Disposable E-Mail Addresses

Our almost-weekly technology tip comes, as always, from our IT superhero Thomas Gruber. Today's topic is so-called disposable e-mail addresses. There are a variety of uses for them, including using them to get free stuff online, such as e-books or free software. While we love taking advantage of free stuff, and thank the many people who make the products available, we are increasingly weary of giving our business e-mail addresses. One never knows if our e-mail addresses could be sold or otherwise used in ways we don't approve of. Plus, spam messages are likely to increase when downloading freeware, and we don't read spam -- we read books (clever, but it's not really our own line). One way around this is to simply get a free e-mail address (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) and use that one for non-essential messages. The better option is to get a disposable e-mail address, which are is only valid for a short period of time. Does it sound too good to be true? It's not. Thomas recommends 10-Minute Mail, Meltmail, and the hilariously titled SpamGourmet.

Too Many Open Browser Tabs = Bad

Today's technology tip comes, as always, from our IT superhero Thomas Gruber, who has long been on both our cases about having too many broswer tabs open (we use Firefox). Judy is especially guilty of this. Thomas just sent us information that too many open tabs, in addition to slowing down your processes and loading times, could also leave one very vulnerable to phishing attacks (hackers trying to mine one's confidential data by posing as legitimiate websiste, including banks). This might finally be incentive enough for Judy to start closing tabs when she doesn't use the page and just open it again as needed. Read this page for a lot of important information about this subject, but it's a bit techie even for technology lovers like us. The bottom line: close the tabs of your browser to ensure online safety.

Top 100 Language Blogs

We are delighted that some of our wonderful colleagues have decided to nominate Translation Times as one of the Top 100 Language Blogs. The list is compiled by Lexiophiles, and it's a big honor to even be considered. There are four different categories, and Translation Times is listed in the Translation Professionals section. While there are hundreds of fantastic blogs to vote for, many of which are written by our talented linguist-friends around the world, we'd love to have your vote if you really like our blog. We've already cast our vote for our favorite blog -- and no, it wasn't ours. Visit the site to vote.

One-Day Conference: Utrecht, June 4

Who says there is no professional development in the summer? Between May and August, many regional and national associations in both Europe and the U.S. are hosting great conferences and seminars. We wanted to mention one in particular, which is quite unique: it is organized without the help of any translator and interpreter association, and it's the brainchild of two Dutch translators, Annie Tadema and Astrid van der Weert, who are putting on the entire event by themselves. The location is impressive, too: the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Netherlands (see picture). Unfortunately, the Dutch associaton of translators and interpreters isn't very active, which has resulted in a lack of professional development activities for Dutch linguists. We are delighted that Astrid and Annie have decided to fill that void, and we are grateful that they have decided to invite Judy to speak at the event. Now they just need some help spreading the word Please visit the conference site and tell your friends!

The Lighter Side: The Office Assistant, Part II

After we wrote about our Vegas office assistant, we just had to write about our feline assistant, Junia, how works in the Vienna office. She's a 10-year-old tabby (her birthday party is coming up), and is originally from Vegas, where Judy rescued her from a shelter. She's since moved to Vienna, where she helps the European side of our business by keeping the scanner warm (by curling up on top of it), and making sure Dagy takes her breaks by parading in front of the computer screens, demanding to be petted. Junia is also an expert at keeping the incoming mail basket warm and cozy. In addition, Junia is trying to train Dragon Naturally Speaking to recognize her very peculiar American-Austrian accent. Junia is a dual citizen of the US and Austria and also enjoys kicking things off the desk with her right paw, especially pens. She entertains clients by meowing in the background. Do you have an adorable office assistant? We'd love to hear all about it.

Do We Need a 12-Step Program?

We recently came across an extremely well-written, hilarious and very insightful article written by fellow translator Wendell Rickets of ProvenWrite (excellent business name). Wendell's article is spot-on and full of inspirational points for linguists. The short version is: stand up for yourself, demand to get paid what you are worth, and act like the professional linguist that you are. Wendell's article really hit home with a lot of translators, as evidenced by the more than 60 comments that have been left thus far. Translators unite! Thanks for a great article, Wendell. If you visit Wendell's site, be sure to check out his will-make-you-cringe "Hall of Shame" that features translations gone very, very wrong.

Two Entrepreneurial Lawyers/Linguists

A few days ago, we received an e-mail that two of the best legal translators (French<->English) had decided to go into business together. TransConnect Translations focuses, not surprisingly, on legal translations. We think their tag line is great: Translation for Lawyers by Lawyers. Congratulations, Marianne Reiner and Cindy Hazelton! We think theirs is an excellent, highly entrpreneurial idea: they have a native speaker in each language, can edit each other's work, and are both lawyers in addition to being linguists. We wish them much success in their partnership. We really like their very clean and easy-to-navigate website. Sounds like they really don't need to read our book, as they have plenty of entrepreneurial ideas themselves, but we'd like to thank them very much for buying it.

It's Official: Entrepreneurial Linguist Book Now Available

One year, hundreds of drafts, two hundred pages, two writers, eleven chapters, several dozen revisions, lots of sleepless nights, lots of second-guessing everything, dozens of logo and cover designs, three editors, one cartoonist, and one lay-out guru later: we have a book! We are delighted to announce that our book, "The Entrepreneurial Linguist: The Business-School Approach to Freelance Translation" is now available for sale. We decided to self-publish through Lulu.com, and while our book will be available through other online retail channels, we kindly ask those interested in buying the book to support Lulu and the authors by buying the book on Lulu!

We have given up on trying to create the perfect book (because there is no such thing), but are quite happy with the results. We hope you enjoy the book, which is a true labor of love. We appreciate the many pre-orders and all the interest in our book. Note: Lulu is still working out a few display issues on the page, which we are aware of. To read more about the book and to order it, please visit our Entrepreneurial Linguist website.

ATA Mid-Year Finance Seminar: Register Now

May 1 -2 is an important holiday weekend in many European and Latin American countries, but in the U.S., it is just another late-spring weekend. For those of you looking for continuing education points to keep your ATA certification current, those who did not have a chance to go to the ATA annual conference in New York, and those of you who specialize in financial translation: the ATA/DVTA finance seminar might be for you. The seminar, which will be held in Philadelphia, is conveniently located for all those East Coast linguists who might not be able to attend the annual conference, which is in Denver this year.

The ATA is holding this seminar in conjunction with the Delaware Valley Translators Association (DVTA), which was kind enough to invite Judy as the speaker for Sunday morning. She has a tough act to follow -- former ATA president Marian Greenfield and Stephanie Tramdack Cash, a well-known financial translator and former securities analyst. Judy hopes to see/meet many of her colleagues in Philadelphia. To register for the conference, please visit the ATA's website.

Google Docs Gets Even Better

As many of our readers might know, we are big Google fans and love Google Docs, which lets you collaborate on documents with colleagues from around the world. It's a very powerful, user-friendly tool. As with all things Google, the interface is simple and clean, and yes, it is free. We thought Google Docs was quite impressive before, but the company just released a new version with many upgrades. Our favorite is the sidebar chat, which lets you chat with collaborators in real time as you are working on a document. In addition, Google Docs now shows you character-by-character changes as they are being made without the need to refresh the page. The folks at Google have put together a short video explaining all the powerful updates. Get started with Google docs here.