“Quick question” July 9, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.add a comment
I had three e-mails named “Quick question” in my inbox this morning. I’m just as guilty of this as the next person, since I often fire off a “quick question” to a colleague if I need some help – generally through the Skype chat interface. But receiving three e-mails from three different people (one a client, one a colleague with a German handwriting question, and one a colleague in a different language pair asking a question about PayPal) has really made me think about how we formulate subject lines. I’ve already complained about clients who don’t even use a subject line, but “Quick question” doesn’t offer much insight about the subject matter of the e-mail either. I’m certainly going to think twice the next time I want to send someone a “quick question.”
Favorite tools: WorkPace July 8, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Tools.1 comment so far
If you are anything like me, you are passionate about translation and can become fixated on what is displayed on your computer screen, forgetting everything around you. I can work for several hours without taking a break and have been known to forget to eat or even move. I first heard about WorkPace® (or a program very similar to it) when I lived in Germany in the late 1990s. I kept telling myself I should download it, but never got around to it. I have always been concerned about ergonomics (as demonstrated by my ergonomic German keyboard with integrated touchpad, which no one but me enjoys working on. I love it so much I moved both keyboards—work and home—with me when I relocated back to the U.S. in 2001), so I eventually got around to downloading the 1-month trial version. I bought a license before the trial was even up.
WorkPace® is a breaks and exercise software tool proven to help prevent, and aid recovery from, Repetitive Strain Injury (also known as RSI, OOS and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome). The software provides an integrated health and safety solution for computer users, with break, stretch and exercise reminders, ergonomic training, monitoring of discomfort levels, and statistics on computer use. In short, it is a holistic tool that rocks.
WorkPace® monitors your keystrokes and offers break reminders that include stretches and exercises you can do in front of your computer to “reinvigorate your body and mind.” The more intensely you work, the more “microbreaks” (8-second pauses in your typing) will be displayed. However, you can change the settings to fit your needs. For example, you can turn it off if you decide you need to concentrate. It took a while to adjust to these microbreaks and especially the breaks. I eventually turned the microbreaks off completely, but still try to adhere to the breaks. Otherwise the program will chastise me and display a “frownie face” in the toolbar.
The first day I used the program I was under a lot of stress to get a legal translation of the German Cosmetics Ordinance finished, but I complied with most of the breaks and found my stress level wasn’t as high as it could have been. I never realized how badly I need to stretch and am reminded each time I perform a stretch and hear my back crack or feel the muscle stretch and loosen.
It is available in two editions, Personal and Professional. WorkPace Personal is designed for individual users, so it is perfect for the translator sitting in his or her home office. WorkPace currently supports English, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian and Portuguese (Note: All languages supported are automatically included with each software product. When you download and install the product, all languages are then available. Each user can choose their own language preferences from the Preferences / Language menu in WorkPace). The license for WorkPace Personal costs $49.00.
Summer’s bliss July 6, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.add a comment
The July Fourth weekend is always the highlight of the summer. Summer is reaching its peak, and the days become more languid. It is the payoff for living through months of winter’s snow, sleet and gray skies here in Northeast Ohio.
I have worked through several holiday weekends, and I swore I would not do it this past weekend. Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry… My favorite customer, who I only say no to if I am completely overwhelmed, contacted me at 5 PM on Friday with a 10,000 word marketing survey job due Wednesday at 2 PM. As a freelance translator, the most important skill you need to develop is time management, so I budgeted how much I needed to get done over the weekend to make the deadline and then threw myself into enjoying the holiday.
I took Thursday afternoon and all day Friday off to spend with my family and my nieces. Celebrating the holidays through the eyes of a three- and (almost) five-year-old made it all the more special. After my afternoon massage on Thursday to work out the tension from the quality management job, I drove to Medina to attend their July 4th Festival and watch the fireworks. I also treated my nieces to their first taste of cotton candy. The next day my parents joined us to play in the backyard, blow bubbles, and enjoy a cook-out.
I translated about 10 pages out of 47 pages throughout the day on Saturday, in addition to preparing a summer picnic at Blossom Music Center to enjoy the Cleveland Orchestra performing Orff’s Carmina Burana, Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with my German Meetup group. The evening was capped off with breathtaking fireworks, including three encore finales. The men blowing off the fireworks certainly had a sense of humor.
Today I am doing some much-needed housecleaning and plan to translate another 10 pages. However, I also plan on sitting under the umbrella on my balcony with a cool drink and a good book. I hope you enjoyed your holiday weekend as well.
