Transcription Services Blog

Jan 24, Reality Show Transcription

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:48:44 GMT

Reality Show Transcription Services

Jan 16, California Transcription

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:39:26 GMT

California Transcription Services

Jan 10, Workers Compensation Transcription

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:12:09 GMT

Workers Compensation Transcription Services

Jan 4, Free Sony Micro-Cassette Recorder

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:19:55 GMT

A client sent me a free Sony micro-cassette recorder that I am offering for free to anybody who wants it. The first person to e-mail me that they want it may have it. It is a Sony, V-O-R, Model M-570V. Included are 10 tapes and 2 batteries. If you can use this item I will gladly send it to you. Just e-mail me at devitt@jps.net and I will mail it out.

Dec 19, Zoga Stretching Excellent Ergonomics for Transcription Service Providers

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:19:42 GMT

Sometimes a day at the computer providing transcription services can be very rough on the neck and upper back and shoulder area. I have had many nights where I have woken up with a headache due to things getting bunched up during the previous days' work. A couple of months ago I was looking for a new pillow to help me with this. I did find a wonderful pillow that I absolutely love! And along with that I found these Zoga stretching exercises. I do them every day at the end of my transcription day. It has made a world of difference in the stiffness in my neck and shoulder area. I have only had two headaches in two months and those were both on days when I didn't do my stretching. It has to be more than a coincidence! Talk about motivation to do the stretching every day. I would highly recommend these stretches for anybody who is at the computer all day every day.

Dec 14, Merry Christmas

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:59:17 GMT

Pioneer Transcription Services would like to wish all of its customers a very Merry Christmas. We thank you for all the business you've given us this year and the loyalty you have shown us. We look forward to servicing your transcription service needs in 2012 and beyond! We pray God's blessings on you and your families.

Nov 17, Resources for Transcriptionists

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:29:31 GMT

Useful Information and Resources for Transcriptionists

Nov 17, Transcription Services Articles

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:26:10 GMT

Transcription Services Articles

Nov 8, Webinar Transcription

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:29:11 GMT

Pioneer's Webinar Transcription

Nov 2, How To Use Google Search When Providing Transcription Services

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:21:04 GMT

It is so important to spell proper names correctly when you are providing transcription services. It is worth the time it takes to stop typing for a minute and go to the internet to perform some research via the search engines. By far the most comprehensive search engine is Google, although others can certainly be useful as well. Linked In and Facebook are also sometimes helpful with people’s names. Google is pretty intuitive on giving back a properly spelled name of a person or place if you can at least spell it phonetically. Sometimes though you need to give the search engine more information than just a name. This is where it is important to get a little creative with your searches. Let us say you were searching for a street name that sounds like Soretta Street. If you just put in Soretta Street you are probably going to get that spelling for somewhere in the world, but it may not be the correct spelling for your particular transcript. Now if you put in Soretta Street, Kernville, California, Google will come back with the correct spelling of Sirretta Street, Kernville, California. We now know that we have the proper spelling for our current job. Here is another example. Let us say that you were working on a transcript that required you to find the name of cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, but you do not know his name and when you are listening to the audio it sure sounds like she is saying Creato instead of Prieto. When you put Rodrigo Creato into the search engine you do not get any good search results. But as you have been typing the interview you realize that the interviewee has done two previous movies with this cinematographer. So now you can put their two names into the search engine together and suddenly you get the correct spelling that you need. It does take some extra effort on the part of the transcriptionists and proofreading staff, but when you are providing transcription services you want to give your clients the best possible transcript you can. They will always appreciate your extra efforts!

