Bangla Unicode Fonts in Firefox 3

Previously I’ve written a step by step guide for setting the Firefox up for Bangla unicode fonts. That was for Firefox 2. But that guide can also handle Firefox 3 (some of my reader have already done that and I myself also). So if you are using Firefox 3 and can’t see Bangla fonts then click here.

Another common problem is, many users are seeing the Bangla title in the tabs too small too read clearly. This can be fixed if you use Solaiman Lipi as your default Bangla unicode fonts. Click here to download Solaiman Lipi fonts. If the problem still exists then go to Vrinda Hacking; download the Vrinda font from there and put it in your Windows’ Font folder replacing the older one. It should make your Bangla look better. (I myself didn’t try with the Vrinda font, because I got the better look with the Solaiman Lipi font.)

If you are new to Bangla keyboard or facing problems in writing with Bangla fonts, you can read this article.

If you are done then welcome to Bangla Blogosphere.

Kung Fu Panda with Firefox3

Well it’s not like that Kung Fu Panda was released with Firefox3! It’s my weekend that came with Kung Fu Panda and Firefox3. So the heading should be “My Weekend: Kung Fu Panda with Firefox3″. But… well… I couldn’t resist myself to do that joke!

At last I’ve watched it! Yeap… I am talking about the animation movie Kung Fu Panda. I’ve been waiting for it. And this waiting was over in this weekend. Actually I always waiting for a good quality DVD print. But my little sis could not bear the awaiting any more and she bought it (and of course with my money) though the screen quality of the DVD was poor. The film is surely worth watching. The film is about panda named Po, who dreams to be a kung fu warrior. Only problem is his bulky body which creates the barrier to become a warrior. But things changed when he was accidentally picked up as the Dragon Warrior by the Tortoise Master Oogway (though Oogway continuosly claimed that choosing Po was not any accident). When Po became the Dragon Warrior, it was obvious that he have to face the evil snow leopard warrior Tai Lung, the former student of Master Shifu. Now it’s Pos’ responsibility to defeat him. But one little proble: Po doesn’t khnow the Kung Fu! I was stunned by the opening of this film. It opens with a hand drawn 2D animated sequence which resembles to Samurai Jack. Traditional Dreamworks opening was also changed!

Another surprise for me in this weekend was the Firefox 3. I’ve been a fan of FF for a long time. FF2 was great for using over the IE7. When I was introduced with Opera and Firefox, I barely used IE since then. Though IE7 has some good features which were not included in FF2, I liked FF2 because of it’s ease of use. And now it launches the version 3. First impression after opening the FF3 was just “WOW!”. A cool interface with all buttons in appropriate palces. I’ve not used it so much yet, so can’t discuss all the new features. But one thing amused me, FF3 can zoom the page with text and pictures together.

Well… a pretty good weekend, huh? An worth watching movie and the new upgradation of the best browser in the world.

Bangla Typing with Avro Keyboard

Like the most of the Bangladeshi people, I don’t know the Bangla keyboard layouts. Because in Bangla scripts we’ve 11 vowels, 35 consonants, 5 modifiers and numerous consonant conjuncts. To make it more complex, there are several keyboard layouts which are differ from each other. It is a quite difficult matter for me to be handy with one of those keyboards. What a shame for me! Being a Bangladeshi I don’t know how to write Bangla in IT world! But that problem was pacified when I met with Avro Keyboard.

I received several questions from my known-circles about how a complete idiotic ignorant of Bangla Key-layouts like me writes in Bangla. Actually that’s why I must thank to Avro Keyboard. Because this keyboard supports English to Bangla phonetic typing method. That means if you write “amar sonar bangla.“ it’ll show “আমার সোনার বাংলা।“ automatically. Isn’t it fantastic! See a snap shot on how your English text is converting to Bangla using Avro Keyboard.

Avro Keyboard is a free software. Any one can download it. After installing it’ll be automatically stored in your system tray leaving a small toolbar on the top of your desktop. This toolbar indexes all the options for using the keyboard. This tool bar is also very stylish in outfits. Just look it at below.

Another exciting feature is that you can use mouse for typing Bangla like the Character Map of Windows OS. For the totally newbies (who even can’t use keyboard) this is a damn good option for writing in Bangla.

Now you all know my secret of writing Bangla in the Blogosphere or in Facebook or Orkut! But to use it on your browser first you need to set up your browser for Bangla Unicode. I prefer Firefox for that job. Read my guide for Firefox users to prepare Firefox for Bangla unicode.

Bangla Unicode Fonts in Firefox 2.0

Just a several months back like many people, I used to browse the Bangla sites (specially the Bangla news papers) with Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). Because Firefox (FF) couldn’t handle the Bangla fonts. Bangla fonts appeared in the Firefox was scattered and broken. Though as a browser FF is always my first choice, for the Bangla sites I stucked on IE7. Recent days I am able to handle the Bangla sites with FF smoothly. But I am hearing many complains from various persons regard the problem I’ve faced earlier. For this purpose, I decided to write an article which will guide anyone to fix this problem. This article is going to guide you for setting up FF for viewing Bangla unicode fonts. For writing this article, I took help from Bokaader Poddyo.

Voter List is in Web

For the first time Bangladesh Election Commission has published a web site containing the complete list of all voters of the country. Any one can access the site through internet. To access the information one has to provide the 17 digits PIN (printed in the back of the slip which was given after taking photograph), birth information (format has been given) and a verification code (printed on below). Take a look on the screen shot I’ve given below.

Main disappointment is there is no link of this site in the Bangladesh Election Commission’s website. As BEC is manipulating this process it is common sense that there should be a link to the Voter List site. Another drawback is that if any information is incorrect then there is no option to make it correct, except a text field which is used for Comments purpose. Probably they put the box to get message from the user for any inconvenience or mistakes. In my case, I saw some severe mistakes and I used the Comment Box to send them feedback about the mistakes. But it has been more than 10 days that I saw the informations were unmodified. I still don’t know how to resolve this.

The bright side is, the whole site is build in Bangla Language. So people will feel comfort to use the site. They also provide the Bangla font that will be required to view the page. Overall Bangladesh is advanced to the recent technical world another step. Hope the site developers will take necessary steps to make the site more matured by giving the users option to make correction in their information. Whatever this is, it is indeed a great job!