Purpose of this ML

[Wataru Tenga]

The purpose of this mailing list is to help prospective Linux users
determine whether Linux can be used as a platform for pro translators,
and to help new Linux users use the platform successfully.

Posting news about Windows or Mac OS does not serve that purpose.

Thanks. Now back to my translation work.

Wataru Tenga

[Kevin Kirton]

Wataru Tenga wrote:
> The purpose of this mailing list is to help prospective Linux users
> determine whether Linux can be used as a platform for pro translators,
> and to help new Linux users use the platform successfully.

A late response to this, but yes, I think this ML should be limited to
being about using Linux as a platform for professional translation. I
don't need links to updates about Linux distributions.

As an update about my own experiences. I tried to use my CAT tool of
choice (Felix) on Ubuntu with Wine. No go yet. Although there now is an
interface for Felix for use with OO.

A year or so ago, I had a patent job that had no text data (just a PDF
of scanned pages), and because of the unusual nature of that job, I
easily finished it on a spare Ubuntu laptop. Just web-based dictionaries
(which I didn't really need for the job anyway) and an OpenOffice RTF file.

Overall, the move to Linux is still getting closer, but not there yet
for me.

Kevin Kirton
Australia

[Raymond Martin]

> Overall, the move to Linux is still getting closer, but not there yet
> for me.

Perhaps try OmegaT+ - http://omegatplus.sourceforge.net

Yes, it runs on Linux (with Java).

I recently put out an update for that (version 1.0.M3).

Regards,

Raymond

[Kevin Kirton]

Raymond Martin wrote:

> Perhaps try OmegaT+ - http://omegatplus.sourceforge.net

I check on OmegaT+ (now with +?) every once in a while, but I don't
think it's as good a fit for me as Felix. Felix highlights differences
between the source and nearest-hit sentence, and if only the numerals
are different (which is often the case with patents), it will convert
the numerals in the TM sentence to match the sentence being translated.
Saves a lot of typing. And the developer (Ryan Ginstrom, also a J-E
translator) is very responsive to suggestions and is definitely tuned in
to Japanese aspects of computing, which hasn't always been the case for
Wordfast etc.
I hope to be using Felix on Linux before too long.

Kevin Kirton
Australia

[Raymond Martin]

> I check on OmegaT+ (now with +?) every once in a while, but I don't
> think it's as good a fit for me as Felix.

Different application, forked from OmegaT.

> Felix highlights differences between the source and nearest-hit sentence, and
> if only the numerals are different (which is often the case with patents), it
> will convert the numerals in the TM sentence to match the sentence being
> translated.

Okay, don't have exactly that. Matches with matching and difference are
highlighted in different colors.

> Saves a lot of typing.

Don't necessarily need to always type in OmegaT+. Select match, with
mouse/menu, shortcut, or toolbar button. Drop in place with shortcut, drag'n
drop, etc.

> I hope to be using Felix on Linux before too long.

Felix is not a viable Linux solution for translation at this point. Unless you
are going to mess with virtualization or he is porting it over, low
probability of that if it is written to work directly with MS Office or using
strictly MS code.

At $350 it is pretty much over-priced, as are almost all the other CAT
tools for what they provide.

OmegaT+ is a viable solution for Linux, is free, supports Japanese, and it
works now.

Raymond

[marc...@gmx.yamaha.com]

Open Office has often given me formatting problems when working with the MS word files my clients usually give me, which is a shame, because I prefer using Linux over Windows XP for anything that doesn't require TRADOS. Omega T is a decent tool as well although I've only used it with .utf8 files. How good is it's integration with Open Office? Does Omega T+ improve on that?

>
> > I check on OmegaT+ (now with +?) every once in a while, but I don't
> > think it's as good a fit for me as Felix.
>
> Different application, forked from OmegaT.
>

>

> Don't necessarily need to always type in OmegaT+. Select match, with
> mouse/menu, shortcut, or toolbar button. Drop in place with shortcut, drag'n
> drop, etc.

.

>
> At $350 it is pretty much over-priced, as are almost all the other CAT
> tools for what they provide.
>
> OmegaT+ is a viable solution for Linux, is free, supports Japanese, and it
> works now.
>
> Raymond
>

Open Office has often given me formatting problems when working with the MS word files my clients usually give me, which is a shame, because I prefer using Linux over Windows XP for anything that doesn't require TRADOS. Omega T is a decent tool as well although I've only used it with .utf8 files. How good is it's integration with Open Office? Does Omega T+ improve on that?

-Marc, Shizuoka

[Raymond Martin]

Hi Marc,

> Open Office has often given me formatting problems when working with the
> MS word files my clients usually give me, which is a shame, because I
> prefer using Linux over Windows XP for anything that doesn't require
> TRADOS. Omega T is a decent tool as well although I've only used it with
> .utf8 files. How good is it's integration with Open Office? Does Omega T+
> improve on that?

OmegaT+ is not integrated with OpenOffice.org, it supports ODF/OOo formats.
Which are arguably the office formats it supports the best in terms of going
from original to translated documents while retaining proper
layout/formatting.

Conversion between ODF and MS Office and back is a significant problem
in Linux (under OpenOffice.org, KOffice, etc.), and in this case with a Java
application.

Recent versions of MS Office actually support ODF import/export. Some support
for older versions goes back a certain number also. Perhaps try to get your
clients to send you ODF, if they have a supporting verison. This would
completely avoid any formatting problems from the start.

OmegaT+ also has support for MS Office OpenXML (OOXML), an XML version of
MS Office formats that newer versions of the related program can import/export.
Unfortunately, the support is not that far along and you see a lot of tags in
the segments that make working with it uncomfortable.

