| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Using your CAT tool from your smartphone while travelling, real scenario? Thread poster: Philippe Locquet
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Philippe Locquet 
Portugal
Local time: 22:58
Member (2013)
English to French
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TOPIC STARTER
Zea_Mays wrote:
I can't see the advantages of using a smartphone if you can use a thin laptop instead... Perhaps during an emergency?
There are affordable portable monitors that can be used with smartphones too - I have one -, but as said, why would you go for such an unergonomic and unproductive setting?
I agree. The angle I was suggesting, besides emergencies is what you take when travelling when you don't have the intention to work, and you get that quick job for a customer you have great relations with and decide to give them a hand.
I've seen that many people already take a collapsible keyboard with them on the go. Some people want to type on their smartphone a lot and hate the fast thumbs methods, so they already carry that.
Quick example: https://www.amazon.es/MoKo-Plegable-Bluetooth-Inalámbrico-Recargable/dp/B0D3XCMH55
In such a situation, just add the dongle and cable you're set.
Not only for work, but also for streaming your content on the big screen where you're staying.
So that's a bit weird, I know, but for some people, that scenario is only one dongle away...
| | | | | Not a great relationship. | May 26 |
Philippe Locquet wrote:
I agree. The angle I was suggesting, besides emergencies is what you take when travelling when you don't have the intention to work, and you get that quick job for a customer you have great relations with and decide to give them a hand.
Usually, if I'm traveling without the intention to work, it means I'm on vacation/holiday, and most of my customers who send an email will get the “out of office” automatic notice.
If I'm “out of office,” it means I won't use my smartphone to do any work at all.
So, if even after that this particular customer insists on not respecting my holiday/vacation/out of work time, then I guess there isn't such a thing as a “great relationship” after all.
Try another fictitious scenario, less workaholic.
| | | | IrinaN
Sjedinjene Američke Države
Local time: 16:58
English to Russian
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| About great relationships | May 26 |
All customers I've had and have great relationship with would get formally notified in advance that I'll be fully or partially unavailable for X amount of days.
Fully means fully, of course.
Partially means I'm going out of town not on vacation but on another work assignment fully equipped with my normal working setup, including personal work laptop, and foresee some free evenings or weekends to kill in a dull place but they must be prepared that I'll take lesser load t... See more All customers I've had and have great relationship with would get formally notified in advance that I'll be fully or partially unavailable for X amount of days.
Fully means fully, of course.
Partially means I'm going out of town not on vacation but on another work assignment fully equipped with my normal working setup, including personal work laptop, and foresee some free evenings or weekends to kill in a dull place but they must be prepared that I'll take lesser load than usual and be more selective on timeline, speed and complexity not to overkill myself, fail their deadline or impact the current commitment that came first. More like those quickies you've mentioned or longer jobs with very generous (by my standards) timelines.
I was lucky enough to work with professional PMs who knew that 1) I am right from every angle, 2) no use to insist (oh, well, I admit that once in a long while my old friends would play "it doesn't hurt to ask" but always in a friendly and humorous manner), no offense taken, and 3) I'd treat their assignments that came first the same way - as a top priority.
Maybe they were secretly emitting sad sighs or shedding bitter tears but I have never lost a single one of them .
No need whatsoever to kill one's eyesight, bend backward and dance around for what can only be a negligeable to a very modest gain. I already had retinal detachment after 26 years of working hard in the most comfortable and ergonomic setups. Who could have guessed... Professional live is a long journey; you want to be healthy at any age and consider any potential tolls it can take on you.
Let me tell you a secret - clients would love to have eager vendors ready to jump on such cumbersome yet unrewarding tasks but even they don't take them seriously. They'll prove to be ungrateful:-( and big jobs will go to the professionals with more solid approach. At least, that's how it worked in the previous life. ▲ Collapse
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Smartphone hardware is also not powerful enough to perform regular translation and subtitling tasks. You're better off carrying an ultrabook if you really have to work on the go. That's always been how professionals do it.
