CL wrote:

> I try not to miss opportunities to whine, pout, and bitch at content 
> providers and the folks whose software, driver CDs and web sites 
> automatically choose an installation or display language without asking. 
>  So far, only H-P has seemed to listen, adding a "Select default 
> language" window to their installation routines for Linux (HP Toolbox). 
>  Setup takes less than three minutes.  Sadly, installing software for 
> the same printer on my wife's WIN XP-J laptop took over 30 minutes, when 
> it installed correctly, and the damned CD kept burbling away in English, 
> and then Japanese, switching to long-form Chinese at odd moments, no 
> matter what we tried.  And, when it got to the hardware installation, it 
> completely changed character encoding specs (I _think_ from ShiftJIS to 
> EUC) and the screen went completely mojibake, replacing all characters 
> with question marks.
> 
These automated things generate some interesting results. I installed a 
software package to learn Papiamentu (an African/Portuguese/Dutch creole 
that is the native language of my island), and the software package 
poked around my machine and concluded that I would learn most 
effectively if it presented all translations and explanations in 
Japanese. I was happy to find out that I actually could handle it that 
way, but that certainly would not have been my first choice.

KWW