Create new folders in Windows
While I am not as much of a keyboard purist as some, I still find that some tasks can be done much faster while staying on the keyboard. Windows offers many shortcut keys (aka hot keys or accelerator keys), I think almost everyone uses Ctrl-C to copy, Ctrl-F to search (optimistically named after find) or Ctrl-S. The good thing about those is that many of them are universal, so with Ctrl-F you can search on your hard drive, in a text document, in your browser etc. Unfortunately, there is one shortcut that I am missing since forever and Microsoft never had the decency to add it. I want a shortcut to create a folder. I don’t want to use the mouse context menu (Right click - New/Folder) and I don’t want to use the menu bar (File/New/Folder). I know for the menu you could use the keyboard with Alt f w f but that is not only extremely unintuitive but also very cumbersome because of the location of the keys alt, f and w keys (or am I just clumsy?).
Surprisingly, in the Windows Explorer, Ctrl-N has no function at all. In most programs it opens/creates a new instance of whatever you have, for example in Word you open a a new blank document, in Firefox and IE you open a new browser window, Outlook opens a new blank email, Nero opens the New Compilation window - everyone does something. A Windows Explorer window on the other hand just stares at you and does nothing - it’s like asking a cat to Fetch or Sit (although, I have seen cats fetch). There are shortcut keys for rarely used actions like Ctrl-Windows Logo-F to find computers on the network (probably useful to some, but everyone creates folder). After searching a little, it seems that this missing shortcut irks other people too. Does anyone know of a way to create shortcuts on Windows WITHOUT the help of a program that has to run in the background? I couldn’t find anything to solve this issue. I know there are a lot of programs that allow you to create custom shortcuts for just about anything, but my work computer is slow enough as it is and I don’t want to have yet another program running in the background.
Now…how did I get here…ah, yes. Today, I was just facing the task of creating an abundance of folders. I have a slow week so I am trying to find useful things to do, and I always meant to clean up the documentation network location which has a wild folder structure that defeats logic or reason and literature for one product can be in up to 4 different locations. Some products have language subfolders, some don’t. Some have the language subfolders named with the common ISO abbreviations, some have full names and I even see the occasional GR as an abbreviation for German. I am trying to find a system that is easy to maintain for everyone and not too confusing. I’ll probably break a lot of bookmarks and am expecting angry emails already. Ah well, such is life.
The people we meet online…
I don’t even know what to write. I am not really good at this, since I am usually an outspoken, foot-in-mouth person who prefers to approach topics head-on instead of carefully and with sensitivity.
Judy Ann Schön, a fellow translator from Lenggries in Bavaria, passed away recently. She had been seriously ill for a while now. I had exchanged a few email messages with her, and she asked me not to mention anything on any of the mailing lists and I honored that wish.
The first time I had contact with her was when I just started to work as a translator here at X-Rite. I answered a question which was related to some type of calibration or color reference. Judy was a physicist and was apparently impressed with my knowledge, so she asked me every now and then if I could translate some things for her. Most of her translations were medical and that is not my thing, but we worked together on translation jobs related to printers and copiers. She taught me a lot, and I admired her for her knowledge - not only in the topics she translated but also general translation and language-related issues. Unfortunately for me, she almost exclusively worked with Deja Vu X and I almost exclusively work with Trados, so we didn’t collaborate that much.
In 2000, my husband and I went to visit my parents and friends, and while there we decided to go down to Lenggries. Of course Chuck wanted to see the Alps, but we chose Lenggries because we could combine the mountains with finally getting to know Judy Ann. Judy Ann’s recommendations for accommodations and the little tips of where to go and what to see made our trip a wonderful experience. We met a couple of times for dinner, and we visited her, Sandra and her pets. Our trip was fantastic, and we will never forget Lenggries and of course Judy Ann.
Another thing we discovered during our conversations was that her father actually lived very close to us here in Michigan. IIRC, she never had much contact with him, but shortly after our trip she decided to visit him. Accompanied by Sandra and one of her friends, Judy Ann came to visit us too. Unfortunately, their visit overlapped with a visit from my parents from Germany, so we didn’t get to spend as much time with Judy Ann as I would have liked, but I was glad they came by and got to see how we lived and meet our kitties - since cats were always a major topic.
But as it is with online relationships, the contact frequency fluctuates a lot - you don’t write for months and then you have a vivid email conversation over weeks. This happened with us as well. In the end, we stayed in contact for all those years. I started to go back to university part-time while working full-time, which didn’t allow for any freelance work and also restricted my spare time in general. In late June of this year I realized I hadn’t read anything from Judy for a while, and I sent her a quick hello. She replied and that’s when I heard about her illness for the first time. That is also when she asked me not to mention anything - a request I honored even if it was hard. I realized she wasn’t in a state of mind to answer emails from people she hardly knew, repeating her story over and over. A couple of months later, people on the PT list also noticed that Judy had not participated for a while and started to wonder. The chatter could be stopped by a neutral message about not discussing people’s situations without their consent. That actually didn’t make much sense, but somehow people just knew what to do. I sent her a few emails again, trying to keep in contact, but her answers got shorter.
At this point, I took a break from writing to call Markus, my best friend in Germany. He has his ups and downs, and the last I heard from him was an SMS a couple of weeks back, to which I “didn’t have the time to reply”. You know how that goes - you have used that lie yourself, right? Of course you have the time to reply or call. You just don’t, because you are thoughtless - I know I am. Maybe tomorrow. Not right now. Don’t tell anyone you didn’t have the time to call if at the same time you blog, participate on mailing lists, etc. So, this is for Markus - I love you and I miss you. Please come visit us soon. Chuck and I can’t wait to have you here.
As I have mentioned, I am quite awkward about this. I am not a warm and mothering person. I am a techie and, while I somewhat knew what her short replies indicated, when I didn’t hear back from my last messages, I didn’t have the guts to pick up the phone and call her. I felt that I could not offer any comfort in a conversation or convey how I felt. I am just worried that my words don’t sound sincere.
Well, the inevitable has happened, and Judy Ann Schön has passed away. My thoughts are with her and of course with Sandra, her daughter. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to get to know her. I am thankful for all the things she taught me. I believe I am a better translator because of her. I will miss her. And I am sad that I was not a little more persistent in trying to contact her over the last half month. I don’t know if she would have appreciated it, but that should have been a chance I should have taken.
A little earlier today Jill from Musings from an overworked translator called and we talked about how people we almost exclusively knew online can leave a void in your life if they die. Spend a moment and think about the people you have gotten to know online - people you consider friends. Think about who you would miss and who would miss you and make sure that they will know if something happens to you.
SDL Synergy follow-up
A short while back, I explained how I started to use SDL Synergy to manage my multilingual projects. Back then I realized that I need to use the “packages” function in order to really utilize the functions. I was a little uncomfortable with this because I don’t really like to impose a new process on my freelancers, so I actually asked them what they think and how comfortable they are working with those files. Well, they said it is no big deal and one actually replied “Don’t worry, most of the projects I work on are more painful!” - I take that as a compliment. I have only used the packages with my two main translators though, but that is simply because nothing has come up for my “rare” languages.
Now it’s almost 3 weeks later, and I still like it. It really is a lot faster for me to process the files for translation and receiving back the return packages is also very easy. I am so happy that I don’t have to switch back and forth between the different translation memories anymore.
Does anyone else receive packages from clients? How do you like working with them?