Fingerspell Flashcards back online

After a long, unintended down time, the Fingerspell Flashcards are now back on-line. Thank you Florian at sylon.net for service above and beyond the call of duty to make that happen!

"Speaking Hands" Online – with Finger Spell Flashcards

Birgit Butz just wrote me to say that her new German language website www.sprechende-haende.de is now online."Speaking Hands" is focused on baby signing, with information about courses, games and books about baby signing. Oh yes, she integrated the Fingerspell Flashcards directly into her site, so you can practice and master Fingerspelling in German.

My entry into signing was through baby signs. Some friends of mine used baby signs to communicate with their son before he was ready to talk and I had a similar experience with my daughter. It made life so much easier for everyone involved (and today at 7, my daughter is a very eloquent speaker).

So Birgit, I think yours is a very worthwhile endeavor! Best of luck to you and your site!

How are you using the Finger Speller Flashcards?

The Fingerspell Flashcards have been online for just over 3 months now. Over 1'200 people have visited the site. 20% are repeat visitors and it looks like a hundred or so come back regularly to practice the finger alphabet and master fingerspelling.

So I am curious: Why are you using the FSFS? How did you find out about it? Do you like the program? (Or if you decided not to use it, why not?) How can I make the program better? Please post a comment or use the English contact form or the German contact form to drop me a line.

Thanks! I look forward to hearing from you!

Internet Explorer: Curses, Foiled Again!

Under the heading of things I will never do again: Report having found "the last bug." There is never a last bug.

I have gotten reports from users that the current version of the Fingerspell Flashcards does not show any letters or pictures when using the Internet Explorer version 6.

I develop the Flashcards using Firefox. I test it on Windows using Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2 and 3, and on the Mac using Firefox 2.0 and Safari 3.1, but I have no access and therefore no ability to support Internet Export 6.

If anyone would like to send me a patch, please do so! I will be pleased to integrate it into the site.

Fingerspell LSF: Volunteer/Help Wanted

Now that the core of the Flashcards is working reasonably well, my next project will be to install the French LSF (langue de signes français) alphabet.

For me as non-signer it came as quite a surprise to discover that the signing alphabet is not standardized. While there are similarities, the differences can be substantial. Which brings us to the LSF alphabet. (We won't even talk about fingerspelling BSL British Sign Language, which is a two handed alphabet and therefore completely different. Under the heading of surpises, LSF and ASL American Sign Language are said to be quite similar, whereas BSL and ASL are completely different! Who would have thought?)

In any case, I have the pictures to publish the fingerspell flashcards in French. But it seems that it would be more accesible to French signers if the web site and program were also in French. But this exceeds my abilities in French.

So: Help Wanted. Someone to translate 4 web pages into French: the FAQ, the About Us page, the Contact page and the program itself. You can do it from the English or German orginals. All told about 4 to 6 A4 pages. There is no money involved, but you will see my eternal thanks posted on this blog :-)

Please contact me if you can help. Thanks in advance!

The Last Bug :-)

Well, it took some digging, but I finally got the fingerspeller flashcards to run properly on any speed internet line.

For the technically inclined, the FSFC now uses a Just in Time loading algorithm to load the letter images. It now checks that the image has been downloaded before attempting to display it. If it's not there, it waits until the image is loaded. So you don't have to wait for it to download the entire gallery, but the first time though the alphabet it may be a bit jittery.

If you're using a dialup line or broadband with less than 150kpbs and the effect is bothersome, you may want to set the speed to deaf, then click on 'A-Z' just after you start the program. Have a cup of coffee while it downloads the entire alphabet ;-). Then it should work just fine for you, whatever your internet connection.

Performance, Performance

I've been working on the initial load times and the Fingerspell Flashcard program should now start executing after about 4 seconds on a 128 Kpbs ISDN line (compared to 15 seconds or more before).

If you are having problems with some letters not displaying correctly, especially animated letters like J or Z, try:

1. Reload the page,
2. Set the speed to 'Beginner'
3. Display 'A-Z'.
   

This will load all the images. You made need to repeat this once or twice until all the images are properly loaded. I'm working on this.

The Flashcards should now work with a 128kpbs (with a bit of patience) line and work well on a 256K or better broadband line.

I am working on this problem and should have a better fix soon.