Oct 28, Transcription Services

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:08:33 GMT

Affordable, accurate transcription services

Oct 25, Media Transcription

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:23:54 GMT

Media Transcription Services from Pioneer Transcription Services

Oct 11, MP3 Transcription

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:56:23 GMT

MP3 Transcription services

Oct 4, A Good IT Person Worth Their Weight in Gold

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:55:26 GMT

Our company has been very blessed over the years to have the most amazing IT person, Josh Levesque, our nephew! He is pure genius when it comes to fixing computers and their whoas. I realized a few weeks ago exactly how golden he is! We had an internet issue one morning where we could not get connected to the internet. Well, our nephew does work a full time job, so we were not able to expect him to come running right over. Since part of our company is a transcription services business that depends on the internet constantly we knew we needed to get it fixed right away. So to the old Yellow Pages we went. (Of course, we would have Googled if the internet was up!) I won't name any names, but we got a hold of a national chain who could get a tech out to us within a few hours. Great! Even at $110 per hour we felt it was worth it if we could get reconnected to the internet in a timely fashion. He shows up and we knew we were in trouble pretty quickly. He spent an hour and a half and could not figure out the problem. We finally cut him off at the hour and a half mark and he tells us that the company he works for only pays him $12.00 the first hour, but the second hour he makes $20.00, plus the $12.00, and the THIRD hour he really starts making money! We are convinced that he was trying to make it to at least the three hour mark to start making some real money. We knew he was shady when he's handing us two business cards - one for the franchise he works for and one of his own that he is telling us is much cheaper than the franchise. Can you say unethical? So we sent a text to our nephew asking if he could please come by after work after all. Sure enough, he came by and fixed our problem in FIVE MINUTES! Like I said, the young man is pure genius! And HONEST! I think I almost have him convinced he should start his own business. I have been telling him he should since he was a teenager. Now that he's almost 30 he is gaining the confidence to think he might be able to do that. I feel so bad for companies that must depend on companies like the tech who came out. We treasure our IT person!!

Sep 26, Video Transcription

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:23:29 GMT

Video Transcription Services

Sep 13, Academic Transcription Services

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:01:32 GMT

Academic transcription services

Sep 13, Dissertation Transcription

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:56:09 GMT

Dissertation Transcription

Sep 7, Grammar Tricks

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:46:59 GMT

When providing transcription services typists tend to use a lot of grammar tricks. These are those cute little ways of remembering grammar rules. You know, like I before E, except after C. These help so much with transcription work because you are working at a quick pace and need to think quickly without having to stop to look things up. We are polling our typists and asking for their best grammar tricks.

1. To remember whether to use who or whom in a transcribed report, use who if it can be replaced by he or she. Use whom if it can be replaced by him or her. 2. To remember whether to use affect or effect, remember that affect is a verb. A verb starts with a V, but if you turn it upside down it looks like an A, so it should be Affect. More to come on this excellent blog post. Hope it helps someone out there!

Sep 6, Free Online Field Recording Techniques Workshop

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 17:40:59 GMT

Bartlomiej Plichta, Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota will be hosting a free online field recording techniques workshop. More information on how to participate can be found at this URL: http://bartus.org/akustyk/ws Please, apply soon, as he has a limited number of "seats" available.

Aug 31, Oral History Transcription

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:36:48 GMT

Pioneer Transcription Services offers oral history transcription services

Aug 23, Summer

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:08:00 GMT

Summer is coming to a close in a few short weeks. This has been one of the best summers I can remember in a long time. I realize a lot of the country has had very sweltering and miserable temperatures this summer. But here in California it has been so nice and mild. Our home office is located in the Sierra Nevada foothills and the days have been warm, but not super hot. Most summers we have a string of days over 100 degrees, but we've only had maybe 3 days total this year where it got that hot. We do provide transcription services to clients in New York, Indiana, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, et cetera. Our typists are also all over the United States. We have some in Texas, Arkansas, Illinois and California. We love working virtually because we can attract the best of the best!

Aug 11, How to Upload a File for Transcription Services

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:45:22 GMT

Go to http://www.pioneer-transcription-services.com/onlinetranscriptionservice.html Click on the blue Upload a File link in the middle of the page. Type in your name, e-mail address, etc. (contact information), a subject title and a description (names in interviews, any formatting requirements are good things to include here). Click the "Select Files to Send Regular Upload" button at the bottom of the screen. You will be taken to a new screen where you will be able to use the "browse" keys to find your digital audio files. Once you have attached the files you want to send click "Upload and send" at the bottom of the screen.

