But first, let me address the obvious question:
Why Cheap and Sleazy?
Well, once upon a time I spent a year in a web design and development course, where we learned HTML, all about tables, frames and JavaScript ... and this site uses no frames, just a few tables, and very little JavaScript (unless you count that little bit of code that keeps my site from being framed in someone else's site) ... so, that's the cheap part.
As for the sleazy part, if you're here looking for pictures of nekkid folks, you'll just have to settle for my friend, Mr. Flash iPod!
A "Flash" iPod
This is about as sleazy as this site will get, thankyouverymuch -- unless you count some of my jokes, of course ...!
Also, Cheap and Sleazy refers to shortcuts, tips, tricks and ways to do things a bit differently for court reporting students and other Students of Steno.
Also, some of the pictures on my site link to other sites. If you don't click them, you may miss something ...!
Finally, to paraphrase the words of Dave Barry:
"If anything you read on this website makes you want to sue me, I was joking. Ha! Ha!"
Thanks, Dave!
(And now, without further ado ...)
My name is Glen Warner ('gdw' on a forum or two), and I am -- well, was -- a court reporting student at Seattle's (recently closed) Court Reporting Institute.
During a few bouts of insomnia ("Ah can't get no sleep," to quote Faithless' tune of the same name), I wrote a couple documents I thought my fellow CR students might find of use: A guide to computers, and a guide to buying steno machines, laptops, and CAT software. I used to hand these out to my fellow students as Word documents, but eventually decided to put that year long Web Design and Development program I went through to some use, and put it on the web.
I also, on occasion, solicit articles from other writers! If you have a new Fusion and don't mind sharing your thoughts with the readers of my (cheap and sleazy) website, send me an e-mail! I'd like a review that's a bit more substantial than the quick look I provided in my Technolust piece ... and that can only come from someone that has one, and has used it for a while!
And every once in a while, I do some updating ... but first, if this is your first visit to my (cheap and sleazy) abode, you should check out what's here.
Update (10MAY08)
I have a small update to the Passport news from a couple days back ... and since it's such a small update, you can read it as an addition to the 08MAY08 update.
Sometimes You've Gotta Take Control ...
I'm sure you remember this advertisment for captioning that I posted in my 07APR06 update, right? If not, check the Archive page.
Okay, after having watched that video, do you know that you, as a court reporter, may be faced with a similar situation at least once in your career? Well, it's true ...!
But what are you supposed to do? Do you know?
Lisa Moskowitz knows. Better yet, she tells the tale in this thread on Depoman.com.
Even better, I have the audio file, and you can hear it here.
Update (08MAY08)
CSR Nation: My Space for Court Reporters
I've been remiss in not mentioning CSR Nation!
As it says above, CSR Nation is like My Space for court reporters -- but not just court reporters. Students, transcriptionists, videographers -- pretty much anyone who works (or studies) in this field can join. You can even customize your personal home page, and upload an .mp3 file for others to play while they read your life story! (mine is rather short; sorry about that!)
Once you've finished reading today's update, rush your buns (that's a technical term, by the way) over to CSR Nation.com and sign up today!
Naturally, this note will appear on the Links page as well.
Passport Delay ...?
If you're one of the millions of folks awaiting the release of Advantage Software's Passport, you may just have to wait a bit longer, according to the (very) brief update on the main page from last month. As for the why of it all, here's that brief note:
To improve realtime efficiency, the Passport software is being rewritten for Windows CE. While we're still working out some minor details with the manufacturer and can't promise a precise shipping date, we are optimistic that we'll be able to begin delivering the Passport within the next few months.
What that means is that "Unix-y Goodness" promised for the writer's operating system has been replaced by the same OS that runs the ProCAT Stylus.
I sent a quick e-mail to Developer Dave a couple weeks back to see what was going on, but haven't heard back. Hopefully once the Unix repairs are complete, the WinCE OS can be removed with a downloadable firmware update.
Hopefully.
Passport Update
Alas, it looks like WinCE may be a permanent feature of the Passport!
Seems that there was something missed in the software design phase that is vital to the "StenoVision" feature of the Passport, which neccessitates the rewrite of the writer's operating system (or "OS," in techno-geeky parlance).
