For those of you who aren't on the mailing list. Some things in here which I think people will be very excited about 
Greetings all,
A couple of announcements to share with everyone.
First, we've recently released a small update to PlecoDict for Windows
Mobile which addresses a crashing issue on Windows Mobile 6-based
phones; it doesn't make any other changes aside from fixing that one
issue, but it should at least make Pleco work about as well on Windows
Mobile 6 as it does on earlier versions of Windows Mobile.
The patch is available at http://www.pleco.com/ppcdownload.html . To
install it, exit PlecoDict completely (using the Quit command in the
Dict menu), then download and run the "Update from 1.0" installer from
that site and that should get you up and running with the new version.
To check whether your phone is running Windows Mobile 6, choose Start,
Settings, System, About and look at the first line of text on the
screen; if the version listed is Windows Mobile 5 or Windows Mobile 2003
you do not need this update. We haven't released any updates for the
Palm OS version of Pleco recently; this update is only for Windows
Mobile devices.
Secondly, after almost two years in development we're finally ready to
announce that we expect to release the next major version of our
software, Pleco 2.0, on June 5th of this year. So only a few more months
to go. If you really can't stand to wait, we're having an open beta-test
of the new software for all Pleco customers at
http://www.plecoforums.com - this is an experimental version of Pleco,
is still unstable / unfinished and may crash or do other nasty things to
your handheld, so if you're not very computer-savvy we'd recommend that
you wait for the finished release, but if you are good with computers we
welcome you to try it out and post your feedback. The next beta-test
release, Beta 4, should be out by April 1st. For more details on Pleco
2.0 and some slightly out-of-date screenshots, visit
http://www.pleco.com/pdpreview.html.
Third, also on the 2.0 front we've recently licensed two more
dictionaries in addition to the new ones we were already planning to
launch with 2.0. The first of these is the "Tuttle Learner's
Chinese-English Dictionary"; this is a dictionary of the 4,800 most
common Chinese words (including all HSK level A/B vocabulary) with lots
and lots of example sentences and usage notes, far more than in any of
our other dictionaries. So it should greatly improve our product's
usefulness for beginning Chinese learners along with providing a handy
extra reference for more advanced ones. The second new dictionary is
also the second subject-specific dictionary we've licensed, Nigel
Wiseman & Ye Feng's "A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine" - this
is strictly focused on Traditional Chinese rather than Western medicine,
but it's both a dictionary and a comprehensive TCM reference text, so if
you're a TCM practitioner / enthusiast it should be an extremely useful
thing to have on your PDA.
We're still working out how exactly to fit these new dictionaries into
our product line as far as bundles / pricing / etc; the Tuttle
dictionary will most likely cost $30 as an add-on, the Wiseman
dictionary we're less certain about but it'll certainly be a lot cheaper
than the $160 printed version. And for those of you who've already
bought 2.0 upgrades, don't worry, if we include either of these
dictionaries in a bundle package with another 2.0 upgrade you've already
paid for we'll make sure you can get it for just the difference in price.
Fourth, as some of you may have read, Apple has just released a
development kit for third parties to develop software for their iPhone /
iPod Touch platform. While we're not actually ready to announce an
iPhone product just yet, based on our evaluation of the development kit
along with discussions with some of our licensing partners I can say
that we're pretty confident that we'll be able to offer an iPhone
version of Pleco eventually, in spite of the fact that Apple is forcing
all iPhone software to be delivered/sold exclusively through iTunes.
When that version might be released, what features it might have, what
it might cost and what our upgrade policy for it might be like are all
questions for which we don't have answers yet, though we'll certainly
let everyone know once we do have them.
Finally, for those of you living in Beijing, I'm going to be in town for
a few days in mid-April and am organizing an informal Pleco customer
meet-up for the evening of Monday the 14th; location is TBD but will
likely be somewhere in Haidian since that's where I'm staying. I've set
up an online invite at:
(redacted, send me a note if you didn't get the announcement message and I'll forward you the link)
so sign up there if you want to be kept updated. And if anyone has any
thoughts on a good venue for this sort of thing (i.e. a friendly bar /
coffeehouse type place that could accommodate a decent number of
people), please let me know.
