Out in the Twittersphere, reaction to Microsoft’s purchase of Skype (what else do you do when you have $8.5 billion burning a hole in your pocket? Buy Skype!) seemed divided between a few points of view: Microsoft bought Skype so that Google or Facebook couldn’t buy it This could be good: Skype is a great [...]
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
What’s next for Skype?
Posted in Technology on May 11, 2011 | 19 Comments »
Webinar question: how many words per day?
Posted in Productivity, Technology, Webinar questions on January 20, 2011 | 22 Comments »
This is post #4 in my ongoing series of questions from the webinar on “Getting Started as a Freelance Translator” that I presented for the American Translators Association in December. A participant asks: For a translator who doesn’t use CAT tools, what is the average turnaround/output in words per day? Short answer: If you want [...]
Why you need good web hosting: a cautionary tale
Posted in Technology on November 9, 2010 | 8 Comments »
This post could also be titled “Making web hosting easy versus making web hosting cheap” (to follow up on a previous post) and it’s mainly intended to express my undying gratitude to the people at Front Range Internet (FRII). Ever since I launched my new professional website about a month ago, I’ve been meaning to [...]
Why netbooks are better than smartphones
Posted in Freelancing, Productivity, Technology on September 24, 2010 | 8 Comments »
Back in the summer of 2009, I wrote about my decision to purchase a netbook. Over a year later, my Asus Eee is still going strong and I still love it. I paid around $300 via Newegg and I haven’t had any software or hardware problems with my netbook despite some heavy use. And it’s [...]
The drawbacks of translation memory tools
Posted in Technology on August 20, 2010 | 14 Comments »
This summer, I’ve had a number of conversations with fellow freelance translators about some of the negative aspects of translation memory tools (CAT tools, TenTs, you know what I mean!). While I use and enjoy OmegaT and Wordfast, I agree that TM tools are not right for every translator or for every translation. TM tools [...]
Tech tip: wrapping text around a table in OpenOffice
Posted in Technology on June 24, 2010 | 2 Comments »
This is a small tip but it really helped me on a recent project. Normally, OpenOffice Writer doesn’t allow you to wrap text around a table. So if you have a table on the left side of the page and text on the right side, it ends up looking like this: This can be a [...]
Switching to a nettop
Posted in Technology on April 27, 2010 | 5 Comments »
Desktop PCs are generally intended to last two to five years, so when my desktop turned seven I started to worry. It’s a great computer (home-built using D.J. Bernstein’s standard workstation specifications), but it’s getting a little slow, it sounds like a 747 taking off when it boots up, the front USB ports have fallen [...]
Reader survey: the best and worst things about your CAT tools
Posted in Reader survey, Technology on January 25, 2010 | 6 Comments »
In preparation for the second edition of How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, I’m revising the chapter on translation technology. I’d like to include some “best and worst” observations from translators who use various translation environment tools, so if you are interested in having your comments included (anonymously) in this chapter, please submit them. [...]
Using image searches for translation research
Posted in Technology, tagged Google Images, image search, images on January 7, 2010 | 4 Comments »
When you’re doing research for a translation, don’t restrict yourself to searching only on text sites. Image searches are really useful as well, and sometimes more so than text searches. Following are a couple of examples I’ve come across lately. I recently translated a list of advertising keywords for a fashion company. I always find [...]
-
If you enjoy Corinne’s blog, check out her book!
Corinne McKay is an ATA-certified French to English translator specializing in international development, law and non-fiction books. She launched Thoughts on Translation in February, 2008 as a way to connect and share ideas with freelance translators around the world.
-
What’s new on Thoughts on Translation?
