e-Tip #75 - March 2008 - Text-Only Version <> Welcome to e-Tips Did you make a New Year’s resolution? Wil Wilcox and I resolved to reach out to more of our fellow Eclipse users through the e-Tips, which is our free, monthly e-mail newsletter. If this is your first e-Tip, we hope you’ll find it helpful. Each month always includes at least one tip for Eclipse users, but we also look for Windows tricks and gadgets that we hope you’ll find useful, no matter what software you use for court reporting, captioning, etc. Occasionally we announce seminars here and sometimes other authors join us, but our goal is always to share helpful information each month in a format that doesn’t take long to read. This is our 75th e-Tip, and we do keep an archive of all the earlier ones. Just go to www.KVincent.com and click on the e-Tips button. You’ll also find a short form there to add/remove a name for the mailing service, but we hope you’ll use it to add a friend’s name rather than to remove your own. Enjoy! Keith Vincent & Wil Wilcox <> Keith Vincent -- CAT on a MAC For the past few months, I’ve been transitioning to a Mac. Perhaps I should say I’ve been coming home to a Mac. My first computer was a Macintosh, which I used from about ‘83 to ‘91. When I bought a PC to run court reporting software, I found a C:\ prompt staring me in the face. I thought, wow, that’s really ugly. Fortunately, we’ve come a long way in recent years. In the PC world, the efficient ugliness of DOS gave way to pretty, flaky Windows. In the Mac world, Intel chips made it possible to run Windows programs. Back in e-Tip #63 (Feb. 2007), Linda Code explained how she used a Mac as a Total Eclipse scopist. In October, when my desktop computer died, I bought an iMac. Later, when my notebook computer was stolen, I started shopping for a MacBook. The only thing that slowed me down were rumors that an ultraportable Mac was expected in January. In January, I attended the MacWorld conference in San Francisco and saw the unveiling of the MacBook Air, Lovely, but not for us. “Thinnovation” has its limits. Just one USB port. No microphone jack. Court reporters need more than that. I started looking at the MacBook Pro with a 15” screen, and I was blown away when a fellow Eclipse user loaned me her “backup” MBP. However, I only use a notebook computer for realtime transcription, seminars, and traveling. I decided the MacBook, which has a 13” screen, would be more portable. It didn’t hurt that it cost at least $700 less than the MacBook Pro. However, if my primary computer were a notebook, I’d use the MacBook Pro, which has a larger and more brilliant screen. I ordered both my iMac and my MacBook from MacMall, one of the largest on-line vendors of Apple computers. I bought the fastest MacBook, with memory maxed out (4 gigabytes of RAM), 120-gigabyte hard disk, preloaded with Boot Camp and Windows XP Home Edition, and the 3-year Apple Care extended warranty. Total cost for the MacBook, about $1900. Boot Camp simply enables the Mac to start up with the Windows operating system. You reboot if you want to run Mac programs. I also wanted software that would let me switch from Windows to Mac programs without rebooting. Linda Code had spoken of using “Parallels” software to create a virtual Windows machine on her Mac. However, I followed a recommendation to install newer and, I think, better emulation software called VMware Fusion. I have to say that I’m quite happy running Total Eclipse on a Mac, and others have also used Macs to run other CAT programs. Fortunately, my Eclipse software key worked without any problem, whether I was using Boot Camp or VMware Fusion. So I never had to ask for a passcode. When I let Boot Camp open up a straight Windows environment, the MacBook runs XP faster than any computer I’ve ever had. (On my iMac, I’ve also had great results using VMware Fusion to run Windows Vista, but I’m just not a fan of Vista.) Even when I’m using VMware Fusion in order to have both the Windows and Mac environments simultaneously available, these are really fast computers. For both my Macs, I maxed out the memory (4 gigabytes of RAM). I also recommend the fastest models available (2.8 GHz on the iMac, 2.4 GHz on the MacBook). Maxing out the memory helps everything run faster. However, you do need to open VMware Fusion’s settings to tell it to use more than 512 megs of RAM. I let VMware Fusion use 2 gigs of RAM and was very impressed. Both the iMac and the MacBook have a built-in microphone and camera. On the MacBook, the sound could be louder, but it’s very clear. I’ll plug an external microphone into the Andrea sound pod that’s on the Advantage Software website (about $50) in order to get a really loud recording. The MacBook is 1.08” thick and weighs 5 pounds. Its battery has a maximum runtime of about 