by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2008/06/01 03:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2008/06/01/8567237.aspx
When I saw the name of this particular technology (Live Mesh), I admit that the image it inspired was probably not the one the team specifically intended1,2.
But I have had a few people who had been following blogs up on the Live Mesh Blog such as:
who wanted to know what I thought about the limitations related to international.
To be honest, the blogs have not been entirely descriptive about what the limitations are, but I'll use a bit of Forensic Globalization Review to see if I can figure out what we're talking about.
It is clear that in the initial release or at least the one available about the time of first cited blog (from April 28th) that there were limitations relating to both region (presumably GEOID) and "OS language"; further, the were bugs related to ASCII user name limitations and date formats.
And by looking at the comments of the second blog cited above, it is clear that of these four issues cited in the previous sentence they fixed everything other than the "OS language".
However, as this comment from n-blue indicates:
My Vista is English version but this update still show same error. It want english version of vista. I think you show the wrong error, only date time and unicode is non-eng but the OS is Eng.
The meaning of "OS language" in the Live Mesh communications is neither the SKU language nor the user interface language -- it actually appears to be the default system locale, aka the Language for non-Unicode programs!!!
This looks like a bit of bad terminology in their explanation of the limitation, and of course the problem of the limitation itself (there is no good reason when one has all the choices I describe in What is my locale? Well, which locale do you mean? to choose the default system locale for anything.
So I would say there are those two problems remaining, plus a third possible problem related to getting enough invites out, worldwide....
The UAC thing is also kind of lame but that was broken by Vista (not Live Mesh), and really has nothing to do with internationalization so it isn't relevant here.
1 - With the phrase, I was thinking back to when I was not quite eight years old flipping through the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue at the barber shop, while waiting patiently to have Barber Frank cut my hair, and seeing that infamous Cheryl Tiegs mesh one piece that showed much more than Ms. Tiegs intended or even realized.3
2 - Almost three decades later, the details on what exactly I did are fuzzy but I am pretty sure I surreptitiously4 ripped the page out of the magazine5.
3 - I felt quite "Live" that day; I remember that much.
4 - Well, as surreptitiously as an almost eight year old can manage.
5 - I do not have the ripped out picture any longer, in case you wondering.
This blog brought to you by ⺵ (U+2eb5, aka CJK RADICAL MESH)
Yuhong Bao on 18 Nov 2010 12:35 PM:
The funny thing is that the default system locale used to always equal the OS language.
Michael S. Kaplan on 18 Nov 2010 1:05 PM:
Not from NT4 on....
Yuhong Bao on 18 Nov 2010 3:01 PM:
Or maybe it is an ANSI app that depends on the codepage to be 1252.
Michael S. Kaplan on 18 Nov 2010 4:45 PM:
I am a Unicode bigot....