Jun 28, You Tube Transcription

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 21:12:35 GMT

You Tube Transcription

Jun 16, Transcription Services Tests

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:40:14 GMT

Well, three times in the last two weeks I have had people send me tests of other transcription services. I know for a fact, after checking with the other transcription service, that the person who sent the test to me to complete (with my free transcription trial to boot) was testing with another transcription service and that this was his test! Then today I had somebody send me another transcription service's test, telling me that they wanted to try my services but were using another transcription service's test. I told them in an e-mail that we have a company policy to not complete any tests for any other transcription services. Well, an hour or two later, we get the exact same audio from "another" e-mail address saying they have a lot more audio they want transcribed, but they want to test us out with this audio first. PLEASE - give me a break. I cannot believe the lack of business ethics these people have! I wish I knew which company this is with, so maybe we could pinpoint the person trying to get our company to do their test for them. I am absolutely appalled. I do not know how in the world they ever expect to succeed if they cannot even complete their own test!

Jun 14, Stretching Exercises for Transcription Services Providers

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:10:01 GMT

When you provide transcription services to businesses and individuals you spend long hours at the computer and in front of the keyboard. This can lead to stiff, tired muscles and can even lead to severe headaches and other health problems. You should take a break from the keyboard at the minimum every single hour. You need to stand up and walk around and do some stretching. The book Office Yoga: Simple Stretches for Busy People provides some good, easy stretching you can do while on these little stretch breaks. Also, make sure you are sitting in a good ergonomically friendly chair. Make sure your computer monitor is at the correct height. Make sure you are sitting with a proper posture with your feet flat on the floor, or as flat as they can be with your foot pedal operations.

Jun 3, God is Good!

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:43:44 GMT

We had quite a month at Pioneer Transcription Services. Several big projects, some new typists were hired, and God's provision was over it all. We struggle sometimes with remembering that we do it all for God's glory and that He is in charge around here. It's such a comfort to remember this and to rest in that assurance. We have seen His faithfulness time and time again. God is good all the time; all the time God is good!

May 31, Privacy Policy

Tue, 31 May 2011 20:41:28 GMT

Pioneer Transcription Services' Privacy Policy

May 28, YouTube Transcription

Sat, 28 May 2011 14:46:24 GMT

I recently heard that YouTube is now offering automated transcription with their videos. I am wondering if anybody has tried this service and what were the results. We would be happy to edit and proofread any automated transcription. Usually with speech recognition software there is proofreading and editing that must be done. This is a service that Pioneer Transcription Services is happy to provide to businesses and individuals who may need it.

May 26, You Know You're an Entrepreneur When...

Thu, 26 May 2011 17:11:24 GMT

You know you're an entrepreneur when your heart races when you think of a new marketing idea. You know you're an entrepreneur when you actually look forward to Monday mornings. You know you're an entrepreneur when you constantly think about your customers, potential customers and how to better serve them. You know you're an entrepreneur when you see the internet for what it is - a vast business opportunity.

May 25, Staples Rewards Continued ...

Wed, 25 May 2011 14:59:28 GMT

No, I do not work for Staples or get any kind of a kickback from them, but I just had to write today about the free paper I got yesterday using only a portion of my rewards certificates. They had their Staples Multipurpose paper on sale for $24.99, which is a great price. Their usual price is $48.99. We are talking a whole BOX of paper - 5,000 sheets! It will last us a while. Well, I had $42.00 in rewards coupons, so I got the paper completely FREE and I still have $17.00 in coupons. (I'm sure I will need printer ink soon!) Anyway, I just had to say That was easy!

May 20, Staples Rewards

Fri, 20 May 2011 20:41:02 GMT

I was not a happy camper when Staples decided to make the Rewards an online event where you had to print them out yourself. For one thing, I thought they would take up a lot of ink, which I would have to buy more of from them. And I liked getting my Rewards coupons in the mail. It was like getting a check in the mail. Of course, a check that I could only spend at Staples. Well, I finally went online today to set up my Staples account and was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had $42.00 in Rewards coupons. And when I printed the Rewards coupons I was pleasantly surprised to see that they do not have big, black areas that would take up a lot of ink. They take no more ink than a regular page. For those of you who shop at Staples but do not have a Rewards card, I encourage you to get one. They give you $2.00 back for every ink cartridge, plus credit for every other item you buy there. When you get the Rewards coupons they are just like cash in the store. A great way to save money! And in this economy, we are all looking for ways to save money!

