Links

Thoughts on Translation has been on three continents in the last two weeks, so we’ll let some other translation bloggers do the talking. Fortunately the translation blogosphere has been alive with ideas lately, here are a few that I found interesting:

• Two posts from Kevin Lossner over at Translation Tribulations: The state of OmegaT and The truth about translation agencies. If you haven’t considered adding OmegaT (a free and open source TM program) to your suite of applications, I highly recommend Kevin’s post, which is an interview with OmegaT team member Marc Prior. Marc mentions some exciting new features in OmegaT; and as always a big thanks to the volunteers (yes!) who keep OmegaT running. Kevin’s post on translation agencies pings back to Wendell Ricketts’ post Ten reasons to hire a translator directly, but make sure to read Kevin’s comments too. I agree with Kevin: I work with both agencies and direct clients and I feel that there are advantages to both models. I also feel that the agency clients I’ve been working with for 7+ years pay me fairly, save me a lot of administrative and client relations hassles and are transparent in their dealings with me. However, I think that there are some grains of truth in Wendell’s original post and also in Kevin’s comments about agencies.
• Global Watchtower on MT tidal wave makes landfall in the world of LSPs, which is an interesting report from the recent conference of the ATA’s Translation Company Division.
• If you read French, definitely look at Patricia Lane’s post 5 idées pour booster votre élan marketing, which focuses on how to get your marketing juices flowing when you’re short of inspiration. I agree with Patricia about getting yourself a brand new pen; call me easy to bribe, but with a new roller-ball pen, I feel like I’m ready for anything.
• Sara Freitas-Maltaverne did a really nice writeup (also in French) of the “Web 2.0 for translators” session that Eve Bodeux and I did in Paris earlier this month. You can find it here.
• Finally, here’s Jill Sommer’s post on Lionbridge’s plan to require translators to pay to use Logoport. I don’t work with Lionbridge, but I think that this post and the comments on it raise some interesting issues.

Eve Bodeux and I will be giving two presentations (Marketing your translation services to clients in the United States and Web 2.0 for translators) for the Société Française des Traducteurs this week. Following are the links to some of the sites I will be mentioning in my sections of these presentations.

Marketing your translation services to clients in the United States

Payment Practices
The American Translators Association
French-American Chamber of Commerce in New York
French-American Chamber of Commerce in Philadelphia
The World Trade Centers Association
Google AdWords
Sales Caffeine
Marketing Minute
The Wealthy Freelancer Blog

Blogging for Translators
Google Reader
Naked Translations blog (version française)
Les recettes du traducteur
Not just another translation blog
Translator in Progress
Intercultural Zone
Services linguistiques Valérie Bélanger blog
Trad Online blog
L’observatoire de la traduction
Ma voisine millionnaire
Langue sauce piquante
Speaking of Translation podcast
Pourquoi bloguer dans un contexte d’affaires
WordPress.com
WordPress.org

LinkedIn and Viadeo
LinkedIn
Viadeo.

Thoughts on Translation has been finishing up a few deadlines this week and prepping for the Colorado Translators Association‘s holiday party, so we’ll let some other bloggers do the talking. Here are some posts that caught my eye this week:

• About Translation on making a dual monitor out of your laptop and one desktop monitor. Very cool! I have side-by-side widescreen monitors, but this trick would be really useful when I’m working remotely and the remote location (for example, my in-laws’ guest room…) only has one monitor.
• Translation Tribulations on simulating the Trados look and feel in DVX. Kevin has a solution for translators who want a vertical view rather than the two-column layout (but he makes a good case for why the two-column layout is faster to work in!).
• The Wealthy Freelancer on Twitter versus Facebook. I also feel “meh” (as the post’s title says) about Facebook’s usefulness for business purposes, and although I joined Twitter with great reluctance, it really works.
• OpenOffice.org Training, Tips and Ideas on GNU Image Manipulation Program, or “free Photoshop”. I’m not much of a graphics person, but GIMP has really saved me on a number of occasions!
• Global Watchtower on Language Line’s decision to offer face-to-face interpreting services. Yes, that’s the company that’s spent years “touting the benefits of remote interpreting services,” so it’s an interesting move!

Have a great weekend!

Hello and a belated Happy Thanksgiving from Thoughts on Translation! While I get back on track after taking last week off, we’ll let some other bloggers do the talking…these are some links to posts I enjoyed reading this morning, in no particular order. Have fun with them; Thoughts on Translation will be back with some new posts later this week!

• Blogging with Beth on backing up your blog. I’ll chime in and say that although (as the spouse of a sysadmin) I obsessively back up everything on my computers, it had never occurred to me to back up my blog until I talked to someone who lost a year’s worth of posts because of a snafu at her ISP. Back it up!
• Get Rich Slowly on the positive aspects of failure
• WordCount on why you should obsess over your blog statistics
• OK, this one is not at all translation-related, but if you’re an avid home gardener here’s Homegrown Evolution on how to make basil ice cubes for cooking in the winter. This one is going in my garden file for next year so that we’re not eating pesto three times a week in August…
• There’s Something About Translation on international payment methods. Excellent advice, and you can also listen to the most recent episode of Speaking of Translation for more tips on the same topic.
• Translation Times on free screencast software from Screenr which sounds interesting for embedding screencasts in your tweets.

Happy reading and have a great day!