I’m sure everyone reading this is no stranger to the often completely unintelligible error messages that can be generated when software goes wrong! You can even find in the most voted for ideas in the RWS Community ideas platform that is related to just that, “Get those cryptic error messages more human“. As computers have become more and more complicated and software is relying heavily on inbuilt technologies provided with the operating system, 3rd party libraries, and add-ons that use the APIs, it’s really no surprise that things can go wrong. But do the messages really have to be so complicated and meaningless for the average user? Why don’t developers make them easier to understand?
Continue reading “When error messages attack: using ChatGPT to make peace with your users!”
This is a topic that probably occurred a lot more in the old days of Trados and Translators Workbench where it was relatively easy to corrupt a translation memory. In those days the translation memory consisted of five file types with the extensions .tmw, .mwf, .mtf, .mdf and .iix and when problems did occur it was probably related to the files that supported indexing and lookup speeds for example. The .tmw file itself that contained the translation units was less likely to be the source of the problem. So fixing it could often be achieved by creating a new translation memory with the same settings, and then simply replacing the .tmw in the new translation memory with the old one… finally reorganising. This didn’t always help, but if often did!
The origin of Chad (if you’re British) or Kilroy (if you’re American) seems largely supposition. The most likely story I could find, or rather the one I like the most, is that it was created by the late cartoonist George Edward Chatterton ‘Chat’ in 1937 to advertise dance events at a local RAF (Royal Air Force) base. After that Chad is remembered for bringing attention to any shortages, or shortcomings, in wartime Britain with messages like Wot! No eggs!!, and Wot! No fags!!. It’s not used a lot these days, but for those of us aware of the symbolism it’s probably a fitting exclamation when you can’t save your target file after completing a translation in Trados Studio! At least that would be the polite exclamation since this is one of the most frustrating scenarios you may come across!