Some Arabic software (like the المكتبة الشاملة, al-Maktaba al-Shamela program) requires using an Arabic locale, and there’s a way to use it without having to change regional settings (i.e. you can leave it to USA/English). You have to install a little application called AppLocale (see also the Wikipedia entry).
AppLocale allows you to set a specific language (you name it, it’s not Arabic specific) for any application, it’s free, and very easy to use — no need to restart your PC.
For example, after installing/unpacking Shamela, you can use the AppLocale provided wizard to setup Shamela to use Arabic, or you can edit the existing Shamela shortcut (or run shamela from the Command Prompt) and put something like the following in the “Target” field of the shortcut:
C:\Windows\AppPatch\AppLoc.exe "C:\THE\PATH\TO\SHAMELA\_shamela.exe" "/L0401"
Proofreading of E. W. Lane’s Arabic-English lexicon
November 19, 2009
The Distributed Proofreaders (Europe) project has restarted the proofreading process of the Edward William Lane’s Arabic-English lexicon.
The DP project gathers book enthusiasts from around the globe, and gives them a nice and intuitive web interface for proofreading (i.e. converting to plain text) out-of-copyright books. Up until now, several hundred books were posted to Project Gutenberg from DP.
The second round of proofreading the Lane’s lexicon is going rather slowly, because of lack of proofreaders. Unfortunately, potential proofreaders are usually discouraged by the requirement that they proofread 50 pages from easier first round projects, before being allowed to proofread a second round project, such as the Lane’s lexicon.
If you have spare time, please consider contributing to the project.
DP forum thread dedicated to the project:
http://dp.rastko.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1854
Proofreading page (requires registration and proofreading of at least 50 pages from first round projects):
http://dp.rastko.net/tools/proofers/proof.php?project=projectID4ac8cbe491c31
