Stamp Column Archives

The Glassine Surfer Column Archive

This column originally appeared in the American Philatelic Society's monthly magazine, "The American Philatelist." Since then some of the information may be out-of-date depending on how far back you're reading.

August 2000

Babylon.com

Babylon is an all-in-one 12 language translater and time, currency and measurement converter that works.  It's a 840Kb download that when installed is live in your system tray and it retrieves translations via your Internet connection from the Babylon.com Web site.

Babylon works with any program on your computer in which you can enter words or numbers.  For example I am now using EditPad, a small freeware program.  If I ctl-right-click on the word "every," up pops the Swedish word "varje" in the translation box.  To get a translation into another language, I can just click the flag icon and select.  Then when I click back to EditPad, the Babylon box vanishes.

Time, money and measures are translated in the same way.  If I ctl-double-right-click on "$1549.23," up pops the conversion box telling me that's "$2289.30" in Canadian dollars, which is my default.  From there I can change currencies and values.  The program updates rates from the Bank of Canada and handles a wide array of currencies from levs and reals to yongs and dongs.

Time works in the same way. A ctl-double-right-click on "10:23" pops up "3:23 PM" in the UK, again my default from where I can make changes.

With Babylon you can surf sites, access your Babylon and get translations and conversions on the fly.  Currently it offers language support for Chinese (simplified and traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish.  If you'd like to get offline translations you can download one of the language dictionaries.

Babylon is handy and unintrusive, light and fast.  

Babylon
http://www.babylon.com

Select "English" as your menu language if that's your native tongue and when asked to choose the keystrokes to activate Babylon choose something with a "CTL."

Art on Stamps

"Travelling the World on Art Stamps" takes you on an astonishing tour or the world.  Here you can see countries and regions as seen through the eyes of the world's greatest artists and leave with a better understanding of the people, culture and history of these countries.

This is a beautiful web site created and maintained by Ann Mette Heindorff.  Some may know her from her articles in "The Posthorn" on Danish stamps from the Scandinavian Collectors Club.  She's a member of the American Topical Association, the Aarhus Philatelist Club and the Paintings and Arts on Stamps Internet Club.  

There's a side-frame navigation bar to destinations like Bulgaria, England, Mauritius and anywhere that's captured a painter's eye. From here you can visit the country's paintings or visit the gallery of an artist who captures the culture and mood of the people and place.  For instance, Paul Gauguin has a gallery under Polynesia.