “extra” quality or service – at a level that just a few years ago would have been considered “standard” (re commercial air travel). And while I could perhaps sympathize with the bottom-feeders for stinting on quality and service – I think consumers know what to expect when they buy at too-good-to-be-true prices these days – I have nothing but contempt for companies that are charging top shekel for their goods and services, but act like bargain sellers.

Take, for example, an internet service provider I work with, one of the six largest ISPs in Israel. They’re not a fly-by-night company – they’ve been doing ISP for over a decade, and usually my only relationship with them is paying the connection charges, since I am pretty self-sufficient when it comes to computer setup, installation, etc. For the first time in a long time, though, I needed their help with something – something that would have required the imparting of about five minutes of advice (which, it turned out, was readily available on the internet). But knowledge is power – and they weren’t about to part with that knowledge without a hefty payment!

Here are the details (don’t worry, we won’t get too technical!) Due to circumstances beyond my control, I’ve been using an internet router provided by Bezeq, the phone company, which I won in a lottery (or somehow other got for free). The first time I plugged in the router, I ran for cover, because it had far too many features for a home setup. Then when I recovered, I unplugged it and put it on a shelf – where it stayed until my “normal” router died, and out of desperation I decided to give the router, made by Asus (the infamous Asus 604g, for those who have had the pleasure) a try.

It actually works just fine, and is more or less self-managing – except for one issue. In order to work on several websites, I need to access port 2082, for an online application called Cpanel. Unfortunately, there is something in the guts of the Asus router that prevents accessing that port (very strange, because at this moment, a certain torrent program is downloading a certain file on an even more obscure port, 45601!).

After much effort configuring and reconfiguring, I figured I’d give my ISP a call. I’m a good customer – I pay my bills on time and don’t bother them too much with silly questions. Now, though, I had a serious issue; perhaps, having worked with this router extensively, they could give me some advice on what to do. I mean, it’s not like they’d be doing it for free; according to http://www.kamaze.co.il/, the NIS 75.90 I pay these people each month puts them at the “upper crust” (ie, second most expensive) of ISPs in Israel.

But no, said a pleasant fellow on the other end of the line (we’ll call him “Oren”). That information is classified – available only to “preferred” customers. One of which I could be if I was willing to shell out a subscription to their “network services,” at a cost of NIS 13.90/month, minimum six months. Wait a second, I told Oren. You’re saying that it’s going to cost me nearly a hundred shekels for five minutes of time with your ‘experts’ to get this working? Yup, said Oren. “How about this,” I said. “What if I ’subscribed’ now, got the information, and then cancelled my subscription after a month?” Nothing doing, Oren said – you “make a commitment to pay,” you pay. After much negotiating, Oren gave me his best offer: NIS 30 for a one-time conversation with the tech staff, who would guide me on what to do.

Well, of course I refused. And after a lengthy conversation, he suggested I call Bezeq, which supplied me with the router in the first place. In fact, he said, check out the Bezeq support pages – there just happens to be a PDF discussing exactly what I was trying to do! Wasting no more time, I did just that, and configured things according to the Bezeq site’s document. Alas, still to no avail. Even though I had done everything right, I still couldn’t get it to work.

It was time for a call to Bezeq, which I pay an internet connection fee to each month – surely they would support what they provided? But I should have gotten an idea of what to expect from the ads they kept pitching during the long (very long) minutes I was on hold; “networking” services for ten shekels a month, anti-virus protection for thirteen shekels a month, and other varied and sundry “products.” And of course, when “Yaron,” the Bezeq service rep, got on the phone, he quickly disabused me of my idea. The sought-after conversation could be had if I subscribed to Bezeq’s “expert” service, for more money, of course.

As it turned out, I got my answer for free – after a little more Googling. But the whole incident left a bad taste in my mouth, and in my wallet. In the old country, they used to call this kind of behavior “nickel and diming” – where a business tries to milk a customer for whatever it can. But it’s usually associated with “clip joints” on the Lower East Side, or other such less than savory shopping districts; you’d expect a respectable company you’ve done business with for years to want to prevent alienating customers. For example: Since the ISP in question was not the cheapest around, I told Oren, it’s an indication that price is not necessarily the main motivation for customers to remain with their service. Why not just charge an extra five shekels across the board and provide tech help to all who need it? That would surely cover the costs entailed in a more generous approach to helping customers, and enhance the experience for customers, who will feel more like humans and less like milk cows?