Best wishes and warm regards,
Michael Love
Founder & President
Pleco Software
http://www.pleco.com
Greetings all,
A couple of announcements to share with everyone.
First, we've recently released a small update to PlecoDict for Windows
Mobile which addresses a crashing issue on Windows Mobile 6-based
phones; it doesn't make any other changes aside from fixing that one
issue, but it should at least make Pleco work about as well on Windows
Mobile 6 as it does on earlier versions of Windows Mobile.
The patch is available at http://www.pleco.com/ppcdownload.html . To
install it, exit PlecoDict completely (using the Quit command in the
Dict menu), then download and run the "Update from 1.0" installer from
that site and that should get you up and running with the new version.
To check whether your phone is running Windows Mobile 6, choose Start,
Settings, System, About and look at the first line of text on the
screen; if the version listed is Windows Mobile 5 or Windows Mobile 2003
you do not need this update. We haven't released any updates for the
Palm OS version of Pleco recently; this update is only for Windows
Mobile devices.
Secondly, after almost two years in development we're finally ready to
announce that we expect to release the next major version of our
software, Pleco 2.0, on June 5th of this year. So only a few more months
to go. If you really can't stand to wait, we're having an open beta-test
of the new software for all Pleco customers at
http://www.plecoforums.com - this is an experimental version of Pleco,
is still unstable / unfinished and may crash or do other nasty things to
your handheld, so if you're not very computer-savvy we'd recommend that
you wait for the finished release, but if you are good with computers we
welcome you to try it out and post your feedback. The next beta-test
release, Beta 4, should be out by April 1st. For more details on Pleco
2.0 and some slightly out-of-date screenshots, visit
http://www.pleco.com/pdpreview.html.
Third, also on the 2.0 front we've recently licensed two more
dictionaries in addition to the new ones we were already planning to
launch with 2.0. The first of these is the "Tuttle Learner's
Chinese-English Dictionary"; this is a dictionary of the 4,800 most
common Chinese words (including all HSK level A/B vocabulary) with lots
and lots of example sentences and usage notes, far more than in any of
our other dictionaries. So it should greatly improve our product's
usefulness for beginning Chinese learners along with providing a handy
extra reference for more advanced ones. The second new dictionary is
also the second subject-specific dictionary we've licensed, Nigel
Wiseman & Ye Feng's "A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine" - this
is strictly focused on Traditional Chinese rather than Western medicine,
but it's both a dictionary and a comprehensive TCM reference text, so if
you're a TCM practitioner / enthusiast it should be an extremely useful
thing to have on your PDA.
We're still working out how exactly to fit these new dictionaries into
our product line as far as bundles / pricing / etc; the Tuttle
dictionary will most likely cost $30 as an add-on, the Wiseman
dictionary we're less certain about but it'll certainly be a lot cheaper
than the $160 printed version. And for those of you who've already
bought 2.0 upgrades, don't worry, if we include either of these
dictionaries in a bundle package with another 2.0 upgrade you've already
paid for we'll make sure you can get it for just the difference in price.
Fourth, as some of you may have read, Apple has just released a
development kit for third parties to develop software for their iPhone /
iPod Touch platform. While we're not actually ready to announce an
iPhone product just yet, based on our evaluation of the development kit
along with discussions with some of our licensing partners I can say
that we're pretty confident that we'll be able to offer an iPhone
version of Pleco eventually, in spite of the fact that Apple is forcing
all iPhone software to be delivered/sold exclusively through iTunes.
When that version might be released, what features it might have, what
it might cost and what our upgrade policy for it might be like are all
questions for which we don't have answers yet, though we'll certainly
let everyone know once we do have them.
Finally, for those of you living in Beijing, I'm going to be in town for
a few days in mid-April and am organizing an informal Pleco customer
meet-up for the evening of Monday the 14th; location is TBD but will
likely be somewhere in Haidian since that's where I'm staying. I've set
up an online invite at:
(redacted, send me a note if you didn't get the announcement message and I'll forward you the link)
so sign up there if you want to be kept updated. And if anyone has any
thoughts on a good venue for this sort of thing (i.e. a friendly bar /
coffeehouse type place that could accommodate a decent number of
people), please let me know.
Best wishes and warm regards,
Michael Love
Founder & President
Pleco Software
http://www.pleco.com