Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Technology


Corinne McKay

Wordfast: seeing other platforms

Today I attended the ATA Translation Company Division conference in Denver. Despite the fact that I’m not a translation company, this conference has been well worth attending due to the quality of the presenters and the opportunity to get some perspectives on the industry from the agency viewpoint.

Wordfast is one of the exhibitors at the conference; over lunch I spoke with Kristyna Marrero, Wordfast’s Director of Sales and Marketing, and she filled me in on the upcoming changes in Wordfast 6.0. Beginning with that release, Wordfast will have two versions, a “classic” version that will work from within Microsoft Word as the software currently does, and a standalone version that will be Java-based and therefore relatively platform independent, meaning that it will run on at least Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix operating systems. This seems like an exciting direction for Wordfast and for tool independence in general. Kristyna said that Wordfast 6.0 will be released later this year, so I’m hoping that it’s available for demo by the time of the ATA conference in Orlando in November.


Corinne McKay

Is Wordfast divorcing Microsoft Word?

During a recent visit to the website of Wordfast, I noticed that Wordfast 6.0 (“Coming Soon!”) promises to be a “Standalone, platform independent translation environment.” There are a few things that pique one’s curiosity here. 1) “Standalone”: does this mean no more having to use Wordfast from within MS Word? 2) “Platform independent”= as in, Linux-friendly?

Up until about two years ago, I ran Wordfast as my exclusive TenT and I loved it. The only stumbling block was that running Wordfast on a Linux computer (mandatory, as our household owns no Windows machines) requires running CrossOver Linux then MS Word then Wordfast. After a while I just got tired of all of those layers of upgrades, and of the fact that I never used the pricey MS Office other than when working in Wordfast. Now I’m eagerly awaiting the release of the trial version of Wordfast 6.0!

Click here for Wordfast’s response to this question.


Corinne McKay

Skype wish list

Skype is a fantastic tool, especially for those of us who remember the days of $100+ phone bills for calls to other countries. I like to keep Skype running while I’m working, so that if I want to ask a colleague a quick question, I can easily see if the person is online and send a chat message. Sometimes I use Skype’s calling feature when I want to type and talk at the same time (taking advantage of the headset rather than squeezing the cordless phone between my ear and shoulder) or when I don’t want to tie up my work phone line for a long period of time. Overall, I find Skype very useful.

My one issue with Skype (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, which would actually be fantastic!) is that unless you set up multiple profiles, you are confined to using one online status with all of your contacts. When you log on to Skype, you have to choose an online status; I’m not sure I understand the connotations behind all of these statuses, but the main ones I use are Online (when you want all of your contacts to see that you’re logged in), Do Not Disturb (when you are logged in but don’t want your current chat or call to be interrupted) and Invisible (when you are logged in but appear to your contacts as being logged out, which allows you to chat or call someone without your other contacts seeing that you’re online).

All of this makes me feel a bit like the middle-schoolers I used to teach French to, but here is my Skype wish: that without setting up two separate profiles (i.e. one for work and one for friends), I could set up groups of contacts and select the status that I want to display to each group. For example, during the work day it would be helpful to appear Online to my work contacts, but Invisible to my personal contacts, and vice versa in the evening, unless I happen to be working.

As far as I can tell, the only way to achieve this right now is to set up two different profiles, which when added to profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning, ATA, CTA, various translation portals etc. is more of a step toward multiple personality issues than I’m interested in taking. Am I missing something, or do other people have this wish about Skype too?


Corinne McKay

Treadmill desk update

I’ve now been using my treadmill desk for about six weeks, and the concise update is that I love it. I find it easy to work at and much more pleasant than sitting in a chair all day, and I’ve also found that I can do almost all of my translation and related work while on the treadmill. Here are a few specifics:

For most of my work time, I walk on the treadmill at about 0.8 miles per hour and I find that I can translate (either from a PDF/hard copy or using a translation environment tool), talk on the phone, read and respond to e-mail, read web pages, do accounting, etc. while on the treadmill at this speed. The one task that really doesn’t work for me while in motion is proofreading. I proofread from a hard copy, and I think it’s just too much motion for my eyes to scan between the two documents (or maybe I’m one of those thirtysomethings in denial about needing glasses?). So, when I’m proofreading I work at the kitchen table, but otherwise I spend most of my work day on the treadmill, and I really enjoy it.

A few questions that people have asked me about working at a treadmill desk:
–Is it noisy? Not really. I don’t have a high-end treadmill, it’s a ProForm Crosswalk that I bought off Craigslist for $125 and even so the noise factor is not bad. For example, my husband and I work in the same office in our house, and he isn’t bothered by the noise level although (since he sits at a traditional desk), the motor is a lot closer to his ear level than to mine. In addition, no one has ever said “what’s that noise?” when I’ve been talking on the phone while on the treadmill.
–Do you get tired? If you’re used to a very low level of physical activity you would probably need time to work up to long stretches on the treadmill, or you would need to set the desk up such that you could alternate between walking and sitting. I’m not in Ironman shape but I’m fairly active to start out with and enjoy walking, and I find it to be a pretty pleasant level of exertion.
–Does it get you in shape? It depends on how you define “in shape.” A treadmill desk isn’t going to train you to run a marathon, but it’s more exercise than you would think. Even if you walk 5 hours a day at 0.8 miles per hour, that’s 20 miles a week, and I’m betting that most of us don’t walk 20 miles a week to start out with. In my case, I used to believe that I gained 10 pounds when my daughter was born, and now I realize that I gained 10 pounds when I started sitting at a desk all day.

Another good use I’ve found for my treadmill is taking “fast walk breaks” during the day. When I’m feeling tired or struggling with a difficult passage to translate, I turn off the computer monitors, put on my iPod and walk at about 3 miles per hour for 15-20 minutes. This really clears my head, and it’s another good fitness boost.


Corinne McKay

Update on tags in OmegaT

A while ago, I wrote about both my love of the free and open source translation environment tool OmegaT and my frustration with tags in OmegaT. Since then, I’ve found that the easiest solution, as long as the document doesn’t contain complex formatting, is to save the document as plain text, then translate in OmegaT and then use your word processing program to put the formatting back in.

In order to make sure that the tags are really gone, I save the document as .txt in OpenOffice.org, then open it in a text editor (I use Kate, but any text editor will do) and save it again, then place that file into the source folder in the OmegaT project. This method is especially helpful when a client sends a “Word document” that is actually an OCR of a PDF (talk about tags!!).