To this Oren had no clear answer – and as a junior employee in a big conglomerate, he’s the wrong person to ask. But if my ISP – or any other business or service provider, for that matter – prefers to think that price is the main (or perhaps only) motivation for my using their products or services, does that mean I am a “frier” for not automatically going for the cheapest option automatically? At least there, I won’t feel I’m overpaying when I don’t need “special services” – unlike the case now.

That works, of course, if you’re lucky enough to be in a vehicle that breaks down near the restaurant district. But let’s say your bus or car gives up the ghost on the way to Eilat – far from any wifi connections – and your replacement transportation is hours away. Meanwhile, you’re stuck on the side of the road, and you’ve got reports to file, virtual meetings to attend, or work on the server you’ve got to get done. Whaddaya gonna do now?

It’s especially galling – and frustrating – to be in a situation where you actually have time to get stuff done uninterrupted, but no way to get that work done, because you can’t connect to the internet. But to the rescue come the cell phone service providers, who will allow you to use their cellular network for your internet needs – for a price.

If you’ve recently acquired a new phone from an Israeli cell phone service provider and/or signed up for a new talk/SMS package, chances are you were offered an opportunity to receive a cellular modem for your laptop, which you can use to connect to the internet using the cell company’s 3G internet connection. If your job really requires you to connect to the internet at the drop of a hat, anytime and anywhere, a cell modem could be just what you need in the way of “internet insurance.”

If this sounds like something you could use, the service reps at your local friendly cell phone service provider will be happy to hook you up (unless you’re with Orange, where, based on the three phone calls I had to make in order to get answers, information on cell modem surfing packages is a well-kept secret).

In order to surf the net, you need two things – a modem (or other communication method, as will be described below) and an internet package. Most 3G phones come with such packages – the basic one at Orange is 21 shekels a month, for example – and when you sign up for the package, you’ll hear something like “you get 3GB of connection a month” (measured in data transfer). It sounds like a lot, and it is – but the catch is that the 3GB must be used only within the Orange network, ie on the sites they offer via their portal (“My Orange,” “Orange Time, “Orange News,” etc.). Once you leave the portal, though – to read, say, the New York Times online – you’re not connecting via your 3 GB of portal internet data allocation, but through the much more limited “external connection” allocation, which in the basic package, comes out to 30 MB of data transfer.

That’s not going to get you very far in the data world – it might be good for a couple of hours, but not much more. But for insurance purposes, 30 MB might be sufficient.

But then there’s the issue of the modem itself – and the cost. Orange offers three cell modems, one of which is priced way out of my league. The other two can be had for NIS 14 and 19 per month respectively, paid over a period of 36 months (total NIS 504 or 684). You get that money refunded, though, if you sign up for one of Orange’s “expanded” data plans – 5 GB of data connection for NIS 81 a month, or 20 GB for NIS 117. In addition, you have to commit to the plan for at least 18 months. And, if you stick with the basic package (or the medium one, which gives you 150 MB of data connection for NIS 40 a month) you have to pay for the modem – or supply one yourself.

Sounds expensive! There are ways to cut costs, though; there are many web sites that will tell you how to turn your Bluetooth-equipped cellphone into a modem – the advantage being that you can connect your laptop without a modem. But having used several phones in this manner, I can tell you that it’s often a complicated process, really not for the average phone user who just wants a little insurance against worst-case scenarios.

There is another way, though; for 15 euros (about 75 shekels), you can download and install a great program called JoikuSpot Premium, a piece of software that acts as a “soft” modem and lets you easily use your phone to connect a laptop to the internet. In fact, you can connect two or three laptops to the internet using JoikuSpot, which lets you provide insurance not just for your laptop, but for the laptops of friends and colleagues who had the bad luck to get stuck in the car with you!

The reason JoikuSpot is easier – on your computer, and on you, because it’s easier to set up – is because it translates your phone’s 3G internet connection into plain old wifi, making connecting a laptop to the phone modem a matter of choosing a wifi connection from the list your laptop usually presents you with. You can create a secure (password) connection with JoikuSpot, or even open a VPN pipe to a corporate server. You can change the name of the network, choose any (or no) landing page, and automatically drop down to a 2G connection if and when your 3G network runs out of gas (of course, the connection will be much slower). As an insurance policy, it’s a lot cheaper (and more versatile) than buying a modem, and you don’t have to commit to 18 months of 5 or 20 GB internet in order to get a free modem. So, the next time Ol’ Betsy starts smoking, don’t panic – pull over to the side of the road, called your service company for a tow, and make the most of your time doing some productive work – thanks to JoikuSpot!

Those percentages mean that if you haven’t already started your own blog or website, chances are good that you will at some point – because as someone with something to say, you probably won’t be satisfied remaining someone’s “employee,” and will likely want to be your own boss. Especially when you find out how much money the person you’re writing for is actually earning from the site (it’s probably more than s/he’s telling you).

