Everything That's Wrong with the Korean Internet

And all in one relatively concise Korea Times article. Sarcastic comments in Italics:

The unveiling of 'Chrome,' Google's new Web browser, is one of the biggest stories to come out of the computer industry in years.
In Korea, the self-proclaimed capital of the digital world, however, the highly anticipated debut of Google’s latest product was met with relative indifference.

Self Proclaimed! Ha!

The beta version of Chrome, revealed Wednesday, certainly had a good share of innovations, such as its impressive quickness in loading pages and the independent functioning of tabs, which allows the browser to run when even one of the tabs crashes.
And it even works offline, making it a serious contender to challenge the dominance of Microsoft and its Internet Explorer browser.
However, all of this doesn’t matter much to Korean Internet users, who are so accustomed to IE, which comes packed and ready on their Window-based computers.
Most Korean Internet sites are reliant on Active -X , a program used to install software components on Web pages to enable particular functions, which can run on IE only.
This means that users of Chrome, or any other non-Microsoft browser like Firefox, would experience trouble logging in to email accounts, be prevented from online transactions like banking and credit-card purchases, and even stopped from downloading officials documents on the country's egovernment site, www.egov.go.kr, which only functions on IE.

Aaaaaaah!

When tested on popular portals such as Naver www.naver.com or Daum www.daum.net, Chrome was quick to load the main pages. However, the log-in security programs on the sties, which are installed through Active - X, didn’t function.

Double Aaaaaah!

The sites of major Korean banks such as Kookmin and Woori didn’t function normally on Chrome either. Accessing the e government site with the Google browser and the user is left with a message declaring 'install control for Macintosh user.'

Fucking typical!

However, Google is not intending to miss out on the Korean market and said it is planning to make Active - X operate on Chrome for a designated number of Korean sties.

Don't Encourage them!

The company is currently making a white list of major Korean sites that would be accessible on Chrome despite their reliance on Active - X, although that would certainly raise some eyebrows among supporters of the open-source movement.

Someone obviously doesn't understand Open Source...indeed, Google says you are more than welcome to tinker with the code. Doing so to make it possible to do my fucking online banking would be a welcome addition to the programme.

'We don’t intend to make Chrome inconvenient to Korean Internet users,' said Lois Kim, head of corporate communications and public affairs at Google Korea.

No! Make it inconvenient, then someone might actually get the point and dump Active - X because users are pissed off!

According to industry estimates, about 95 percent of Korean Internet sites are reliant on Active - X, which puts them in an awkward situation as Microsoft is moving to phase out the program over security concerns.

See - even Microsoft admits Active - X is shit.

As a result, Korean Internet users bite their fingernails whenever Microsoft releases a new product.

Bite their fingernails? Shit! I almost chucked my monitor out the window yesterday!

The release of Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest computer operating system, caused a massive disruption last year when Active - X programs used by online shopping malls and Internet banking sites didn't function properly. It took Microsoft and other companies nearly two months to adjust the problem.

You would have thought that might have been a clue - no?

Another worry is that Microsoft will reduce its support of Active - X in the soon-to-be released IE8, the latest version of its Internet browser.

Again, Microsoft gets half a clue. Shit! No one in Korea even uses IE 7 - they all still use IE 6 for God's sake!

ActiveX controls require full access to the Windows operating system,

which is why they are shit

which represents a serious security risk as malicious Web sites can direct the browser to download files that compromises the user's control of the computer.

Like spastic and ultimately useless "personal firewalls" and "Anti-keyboard logger" programmes from Ahn Labs and Hanabank that make (XP at any rate) into an unstable flying shit pile. (My computer blue screened twice today!?)

Die Active - X Die!

Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy!

I firmed up my claim to Australian citezenship this afternoon after the silly buggers in Canberra decided to give me an Australian passport!
not too sure it was a smart decision on my part given a certain record breaking loss by the Wallabies to South Africa. And then of course, theres Andrew Symonds' fishing trip.

Fear not, dear reader. I just needed somewhere convenient to put this.

1.Using the list of sound spelling correspondences in Appendix 1 of Teaching Reading and Writing, analyze the relative regularity of these five words – price, number, between, help, access.

Regularity refers to how often there is a correspondence between the spelling and the sound (pronunciation) of a word. English spelling is difficult. Although there are many rules, there are also many irregularities and decision points where competing rules need to be chosen (Nation 2005 : 16)
Overall there are a number of points of regularity in the words price, number, between, help, and access. The final e in price turning the c into /s/, (AC3) is frequent enough so as to be taught as a general rule rather than an exception, likewise the double c in access with the first c being /k/ (AC2) and the second also /s/.
Difficulty arises with the word number and to whether the last ~er in the final position is AV12 /ə/ in the Received pronunciation or CV9 /ɜ:/ in (the rhotic) General American English.

