Deciphering illegible source texts October 27, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Translation Sites.1 comment so far
I agreed to translate a batch of medical invoices and reports this week and am just realizing that the source documents are so illegible that my OCR program will not read them. It took an hour to run the 46 pages through ABBYY FineReader, but the results were so abysmal I threw the results out and decided to print the pages out and type the translation by hand. As a result I won’t be able to give my client a price quote. It is a disquieting feeling – not knowing how many words await me and being unable to use Trados on the files. Even if the source text is pretty bad I usually run it through ABBYY for a rough word count, copy and paste the text into a clean Word file, and format it by hand. These source texts were so bad it would have been completely counterproductive, so now I get to look forward to deciphering illegible doctor’s stamps and handwritten referrals for the next few days.
You don’t realize how dependent you become on programs like ABBYY and Trados until you can’t use them. I had a flash of brilliance while writing this post and decided to delete the illegible pages in Adobe Acrobat and then run those legible pages through ABBY. I also have printed out all 46 pages to refer to as needed (the down side to this is that I have now used up all my “scrap” paper for printing and will have to use fresh pages for a while…). It isn’t a complete panacea, but it will allow me to translate the legible invoices and medical reports and get a general idea of what awaits me. I feel like an idiot for not having thought of it sooner. I definitely have a bad case of the Mondays!
Petition to roll back iGoogle design change October 19, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Tools.5 comments
If you are a long-time reader of this site, you will know that I love my iGoogle homepage. It keeps me up-to-date on a lot of news and provides me with entertainment and crossword puzzles for much-needed breaks. iGoogle allows you to customize the page to have all your information at your fingertips, including news sources, weather, RSS feeds, and all kinds of neat Google gadgets that make your life easier. I also have my web-based e-mail addresses (Yahoo! and Gmail), which I rarely or never looked at before, built in to my iGoogle page, so I am able to see at a glance if I have e-mails in my in boxes and call them up by opening a separate browser tab.
Last week iGoogle changed the design of the iGoogle Homepage to include a change known as ‘Canvas View.’ According to the Technology Blog at the Guardian, the new iGoogle is getting “a mixed reception.” Instead of putting the tabs on the top, Canvas View creates a drop-down tab area to the left side of the screen. This is a huge waste of space if you only use one tab – or even if you have several. It can in no way be considered an improvement. As a hyperorganized person I have my gadgets organized on the iGoogle page according to frequency of use and then by subject matter (calendar and to-do list at the top, all news feeds and entertainment sites grouped together below that). The new tab just lists the gadgets in no particular discernible order.
I tried to create new tabs to break down my various gadgets into categories, but was frustrated because I couldn’t drag and drop the gadgets between my tabs. In my search for a solution I stumbled on an online petition to roll the design change back. My favorite sentence from the petition is:
…as users of your service, and various other services, we would like to request that companies such as yourself take note of this, and not use force to push redesigns on your respective users. While we are very aware that it is your services and website over which you rightly have total control, forcing a redesign on we, the users who live with these products every day is rude, and it disengenders our sense of loyalty to continuing to use your services.
If you would like to sign the petition, click here. I don’t know if it will do much good, but I definitely wanted to voice my displeasure with the new change. This gave me a forum to do so. Hopefully iGoogle will soon allow us to go back to the old format if we so choose.
Thanks to some persistent googling on my part apparently there is a fix to the problem called iGoogle Sidebar Collapse. The iGoogle Sidebar Collapse Greasemonkey script toggles the visibility of the new iGoogle sidebar with the click of a mouse or a user-defined keyboard shortcut. If you want to learn more, click here. I’m going to go install it now…
An amazing Holocaust love story October 13, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in German culture, Random musings.add a comment
This has got to be one of the most romantic love stories I have ever heard. It is about a couple who met on two sides of a Nazi death camp fence. She would throw apples or bread to the “cute boy.” They met years later on a blind date in the U.S. According to the article, there are plans to make a movie based on this story. I am not at all surprised. Stories from World War II never cease to amaze me, but I got chills and tears came to my eyes when I read about this one.
Freelancing is not for slackers October 13, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings.4 comments
As one of my favorite writing blogs, The Urban Muse, wrote this morning, “freelancers tend to be highly driven and hard-working.” This is not a job for slackers. You have to have the drive to succeed in order to be a successful freelancer. The downside to this is our tendency to work all the time. The Urban Muse suggested reading Steph Auteri at Freelancedom’s great post about balancing life with work, and I don’t think I could do a better job explaining it. Go ahead and read it, I’ll still be here when you get back…
I think all of us can relate to this common problem. Steph lists her four top priorities that should always be on the top of her to-do list: eating, sleeping, breathing and bonding. I think these are needs that every one of us has. I personally have no problem getting enough sleep (I need at least 8 hours to be on top of things), but I also stay up until all hours of the night. Not having anyone press me to go to bed and no kids to wake up in the morning helps a lot… When I have a pressing deadline I let the refrigerator go bare (and I also forget to eat balanced meals or eat at all) and the dirty dishes and clothes pile up. I also notice that the most common complaint among my colleagues is the growing waistline. I try to schedule in exercise, but sometimes it too falls by the wayside. I have also been trying much harder to have a social life, which my friend Jane is constantly commenting on. I try to make it a priority to have lunch with a friend, go out to dinner with friends, or attend a Meetup.com get-together. That said, I’m still single and happily so. I don’t know if anyone could understand the crazy hours involved with translating.
What about you? How do you balance your personal needs with your professional drive?
