digital warts

"Change is inevitable. Change is constant." - Benjamin Disraeli

Looks like everyone agrees that the only constant is change. After a seemingly endless hiatus, I decided to start annoying people again with my rants. Only this time, it will focus on what I do for living, i.e., translation.
You can find my newest rant at TransLocalize.Info. As usual, please feel free to write comments. Comments are moderated to prevent spamming, however.

if youre anal about your windows security, just run syskey - encryption enabled - update - password startup. enter your password, confirm it, then click ok.

for whatever reason known to mankind, you might want to promote a link in your yahoo! messenger status. it’s fairly simple. just click messenger - my status - new status message. type: message[space]url. e.g. get infected! http://digitalwarts.blogs.friendster.com/. your contacts can only see the message part, i.e. get infected!, and when they click your status, they will be directed to wherever the link is pointing, i.e. http://digitalwarts.blogs.friendster.com/.

“Thou shalt not run different versions of the same component at the same time. If thou art using several tools
at once, thou shalt not work with mixed versions of the software. For example, if thou art translating files in
TagEditor, use TagEditor 7.1 with Translator’s Workbench 7.1. Thou shalt not use TagEditor 7.1 with
Translator’s Workbench 6.5 and vice versa.”


- The Holy Book of SDL TRADOS 7 Freelance Getting Started Guide, p. 1-6

coolest thing with trados 7 is that you can work with .doc files in tageditor. this is a relatively ’safer’ environment compared to translating the file directly in microsoft word, i.e. no more, or at least minimum, changes in format. however, trados 7 doesn’t come cheap.

if you have a fully working trados 6.5, then you’re in luck. as we know, rules aren’t meant to be broken, but they can. eventhough the manual says not to mix the tools between the two versions, in fact you can do just that. let me reiterate, you can use tageditor 7.1 with translator’s workbench 6.5 to work with .doc files. thanks to save target as function in the te that you can convert back the .ttx files to .doc, bypassing the clean up process using twb.

just fire up te 7.1. depending on your setting, twb 7.1 demo will start automatically or you’ll be prompted to start it manually. whatever your preference is, just close twb 7.1, open twb 6.5, then start translating. just that. after this, every time you start te 7.1, it will automatically call up twb 6.5. nice huh?! for sdl trados 7.1 freelance demo, you can download it here.

part of my side job is downloading and uploading file. problem comes when the file is humongous. although downloading big file is almost never a problem, uploading it is a different story altogether. coupled with slow internet connection, as is the case in poor country, such as indonesia, then you got real problem.

“every cloud has a silver lining.”

thank god for ftp that you don’t have to attach small-kingkong-size file in your email. although popular free email services allow you to attach up to 10mb, most of them will try to scan your file for viruses. this slows down the process even more.

to cut to the chase, if you can use ftp to transfer file, you should do it. but you need ftp client for this. one of the most popular programs for this is ws_ftp le, which is free, as in free beer. there are other free alternatives out there. one of them is filezilla, which you can download here. but at only a slightly bigger than 1mb, ws_ftp le is a more preferred solution. too bad, ipswitch is now pushing the-not-free-but-trial-only ws_ftp home. however, for those interested in the program, you can download it here. courtesy of yours truly…

the case

you wanna go online wirelessly using linux. however, your wireless card is somehow sluggish or not functioning at all. most likely, you’re suffering the common lack-of-a-driver syndrome. this syndrome is hazardous to your surfing habit.

the solution, hopefully

assuming ndiswrapper installed in your distro, you can try these simple steps:

1. find the driver, usually an inf file. or if you have it in exe, you can use wine to install it in your linux, which you then can take the driver. e.g. $ wine /windows/D/My\ Documents/Progs/IBM/1rwc88ww.exe. this command will install the driver, i.e. w70n501.inf, in the ./.wine/drive_c/DRIVERS/WIN/WLLANINT/PROW2100/DRIVERS, assuming you’re using centrino on ibm r40.
2. install the driver using ndiswrapper, # ndiswrapper -i ./.wine/drive_c/DRIVERS/WIN/WLLANINT/PROW2100/DRIVERS/w70n501.inf.
3. check whether the driver has been installed successfully, # ndiswrapper -l. it should give this output: Installed ndis drivers: w70n501 driver present, hardware present.
4. write the configuration to the modprobe, # ndiswrapper -m. then activate the ndiswrapper module, # /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper. check with dmesg command.
5. use kinternet. left-click on it, settings, configure with yast2, assuming you’re using suse 10. choose network card, then choose your wireless card. you will see wlan0 as the interface on your kinternet. click on it.
6. scan and connect to the available network. click wireless connection, scan for wireless networks. choose a network, then click connect, ok. hopefully you’re connected to the cyber world by now…

is your password, password? check the strength of your password with this online password checker. anyway, no matter what the result might be, you can check this out for fanciful ways to strengthen your password.

summary:

• use passphrase, i.e. t2lsuots from the sentence twinkle-twinkle little stars upon the sky.
• use combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, i.e. t2l$uo+s.

if you’re working in a fascist company, you’re probably prohibited to use instant messager of any kind. fear not o my oppressed-friends, help is on the way. in fact, it is here!

try meebo.com to reconnect with your online buddies. the coolest thing about this is that you don’t have to install your im. just go to the website and login. for the browser, you can use internet explorer or firefox. unfortunately, it hasn’t support opera for this service yet. the site supports yahoo and msn along with two other instant messaging services.

You lived, You died

You said in three days You would rise

You did, You’re alive

You rule, You reign

You said You’re coming back again

I know You will

All the earth will sing Your praises

All the earth will sing Your praises

You took, You take our sins away O God

You give, You gave Your life away for us

You came down, You saved us through the cross

Our hearts are changed because of Your great love


Music and lyrics by Paul Baloche


© 2003 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music

be thankful that jesus did rise from death and is alive! sing along with this free mp3 to celebrate this fact!

“there are two doors. the door to your right leads to the source and the salvation of zion. the door to your left leads back to the matrix, to her and the end of your species.”

- the architect, matrix reloaded

ebook lovers know that the ebook format trend is leaning towards chm, i.e. compiled html. though not as universal as pdf, chm isn’t gaining popularity for no reason. it’s nicer to read, has a very helpful index on the left panel, pretty good image support etc.

if you’re using windows, then you won’t have any trouble with viewing chm files, as it is natively supported. the opposite is true if you’re using other platform, such as gnu/linux. fortunately there are, at least, two solutions.

first, you can convert the chm files into a more popular format, such as pdf. if you’re taking this path, there are many tools that you can use as a means to justify your end. one of them is chm to pdf converter. as i almost always shun converting file format for various reasons, this is not my prefered solution.

otherwise, you can install chm viewer on your gnu/linux. one program that is pretty popular is xchm. if you take this road less taken, you will need two other files or dependencies, i.e. chmlib and wxgtk.

as you might have known, compiling source file in gnu/linux usually include the following commands:

1. $ ./configure
2. $ make
3. # make install

eventhough you’re familiar with the process, it’s always a good idea to read the install file.

after installing the program, you can invoke it to run in the background by typing xchm & on your terminal. happy reading!

da juice:

• chm to pdf converter pro can be downloaded here. last known good patch was released by team digerati. happy hunting!
• download page for xchm is here. select a mirror closest to you for download.
• chmlib in tgz can be downloaded here. other compression format can be selected from the download page, here.
• wxgtk in tgz can be downloaded from sourceforge’s mirror site, here. other compression format and its documentation can be selected from here.