Image courtesy of All Systems Go Computer Consulting

Last month I realised that my 3-year old desktop computer needed a serious upgrade; although it had 4 GB of RAM multitasking was becoming gradually slower and the processor was not quite up to scratch. Not only that, my PC was enormous, taking up about one third of my desk. It was also very loud. Working alongside something that sounded like an aircraft taking off was distracting.

I had the option to upgrade some of the PC’s parts, but once I started to tot up the costs, I realised (with a little help and persuasion from fellow translators on Twitter!) that it was time to buy a wholly new desktop. Many of the PC’s parts were already over 5 years’ old, as it has been built and rebuilt over the years.

I did quite a bit of research about which new computer would suit me best. But you may be surprised to hear that switching to a Mac desktop and OS wasn’t initially in my sights.

My main priorities were:

1)   8 GB of RAM, for faster multitasking

2)   Small form factor, ideally an all-in-one, to avoid continuing a situation where my desk is dominated by my computer

3)   Peace and quiet!

4)   Reliability

I soon realised that if you want a powerful computer, you may have to compromise on size and noise. I looked at all-in-ones but after reading reams of reviews it seemed that they weren’t necessarily the best option for business users, usually being less powerful. Most also seemed to be pre-loaded with Windows 7 ‘Home Premium’ rather than Windows 7 Professional, which suggested to me that they weren’t really designed for the sort of intensive use business users tend to inflict on their computers. There’s obviously an additional risk with all-in-ones too, since it’s likely to be more difficult to remove and replace the computer’s parts. However, what the reviews did tell me was that if you ‘re set on an all-in-one, the Apple iMac still stands out miles from the competition.

After deliberating over a couple more alternatives and not finding anything else that could combine performance + size + quietness so well, the iMac was the only computer through to the final round. I went for a 21.5” iMac (I use 2 screens) with an Intel Core i5 processor, a 1 TB Serial ATA Drive and 8 GB (2x 4 GB) of RAM. I customised the computer on the Apple website; it was pricey, but the final cost was not wildly different to that of a PC with the same specs, based on my online searches.

I have no plans to become an Apple cheerleader; I have no burning preference for Apple hardware and software and (perhaps unlike some other Mac users) in my opinion there’s nothing inherently wrong with PCs or Microsoft Windows. I don’t have an iPhone and these days my business laptop is a great little Lenovo ThinkPad.

But I have to admit that my new iMac has most definitely been a change for the better. I now have a high-performing computer that is virtually silent and has allowed me to reclaim a large section of my desk. This is a revelation in itself, aside from the benefits the computer itself offers. I have a small office and surface space is at a premium – this is now much less of a problem. This is important to me. With Parallels, I also have a way to continue using my Windows programs (such as my preferred CAT tool) – more on this in my next blog post, which will give some tips for making the transition as smooth as possible if it’s something you’re considering.икони на светциКартиниИдея за подаръкикони

Image courtesy of Compufix Online

Céline over at Naked Translations wrote a post yesterday about back-up systems for freelancers, and invited others to share how they guard their businesses against data loss. Céline, if you’re reading, this post is my answer!

I actually have what some might call a fairly paranoid approach to how I back-up my work, and have a few solutions. It took me a long time (too long) to fully realise just how important it is to make sure important documents can be recovered in the event of computer failure/other business disaster. I’ve never experienced the anguish of losing a humongous translation hours before a deadline, but last week I did experience major data loss. I think we can all identify with how it feels at that moment you realise something important has just gone ‘poof!’ and disappeared into thin air.

My first solution, similar to Céline’s Dropbox solution, is to use online syncing. I use Sugarsync. Essentially, as I’m typing, each document is then automatically backed-up on their servers, meaning I can access all my updated files from any computer that is connected to the internet (whether it’s a PC or a Mac). I can do this remotely via my profile on the Sugarsync website or via the downloadable Sugarsync file manager. Sugarsync also offers a number of advanced features, including an intriguingly named ‘magic briefcase’ and a secure ftp location for sending large files. For anyone worried about data security and backing-up in ‘the cloud’, files are encrypted with 128-bit AES – can you say that about email?

I love Sugarsync, but it’s certainly not my only solution. I also use a more traditional back-up and storage tool called ZenVault that stores my important files at a remote location. The data loss I experienced last week illustrated exactly why I use back-up as well as syncing: as soon as I managed to lose the crucial files on one computer, that change was automatically synced across all my computers, so there was no chance of recovery. However, instead I was able to go into my ZenVault terminal and recover the documents from previous back-ups. So, I have a way of taking a static snapshot of all my documents and past documents, as well as a way of making the latest versions of my documents available across all my computers.