May 17, Plurals and Possessives

Tue, 17 May 2011 17:17:35 GMT

The plurals of most abbreviations are formed by adding an s: mgr. becomes mgrs. Dr. becomes Drs. MD becomes MDs CPA becomes CPAs Some abbreviations, particularly those of weights and measurements, have the same form in the singular and plural: ft in m qt Some abbreviations form the plural irregularly: Mr. becomes Messrs. Mrs. becomes Mmes. Ms. becomes Mses or Mss. No. becomes Nos. This one baffled me for a long time. To assist in identification, lowercase letters and lowercase abbreviations with punctuation often form the plural by adding apostrophe s. Changing the c's to e's, for example.

May 16, Do Bibliophiles Provide Better Transcription Services?

Mon, 16 May 2011 19:15:05 GMT

Do bibliophiles make better transcription service providers? It would only make sense that they would. After all, the more you read, the more familiar you will be with correct spelling and punctuation. It is a proven fact that the more you read, the larger your vocabulary. Of course, a love of reading does not guarantee that you will be an excellent transcription services provider. There is also the matter of having the ear for transcription work. But it does give you a leg up on typists who do not read very much, if at all.

May 13, Oral History Interviews Subpoenaed in Britain

Fri, 13 May 2011 23:10:25 GMT

This article is quite an interesting read from the New York Times. I would love to hear any comments or feedback from readers regarding this.

May 12, Setting Up The New Transcription Management System

Thu, 12 May 2011 22:40:49 GMT

Wow, what a week it has been. We finally started implementing ScribeManager. There was a definite learning curve, but thank goodness their customer support has been exceptional. They are based in the UK, so I was happily surprised to receive a few phone calls when the need arose. They are very quick to respond and a joy to work with. At the present time I am uploading the jobs myself, which has been a bit time consuming, and it's confusing at first to see how everything must be set just so for typists to see what work is available for them. I think I have finally figured that out for the most part. I also have a hard time with just waiting for someone to pick up a job. I feel like, oh, that job needs to be assigned NOW! But after fretting yesterday over a longer one, somebody picked it up overnight and the queue started to move again. The typists seem to really like it. Some of the typists that I never seemed to get around to calling on are finally getting their chance at some work around here and that is very nice. Also, if people aren't available when I need them they can log in when it is convenient for them and grab a job if it suits their schedule. I have been having a bit of a time with one typist who has been late on jobs the last couple of weeks. Today when I went to do QA on her latest job it was pretty bad. I ended up proofreading the whole long thing to audio, but it was the right thing to do for the client. Even though it was a little late, I explained the situation, and they were just happy to be receiving a premium quality transcript in the end.

May 10, Working Virtually

Tue, 10 May 2011 16:58:54 GMT

It is an interesting thing to work with people virtually. I tend to get pictures in my head of what people might look like. Usually they end up being so far off the mark. I know I envisioned one client as a tall, thin man for many years. When I finally saw a picture of him I was surprised to see that he was rather stocky. My daughter (who also works for Pioneer Transcription Services) and I were talking about how we envision certain clients in our heads. One client we each had a similar picture in our heads about. For others we had totally different ideas. I have eventually seen photos of some clients on say Linked In or other such sites, but many times they do not bother to post their photographs so I am left wondering about it. I guess this works both ways. I had one woman tell me she was surprised to see that I was not blonde! She had always envisioned me as a blonde! (I think because I live in California and she must have assumed that everybody who lives in California is a blonde.) If you are curious to know what I look like I do have a photo of myself on Linked In. LOL

May 9, Still Working on Transcription Management Program

Mon, 09 May 2011 20:36:16 GMT

I'm taking advantage of ScribeManager's free month of service. They have a simple, straightforward manual of only 50 pages that I am trying to get through. I am on page 17. I am just so busy it is difficult to find time each day to work on it a little bit. The irony of the situation is that once I have this system set up it should actually save me quite a bit of the time that I currently spend managing jobs. My goal for today is to get to page 30. Wish me luck! So far I am liking what I am seeing, but there are some things that they will need to do a little differently for me. I have spoken with the owner of the company and he seems very pleasant and willing to help us out with whatever our needs may be. Well, I better go get busy to get to page 30 by today. I think I will start by setting up a couple of subcontractors and a couple of clients into the system and seeing how it goes and then maybe adding a customer or subcontractor every couple of days as we work out any bugs or issues that may arise. I need something to help me though. It is very time consuming to do all of this management without a management program.