Unless, of course, the suggestion I sent in an e-mail will do the trick ....
We'll see!
And in other news ....
Hosting Fees
In addition to it being my middle-niece's birthday yesterday (Happy Birthday, Marlo!), Brinkster, the company that hosts ol' Cheap and Sleazy, sent me a bill for $144.
On the plus side, that nifty "economic expansion" check should pay for it, and that's a Good Thing™.
"I Did It!"
"I Did It!"
(You have seen "Heroes," right?)
Yes, that's right: I finally managed to make the video for joining two pads of steno paper together larger (see Save a Buncha Money if you don't know what I'm talking about)!
Unfortunately, the video is also larger (from 1.9 MB to 4.1 MB), but at least you can see it more clearly.
Also, it seems that Microsoft made some sort of change in Internet Explorer which may cause this video to not display for those of you still using IE. There is some code I can use to bypass that problem, but then you'd be forced to click Okay in a lot of dialog boxes ... and I didn't want you to have to do that ... so if you're on IE and can't see the movie in the afore-mentioned article, get Firefox!
Browser Wars
(I don't remember where I got that picture ... but I like it!!)
"Sex ... and Power III:" The Update
Still working on it ...!
Yeah, I know ... but on the plus side, I found a new emulator that I need to test! Those results will be in that article.
In the meantime, I am (once again) in the process of moving ... so things may be on the hectic side for me for the next few days. Fortunately, ClearWire, my new ISP, is available in my soon-to-be new city, Lake Stevens, WA.
Update (24MAR08)
Attention Starving Students ...!
I got an e-mail the other day from Ms. Diana Van Dyke, a CSR in Southern California. She wanted to let me know about a website just for Starving Students™!
Diana pointed me to this site:
"So what?" you say? Well ... click the Questions and Answers link, and take a look at the software available. I'll wait.
Ah, back I see ...! If you're anything like me, you probably looked at every piece of software listed on this site for your particular platform (Mac or Windows; nothing for Linux folk, alas ...). You probably already downloaded some, right?
If not, let me tell you about a couple programs I found there. I've already mentioned Audacity, the free sound editing tool (see Different Dictation if you missed it) ... but what I haven't mentioned is a pair of programs called Genius (Mac only) and jMemorize (Windows only).
These programs are flash card programs -- except unlike those flash cards of yester-year, these keep track of what you miss, and quiz you on those cards again until you get it ... and sometimes even after you do, to make sure that you still have it!
I took the state capitals list that came with Genius as a sample file, and changed the capitals to the one-stroke brief Phoenix Theory has for states:
Steno States, from Genius
I haven't figured out how to take the quiz with my steno machine as yet ... but the point here is to help me remember those 50 strokes ... and Genius (or jMemorize) will help me to do that.
Finally, I replied to Diana's e-mail, but Earthlink's spam buster kicked it back for me to authenticate; did so, and it said this message is no longer in the Spam folder! So Diana, I was not ignoring you; just got beat up by the spam filter ... so here, in public, I want to say THANK YOU for pointing out this resource for Starving Students™!
Oh, by the way ... the above portion of this update is in the Links section.
STENO-QWIK Update
As my more regular readers might recall, sometime ago, I convinced Frances More, author of QWERTY-QWIK, to see if she could work her magic on the steno keyboard.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Ms. More has figured out a way to teach people to touch type at at least 50 wpm in as littls as 30 minutes ... without having a keyboard in front of them!
Alas, she has been somewhat busy of late with other projects, but she has been ruminating on how to teach students how to memorize the steno keyboard like she has with the regular keyboard. Two more projects, and she will be on top of STENO-QWIK!
Stay tuned .....
Sex ... and Power Update
Alas, I haven't done much on "Sex and Power III" of late ... but I do have VMWare Fusion working, so I'd best get to it before it expires and starts asking me to fork over some $$$! :o)
As for when it will be done .... well, Soonest sounds good -- and this way, I won't have to worry about another "Plutonian Week" situation coming up!
Anyone remember those Plutonian weeks?
Rumors (on the Cheap and Sleazy Side)
Rumor has it that the price of the Lightspeed is going up on or near the first of April. I'll send an e-mail or two and see what's what.
