The worst freelancer's nightmare is staring at an empty screen when your system has crashed... Useful links

The worst freelancer's nightmare is staring at an empty screen when your system has crashed... Useful links - all about data backup

'My Computer's Blue screen of death' photo (c) 2009, Michael Ocampo - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

I obviously caught some very mean malware while doing a research for a project, so I had to completely restore the system. Luckily, I have a habit to always backup my files, so I didn't lose any of my business stuff. But I do feel very sad that I didn't backup my pictures and some other personal files. So I thought I'd make a list of useful software that can help me and you to keep your data safe.
I thought I'd mention 5-6 most used programs, but as I began researching the subject I suddenly found out there are so many great options! So even though my list is not huge, some links contain a wealth of highly useful information.

1. I found the first really useful link in Wikipedia. There is a whole list of backup software with some basic specifications of each program.
2. And here's comparison of online backup services for you.
3. Here's another Wikipedia list of data recovery software.
4. One of my favourite backup methods is saving all my files (or copying them) on a USB flash drive (and according to the info I read online it's one of the most popular ways people store their files now)
5. Dropbox is another service that helps me to store my files and use them on any computer in my network. It means I don't have to carry my USB flash drive with me all the time. I can store the most often used documents or current projects there and it works great (as soon as I have Internet connection, so I still save the files on my USB flash drive just in case ;))
6. You can save your files also in Google Drive. I don't normally do it since for me it's not as easy as using Dropbox, but I do my accounting in Google drive and I am very happy about it. None of the files important for the upcoming tax period were lost as a result. And yes, I can access them from any computer as soon as I remember my email login details :)
7. And here's another directory of backup software for you.

As freelancers, we have many things to take care of (and to worry about). So let's minimize those issues that we really CAN cope with and spend our time on more important things. Please let me know if you find the list helpful :)

10 interesting facts about the Russian language

In my previous post I promised to follow with the interesting info about some other languages. So here are 10 facts about the Russian language which might be of interest to those who are studying it. If you would like to have this list in Russian, please contact me and I will send it to you by email. So, what do I find interesting about my native language? 1. Russian has about 500,000 words, but only 2,000-2,500 of them are used frequently. 100 most frequently used words make 20% of all written and oral speech. A high school graduate's vocabulary usually has 1,500 to 4,000 words. Those who have graduated from a higher educational institution normally have a richer vocabulary consisting of approximately 8,000 words. 2. It's compulsory for all astronauts in the international space station to learn Russian, so we can call it an international language of space :)

15 interesting facts about the English language

I prepared this list for one of my English classes. And then it dawned on me that I can share it with you, too! So here are 15 facts about the English language that I find very interesting. Hope you do, too ;) Rudyard Kipling was fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His dismissal letter said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers." No language has more synonyms than English.

Clients vs translators: how do we show that we're honest?

This is a personal post, and I'd really like to hear the opinion of my colleagues about such situations and how to deal with them. My situation is kind of like the one described in Mox's blog . In December a new prospective client wrote to me asking about my availabiility for a new project. When I read the overall description of the project, I got really interested in it. But the client needed to know exactly how much time it would take and how much it would cost. No problem, just send me the text to look through or a part of it so I could get the gist of the style, level of complexity etc. In the reply that person just stated the wordcount, but there was no sample. I thought, maybe they didn't understand me. English is not my native language after all. In my reply, I stated the estimated time and cost based on the client's wordcount, but I repeated the request to see a part of the text. And then the person thanked me and ... disappeared.

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