Besides, the less stuff you carry when travelling, the better. Why do I need to pack a bunch of gadgetry if a slim 13-inch laptop can do much more, much better?
[Edited at 2025-05-27 03:34 GMT]
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Philippe Locquet
Portugal
Local time: 22:58
Member (2013)
English to French
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Novian Cahyadi wrote:
Smartphone hardware is also not powerful enough to perform regular translation and subtitling tasks. You're better off carrying an ultrabook if you really have to work on the go. That's always been how professionals do it.
Besides, the less stuff you carry when travelling, the better. Why do I need to pack a bunch of gadgetry if a slim 13-inch laptop can do much more, much better?
[Edited at 2025-05-27 03:34 GMT]
For context, in this thread we've been talking about using we-based CAT tools like Wordfast Anywhere, Matecat and Polyglot. For these, most of the heavy lifting is done on the server side, hence the power required to run them is not enormous.
But, smartphones have """now""" become very capable machines, with good size and fast RAM. Since the OS and chip architecture (ARM) does not allow to run directly the heaviest CAT tools, it doesn't mean they would not be capable of it. We are using software that executes actions on text and databases, not rendering 8K videos.
In conclusion: if a mid-size desktop CAT tool was built programatically to run natively on smartphones, highest tier smartphones would run it without any major performance issues.
On a side note, entry to mid range laptops with only 8GB of RAM will still feel slow while using the heaviest CAT tools on the market (Trados, memoQ at least).
So, this is not true anymore, and that's why smartphones manufacturers are looking at the desktop operations on smartphones.
Crazy, right?
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Philippe Locquet wrote:
But, smartphones have """now""" become very capable machines, with good size and fast RAM. Since the OS and chip architecture (ARM) does not allow to run directly the heaviest CAT tools, it doesn't mean they would not be capable of it. We are using software that executes actions on text and databases, not rendering 8K videos.
In conclusion: if a mid-size desktop CAT tool was built programatically to run natively on smartphones, highest tier smartphones would run it without any major performance issues.
So, this is not true anymore, and that's why smartphones manufacturers are looking at the desktop operations on smartphones.
Crazy, right?
The same smartphone manufacturers that are adding AI to almost any feature… like AI translation.
Personally, I find it really annoying that I have to disable the damn Google AI that appears in all the terminological searches with automated AI translated results, which are always irrelevant/stupid.
Just the thought of being out of work but still having to “fight” against the phone AI stresses me much. Sorry.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosna i Hercegovina
Local time: 23:58
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Not adding, but making them exclusive | May 27 |
They are making smartphones mandatory. Some businesses and systems ONLY have smartphone systems. For instance, you may not be able to check-in into a hotel room, buy groceries, or start laundry machine in your building with nothing but an app/smartphone. If your battery has run up, or you forgot your phone, or you dropped it somewhere, good luck sleeping on a bench next to the hotel building you paid a room for, online, in advance. Ah, when some smart developpers were building this, they didn’... See more They are making smartphones mandatory. Some businesses and systems ONLY have smartphone systems. For instance, you may not be able to check-in into a hotel room, buy groceries, or start laundry machine in your building with nothing but an app/smartphone. If your battery has run up, or you forgot your phone, or you dropped it somewhere, good luck sleeping on a bench next to the hotel building you paid a room for, online, in advance. Ah, when some smart developpers were building this, they didn’t count on a very high chance that a traveler’s phone battery is low or dead at the moment of check-in. ▲ Collapse
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Maybe only for some tiny and urgent corrections while travelling, but even then it is better to just tell the project manager you are not available, so they can assign the task to someone who is sitting behind an actual computer, full keyboard and normal screen, to ensure speed and quality.
It is irrelevant if the phone can display and create 8k or 16k video, produce AI responses (that some might call "AI slop") on the fly, etc – the processing power of smartphones has been far gr... See more Maybe only for some tiny and urgent corrections while travelling, but even then it is better to just tell the project manager you are not available, so they can assign the task to someone who is sitting behind an actual computer, full keyboard and normal screen, to ensure speed and quality.
