Bill Dickerson

So what portable recorders work best with this software - and use non-DSS formats? No hoops like Sony requiring conversion.....

Does nobody use any portable dictation recorders at all, or have any "opinions" as what works well, what works with the Express products, or what to not use? We need to get rid of these very expensive and very troublesome Olympus DS4000 units as we've had nothing but trouble and crashes and firmware upgrades needed. What's good to use, what's not? Example - I suspect we need to avoid Sony because of special drivers needed. We already know to avoid Olympus. Thanks............. I hope..................

Check out http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/versions.html However, the 4.10 DL is not there yet - the file you get is 4.09 and not vista ready..............

Thank you. I see 4.10 is shown, but there is no download for 4.10 (vista compatable, etc.) Also, if I DL the ZIP file version I get 4.05, not 4.06 or later. (dictate downloads as 4.07, but I see no info on that)

Will the current dictation and transcription products work FULLY with Vista? What about on systems where the user is not an admin of any support, with no rights to install or modify anything - will it fly without all sorts of warnings or issues?

ES works with Olympus FILES, not hardware. I've found that: Olympus software works only with Olympus foot controls, and Olympus foot controls work only with Olympus software (and perhaps one or two others out there now) Olympus maintains their status be being very proprietary, not sharing information, and sort of like acting like Apple did in the early days - (if you want an Apple, you have to buy it from Apple.) You can buy almost any "generic" foot pedal from many vendors, and the VEC that is sold here can be bought from office supply houses in several countries, including the U.S, Canada (those folks are friendly!), etc. I've found the pricing on the pedals on this site is competitive if you compare oranges to oranges (I've already used Apple above) Some sell for MORE $$, others sell for a tad less. Bill

Where are those few other little tweaks documented? Might make a big difference...... Thanks.

We currently have all Olympus - hardware and software. We will be moving to the Express Dictate and scribe products. DSS, well, I won't say it here.......... Our counselors use "portable recorders" - the Olympus DS-4000. They have been a bit troublesome. We'd like to make another choice both as we add new users and need to get more hardware, and to replace hardware as we can. What recording devices are any of you using, why, and with what successes or failures? What works best with the NCH products here?? It would be wonderful if we could move away from a device that's seen as an external USB hard drive for security reasons! (We'd like to disable the ability to use thumbdrives and hard drives in Windows, however, when we do that, the Olympus devices no longer work as they are viewed as an external drive. However, this may not be possible!) Thank you for your input.

OK - found the settings in the current user key in registry - just like Olympus, but more simple....... So the web info isn't correct.............

We are a small government agency in the U.S. We are wanting to move away (quickly!!) from the Olympus software we now use, and which is VERY ill-behaved on a WAN. What we have: A network based here where our servers reside. Over 40 offices of various size - from 1 or 2 people part time to 10 to 12 people full time. Each office will typically have a few counselors with some support staff. The offices are connected to our home office here via WAN - Internet connections and VPN hardware (Cisco PIXs) so everyone accesses files and servers here, including voice files, documents, email, etc. - all comes back here via those WAN connections. Further, there are: about 120 counselors in 40 some offices around the state. Probably 20 people who will transcribe for them, also scattered in our offices around the state. Each has a computer running XP PRO SP2. Currently, the counselors dictate, dock their portable recorders and the files eventually end up in folders on a server. Counselors in city A drop their voice files (DSS files) into folder A, counselors in city B drop their files into folder B, and so on. The transcription people use their software to open and transcribe those voice files - they "go" to the folder they are assigned to, see the list of voice files and open them from there. The transcription software REALLY bogs down when there are over a couple dozen voice files in their folder. We need to follow a similar pattern - where the counselors voice recordings (files) end up in folders and the transcription people then go to that folder and either get or transcribe them from there. (the express delegate is interesting looking but would require a shared folder on every single computer) How would you do this? What do you people who already use this software do? Let me just state - after living with the Olympus software for almost 2 years, this stuff looks like a welcome relief! You've not seen bad or complicated or buggy software until you've walked this path.......... constant updates, patches, glitches, lost or missing files, etc. and it's nearly impossible to walk a counselor through retreiving a lost dictation! We need simple - so simple your grandmother could use it.

I'm looking for where Express Dictate (or even scribe) stores the settings - such as recipients, file format settings, etc. In the Olympus software, it's in the registry current user key, software so I script a registry hack that like magic allows a user to apply our standards. Can this be done with your much more simple and reliable software? I need our people - total computer non-users who must ask "mouse what?" or who push the monitor button and claim they turned off the computer - to be able to do certain things themselves. So I'd like to script certain setup options for them so when they login to a newly imaged computer or any computer for the first time, they can click a shortcut and the software will be at least partly configured. Is there an INI file or registry setting? The web states INI, but I've searched 2 computers running both software pieces for a day now and find no such INI file anywhere. Thanks!!