Another key back-up for me is having alternative computers to work on in case my main PC fails. I also use the über-traditional method of backing up to an external hard-drive on my desk, which is the preferred option for most freelancers. At this year’s ITI conference, there was a lot of chatter about using ‘the cloud’ to store data, but people seemed to assume that storing it in offline was automatically more secure. What would you do if your home was burgled or burned down and your one and only back-up solution was inside? Is that really any more of a secure solution than using an encrypted online back-up service to store important files at a remote location?

The possibilities really are endless for the paranoid, and my view is that these contingencies are not likely to happen at the same time. However, it’s really does pay to be too careful when you’re freelance (i.e. without IT support on hand).  Essentially, the only (almost) fail-safe solution is to have more than one contingency planning solution.

To learn more about online back-up and syncing, have a read of this article.  Warning – the review is rather long, but if you can scan it and pick up the salient points it’s a good starting place for contingency planning. The key message is not to rely on just one solution.

The response to our presentation has been really positive, with many people wanting to learn more or see the slides again, so we decided to take our little 2 person roadshow online for the big wide world to see. We are now pleased to unveil a stripped down, re-recorded version of our presentation available at Slideshare.net. You can view the show within this post (below) or by following this link to Slideshare if you have problems hearing or viewing the embed.

After a delightful evening meal at the library of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (the main conference venue), we reconvened early the next morning for another day of presentations, chat and lots of coffee. I felt that there was a perceptible shift on the second day towards the more practical, day-to-day aspects of translation and interpreting, with the emphasis on technology, work-life balance and professional development.

The day started with yours truly – co-presenting with Sarah Dillon. We’d done a lot (and I mean A LOT – see Sarah’s write-up) of preparation and research for our presentation, and it was both terrifying and exhilarating to finally be able to share it with our professional community in this way. We basically offered a whistlestop tour of the concepts behind social media and web 2.0, the type of online tools available, and how language professionals might best use them. Sarah did a demo of some novel uses of LinkedIn and Tweetdeck which appeared to be new to many delegates.

We had a small technological hitch along the way, with our remote presentation tool throwing a wobbly halfway through. Although it had worked fine in our tests, we had foreseen this happening, so managed to remain calm and carry on thanks to  our backup plan (a PowerPoint file containing screenshots). However, I think that our key messages still came through – that these tools are not scary or difficult to use, that they allow YOU to be in control of how much information you receive, that not every one of these tools will be right for you, and that’s OK, but that the online world is changing – big time. It’s almost a case of ‘find a manageable way to keep up, or get left behind’. I think these messages were fairly well received, and Sarah and I have been really, really excited to see more ITI members venturing onto Twitter, for example.

Watch this space for more news on our presentation, as we already have plans to make a recorded version of our presentation available at Slideshare and perhaps even to publish our research, thoughts and findings as an ebook via  Lulu. The ITI Conference website will also be uploading copies of every presentation early next week – go to  www.iticonference.org.uk.

Our session was followed by a panel discussion entitled ‘Where to draw the line?’ with Nick Rosenthal, Iwan Davies, Patricia Sommer and Paul Appleyard.  A few questions had already been sent to the panel in advance, focusing on the usual suspects such as how to chase late payment. We were reminded that it is important to operate a rigorous policy when dealing with late payments – don’t take any prisoners, and operate a zero tolerance policy, but remember to remain professional and courteous in all dealings with clients.

Next up was Dr. Steve Vincent from Leeds University Business School, on the subject of work-life balance for knowledge workers. Steve challenged the phrase ‘work-life balance’, suggesting that it was more an issue of ‘work-life conflict’ – this is a description that I also personally feel is more appropriate. Siobhan Soraghan, a business coach, ran the next session, again on work-life balance. Siobhan has personal experience of ‘burn-out’, and proposed that we check in with ourselves and our working/non-work habits and rationally analyse them.  We are all busy people, we all wonder how we’ll get everything done with just 24 hours in the day, so Siobhan suggested that in order to avoid burnout, in our daily tasks we should prioritise our endless lists of things we ‘need’ to do, by asking ourselves which of them are both important and urgent. The most important asset in each of our businesses is our health, and this needs investment through ’self-sustainability’ activities. To read more about Siobhan’s work, visit: http://www.active-insight.com

A truly original and inspirational presentation came next, by Phil Goddard on ‘Finding a work-life balance crossing America’. Some readers may already know about Phil’s 3000 mile walk across the USA for charity, but for those who don’t I urge you to visit http://anenglishmaninneworleans.blogspot.com and  www.nytola.com. Impressively, Phil found that he was still able to work on translation jobs while he was away, and often found himself delivering jobs from his laptop at random hours of the day or in unusual places – this really showed us just how ‘mobile’ it is possible to be these days if you really want to be.

