The Good Stuff. By G. D. Warner. There comes a time in every court reporting students life when they have to make a decision on what I like to call The Good Stuff Writers, laptops, and software oh, my I have put this together by request to assist my fellow students in navigating through treacherous waters in their search for these vital items. Selection of writers and laptops often depend on the software you wish to use. This one is easy A good price, a good warranty. This last requirement is very important. Case in point A few years ago, Stenograph went through what I like to call its Borg Period a period in which they basically bought out or assimilated, staying in that Borg vein all of their competitors Xscribe, back in 1. They then offered support for the now orphaned writers they had the parts, after all, and a discount to have these new albeit unwilling suckers er, customers upgrade to Stenographs latest machines. Those customers that resisted this offer and kept their old writers were recently informed that support for their machines was soon coming to an end. So when looking for a writer, avoid anything made by Xscribe models include Steno. RAM Ultra, the Vision, and Steno. RAM III. Ideally, youll want to get a machine that will serve you well when you get out into the field thats why I purchased a refurbished Pro. CAT Flash. Um. RefurbishedIn case you didnt know, refurbished basically means the machine was either used as a demonstrator, or was purchased and returned for whatever reason, serviced, and resold. Ultimately, refurbished means you can get a top of the line machine for roughly half price. Well, not on e. Bay. Rather, I bought it from a company that placed an ad I saw in the Journal of Court Reporting. If you havent done so already, take a look through a copy of this magazine preferably a recent copy. The articles are interesting, and you get all sorts of interesting news. Look for companies like Steno. Works http www. Wasted money on unreliable and slow multihosters LinkSnappy is the only multihost that works. Download from ALL Filehosts as a premium user at incredibly fast speeds Gmail is email thats intuitive, efficient, and useful. GB of storage, less spam, and mobile access. Serial Bully is a term that Tim Field coined to describe the character he realised was behind the majority of cases that came to his attention when he ran the UK. Using this site ARM Forums and knowledge articles Most popular knowledge articles Frequently asked questions How do I navigate the siteTop. CAT Steno http www. Acculaw http www. Steno. Trader http www. JCR. As I write this 1. MAY0. 4, I note that Steno. Trader is selling a refurbished Pro. CAT Flash for 1. Top. CAT Steno is selling another refurbished Pro. CAT Flash for 1. As you can see, it pays to shop around. Steno. Trader is also selling a Xscribe Steno. Serial Number Net Support School Price' title='Serial Number Net Support School Price' />RAM III for 1. I wrote earlier about buying anything made by Xscribe, right. Another place to search for writers is from the vendors themselves Stenograph http www. Pro. CAT http www. When you speak to a sales representative, ask if they have any demo units or refurbished units for sale. You already know what a refurbished unit is, but the demo unit may be unfamiliar. Basically, a demo unit is a machine that goes with the sales rep to conventions, user group meetings or schools, and is used to demonstrate the machines andor the softwares features. After a few weeks of that, the machines are serviced and resold. These can usually be had at a good price, if available. Remembering my Buy the most machine you can afford maxim, I suggest the following machines The main differences between the 8. Flash is that you can load your dictionary into the 8. English on the LCD Liquid Crystal Display, in case you were wondering screen. If youre using the Phoenix Theory dictionary, your dictionary is too large for the memory of the 8. Russian Language Pack For Windows 7 Starter here. LX or better yet, a Mira or a Stylus. Serial Number Net Support School Price' title='Serial Number Net Support School Price' />Another warning The 8. LX comes in two flavors a version with 2. MB of RAM, and a version with 4. MB of RAM. The good news You can upgrade your 2. MB 8. 00. 0LX to a 4. MB model. The bad news you knew there was bad news, right Stenograph has stopped making these boards, so this upgrade is very hard to find. When you do find it, it requires a trade your old board for the new board. Check with all the resellers you can. And if thats not enough, if youre buying a refurbished 8. LX, make sure the serial number is greater than 8. If it is less, no support contract at least, not through Stenograph. Serial Number Net Support School Price' title='Serial Number Net Support School Price' />If you wish to know how much memory your Stentura 8. Stenograph support page has these instructions From the opening menu, choose More. Now choose Diag. Press KEY TST, and the empty choice to the left of QUIT at the same time second from last button on the right sideDisplaying the Stentura 8. Movie Editing Software Free Download there. Memory Pushing the Right Buttons Yes, those are my fingersThis will bring up a screen on the display of the Stentura 8. LX which displays the memory type and amount If you are thinking about buying an 8. LX on e. Bay, and you absolutely must have 4. MB of RAM, ask the seller to send you a picture of this screen. Copy and paste these instructions on how to do it, and use the Ask Seller a Question link. If it looks like the above picture, you know the seller is trying to take unfair advantage of you. Dug a little deeper into the whole 8. LX issue, and called Stenograph support, and asked a few questions. Any machine with a serial number greater than or equal to 8. MB memory card installed. If you buy one of these machines Stenograph doesnt have any, you can buy a service contract for the writer for 3. For your 3. 00, if anything goes wrong with your writer, you can send it in and get it repaired for free Good deal. The Stentura models all have disk backup for your notes, as well as RAM memory backup. The Flash writer stores all notes on a memory card. The Stentura 6. 00. LX can store up to 9. RAM the 6. 00. 0 is rumored to store 2. Flashs smallest 2. MB card can hold 7. The important thing to remember is that those LCD screens are expensiveIf you drop anything on these screens and it breaks, you will be about 3. Add in the labor, and youre looking at about 5. For a refurbished machine, youve spent nearly half the price on repairs This is why I protect my machine by both bubble wrap and foam rubber. In truth, I dont have any mid range recommendations. Pro. CAT offers an upgrade service that will allow your non electronic writer even one of those from the 1. The bad news You have to install the upgrade yourself. Fortunately they have a really good video you can follow along with. I suspect your local steno repair shop will install the upgrade for you at a nice and low price. Stenograph offers the Stentura 4. SRT for about 1. This sounds good, but for 3. Flash Writer from Top. CAT Steno. and probably resell it later and get what you paid for it e. Bay is your friend here but only when youre selling see Doing it e. Bay if you wish to know about buying on e. Bay. A rare but good machine is the Stentura 5. It has enough memory to hold 2. Rumor has it that these machines were selling better than the 6. Stenograph kind of killed off production of this writer. Rumor has it that Pro. CAT can turn a Stentura 4. Pro. CAT Flash This conversion will cost 2. This, of course, includes a 1 year warranty. I received an e mail from Nick Ridge, the Stenograph Educational rep. Seems that Stenograph wishes to get more students on the paperless bandwagon. Cybra. If you click on that link, you will see the price listed as 1. Hey, wheres that frelling discountWell, if you look above that price, you should see some red text, which reads as follows A perfect machine for students who want a paperless machine. Call us for our generous student discount and upgrade guarantee Howzabout a 5. Horizon Rar. Thats right. FOR STUDENTS ONLY, the elan Cybra is now selling for 1.