SDL Trados Seminar in Mexico City

Come join us in our first seminar for SDL Trados Studio 2009. If you are interested just email us at sdltradosmexico@gmail.com or at spt@traduccionprofesional.com
We will post the review, pictures, and more.
Happy translations

Back from Gala Review episode 1

Long time no see everyone. So we are finally back from the Gala conference at Cancun and I have to say I was very impressed by the quality of the event. Everything was really good, from the conferences to the informal chats and the fun. This Gala conference is an all embracing event where you learn, get updated and build a rather interesting business network. The setting was almost unbeatable, Cancun is one of my favorite places around the world and the JW Marriot is a great hotel. 

The help and assistance from the Gala team was outstanding, while the food was very very good -and I mention this because it rarely happens in this kind of events-. The food was something we could describe as gently Mexican in some cases and Mexican-Eastern fusion cuisine in others, but great at all times. 

Having praise enough the setting and organization I think I will start by mentioning some of the persons and companies I found to be very interesting. 

I'm a gentleman, so women first. When I arrived and registered got a useful bag courtesy of text & form (a company we will speak about later) in which we had some information and advertising. A piece of information that caught my eye right away was the flier for the Northern California Women in Localization.

This organization claims to be aimed at "...wanting to create a place to help women achieve equality in the workplace by mentoring, networking and supporting each other.", which I find a very interesting and refreshing way to work. The organization is leaded by a very interesting team of highly experienced women, Silvia Campos, Sr. Manager of Localization at VeriSign, Eva Klaudinyova, Localization Manager at VMware, and Anna N Schlegel, Director, Localization at Acclaro. 

   

Anna N Schlegel

       

Silvia Campos

  

Eva Klaudinyova

I think it would be very interesting for all women translators to follow and join this group, while they might let a couple of us join them sometime! 

Keep coming back because I have more than ten episodes of this review to come.

HAPPY TRANSLATIONS!

Gala now in Mexico!

Finally in Mexico with great talks (and some unofficial chats of course). Take a look at the program, I think it is worth it even if it is a little expensive. I think this is a really good opportunity for the translation community in Mexico (and I'm not saying this just because yours truly is going to be there at the technology panel). Check it out in their website:

Microsoft to Expand Bing Translator Language Support (quoted)

Moving forward with its machine translation technology, Microsoft has indicated that it plans to expand the service in order to cover additional languages. In this sense, the Redmond company has revealed to users of what is now Bing Translator that it is in the process of introducing additional language support for the service. No deadline was provided in this regard, but the software giant did manage to point to the next coming months for fresh languages to be added to Bing. A step in this direction was made today, July 7, 2009, as Microsoft delivered Hebrew support for Bing Translator. Article taken from Softpedia, for more information plase visit Softpedia.

SDL Trados Suite 2009 is here (TEST-REVIEW 1 Freelance version)

The time has come and after a long-tested beta (provided through a very commendable costumer testing program) SDL has finally realeased its new version for its industry leading CAT software. First things first, although we might all agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I don't think there is someone who can say the new SDL Trados looks bad. For starters we have the interface which is actually the first great achievement. At a first glance it seems that the former Synergy interface just had a face lift as you can appreciate in this images.

Before

After

The look is cleaner, with a more up-to-date application design, with lots of help and news, as well as buttons to access the various functions of the software on the left pane. On the center you can find 3 buttons to access the wizards to open a document, create a new project, and open a translation Package.

Now, the good news is that the main interface is no longer just a window with shortcuts, it is the actual software managing windows in a delightful way. SDL Trados did what we were expecting and even went further. They finally merged SDLX and Trados technologies into one amazing tool. Terminology is still managed by Multiterm (no surprises here) but the translation interface is more SDLX style, and that is a wise move no doubt. The old Trados working within Word, needing workbench to be opened or Tag editor, were good solutions 10 years ago but needed a full revamp. SDLX in contrast was a much more up-to-date look and feel, but lacking some power.

The old Trados look unchanged for years.


The SDLX look was destined to be the future.


The brand new look



For more information about the product contact an SDL Trados reseller in your country:
Mexico
Brasil
Chile
Latvia
Romania
Greece

Medical terms in Spanish

Image by misiek_beauchamp via Flickr

Here is an excellent wiki-style Medical dictionary in Spanish. I found it very useful for terminology work prior and during translation, I hope you like it.
http://www.portalesmedicos.com/diccionario_medico/index.php/Portada

Open code translation tools

"Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in."

http://www.opensource.org/

This is a very controversial topic. Many think software vendors overprice their software and do not pay attention to what the users need, those persons have long been fostering an innitiative to create open source software. This means that software is free or very low price, that if you need the software to do something special, then you just go into the code and add the feature yourself. The question I would ask is how many of us would be ready to do such a thing? No doubt everyone would benefit from such a software, specially students, teachers, and those who have just started in the translation trade. In my opinion, there are no conflicts between open source and commercial software. It is up to you to choose, you have the right to keep your code as your asset or decide to share it for free or cheaper than others. Also, it must be taken into account that software developers spend a lot of money in advertising, they generate employment, and can pay for research. I do think that cooperation is the best way to get to a goal, but I also think it is everyone's right to keep a breakthrough as a secret (only for a while though, else humanity would never improve or advance). But as usual, the fairest way to do it would be not to overprice the software, and share breakthroughs in different ways. It is your turn to judge and decide, or even join the cause. Here is a video from Voice of Open Translation 2007. Enjoy!!!