Info about my "The Firefly Five-Language Visual Dictionary" CD (not this one) This directory includes 800+ pages (41 of the 765 .JPG files are double pages) from "The Firefly Five-Language Visual Dictionary". The ISBN # of the hardcover book is: 1-55297-778-1 Before finding out about this dictionary, I had scanned over 400 pages from "The Macmillan Visual Dictionary" the 4-language "Multilingual Edition". The ISBN # of that hardcover book is: 0-02-578115-4 The two dictionaries are based on the same database of computergenerated pictures. The editors of the two dictionaries are the same. The Macmillan Dict. had been around longer, and there are several bilingual versions of it. However, the Firefly Dict. has many additional pages. Even though a few of the older pages are missing in the Firefly edition, I can assure those who are interested that the Macmillan version has certainly been surpassed. (Inexcusably, its list price is higher.) It appears that the images either originally came from, or ended up at this Canadian site, which licences them: http://www.qadigital.com/ In Jan. 2007, I found out about the CD-ROM version based on the same database. You can find more info at: http://www.qa-international.com/Multimedia/TheVisualDictionary/Description/Index .htm or, let TinyURL take you there by typing: http://tinyurl.com/2pxazp The New Visual Dictionary on CD is the only multimedia dictionary that defines w ords through images - it's truly revolutionary! It features more than 800 subjects in 28 thematic groupings, with 6,000 high-quality illustrations and 35,000 clear and c orrect terms, with pronunciations. Contains up to 4 languages. Features up to 3 languag es at a time. Through animated sequences, discover how complex mechanisms work or take a guided tour of the world through a magnifying glass, thanks to the zoom feature. Thousands of links take you to the heart of every section of the dictionary, so you can explore all the nooks and crannies. Rediscover words with The New Visual Dictionary! The New Visual Dictionary List of topics: Astronomy TransportGeography Vegetable kingdom Animal kingdom Human beings Farming Architecture House House furnishings Gardening Do-it-yourself Clothing Personal adornment CommunicationsOffice furniture Music Creative leisure activities Sports Indoor games Measuring devices Optical instruments Health and safety Energy Heavy machinery Weapons SymbolsSpecification 6,000 high-quality illustrations 35,000 terms Pronounciations in 3 languages at a time Contains up to 4 languages * * * * * * * * * * * Macintosh: System OS 8,6 at 9 / OS X V10.1.5 Minimum: PPC 266 MHz processor Recommended: G4 533 MHz processor or better Mac OS 9, 32 MB available RAM on hard disk Mac OS X, 128 MB available RAM on hard disk 60 MB available on hard disk Thousand of colors 800 x 600 monitor Minimum 4X-speed CD-ROM drive QuickTime 6.X or betterWindows: * Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP * Pentium II 400 MHz * * * * t * * * Recommended: Pentium III 1.0 GHz 128 MB RAM 60 MB available on hard disk Video card : 800 x 600, Thousand of colors (16 bits) monitor, compatible Direc X Sound card : 16 bits, compatible Direct X Minimum 4X-speed CD-ROM drive QuickTime 6.X or betterLanguages Available: Arabic* Catalan* Croatian Czech Danish* Dutch* English (American) English (British) French GermanGreek Hungarian* Indonesian Italian Korean Norwegian* Polish* Portuguese* Slovak Slovenian* Spanish Swedish* Thai* Turkish ============== I skipped the following pages (which were table of contents pages or pages that showed the subdivisions of the given sections): vi viii 2 26 72 90 144 178 242 296 334 372 392 466 536 644 678 706 786 vii: - 1: 3: 27: 73: 91: 145: 179: 243: 297: 335: 373: 393: 467: 537: 645: 679: 707: 787: Contents Contents, List of Chapters Astronomy Earth Vegetable Kingdom Animal Kingdom Human Being Food and Kitchen House Do-It-Yourself and Gardening Clothing Personal Adornment and Articles Arts and Architecture Communications and Office Automation Transportation and Machinery Energy Science Society Sports and GamesBeing a man of peace, I also skipped a few pages related to modern weaponry. The Firefly Visual Dictionary is certainly a laudable effort. However, it shows little effort to cover 'anthropological awareness'. You do not see pages devoted to, say, Innuit families in their habitats, surrounded by their characteristic artifacts, or of hunter-gatherer tribes in their tents, etc. On the other hand, almost all popular 'sports' and diversions of westerners is given half a page, or even double pages! I chose not to waste my time on many such 'sports and games' pages. Of course, I intend to scan and OCR the indexes, and offer them as .DOC and .PDF files. (In fact, I may end up combining the English index of the Firefly Visual Dictionary with the index "What's What", etc.) English Index: 921 - 952 1092 is the last page. The back cover of the book (which I have scanned) claims that thereare 6000 color pictures in this dict. The Macmillan Visual Dictionary boasted only 3,500. Note that an earlier visual dict., "What's What", is also a worthy product to add to your library (ISBN #: 0-8437-3330-6). Although it is English-only, it demonstrates more creativity, variety, and sense of humor in the selection of pictures and photos that are offered. Also, many 'nodes' have more words (or phrases) than one. (Understandably, the Firefly Dict. could ill afford to do the same in 5 languages.) I scanned over 200 pages from "What's What" as well, and usually include the pages on CDs where I copy the Firefly Visual Dictionary. I also had been collecting many visual dict. pages from a variety of sources. Most notably, I have over 950 anatomical images from Frank H. Netter's "Atlas of Human Anatomy", dozens of images from Encyclopedia Britannica, and more than 40 images from Longman's Dictionary of Contemporary Dictionary. At the following URL, you can view illustrations from AHD4: http://www.bartleby.com/61/indexillus.html So-so copies of 950+ pages from a world-famous anatomical atlas is: Netter - Atlas of Human Anatomy [950+ images, mostly .GIF], 68.5 MB Available at: http://nano.sharebig.com/share.php?id=s4ahedinchzSSauP http://s3.quicksharing.com/v/3444909/Netter_Atlas_of_Human_Anatomy.zip.html 18 months after I scanned "The Firefly Five-Language Visual Dictionary", I was pleasantly surprised that a 160 MB .PDF file was offered through http://www.avaxhome.ru/ebooks [a messy but rich resource] --a so-so scan of The Oxford-Duden Pictorial English Dictionary (ISBN: 0198641559). The Oxford-Duden Pictorial Japanese & English Dictionary (Paperback, 1997) [ISBN: 0198601190] is another useful visual dictionary. Most of the drawings, however, are rather amateuruish, and smell badly of the 1960s and 1970s. The idea of numbering the links, and offering the words on another page (or elsewhere) is indeed good, and should be emulated. I hope someone makes a better scan of that book. For me, this is a labor of love. I intend to continue collecting visual dict. images. You may be able to obtain updated copies from a user named: dost62 on Skype (www.skype.com) -- New Jersey, USA, assuming that he is still alive and online. A Windows program that is free to everyone is Picasa (available through Google). It can make many of these pages 'brighter'. If you click on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button of the program, very often, the colors of the pictures may get closer to the original. However, the file size will increase as well. Partly for that reason, I will not spend the time to improve these pages. Also, another Windows program, Corel KnockOut (currently Ver. 2), can be used to get rid of the 'background' (including the text,and redo the lines with different languages. You can get in touch with me through: http://laruunash.blogspot.com/