May 8, Mother's Day - The Reason PTS Exists

Sun, 08 May 2011 14:29:36 GMT

It is because I became a mother that I started Pioneer Transcription Services. I had my first daughter in 1989 and wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. My father-in-law suggested I start a secretarial service. Transcription services seemed to be a niche I was especially good at and there seemed to be a great demand for it. I raised two daughters while doing transcription work. They are both in college now. One is married and the other is getting married this September. I've been able to grow this business now to a point where I am helping other women stay at home with their children. Not all of our transcriptionists are stay-at-home moms, but many are. It is an excellent career option for people with the right skills. We invite any moms, or women who are not moms, to apply to our company using our online application form. We do send a test to assess whether or not you have the skills we are looking for. You never know, it could be a perfect fit!

May 7, Capitalization in Transcription Services

Sat, 07 May 2011 15:43:27 GMT

When transcribing a document many times a transcriptionist needs to make a call on whether or not to capitalize certain words. There are so many things that should be capitalized that we could not possibly cover them all in one blog post. We may make several posts regarding capitalization to cover some of them. We also want to cover some things that should not be capitalized. For instance, we had a report come back for a client yesterday with the words "insured" and "claimant" capitalized. Our preference is for these words not to be capitalized. An interesting topic within capitalization is nicknames or created names. For instance, the Deep South, the Sunshine State, Big Brother (the TV show and other references). When nicknames or created names become common, however, they are no longer capitalized as their usage applies to general categories of persons, places or things. Some examples are french fries, manila envelopes, romaine lettuce, china pattern. Remember that since capitalization is often for the purpose of emphasizing certain words, excessive use of capitalization will reduce the value of this important tool. Also there are some things that are always capitalized. Always capitalize the first word in a sentence. Always capitalize the first word of a quoted sentence. Always capitalize the names of specific persons, places and things.

May 6, Word 2010 or Older Versions?

Fri, 06 May 2011 14:37:53 GMT

Last autumn I bought a new computer and thought it's about time to update my version of Microsoft Word. I was using 2003 previously and was occasionally getting some of the new Word documents which have the .docx file extension. There was a bit of a learning curve with the new version. They definitely moved things around and changed it up quite a bit from previous versions. Between one of my subcontractors and good old Google I think I finally conquered it. Now the question is when do I send documents back to clients in Word 2010 or in an older version. I do not want to frustrate my clients with the new version if they are not able to handle those file extensions yet. So basically if a client sends me something as a template in Word 2010 I will go ahead and use 2010 for them. But if it's a new client or an old client who we've been using 2003 with before and they have not said anything about having the new version, I continue to save their files as 97-2003 Word files. I even convert files that subcontractors send back to me into the older version so as not to inconvenience the clients. Pioneer Transcription Services believes the clients' needs should always come first, even if it means a little more work for us. We strive for the very best is customer service every single day. We try to treat each client as if they are our only client.

May 5, M3U Files

Thu, 05 May 2011 15:10:16 GMT

Yesterday I received a M3U file for transcription. I tried several conversion programs to convert this file to something I could play in a transcription software, but I was unable to find anything. I tried OjoSoft, DeGo Software and Axara. NONE of them worked! If anybody out there has any suggestions on how to convert a M3U file to either an MP3, WAV or WMA file, please e-mail me and let me know! Today I received a mov file that plays one side of the conversation in my FTW Transcribing software and the other side of the conversation in Express Scribe. Wow! I don't want to have to have somebody go through the file twice. Does anybody have any ideas on this one too? It's interesting that we have received two challenging files in two days. Pioneer Transcription Services usually can work around any file we are given. And, of course, we will be able to transcribe the mov file, but I'm still stuck on that M3U file. This type of thing sticks in my crawl until I figure it out. I think that is a good thing. It helps us service our clients in the best way possible.

