Pinterest Pin It Button on the iPad

iPad 19 Responses »
Nov 252011

Pinterest is an image based link sharing website that’s become fairly popular lately. It has a “Pin It” button that can normally be dragged to the bookmark bar and added as a link in your browser to make it easy to “pin” things. Of course, you can’t drag a link on the iPad! There is an iPad App for Pinterest, and from what I’ve heard it leaves something to be desired. So here’s how to get a Pin It button on the iPad, iPad2, or anything else that supports running JavaScript in a bookmark but doesn’t allow you to drag and drop a link.

The easy way: add the Pin it button to your bookmark bar and sync the bookmarks between your iPad and Safari on your computer using iCloud. Thanks to Karl for this.

The longer way: The “Pin It” button is just a link with some JavaScript in it, so we will create a custom bookmark on the iPad with the correct JavaScript and it will work as expected.

  • Find the custom JavaScript.
  1. You can try copying and pasting the JavaScript from here, but it may change in the future. If it doesn’t work, then continue on to the next step in this section. Do include the “javascript:” at the beginning – it’s absolutely necessary.
    1. javascript:void((function(){var%20e=document.createElement('script');e.setAttribute('type','text/javascript');e.setAttribute('charset','UTF-8');e.setAttribute('src','http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinmarklet.js?r='+Math.random()*99999999);document.body.appendChild(e)})());
  2. Open Safari on an actual computer (you may need to install it on Windows). Or just install one of those User Agent Switchers and tell Pinterest that you’re using Safari, if you know what you’re doing…
  3. Log in to Pinterest and get the “Pin It” button from the “About” menu, and drag it to your bookmarks.
  4. Edit the bookmark and copy the address of the bookmark, which should start with “javascript:”
  • Get the bookmark text on to your iPad. Probably the easiest way to do this is by emailing it somewhere and setting up that email on the iPad.
  • Copy the entire text of the bookmark, including the “javascript:”
  • Create a bookmark on the iPad (for anything, it is changed in the next step).
  • Edit the bookmark you created, name it “Pin It!”, paste the javascript:… text into the location/address part of the bookmark.
  • Click the “Pin It!” bookmark on any page with an image to get the popup window where you choose which photo to use. This look slightly different on the iPad but has the same functionality.
  • Rejoice in Pinterest goodness.
Posted by aaron at 1:48 pm Tagged with: ,

Master's, Bachelor's, What's the Difference?

Jobs, Language, Learning, Visa No Responses »
Oct 172011

The company that wants to hire me in France is hiring me in part because I have a Master’s degree (aka, high school plus 6 years of study). It’s not only because they want an educated person working there. Apparently there is a different path for getting a visa for people with more education. I think the idea is that they want to encourage people to get visas by making it easier.

As part of the process I sent the company a copy and translation of my Master’s degree. The translation has to be “official” of course, meaning it’s notarized and has an apostille (a stamp by the Secretary of State). Here is the problem.

The translation of the word “Master” on my degree was translated into “Maîtrise.” Fine, right? translate.google.com says that’s right, and so do lots of other places. Unfortunately, ”Maîtrise” means high school plus 4 years of study. So the company contacted me to let me know that the translation was not acceptable. They could plainly see that the original degree says “Master” and that the translation says Maîtrise. Naturally, I contacted the translation service I used to request a more accurate translation. The response?

That is the correct translation. The word “Master” doesn’t exist in French dictionaries.

Technically they’re right about the dictionary. “Master” doesn’t appear in many French dictionaries online. Unfortunately, the word they used in the translation does have a different meaning than the original word. A simple search for French diploma equivalencies reveals that they do use the word “Master.” Apparently a google search wasn’t good enough for the translator. He eventually agreed to “not translate that part of the degree.”

This “translation” was apparently good enough for the company that wants to hire me. We’ll see if it actually works out that way.

Later I discovered that the word “Master” is in French dictionaries. It’s spelled “Mastère.” Needless to say, I am very displeased with my official translation.