Reinhard Schaler, founding editor of the Journal of Specialist Translation (JosTrans), and founder and director of the  Localisation Research Centre at the University of Limerick, presented a session entitled ‘Where is translation technology going?’. Reinhard started by stating a problem: there is more material out there online than translators can translate. Some examples: 40% of Facebook users are not using English, but Facebook’s mission statement is to make their product available in ALL languages. Their way of tackling this has been to crowdsource volunteer translators from within their existing user base – collaborative translation where users can comment on and update translations in order achieve a final version. This is a controversial practice among translators, and rightly so in some cases, but I am minded to agree that it is the most effective method for a product such as Facebook – after all, none of the language used on it is highly complex, and wouldn’t its users be best placed to understand the terms in context? The fact of allowing users to update other entries, Wikipedia style, would also go some way to resolving translation errors and stumbling blocks.

I attended the translation technology parallel session run by Ana Luiz Iaria. Ana is well known to be very knowledgeable on this subject, and took us through a run-down of productivity tools, back-up, tag verifiers etc. Look out for Ana’s presentation on the ITI Conference website to see the links to the tools she introduced us to.

And so the conference drew to a close, and there were a lot of tired but happy faces in the audience. To finish up, we discussed ways that the ITI is supporting the profession, with training courses and several new initiatives in the pipeline for the coming 12 months. Despite the feeling of tiredness I could sense we were all experiencing, I could also feel the unmistakable sense of renewed enthusiasm, new ideas and new contacts we so often come away with from conferences. At their best, conferences and any indeed any gathering of freelance professionals remind us why we’re in this profession, and help spur us on to develop ourselves and our businesses. I can safely say that this was one such event.

At the conference I attended last November, I decided to ‘live tweet’ from the event. But this time somehow the mood just didn’t take me, and I also knew that a few other delegates, particularly @nickrosenthal and @serenadorey would be tweeting updates, so I knew it would be well covered. Not to mention the fact that I was cripplingly nervous about my Sunday morning appearance as a speaker, so was rather distracted by that! So, I stuck to good old-fashioned paper notes this time, and here are my thoughts:

The conference had 3 key themes: ’sustaining the profession’, ’sustaining the professional’ and ‘moving with the times’; each  session being built into these. The Saturday morning began with the keynote speaker, Katerina Germanis from the FSC, describing the FSC’s work, and also giving a brief insight into its translation needs. This set the tone for the weekend very well. It seemed clear to me that the FSC are currently rethinking their translation ’strategy’ and assessing how best to proceed, so there may be some interesting developments there.

Next up was Helen Wolfson, international coordinator at Friends of the Earth, who gave a great overview of some of the work they do. Helen (clearly a very experienced and talented speaker) explained that FOE work with 3 official languages, and all their material needs to be available in each of these, meaning that their translation needs are huge. I was so impressed with the presentation, I decided to join FOE!

One of the most eye-opening sessions for me came up next: ‘Where have the translators gone?’, by Klaus Ahrend, Fiona Harris and Terry Clough of the DG Translation. I wrote a blog post a while ago about this, when the problem of sourcing talented into-English translators first arose in the mainstream British media, but I really had no idea that the problem had got so serious so quickly. About 1/3 of their staff translators are due to retire in the coming years. Some figures for you:

• In 2000, they worked with 10 language pairs and had 185 translators
• In 2004, they worked with 19 language pairs and had 222 translators
• In 2008, they worked with 22 language pairs and had 156 translators
• Their order volume has gone from €1.2m in 2005, to €3.8m in 2008.

As you can see, the general trend is fewer and fewer suppliers, against increasing (and wider) demand.  A particular problem is finding high standard English translators for the languages of the newer EU members. This is something Fiona Harris is seeking to address, namely by starting a MAJOR awareness-raising campaign (even using Youtube videos!).

According to Marcel Lemmens of Teamwork Vertaalworkshops, a similar situation is unfolding with the Dutch language. He explained there is a mismatch in the market in terms of Dutch>English translators. There is a major shortage, and only 2 universities in the UK offer translation courses where students are able to have Dutch as their source language. Marcel also emphasized one of the key take-home messages of the conference – that target language writing skills are the single most important skill in translation.

