That urgent short proofreading assignment ...

Yesterday evening I was contacted by an agency if I could take over a proofreading assignment for a banking app from Italian to German. I felt something strange in the air and offered a fairly high price knowing that very likely it would take ages to find out what was used there and how. Lately you get Excel-files for apps that use mainly single words without real connection, because you understand from the graphics and the context what needs doing. I got an answer with loads of questions like "how good do you know banking software" - well, actually I translated a UI some time ago and I am using such services in German, so normally there shouldn't be too much of a problem, provided the source is good enough and I have at least screenshots to understand what was used where. They told me also their budget was "x", so I proposed to meet somewhere in the middle. The file arrived approx half an hour ago. Excel ... sic - no layout at all ... no way to understand what was used where and in many cases more than one option for a translation. So I started, did some work and sent it back underlining the difficulties the translator had and that I am having as well. Some translations were clearly wrong, but still one could have asked for additional information. There are two things I am wondering about now:
1) An agency that accepts to translate apps should know that layout for mobile phone apps is VERY relevant, since it can deeply change the meaning of a single word. Why didn't they ask for additional material immediately=
2) The translator was facing the same I faced: why didn't he/she ask for further materials before actually translating? I mean he/she did the best possible in these circumstances, but ... first do a whole lot of work and translate and write comments?
Hmmmm ... let's see what comes out ...

Now ... back to translating ...

It's quite some time now that I am working on a book translation. This is fairly different from my ordinary translation work, being it a fantasy book. Often I have to go back and re-read a whole lot in order to be able to go ahead in a fluent way - it's story telling, not just technical stuff. And I note each break I take ... if you want a good result you need to pass from reading to translating without interruptions. But I tell you one thing: I really like to do this.

Nadelbinden - erste Versuche und Garnstärke

Also heute morgen meine ersten Versuche beim Nadelbinden. Unten die Nr. 1 mit einfacher Wolle und oben die Nr. 2 mit doppelt genommener Wolle. Was ich mich nun gerade frage: welche Wollstärke ist am besten geeignet. Man findet nämlich viele, viele Anleitungen zur Technik, aber von der Wollstärke steht da so gut wie nichts. Mal sehen, ob ich das herausfinden kann.

Blog or Separate Website? How to spend time?

At a certain stage you wonder: "Where's my time going?" ... Well, life takes it, the more you really to the less time you have and there it comes: you need to decide how relevant maintaining your website actually is. In the end one needs a small website presenting the business and a place where to write a blog. And of course you can write your blog on your own website. But there's the challenge of software updates - well it's part of my work and I do this for other businesses, but is is really suited for me? Actually one website should be enough, the central one which is more or less static. And yes, of course it is nicer to have "clean pages" with the layout you program, with the menu you desire etc. It takes quite some time one can use differently with more sense than rushing after software updates. This is the reason for me to transfer data back here to blogger and take the time I have to care for what is relevant for me, which certainly is not keeping online software and modules up to date.

My favourite themes:

• Less resourced languages and the online dictionary. (I really don't feel good that there is hardly any time to contribute). So OmegaWiki, I'll try to get back to you.
• Rare crops, that are typical to this region
• Medicinal herbs - there are so many of them, some also having the power to cure illnesses that are told to be incurable - I strongly believe they are there
• Organic food and recipes that can be cooked even on a small budget
• Some gardening
• Well and of course the cultures I lived with during my life from Franconian to Neapolitan having some touches of other worlds as well. 
• Oh and not to forget the crafts of the middle ages from weaving to nailbinding (or naalbinding)

This is more than one human being actually can care about in his/her free time. Therefore not necessary things that take my time are going to be "deleted". 

Die ersten Balkonblumen ...

Weather afghan

There's a German group on Facebook I joined lately: Wetterdecke 2014 (weather afghan 2014). Actually 2014 has already started and 365 pieces is a weird number for a blanket - or it gets REALLY long if you make rows or it gets VERY huge if you make 10 cm squares. I suppose I will go a different way: I'll create very normal granny squares, starting with the weather of today, 18th February, just adding one a day until the blanket is done. In case one colour runs out it simply gets substituted by another .... so for now we are at -1°C and that will be the square of today. Pictures will follow when I have some time ... and yes, probably there will be more needlework around on this blog.

Fanny ... what, this is for me?

It's fairly cold outside, just a bit above zero ... Fanny, our family cat, went out this morning without even eating, because the air was fairly fine. Now, around noon, the postman brought a parcel for the neighbours and I went downstaris ... Fanny was already waiting and ran in as if the devil was behind her. I had already cut the remains of the noodles with cream sauce from yesterday which I wanted to mix with some meat for her and the bowl was near the kitchen sink. Well ... while I took over the parcel and got back upstairs, my dear cat already was over her food (which she probably supposed to be ours). As soon as she heard me coming in, she jumped down and looked at me with her big eyes as if she wanted to say "no, I did not touch your food, I am still wating for mine". Well done, dear Fanny ... and so I took only the noodles she already had eaten half and put them in her bowel on the floor ... Ooooo ... I got one of those glances like: "you mean I should really eat that stuff? That's not really food for real cats ... " ... LOLOL ... isn't it the same everywhere? Best is what is not yours :-D