The International Macintosh Users Group presents:

International Features of GMail

Group: International Macintosh Users Group (IMUG)
(A Forum for Multilingual / Multiscript Computing)
Date: January 19, 2006, 7-9 p.m.
Speaker: Katsuhiko Momoi (Testing Services I18n Consultant, Google)
Topic: International Features of Gmail
Location: Apple Computer, Apple Campus, 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino
Take Saratoga/Sunnyvale exit off 280, turn South into
Cupertino, turn left onto Mariani Avenue, left into
Infinite Loop. Meeting is held in the Singapore Room.
Admission: $4, free for IMUG members
Contact: Roger Sherman, (650) 859-5981
roger [dot] sherman [at] sri [dot] com

"How is webmail different from standalone mail programs? What sort of mail
standards webmail needs to support? What are international challenges webmail
must address? This talk introduces GMail and its unique features focusing on
international features and support that GMail has been implementing since its
international debut in April, 2005.

International Mail presents interesting problems and challenges to developers
and testers. The basic requirements consist of sending correctly formatted
messages in various languages and correctly displaying messages from a variety
of mail programs in different languages. But supporting these basic functions is
by no means an easy task. In sending messages, we must address the issue of
compatibility with other webmail services and standalone mail programs. In
receiving messages, we must be generous enough to support variations in formats
and yet at the same time stay within the bounds of mail standards.

There is also an issue of supporting local standards while promoting
international standards. This is particularly true in supporting various mail
encoding standards in use around the globe. Is there a single standard for each
language/script? The answer is not an easy one and standards may be shifting or
may not exist. In the meantime, mail has emerged as the key software in web
based communication. GMail offers enriched features and conveniences to its
users. Challenges are many but webmail promises to be an exciting tool for
communication."

Kat Momoi began his career in the software industry as an Internationalization
Evangelist at Netscape Communications in 1996. He then continued his work at
Netscape/AOL as Internationalization QA, Technology Evangelist for Web
Standards, Developer Support Engineer for Mozilla Technologies and finally again
as Internationalization Evangelist. In 2005, he joined Google's Testing
Services group. He is currently acting as i18n consultant and test lead for
various international projects at Google. His publications include Browser and
Editor Encoding Menu specifications for the Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird
projects, "A Composite Approach to Language and Encoding Detection" (co-author
with Shanjian Li), "International Features of New Netscape 6 Browser",
"International Features of New Netscape 6 Mail" (co-author with Naoki Hotta),
"Web Standards and Mozilla/Netscape 6: State of W3C Standards in Japan & China",
"History of IDN Support in Mozilla (in Japanese)" (with Naoki Hotta and Darin
Fisher) among others.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMUG has its own site on the World Wide Web: http://www.imug.org.
Check it out! It's currently not up-to-date, but we're working on
fixing that.

For a map of our meeting location go to: http://www.imug.org/events.html
and click on the map link.

We also post our meeting announcements and handouts at Yahoo! Groups:
http://www.yahoogroups.com, under the group name "imugi18n"
(IMUG-i-eighteen-n).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

To be added to the IMUG mailing list, please email to:
imugi18n-subscribe@yahoogroups.com


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]