Thanks very much for responding to the document I shared calling for ideas about new directions translation technology is or should be headed. Interestingly, I don't think we came up with anything earth-shattering. This means one of two things: either we aren't particularly creative, or the technology we're using is doing a decent job. I'll leave it up to you to decide which of the two is more accurate.

Still, we were able to distill a couple of themes that I compiled into a letter and sent to the developers of the following tools: ABBYY SmartCAT, Across, Cafetran, Déjŕ Vu, Fluency, MadCap Lingo, MateCat, memoQ, Memsource, Metatexis, OmegaT, Smartling, Star Transit, Swordfish, Text United, TM-Town, Trados Studio, Translation Workspace, Wordbee, Wordfast, and XTM.

The webinar is booked out, but you can register to receive a recording (free) right here.

Here is the letter:

Dear Tool Vendors:

I would really like to thank you again for your willingness this past year to respond to the translation community's suggestions on where we would like to see improvements in your technology.

The upcoming follow-up seminar on May 21 has long been booked out, so there is obviously great interest from our side to continue this discussion. We are grateful that you're taking the time to engage with us again.

Last year's topics dealt with very specific features concerning user friendliness, TM and termbase handling, and usage of external resources. For this year, I've tried to push this to the next step and ask the community to chime in with more ground-breaking ideas that look toward where translation technology should really be headed. I've had quite a few submissions, and though I'm not sure we really came up with anything completely new, here is my attempt to distill the discussions into some over-arching topics:

Translation environment -- I've been using the term translation environment tool for several years now, and quite a few others have adopted the term as well, but I'm only now starting to see why this was a particularly good choice because of its description of something very desirable. We want a tool (or platform) that provides a complete environment that

• gives us the full range of authoring capacities that we can find in full-fledged word processing programs and editing capacities that we find in tools like Adobe Acrobat (such as better and more easily visible commenting features)
• gives us access within the tool to all required external resources, whether they are browser-based or found in digital dictionaries.

Machine translation -- Many of us are looking for a deeper and different integration of machine translation into our translation environments. While some translators are interested in using machine translation through the traditional route of PEMT (post-editing of machine translation), overall there is more interest in having machine translation be just one of the resources in our translation environments. If machine translation is used to complement and enhance existing processes and if it is interactive, many see a bright future in using machine translation because it would be more productive and find greater acceptance among practitioners. Suggestions included

• a direct integration of Moses into translation environments,
• simultaneously using various sub-segmented machine translations as AutoSuggestions,
• fixing TM matches with MT and fixing MT suggestions with terms and TM,
• evaluation of TM subsegments by using MT, and
• better reporting on the impact of productivity through MT.

OS independence -- You've heard this many times over the years -- usually packaged as "We want a Mac/Linux version of the tool." Offering an interface that runs on all platforms (such as through the web browser) rather than looking at the support of specific operating systems might finally make this a reality.

New business models -- There has been a lot of talk about disintermediation (i.e., the direct contracting of translation clients with the immediate translation provider) in the last few years. The only way this seems possible on a large scale is by using technology. While there already are technology solutions for this, they typically lack the volume of users to make them viable. Are you (with a potentially large number of existing technology users) willing and able to open your technology for this? Does the fact that some of you (SDL, Star, or Lionbridge) are also LSPs prevent you from offering such a possibility?

A number of other points were made that we might be able to discuss during the webinar, but the four points explained above are the ones I would ask you to respond to:

• Creating a more complete translation environment
• Integrating machine translation more organically and productively
• Achieving independence of operating systems
• Finding new and sustainable business models though translation technology

How do you see your technology fitting into those? Do you have plans (that you can share) to head that way already? What can we do to encourage you to take those routes? And (maybe most importantly): Did we overlook a fundamental change in translation technology that you are already anticipating or implementing? Please share that as well.

Your answers will be collected in a publicly available document (that I will advertise in this journal and on social media) and will be used as much as possible in next week's webinar. 

Fast and customizable monolingual term extraction software

Hermetic WFCA counts words and phrases in one or many TXT, HTML, XML, and Word DOCX files. The results can be displayed alphabetically or by frequency, and can be exported to Excel. It works with most European languages, supports stop words and pattern matching, and can also count the frequency of occurrence of words or phrases in a list.

Visit www.hermetic.ch/wfca/wfca.htm for the online user manual and trial version. 

It's been only four months since I wrote about the new release of memoQ 2014 R2 and described it as a major release despite its rather unassuming name. Now (coinciding with memoQfest in Budapest at the end of this month) memoQ 2015 is going to be released, and despite its bigger-sounding name I'm not sure I would call it a major release -- at least not in comparison with its predecessor. The internal designators of the version seem to verify that notion. While memoQ 2014 was version 7.0, memoQ 2014 R2 was version 7.5 and the present memoQ 2015 is version 7.8. That seems to be a much more accurate nomenclature than the silly year designators.

