Everyone can easily transform your English-language keyboard (or any other language) into a Finnish keyboard, here’s how…

I’m using Windows XP, so if you’re using another Windows operating system, it maybe slightly different.

1. Click START -> Settings -> Control Panel
2. Double click on the “Regional and Language Options” icon
3. Click on the “Languages” tab at the top
4. Click the “Details…” button
5. On the right click the “Add…” button
6. Choose “Finnish” on both drop-down menus and click “OK”
7. At the bottom, click the “Language Bar…” button
8. If it’s not already, check the “Show the language bar on the desktop” box.

The language bar should appear at the bottom of your screen, click it to change your keyboard’s language. If you don’t see it, right-click your taskbar at the bottom and choose “Toolbars” then choose “Language bar”.

Alternatively, you can press Left Alt + Shift to toggle between keyboard languages. If not, go back to the “Text Services and Input Languages” screen and choose “Key Settings..” to edit these settings. If you still have trouble, e-mail me and I’d be happy to help!

See, that was simple!

Hi all! I just discovered that my e-mail wasn’t working properly, apologizes if you tried to contact me and received a bounceback error. Also, the server was acting funky, it wouldn’t allow you to login - but this is fixed now. Thanks to everyone who informed me in the previous post.

Because of all these annoying inconveniences with my server, I’ll extend any donating-member’s account by two months for you troubles - simply e-mail me with your username and I’ll update your account right away.

Again, sincere apologizes from me for the downtime, good luck with your Finnish studies!!

- Phil

Hey all! A warm Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from me, hope you’ve all had a relaxing break and are ready to get back into studying Finnish.

And many many many many many apologies from yours truly for the unscheduled downtime we’ve had the past week. Everything is back online now and working fine.

Because of the server problems, I will add an extra month of service to everyone’s account for their troubles. If you don’t think that’s good enough just e-mail me and I’ll happily add more. I’m not a computer geek so when these problems happen, I don’t exactly know what to do, and I rely on friends volunteering their time to fix these issues.

So again, many sincere apologies from me for the downtime. Hope your Finnish studies go very well in 2008!!

- Phil

Sorry for the server downtime! I just got word from my credit card company that my card number got in the hands of others, so they’ve canceled it and are sending me a new one. Unfortunately, my monthly server payment was due at the same time, so when my credit card number was declined, they shut off my server. But things are straighted out now. Again, sorry for the downtime!!!

If you’re outside Finland and don’t want to use PayPal, no problem! Finnish School now accepts international bank transfers. Just goto the bank transfer page to learn more!

I’d like to take a more active role in communicating with all you users of Finnish School, so I’ve created a forum…

http://forum.finlandforthought.net

Please feel free to visit and ask questions about Finnish School, leave feedback, get support, discuss new features etc. with myself and the entire Finnish School community!!

Also on there you’ll find the Höpöhöpö forum, a forum that’s specifically created for people learning Finnish as a second language. No English allowed!! We all must chat in Finnish. It doesn’t matter how good or poor your Finnish is. No making fun of people’s skills, no correcting anyone’s mistakes (unless they ask) - it’s all about having fun and practicing our Finnish!

And one more thing, if you’re into talking about Finnish politics, current events, and culture - we have a specific forum for that (in English).

Enjoy and hope to see you on the forums!!

As some of you may noticed, we had some server downtime last week. On Wednesday evening, some bigot smeared the comments section of my personal blog with some very disturbing anti-gay, anti-foreigner, and anti-alcohol (and I guess he’s anti-free speech too) messages and threatened a DoS attack. Nowadays any schmuck who knows how to use Google can learn how to launch attacks. But with the help from some security experts at my company, we’ve managed to solve the problem and make this server more secure. So big big big thanks to Florian and Neil for all their help.

So big big big apologizes from me. The server is much more secure now and this shouldn’t happen again. This site has been up and running for over four years now with little, if any, downtime. As soon as I ask for donations, I have two separate downtime instances. Just my luck!!

I’ll add an additional two weeks to everyone’s membership. If you don’t think that’s fair compensation, no problem, just e-mail me and I’ll add more.

Again, many apologizes for last week’s downtime. Good luck with your Finnish studies!!

My deepest, most sincere apologies to everyone out there. Over the past few days, Finnish School and all my other sites have been experiencing some serious problems involving the DNS server (Click on the link below for a full report).

All of this has been completely out of my control and in the hands of my worthless soon-to-be-ex web host provider. This site has been running strong for over four years now and the moment I make it donation-based, it goes down for a few days.

If you’ve sent a donation and have yet to hear from me, please e-mail me with your Finnish School username and I’ll update your account immediately. Your payment has arrived, I just never received the e-mail notification for you or PayPal.

Everyone who already has donated will receive two weeks added to their account. If you don’t think that’s fair enough, please e-mail and I’ll add more time.

Again, I am really really sorry for this downtime and I truly appreciate your patience. I’m now in the process of changing web hosts so this should never happen again. Hopefully tonight I’ll get my first good night of sleep in six days. And hopefully all the hair I’ve pulled out will grow back.

For anyone who is interested in the detailed report of my server’s downtime… (more…)

The Finnish School membership program is in full effect. If you’re serious about learning the Finnish language and you’d like to support this site and see it developed further, you’ll consider becoming a member. Click here to learn more about becoming a Finnish School member.

If you have any questions, comments, problems, thoughts, ideas, feedback…please don’t hesitate to e-mail me!

Best wishes to you and yours in 2007, and best of luck to your Finnish studies!!!

Happy New Year everyone!! I’ll be busy implementing the new Finnish School changes today, so I apologize if you experience some downtime on the site today. By the end of today, all the information will be available about becoming a Finnish School member.