Fortunately, there is an easy way for you to get a very professional looking blog – indistinguishable from a “website,” if you feel the need to differentiate between the two – that will cost you little or nothing, depending on how much work you put into it. How? By using Wordpress to build your sites.

While Wordpress is properly considered a blog authoring platform, the truth is that Wordpress has morphed far beyond blogs. The later versions of the platform (the latest release was 2.8.4) support myriad plug-ins and widgets, which allow you to integrate advanced features on your site – such as  flash slideshows, shopping carts, podcasts, mailing lists, links to social sites like Twitter and Facebook, SEO management capabilities, and much more – with the click of a button. Wordpress, in fact, is more like a content management system; the Wordpress software sets up your site and provides you with an easy way to upload information, whether text or images. You get a perfect looking blog/site, without having to poke around with the “guts” of html or css code running behind the scenes.

Wordpress is free (actually, as the site says, it is “both free and priceless at the same time”). You can download the software for installation on your favorite web host (a list of free hosts can be found at Click Here Free, but note that most of them either put ads on your site, or don’t let you use your own domain name). Actually you probably don’t even need to upload Wordpress to your site host, because it’s probably already included in the batch of software and services they provide (if the site where your web pages are hosted has you log in using Cpanel, Wordpress is already there). And, if all else fails, you can join the 223,954 other people with  blogs/sites at the free Wordpress hosting site, a free service provided by Wordpress. And, Wordpress is available in just about every language you can name, including Hebrew.

Everyone wants to be unique; nobody likes cookie cutter platforms, where the tools make your site end up looking similar to others who’ve used the platform. Uniqueness (along with advanced capabilities) is one reason professional web site builders are still in business, despite the plethora of free blog and site building platforms like Wordpress and Blog.com. But folks like us who want to save money are aiming a little lower. Luckily, though, with Wordpress, your aim can be almost as good as a pro’s!

When you first install Wordpress, the software sets you up with a default theme – one that will seem very familiar to you, because you will have seen it on dozens of blogs and sites on the internet, belonging to people who never bothered to change the default theme (called, oddly enough, Wordpress Default theme). But changing a theme is simple; all you have to do is find a theme you like, upload it to your host, and click on the “themes” button in your Wordpress site’s control panel to switch. Wordpress does all the heavy lifting, fitting your blog/site’s data into the new layout you’ve chosen.

So where do you find themes? That, I have found, is one of the biggest challenges in using Wordpress – not because they’re hard to find, but because there are so many! You can pay hundreds of dollars for Wordpress themes, but there are plenty of free ones to choose from as well, such as those listed here. The thing I look for when searching out a Wordpress theme (I recently converted all four of my sites to Wordpress) is support, flexibility/features (ie how much the site can be easily customized), and, of course, price (free!) Among the themes I’ve used are Mandigo, Atahualpa, Arthemia, Mimbo, and others – all with nice features and easy to access and understand support.

How long does it take to set up a Wordpress site? That depends on how much you tinker with the features, and how much configuring you want to do (Atahualpa, for example, has over 200 options you can tweak, until you get things “just right!”). Between the configuration options and the hundreds (thousands?) of plug-ins, you can easily and quickly (within a couple of days, even for newbies) build a blog/site you will be proud of posting on and promoting.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? To most of you, that is; you’ll note that I haven’t made any comparisons of Wordpress and other blogging/site building platforms. No doubt there is someone out there who is ready to pounce and e-mail me something like “why didn’t you mention that Blogger.com lets you do xyz that Wordpress can’t…”

Whew! I’m already afraid to open my e-mail! The truth is, there are many platforms out there that can be used to do what Wordpress does (not as easily or as successfully, though). The reason I wouldn’t consider Blogger is because I want to host my sites under my own domain names, something you can’t do at Blogger.com. And, then there’s the analysis of Wordpress (the platform) vs. Blogger.com. But there’s no need for a Blogger vs. Wordpress showdown; the blogosphere is big enough for the both of them.

That’s why I could never understand people who willingly gave up control of their circumstances to alcohol or drugs. In the movies (the more modern ones, at least), it looks like everyone taking “recreational drugs” is having a great time – at least until the morality aspect of the tale enters, and the happy substance abusers either get killed or carted off to jail.

What does all this have to do with computers? Well, it seems that someone has come up with a way to simulate the effects of mind-bending drugs – using a century and a half old technology that uses sound waves to mess with your brain! According to many of its users, binaural beats, as the sound waves are known, are very effective – and they can be used to wake you up, put you to sleep, unleash your creativity, or even send you on the equivalent of a drug-induced mental trip!

