Thursday, September 29, 2005

Back to Basics


A few days back, my rector reminded me that the secretarial section's computer fonts have to be updated.

Let me explain. Normally an OS (Operating Systems like Windows, Linux) uses the fonts native to a specific country... like there's Japanese windows, Thai windows, Spanish windows, Arabic windows... but there's no Khmer (Cambodian) windows yet; and oh yes also the Philippines have not yet developed Bintana as of this writing.

Problem here now is I'll have to put the new unicode version of the Khmer fonts (which I do not have) to windows (OS) thereby changing the old Khmer fonts used for many years.
I had a hard time looking for free Khmer unicode fonts over the net after hours of seemingly-endless googling of so many technical sites. But just when I was about to give up, I thought: "Hey, the Catholic Cambodian Church's website has been using unicode for some time now." So I quickly surfed there and lo and behold, at its bottom is a link to the "how to's" pages of Unicode Khmer fonts installation.

Although the experience might sound technical, the moral lesson for me here is simple: The river always flows into the sea. Sometimes the solution to the most complicated problem could be found in its "Source". Does that not sound familiar to You?

In the film "Samsara" a Buddhist monk found a question carved on a slab of stone: "How do you prevent a drop of water from drying?" After so many twists and turns of the two hour movie in search of the answer, the monk found it carved at the back of the same stone: "Throw the drop of water to the ocean."