IUC 30 is a “must attend” event if you need to implement the Unicode™ Standard or manage an internationalization project. IUC 30 has new, as well as updated, tutorials for the newcomer and expert alike on topics such as .Net, Oracle and Unicode 5.0. Session content is new and features case studies covering concrete aspects of implementations – not just the theories involved. It also covers topics of interest to government and non-governmental organizations, such as managing internationalization projects and implementing multilingual databases. There will be several presentations on the latest local language features in Office 2007 and Vista, as well as topics related to Unicode, the web, software and internationalization.

The three-day conference will feature a full day of tutorials, followed by two days of presentations, panels and discussions. There will also be technology exhibits and demonstrations. There will be a mix of case studies, panel discussions and technical discussions geared towards beginner, intermediate and advanced practitioners. The full conference program is available at http://www.unicodeconference.org/lisagi.

Here are the top reasons why you should attend the 30th Internationalization & Unicode Conference:

• Obtain the latest information on Unicode 5.0, including new features you need to know about now.
• New tutorial and session content includes presentations topical for a Washington, D.C./government audience, as well as for the Unicode and internationalization enthusiast.
• Presentations are more in-depth than ever; check out the agenda for the full program.
• Case studies by Google, eBay and others; learn how industry notables complete their internationalization projects.
• It’s a great place to train staff in the latest internationalization technologies.
• Make connections with industry leaders and experts.
• There will be presentations by companies such as: Apple Computer, ASMUS, Aviva Life Insurance, Basis Technology, DecoType, Diwan Software Limited, eBay, Emery IT, Google, Hiroshima University, i18N Inc., IBM, Microsoft, MITRE, MLM Associates, Modern Gigabyte, Molecular, Oracle, R.B. Toth Associates, Sun Microsystems, The Ge’ez Frontier Foundation, Travelport, UC Berkeley, University of Paris VIII, W3C, Yahoo! and Zebra Technologies Group.
• Nicolas Negroponte, Chairman of the One-Laptop-Per-Child Foundation, will give the keynote.
• Be among the first to purchase the new Unicode 5.0 book, which will be on sale at the conference.
• The Internationalization & Unicode Conference is moving to an annual event format, so this is your last chance for a full year to get the scoop direct from the internationalization and Unicode experts!

Tutorials: New Technologies + Latest Methods = Must Attend Tutorials!

Tutorials at the 30th Internationalization & Unicode Conference are aimed at multiple levels of technical knowledge. These sessions will provide a deep understanding of the issues and technologies involved in internationalization, globalization and localization efforts, helping to prepare you for the challenges to come.

Unicode 5.0 Tutorial: Part 1 - Characters in Action

Part I of the Unicode 5.0 Tutorial is a uniquely accessible and entertaining way of visualizing the core concepts of the Unicode standard. You will find answers to the following questions. What is a Unicode character and how are Unicode characters represented and used in a modern computing environment? How are Unicode characters entered into and displayed on a computer? How are Unicode characters interchanged? What is the interaction between Unicode and rich text (markup)? How do end-users experience Unicode? Throughout Part I, the Unicode 5.0 Tutorial gives typical examples of how the Unicode Standard interacts with the other elements of an internationalized software architecture. With the help of concrete scenarios for the use of Unicode characters, you will become familiar with the role the Unicode Standard plays and the benefits of supporting it. Part I of the tutorial provides a concrete context to which the more systematic and detailed treatment of the features of the Unicode Standard presented in Parts II and III can be related.

Internationalization: An Introduction

What is internationalization? What do developers, product managers and quality engineers need to know about it? How does a software development organization incorporate internationalization into the design, implementation and delivery of an application? This tutorial provides an introduction to the topics of internationalization, localization and globalization. Attendees will understand the overall concepts and approach necessary to analyze a product vis-à-vis internationalization, and how to develop the proper design/approach to deliver a global-ready solution. The focus is on architectural approaches and general concepts, but it will also include specific examples and exercises. Some of the topics covered include: character encodings and Unicode; processing text in different languages; preparing for the localization (translation) of user interfaces; making applications "locale-aware" (including format and display differences); approaches to delivering multilingual and multi-locale software or content.

