= Correspondance With www.travlang.com

 INTRODUCTION

   This file contains some email correspondance with the makers of the
   www.travlang.com site. The correspondance was iniciated in order to
   notify the maintainers of the travlang site about the 'audio tutor'
   program which is located at http://www.geocities.com

 CORRESPONDANCE


  http://www.travlang.com/languages/
    This is a site which contains a large number of 'tutoring' pages for 
    a large number of languages. The sites include sound files which are in
    some odd format (I am not sure which). Each language does not contain the 
    sound files for very many words. Perhaps 100 or so. They appear to be
    migrating  to a 'real-audio' format.
    The design of the site is very cluttered.

  webmaster@travlang.com
  http://www.travlang.com/comments/
    This is the 'feedback' form for 'travlang'. The site invites comments and 
    suggestions as to how to improve the site as well as requesting
    contributions of new sound files. 

  Contact: On may 21, 2003 (Wednesday), I sent the following email using the 
  contact form above
  Result: Replied saying that he was interested in a new interface but that 
    my program does not work on a mac. true.
  May 22, 2003

  -->>
    I looked at your page and tried it with MacOS 9.2 and IE 5.1.6 and it 
    didn't appear to work. I would be interested in a new interface for 
    audio, but it has to work on most platforms and most browers as we 
    have around 800k to 1.2 million unique visitors a month from all 
    parts of the world using all kinds of equipment and software.

    Thanks for contacting us

    Howard Brummer

    Travlang Online, Inc.
    PO Box 880464
    Boca Raton, FL 33488-0464
    (561) 362-6494
    (561) 362-6495 fax
    (561) 703-3870 cel
      howard@travlang.com
      on 5/21/03 7:12 AM -0400, matthew bishop wrote:

      -
      >Below is the result of your feedback form.  It was submitted by
      >matthew bishop (matth3wbishop@yahoo.com) on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 
      >at 07:12:08
      >---------------------------------------------------------------------------
      >
      >
      >About Page: Foreign Languages for Travelers
      >
      >Opinion: I liked it.
      >
      >Comments: Dear Sir/ Madam,
      >
      >I have created a web-page which is an audio
      >language tutoring program. At the moment it seems
      >to be useful for the languages french, spanish and
      >catalan. The page is designed to be usable from
      >an Internet Cafe. I believe that the sort of interface
      >which I have used is slightly more useful than the
      >standard 'point and click' type of interface. My
      >reasoning is that the student should not actually
      >be able to see the text of a word before he or she
      >hears it.
      >
      >The URL for my tutoring program is
      >   http://www.geocities.com/matth3wbishop/
      >
      >I believe that your audio language tutoring pages
      >could be improved by using the interface which
      >I have created. At the moment my web-page is
      >capable of using sound files which are in WAV or
      >Real Audio format, although this can be improved
      >to include other sound file formats.
      >
      >Any suggestions or help which you could give me
      >in order to improve this program would be
      >appreciated.
      >
      >yours sincerely
      >matthew bishop
      >
  --<<
  On May 22, 2003, I replied
  -->>
    Dear Mr Brummer,

    thanks for taking the time to look at the web-page.

    It is true that the pages do not work on a Mac.
    Unfortunately since I dont have access to a Mac
    I cant solve this problem.

    Probably the only sure way to make a system like this
    truly cross-platform and cross-browser would be to 
    use 'flash'. 

    The best interface which I have found, so far, on the
    Internet is the BBC free Spanish course which is at
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/languages/spanish/lj/

    This uses flash.

    thanks again
    matthew bishop
  --<<