I have a couple things I've been working on, like trying not to repeat consonants. I think my theory is set up to react better, for example, to GAOI/YA/NA than GAOI/YAN/NA. It could be defined either away, but I'm trying to train myself to do it the first way, and I think TM will make better choices that way, too. It's a real problem writing things 50 different ways. Even though they're legitimate outlines, they're not in my dictionary that way yet, and they're not translating.
I've been seeing lots of areas where I can make briefs in things that get repeated frequently. For weather, they say partly cloudy/skies, mostly sunny/skies, pop-up showers, patchy fog, seven-day forecast, and hour-by-hour forecast. I've got briefs now for NBA, NCAA, NFL, and NHL. Even things that aren't specific like "umbrella" and "preliminary" seem to come up a lot.
I also finally sorted my dictionary by strokes and frequency, and I'm trying to learn briefs now for organic, especially, and invitation. Organic is sticking, and I've used it 168 times in the past 10 days.
Mostly I'm just working on getting used to the IE. I still haven't gotten it into a comfortable position. I rarely ever feel like I can just write on it. It seems like I have to really slow down and be super focused about what I'm doing, or everything comes out wrong.
I'm still having problems with the whole "one word, two words, hyphenated" thing, but that's probably something everyone has problems with. I think I'm getting better, though. When in doubt I used to just put an asterisk in the second word and hope it would work out, but I haven't been doing that as much lately. Now my go-to is just to write it as two words, and then when I edit the transcript later I figure out what it should've been and add it to my list of words to practice if it wasn't supposed to be two words. 8 out of 20 words on my list right now are from that category. The worst are the ones I can't use an asterisk to join, like shorthair.
Since the asterisk is farther away (or at least it feels that way) on the IE, I changed "we're" to WAOER. I think I've almost fully learned to do it that way instead of WAO*ER, but I keep trying to do YOUR and YAOUF and WAOEF without asterisks now, too. I guess I could change them all, but I'd really rather have WAOER be the exception.
I haven't had any luck at all learning SKP-P yet. I think I need a different method than just writing it five times a day, because that's not working at all.
Earnest Captioning
I've started captioning in earnest now. I did 26 hours in May, 20 in the first two weeks of June, and I'm already scheduled for 30 in July. I wind up picking up a lot of shifts as things go along, though. I've worked on every day of the week, but mostly in the evening. I still like to keep morning/afternoon open for CART, since it pays better. I've captioned a variety of things; PBS shows, those shows where they tell you about stuff to do in the area, and even an infomercial. I didn't like that one at all. They talked so fast, and they kept repeating the same thing.
I mostly do news, which I'm not that fond of. It's awesome that they only talk for about 10 minutes, and then take a break, and then they're only back for a couple minutes before you get another break. Even if I caption an hour-long show, they're never on for a very long block of time. I don't enjoy the content, though. I like classes better, although classes can get pretty boring, and it's really painful writing for that long without a break.
I've been sitting down to get ready about half an hour before my show is scheduled to start, to give me time to get the IE adjusted if I need to move anything around, and pull up my briefs for the station, and the info sheet, and the live stream of the broadcast, and get my screen organized with everything where it needs to be. About half the time, I have to call in 10 minutes before the show to make sure the station can see the captions. And I've been trying to do about 10 minutes of prep on the current news.
My prep hasn't been too fruitful, though. About 80% of what I put in doesn't even get used. I recently switched over to just looking at the headlines, and then if they tease a story I'll see if I can find any info on it. I've only done that a few times, but it's worked out okay so far. I'm going to try maybe sitting down 25 minutes ahead of time instead of 30. It really starts to suck up a lot of time in your day once you get enough newscasts going that are only billable for 30 minutes, but you're losing an hour or more of your time to them.
I'm starting to feel more confident about writing the news, though. At first it was pretty scary, but it's not a big deal anymore. I do hit 300 wpm regularly, though, especially during the weather. My average speed for captioning is at 198 wpm, compared to 181 for CART. I think having to write so fast for captioning has helped me write faster on CART. I feel more confident about being able to get everything that's being said, anyway.
