Ideas for hardware / software Thread poster: Jean-Christophe Duc
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Well, it is that time of year when the "old" desktop is starting to look and feel its age (4 years, a dinosaur...), and I am starting to look around for ideas, or even a rethink of what is necessary.
Anyway, has anybody got recommendation about new-ish technologies to improve/facilitate daily translation tasks (beyond traditional translation memories)?
Has anybody tried to setup a real home network with a server for all the heavy duty tasks and workstations to move roun... See more Well, it is that time of year when the "old" desktop is starting to look and feel its age (4 years, a dinosaur...), and I am starting to look around for ideas, or even a rethink of what is necessary.
Anyway, has anybody got recommendation about new-ish technologies to improve/facilitate daily translation tasks (beyond traditional translation memories)?
Has anybody tried to setup a real home network with a server for all the heavy duty tasks and workstations to move round the house/town/world? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Richard Foulkes (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:03
German to English
+ ...
I just keep everything on a USB stick. I haven't really embraced the cloud yet, partly because it my infringe the various NDAs I've signed. I do have DropBox for personal use and find that ok, so I could see how it could work for translation purposes subject to NDA issues.
If it's a question of what is necessary, what is really essential beyond a laptop, WiFi, MS Office and your choice of TM software (including no CAT at all)?
| | | | | 4 years isn't old | Jun 12, 2015 |
A 4-year-old PC should work just fine for the usual translation tasks. If it is slow, it's time to reinstall Windows - and I don't mean to use a repair option, you'll need to back up your data, wipe the disk completely and reinstall the OS from scratch. You may also want to open up the case and clean the innards thoroughly - sometimes a dusty computer starts to overheat and slows down automatically to protect itself.
| | | | | Life support | Jun 15, 2015 |
Anton Konashenok wrote:
A 4-year-old PC should work just fine for the usual translation tasks. If it is slow, it's time to reinstall Windows - and I don't mean to use a repair option, you'll need to back up your data, wipe the disk completely and reinstall the OS from scratch. You may also want to open up the case and clean the innards thoroughly - sometimes a dusty computer starts to overheat and slows down automatically to protect itself.
Before considering releasing old equipment and heavy metal and plastic to the environment, I do like Anton, which usually improves the machine response very significantly if you have 2 days of free time to back up and reinstall your apps and data.
You can also buy 50/100 euros of additional RAM to give the machine a little more kick.
Philippe
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Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:03
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Jean-Christophe Duc wrote:
Anyway, has anybody got recommendation about new-ish technologies to improve/facilitate daily translation tasks (beyond traditional translation memories)?
For hardware, try migrating your hard disk to an SSD. Noticeably quicker than a traditional drive.
Dan
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:03
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Dan Lucas wrote:
Jean-Christophe Duc wrote:
Anyway, has anybody got recommendation about new-ish technologies to improve/facilitate daily translation tasks (beyond traditional translation memories)?
For hardware, try migrating your hard disk to an SSD. Noticeably quicker than a traditional drive.
Dan
I've heard that SSDs are impressively fast at first, but that they slow down over time (particularly with heavy use such as translation software etc.) because they can't defragment themselves or clean up partly-used sectors - especially if you are using a third-party SSD without TRIM or if you allow the computer to go into sleep mode (thereby preventing TRIM from doing its cleanup work). I have also read that if your computer crashes for any reason and you're using an SSD, it may be impossible to reboot. For those reasons, and because I'm not in the least bit concerned about speed (I have zero speed problems) when I recently upgraded my system I installed a good old "traditional" hard drive (but one that runs faster) and am perfectly happy with it.
http://www.howtogeek.com/165542/why-solid-state-drives-slow-down-as-you-fill-them-up/
[Edited at 2015-06-15 10:27 GMT]
| | | | | The solution for conventional hard disks | Jun 15, 2015 |
Tom in London wrote:
I've heard that SSDs are impressively fast at first, but that they slow down over time (particularly with heavy use such as translation software etc.) because they can't defragment themselves or clean up partly-used sectors - especially if you are using a third-party SSD without TRIM or if you allow the computer to go into sleep mode (thereby preventing TRIM from doing its cleanup work). I have also read that if your computer crashes for any reason and you're using an SSD, it may be impossible to reboot. For those reasons, and because I'm not in the least bit concerned about speed (I have zero speed problems) when I recently upgraded my system I installed a good old "traditional" hard drive (but one that runs faster) and am perfectly happy with it.
http://www.howtogeek.com/165542/why-solid-state-drives-slow-down-as-you-fill-them-up/
Quite possible, since the technology is relatively recent. It may take a while before reliable software is available to handle these issues.
In the ancient days when a 40 MB (sic! - megabytes) hard disk cost US$ 500, I had two of these failing on my PC-XT. By chance, I found SpinRite v2 at a store, bought it, and it brought these disks back to life.
Many years later, when I began piling dysfunctional hard disks, and buying a new one every few months, I rediscovered SpinRite in its v6, and bought it. It brought back most of those hard drives, in fact, all those that didn't have some massive mechanical crash (as evidenced after dismantling them).
Steve Gibson's video explains what it does and how. More about it here.
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