Basically, binuaral beats consist of pulses of two different frequencies being played in each ear at the same time. The pulses, in the 1,000 to 1,500 hertz range, have slight differences between them – less than 30 hertz. Depending on the differences in the pulses, the brain can be “entrained” (i.e. manipulated) to generate specific moods. The technology has been around since the 1830s, but has really come into its own in the past decade, as CD quality recordings and noise-canceling headphones allow users around the world to check out what some say could be an alternative to drugs – giving you the same effects (or close to it) with none of the dependence and legal problems “real” drug use entails.

One site, called i-Doser, has really capitalized on the potential association between binaural beats and mood drugs. For about $5, you can buy a “fix” of binaural cocaine, marijuana, crack, heroin, ecstasy, and all sorts of other chemicals “real” drug users take to get themselves in a mood. For example, check out the i-Doser description of its “Alchohol” dose: “Our alcohol dose is like shot gunning five glasses of gin, in force. The effects come on strong, but mellow fast, and ease into a condition of relaxation flightiness and overexcitement. Some have even experienced pure drunkenness from a single dose. Best of all, no hangover.”

The first question that comes to mind is, “can this be legal?” At least, that’s the first question that came to my uptight, in-control mind, and after an exhaustive internet search, I couldn’t find any law enforcement issues with i-Doser. So, it appears to be on safe legal ground.

The second question is, of course, “does this work?” It’s one thing to use binaural beats in a university lab for research, administered by people who know what they are doing, and another altogether to slap together an “aural drug” for use by thrill-seekers! And since most of the i-Doser doses cost real money, I wasn’t about to plunk down cash to find out. Opinions in the blogosphere appear to be mixed, with some praising i-Doser for changing their lives, and others calling it an outright “fraud and rip-off.”

But for the curious (don’t forget what killed the cat, though!) there are a couple of free alternatives to i-Doser. The closed-source commercial i-Doser program (required to play the tracks you download from the site) is actually based on an open-source program, available for Windows, OS X (PPC), and Linux, called SbaGen (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sbagen). SbaGen comes with several presets (as the binaural beat tracks are called), and there are many free sites where you can download more free tracks. In fact, there are tracks that are apparently very similar – and have similar names – to the ones offered by i-Doser. I don’t know if these are a ripoff of the i-Doser files, but the i-Doser FAQ says that “I-Doser uses a linked DLL based on SBaGen as its binaural beat engine,” and that “until June 2007, I-Doser was distributed in violation of SBaGen’s license,” when an agreement was worked out with the owner of the open-source code. So, maybe those files’ release are part of the settlement with SbaGen.

There is also an on-line site (run by an Israeli fellow) called i-Dose – no relation to i-Doser – that has tracks more in-line with the therapeutic credo of most binaural beat researchers (the SbaGen site says that despite the author’s settlement with i-Doser, this does not mean that he “approves of I-Doser’s use of high amplitude binaural beats to attempt to emulate the effects of recreational drugs — not in any way. There are very many positive benefits that can be gained through subtle use of binaural beats.”) The i-Doser site has on-line tracks with names like Relaxation, Super-Brain, Focus, Mirage (“Helps with art & creative activities”), Coffee Break, and others.

But does it work? Well, of course I tried a few of them. First, some guidelines: You need a good pair of stereo headphones to get any effect at all; the venue should be calm, and you should be ‘open’ to the experience (although I tried a couple of tracks while working); and you need a block of time, like a half hour for the average track, to get the full effect (although a mood shift is possible much sooner). Wanting to maintain control as I do, I decided that the safest tracks to try were the ones relating to extra energy. So, I tried the streaming Coffee Break track on the i-Dose site, and a file in SbaGen equivalent to one on i-Doser called “5HTP,” which “is an amino acid that is used in the brain to make the hormone Serotonin, which is your HAPPY Hormone.”

And – much to my shock – they worked! Yesterday I felt more energetic after a 15 minute Coffee Break, and today, I’m still “happy”- in the sense that I’m feeling “balanced” – an hour after listening to 5HTP. Now, of course, that could just mean I’m really a sucker, ready to feel what any old web site says I should feel after taking the high-tech equivalent of snake oil. Only one way to find out – I guess I’m going to have to so some “experimenting” (is this the first step on what they call the “slippery slope?”).

