Oh, good grief!

Received over the transom:

I will thank u if u can give us you best
price to checking & editing Software User Guide in English

It's bad enough when people write emails as if they were sending a text message, and I can cut some slack for grammar errors if the sender is not a native English-user (no slack, though, for the lack of a period at the end of the sentence), but what really burns me is why my correspondent thinks he rates a "best price" for a 4300-word job to be turned around asap and then paid on a net-30 basis?

I really dislike the term "best price." It makes me think the potential client wants special treatment beyond the meticulous, high-quality, timely, and cost-efficient service that I render all my clients, while offering no quid pro quo, other than the work itself.

Cheers...

What a concept...

In my never-ending quest for road-warrior portability, I bought an Acer Aspire One netbook. The hard drive is adequate, as is the memory and screen, and although the keyboard is not my preferred size, it is usable on a short-term basis. The unit also has a videocam, a built-in microphone, slots for two SD cards, speakers, jacks, three USB ports, a network port, and wireless capability.

I took the machine with me to Russia on my business trip this past June, and managed to use it with minimum fuss for meeting business during working hours. With an external keyboard, it would make a reasonable platform for regular intermittent use (say for a couple of hours at a time). Adding an external monitor would make it a solid production platform for translations.

It occurred to me only recently, though, that the unit lacks one very basic feature if it to be of use if I am to ever go to Baikonur again: it has no modem.

I probably would not have even given the subject a thought had I not been rummaging through boxes of wires and electronics, where I ran across some modems with old-style RS-232 ports.

So, a note to self: do some research on USB modems. (I may need one later this year.)

Cheers...