I really, really relished the next sessions – a series of presentations from recent MA in Translation students from assorted universities across the UK. They gave us a brief overview of their dissertations, which varied from translation gains in the international reporting of Chinese leaders’ speeches, to issues surrounding working as a sign language interpreter. You can read about some of the graduates in interviews on Sarah Dillon’s blog.

The conference then moved back towards an environmental theme, with a presentation by Cat Akana of Blue Planet Multicultural, a translation company specialising in the environment. I think our eyes were opened to just what a dire situation we’re in, in terms of the environmental challenges that lie ahead, and we were reminded of the need to take action now, before it’s too late. In fact, as Cat pointed out, climate change is happening NOW, and peak oil may already have happened, meaning that the ‘future’ we still assume to be far off may already arrived. Some of us may have noticed translating more and more environment-themed texts, and this is likely to continue to increase.

We were then treated to a fascinating presentation by Silvia Ferrero, owner of MediaLoc, on the games localisation industry. I’m not very familiar with this type of translation, but learned alot about what is involved, including a high degree of creativity and sometimes rewriting in order to achieve the best final result.

As we moved towards wrapping up the 1st day, we discussed contingency planning with a panel of experts. Questions from the floor included (paraphrased) ‘how safe is the internet?’, ’should I use online word processing tools?’ and ‘how often should I back-up my work?’. We were shown techniques in supporting mobility and flexibilty through folder and software syncing, how to boot from Linux in the event of a system failure, and how to link your main PC to others in your office. The main message from this session was that we should never just rely on ONE solution, contingency planning means preparing for several eventualities.

The final session was by Liz Robertson, Chair of the Association of Translation Companies, entitled ‘Sustainable relationships in a recession’. I really enjoyed Liz’s presentation, and particularly appreciated how well she set the tone for the 2nd day (and for our presentation). Her key points were that translators and translation companies are usually seen as 2 separate groups, that there was a lack of mutual recognition. Instead we should be focusing more on working in cooperation, since we already share a common goal. Her take-home points were: 1) know your client, 2) understand yourself and 3) ask for feedback, and welcome it when it comes.

“Arse, poo and widdle.” With this unholy trinity of coy expletives, Stephen Fry introduced us to the joys of Twitter earlier this month

By far the most disappointing report on Twitter that I’ve witnessed was on Newsnight yesterday evening. Apprarently Baroness Greenfield has piped up and said that communicating online is contributing to a rise in autism and is increasing the social isolation of children. Paxman had a couple of ‘experts’ on the show to discuss this. Watching this discussion felt a bit like watching the blind leading the blind, since nobody really seemed to have actually used Twitter or any other social media tool, despite professing to be experts on the matter. My favourite quote from one of them was “Children could be writing to people in another country who they’ve never met before”. Shock! Horror! Damnation! As someone who works at the global interface, I couldn’t quite understand why it would be such a terrible outcome for children to communicate with other children in different countries/cultures, provided that is done in a safe environment (remember internet parental controls?). My other half, equally bemused by the discussion, said to me “What about at school when we all had penpals abroad?”.

In reality, however, it’s not actually children who are using Twitter.  I’ll do my best to try to dispel that myth and others about Twitter here:

• Twitter is just for kids/teenagers/people under 25. Stats show that Facebook is still mostly used by the under 35s, but heavy users of Twitter are in fact more likely to be in the 25-45 age bracket. There is even a sizeable number of over 65s using it. I would (as have others) suggest that this is because the majority of Twitter users are on Twitter because they are mainly using it in connection with their work.
• Tweeters just send text messages to themselves to tell Twitter what they’re doing all day (I actually heard this description last week). Anyone who does that too much is pretty much an instant ‘unfollow’ for me – the most productive aspect of Twitter is that it helps people share news and information about their fields of interest or their occupation, with the occasional anecdote about their personal lives thrown in to show that they’re human.
• Twitter stops people from going out into the world and socialising in a normal way, and destroys peoples’ social skills. As with any new-fangled, revolutionary device, there is an initial ‘craze’ period, and a period where everyone scratches their head and worries that it signals the end of civilisation as we know it. I wasn’t alive at the time, so you’ll have to do your homework on this one, but sources tell me that people were worried about this when the telephone was invented too.

Twitter can help people build a ‘community’ of like-minded people, yes. This is a ‘community’ in the traditional sense of the word, nothing more sinister than that. That ‘community’ is a very valuable virtual water cooler for those of us who work freelance. I’m not sure how others working in open plan offices, for example, use Twitter. Perhaps they use it to reach out to virtual ‘colleagues’ beyond their immediate co-workers. That’s what it’s all about, folks. COMMUNICATION. BUT you still can’t beat socialising in person, and I’m pretty sure that most ‘normal’ Twitter users still do that. Perhaps even with someone they initially met on Twitter and found they had a lot in common with. There have always been reclusives,  and there always will be, with or without social media.