Sometimes the shows have scripts. I don't like that at all. It takes like two hours to prep an hour long script. I feel like I'm a transcriptionist. I could just enter some words and write it live, but I know it'll look a lot better if I go from the script. Eclipse is supposed to have a feature that puts a new paragraph after each period, but it doesn't work for me for some reason. I should probably call support and see what they say about that.
I mostly do news, which I'm not that fond of. It's awesome that they only talk for about 10 minutes, and then take a break, and then they're only back for a couple minutes before you get another break. Even if I caption an hour-long show, they're never on for a very long block of time. I don't enjoy the content, though. I like classes better, although classes can get pretty boring, and it's really painful writing for that long without a break.
I've been sitting down to get ready about half an hour before my show is scheduled to start, to give me time to get the IE adjusted if I need to move anything around, and pull up my briefs for the station, and the info sheet, and the live stream of the broadcast, and get my screen organized with everything where it needs to be. About half the time, I have to call in 10 minutes before the show to make sure the station can see the captions. And I've been trying to do about 10 minutes of prep on the current news.
My prep hasn't been too fruitful, though. About 80% of what I put in doesn't even get used. I recently switched over to just looking at the headlines, and then if they tease a story I'll see if I can find any info on it. I've only done that a few times, but it's worked out okay so far. I'm going to try maybe sitting down 25 minutes ahead of time instead of 30. It really starts to suck up a lot of time in your day once you get enough newscasts going that are only billable for 30 minutes, but you're losing an hour or more of your time to them.
I'm starting to feel more confident about writing the news, though. At first it was pretty scary, but it's not a big deal anymore. I do hit 300 wpm regularly, though, especially during the weather. My average speed for captioning is at 198 wpm, compared to 181 for CART. I think having to write so fast for captioning has helped me write faster on CART. I feel more confident about being able to get everything that's being said, anyway.
Sometimes the shows have scripts. I don't like that at all. It takes like two hours to prep an hour long script. I feel like I'm a transcriptionist. I could just enter some words and write it live, but I know it'll look a lot better if I go from the script. Eclipse is supposed to have a feature that puts a new paragraph after each period, but it doesn't work for me for some reason. I should probably call support and see what they say about that.
Infinity Ergo Adjustment
I've had my Infinity Ergo for about a month now. It wasn't quite as magical as I was expecting. I had a *lot* of pain in both of my arms before I got it to a good height/position in general. Trying to move the pods apart right away seemed like a good idea, but it wasn't. I wound up needing to have them closer together, and move them gradually. I found out that you can't make a bunch of big changes all at once. You have to start more where you're used to, and change things slowly over time.
I have the pods about 4" apart now. I picked up a couple of wrist braces to see if they would help. I can't write with the left one at all; it makes the pain in my left arm much worse. I don't know if wearing the right one helps or not, but I can write with it, so that's what I've been doing. It makes it feel like it's hard to "reach" keys with my pinky, though, so I have the right pod of the IE titled so the right side is up higher than the left.
I didn't have to do as much adjusting of the "sensors" as I thought I would. I had some intial problems with the software and calibrating things, and as a result of that, I think I wound up setting it to be more sensitive than I should have. I dialed back a few of the keys, but I'm probably still getting dragged keys that I could avoid if I just turned all the keys up higher. Some of them do need to be low though, I think, so I'm leaving it as-is for now.
It was pretty easy to adjust to pressing keys again, but it still feels like it's taking a lot of effort. I can make the stroke shallower than it is now, but I have it set for the least amount of tension, and I felt like when I made it more shallow, it required more tension. So there is a small bit of depth to the stroke.
I wasn't really able to hit -DZ at all on the LS for some reason, and it's much easier on the IE. Some other keys are easier, too, like -PBLG. I'm getting a lot of weird problems with it still, though. And I don't ever feel like I can just write freely; I still have to very closely monitor what I'm doing at all times.
