Tags
Abbyy, backing up, cloud storage, Dropbox, Mozy, Office, Skydrive, Solid, storage, TO3000, Trados, Windows, Word
LAST WEEK was one helluva week, if you’ll forgive my being so informal. Not content with the usual deadlines, urgent jobs to squeeze in for direct clients, I also had an unscheduled trip to Heathrow, a frustrating telephone committee meeting by conference call which went on for far longer than I’d hoped, and to top it all, I’ve been trying to set up two new computers with my work settings and programs. My son did all the donkey work of setting up the basics last weekend, so I just had to come to grips with, and fine-tune, Windows 8 and Word 2013, as well as downloading all my translation-related programs and tools: Wordfast, Abbyy, Solid, TO3000, Trados…
It all started when my main desktop computer failed catastrophically just before I went off on my skiing holiday a few weeks ago. The screen had been pixelating periodically for a while, but I thought I’d solved the problem by hoovering out all the accumulated dust. Apparently not, as it is now refusing to respond for more than a couple of minutes – not very helpful! My grown-up son, my no-longer-resident computer expert, diagnosed an overheating and burnt-out graphics card: prognosis terminal as the computer has been running extremely slowly for some time and is already 6-7 years old. Cue new machine! In fact cue a new laptop as well, since that has been on the agenda for a while, and the lack of a second Trados-compatible machine obviously hasn’t been ideal over the last few weeks.
Fortunately, I have my work-in-progress files and folders backed up to Dropbox, primarily so I can work on both my laptop and my desktop and know I’ve always got access to up-to-date TMs, glossaries and files, as well as the latest invoices and letters I might need, and recent photos for that matter. Dropbox offers you 2 GB of space for free and you can get more space by recommending friends – if they join, you get an extra 500 MB for every friend. That’s been a godsend in my present situation as I was able to continue working on my laptop with access to all my files and in the knowledge that I could quickly and easily access them on the new computers once they arrived and I was ready to set them up.
What wasn’t so easy was my Trados data. I only had Trados installed on my desktop computer, as my laptop is pretty ancient and I really didn’t think it could handle the memory-intensive Trados programs and files. All my Trados files (all 9GB of them!) were on the desktop, but once again I had taken the precaution of backing up my computer to Mozy (for the equivalent of around £40 a year for 50GB as of the last invoice back in December). It also backed up (at a scheduled time every day) all my archived files and photos, so it was a simple matter to go into restore mode and download the 27GB of files, photos, music etc. I had backed up. Huge relief and money well spent if you ask me!
The downside of my back-up arrangements was that certain database files hidden within programs had been saved in my Program files and thus not backed up to Mozy. This was the case with TO3000. I was able to download my old version of the program from their website after an exchange of e-mails, but I hadn’t realised that my data wasn’t stored somewhere it would be readily backed up. Unless I can manage to switch on my old computer one last time and keep it working long enough to extract that particular file, I’m afraid that data is lost for good. Moral of the tale: make sure you check your back-up settings for individual programs! (Note: I’ve since managed to eke out the old computer for s short time and download both my TO3000 profile and my Trados user profile – result!)
Another option I’m now considering is using the Skydrive subscription that came with my new computer(s). All Skydrive users get 7 GB of free cloud storage and if you take out the new Home Premium subscription to Office 365 for £79.99 a year (for up to 5 PCs and 5 smartphones), you also get an extra 20GB for each person added to the account. In theory, that would mean I could store my Trados files on there and access them on each computer. I’ll have to look into this, but it sounds as though it’s an option worth considering. My son has signed up to my Office subscription too, so we’re splitting the cost. I was aghast at first at the thought of a yearly subscription to Office rather than an upfront cost, but if you get extra features, it may well prove to be a good solution.
I’ve yet to install Trados on either of the new machines, preferring to leave that for when I’m not overrun with urgent deadlines, but I’m hoping it will go smoothly… fingers crossed! All in all, I’ve been pretty impressed with how effective my various back-up strategies have been. I dread to think what would happen if you had no safety net in place, so I would urge you to think about all eventualities – it really isn’t hard to do and once it’s done, you can just forget about it, secure in the knowledge that your work is safely accessible, whatever happens, and wherever you may be.
ClaireCoxTranslations 
Hi Claire,
This is great advice on back-up options for translators. I use Carbonite, which backs up files in real-time or at a customised time every day, and I also have an external hard disk that comes with a program called HP SimpleSave, which also does incremental back-ups whenever my machine is not in use.
I’m interested in your use of Dropbox for storing TMs and other Studio resources. I only use it to share files with selected users and to store images in the public folder to post screenshots in forums. When you say you back-up your TMs to Dropbox, do you mean you’re working with them in another local folder and then you back up (automatically or manually?) to Dropbox? Or do you work with them directly in your Dropbox folder? I’m asking because I found that Studio didn’t like Dropbox trying to upload/save my TMs while I was actually working on them, so I stopped using that method. What’s your experience?
Glad to hear you’ve got Studio up and running since you wrote this post. If anyone else wants to know how to transfer Studio and a bunch of other must-have programs to a new computer, they might be interested in reading my blog post here: http://signsandsymptomsoftranslation.com/2014/02/25/translation-programs/
Anyway, hope you’re enjoying your new computer(s), Claire!
Emma
Hi Emma,
I’ve been working directly from the Dropbox folder with Wordfast for some years now – since I got my now 2 1/2-year old labrador in fact and had to work from the laptop in the kitchen to supervise! I have all my source/target files, TMs and glossaries in client folders on Dropbox and as I long as I only access them on one computer at any one time, I’ve experienced no problems whatsoever with it updating them to the cloud as I work. If you do happen to have a file open on both machines at once, you tend to just another file in Dropbox with “laptop’s conflicted copy” added to the name, which warns you that there might be an issue, but that’s easily resolved by saving the latest file.
As for Trados, I’m new to the idea of using Trados from a cloud drive, but I’m experimenting with Skydrive as I mentioned, mainly because my Trados folder is already 9GB, so exceeds my free allowance for Dropbox. I opened an old source document from one of my main Trados clients yesterday and did a trial translation with all the files in Skydrive (source, TMs, termbases, Autosuggest). It all seemed to work perfectly, with no synching issues, but it was a shortish document, and of course had been translated before – albeit from the ttx file last time, whereas I tried it from the Word file this time, so I did have to add some input because of tag differences. Everything appeared fine, though. All the termbases were visible and concordance searches worked fine. I’ll let you know if any problems come to light as I persevere over the next few weeks. I have installed my Trados folder on the desktop itself, of course, but as my intention (once I get my spare licence restored by Trados) is to be able to access it from my new laptop too, to avoid this kind of problem in the future, it will be great if it does work straight from Skydrive.
All the best,
Claire
Thanks for clarifying how you use Dropbox, Claire. I must give it another try with Studio TMs.
Just to add a PS, Emma – tried another new translation in Studio with everything in Skydrive yesterday and it all seemed to work, even with very large client TMs and termbases. Looks promising!
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