Also, Stenovations has a new online store! Check it out here.
Update (23JAN08)
"Your Web Page is Getting Heavier ... and Heavier ...!"
Yes, that's right ... it looked like I had about a year's worth of junk -- er, junque -- er, information on ol' Cheap and Sleazy's main page, so it was past time (way, way past) that I put up another Archive page! If you're looking for stuff that happened in the last year or so, go here.
In other "news," I am still working on "Sex ... and Power Part Three" ... seems I misplaced a few screenshots -- most of which I (finally!!) have recovered (whew!!).
So .... Close!
As my regular readers might have heard -- er, read, we here at the Cheap and Sleazy Labs have been busy of late trying to get digitalCAT to work with Darwine, with some semblance of success.
Darwine Logo
That "success" was getting the Dictionary Maintenance program and the Transcript Editor of an older (Windows 98) version of digitalCAT to work -- but when the Transcript Editor ran, I immediately got an error message saying that "digitalCAT was not authorized on this computer."
I sent a quick e-mail (or two) to Johnny Jackson at Stenovations and shortly thereafter I got an e-mail from Support (Mr. John Sims himself, no less). He gave me some instructions to follow ("Open the License Manager, click Authorize, and e-mail the displayed code to Support").
No Site Code? No License for You!
Alas, there was no site code in the small window that opened when I followed the instructions ... so the Licnese Manager does not function fully!
Fortunately, Darwine is updated frequently, so ... perhaps one day.
At least the Dictionary Maintenance program still works; makes it easy to look up words I hear but have never stroked before!
Darwine and Dictionary Maintenance in Action!
One day, I hope to be able to run digitalCAT, Speed Teacher, etc. on my Mac -- WITHOUT Windows!
(*sigh*). One of these days.
Oh, and did I mention since moving from CrossOver Mac to Darwine, both the Speed Teacher and the Drill Machine quit working? (*sigh*). Two steps forward, and one step back ....
Speaking of Speed Teacher (and, by proxy, the Drill Machine), neither of these programs work with Darwine! "Two steps forward, one step back ..." (as Ms. Paula Abdul once said, back in the days of Arsenio Hall).
Update (15JAN08)
"Oops" Yet Again ...!
Yes, that's right ... seems the fires of creation that I dug into to create that Christmas poem made me forget that today was the first day of Mac World ... and the rumored flash RAM-based MacBooks were to be announced!
So, without futher ado .....
The MacBook Air: Thin is IN!!
The above picture was stolen -- er, borrowed from the folks over a MacRumors.com ... mostly because the pictures on Apple's website don't show how thin this baby really is ....!
Oops ... wait a minute ....
Apple Shows How Thin the MacBook Air is!
Where was I ...? Oh, yeah!
Specs:
- 1.6 or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
- 2GB of RAM
- 80GB hard drive or 64GB solid state hard drive
- Built-in WiFi
- Built-in Bluetooth
- Built-in iSight camera
Note that the solid state drive will run you $999.
The guys at Mac Rumors.com wrote up a pretty good report on it; you can read it here.
Thin is IN!!
Update (13JAN08)
With apologies to all, in advance ....
'Twas a couple weeks after Christmas
And New Years Eve too
When I realized there was something
I had forgotten to do!
Seems I was remiss
In off'ring Season's Greetings
To all of the readers
Of ol' Cheap and Sleazy!
For those who felt slighted
Or dissed in the least
I have an excuse --
I've been busy these weeks!
Hard at work I've been
On "Sex and Power 3"
With testing of Windows apps
Running on my Mac Windows-free !
On I could go,
But spare you I will ...
Because poet I'm not,
And my raps are ill!
(Um ... sorry about that!)
Since I have been remiss in the holiday festivities, here's an old New Year's tune for you that I downloaded from ... well, somewhere ... and for those of you who didn't get your fill of Christmas tunes when they started playing on the radio just a few days before Hallowe'en, I still have U4IA's "Xmas Pudding Mix" and Necros' "Silent Night" for your listening pleasure ... definitely not what you heard on the radio!
Sadly ....
Alas, there have been a couple losses in the music community during the past few months: Jazz piano GOD Oscar Peterson, who died on the 23rd of December at the age of 82 (kidney failure), and reggae star Lucky Dube, who was killed from injuries sustained during a carjacking incident on October 18th.