No politics here October 12, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.2 comments
Well, I have officially voted in this year’s election. I will be in Orlando getting ready for the ATA conference on Election Day, so I voted by absentee ballot. I have purposely kept any and all political views out of this blog for a variety of reasons. First of all, this is a blog for the translation industry. Politics have no place here. As translators and interpreters we should strive to remain neutral when we translate or interpret, and I have a similar view on blogging for the T&I industry. Secondly, we get bombarded enough with political ads and rhetoric out there in the real world and elsewhere online. I don’t need to add to that here. And last but not least, no one is going to change how I feel about a politician or issue, so I would never try to should shove my views down your throats either. That said, I believe very strongly in the importance of this election, so no matter who you are voting for, just be sure you get out and vote! If you need help deciding on who to vote for and see the issues explained impartially, I recommend checking out Project Vote Smart and The League of Women Voters web sites. I also found the Cleveland.com’s Voter Guide very helpful, particularly when deciding which judges I should elect.
New name for the blog October 11, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.3 comments
No, I’m not renaming the blog because of Corinne’s suggestion yesterday. I am merely shelling out some money to have a better domain name than jillsommer.wordpress.com. So from now on you can find this blog at http://translationmusings.com. The old domain will also work, but I think this looks more professional and my name isn’t out there for all to see. Feel free to change your links accordingly – or not. Whatever you want to do is fine with me. Have a great weekend 🙂
Oh, and if you haven’t seen it, be sure to check out Ryan’s latest post about the virus scam targeting translators. It never hurts to be skeptical about new inquiries, but don’t be too skeptical. The thing that would have set off my warning bells would have been “I have deposited $150 to your credit card account that you gave me the last time.” I don’t accept credit cards as payment…
Fall is Coming (In Memorium: Berta Kirchhoff) October 8, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.1 comment so far
One of NOTA’s founding members died a month ago today. She was a Spanish translator and teacher as well as a poet. She left behind a grieving husband and two grieving sons. In honor of her passing, I would like to share her poem ‘Fall is Coming,’ which was read at her funeral and printed along with three other poems as a handout. She was a really sweet woman and always tried to attend our events despite her failing health. She had recently written to tell me she was retiring from the group to devote her time to her family. Berta, you will be missed.
- Photo from the Wikipedia Commons
Fall is Coming
Early this morning while walking to church
I found myself stepping
like a child on the few dry
leaves on the ground and making them crack.
Of all seasons fall is my favorite;
the sky is the bluest,
the air the clearest,
and the clouds have
not a silver but a gold lining.
The acorns are falling
on my neighbor’s roof
I can hear in the early morning
the singing of the birds, the chickadee calling
her mate for breakfast,
the tapping of the woodpeckers,
and the rispid cry of some big black birds.
The trees are changing, it will be an early Indian
summer, say the experts.
I don’t know if it was El Niño or La Niña
or the Holy Family, but one thing I know for sure is that
fall is coming.
This is a politics-free zone, but… October 7, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.add a comment
I received this link to MatchOMatic from a friend today, and I think it might be very helpful while deciding who to vote for in the upcoming election. I know I found it to be very helpful and it reinforced my choice, but you could also surprise yourself!
New Gmail feature prevents drunk e-mailing October 7, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Tools.add a comment
Google released a useful new Gmail feature yesterday in its labs, which could help prevent intoxicated people from sending embarrassing late-night e-mails they might regret in the morning. When activated, the program will force a user to solve a series of math problems before allowing any message to be sent.
My question is, what if you are a total math loser and became a translator to avoid math 😉 ? Too bad they didn’t invent a feature that recognized and automatically fixed terrible typing. I think that would be more useful – and effective – than doing math problems, and it would be welcomed by terrible typists or those of us whose fingers get away from us. And it wouldn’t have to just be limited to weekend nights, which is the default setting – although you can change the settings. Back when I was in college (eight million years ago) Thursday was the big night out…
Thoughts on the ProZ.com Certified PRO network? October 7, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings, Translation Sites.9 comments
I received the ProZ.com September newsletter this morning announcing something called “the ProZ.com Certified PRO network.”
A new ProZ.com program was announced on International Translation Day last week: the ProZ.com Certified PRO network.
This initiative is intended to provide qualified translators and translation companies with an opportunity to network and collaborate in an environment consisting entirely of screened professionals.
The impetus for the program came from member responses to the July survey on professional differentiation. The concept has been further refined and developed over the past several months by a private group consisting of ProZ.com members and site staff.
An overview was first made available last week. The program is being made open for applications starting today.
To learn more, go to: http://www.proz.com/pro-tag/info
Basically, those accepted into the program earn the “ProZ.com Certified PRO” title and seal, which may optionally be displayed in profile pages and elsewhere on or off the ProZ.com website. I am amazed that it took them this long to realize that most people were unhappy about “professional differentiation.” I’ve been railing about it for years! I’m curious to hear your thoughts on whether or not this is a positive step in the right direction. I’m also looking forward to hearing more about it at the ATA conference. If they can explain how they will accurately determine competence in the source and target languages, research competence, cultural competence, and technical competence as well as business reliability and good citizenship, I may just cave and actually join ProZ. But they will really have to sell it. I’m already overworked without ProZ’s help.
From their site:
Paid membership in ProZ.com (corporate membership for companies, regular membership for freelancers) is required; beyond that, there is no additional charge for participation in the program. Freelancers and companies must endorse the site’s professional guidelines and accept the terms and conditions of program participation to be certified.
If all it is is another title for paid membership, then thanks but no thanks.
Musings from an overworked translator 