Web Internationalization – Standards and Best Practices

This tutorial is an introduction to internationalization on the web. The audience will learn about the standards that provide for global interoperability and come away with an understanding of how to work with multilingual data on the web. Character representation and the Unicode-based Reference Processing Model are described in detail. HTML, XHTML, XML (eXtensible Markup Language; for general markup), and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets; for styling information) are given particular emphasis. The tutorial addresses language identification and selection, character encoding models and negotiation, text presentation features, and more. The design and implementation of multilingual web sites and localization considerations are also introduced.

An Introduction to Writing Systems & Unicode

This tutorial will provide you with a good understanding of the many unique characteristics of non-Latin writing systems and will illustrate the problems involved in implementing such scripts. It does not provide detailed coding advice, but does cover the essential background information required to understand the fundamental issues related to Unicode deployment across a wide range of scripts. It has also proved to be an excellent orientation for newcomers to the conference, providing the background needed to better understand the other presentations! The tutorial goes beyond encoding issues to discuss characteristics related to the input of ideographs, combining characters, context-dependent shape variation, text direction, vowel signs, ligatures, punctuation, wrapping and editing, font issues, sorting and indexing, keyboards, and more. The concepts are introduced through the use of examples from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Hindi/Tamil, Russian and Greek. While the tutorial is perfectly accessible to beginners, it has also attracted very good reviews from people at the intermediate and advanced levels, due to the breadth of scripts discussed. No prior knowledge is required.

Unicode 5.0 Tutorial: Part 2 - Fundamental Specifications

Part II of the Unicode 5.0 Tutorial builds on the concepts introduced in Part I and systematically presents the details of fundamental specifications that are part of the Unicode Standard. Topics include: organization of the Unicode code space; principles used to allocate and unify characters; encoding forms (including the definitions of UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32 and when to use each); how to use byte order mark; combining characters and equivalent code sequences; format characters and other special characters and code points; organization of the Unicode Standard. Part II of the Unicode tutorial is recommended for anyone interested in a systematic overview of the key aspects of the standard. Detailed technical or programming experience is not required.

Best Practices in Software Localization Process and Technology

Software localization is often treated as a separate process, which only starts towards the end of the development cycle. In many companies, the localization group does not function as an integral part of the development organization. This tutorial uses practical examples to demonstrate how localization that is built into the process, starting from the design phase, may help lower costs and improve time-to-market for localized versions. Topics include: building international support into the product from the beginning; globalization and localization considerations when selecting programming platforms, tools and third-party applications; globalization verification testing and how to use pseudo-localization effectively; do's and don'ts when creating translatable text; translation file formats – recommendations and handling for non-standard file formats; translation file check tools and how they can reduce translation problems, build issues and test duration; translation planning systems, workflow and problem reporting; translation verification testing; source control and change freezes; terminology management; computer-aided translation tools, such as translation memory. Demos will be used to illustrate tools and processes.

Internationalization and Localization Features of Microsoft .NET

The internationalization and localization paradigm of Microsoft .NET is quite different from the older Win32 model, mandating a change of viewpoint and a new set of skills for programmers, localizers and architects. In Windows, you depend on a loose collection of APIs and manifests to deal with globalization issues and resource management. Under .NET, your tools will be globalization and resource classes and related enumerations. The system is entirely Unicode-based. If you are considering a project in .NET, take the time to learn the basics about how the globalization features are organized and managed. You will realize that .NET is quite well designed, and practically any developer can learn the subject well enough to do the right thing most of the time. Indeed, thanks to the .NET model, most everything happens automatically, so you can rely on the default behavior most of the time. But, if needed, you will also learn to recognize when an override is necessary. You may not emerge as an expert, but you will know the basics. We will focus on the features of .NET 2.0, including the ability to modify locales and to apply strongly typed resources.