May 4, Benefits of Being Self-Employed

Wed, 04 May 2011 18:02:14 GMT

I truly love the flexibility of being self-employed. For example, I usually work very long days, but when something special comes up I do not feel a bit guilty about taking off. Today is my sister's birthday. My mom came over and we cooked her a really nice breakfast. My daughter and husband, who also work for Pioneer Transcription Services, were here, and my niece and her baby came down too. I just love being able to take a little time during the day to do something like this for my family. Hey, I raised two girls doing this type of business. Of course, I'll need to make that time up today one way or another. Usually I get up extra early in the morning when I am going to take off some time during the day. It works better for me. When my children were young it worked better for me to stay up late at night. I also have a subcontractor who wasn't able to take work from me because she's going on a field trip with her daughter tomorrow. I love that she has the opportunity to do that! Our children are young such a young time and their field trips are a great chance to get to know their classmates. When my girls were in school I tried to make as many field trips as I possibly could. I truly believe in a strong work ethic, but I also believe in a stronger family ethic.

May 3, Quotation Marks and Other Punctuation

Tue, 03 May 2011 15:54:54 GMT

Sometimes typists get confused on whether to place punctuation inside or outside quotation marks. Here are a couple of rules. Colon - The colon is placed outside quotation marks. There was one major flaw in her definition of "taste": it reflected her own peculiar prejudices. Comma - The comma is placed inside quotation marks. Semicolon - Place a semicolon outside the closing quotation mark. End of sentence punctuation with quotation marks - Use the following patterns to resolve conflicts between end-of-sentence punctuation and quotation marks. (Note: When such a conflict arises, the stronger mark of punctuation prevails.) Use an introductory comma if the quotation does not blend into the preceding sentence elements. Some examples: We saw "Upstairs, Downstairs." We heard "What's Love Got to Do With It?" Did you see "Upstairs, Downstairs"? Did you hear "What's Love Got to Do With it?" You should see "Upstairs, Downstairs"!

May 2, Procedures for Transcriptionists

Mon, 02 May 2011 16:13:45 GMT

The following is a list of our preferences for subcontractors providing transcription services. We are not saying these are necessarily the only correct way of doing things. This is simply how we prefer things to do be done. We appreciate when our subcontractors remember to follow these procedures: Use [inaudible] if you cannot hear what is being said. Use [unintelligible] if you can hear what is being said but you just cannot make it out. If unsure of a spelling of a name please spell it phonetically and then type [phonetic] directly after it the first time it appears in the transcript. If no sample is given for formatting please use 1” margins all around and a Times New Roman 12 point font. Please use the words all right rather than alright. Please use the spelling yeah rather than yea. Please use the spelling okay and not ok. Please type out going to and because instead of using gonna and ‘cause. Please use e-mail instead of email. For numbers one through nine, please spell them out. For numbers 10 and above, please use the numerals. When the day follows the month, express it in cardinal figures (1, 2, 3, etc.), e.g., on March 6 (not March 6th or sixth). Please use hm-hmm for the affirmative and uh-uh for negative. Please follow this with the words [affirmative] or [negative] in brackets. Please capitalize Bay Area when it occurs. Please note the correct spelling is workers’ compensation not worker’s compensation. Google is your friend. Please try to find unfamiliar names using Google. If you cannot find a spelling for a name or a place please send me a note in an e-mail with your completed job regarding any unknown spellings or other things that I need to double check on the job. Please proofread your jobs carefully. While we do run quality control procedures on our jobs, it is first the typist’s responsibility to make sure they are turning in a quality transcript they can be proud of. When a speaker’s thought trails off at the end of a sentence, please use an ellipsis. He could easily have saved the situation… When a speaker changes thoughts abruptly in the middle of a sentence, please use an em-dash with no spaces on either side of the dash. (We were about to go to the—No, he didn’t go.) Use right justification on all paragraphs.

Apr 30, Anybody Use ScribeManager?

