The website Safemanuals.com offers free downloads of thousands of manuals and users guides for domestic appliances, computer hardware, digital cameras, and more, including brands ranging from Acer to Zyxel. This is handy when you cannot find that paper copy of a manual you are sure you put somewhere, but it can also serve as a great resource for translators.

Take, for instance the multilingual manual for an Olivetti ECR 5300 cash register—nice for French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish or Swedish translators working on such a subject.

The files are in PDF format, and besides going through a pretty standard CAPTCHA routine, the download is easy. So far, the site has been translated into Spanish and French, with other languages coming "soon". The homepage claims that the site has over 800,000 documents, with more being uploaded.

We all use Google, sometimes Yahoo! or MSN to search the web, but there are other search engines out there. A new alternative is Red Zee, which not only sports a cute red zebra as its mascot, but also lets you drag thumbnails of the search results in an arc (you have to see it to know what I mean). Maybe not particularly practical, but unusual and snazzy.

Stupid Interpreter Tricks VIII

“How many here,” bawled out my medical terminology professor, “have any background in health or medicine?” This was one of those huge University of Texas classrooms, and when I looked back and saw that over 200 of the 300-odd students enrolled had their hands upraised, I realized I was done for. At least two dozen of them were actually wearing scrubs or nurse’s uniforms! Luckily for me, technology came galloping to the rescue.

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Computerworld warns of a new variation in "phishing" scams which tries to lure victims into downloading malware. According to this article, recipients of the scam e-mail

…are told that they have been sued in federal court and must click on a Web link to download court documents. Victims of the crime are taken to a phony Web site where they are told they need to install browser plug-in software to view the documents. That software gives the criminals access to the victim’s computer.

As these scams may included the intended victim’s name, company and phone number, they are more targeted and believable than generic phishing attacks.

Have you ever asked yourself: “If I can postpone something why can’t I prepone it?”

Well, you definitely can. It’s just that sometimes we are not aware of the word. Prepone is an everyday word in India, where meetings, elections, weddings, movie releases, exams, court cases, and more are preponed all the time:

prepone (pree-PON) verb tr.
To reschedule an event to an earlier time.
[Modeled after the word postpone, from Latin pre- (before) + ponere (to put).]

This item was published by wordsmith.org. Those interested in words might like to visit this site and sign up for their word-a-day.

When I first joined the AATIA I served on a committee. All the members were—coincidentally—also Spanish translators. Given that random twist of fate, someone suggested that we write to each other in Spanish to discuss the business at hand. That struck me as a brilliant idea, since it would allow me to communicate informally in Spanish, which would be very helpful as most of my communication is in English. To my surprise, one of the members announced that she felt too intimidated to do that, saying she felt insecure about her command of written Spanish, and dropped out of the committee.

In my youth I was an actor in a theater group. Like the other actors, I’d read from my script during the early stage of rehearsals. But as we got closer to opening night the director would urge us to put down the script and act—really act. We rehearsed in a warehouse, with other group members sitting just a few feet away. I always felt intimidated and hung on to my script like a security blanket, defying the director and saying, “I’ll be fine when we’re actually on stage, with lights and an audience.” It took me a long time to realize that I was wrong, and that I was squandering a wonderful chance to get into my role in front of my peers, who were there to support me and encourage me, not sit in judgment of my performance.

I think that the committee member who didn’t want to write emails in Spanish was making the same mistake. Being involved with a group of translators is a chance to practice speaking and writing one’s “second language.” This is a priceless opportunity, which absolutely should not be squandered.

I remember the olden days, when we translators had to wrap our cuneiform tablets in mammoth hide and saddle our saber-toothed tigers to deliver … well, not quite. Yet the business of receiving files from agencies and direct clients and delivering finished translations to them has changed somewhat over time.

Gone are the days when the fax machine (preferably on a separate fax line, so you could be reached 24 hours a day) was the main conduit of information. I actually retired my trusty fax machine, as 95% of the incoming faxes were junk faxes.

Now I use a web-based faxing service named Trust Fax to send and receive the few faxes that are still needed. The fee for this is much lower than the cost of keeping a separate fax line and buying toner cartridges for the fax machine, and it actually offers a toll-free number for clients to reach.

In many cases, though, agencies might state that they want contracts signed and faxed to them, but they are perfectly happy if I convert the files to PDFs, sign them digitally and then e-mail them as attachments.

Most translators, of course, use e-mail for file transfer these days. If you have a broadband connection, with its greatly increased transmission speeds, this works so much better than in the case of dial-up.

Just remember that compressing your files with a program such as Winzip or Filzip can shrink them considerably (depending on the file type) and also makes life easier for the recipient who won’t have to deal with 37separate attachments.

Yet even with increased mailbox sizes and compression programs, e-mailing files sometimes is not always an option, as some files, such as PDFs or graphics, might simply be too large to send this way. Many agencies have reacted to this problem by setting up FTP servers (FTP stands for file transfer protocol) and will send you instructions containing FTP address, username and password that allow you to download these files.

While you could use Internet Explorer for this purpose, it is much more convenient to employ a dedicated FTP client such as Core FTP with its more user-friendly interface. However, a direct client might not have an FTP site available for file transfer. What do you do then?

There are a number of free or low-cost web-based file transfer services available. I have used YouSendIt that allows transfers of up to 100 MB. Other services of this type are Big Upload and Send This File. The client will then receive an e-mail with a URL that allows for the download of the large file you sent.