Still, it's an interesting release, and there are a number of features in it that make it worthwhile to upgrade -- particularly because it's free to upgrade when you're part of Kilgray's maintenance program -- or to take another more serious look at memoQ if you're using something else.

One of the most glaring changes in the previous version was obviously the ribbon, the now ubiquitous menu replacement that exposes features more easily (and frustrates those who don't like change). When I talked to Kilgray's Gábor Ugray about this feature at the beginning of the year for the previous version, he promised that the initial implementation, which didn't allow for customization of the ribbon tabs (or even the Quick Access Toolbar -- the little bar with icons in the upper left-hand corner of the screen), would be overhauled in the next (i.e., this) version. I'm happy to announce that he kept his promise. It's now possible to change two different ribbon tabs: The (new and more project management-oriented) Workflow ribbon bar and the Quick Access ribbon bar, as well as the Quick Access Toolbar (which in memoQ's case are two different things), are customizable in an interface that is similar to what you might also have seen in other programs, such as MS Office. I tested it and it worked well, including a feature that prevents the adding of shortcuts and icons into modules of the programs where they don't belong.

Gábor also praised the updated look of the icons, though I'm not quite sure that I share his enthusiasm . By trying to make the ribbon bar icons looks more professional, Kilgray gave up some of the more recognizable symbols for operations like "open" and "close" that have long been etched into the computer portion of our brains, leaving me slightly lost and longing for the familiar. (One icon they unfortunately kept is the Assign icon, which has always looked silly to me.)

But these, of course, are largely cosmetic quibbles. Here are a few features that are much more functional:

The dashboard -- the screen that displays after you open the program and gives you access to all your projects and resources -- is now very different depending on whether you are a project manager or a translator. The interface for the translator still looks familiar but is greatly simplified, with a drag & drop area for files to be translated (with automatic language recognition, etc.) and essentially just four buttons that allow you to check out or create a project or translate a package from another TEnT (translation environment tool) You will also see a list of recent projects.

The list of projects is actually the only thing you see in the PM dashboard, but it's highly sortable and filterable and you can access the variety of actions you want to carry out with those projects through right-click menus or the ribbon bars. Many of you know that I've been complaining about clutter in memoQ's interface for a long time, and the redesigned dashboards are certainly a fantastic step toward the goal of reducing clutter!

And speaking of project manager-oriented options, there are a number of other new features that are interesting: There now is an option for "lightweight" PM user groups whose members have access to only specific resources and projects (rather than the whole range). This is for instance helpful for a translation buyer with memoQ who wants to pass PM duties for a specific project on to an LSP or translator.

Also, it is now possible for a project manager to receive alerts if the progress of a project is not going as fast as it should be for it to be completed within the allotted time frame. I cringed a little when I heard that (like many of you, I feel that my time management is not my project manager's concern as long as I deliver on time) -- to which Gábor replied with the rather profound headline of this article.

Here are some of the new and very welcome features specifically for translators.

I just finished writing the documentation for the latest version of Déjŕ Vu so I'm naturally very familiar with that tool. There are a number of features in Déjŕ Vu that are true stand-outs because no other tool has them. One of those is the fuzzy match repair. Well, make that: was. memoQ now offers this very helpful feature as well. It's incredibly simple and yet very powerful: For any fuzzy match, the tool will try to repair the "offending" part with an entry from the termbase or a subsegment from the translation memory. If you have a well-curated termbase and TM (and only then!), this can be a significant productivity booster. Depending on how morphologically rich your target language is, you might have to make some changes to the inserted term or phrase, but that's a lot better than starting from scratch. I'm very happy that memoQ offers this feature now and even found a clever name for it: MatchPatch. Presently memoQ doesn't consult MT engines to fix the fuzzy matches, but that's just a matter of time.

Very much along the same line is a new feature by which termbase matches are weighted according to metadata (such as client or subject), and data with identical or similar metadata are preferred to other data. (I was actually under the impression that this was already being done, so I stand corrected and am happy to discover that it's now in place.)

One other termbase-related feature is that you can now assign keyboard shortcuts to send highlighted terms to a specific termbase (if you have several associated to one project). I really like that a lot. (I've always been gaga about shortcuts -- if I hadn't met my lovely wife, I might have gotten involved with keyboard shortcuts instead...)

Another improvement I can only appreciate from afar (as I squint at my smallish low-resolution monitor) is the new optimization for high-resolution screens -- must be nice to enjoy that.

