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Computer-Assisted
Happenstance
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We
asked, you answered. Thanks so much for taking part in the survey that Interprenaut and I put together. We
will use a lot of these answers in our upcoming book, but this Wordle
graphic summarizes the kind of excitement and pride most translators
and interpreters feel for their work. In one of the questions, we asked
you to describe with one word how you felt about your profession. Here
are the answers (completely uncensored and you can click to see a
larger version):
Clearly,
there are two things that can be concluded from this riotous stew of
words -- first, we are very happy people after all, and second, some of
us like really strange words (and Mary Poppins!) None of that is too
surprising, but it makes me happy to be part of our community.
Some
of the other answers will be shared in Interprenaut's newsletter next
week and in the upcoming book, but I HAVE to share two more answers.
One was about the most unusual job/assignment you've ever had. The
answer that clearly couldn't be published in any other respectable
media outlet was about translating a tattoo. It was . . . nah, I can't
share it here either! Just let your imagination roam freely to picture
something that an extremely inebriated 21-year-old male might say about
his focus of the moment and how it relates to his self-worth (which
surely plummeted radically upon waking up hurting and hung over the
next morning).
The
other response that made me strangely proud was an answer to the
question about what you love most about your work as a translator or
interpreter. Check this out: "I love using CAT technology and finding
ways to automate what I do. I also love expressing complex, ambiguous
sentences in clear, straightforward English."
Bless
her heart.
And
speaking of strange words, how about creaky-creaky, psychohail,
whippoccino, shimmerglisten, and zhivagodamarbletash. Don't recognize
them? They're just a few of Kate Bush and Stephen Fry's "50 Words for
Snow" on Kate's latest CD -- and her clever way of debunking the myth
of the 50 "Eskimo" words for snow. I've been playing it over and over
again against the rainy backdrop of the Oregon coast. Very
hypnotic.
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1. Upgrade Till
You Pop
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One
of the most often used applications on my computer today is Paint
Shop Pro 7, which was released in 2001. I know what some of you are
thinking: He should be ashamed of himself! (Still others are wondering Paint
WHAT?)
And
you know what else? I'm proud of it. It has become my personal little
reactionary statement against the update craze!
Don't
misunderstand me. I'm not trying to promote this program. It was
published by a now-defunct company (the current version of Paint
Shop is marketed by Corel as an overblown photo editing software)
and it did in 2001 exactly what it does today: works with the most
common graphic file formats with very simple and easy-to-understand
tools (for some miraculous reason it still runs on Windows 7).
Now, I know that there are many graphics applications out there that
are much more modern and powerful and versatile, including the free Paint.NET
and GIMP, but I still prefer my sweet little Paint Shop,
which can do (almost) everything I need it to do. And it's easy for me
to operate it because I know my way around it.
For
me, this has become a symbol of how I -- and maybe we -- should take a
stand against upgrading our software. In some areas of technology,
after standards are established they actually don't change anymore
because there is no need for them to change. Such is the way with many
graphic, sound, and video formats. For a very long time this was also
the way with HTML (this is in the process of changing). And there are
many others that could be listed. In fact, I suspect the number of
these "finalized" formats actually will increase. Since many file
formats can now be represented with XML, they might still change in
their final format, but we will be able to process the XML
representation.
So
what are valid reasons to upgrade software?
The
most important one for us is probably client demands. If a client will
work with me only if I use a certain version of a certain program, and
there is no way to use another program because I'm part of an
established workflow and process, I can either choose to lose the
client or purchase/upgrade the program.
The
second reason is compatibility with other tools and formats. If a
format is not standardized and set in stone like the ones we were
talking about earlier, we again need to decide whether it's feasible to
access these files through conversions and other workarounds, buy new
versions of the software, or lose potential jobs.
Only
for the third reason would I look at the one point that many of us tend
to think of first: major features that we really need. As a
businessperson, I would ask myself this question: What do I just think
is "cool," and what do I think is going to be such a productivity boost
that I'll recoup the purchase or upgrade price right away? Obviously,
if my output skyrockets because I can now -- I don't know --
mind-control my computer, I'd be stupid not to take the plunge. But to
purchase something only because the new software features "sound good"?
That's not a good investment. Here's a good example: I often receive
announcements from the makers of my favorite every-day-in-use text
editors -- UltraEdit and Emeditor -- talking about
their new versions. The versions that I currently run are at least five
versions behind, so every time a new version is released I look through
the new features to find out whether there is a major change. And, lo
and behold, the new versions always have a bunch of major changes. The
problem: I typically don't even understand what most of them are about.
They're usually geared exclusively toward software developers, and they
could have been written in Klingon for all they mean to me. There's no
way that I'll be investing in that upgrade. The functions that I need
as a translator are pretty basic text management and code page features
that were as good five versions ago as they are today.
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2. GroupShare
(Premium Edition)
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SDL
just released a new product this week that I think might have some
potential. SDL Studio
GroupShare is geared toward organizations and LSPs with
internal translation groups that are committed to using SDL products. SDL
WorldServer represents a very top-down approach that doesn't square
with the way many organizations do business. However, GroupShare
is essentially . . .
. . . you can find the rest of this article in the premium
edition. If you'd like to read more, an annual subscription to the
premium edition costs just $25 at www.internationalwriters.com/toolkit.
And if you subscribe before 12 noon PST on January 31, you'll be
eligible for a free giveaway of one of my Tool Box ebooks (a $50 value).
The winner will be chosen by a random number generator.
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3.
