The return of the HTML

PDFs are a good thing when you're using a computer that doesn't have the asian font thing installed and you don't have access to install it because you're not the administrator of the system. Don't ask me how I figured this out. ;-)

Today's file should be fixed Henning -- it was produced before the backend system was fixed and has been regenerated and re-uploaded.

We've regenerated the files for lessons 0690-0717 and are updating our public servers as fast as our trans-Pacific bandwidth allows. The revised traditional HTML files include fixes for the simplified characters appearing in the traditional files that LostInAsia pointed out above.

I hate PDFs too.

I click on the dialogue tab, drag the mouse over the sentences, and then copy and paste special/text only into a word file.

The advantage of this is that you get the chinese characters without the pinyin and translation, which suites me better as I am not distracted by latin alphabets when I try to study the characters

The whole thing is confusing for me. I don't get the 404 error, but I don't find the content problems people were speaking of earlier. But maybe they're fixed? When I select the html link, it just seems I get redirected to the site on the net. I'm not really examining it closely, though.

Ron, is it working for you? Currently I get error 404

For the Jizhou show yesterady it worked.

For today's Newbie lesson it doesn't.

I still do not unterstand why the link is not simply put in the list of downloadable files on the left of the lesson page.

Hmmm, I saw that before Henning, but somehow expected something different. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Actually Henning currently that gives me an error message. If you are in the pdf file and change the url .pdf to .html it does work however.

Ron,

its on the footer of the PDF page.

You find the following line there:

"Visit the Online Review and Discussion (text version)."

If you click on the "text version" part the magic door opens.

I'm afraid the answer might make me embarrassed :-), but can someone explain exactly where the html link is? I download the pdf using Apple preview, but can't find the html link per se.

The actual HTML (Newbie Chinese Breakfast) again has numbered pinyin. Quite annoying. And like AuntySue said, I requested fixing the last weeks wrong transcripts. My main concern are the missing tonemarks. My premium features are useless to me like that.

Trevelyan, actually I think that request was specific to the (traditional character?) HTML files for the lessons of the past couple of weeks.

There's a group of people who are waiting around hoping to catch up with the most recent current lessons as soon as everything is fixed. It would be nice, at some point, to be able to say OK we can grab the HTML files for the past two weeks' new lessons again and now they'll all be (pretty much) correct.

So that's not something for the academic team's long term historical improvement project, but rather a final current-repairs task to get us back on track with current lessons, don't you think?

>> Ah trevelyan, thanks a lot. Would it be to much work to fix/regenerate the wrong post-iceberg ones?

That's a good idea, Anne. The academic team is going to be going back through the archive to generate things like 'The Fix' for the older lessons that don't have them. It would make sense to regenerate the older PDFs for consistency here too -- for a long time we didn't have traditional HTML files at all, so older lessons aren't as useful as the newer ones in this regard.

@LostinAsia -- will get the problem with the Dialogue in the traditional files fixed. Thanks for the reminder.

没关系

Goulniky,

actually I am just in "silly mode" today. ;)

henning, do you mean future lesson ?

jimkahl,

wait until you discover the secret hidden lessons...

On the other hand, it is said that none of those who actually listened to them had a chance to tell us about their content...

Ah trevelyan, thanks a lot. Would it be to much work to fix/regenerate the wrong post-iceberg ones?

Henning - thanks for posting this topic. I have been a CPod junkie for just under 6 months and until you posted this, I did not know that there were html files of the podcasts. Good to know, because I HATE PDF's, while they are great for some things, I find that trying to edit them is a big pain in the ..., and forget copy/pasting into something like Word to try to edit. Html files are my ideal form because I can edit them however I want to make corrections (or add my own little notes), and can copy/paste into other formats with little or no problems. I will probably even write a quick little utility to change the numbered pinyin into correctly tone marked pinyin.

Also thanks to Trevelyan for pointing out how to get to the html files.

I guess I need to start digging even deeper into CPod, who knows what other gems I may find.

Thanks again

brilliant, that's it for me thx :-)

Today's HTML (Getting Dressed) still doesn't have traditional; the other problems all seem fixed. The vocabulary section has traditional characters, but the dialogue doesn't.

Other HTML files since the Iceberg Cameth still have the same problems, however: numbers for tones, no pinyin and vocab, etc.

@goulniky

- missing lesson number from title (fixed)

- numbered pinyin subtext instead of accented (fixed)

- no pinyin in vocab (fixed)

Let me know if there's anything else. The traditional PDF links directly to the traditional version of the HTML now, and the changes should be effective as of today.

trevelyan, getting the direct link to the html is no issue, but will the html issues listed above be fixed?

I'll work on the traditional HTML this afternoon, guys. The link for the text versions of the dialogues disappeared from the CPod PDF when the template was written to support other languages (like SpanishPod). That's why it's still missing. In the meantime, if you know the address of the traditional PDF, you also know the address of the traditional HTML by default. Just change the file extension (ie. "trad.pdf" changes to "trad.html").

Ron -- if you're still having vocab issues can you send me a private message or email us so that we can look into it?

Speaking of vocab, I'm really disappointed in losing data there. We're told that it will be fixed by the end of the week, but (a) I hardly trust that at this point (b) over a week is way too long for a premium subscriber to put up with. Going through problems the second upgrade around, it's pretty clear to me that CPod is a site that wants to push out cutting edge features at the short-term, significant detriment of core features. Such a strategy ends up working because once things settle down, people are happy with the new features.

html is a lot better, if you have need Chinese fonts installed obviously. But then you can copy/paste into your favourite editor and reformat anyway you want, even produce a pdf if that's of 'design' interest, you can reduce the pinyin, grey it out etc.

PDF is very useful for design.

Actually, I can get characters on this laptop. All the more reason to hide in the filing room with using wireless than working out in the office! Ha!

Ooh, I like the PDFs - it means I can use Chinesepod on my lunch break because the computers at work don't support chinese fonts in the browers *boo hoo*

The html transcripts are probably the CPod "feature" that I work with most. Quick, convenient, portable - usable. I urgently want the pinyin tonemarks back.

The traditional HTML has disappeared, however. I haven't really looked at a lesson since the iceberg hit--the traditional html is too integral to the way I study. Losing more than a week out of a one year subscription isn't a big deal, but I'd be very annoyed if I had a one month subscription.

So you aren't alone, I miss them too. For me, it's the most crippling of the bugs.

(The more Jizhou extras the better! That series is keeping me going until Lost Season 3 shows up on DVD. Is there any fan fiction out there yet?)

I just wonder when we get CPod lessons with rotatable 3D models. A topological map of Jizhou perhaps?

PDFs are useful for some things, like CAD drawings, you can even include 3D rotatiable models now.

PDF is the work of the devil. Long live plain text!

In some, English appears twice in the vocab in place of the pinyin.

Very odd these aren't getting any more attention. They also are used by me on my cell phone when listening to podcasts, as PDFs are so hard to read and scroll around on my cell phone. Would really like to see tone marks back.

henning, those html files still exist, I never stopped using them, in fact I have long given up on the pdfs. I guess they're just a well kept secret, it's probably on the link from pdfs that's gone.

Having said that, issues with those html files have appeared from under the iceberg as I described somewhere else, and these still haven't bbeen fixed :

- missing lesson number from title

- numbered pinyin subtext instead of accented

- no pinyin in vocab, where hanzi does appear twice instead

a little annoying, but still very useable