4.5 hours, or so they say. It has two USB 2.0 ports. I have a small USB hub that could be useful, but I haven’t needed it yet. The Bluetooth built into the MacBook quickly paired to the Stenocast X1 transmitter on my steno machine. That was a relief because I could never get my “real” Windows computers to behave that well. Of course, the X1’s USB EzReceiver would be even easier to plug in and use. The Macs are elegant, well-designed machines. The “Mag-Safe” connector on the MacBook’s compact power adapter is a good example. If someone tries to walk right into your power cord, the magnetic connector just gives way so your computer can’t be pulled to the floor. I was also smiling when I plugged in an external monitor and saw the Mac offer an extended display. I could drag the mouse from the internal screen over to the external monitor — whoa, all that extra desktop! I’m impressed. Of course, some things felt different, but there were usually quick solutions in the System Preferences. For example, I set the Keyboard to “Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys.” I made sure the right side of the mouse would act as the secondary button because I’m used to right-clicking for context menus. When I’m using the MacBook’s trackpad instead of a mouse, right-clicking is possible by either pressing Ctrl while clicking or by clicking while two fingers are on the trackpad. When F9 wouldn’t open my Total Eclipse dictionary, a quick change in the Mac’s keyboard shortcuts was all it took. Fortunately for me, there’s an Apple store close by. I signed up for the One-to-One training, and I highly recommend it. $99 buys a whole year of weekly one-hour personal training sessions. It’s a tremendous help, but it’s also a great source of temptation — hard to leave the store without buying a wireless keyboard or a wireless mouse or an external storage device or some other “must have.” I’ve also signed up for the .Mac online service that I’ll use for on-line storage and for keeping my computers synchronized. That will replace the MyDocsOnline account that I’ve had for a few years. What about security? The Windows world is famous for viruses and security alerts, which is one of the reasons why I’ve already switched to the Mac for e-mail and Internet uses. Gradually, I’m switching to Apple programs like Pages, Keynote and Numbers. Just keep in mind that whenever you’re running a Windows environment on your Mac, you need anti-virus protection. No sense standing naked in Windows. Strictly speaking, Total Eclipse is a Windows program and that’s the only environment in which it is fully supported. However, if you’re running Boot Camp, I like to think you’re running a Windows computer that’s just disguised as a Mac. <> Announcement: Bridge 2.0 — Can’t Install? Run from a Flash Drive! Bridge 2.0 is a free, easy, powerful realtime viewing program that Advantage Software has developed to work with all reporters’ CAT software. As mentioned in last month’s e-Tip, Bridge 2.0 can now be downloaded at www.EclipseCAT.com. The same site also offers free access to the interface info which all realtime software vendors are encouraged to implement so that all reporters, not just Eclipse users, will be able to take advantage of Instant Auto-Refresh. What a breakthrough it would be for our profession if all CAT programs and all client programs, including LiveNote, Summation, etc., would implement this time-proven Auto-Refresh technology! What if you can’t “install” Bridge 2.0 on an attorney’s locked-down computer? You can still run it from a Flash Drive. Bridge 2.0 is actually a very simple program and does NOT need to install any hidden files in order to work. The flash drive simply needs to have a copy of the Bridge program on it. In fact, you could install Bridge on your own computer and copy the entire Bridge folder onto a flash drive. That way even the Visualizer movies would be able to be run from the flash drive. The Bridge installer could then be copied onto the client’s computer so that a real installation could take place later and then the flash drive would not be needed any longer. <> Wil Wilcox & Keith Vincent -- The "Charm" Macro: Deferred Realtime Corrections We’re often asked to report the unreportable. It might be a hearing and participants can speak for just a few minutes. Naturally, they speak as fast as they can. It might be a trial presided over by a judge who’s said: “Do not interrupt under any circumstances.” Frustrating, to say the least. I’m always amazed by how reporters rise to the challenge of protecting the record. We learn to focus despite distractions. We listen acutely. However, some things just won’t be clear until we hear them again. So I take advantage of Eclipse synchronized audio recording. To supplement the audio file on my computer, I use