Skyxtranordinary
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I
know that many of you use Skype as one your main tools for
communicating with colleagues, friends, and family. Those of you who
have texted with me on Skype know that I don't particularly like
emoticons (except when they come from my 12-year-old, who carries on
long discussions with me all via those silly icons). In fact, I have
been known to be rather dismissive of icon overuse -- until, that is, I
found the treasure trove of hidden Skype icons.
Unlike
their mostly boring counterparts, these are not accessible via the
Skype user interface. You actually have to type them in. Type in
(headbang) and see how your conversation partner responds. (Swear)
results in what you'd expect, as does (smoke) -- it cracks me up that
they actually have an icon for that. Some say the (heidy) is a good
illustration of my attention span, but beware -- I might just type
(finger) or, if you're a really good friend, (mooning). My kids often
enter (tmi) when they talk to me (they actually say it more often than
they type it), but I can always counter with (lala).
Well,
you get the idea. The whole rigmarole of hidden icons can be found right here.
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4. AIT on the
Move (Premium Edition)
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Awhile
back I wrote a lot about AIT, the Ukrainian company that has churned
out product after product after product for our industry. I was in awe
at the creativity and determination with which these products were
launched. There's been a bit of a lull around AIT recently, though, and
while all or most of its products are still maintained, three AIT
products have sort of risen above the fray:
. . . you can find the rest of this article in the premium
edition. If you'd like to read more, an annual subscription to the
premium edition costs just $25 at www.internationalwriters.com/toolkit.
Subscribers of the Premium edition also have access to an archive of
newsletters going back to 2008.
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5. This 'n'
That
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Of
the 10,000 folks who receive this newsletter, I bet that only five or
six will find this relevant. And even if it's only one -- actually,
even if there is not even one -- I would like to happily report
that I was able to kill the ultra-annoying DropInSavings popup that was
bothering me on some of my favorite websites for almost a week. I was
using Firefox, but it can become a nuisance in virtually any
browser. What is it? It's a little, evil adware program that shows up
in the upper right-hand corner of many websites and tries to offer you
coupons. When you happen to hover over it with your mouse, it makes its
presence known by spilling its ill-advised content over the page like a
dead nutria's guts on the side of the road. (You feel sorry for the
nutria? Check out its teeth!) A quick web search to uninstall DropInSavings
produces a plethora of different tips, one of which might or might not
work for you. But since the problem is that it can come in all kinds of
devious forms, you might never find a good way to uninstall it.
Fortunately, once it's in gut-spilling mode, you can see a little wheel
icon at the bottom right side of the popup. Click it to find an option
to deactivate it. Sound easy? I know -- but it still took me forever to
find and disable.
Fast-driving
Dino Ferrari was frustrated that the text-to-speech feature I mentioned
in my last newsletter is not available in Office 2007 (only in
the 2010 version.) Right he is, and while there is a workaround, it's a rather tedious one -- my apologies. . .
.
Some
folks don't like to subscribe to Twitter and I can appreciate that. Still, it's a good
resource if you know how to subscribe to the right channels.
Understandably, Twitter no longer makes it particularly easy to follow
a Twitter account with RSS so you can read it wherever you read your
RSS feeds (this explanation of RSS is really old but
still good).
Twitter
will probably disable this "hack" in the near future, but for now you
can still enter this into your browser's address field:
http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=Jeromobot
You
should now see a prompt to subscribe to the Twitter feed via RSS (of
course, you can change the name of the Twitter feed to your preference
-- but Jeromobot's hard to beat).
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6. The Response
to New Times (Premium Edition)
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I
told you I would receive passionate responses to my article on
localization tools from localization tool developers. I actually
received only one but, yes, it was rather passionate. It came from
Achim Herrmann of SDL Passolo.
. . . you can find the rest of this article in the premium
edition. If you'd like to read more, an annual subscription to the
premium edition costs just $25 at www.internationalwriters.com/toolkit.
And if you subscribe before 12 noon PST on January 31, you'll be
eligible for a free giveaway of one of my Tool Box ebooks (a $50 value).
The winner will be chosen by a random number generator.
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7. A Love Story
(continued)
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Here
is another addition to my family of remarkable characters that I have
been collecting over the years. I found this while looking through an
exhibition catalog (Inscribing Meaning, Smithsonian). Even
though I didn't understand it, it stirred something elemental inside me.
If you have a Javascript-enabled browser, hold your cursor
over the character for a definition.
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8. 1Q84
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This
book by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel,
has been my companion for the last week or two. The following passage
addresses rewriting an existing book rather than translation, but I'll
bet some of you will be able to relate it to what we do:
After he finished rewriting Air Chrysalis,
however, Tengo was truly chagrined for the first time in his life.
While engaged in the rewrite, he had been totally absorbed in the
process, moving his hands without thinking. Once he had completed the
work and handed it to Komatsu, however, Tengo was assaulted by a
profound sense of powerlessness. Once the powerlessness began to abate,
a kind of rage surged up from deep inside him. The rage was directed at
Tengo himself. I used another person's story to create a rewrite
that amounts to a literary fraud, and I did it with far more passion
than I bring to my own work. Isn't a writer someone who finds the story
hidden inside and uses the proper words to express it? Aren't you
ashamed of yourself? You should be able to write something as good as Air
Chrysalis if you make up your mind to do it. Isn't that true?
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The Last Word on
the Tool Box Newsletter
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If
you would like to promote this newsletter by placing a link on your
website, I will in turn mention your website in a future edition of the
Tool Box newsletter. Just paste the code you find here into the HTML
code of your webpage, and the little icon that is displayed on that
page with a link to my website will be displayed.
Here are some websites that added the Tool Box
link last month:
www.wordstodeeds.com
www.thewritetranslator.com
©
2012 International Writers' Group
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