Unicode 5.0 Tutorial: Part 3 - Unicode Algorithms

The Unicode Standard and related specifications by the Unicode Consortium specify a number of algorithms. The specification of these algorithms depends on the Unicode Character Properties. Part III of the Unicode 5.0 Tutorial surveys the algorithms specified in the Unicode Standard, and extends the discussion of Unicode character properties as they relate to each algorithm. It covers many general aspects of Unicode algorithms: Unicode Algorithm and the difference between an abstract algorithm and an actual implementation; relation between algorithms and Unicode Character Properties; and techniques to access character properties. Several algorithms are discussed in more detail, e.g., (1) Unicode Normalization and the requirements it addresses (including a discussion of the Unicode Normalization forms NFC, NFD, NFKC, NFKD, their interaction with the Web and what programmers need to know when applying normalization); (2) the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm and its interaction with text layout, text boundary determination, character foldings and much more. Part III of the Unicode 5.0 Tutorial is more detailed and will touch on the description of algorithms and other material that may require some familiarity with technical concepts.

Managing Internationalization Projects

This tutorial describes the life cycle of an internationalization development project. It will commence with the Planning phase, followed by the Execution Phase and finish with the Delivery Phase and preparation for future releases. The goal of this tutorial is to prepare the project management team, as well as the engineering and QA management teams, to anticipate the specific challenges of an internationalization project in order to develop mitigation strategies to ultimately manage to completion a successful project. The tutorial will not focus on one specific case study, but the presenter will integrate real-life examples into the discussion. The intended audience includes beginner/intermediate project managers, engineering managers, QA managers and product managers.

Making Sense of Oracle Character Sets and Length Semantics

The tutorial covers everything you need to know to work with Oracle character sets. A new model of Oracle character sets is presented, involving five character sets: database, national, client and more! The model is mapped to Oracle usage in C/C++/Java/.NET. It is then used to explain the subtleties and pitfalls of Oracle transcoding. Numerous transcoding scenarios are illustrated visually with the model, as are the various parameters controlling SQL literal transcoding and Oracle's "form-of-use." Length semantics are then introduced, along with the related SQL and PL/SQL functions. The presentation concludes by discussing the pros and cons of the various ways of implementing Unicode in Oracle.

The 30th Internationalization & Unicode Conference is sponsored by Gold Sponsors Microsoft Corporation, Basis Technology; Silver Sponsor Google; Organizational Sponsors LISA (Localization Industry Standards Association), GALA (Globalization and Localization Association), W3C (World Wide Web Consortium); and Media Sponsors MultiLingual Computing, Localisation Research Centre and the Globalization Insider.

Early-bird registration ends on October 2, and the hotel registration deadline is October 24. For full conference details and to register, visit http://www.unicodeconference.org/lisagi. For information on sponsoring or exhibiting, please contact Jon Roussel at jroussel@omg.org or +1 (781) 444-0404, ext. 106. For all other questions, please contact Kevin Loughry at info@unicodeconference.org or +1 (781) 444-0404.

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About the Unicode Consortium The Unicode Consortium contacts.html is a non-profit organization founded to develop, extend and promote use of the Unicode Standard and related globalization standards. The membership of the consortium represents a broad spectrum of corporations and organizations in the computer and information processing industry: Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Basis Technology, Denic e. G., Google, Government of India - Ministry of Information Technology, Government of Pakistan - National Language Authority, HP, IBM, Justsystem, Microsoft, Monotype Imaging, Oracle, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, UC Berkeley, Yahoo!, and over 100 Associate, Liaison and Individual members. For more information, please contact http://www.unicode.org/contacts.html.

About the Event Producer
The Object Management Group™ (OMG™) is the Event Producer for the Internationalization & Unicode Conferences. OMG is an open membership, not-for-profit consortium that produces and maintains computer industry specifications for interoperable enterprise applications. Our specifications include MDA®, UML®, CORBA®, MOF™, XMI® and CWM™. All specifications are available for download by everyone without charge. For more information about OMG, visit us online at http://www.omg.org.