A little levity: Photobombers of the Day July 2, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.1 comment so far
My favorite blog (which shall remain nameless because it is not at all translation-related and is written by a total curmudgeon who regularly uses colorful language) made my day today by posting a link to Photobombers of the Day. Photobombers are people who deliberately try to ruin your photos while you’re taking them. I’m completely stressed out trying to finish a quality management handbook that is taking waaaaay too long to finish (it was due at 9 am today and it’s 4 pm now and I still have 1,500 words to go – luckily my client is really understanding and I’m keeping them apprised of the status as I go), so I really needed the levity to lighten my day. Hope your day is going better! I’m taking tomorrow off for a super-long July 4th weekend, so if I don’t post anything tomorrow have a Happy Fourth!
ASET acquired by COMSYS July 2, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Translation Sites.add a comment
Ted Wozniak just posted this on the Payment Practices list:
HOUSTON, TX (01 July 2008 ) –COMSYS IT Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ:CITP) today announced the acquisition of ASET International Services Corporation, a leading Arlington, Virginia-based provider of globalization, localization and interactive language services, including: translation, multilingual publishing, audio/video production, and simultaneous interpretation and conferencing for live events in over 140 languages. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but COMSYS expects it to be accretive to earnings in 2008.“ASET International has developed a strong practice in the globalization and localization industry, serving both the commercial and public sector, and will enable our existing globalization practice to substantially expand its reach,” commented COMSYS CEO Larry L. Enterline. “With former owners Erika Nobel Hendzel and Kevin Hendzel and their team staying with COMSYS to help us run this business, we are excited about our prospects in this sector, which is currently growing at faster rates than traditional IT staffing. ASET’s multilingual services are a great complement to our existing services in this sector and our current customers should benefit greatly.””About COMSYS IT Partners
COMSYS IT Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: CITP) is a leading IT services company with 52 offices across the U.S. and offices in Puerto Rico, Canada and the U.K. COMSYS service offerings include contingent and direct hire placement of IT professionals as well as a wide range of technical services and solutions addressing requirements across the enterprise. The COMSYS TAPFIN Process Solutions Group delivers critical management solutions across the resource spectrum from contingent workers to outsourced services.
I find this particularly interesting, because both companies are my clients. COMSYS is one of my oldest clients. They don’t send me a lot of frequent work, but I have been working with them since 2001 and have lasted through three name changes. They have always had really good payment terms (depending on the job, some jobs are paid in two weeks, some in 30 days), so hopefully this will translate to better payment terms for ASET and I will actually consider working with them (ASET) again. Time will tell…
Favorite tools: EditPlus July 1, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Tools, Translation Sites.add a comment
EditPlus is a 32-bit text editor, HTML editor and programmer tool for the Windows operating system. While it can serve as a good Notepad replacement, it also offers many powerful features for Web page authors and programmers. I particularly like the fact that it color codes the tags, so there is no confusion when you are working in an HTML or XML file. Other features include an HTML toolbar, user tools, line number, ruler, URL highlighting, auto-completion, cliptext, column selection, powerful search and replace, multiple undo/redo, spell checker, customizable keyboard shortcuts, and more.
EditPlus is shareware. You can download it and try it for 30 days. If you find it useful and decide to keep using EditPlus after the evaluation period has expired, you must buy a license. A single user license is only $35, but you can download it and try it for 30 days.
One particular feature that I think most translators will appreciate is its tag stripping feature. I am translating a highly formatted quality management manual in TagEditor at the moment. To track how many words I have translated that day, I simply copy the text from the English View tab and paste it into EditPlus. To strip the tags, I select View->HTML->Strip HTML tags. I can then copy and paste that text into Word and do a quick word count.
E-mail subject lines June 30, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Fun stuff, Random musings.1 comment so far
I was forwarded a job inquiry last week from a local temp agency looking for a German translator. The first thing I noticed was that the employee who wrote the e-mail hadn’t bothered to include a subject line (the subject line of the forwarded e-mail was: “Fwd: “). The e-mail also didn’t specify what kind of text it was, which didn’t exactly inspire me with confidence or the desire to respond to the e-mail.
In keeping with this topic, today’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip deals with e-mail subject lines. It’s definitely worth a read 🙂 . I’m going to employ this technique the next time I respond to a request that I don’t want to do. Don’t be offended if it’s you 🙂 .