It doesn’t always work out that way. Even speakers of Esperanto, that world language unifier, are known to have differing, irreconcilable opinions at times. Esperanto, by the way, is alive and well, with as many as a million people worldwide speaking it. There’s even a site where you can learn it online (for free): http://en.lernu.net/, with lessons, forums, books, stories and even jokes in Esperanto. Interestingly, the site makes a point of saying that “people of many different ages and cultures use this website. Therefore, we ask that you always be tolerant and polite in your communications with other lernu! users.” And if the enlightened Esperanto folk can’t get along, what choice do the rest of us Neanderthals have? Not much, I guess. But it’s still a good idea to get a to know what the other guy – or the other side – is saying.

Any Israeli has got to wonder what they’re saying in Arabic. For many Israelis, anything in Arabic – in voice or in print – sounds threatening. We think that “they’re” always plotting against us, and that everything written in Arabic newspapers is an accusation against us, or even a blood libel. It just looks and sounds so – well, alien!

Given the political situation, it’s understandable why many Israelis (and Westerners, for that matter) would feel this way. And there’s no question that lots of what is written about Israel and Jews in Arabic newspapers, magazines and web sites is less than complimentary, shall we say. But we’re not always on the front pages of their publications – and they have plenty of beefs with others or among themselves that have nothing to do with us. And the entire idea of labeling a large group of hundreds of millions of people as “they” or “them” is ridiculous, anyway. There are hundreds or thousands of subgroups and subcultures among every large (and not so large) group – and the Arabs and/or Muslims are no different. To us, they seem a large, mostly unified mass, with their chief preoccupation the destruction of Israel and/or Western culture that threatens their way of life. Would we still feel that way if we could actually read what they wrote for “internal consumption” – or if we could communicate to them in their own language?

Maybe; my job is to ask the big questions, not answer them! The only way to find out is to actually read what they say in the Arab press and on Arabic language forums and web sites. No doubt you have read newspaper stories in local papers quoting from this London-based Arabic daily or that Jordanian or Egyptian semi-official weekly. While once you had to know a language well in order to understand pieces in such publications, the Internet today offers several options to enable you to understand those stories, using translation services by Microsoft, Google and others.

There Google goes again, opening up the world’s information sources to the common person. If you’ve never given Google’s translation engine a whirl, you must check it out. Some non-English language pages you come across on Google searches have a link that says “translate this page;” this is where they do it. The Google engine can translate to or from 25 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Finnish, and some “easier” ones, like Spanish and Italian, too (no Hebrew, though). You can paste text into the page’s translation box (it will even try to figure out what the language is if you aren’t sure) and display it in a language you can understand. Or, you can type in a URL, and the page will come up with its contents translated!

You might not always get proper sentence structure or grammar, although the translations into English do come out quite readable, from the pages in Arabic and Chinese that I converted. If you really do want to check out the Arabic press, you can use this site, which has links to Arabic language publications throughout the world (including the ones in the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia). I decided to check out an article at random from an Arabic language publication in Jaffa, called Al-Sabar. Putting the link into the Google engine, I got a reasonably understandable translation of the article – which turned out to be about the ongoing feud between Daniel Friedman and Aharon Barak, translated from a piece by an Israeli writer!

There are also several applications that make use of the Google engine to provide translations. One of the best I’ve come across is the Translate.net application, a free download that you use as your desktop translator based on not only the Google engine, but over two dozen other online translation services as well. The program will automatically choose the service, depending on what you’re translating; you tell it the subject matter of the translation – business, science, law, banking, etc. – and Translate.net finds the the right service with the right words for you.

Also highly recommended is FoxLingo, downloaded over a million times already (three times by me!). This one (for Firefox users only, so far) makes use of 35 online translators – it handles Hebrew as well – and lets you choose between the translations services, automatically translating a page upon request when you surf to it. FoxLingo lets you make some interesting comparisons, like which service – Google’s or Microsoft’s Live Translation – is more understandable. All of the 41 “foreign” languages handled by FoxLingo can be translated into English, and many of the key languages for Israelis interested in regional events – Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Russian, as well as Japanese, Korean, Ukranian, and most Western European languages can be translated in Hebrew as well. There are even applications now that will automatically translate SMS messages between writers of different languages: You write to them in English, and they see it in Spanish! Check out http://www.speaklike.com and http://home.transclick.com/ for some examples.

We’re not professional translators here – although if you were, you could go to http://www.proz.com/ and sign up to do some professional translations for a fee (or get someone to do some professional translating for you) – but that’s a story for another day. The translations offered by the free online services and applications (both Translate.net and FoxLingo are free) aren’t perfect, but they’re enough to give you a good understanding of what your neighbors are reading. What we’ll find when we figure out what they’re reading is something else.