The following sections give a few introductory words about my translation service and a short survey of my university education and work experience.

My translation service is centred around the localisation of computer-related English texts. Among the translated types of texts are: computer science manuals, software documentation (online and offline), Help files, software (i.e. the textual components of a user interface, such as menu items, dialog boxes, error messages, etc.), product and hardware descriptions, websites, etc.

For my work, I give the following guarantees:

Guarantee of Quality

• Linguistic quality: To ensure topmost linguistic quality, I exclusively translate into my native tongue German.
• Technical quality: In addition to a degree in Applied Languages, I have a Master of Science in Information Engineering (Computer Science).

Guarantee of Layout

I rely on a computer-aided translation tool named SDLX. It enables me to translate many different file formats under one and the same platform. When a file is converted into SDLX edit format, any layout information is removed from the text and only passages that have to be translated are displayed. These are divided into sentences, so-called segments in SDLX. When the translated text is converted back into its original format, the layout information is automatically re-inserted into the appropriate places. This process prevents the translator from changing or deleting layout information by mistake. Editing the layout of the translation becomes redundant (unless the layout needs to be adapted due to localisation requirements).

SDLX supports the following file formats:

• Adobe Frame Maker files (.mif)
• Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files (.doc, .xls, .ppt)
• HTML, SGML, and XML files
• Files coded in the programming languages C, C++, Java, and Visual Basic
• Program Resource files (.rc)
• Rich Text Format files (.rtf)
• Text files (.txt) and files whose content is separated by specific symbols (e.g. .csv)

Apart from that, I have a very good knowledge of LaTeX.

Guarantee of Consistency

Computer-aided translation tools (CAT) do not only provide independence of file formats. They also allow for the creation of so-called Translation Memories (TMs) based on a text and its translation. Creating a TM is also possible if the text was NOT initially translated with SDLX. The only prerequisite is that both, the text and its translation are available in the same SDLX compatible format. Translation Memories can then be applied to any new text that has to be translated. If SDLX detects two identical segments during this process, the translation from the TM is automatically inserted into the text. The percentage of match required for a segment to be adopted can be specified by the user. Settings between 100% and 75% are recommended. Of course, the adopted segments can still be edited individually.

TMs are especially useful, if already translated texts have to be updated (e.g. when a new software version is released and there were only minor changes to the documentation, or when a new edition of a book is published). For you as a customer this means that, in case of an update, you will only have to pay for newly edited text passages.

I have been in the localisation business since 1999.

After my studies of Applied Languages in Heidelberg, I worked as an in-house translator for SDL International in Maidenhead, England, for one year. They are one of the biggest software localisation providers worldwide. At SDL, I was involved in translation projects for clients such as Adobe, Microsoft, Veritas, etc. Among my tasks were not only the translation of software, documentation, Help files, Websites, etc., but also proof-reading and layout reviews (DTP).

Since 2000, I have been working for SDL as a freelance translator and participated in many projects. Among the clients of these projects were companies such as Adobe (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign), Microsoft (Xbox games "Fuzion Frenzy", "Halo"), Kodak, Canon, Lucent, Dell, and Sun.

Since May 2004, I have been employed as a scientific assistant at the University of Konstanz (on limited contract), where I work as an assistant tutor and participate in the development of Pathfinder, an XQuery compiler.

Translation

In May 1999, I obtained my degree as a translator (Diplom-Übersetzerin) at the Institute for Translation and Interpretation of the University of Heidelberg. Besides the actual language training, I also took classes in cultural studies, terminology work, stylistics, and linguistics.

Apart from that, I already started to specialise in the translation of technical texts or, more precisely, of computer-related texts. Last but not least, my preference for this subject resulted in my master's thesis (Diplomarbeit): etb electronic termbooks for translators als Informationsplattform für Übersetzer und Terminologen, in the course of which I developed a prototypical electronic dictionary. As a scientific assistant at the University of Heidelberg, I have further optimised this prototype and filled it with content (in cooperation with the Ph.D. student Martina Coners). The result, Electronic Termbooks for Translators. Band 1: Ökologie, is available by the WVT publishing house (Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier).

Information Engineering

In the year 2000, I decided to enrol for the master studies of Information Engineering at the University of Konstanz to further improve my computer-related knowledge. This course offers a choice between a degree in computer or information science. I opted for a degree in computer science. During my studies, I specialised in the field of databases within the Databases and Information Systems group. Key subjects of my studies were compiler construction, architecture of database management systems, query processing and optimisation, main-memory databases, SQL, XML, XPath, and XQuery. I have a programming experience in C, Java, Perl, and php.

In the course of my master's thesis (Enhancing the Tree-Awareness of a Relational DBMS: Adding Staircase Join to PostgreSQL), I integrated a new JOIN operator, the staircase join*, into the relational open-source DBMS PostgreSQL. The idea behind this join is to store XML documents in a relational database using certain structural information about the XML tree. XPath expressions can then be converted into SQL queries and processed by the database. Theoretically, the JOIN algorithms available in a commercial DBMS are sufficient to answer such queries. In contrast to them, however, the staircase join is aware of the underlying tree structure and designed to make optimal use of this knowledge. My thesis has shown that the staircase join produces a performance increase by several orders of magnitude. My PostgreSQL implementation of the staircase join was accepted as demonstration paper at the VLDB conference in Toronto in 2004 (An Injection of Tree Awareness: Adding Staircase Join to PostgreSQL).

*The staircase join was originally designed by the Pathfinder group of the University of Konstanz. It is an essential part of the XQuery compiler which is currently developed by that group.