Never got to listen to too much of Lucky Dube's music, but I started listening to Oscar Peterson when I was in high school, making my valiant attempts to play that big wooden box. His playing was definitely something to emulate -- or, in my case, aim for (never quite made it, though).
Gone ... but Not Forgotten
Fortunately, You Tube is your friend, for both of these artists! Go listen!
Warning!!
I discovered that listening to reggae while practicing steno is really ... well, let's just say that I had some serious trouble with the metronome going and trying to do Fast Track drills, or even the Speed Teacher drills, for that matter; seems the rhythm of the music interfered with the rhythm I needed to maintain to practice ...!
I'm sure there's a lesson in there ... somewhere.
Finally ....
I'm sad to report that efforts to get Eclipse to run under Darwine have failed, miserably! I got the Installer window, a dialog box about some sound driver or something needing to be installed, and then ... the big freeze!
Well, it was worth a try ...!
On the other hand, I did get an early version of digitalCAT to run -- both the Dictionary Maintenance program, AND the Transcript Editor ...!
Unfortunately, the License Manager pops up a dialog box that says "DigitalCAT Translator/Editor is not authorized on this machine," with an Okay button which, when pushed, quits digitalCAT.
Transcript Editor vs. License Manager (slightly modified screen shot)
Tried to get the Support to give me a license for further testing, but no joy ... but we'll see.
Update (18DEC07)
Mac Santa logo (from MacSanta.com)
Want Mac?
As you probably know by now, there has been a *lot* of interest in running CAT software on my platform of choice, the Mac.
If you have been reading ol' Cheap and Sleazy for any length of time, you might also know that I promised to write an article on this ... with the unlikely title of "Sex ... and Power (Part III)" -- and those of you who have been reading ol' Cheap and Sleazy for a while, know exactly what Sex and Power has to do with the Mac (and for those of you who do not, click here).
All that said, here's an update on the whole "Sex ... and Power (Part III)" piece (with apologies in advance to ... well, everybody!):
Better not shout
Better not whine!
Better not shout, I'm telling you why ...
Sex and Power III is coming soon ...!
Okay, so I probably shouldn't expect any calls from the Songwriter's Guild of America anytime soon (unless they have a "Cease and Desist" order in hand ... but you get the idea) ... but hopefully, this will be done in time for Macworld Expo 2008.
As for what's going to be in "Sex ... and Power (Part III)," there will be a discussion of what type of Mac to buy and where, good sources for refurbished products for my fellow Starving Students™ out there, a few links, the Windows options, and maybe ... just maybe ... a video of His Steveness' debut on American Idol!
His Steveness: The American Idol Debut!
Maybe.
Update (18NOV07)
Two items today: An announced update to an old program from the folks at Advantage Software, and another attempt to get things working with CrossOver Mac and Speed Teacher.
Building Bridges: Bridge 2.0
On the Depoman forum, I inadvertently started a fight about whether or not Advantage Software's claims of making the code for Bridge's refresh feature available to other vendors.
Bridge is a free application which allows court reporters to provide realtime to one (or more!) laptops ... and refreshes the laptop's screen when the reporter changes something -- in Eclipse, anyway.
As it says in the linked thread (and also referenced in a thread on the NCRA forum), I asked Johnny Jackson, Head Guy in Charge over at Stenovations if he had ever received any such notice, and he said he had not.
Candis Bradshaw did her own (more extensive) poll, and discovered that two other vendors had never heard of, nor received any notice about Bridge's refresh code ...!
Well. Fast forward a few months ... and there comes this notice about a forthcoming update to the (still--?) free Bridge software
While Bridge is of little or no use to students (though I suppose in theory you could hook your mom's laptop to yours and steno so she can watch), it might be good for those nearing graduating speeds! Check out those videos when you get a chance.
Speed Teacher and CrossOver Mac: Take Two
As you might have read in an earlier update, Steven Shastay (Da Man Hisself), recently updated the Speed Teacher to work with Vista.
You might also know (from another update) that I tried (and failed) to get Speed Teacher to work with CrossOver Mac -- which, for those of you that missed that update, allows someone with a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, or any Intel-based Macintosh to run some Windows software -- without actually having Windows installed.
