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Online Translation Services

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Have you ever gone to a website that’s in another language and used a service such as Google Translate to translate it for you? I have and I sometimes wonder how accurate the translation really is. There have been times when I wanted to write a small not to my relatives in Italy and I’ve used one of the online translation services. Now my Italian isn’t the best but even I know the translation wasn’t as accurate as it should be. I try to fix it up as best as I can and I send it off thinking, ‘Oh well, better than nothing.’

Now while this sort of translation service is good enough for translating websites or for small notes to relatives overseas they’re no where good enough for those important translation tasks. I’m talking about important letters that need to be flawlessly translated because anything less could cost you the business.

Rosetta Online Translation Service

One online translation service that I’ve come across is Rosetta Translations. I’ve had a quick look at their website and it’s extremely easy to navigate to relative pages. They appear to offer translations in all the major languages which is a good thing. I’m assuming that they’re good at what they do because they’re willing to provide their services for the following.

  • Legal translation
  • Financial translation
  • Technical translation
  • Medical translation

I think it’s important that they guarantee their work and the fact that they’re a member of the UK Association of Translation Companies (www.atc.org.uk) and the American Translators Association (www.atanet.org) adds to their credentials.

If you’ve used Rosetta’s Translation services I’d be thrilled if you left a comment telling me what you thought of them.

 

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Where’s A Geek When You Need Them

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Commodore VIC-20 Computer with later revision ...
Commodore VIC-20 Computer with later revision case badges. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember the first ever computer I ever owned, it was the Vic 20. When you compare it to the computers of the day it wasn’t much, heck most of the toy computers that you buy for your kids have more power than that baby did. The problem is as computers evolved so did the problems associated with them. When things are working everything is roses but when things start going wrong, that’s when most people start tearing their hair out.

Even though I don’t consider myself a computer geek I do know my way around them, to an extent, which normally results in family and friends giving me a call because their computer is not working as it should. So, what causes these problems?

Common Computer Problems

  • Computer Running Slow: This is probably a common complaint and the first thing I look at is the space left on the hard drive because more often than not they’ve used it all up meaning there isn’t much left for the computer to swap memory, or whatever it does, when trying to allocate space.
  • Spyware / Adware: Didn’t exist in the Vic 20 days, that’s for sure. This stuff is usually picked up when downloading programs from the Internet or even from accepting certain emails from friends and acquaintances. They can be eating up valuable resources which will cause your computer to run really slow.
  • Viruses: I’m sure you’ve heard of viruses, well computers catch them too, usually online, and when they do they can do a lot worse than make it run slow.

The thing is that because computers are so complicated there are times when things that can go wrong with them need a lot more than your neighbourhood geek to fix them. Sometimes what you need is a supergeek to get you through.

 

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Using Repairpal To Take The Mystery Out Of Auto Repair

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  • Reading time:3 mins read
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2006-2008 Honda Civic photographed in USA. Cat...
Image via Wikipedia

If there is one thing that would get most car owners up in arms it would be the hassle of finding a reputable auto repair shop. Many people may take their car to the closest one because it’s the most convenient but unfortunately it may not be the best choice as far as price and competence goes. The problem is most people don’t have the time to shop around and so take the easy way out.

Enter the Internet. I had a look on line and I found a very interesting site, completely useless to me being an Australian, but one that I’m sure most Americans would love if they were to give it a trial. The site is called RepairPal and their page How RepairPal Works explains exactly how the site works. What I really liked about the site is that you can have your own custom ‘my car’ page storing all your service and repair information. No more searching through your shoebox, or whatever other filing system to use, trying to find your service records.

Just for the fun of it I decided to give it a whirl. Seeing as how I own a 2006 Honda Civic I chose Honda as my car and clicked on ‘get an estimate. On the next page I entered the year and model and that I wanted a scheduled maintenance. The next step threw me because I didn’t know any American zip codes. I ended up with 2001 which turned out to be in the Washington area. Clicking on ‘Get Estimate’ took me to the Honda Civic maintenance service A page and I was shocked to see that a service in the State would only cost me between $27 – $60! That is amazing.

All in all I was pretty impressed with the site. I really wished that we had something similar in Australia. Hopefully that won’t be too far away.

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