Sep 18, 2006
I have been dealing with freelancers for various tasks (translations, graphists, development), and it’s still unbelievable that most freelancers do not pay any attention to maintain a consistant name in their communications. Let me clarify this point: I do not care to know of the exact legal name of any freelancer I am dealing with. But how can I even recognize the person if messages never get signed twice with same name?
Sep 17, 2006
The ASP.Net Session state is a pretty nice way to store (limited) amount of data on the server-side. I am not going to introduce the ASP.Net session itself in this post; you can refer to the previous link if you have no idea what I am talking about.
Although many articles can be found over the web arguing that the major issue with the session state is scalability, don’t believe them!
Jul 22, 2006
RESX files are great (and simple) containers of textual resources for your .Net/Asp.Net applications. It’s especially useful if you’re planning to translate your application into multiple languages (PeopleWords.com has been translated into 13 languages all textual content being put into RESX files). Yet, using Microsoft Visual Studio as a RESX file editor is quite an overkill solution for translators (whoses programming often equate zero since it’s not their job anyway). In a previous post, I was discussing ResxEditor, a simplistic and stand-alone RESX file editor.
May 17, 2006
I have just recently upgraded PeopleWords.com (online platform for the translation business). Among various small fixes and improvements, PeopleWords now provides free invitations for the translators. If you’re not familiar with the “invitation feature” of PeopleWords (it happens that some people are not), then just have a look at our white paper ). In this post, I will explain the (commercial) motivations underlying this feature.
I have already explained (see my previous post that there is a strong imbalance of risks in freelance translation jobs.
May 1, 2006
An interesting thing about running a web application, it’s that people never cease to surprise you. I have already discussed the behavior of the scammers within PeopleWords.com. Now, I am encountering a new kind of annoying people: the blog spammers.
Given that PeopleWords.com has no blog, there is no reason for blog spammers to get interested in Peoplewords, right?
Wrong, PeopleWords has no blog, but blog spammers don’t care.
Apr 20, 2006
In my previous post, I was discussing the various trust issues that are encountered when dealing with an online community. I was discussing some issues related to translation jobs sabotage by scammers. My point was the risks in freelance translation jobs are much higher on the customer side than on the translator side. The main argument was it’s hard to turn a small translation job into cash. Well, scammers have more imagination that I have, and it seems that this argument is partially wrong.
Apr 4, 2006
This article focuses on the various issues related to online trust for freelance translation jobs and the various solutions adopted by freelance websites in this domain. As for all online activities, trust is a difficult yet critical element to obtain. My personal experience in this domain comes from the management of the PeopleWords.com website.
The naive approach: the rating system Most freelance websites provide a rating system for all users (PeopleWords is no exception, see [1]).
Mar 21, 2006
Let me get the point clear: I am not a translator, I have never step a foot into a translation agency and I know nothing about the translation business. But as a simple customer, I have had a large amount of interactions with many freelance translators (most of this experience is related to the setup of the PeopleWords.com website).
Good online marketing is about sending positive signals to the customers.
Mar 9, 2006
In a previous post, I was giving some details on the RESX format from a translator-friendly viewpoint. Actually, after proof-testing the XML concept with a few translators, I came up with the conclusion
The most brilliant Uzbek-Azeri translators do not speak XML. Do not seek any explanation, it’s just a fact.
XML has a logic which is totally alien to the average translator. The answer to the question Why can’t I freely insert < and > characters?
Mar 6, 2006
Why should I care? The web makes application deployment easier, but there is no magic web-effect that would prevent web designers of commiting the very same mistakes that regular developers commit while designing classical applications. In order to minimize the risks, I have found the notion of website sandboxing as a must-have for web designers.
What is sandboxing? A sandbox is a place full of sand where children cannot cause any harm even if they intend to.
