Here's what's up at zKorean…

We Now Accept Credit Cards

April 25th, 2012

Written by jwasham

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You’re probably thinking "it’s about time".  We agree.  It’s been a long time coming.  An enormous amount of research went in to finding the right payment processor and billing system to build upon in the future.  We nailed it.

credit card logos

Accepted credit cards:

  • Visa
  • MasterCard
  • American Express
  • Discover
  • JCB

For those new to zKorean, just subscribe.

If you subscribed in the past or have an account (can log in but have no special access):

  1. Log in to zKorean.com
  2. Go to your Account  area.
  3. Click “subscribe” and choose the credit card option.

Extra Awesome

Your Payment Information is Safe With Us. We NEVER even see it!

security seal

We use 128-bit SSL encryption so your payment information is encrypted from your computer to the payment processor.  In addition, our servers at zKorean never receive or access your credit card number. It’s a level of PCI compliance that ensures your credit card information is secure to the maximum.  Even when you need to update your credit card information later in the future, we don’t present it to you because we don’t store it on our servers. Awesome, right?

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Features

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Sorry Site Was Down ALL DAY

March 20th, 2012

Written by jwasham

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I want to apologize personally for zKorean being unavailable today. It’s completely my fault and I’m sorry. I know thousands of you use the site daily as a tool for translating Korean, whether it’s for school work, personal study, or just enjoyment.

I got notice that there was an issue with the site at about 9am my time. I get an email anytime the site goes down. I thought it was just a brief downtime of a few seconds, so I went back to making coffee.  I had no idea until this evening that it had been down all day, and I scrambled to fix it. And the fix was simple.  So I feel even worse about it.  It’s not like it was a challenge that I overcame after hours of effort.

I deeply apologize.

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Bugs

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Romanization Improvements

November 29th, 2011

Written by jwasham

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Thanks to the subscribers who have pointed out issues in the Romanization! I just fixed quite a few and now the Romanization is better than ever!

The changes I made affected 2,087 Romanizations in the dictionary, flash cards, and Romanizer, too!

Here is a small sample of some of the changes. I think you’ll be pleased.

The before and after:

Sample of Romanization changesKeep in mind that zKorean’s Romanization is based on standard modern Romanization rules, but then I add some special sauce to help Korean learners pronounce Korean better. I have plans to show the standard and zKorean together, but have bigger fish to fry before that.

 

Thanks for reading. If you are not a subscriber to zKorean, you won’t get the benefit of these improvements. Why not subscribe (it’s pretty affordable at only $4.95 per month) and get all these great benefits?  I’m workin’ hard for ya!

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Introducing ReadyPrompt

July 25th, 2011

Written by jwasham

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Keep Calm and Trust ReadyPrompt

You may know that ReadyPrompt is the parent company of zKorean. If not, that’s OK. I run it, and recently converted the business to an LLC. So I’ll be updating some copy on the site, and updating accounts to move them away from the name zKorean and change them to ReadyPrompt. 

So what does this mean to you? Not much. The services won’t change at all. Just some names.  So if you are a subscriber, you’ll see “READYPROMPT” on your Paypal or Amazon Payments charge on your credit card, not “ZKOREAN”.  I just didn’t want you to be alarmed and call your credit card company asking about charges from ReadyPrompt.

Also, for new subscribers, you’ll see the seller in PayPal as ReadyPrompt. No worries. Again, it’s just me.

I’ll be sending out an e-mail notice to all subscribers once this change is made.

That’s all. Nothing to see here.

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News

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Dictionary Improvements

July 17th, 2011

Written by jwasham

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The interesting thing about making web sites and cool features is that not every feature is cool to everyone. Sometimes a feature can be annoying. I’ve found that out about the auto-suggest feature. So I’ve added the option to disable auto-suggest. It’s snuggled right underneath the Search button. I’ve made a space called “options” so that you can get to these settings, and they take up little space. See below:

New dictionary options box

Read to the end »

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Features

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Korean Audio now Working on iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch

July 4th, 2011

Written by jwasham

1 Comment

HTML5 LogoThrough the magic of HTML5, you can now listen to the native Korean pronunciations on your mobile device. No need for an app! Just use the site as you normally would.

iPhone and iPad

 

 

 

 

 

Seems like this was easy, right? Ugh. There were a myriad of issues I had to solve. I won’t bore you, but if you’re wondering why this took so long, there were many issues solving technical problems. But with love in my heart for our super zKorean customers, I pushed through and stretched my simple brain in new directions.

Whew. Enjoy.

Category:

BugFixes, Features

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A Year Later, Needing a Change

June 9th, 2011

Written by jwasham

2 Comments

Work in progressLast May, I did a redesign of the site, and I have been pretty happy with it, but I think zKorean can be better. A better UI, especially for the dictionary, and a prettier, simpler UI overall would really make it pop.

I know that under the hood there are some improvements to make: more words in the dictionary, a better lookup system, a better translation helper, just a lot of places where it can be better.

You deserve better.

So in the comments here, let me know how I can improve things, and I’ll mash your ideas with mine and we’ll make something fantastic. I’m looking for your help to make this a fun, special place to learn Korean.

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On-Screen Keyboard Fixed and Even Better than Before

January 3rd, 2011

Written by jwasham

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After a month and many hours debugging some pretty complex and archaic JavaScript, I’m pleased to announce that the on-screen Korean keyboard is fixed and even improved.

Thanks for your patience. There were a number of items fixed/improved:

  • Fixed where it was finishing a syllable prematurely by starting a new syllable
  • Fixed Chrome issue where keyboard was not loading after a search
  • Fixed caching issues with shorter results
  • Now faster page loading times
  • Faster word lookups
  • Improved support for IE6 and 7

Auto-suggest results

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BugFixes

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Replacing the Keyboard

December 4th, 2010

Written by jwasham

3 Comments

Due to recent issues with the on-screen keyboard in entering Korean, I’m replacing it with a better system, but I’m running into trouble.  So please be patient.

While I’m at it, I’m also addressing the issue of the keyboard disappearing in Chrome one you hit Search. Why does this happen? I gotta figure it out.

Thanks for being patient. It’s going to be a long weekend.

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Improvements to Translation Helper

August 21st, 2010

Written by jwasham

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Check that box for maximum results!
With help from a very friendly subscriber, I’ve been making great improvements to the Translation Helper.

Let me break it down a bit.  The Translation Helper uses the same dictionary you use to find words on zKorean.  However, since most words that appear in normal texts are not in their dictionary form, the dictionary search fails.  So even on some simple texts, many words you click return no results.

So by checking the option: “Cut common endings to find more matches”, the search will cut off common grammatical endings in order to find the dictionary form.  Well, I’ve added many more grammatical endings to make it smarter and improved how it finds words.  Due to these changes, it is recommended you leave this option checked. It is checked by default now.

Long story short: you’ll be finding many more words now.

It’s only a matter of time and effort to make even more improvements.  So over time you’ll notice results getting better and better.  Some texts, such as news articles, tend to use many words connected together, such as “한국도로공사는” (Korean road construction [with grammatical ending]).  Since there are millions of combinations with simple words connected like this, Translation Helper will probably never be perfect, but it will make it easier than constantly thumbing through the dictionary.

Tip: when using the Translation Helper, if you see a long word, such as “한국도로공사는”, break it into smaller words of two syllables each: “한국 도로 공사는” and you’ll be able to find each word and recreate the original meaning.

Category:

BugFixes

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