I did mange to do a lot of really weird things with the pod that made my hands hurt a lot. I think they're back to normal now, but it's still uncomfortable to write in general. I think I had better endurance on the LS. It's tough to tell, because I'm doing more captioning now, where I write for 10 minutes, stop, write for 2, stop, as opposed to being stuck in a class for two hours straight.
The asterisk seems really far away and hard to hit. I emailed the owner and asked him if there's anything I or he could do to bring it a little closer, because the T/D and S/Z are super close together, but he never answered me. I had that problem before I bought the IE, too. I sent two or three emails that never got answered before I wound up just calling to order it. I'll try again after the weekend.
It seems like I have to have a really wide stance with the IE, or else my legs get in the way of the machine and I can't bring it close enough. The software isn't quite as useful as the LS'. With the LS, you can import a file you've written into the software, and it will show you exactly how hard you pressed the key, if at all, which is really helpful with adjusting the sensors. With the IE, all you can do is press the key and see the gauge in realtime, but you can't look at something you've already written that didn't come out right and see exactly what went wrong.
My back pain still seems to be getting worse, although it doesn't bother me much when I sleep. I've been experimenting with different pieces of foam and towels strapped to the back of my chair, but they don't seem to be helping.
My right hand really doesn't like using the mouse. I don't think it's steno-related, but it goes numb and stays painful for hours afterward. I'm going to try a touchpad this weekend.
I have the pods about 4" apart now. I picked up a couple of wrist braces to see if they would help. I can't write with the left one at all; it makes the pain in my left arm much worse. I don't know if wearing the right one helps or not, but I can write with it, so that's what I've been doing. It makes it feel like it's hard to "reach" keys with my pinky, though, so I have the right pod of the IE titled so the right side is up higher than the left.
I didn't have to do as much adjusting of the "sensors" as I thought I would. I had some intial problems with the software and calibrating things, and as a result of that, I think I wound up setting it to be more sensitive than I should have. I dialed back a few of the keys, but I'm probably still getting dragged keys that I could avoid if I just turned all the keys up higher. Some of them do need to be low though, I think, so I'm leaving it as-is for now.
It was pretty easy to adjust to pressing keys again, but it still feels like it's taking a lot of effort. I can make the stroke shallower than it is now, but I have it set for the least amount of tension, and I felt like when I made it more shallow, it required more tension. So there is a small bit of depth to the stroke.
I wasn't really able to hit -DZ at all on the LS for some reason, and it's much easier on the IE. Some other keys are easier, too, like -PBLG. I'm getting a lot of weird problems with it still, though. And I don't ever feel like I can just write freely; I still have to very closely monitor what I'm doing at all times.
I did mange to do a lot of really weird things with the pod that made my hands hurt a lot. I think they're back to normal now, but it's still uncomfortable to write in general. I think I had better endurance on the LS. It's tough to tell, because I'm doing more captioning now, where I write for 10 minutes, stop, write for 2, stop, as opposed to being stuck in a class for two hours straight.
The asterisk seems really far away and hard to hit. I emailed the owner and asked him if there's anything I or he could do to bring it a little closer, because the T/D and S/Z are super close together, but he never answered me. I had that problem before I bought the IE, too. I sent two or three emails that never got answered before I wound up just calling to order it. I'll try again after the weekend.
It seems like I have to have a really wide stance with the IE, or else my legs get in the way of the machine and I can't bring it close enough. The software isn't quite as useful as the LS'. With the LS, you can import a file you've written into the software, and it will show you exactly how hard you pressed the key, if at all, which is really helpful with adjusting the sensors. With the IE, all you can do is press the key and see the gauge in realtime, but you can't look at something you've already written that didn't come out right and see exactly what went wrong.
My back pain still seems to be getting worse, although it doesn't bother me much when I sleep. I've been experimenting with different pieces of foam and towels strapped to the back of my chair, but they don't seem to be helping.
My right hand really doesn't like using the mouse. I don't think it's steno-related, but it goes numb and stays painful for hours afterward. I'm going to try a touchpad this weekend.
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