One feature actually isn't new but I wasn't aware of it until I looked through the new version. memoQ's ability to highlight certain words, phrases, and whole segments in both source and target according to a number of criteria (Information, Error, Warning, and "World is about to end" -- aka Other) is very helpful and practical. I had a long talk with a professional reviewer yesterday about what she misses most in translation environment tools. Though she didn't mention this particular feature, her biggest complaint was the inadequacy of the comment bubbles in the communication between proofreader, editor, and translator -- but more on that at a later point.

I asked Gábor what he thinks would be most attractive about this new version to users of no tools (aka "newbies") and users of existing tools. He didn't have to think long: A "much quicker way to get started" and "less nerdy" for newbies, and "better interoperability" (such as full WYSIWYG and comment transfer for Trados Studio files) and "cleaner aesthetics" for the experienced user.

I tend to agree. 

SDL Trados Studio 2015 is coming....

We are excited to announce that the latest version of the leading translation environment tool, SDL Trados Studio 2015, is on its way!

The latest version will enhance the already powerful SDL Trados Studio by introducing new features that make it even easier and faster to deliver high-quality content in any language.

Learn more about SDL Trados Studio 2015 Freelance - Perfect for Freelancers

Learn more about SDL Trados Studio 2015 Professional - Perfect for Businesses

Here are some tips and tricks for how to share some love with your computer. I assume that you're well-equipped with tools such as antivirus programs and the like, but here are some other helpful programs that will make things run smoothly. Most of you will be familiar with some of these (in fact, you might have heard me mention some previously), but I would be surprised if you don't discover something new to put in your tool belt (if you use Windows computers...).

First, you might want to find out what you actually have installed on your computer and whether it is the most current version. The little freeware download Belarc Advisor is an awesome and free tool that gives you a helpful and detailed report of all the hardware and software that you have installed on your machine. This includes operating system, processor speed and memory, system serial number, printers, controllers, displays, and even passwords for many installed programs and applications that you might otherwise forget. I have found the last item especially helpful (who remembers where those pesky installation codes are kept anyway, right?). It also will give you good insights-and possibly surprises-about what you installed long ago on your computer and what should probably long be gone (or put to use again).

We all know now that true security in the Internet age may be an illusion. One way to stay a little bit safer, though, is by making sure that your applications are up-to-date, especially when it comes to security patches. Like you, I hate it when I have all kinds of programs bugging me with update reminders all the time. So I often disable those reminders-but the problem is that I'm no longer reminded (duh!). The most well-known software that takes care of this in one fell swoop is the Secunia PSI, a free product that detects all kinds of obsolete versions of your software, actually downloads most of the new versions, and asks you only to click to install (you can also ask it to only show you a link to the update site). This includes Windows updates as well as those pesky Adobe and Apple updates (though translation environment tools are overlooked-looks like we still haven't made it to the pinnacle of software development).

Of course, it's important to remember that there is never a guarantee that the most current version is the best choice. So if you've updated to a new version of a program and would like to go back, what do you do? FileHippo.com is a great place to find downloads of old versions of software.

If you need to do some general computer housecleaning, Ccleaner is the tool of the moment. A few years back these kinds of tools were all dominated by Finnish developers, but this seems to have changed-the company behind Ccleaner is from Cyprus. Be that as it may, the tool appears to be safe and does a very thorough job of cleaning out your registry, deleting temporary files, uninstalling programs, etc.

A little tip: If you don't use Internet Explorer as your main browser, be sure to open the Applications tab on Ccleaner's main screen to adjust what kind of browser-related files should be deleted and what should be left intact for the browser of your preference (for instance, it might be helpful to keep the "internet history" or "saved passwords").

If you still need assistance despite all your efforts to keep everything going well, there's also help for that. Unless you take your computer into a computer shop when you encounter problems, it can be very hard to explain what went wrong to someone on a phone help line. Of course, there are ways to share your computer screen with someone else, but another helpful method is to record your problems and send the recording to someone else. Many third-party products do this, along with an in-house tool in Windows 7 called the Problem Steps Recorder (in Windows 8/8.1: Steps Recorder -- there are never "problems" on a Windows computer). This tool allows you to record everything on your screen (with the exception of text that you enter).

To start the recorder in Windows 7, click on the Windows button, type psr, and hit Enter; in Windows 8, type steps in the Start screen and select the Steps Recorder.

When the recording is finished, it is not saved as a movie file but as an MHT archive file and zipped up. Once unzipped, the MHT file can be opened with most Internet browsers. (If your computer geek assistant doesn't know how to open it, he might not be worth his job title to start with.) This file gives you a screen-by-screen description of what just happened on your computer as well as a narration of the process and operating-specific information.

There they are -- tips and tricks to share the love, guaranteed to enhance and improve your most important working relationship. 

memoQ 2015 to be released May 22!

We know you're wondering what's new in memoQ 2015...

Check out our memoQ 2015 highlights in this video now.

memoQ 2015 will be available May 22, 2015!   

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