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 14:42:43 GMT

I am thinking about signing up for ScribeManager from Tyger Valley Systems. Anybody out there use it? I would love to hear of other people's experience with the program. The benefits seem to be automatic invoicing, better time management on managing jobs, etc. I have read about half of their manual so far and they say that they can customize the program to fit your specific needs. I do think I will want this customization. The default is set for the jobs to be e-mailed back to the clients and since many of my clients have confidential documents that they want sent through a secure, encrypted file transfer service, we will need to customize that option. The sales rep will be calling me this week when we can talk about more of these issues and see if it is a good fit. We have been seeing some growth lately, so I know we will need to be making some changes in how we manage our work flow for our transcription services. Growth is good! I am excited about what the future holds for Pioneer Transcription Services!

Apr 29, The Importance of Proofreading in Transcription Services

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 14:44:41 GMT

We cannot stress enough how important it is to proofread what you have typed when providing transcription services. Of course, you should always run your spell check program first and foremost. But there are so many things that your spell check program will not catch. Just yesterday I was proofreading something I had typed and instead of typing the word mine, I had typed the word mind. Spell check is going to think the word mind is just fine, but of course it was absolutely incorrect! So many words like that can get by if you do not proofread. Proofreading to audio is also something we encourage for especially difficult audio. We don't always perform this, but many times on a difficult audio we can go back and catch a lot of words we could not make out the first go-around. This is especially true for the beginning portions of an audio file. When beginning a difficult audio you may not be in sync or used to the voice yet, so you will have many more unintelligible portions than you will later in the transcript when you have adjusted to the voice, background noise, or whatever the difficulty may be. Re-listening to the early part of the audio can help fill in a lot of blanks that you may miss at the beginning.

Apr 28, Punctuation in Transcription Services

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:02:40 GMT

When providing transcription services it is important to know common punctuation rules. Commas are a big topic to cover, so we are going to provide several blog posts to address some of the main rules on using commas, as well as other punctuation rules. Today we are going to talk about using commas in repeated and omitted words. With repeated words the rule is words repeated for emphasis are separated by commas. For example: Yes, yes, that is exactly what I meant. Or: That tree is very, very old. Another rule is to use a comma to separate repeated verbs--those that are identical and next to each other. For example: When you work, work hard; when you play, play hard. Finally, the comma may be used to replace repetitious words that are easily perceived. For example: The best apples are on top; the bad, on the bottom. Note that the comma replaces the repetitious words apples are.

Apr 27, Converting mov files

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:08:14 GMT

I was having some trouble converting some files we received in with the .mov file extension. I purchased OjoSoft to convert them and every time I tried to use it there seemed to be a bug and it wouldn't allow me to do anything. After a bit of running around with customer support and me asking for a refund, I finally got these instructions that seems to have solved the problem. Here is how to get past the apparent bug in the software. When you get everything ready for converting click Edit. Button to reset the parameter 'Use Sync Mode' to No. Then Apply and Close. Then Convert. Simple - worked like a charm! Now if only I had had that information last week!

Apr 26, How Many Spaces After a Period?

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:01:22 GMT

So how many spaces do you prefer after a period? I learned to type in the 1970s when you always put two spaces after a period. In the last five years I have had a few clients request that we only put one space after a period. I guess it has something to do with typesetting. In the olden days - the 1970s - we needed that extra space for typesetting purposes or some such thing. I always thought it was just because it set it off better and helped the brain see that it was a new sentence. So we made the change to one space after a period. Well, I have since had two clients request that on their jobs we use two spaces after a period! So what's a transcription services company to do? Please the client of course, and give them what they want. If they want one space after a period, by George we're going to give them one space after a period. And if they want two spaces after a period, well, they are going to get that too! We truly believe it's all about the client and providing exactly what the client wants. Yes, we do cater to our clients! And I think they appreciate that.

Apr 25, Comma usage in a direct address

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:21:42 GMT

Use a comma after an introductory word or words in a direct address. Sally, please put the spoon down. Ladies and gentlemen, it is our pleasure to present this program to you. Commas should also be used in a direct address if the name comes in the middle of a sentence. Please, Sally, put the spoon down. At Pioneer Transcription Services we are extremely particular about this simple punctuation rule being applied. Subcontractors who test for us who do not use the appropriate commas are automatically rejected. I know that sounds harsh, but it simply is not up to our standards. We want only the best for our clients. They deserve exceptional quality transcripts every time.