2. Explain how the different spellings of bath and bathe reflect the different pronunciations. In addition note which correspondences in Appendix 1 of Teaching Reading and Writing apply.

The pronunciation of bathe, as distinct from bath, is dependent on the speaker recognizing the influence of the silent ~e. (Sometimes referred to as the “Magic ~e”) on the word. The addition of the silent ~e to bath causes the vowel sound /æ/ (GA) or /ɑː/ (RP) to become /eɪ/.

In terms of teaching the spelling difference there are a number of fairly frequent instances of the “Magic ~e” that could be taught to learners as a general rule. for example hat – hate, fat – fate, rat – rate etc. (Most do not have the “trap – bath” split (Wells 1982 : 100) apparent in the bath / bathe example above which will need to be pointed out to learners as a further distinction).Table 1. below notes the spelling correspondences between bath and bathe as described in appendix 1 of Teaching Reading and Writing. Nation (2005)

Table 1. Spelling correspondences bath Vs. bathe

3.Briefly comment on five different kinds of item in the Limestone text in the set readings booklet that you could draw attention to in intensive reading....

Intensive reading involves the detailed reading of texts with the two goals of understanding the text and learning language features.... Typically the text chosen for intensive reading is one that learners would have difficulty in reading unassisted. (Nation 2004 : 20)Table 1. below looks at five items that could be focused on in the text Limestone in an intensive reading exercise. It describes the reason for the focus, possible strategies for the classroom and the value of the focus in learners' future learning.

1 Nation (2005:23)
2 The last portion of the text (p.19) could be used to set context though requires some preparation. Borrowing limestone samples from geography teaching colleagues and passing them around amongst learners is simple to do and makes the reading immediately relevant, engaging learners in the reading from the very beginning
3 Ibid.

4. Suggest two practical ways you can ensure learners are reading at the appropriate level in an extensive reading scheme, and suggest two ways a teacher can monitor learners' reading without compromising the sixth of the Day and Bamford (2002) principles.

Teachers can ensure that their learners are reading at the appropriate level in a number of
ways.

Firstly it is necessary to know the learner's present vocabulary level. For learners at the elementary, pre- and intermediate levels it is essential that they read graded readers that have been specifically prepared for learners of English (Nation 2001 : 2). This is because extensive reading, according to Hu and Nation (cited in Ibid.), can only occur if 95 – 98% of running words in the text are already familiar to the learner. Teachers should thus choose materials suited to learner's vocabulary. This could be monitored by keeping a “Running Record” of learners' reading, perhaps at each graded reader level. Running Records could be administered prior to moving to a higher level (or moving to a higher level might be dependent on the running record result). In this author's experience running records have been used to motivate learners to improve vocabulary through reading. The second measure of level appropriateness is perhaps more anecdotal, but might be argued as valid by a number of teachers. Teachers, by-in-large, know their students, their students' habits and backgrounds. It would seem quite obvious that if a student is having difficulty with a series of texts at a given level, for whatever reason, then they are not reading at the appropriate level for an extensive reading programme.
A good way to monitor and combat this sort of difficulty would be to make sure learners read a large number of texts at one level before progressing to the next. Nation suggests learners should both read at least one book a week, allowing unknown vocabulary to be repeated before the immediately previous occurrence is forgotten, (2001 : 6) and that learners should have finished at least five texts at a level before moving on, providing a chance for most of the vocabulary introduced at that level to actually occur. (Ibid.)

Bibliography
Day, R., and Borman, J. (2002), Top Ten Principles for Teaching Extensive Reading. Reading in a Foreign Language 14, 2

Murdoch, G., (1986) A More Integrated Approach to the Teaching of Reading. English Teaching
Forum 24, 1 : 9 - 15

Nation, I. S. P., (2001) Planning and Running an Extensive Reading Program. NUCB Journal of
Language, Culture and Communication 3, 1 : 1 - 8

Nation, I. S. P., (2004) Vocabulary Learning and Intensive Reading. EA Journal 21, 2 : 20 - 29

Nation, I. S. P., (2005) Teaching Reading and Writing,

Palmer, D., (1982) Information Transfer for Listening and Reading. English Teaching Forum 20 1 : 29 - 33

Wells, J., (1982) Accents of English, Vol. 1, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Maguiness, J., 1996, Limestone, School Journal pt. 2 no. 3, 1996

Unfortunate Olympian Names #1

TV Gods

Bloggers Michael H. of Metropolitician fame and friend of The Bimbo, Joe McP. from Zen Kimchi and The Seoul Podcast feature in the opening segment of this week's Korea Now (Aug. 27) on Arirang TV. Go. Now. Watch. (Requires registration).

In a related note, and for reasons that will become apparent shortly, go and join The Seoul Podcast MyFace Facebook Group and take The Seoul Podcast survey.
Did I mention The Seoul Podcast!?