A fun interview with a language lover June 30, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, Random musings.add a comment
Today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer features a short interview with Heba El-Attar, an assistant professor at Cleveland State University. The interview was featured in the PDQ section, which has a light take on arts & life, so the interview isn’t exactly “intellectual,” but it’s a fun read all the same. Ms. El-Attar speaks Arabic, French, English, Spanish and some Italian and has lived in Germany, Spain, Milwaukee and Cleveland. I particularly like her explanations of Arabic culture and the misconceptions most Americans have of Arabic.
Going the way of the dodo bird: the fax machine June 29, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings, Tools.3 comments
I bought a plain paper fax machine this weekend at a garage sale for $3. I had bought a thermal paper fax at a garage sale when I moved back to the U.S. in 2001 for $20, so I definitely felt like I got a real bargain. But then I got to thinking about how many faxes I get a month and wondered if I could have spent the $3 on something useful — like a latte. However, my free eFax number is limited to receive 20 pages a month and an attorney had sent me 11 pages on Thursday, so it was on my mind. I hadn’t received a fax for several months before that.
I basically just used the thermal paper fax machine to occasionally send faxes that required my signature (to my bank, non-disclosure agreements to agencies, etc.). Since I receive so few faxes, paying for eFax service simply doesn’t make sense. I never used my fax machine to receive faxes, because the thermal paper fades so quickly and so thoroughly. Faxes from five or six years ago are completely illegible now (I just went through some old binders and ended up shredding/recycling a lot of old translations, paperwork, bank statements, correspondence, etc.).
We should always maintain the tools of the trade, but is a fax machine really necessary anymore? With scanners and eFax and PDFs, fax machines are slowly going the way of the dodo bird. I keep mine unplugged to save electricity and only plug it in when I need to send something (I find the process of scanning a document to be too slow sometimes). Any thoughts? Do you have tools that you use to send/receive faxes?
Music in the workplace June 28, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.6 comments
I love listening to music and own around 500 CDs, which, because of my anal nature, are classified on the shelves according to genre (comedy, jazz, classical, folk, rock, soundtracks, etc.) and alphabetized by artist 🙂 . However, I usually don’t listen to music when I’m working. When I do, it is generally innocuous, soft music that plays in the background.
I use a variety of methods to listen to music in my office (for example, right now). I have a wireless speaker tucked in the corner to listen to music that I am playing on my stereo in the living room, but that usually doesn’t make much sense. After all, I am sitting in my office most of the time and using the computer for music consumes a lot less electricity. I generally only use this option when I am cleaning my apartment because I am in and out of every room so frequently.
The program I generally rely on for music while I work is iTunes. Being frugal, I don’t buy music through iTunes (most of my CDs were purchased from used CD stores or free from Borders listening stations-an employee perk that no longer exists). The iTunes interface itself is free, and I have either downloaded music or copied them from my CDs over the years (my collection of Christmas music is so large that I recently had to move it onto a USB drive to free up several GB). I use iTunes to listen to the various playlists I have set up based on what I am working on. I usually listen to my Relaxation playlist, because I find it difficult to concentrate if I am listening to rocking tunes such as those by Evanescence or BAP. I have also subscribed to several free iTunes podcasts, such as Car Talk Radio, but I don’t listen to them very often because they require concentration.
Streaming radio is also a great way to listen to music. There are a ton of ways to listen to streaming radio. For instance, you can now go to just about any radio station web site and stream their broadcast to your computer. I prefer streaming music through my iGoogle page LabPixies gadget, which allows you to choose five radio stations for its settings. I have two German radio stations, one British radio station, and two local classical music stations stored in my LabPixies gadget (if you haven’t tried Kent State’s station, WKSU, I suggest you give it a listen). I find listening to German radio sometimes helps me get in the “German state of mind.”
I just “stumbled upon” Pandora Radio, which plays music based on your likes and dislikes. I must have signed up for it a while ago, because I didn’t have to set it up. Right now I am listening to Eva Cassidy Radio, which features soothing songs by female singers with clear voices such as Sarah McLachlan or Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide. I like it because I am exposed to singers who I might not necessarily listen to otherwise and am not bound to a radio station’s playlist. It’s also ideal music for working at a high-stress pace.
I’m curious to hear how others work. What programs or methods do you use? I am always looking for new and interesting music sources. Do you listen to music while translating? Do you only listen to music when you are proofreading? Or do you refuse to listen to music because it interrupts your concentration?
Musings from an overworked translator 