tamil.net FAQ (thamizh language cybercommunity)
Bala Pillai
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TAMIL.NET FAQ October 1996
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Q What is tamil.net?
A tamil.net (pronounced "tamil dot net") is a tamil cybercommunity.
A cybercommunity is a meeting of minds. People listen to other
participants' ideas and views on prevailing topics. Some participate
actively while others are passive listeners. People learn and observe.
People formulate opinions about other participants. People develop
relationships with particular participants often through separate
email. Personal, common-interest, social and business relationships
are forged. Cybercommunity participants collaborate together for
projects - typically a member initiates an idea, passes it by the
cybercommunity, gets some support (or at least no vehement objection)
from community members, defines an action plan, breaks up the project
into many tasks, finds fellow members to take charge of parts of the
project and do certain tasks. End products are educational and
entertaining material for use by community members.
Q What is the objective of tamil.net?
A tamil.net's objective is to use the common interest in Tamil language
and
culture to unite Tamils from all over the world. It expressly stays
away
from politics.
Q How does it achieve this objective?
A It achieves this objective by directing participants' attention to
Tamil
issues where there's clear consensus - the respect for Thiruvalluvar,
the
desire to help people who want to learn to read and write Tamil are
examples.
tamil.net believes that if we spend more time on issues where there's
less dissent, there's a better chance of us learning to live with
dissent.
Q What types of issues does tamil.net cover?
A o Tamil Cultural Resources
oTamil Language Resources
oTamil Computing and Desk-Top Publishing
oTamil Internet Resources
oTamil Literature
oEdutaining Resources for Tamil parents outside and inside
Tamil Nadu
wanting to teach Tamil to their children
oWays of Reviving the Greatness of Tamil Civilisation
oAnnouncements of meetings and events
oRequests for stories, speakers and talent
oBook Reviews
oPoetry
oCommentaries on Great Tamil personalities/visionaries
oOrigin of Tamil and Tamil culture
oTamil Geneology Resources
oOthers as appropriate
Q Does the tamil.net cybercommunity have any rules?
No rules in the traditional sense but tamil.net buids upon established
netiquette or net etiquette. Please see the Tamil/English bilingual
document "Netiquette" for more info on this.
It does have some guidelines. Please see infofile for guidelines
Q Who founded tamil.net?
A tamil.net was founded by Bala Pillai and Muthu Nedumaran.
Bala founded The Asia Pacific Internet Company (www.apic.net) out of
Sydney, Australia. He used to head the Asian & Australian division of
Reuters Online Publishing & Electronic Commerce.
Singapore-based Muthu originated Murasu (www.murasu.com) - the
leading Tamil desk-top publishing solution. Muthu also wrote
MURASU Anjal, the Tamil email enabler.
Q Where do tamil.net participants come from?
A They come from all walks of life. They come from all over the world -
Malaysia, Singapore, United States, Canada, Australia, India, Sri
Lanka,
United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany,
New Zealand and South Africa are some of the covered countries.
They include people who are new to the Tamil written language, those
who
are new to computers, Tamil professors, Internet authorities and people
in
between :)
Q How do I subscribe to tamil.net?
A Send the text "subscribe tamil" to "majo...@tamil.net" If you find
this
hard just send an email to ba...@tamil.net or mu...@tamil.net asking to
join.
Q Does it cost anything to join?
A No it is a free service supported by sponsors and participants
Q Is there a glossary of Internet and Computer terms like Internet,
Email,
Files, Computer, Hard-Disk etc in Tamil?
A Unfortunately not - your help in coordinating this through the
tamil.net
community would be most appreciated
Q What software do I need to get started with tamil.net?
A You need Anjal which can be downloaded for free from
http://www.tamil.net/
or http://www.murasu.com. It works in the Win 3.1 or Win 95 platform
with
the Eudora email client software. For other platform options please
see
the Anjal FAQ.
No programming is needed. Just follow the simple installation and
configuration instructions.