Perhaps also you could enumerate the exact formatting issues you see with the
program when having to roundtrip MS Office documents. I know there are at least
some issues with tables.

Cheers,

Raymond

[Keith Wilkinson]

It's OT, but aren't any of our email software experts
going to review the new Thunderbird 3?

[marc...@gmx.yamaha.com]

I've not tried it in Ubuntu yet (my distro of choice), but I do use it in Windows XP. and my experience to date has been that the Windows and Linux versions are very similar.  Thus far I like it. A lot. The search function is excellent (and FAST), and thus far I have had no problems whatsoever with any encodings. Filtering functions seem more than adequate, and while plugins and addons are few on the ground right now, I think they will catch up quickly.

-Marc, Shizuoka
--------------------------------------------------
Marc Ward
Graphics Section, Sales Division 1
Yamaha Media Works Corporation
305 Noguchi Cho Hamamatsu 430-0919 Shizuoka JAPAN
Ph. (81) 53-460-1655  Fax (81) 53-462-3663
www.yamahamediaworks.co.jp
--------------------------------------------------

[Keith Wilkinson]

Hi Wataru,  hope you're keeping well...

Re. Your top email software recommendations

I wonder if you'd mind recommending your top-rated
Japanese email software (two or three items if possible).

I migrated the wife and daughter from OE to Thunderbird
after they hit the apparent mailbox limit of about 2G,
corrupted their mailboxes, and lost all their mail.

But my wife has just lost all but one day of her
Thunderbird in-box...

[Wataru Tenga]

Hello, Keith. Doing fine, but no longer playing around with Linux since
I began to use Trados, Abbyy Fine Reader and other software that works
best in its natural Windows environment.

For Japanese email programs on Windows (am now using 8), I recommend
Hidemaru Mail (along with the HTML viewer plugin if needed) or Eclair.
Becky is another good choice.

http://hide.maruo.co.jp/software/tk.html

http://www.aqsoft.jp/eclair/index.html

http://www.rimarts.co.jp/becky-j.htm

Wataru Tenga

[JimBreen]

On Friday, 14 September 2012 00:07:45 UTC+10, Keith Wilkinson wrote:

I migrated the wife and daughter from OE to Thunderbird
after they hit the apparent mailbox limit of about 2G,
corrupted their mailboxes, and lost all their mail.

But my wife has just lost all but one day of her
Thunderbird in-box...

Backups? I have a 100Gb of cloud backup storage with
SpiderOak, for which I pay about $US90pa. Multiple
systems can use it so my wife's and daughter's Windows
systems and my Ubuntu all back up to it. I could recover
my wife's Thunderbird mailboxes from any point in the last
month or two if it was needed.

For folders that are changing all the time, such as
Thunderbird's mail folders, I have set up the Windows
equivalent of cron job to make a zip file of them once a
day, and that's what gets backed up.

I have done two recoveries; one when my daughter
accidently re--initialized Windows (don't ask), and
once when I deliberately did the same to my wife's
netbook to get rid of a bad driver that was freezing. In
both cases all the relevant files recovered perfectly.
In my wife's case she keeps her Word, etc. documents
synchronized between the desktop and netbook systems.

Always back up. Problems will happen and you have to
be prepared.

Jim

[Keith Wilkinson]

Wataru,  thanks for the update, and the mail software recommendations.

(Sorry if I've disturbed anybody on the list; this was supposed to be a
private mail.)

I like the way that Windows 7 Japanese allows the user to search in
Japanese or English for Windows functions like "Folder options" or
"Windows Experience Index" -- as well as search for strings in file
names or file contents . Every new version of Windows completely
changes the user interface, and it's good to be able to find stuff
without having to learn the zillion petty details of a new interface.

(New LED-backlight monitors have hugely-improved contrast
compared with their fluorescent-backlight predecessors, and
make it easy to read tiny filenames on the Windows desktop.)

I haven't tried Windows 8.  I tend to not be an early adopter--I prefer
letting other people find the bugs, and document workarounds for
all the annoyances.  But the touch screen tablet style of app launcher
seems less efficient than the hierarchical menus, which make it easy
to browse and to segment items into related groups, like "games".
The changes in the Gnome Desktop on Linux from hierarchical menus
to tablet-like rows-of-icons seems to have turned off a lot of people. For
the average user, who only wants to see icons for the small number of
apps used all the time, and who wants to remove the rest, this new
trend in interfaces may be an improvement. Possibly it's easier to
assign favorites to keys or keystrokes, which you seem to like.  

Browsers (rather than mail software) are a hot button for me.
I'm a great fan of Firefox, the current version of which allows me to
have a zillion tabs open yet not run out of memory.  If I accidentally
close a tab, then I can look at History and restore it.  When I want
to do some housekeeping, I can move tabs to related-topic Tag Groups.
Tag Groups take a bit of getting used to--it's easy to lose all the
currently-open tabs when one is just starting out with Tag Groups.

I would have thought that Mozilla could have done a little better
with Thunderbird.  Search is certainly scorchingly fast compared with
Eudora and Outlook Express.  However mailboxes are essentially
databases, and sharding (e.g. segmenting a database into chunks
by month or year, but making it look as if it's a single contiguous
database) is not exactly a new idea, but nobody seems to do it
in email software yet.  Automatic sharding would make mailbox
corruption much less likely, and much less would be lost in the
event of corruption.

Jim: thanks for the comments.  I tend to backup our several home PCs
about once every six months, but maybe I need to consider a centralized
automatic backup system like Bacula for mail and documents...

Regards