Well, it took a misstep or two, but I finally decided to try installing the support files for the Vista version of the Speed Teacher, and removing and reinstalling the Speed Teacher under the XP Winebottle ... and ... well, take a look for yourself:
Speed Teacher Success -- Sort Of
Note that I have included a bit of my desktop to show you definitively that I am running the Speed Teacher as an application. You can see on the top left portion of the menu that it says "CrossOver" ... and no Windows in sight!
You can also see the X (as in "Mac OS X") in the top bar of the Speed Teacher window; see it there, on the left-hand side?
I was even able to register the program:
Speed Teacher Registration Window
Alas, when I set up the parameters (5 words, 260 wpm, top 1000 words) and hit the Start button, I got an error:
Oops ...
... and then the words on the top part of the Speed Teacher window vanished!
Where's My Text?!
So close ...!
Well ... back to the grind and the drugery of homework .... (*sigh* ....)
Update (16NOV07)
Please scroll down a wee bit and read the digitalCAT and CrossOver Mac (16NOV07) update ....
Update (15NOV07)
"It's Alive ... ALIVE!!"
After a bout of feverish testing here at the Cheap and Sleazy Labs(™), I have something really cool to show you:
The Drill Machine on the Mac ... WITHOUT Windows! (Check the menu bar!)
Wait ... I can hear it now: "So what?", you're saying, right? If so, take a good close look at that menu bar. See the blue Apple on the left? That, my friends, is my Apple menu ... which means that the Drill Machine window pictured above is running on the Mac .... without windows!! Check out CrossOver Mac to see what's what.
Alas, the Speed Teacher did not fare so well during that afore-mentioned bout of feverish testing:
The "Never-Too-Sufficiently-Damned Missing File Error"
Next up: DigitalCAT!!
.... right after I finish my mid-term, my final, my portion of a lengthy class project, and an e-learning assignment (*sigh*).
In short, it could be a while ....!
Stay tuned ....
Update No. Two (15NOV07)
I Tried, I Really Did ....
.... but it was nearly impossible to resist the temptation ... so (after a protracted battle between duty and Technolust) I yielded to temptation (and technolust) and did it.
Yes, that's right: I went on ahead and installed digitalCAT on my Mac, using CrossOver Mac.
Sadly, the results weren't as spectacular as they were for The Drill Machine, but it did look promising in the beginning:
Looking Goood ....
Alas, I could not get anything to actually work ...! Double-clicking the Transcript Editor did absolutely nothing ... and the only thing that reacted to a double-click was the Steno Editor and the Convert Sten8000 ... neither of which I use.
Oh, wait ... I take that back. The Dictionary Maintenance program kinda/sorta worked ... but it wouldn't let me open any dictionaries I created, so that was pretty much a wash.
"But Wait ... What's This?!?"
CrossOver Mac Wine Bottles
When I installed Speed Teacher, CrossOver Mac created a Wine (an acronym; it stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator") Bottle -- for Windows 2000. Naturally I thought, "Shouldn't this be a Windows XP bottle?" ... so I created one.
Alas, I haven't figured out how to move everything from one bottle to the next ... but one of these days.
(*sigh*). Oh, well. Back to work!
Update: digitalCAT and CrossOver Mac (16NOV07)
Okay, a lot has happened since last night's attempts at getting DC working under CrossOver Mac here in the Cheap and Sleazy Labs(™) ....
First, I uninstalled all of the programs I had installed previously (The Drill Machine, Speed Teacher, and digitalCAT) under the Windows 2000 Bottle ... then I created a Windows XP bottle and reinstalled the Drill Machine and Speed Teacher (which, by the way, complained about the same missing OCX file ... grrr!!) and refused to run.
I then installed digitalCAT Build 190 again ... and this time, I actually got the Transcript Editor to run!
DigitalCAT Transcription Editor (Build 190): Success
Alas, I could not get the Dictionary Maintenance program to work ... so I installed a few updates, testing each time to see if the Dictionary Maintenance Program began working ... and I noticed the first thing to happen was that the Transcript Editor quit working ... and remained dead through all four updates I had.