a small digital voice recorder. Having multiple audio files reduces my stress, but I still try to write as perfectly as I can. I don’t want to listen to audio if I can help it, but I know there will be times when I have to drop words in order to keep from trailing too far behind. A small drop can help me to pick up again with clean writing. I use the method that Keith described in e-Tip #73 to mark a drop spot and find it later when I’m editing. For anything I’ve dropped along the way, I’ll have to listen to what I missed and then fill in the gaps. Enter the “Charm” macro. As they say, second or third time’s the charm. I wanted a macro to help me take advantage of both synchronized audio playback and realtime transcription in order to perform touchups or fill-ins after I’ve taken a job. In other words, I wanted to be editing a job I had taken, find a spot that needed filling-in, listen to the audio, and fill it in from my steno machine. I’m calling it “deferred realtime” because I’m using realtime translation to correct a file after the job has been taken. So I called Jeremy Thorne and Keith Vincent. Jeremy said it was possible, and Keith put the macro together for me. The design of the “Charm - RT” macro presumes that your job has already translated and that you have a sound file that Eclipse can use for synchronized audio playback. Here’s the process: 1) Start realtime translation. (The “Instant Realtime” icon would be handy here.) 2) Open your translated file that you want to edit. You can “Tile” the Windows (Shift+Ctrl+F9) to simultaneously view both the original document and your “deferred realtime.” 3) In the translated file that you’re editing, find a spot where you want to fill in some dropped text Start the audio playback to hear what you need. Use the steno keyboard to quickly write what you hear. 4) Your fill-in text will appear in your realtime translation window. After you finish writing what needs to be filled in, make sure your cursor is at the spot in your original file where you want the fill-in text to be inserted. 5) When you’re ready to cut from the realtime file and paste into the spot in your original file, use whatever stroke(s) you’ve assigned to the Charm macro. KH*RPL is the steno that I use. The Charm macro will perform a quick cut-and-paste for you, but here’s a nice surprise. Unlike normal typed-in text, which has no steno to match, these spots that have been filled in from “deferred realtime” have steno to match each word. In other words, the steno for your touchups will not be added at the end of your original file. It will be inserted, with your text, right where it needs to go. Note that you will see an empty line right above the spot where the Charm macro has pasted text into your original document. That should help you see where the text has been inserted. You can use the “Join paragraph” command (Ctrl+J) at this point. You can create one .NOT file that seamlessly blends both your original steno and the steno for the spots you filled in later. Export the job as an RTF file. Then use “Open Notes” and provide a new file name. The new notes file will start off empty. Then import from the RTF file, and you’ll have one complete notes file. The Realtime Editing Kit will eventually contain this macro, but for now you can find the Charm at the e-Tips page of www.KVincent.com. Look for Tip #75. You should see a line that says this: “To download macro, right-click here and ‘Save Target’ as a file on your Windows Desktop.” If you’re using Firefox, the “Save Target” might be called “Save Link As.” Different wording for the same function. Save the macro on your Windows desktop so that it will be easy to find. Then go to the “Edit” section of Total Eclipse user settings and use the “Macros” button. When the list of macros opens, use the “Import” button. Click on the drop-down arrow next to “Look in.” Select “Desktop” as where you want to look for “Charm - RT” or “Charm - RT.mac” and then use the “Open” button. That will bring the macro into your user settings. One last step. “Charm - RT” should now be in your list of macros. Find it in that list and then use the “Edit” button, then the “Dict. entry” button. The steno emulator will open. Use your computer keyboard to indicate the steno keys that you’ll press when you want this macro to kick in. I’m using KH*RPL, which is simply my steno for “charm” with an asterisk and no A. Even with the Eclipse “Charm” macro, it’s no fun to report the unreportable. You’ll still want to write as perfectly as possible; and you’ll want to make sure you have at least two audio files to work from, just in case one proves unreliable. However, knowing you have a way to make touchups more quickly might reduce some of the stress that goes with our jobs. Charm: One more reason to “Believe in Magic”