Translator's tools

Accounting for freelancers

December 7, 2009

Do you hate doing your accounts? Keeping track of invoices? Do you shudder with dread whenever you see an email from your lovely accountant in your inbox? Do you burst into tears at the mere thought of having to file...

Back-up system

August 20, 2009

While working on the redesign of the blog, I realised that my Translator’s tools category is rather bare: 12 entries in six years compared to 86 and 140 in the Freelance translation and Words categories respectively. It says a lot...

My shared office in Leeds

July 29, 2008

My office space in Leeds is light, airy and very quiet. Very very quiet. I’m more often than not on my own and I’m struggling to feel comfortable here. After three years in a fantastic shared office in Brighton, where...

How to organise your emails - update

June 29, 2007

Remember the very brilliant system to organise email that I mentioned just under a year ago? There was a tiny problem with it: although it meant that I managed my inbox much more efficiently, my "Action" folder has kept growing...

How to get rid of spam

October 13, 2006

I went from receiving around 150 spam emails a day to around 3. The best thing is, I used a simple method that everyone can apply provided they have a gmail account. Gmail is the webmail program from Google; it...

Trados makes Word crash

July 7, 2006

Are you a Trados user? Have you had problems with it recently? Namely, does Word crash every time you try and use Trados to do a translation? This thread on proz will help you remove the Microsoft Update which is...

Managing big projects

February 21, 2006

I have just taken on my biggest job yet: over 140,000 words to translate between now and the middle of June. From previous experience, I’m looking forward to it: I’ve already worked for this client, and the whole experience was...

How to count words in text boxes

February 8, 2006

Office Word doesn’t count words in text boxes, which is a bit of a pain when, like me, you need to know the total number of words in a document to invoice your client. That’s why I was really happy...

Online data backup

November 15, 2005

I tried for a long time to work out the best way to save my data. I was terrified that I would turn my computer on one morning and hear it implode (it happened to me once) and lose the...

Working with two screens

October 10, 2005

When I turned my office into a spare bedroom, I bought a 15'' TFT screen so the computer would take up less room, now that it was only going to be used for frivolous things like surfing the net....

The Visual Thesaurus

July 6, 2005

I am convinced that a lot of you will absolutely love the Visual Thesaurus. As its name indicates, it is a thesaurus, which, thanks to the magic of IT, makes language come alive and allows you to manipulate it in...

Champs-Elysées' audio magazines

June 14, 2005

Champs-Elysées is a monthly audio magazine for intermediate-to-advanced speakers of French. The main element is a radio-style program on CD or tape, packed with news, features and interviews, covering a vast array of current subjects linked to France: politics, culture,...

New category: products I like

June 8, 2005

Like a lot of freelancers, I sometimes fret over the future and whether I’ll carry on being able to make a living from translating and interpreting or whether C3PO-type multilingual androids will be replacing me in the near future. I’ve...

Logos universal conjugator

January 27, 2005

Language Hat (via Songdog) has a knack for finding fascinating and useful resources, like the Logos universal conjugator. Enter (almost) any verb and you'll not only get the full conjugation for that verb, but it also gives a definition, examples...