The software enables you to use your normal email account with your
Internet Access Providor for sending and receiving tamil email.
Q I have something to sell to Tamils - can I advertise my products in
the
list?
A We are afraid not - not generally at least unless it is an educational
resource - it goes against netiquette although tamil.net is less
stringent.
You may wish to sponsor the list and interested parties can visit your
website for details on your product(s).
Q Can you give us some technical gobbledy-gook on installing Anjal?
A Here's an excerpt from Muthu's Survival Guide:
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This document is based on Anjal 1.8 Beta 4. If you have Anjal working
like a charm, you can safely skip this guide.
This document provides *workarounds* if you have problems running Anjal
with your mail reader. You should read the Help documents that are in
Anjal and try to get it running the way it should. Just click the help
button in the launch pad to view the help files. If installed
correctly,
you should be able to read and compose Tamil messages directly in your
mail reader (Eudora recommended). If the "Murasu" menu appears
alongside
your Eudora menu, you have succesfully installed MURASU Anjal.
If every effort has failed, this workarounds may help you get going....
1. Where can I find Anjal ?
http://www.murasu.com or ftp://ftp.murasu.com
http://www.tamil.net or ftp://ftp.tamil.net
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/8291/
anybody else want to host ? let me know please.
2. What platform(s) does Anjal run currently ?
Windows 3.1, 95, NT, WABI 2.1
3. What mailreaders are supported ?
Eudora (both light & pro), Pronto, Trumpet. (16 bit versions only)
4. If my mailreader is not listed in (3), how else can I read Tamil text
posted to tamil.net ? (Assumtion - you have installed Anjal but can't
get your mailreader to work with it).
a. Your mailreader must support MIME. If you see Tamil text as
meaningless string of characters, there is some luck. If it
appears
as a string of hex codes (like =3D81=3DF2=3DBD=3DE8=3DE3),
you may have to check through some settings in your mail reader.
b. From the Anjal launch pad - click Editor (do not click anything
else).
Your mail reader must be launched outside of Anjal as Anjal only
allows one app. to be launched at a time.
c. Copy the entire message from your mail reader and paste it into
the
Anjal editor. If the message came in in-tact, you should be able
to
read Tamil.
d. To edit a Tamil message, make sure you have selected your prefered
keyboard type. You can verify this by pulling down the Murasu
Menu.
One keyboard must be selected.
NOTE : You can also use this workaround if you use a UNIX mail
tool and have WABI.
5. I am using Eudora but still could not read Tamil messages ?
a. Make sure that you have set your display font to Anjal-Text or
Anjal-System (this is a bolder version of Anjal-Text).
b. If you still have problems, (for example if you have to use the
32bit
version of Eudora - which is not supported) use (4) as a work
around.
If you are doing this, Eudora should not be launched from Anjal's
launch pad. Start Eudora outside of Anjal.
6. If I'm using Anjal Editor to read Tamil mails, how do I compose ?
The Editor allows you to compose Tamil text. Type your messages in
the
editor and copy-paste to the compose window of your reader. Make sure
you
have selected a keyboard. Use the F12 key to switch between Tamil
and
English input modes.
7. How do I read Tamil messages using Navigator's mailreader ?
Navigator's mail reader will not show Anjal-Text or Anjal-System font
in
the font selection dialog box. Choose InaiMathi-1.8 which also gets
loaded when you start Anjal.
Use the Editor in Anjal to compose.
8. How do I print Tamil messages ?
a. Eudora allows you to set your printer font. Set this to
InaiMathi-1.8
b. If you are not using Eudora, check to see if you can set the
printer
font to InaiMathi-1.8.
c. If neither (a) nor (b) work, copy the entire message to Write or
EditPad.
Set the font for the entire message to InaiMathi-1.8 and print.
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This FAQ is written by Bala Pillai, APIC & A Palaniappan, Singapore.
Please email suggestions and additions to ba...@tamil.net
http://www.tamil.net