For the record, here are some American and French diploma equivalents (roughly).

United States France
High School Diploma / GED Baccalauréat (aka “le bac”)
La licence (+3)
Bachelor’s Degree (+4) Maîtrise (+4)
Master / Mastère (+5)
Master’s Degree (+6)

To get a “certificate of comparability” of your degree,  which is probably better than a translation, visit http://www.ciep.fr/enic-naricfr/equivalence.php. Start early though, the process is supposed to take two to three months.

Posted by aaron at 7:41 pm Tagged with: , ,

A Visa for You and Your Family

Jobs, Visa No Responses »
Sep 142011

I found a company that wants to hire me, so getting a visa should be easier right? Well, I guess. The French company does handle the first request for the visa. They have to provide proof that the position has been posted for a certain amount of time and has not been filled by a French citizen. They’ve also asked me to provide a birth certificate, photos (head-shots), and the typical copy of my passport. Some documents must be “officially” translated. After this I’ve heard I will still have to go to the appropriate french consulate in person to “apply” yet again. Then after arrival, of course, I will probably have to stop by the prefecture to actually get the document that I need to legally work there. What about my family?

What’s necessary for the family to come with you depends on who you ask. The Consul Général de Los Angeles says the following.

[...] it is imperative that the procedure of “accompanying family member” be started by the employer through the OFII along with the employee’s file

Thus, it’s implied that family members can receive a visa along with you, as long as they apply at the same time and are included in the initial request. It also says to the OFII (Office of Immigration and Integration) is who the request will go through. The OFII website says the following.

 Workers may submit an application for family members (spouse and minor children) under the family reunification procedure as soon as they can document 18 months of presence in France [...]

So per the OFII website, it’s impossible to bring your family with you until you’ve already lived in France for 18 months. My future employer, however, says that they called the prefecture directly and that generally the application is done for the family members immediately and generally there is no reason that the application would not be approved. I assume this is the right answer, since I believe it’s actually the prefecture that makes the decisions, and since I imagine few people would want to move to France without being able to see their family for 18 months.

In any case, the “backup plans” available are to have the family members obtain a normal student visa or retirement visa via the appropriate french consulate. Ah yes, the horrible bureaucracy. Just a bunch of paperwork is one thing, but different requirements based on who you ask is ridiculous! 

Posted by aaron at 8:55 pm Tagged with: , ,

Exposing your Children to French

Children, Learning No Responses »
Aug 102011

This article is about younger children. If you have teenagers I imagine you could simply get them to take a French class somehow. There are classes for younger children (aged 1 1/2 to 4, for example). Your local Alliance Française might be a good place to look for these classes. If you happen upon their main website and it says there is no chapter near you, don’t believe it until you’ve actually searched for one in your specific area – their website is currently somewhat out of date.

Besides giving lessons directly you can expose young children to other languages by showing them foreign language cartoons. Of course, there’s Madeline, which is in English and mixes in French words here and there, but that’s really geared towards older kids. As it turns out, some popular cartoons available in the states also have French soundtracks. Dora the Explorer is the best example. Searching for “Dora French” on amazon.com returns a lot of results. Just make sure to check the details of the DVD to assure it actually does have a French soundtrack. If they’re going to be watching cartoons when they’re so young, they might as well learn something along the way.

Another option is ordering DVDs (or books) directly from France. This does require a multi-region DVD player (sometimes called a region free DVD player), however. It might sound complicated, but in reality they are easily available through amazon.com as well. Searching amazon for “multi region dvd player” returns 431 results as of this writing. Read the reviews before you buy. If you’re worried and want to do more research, you can try to verify that the DVD player itself will convert the signal to NTSC (used in the US) from PAL (used in Europe).

To order DVDs directly from France simply visit www.amazon.fr. Once there you can choose DVDs and narrow the results by age. I suggest Didou for a child aged 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 and Bali for a child aged 2 to 3 1/2.

Posted by aaron at 8:14 pm Tagged with: , ,
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