It is irrelevant if the phone can display and create 8k or 16k video, produce AI responses (that some might call "AI slop") on the fly, etc – the processing power of smartphones has been far greater than what my PC had when it ran saber-toothed Trados in the early 2000s, that's not relevant. The loss in speed and quality control is just too big due to physical limitations.
[Edited at 2025-05-27 21:39 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Lingua 5B wrote:
Ah, when some smart developpers were building this, they didn’t count on a very high chance that a traveler’s phone battery is low or dead at the moment of check-in.
Skilled devs aren't like that. I know a few who are much more sensible. Although they tend to be graybeards who program on Linux and old ThinkPads.
It's the contemporary tech bros with their terrible sense of fashion, and a considerable lack of empathy.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosna i Hercegovina
Local time: 23:58
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Novian Cahyadi wrote:
Lingua 5B wrote:
Ah, when some smart developpers were building this, they didn’t count on a very high chance that a traveler’s phone battery is low or dead at the moment of check-in.
Skilled devs aren't like that. I know a few who are much more sensible. Although they tend to be graybeards who program on Linux and old ThinkPads.
It's the contemporary tech bros with their terrible sense of fashion, and a considerable lack of empathy.
What’s in it for the business owner? No need to pay for the front desk staff, as I do their job? Selling my data through the app? Something else, please enlighten me? Why would someone drag customers away in this fashion?
A friend who stayed at a hostel told me he needed his phone each time when going to the bathroom, as the room door were opening/closing with an app exclusively, no keys. Imagine your battery ran out in the middle of the night, and you need to go pee?
I know all businesses keep pushing their stupid apps, while already having perfectly valid and functional desktop programs, what’s the reason behind all this? App devs need to justify their existence and survive in their job? It’s easier to sell our data to market research people and businesses through apps? Something else?
[Edited at 2025-05-28 12:33 GMT]
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Lingua 5B wrote:
$$$
*cough*Accelerationism*cough*
*cough*Technofeudalism*cough*
[Edited at 2025-05-29 05:44 GMT]
| | | | Philippe Locquet
Portugal
Local time: 22:58
Member (2013)
English to French
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
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Lingua 5B
Bosna i Hercegovina
Local time: 23:58
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| The small keyboard | May 29 |
That small short keyboard with a narrow hand range would kill my shoulders in less than 15 minutes, my neck and shoulders would be sore all day.
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Lingua 5B wrote:
That small short keyboard with a narrow hand range would kill my shoulders in less than 15 minutes, my neck and shoulders would be sore all day.
Imagine having to insert all those tags, because WFA does not display any type of formatting at all. To make things worse, even if you have entered some tags (e.g. 1 and 2), it still shows them in the list when you type an opening angle bracket to insert the next tag (tag 3 in our example).
Basic, elementary usability features, still not present in 2025. And Wordfast staff appear astonished when they hear about them. Like that one time when they were in disbelief when translators said they wanted to be able to confirm a segment and move to the next unconfirmed segment, as Ctrl+Enter does in almost any other CAT tool.
[Edited at 2025-05-29 11:41 GMT]
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosna i Hercegovina
Local time: 23:58
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Epameinondas Soufleros wrote:
Lingua 5B wrote:
That small short keyboard with a narrow hand range would kill my shoulders in less than 15 minutes, my neck and shoulders would be sore all day.
Imagine having to insert all those tags, because WFA does not display any type of formatting at all. To make things worse, even if you have entered some tags (e.g. and ), it still shows them in the list when you type an < to insert the next tag (tag in our example).
Basic, elementary usability features, still not present in 2025. And Wordfast staff appear astonished when they hear about them. Like that one time when they were in disbelief when translators said they wanted to be able to confirm a segment and move to the next unconfirmed segment, as Ctrl+Enter does in almost any other CAT tool.
Yes, but on pictures and in videos, aka on screen, everything looks fancy and beautiful, with a little umbrella cocktail, right?
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