Do not crash on me! — Click on the image to enlarge
Does this scene sound familiar to you? Do you make promises to your computer? But, most importantly, do you keep them? Please post here the promises you’ve made to your “poor” PC/laptop and if they’ve worked.
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Translators’ nightmares series: “Meet your colleague, Macheine Transleith” (click on the image to enlarge)
What is your approach to Machine Translation? Do you see it as a translator’s friend or foe? Is it a threat? Can it be used to the translator’s advantage? Share your thoughts below.
See more cartoons in the Translators’ nightmares series:
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See this cartoon in Spanish – Watch the animated cartoon on You Tube
What’s your reaction to this drawing? Do you think it portrays a truth about freelancing and freelance translators and interpreters? Is it a myth? Share your opinion!
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Oops, I forgot the attachment — click on the image to enlarge.
See this comic strip in Spanish.
Is this also one of your nightmares as a translator? Does this happen to you very often? Share your story!
See more cartoons in Translators’ nightmares series:
A freelance translator’s lifestyle — click on the image to enlarge
Also, see this comic strip in Spanish.
Have you been there? Do you think that this is an accurate description of a day in a freelance translator’s life? Is it a myth or an exaggeration, maybe? Is there some truth in this description?
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Translator’s productivity (part 3) — "TEnTs" (click on the image to enlarge)
Also see:
“You may have never heard before of the term “Translation Environment tool”. It is a fairly new term, coined as the result of frustration over other names. In the past, the tools we are talking about have been called “Translation Memory” software and “Computer Aided Translation” tools (CAT). But while the first name only paid tribute to one of the many functions in the package, the second one seems a bit bulky and makes it sound like the tool is doing all the work. As we will see, the term “Translation Environment tool” is spot on.
What it does
A good Translation Environment tool supports every role and stage in the translation process. Typically there are seven stages:
- file preparation
- content segmentation and indexing
- database retrieval and translation
- editing
- quality assurance
- database update
- generation of the translated file.”
Source: Lingo 24 > Translation Resources
According to a ProZ.com quick poll featured on 22 March 2010, over 50 % of the translators who responded the poll had not heard the term “TEnT” before.
What about you? Are you familiar with this term? Do you use it?
Here are some links related to Translation Environment Tools (TEnTs):
Translator’s productivity — shortcuts (click on the image to enlarge)
Also see:
“In computing, a keyboard shortcut is a sequence or combination of keystrokes on a computer keyboard which invokes commands in software. Some keyboard shortcuts require the user to press a single key or a sequence of keys one after the other. Other keyboard shortcuts require pressing and holding several keys simultaneously.” Wikipedia
Using shortcuts in your work will undoubtedly help you become more productive. At first it requires a conscious effort to start using them and remember them but with time their use becomes a reflex.
I have adopted a few which I use on a daily basis. However, I’d like to start using some more as they help me optimize my time and increase my productivity.
Below there is a list of links to useful articles with detailed examples of existing keyboard shortcuts that you can easily start using in your daily computing tasks:
Blackout — click on the images to enlarge
See this comic in Spanish.
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Follow me — click on the image to enlarge
See this article in Spanish and French>>
Also see:
On Twitter if someone follows you it means that your Twitter updates will appear on your followers’ Twitter home page every time you post a new message. Being followed increases your chances of having your tweets retweeted by others and eventually gain more followers. Your number of followers and the number of times your tweets get retweeted help to build your Twitter reach. (see this article on Freelance Switch with a list of tools for analyzing your Twitter stats) However, there is a way in which you can make your tweets reach more people other than your followers. When you use hashtags, which are “a community-driven convention for adding context and metadata to your tweets created by simply prefixing a word with a hash symbol, e.g. #hashtag” you are broadening the reach your tweets since all those on twitter who are following that certain hashtag will be able to see your tweet. Hashtags were developed as a means to create “groupings” on Twitter, without having to change the basic service. As mentioned in my previous post, the hashtags used for translation are #xl8 and #t9n, #L10n is the one used for localization and #flinternet refers to “foreign language Internet”. Since hashtags are a convention among Twitter users anyone can create a new hashtag. This is particularly the case for events: a new hashtag is created to tag the news related to that event. It is also very likely that these type of hashtags fall soon into disuse (i.e. as soon as the event is over or a little after that). Some examples of hashtags specially created for events are: #smday for “Social Media Day” celebrated on June 30, 2011 and #lwbar for “Localization World Barcelona”. So if you are interested in following an event on Twitter you should try to find out which hashtag is being used. As you may have realized by now, having many followers is seen as a positive indication of the person’s influence and the relevance of the content of their tweets. I guess this is why everyone on Twitter is so fond of the “Follow me” phrase. So if you like this post and my comic follow me… but only on Twitter! Romina
Backup -- click on the image to enlarge
On backups: According to Wikipedia, the primary purpose of backups is “to recover data as a reaction to data loss, be it by data deletion or corrupted data. Data loss is a very common experience of computer users. 67% of internet users have suffered serious data loss.”
Translators are among those computer users whose work may be lost in a matter of seconds. Some translators often forget to make a backup of their files and this may harm their productivity and put them in an unpleasant situation when it comes to meeting the deadline. Making periodic backups should be considered a best practice for translators.
When was the last time you made a backup of your files?
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Note: I originally created this comic for the ProZ.com Translator Playground (this is an improved version).
Some colleagues have come up with nice suggestions (some are even better than mine!) ProZ.com is now running a competition to choose the best among the suggestions. If you would like to vote you can do so here.
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