Feel free to share any other myth shockers you’ve come across, or even ones that you believe to be true.

One of the most exciting aspects of social media is how it democratises news and information – everybody has a chance to report what is happening where they are in real time, possibly making it more ‘authentic’. Do tools like Twitter make the reporting more ‘real’? Does the absence of the editorial agenda attached to a newspaper or TV channel make it more transparent? For example, the TV and newspaper footage of the Hudson river plane crash was great and everything, but Twitter was the one that really came into its own. Traditional media have more skills and equipment to draw on, but for practical reasons they just can’t match Twitter in terms of immediacy. This was something picked up on by The Guardian and the LA Times (check out the photo):

The major media outlets in New York responded quickly and on the whole they did a good job of reporting the news of the so-called “miracle on the Hudson”.

By contrast, news was all over microblogging website Twitter within minutes. One of the early reports came from New Yorker Janis Krum who wrote: “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.” Krum also uploaded this pic of the plane floating in the river. Krum was interviewed by MSNBC later yesterday and his pic had more than 100,000 views on TwitPic by this morning.

Yet the most immediate and compelling reports and images came from citizens. Even if you had the most rapid response system in the world, reporters were not able to teleport themselves to the scene – not to mention the fact that the on-the-ground location changed as the plane floated downstream.

If you go to Twitpic, you’ll see that the photo had 354129 views to date. Impressive.

Going back to Obama, this very same feature of social media offers the potential to bring greater transparency to politics and government. Note that within 1 minute of President Obama’s inauguration a new blog was set up on the White House website.  Go to our very own Number10.gov.uk, and look at how they’ve really pimped up their site with Flickr, YouTube and Twitter. Perhaps, in the post-inauguration euphoria, we can dare to dream that these tools will be utilised to the fullest, and that this ‘reaching out’ to the public will genuinely lead to greater transparency and public engagement in news and politics.

Looking at the website of OneHour Translation, I’m sceptical (to say the least) about their ability to turn around larger documents (projects they say they can take on include websites and presentations) within just 1 hour. To me, the best use of this type of service is for something like Twitrans, not important or lengthy documents. What do others think about this type of service?

My age group straddles Generation Y and Generation X, and I often find myself caught between these two rather different mindsets. On the one hand, I blog, and use Facebook fairly extensively, I use RSS feeds to manage information, and I share bookmarks. On the other hand, I’m still quite new to all this, only having had a Facebook account for just over a year, and a blog for roughly the same length of time. I’m still struggling with Twitter, not really fully understanding the term ‘micro-blogging’, not to mention what on earth Twitterific is. And all this on the day I find out that even the Beeb has a Twitterer (is that the term?) for my favourite breakfast radio programme, Radio 4’s Today programme.

Nonetheless, I think the important thing is that I’m willing to learn, and although I don’t fully understand some aspects of social media as much as I’d like to, I am totally wowed by the possibilities it offers. I want to be part of it, and like any good Generation Yer I am learning how to use these tools more or less instinctively.

The same cannot be said of Radio 4, though. Despite their impressive forward-thinking with Twitter, I was disappointed with how Radio 4 reported the Queen’s visit to Google this morning. They broadcast a ‘comedy’ piece called ‘The Queen’s Blog’, in which someone imitated the Queen emailing and accepting friends on Facebook (yeah, like, totally not the same as blogging). Listen again here and weep. I felt like this was a misguided send-up of social media (rather than of the Queen), and as always I look disapprovingly on those to dismiss it so readily.

Long live social media! Once I get my head round it that is…

My husband was surprised to be greeted by the above message when he logged into Facebook over the weekend.

For those of you who like me are slightly visually challenged and have to squint to read it, this is what it says:

“Do you speak English (UK)? Help translate Facebook into English (UK) so that it can be used by people all over the world, in all languages. Click on the Translate Facebook button…etc.”

Well, what it a relief it is to know that British English speakers may finally have the chance to communicate via social networking in our own language! Gone will be the days of cruel exclusion from Facebook by virtue of our language.

Just kidding This is obviously an automated message that has (I hope) been mistakenly programed to include British English, as opposed to American English, but we found it very amusing nonetheless. Good to see that Facebook is going to be translated into languages other than (International) English, in any case.