TeuxDeux répond à ce que j’attendais depuis longtemps : un pense-bête enligne, simple et ergonomique où je peux noter toutes les choses que j’ai à faire. Il est également intelligent : si j’oublie de signifier que la tâche est accomplie, il me l’ajoute dans la liste du lendemain.
Pourtant, j’avais essayé de nombreuses autres solutions pour ne pas avoir à me souvenir de tout (bien que ces exercices de mémoire sont recommandés pour lutter contre un éventuel Altzheimer). Que ce soit Outlook ou les Post-its (qui disparaissent sous les dossiers), les Day Planner, Filofax et autres Exacompta, et sans oublier les fonctions du téléphone mobile, aucune solution n’offrait la souplesse et la facilité que je recherchais.
TeuxDeux est gratuit. Tout du moins pour l’instant. Et ils planchent sur une version pour iPhone et smartphone pour l’an prochain.
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
Finding a title for this post to describe all Pearltrees‘ potential uses is near impossible. You’ll soon understand why.
This is not a paid advertisement! I don’t know the creators and have not invested in their start-up (though if it ever goes public, I’ll consider investing). I discovered this tool just a few days ago: the more people use it and contribute to it, the better it will become.
A group of French entrepreneurs, headed by Patrice Lamothe as CEO, launched Pearltrees this spring. It is still in alpha mode, but it rocks. So what is Pearltrees? A new GUI that allows you to create mind-maps of your Web, any way you like, to guide your friends and colleagues through your Web, discover and share in others’ Web, and much more. Continue Reading…
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago. Add a comment
24 hours on Twitter, and I sense an existing dilemma is going to get worse.
Independent professionals don’t have gobs of free time. Many already struggle with work/life balance issues; one of my colleagues, a French to English medical translator, often Skypes me grumbling “Gawd, it’s WDWEWDWE again!” – meaning her husband is hovering over her desk asking when and what is for dinner while she’s on a deadline. Mine occasionally quips I’m married to my computer more than to him. Continue Reading…
Posted 3 months, 4 weeks ago. Add a comment
Jargon. The sound of that word makes me reach for a Tums. Jargon, as in “meaningless-gibberish-that-sounds-like-a-money-wrote-it.”
No, I am not referring to precise terminology used by a specific group of people and only occasionally understood by those outside the group. If, for example, you are writing or translating a medical text for an audience of specialists, you should be writing perorbital hæmatoma and not the plain English ‘black eye’ or the French layman’s ‘œil au beurre noir’.
I am talking about my pet peeve (or one of them, rather), the use of jargon that has become as prevalent as driver incivility.
Continue Reading…
Do you write for a living? Or write copy to promote your own work?
Do you find yourself staring at a blank word processing screen or procrastinating turning on your computer?
Are you motivated by reward (”quick wins”) or by sanction? Or a combination of both?
Then this little web app is for you. I stumbled onto Dr. Wicked’s Writing Lab this morning and am using Write or Die to compose this post. I gave myself 15 minutes and set it to Kamikaze Mode.
Continue Reading…
Posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
My two websites, Lokahi and Quill were with different web hosting providers and registrars and this blog previously was with Blogger. Dealing with three different platforms was inefficient, and I was not happy with the support services provided, which ranged from either terribly slow to nil.
A colleague recommended Mavenhosting, which I had never heard of. Their service plans seemed to offer everything I was looking for and more. I was dubious at first as their front-end website does not provide as much information as a programming newbie and network neophyte might need, but one of my hosting plans was coming up for renewal so I took the plunge.
I’m sold.
Continue Reading…
Posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
This list is not exhaustive and will continue to be enriched. Please feel free to suggest additional resources.
Posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
Did I have a clue how many tools I depend on to run my business?
Not until my computer started to show clear signs of needing a major Spring-cleaning.
My husband will attest that I’m OK with the daily tidying up bit, but ask me to sort out closets and I run for the hills. My computer is more persuasive: “reinstall my OS from scratch or you’ll eat my dust.”
So I chose Saturday to overhaul my C:/ drive. I back up work everyday and do a full back up once a week, so I was all set to go. I figured I’d be done by lunch and be free to enjoy the rest of the day.
Yeah, right (mumbled in a very New York tempo). Like with your toothbrush, coffee maker, and ergonomic pillow, some things are so taken for granted you forget they are there and that you use them everyday. By dinnertime, I had just reinstalled XP Pro, all the drivers, and my essential business tools: what I absolutely cannot face Monday morning without. I had not even gotten to the stack of useful but more creative software (need another free day or two for those!).
Maybe novice or not too tech savvy colleagues will find something useful in this post, and I hope tech junkies will add suggestions to this list of resources. I’ll skip the basics – MS Office, firewall, anti-virus, Internet navigator, Adobe Reader.
My CAT tool is Wordfast Classic, which I use mainly for quality control and individual client glossary development purposes. Repetitions and fuzzy matches are not an issue in the type of work I do, but Wordfast boosts my efficiency and ensures I use client-specific terminology.
In addition to a host of online and paper resources, the Robert Collins French-English digital dictionary is practical when I’m on the go. We all know relying on MS’ spelling and grammar checker is risky and that’s where tools such as Stylewriter for American English or Antidote for French come in: they catch many (OK, not all!) bloopers – by v. buy for example – flag jargon you might want to avoid, zero in on spacing errors, and help you tighten up your final copy. Antidote also includes style guides, an extensive French dictionary, regional variant options, and thesaurus. For publication work in English, The Chicago Manual of Style digital version is an essential companion.
TO3000 and related applications from the great folks at AIT Software make running my business a heck of a lot easier. Quotes, invoicing, tracking payments, and managing work files are a tidy breeze. If you need to assess your productivity, know how much time you really spent on a project, or provide your client with proof of your work hours, then Time Stamp from Syntap Software is a great option.
Data preservation and safety are big issues. I back up work in progress every evening, automatically, with Mozy. If you click on this link and start using Mozy, then both of us will get an extra 256 MB of free storage space (thanks!). If your data gets corrupted or erased somehow, restoring those precious files securely with Mozy is a cakewalk.
Though I have a Gmail account, I prefer dealing with my e-mail off-line, with Outlook. To protect my computer from spam and malicious files, I use MailWasher. If you only have one e-mail account, then the free version will suit you. If you have several, go with the Pro version. MailWasher lets to see all incoming e-mail before it hits your computer (at which time, it is usually too late), set friends and blacklists, delete or bounce e-mail, and restore e-mail you might have deleted accidentally.
What are some of your favorite “I can’t face Monday morning without” tools, aside from a perfectly brewed cup of java?
Posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago. Add a comment
