Hello CIOL-ers

by Sarah Dillon

Hello to translators or interpreters dropping by after yesterday’s Chartered Institute of Linguists webinar on Building Websites for Translators. You might find the following posts particularly interesting:

A 5-minute video on how I use WordPress for this blog, which demonstrates some different plugins to yesterday. Also, here is some more information about what’s running under the bonnet chez There’s Something About Translation.
More 5-minute videos on how I use LinkedIn and Google Reader for professional purposes, and some more thoughts on how I fit all these tools together as part of the bigger picture of my professional practice.
A half-hour presentation on social media for translators, which looks at Tweetdeck (co-presented with Philippa Hammond – check out her blog for a great guest post on search engine marketing (SEO) too).
Finally, some information on staying safe online: keeping your data safe and ensuring your personal safety too.

WordPress is far from perfect (she says, weary after a week of WP woes) and there’s a lot about it that drives me crazy, so as with anything, do your research and be prepared to invest a lot of time into the process if you decide to go down that route. Some good alternatives include Drupal and Joomla, especially if your long-term plan includes community building on a grander scale, so be sure to check them out too. Happy building!

About Sarah Dillon

Sarah Dillon is an Irish cailín in Brisbane, Australia. She arrived Down Under via Germany, France, Spain, Ireland, and the UK, having originally trained as a professional translator. Sarah has been involved in the start-up phases of several international small businesses as a founder, advisor and director, and has worked for companies such as Apple Computers, Audi AG and Bain and Company. She is currently pursuing a PhD in international entrepreneurship. Read more about Sarah here.

Comments

Clément Defontaine says

20 May, 2010 at 9:11 pm

Hi Sarah,

Yes it does help!

Thanks a lot and good luck with the blogging and translation.

All the best,
Clément
Clément Defontaine says

19 May, 2010 at 1:02 am

Hello Sarah,

I participated in the webinar last week. Thank you for your presentation. It was very useful. I have an other question: how did you integrate both the English and Spanish versions to your website?
I know you talked about it during the webinar but I didn’t quite understand…

I hope you’ll have a moment to answer my question!

Thanks for your help and for the good work.

Clément
- Sarah Dillon says
  
  19 May, 2010 at 5:21 pm
  
  Hi Clément, thanks for dropping by. Very glad to hear you enjoyed the webinar. I used a WordPress plugin called WPML Multilingual to add the Spanish version of my site to http://www.sarahdillon.com (and more languages too, eventually). This plugin doesn’t translate the text, of course – I hired a fab Spanish translator to do that for me – but it does help with the site navigation side of things by allowing me to show both versions side by side, etc. Hope that helps! Sarah