I then uninstalled DC from the XP bottle ... and then I noticed, buried on that DC CD that I got from Stenovations all these years ago, a build for Windows 98: Build 167.
I then created a Windows 98 Bottle ... and installed Build 167.
First, I started the Dictionary Maintenance program -- without installing any dictionaries this time -- and tried to create a blank Phoenix Theory dictionary:
New Phoenix Theory Dictionary: Success!
Now, to import my .rtf dictionary into this blank one here ....
Importing the Phoenix Theory Dictionary: Success!
I then decided I'd better install the rest of my dictionaries (while I had the Dictionary Maintenance program up and running!) ... and then tried to run the Transcript Editor ... alas, no joy.
So, I now have, under the Windows 98 bottle, DigitalCAT Build 167, where the Transcript Editor doesn't work, but the Dictionary Maintenance editor does. In theory, if I update this Build 167 with the next update I have (167d, along with 179b, 182b, 188b, 189c, and 190d) one at a time, testing each time, sometime before I reach Build 190, I hope to have a fully working version of digitalCAT running in CrossOver Mac!
167d installed ... Dictionary Maintenance works, no joy with the Transcript Editor.
Well, I take that back. While switching between applications, I noticed the Transcript Editor's icon there, but it disappeared. Tried starting it again, and when I selected it, nothing hapened.
179b installed ... same results.
Now for 182b .... drats, the Dictionary Maintenance program quit working ...! No Transcript Editor either.
Installed 188b .... Dictionary Maintenance program runs, but doesn't see any of the dictionaries I installed before ...! On the other hand, the Transcript Editor works. Freezes everything (everything CrossOver-wise, that is) for a while when I selected Options --> Captioning ... but eventually gave me something:
Captioning Options, Build 188b
Alas, I had to kill the Transcript Editor after that, using the CrossOver Mac's built-in Task Manager:
The CrossOver Mac Task Manager
Hmmm. Well, back to the updates. Next up: 189c ... Dictionary Maintenance Manager works, but won't load or open any dictionaries ...! The Transcript Editor works, but no dictionary ... hmmm.
Well. May as well install the drivers for my Serial - USB device and hook up my steno machine -- assuming, of course, I can get the USB device to work ....
That's strange ... the driver is installed, but no way to see which port it's working on ...! Hmm ... a quick look at the CrosOver Mac's website reveals that nothing that requires a serial port is supported ... but they have received a few inquiries, and I found a terminal command that (in theory) would tell CrossOver Mac about my serial device.
Unfortunately, I have some weird directory issue that needs to be addressed (my terminal program seems to believe it's still running on my old G4 PowerBook ... and I'm not sure how (or *where,* even) to go to fix that ...!
I did, however, find out where my digitalCAT dictionaries were being stored. I tried double-clicking them, but I got the same message (you know: "Dictionary Not Found"):
"No Dictionaries for You!"
Well. Back to the upgrade follies!
190d is next ... (losing hope, here!)
DigitalCAT Build 190d Splash Screen
Arrgghh ...! Same problems. All I have left (update-wise) are the updates that create DC-3 ... so I'll try them, and see what happens. First up: an update dated August 8, 2006, number four: No joy ... and no Transcipt Editor, either ...!
Well. I've installed all the updates I have, but can't get this to run in a stable fashion. I'll try a few things before I give up entirely ... like, say, installing the 167 build into the Windows XP bottle, and upgrading it to the 190 level ... but it's going to be a while. Watch for an update below this entry in the not-to-distant ....
Update (13OCT07)
Speed Teacher News
The other day, I got an e-mail from Charmaine of CRI Dallas. She was wondering if I had any solutions to the "Speed Teacher Doesn't Like Vista" issue, among other things.
At the time I began to answer her e-mail, I only had a work-around for her ... but while detailing that work-around, I went to CourtReportingHelp.com and there, on the main page, as big as life (well ... more or less) was this headline:
"The Speed Teacher has been upgraded for Vista!!"
Check the Speed Teacher download page for the Vista download. Download and install the small set of files ... then download and install the Speed Teacher ... and no more Vista woes (well ... no more Vista woes with the Speed Teacher, anyway).
Give "The Shazz" a big round of applause!
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