Thursday, August 23, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Shopping Online – Protect Yourself
Shopping Online – Protect Yourself
by: Joseph Kenny
These days, there are great bargains to be found by shopping online. Many items that previously were only available in stores are now being bought and sold online every day. Books, cds, DVDs and electronics are all growing in popularity as online purchases. Then there are things like flights, hotel bookings, car rentals and the like that are which are well established in the online shopping world. More and more stores are putting up websites that allow you to make online orders and even supermarkets now let you do your grocery shopping online and they’ll deliver the goods to your door.
Added to this growth in stores and other big business websites, there are also millions of small traders offering you goods online too. Online auction sites such as ebay are experiencing phenomenal success. These types of purchases however carry the risk that you do not really know who you are dealing with but you have to give them sensitive financial information in order to pay for your purchases. You are forced to choose between buying from small sellers and then trust them with your card details, or forgo the opportunities they offer and deal only with large and trusted names.
Payment Sites
This problem has been recognised and that is why it is now possible to shop online from lots of small sellers while maintaining your privacy and keeping your financial information secure. There are payment sites with the most popular probably being paypal, that are set up specifically to deal with issues like these. Indeed, paypal is now owned by ebay, which shows the link in importance between the two services offered by these companies.
What websites like paypal allow you to do is pay open an online account for free. You can then transfer money into your account using a standard credit card payment procedure. The advantage of this is that while you are providing your card information to paypal, this is the only company who you are giving this information to and since they are large and therefore, hopefully, trustworthy, your privacy and security should be safe.
Then when you make all your various purchases with smaller, more anonymous traders, all you do is make the payment through paypal and this avoids all the dangers having to give all your sensitive data out again and again. It is another example of how using credit cards online are becoming safer and more convenient.
by: Joseph Kenny
These days, there are great bargains to be found by shopping online. Many items that previously were only available in stores are now being bought and sold online every day. Books, cds, DVDs and electronics are all growing in popularity as online purchases. Then there are things like flights, hotel bookings, car rentals and the like that are which are well established in the online shopping world. More and more stores are putting up websites that allow you to make online orders and even supermarkets now let you do your grocery shopping online and they’ll deliver the goods to your door.
Added to this growth in stores and other big business websites, there are also millions of small traders offering you goods online too. Online auction sites such as ebay are experiencing phenomenal success. These types of purchases however carry the risk that you do not really know who you are dealing with but you have to give them sensitive financial information in order to pay for your purchases. You are forced to choose between buying from small sellers and then trust them with your card details, or forgo the opportunities they offer and deal only with large and trusted names.
Payment Sites
This problem has been recognised and that is why it is now possible to shop online from lots of small sellers while maintaining your privacy and keeping your financial information secure. There are payment sites with the most popular probably being paypal, that are set up specifically to deal with issues like these. Indeed, paypal is now owned by ebay, which shows the link in importance between the two services offered by these companies.
What websites like paypal allow you to do is pay open an online account for free. You can then transfer money into your account using a standard credit card payment procedure. The advantage of this is that while you are providing your card information to paypal, this is the only company who you are giving this information to and since they are large and therefore, hopefully, trustworthy, your privacy and security should be safe.
Then when you make all your various purchases with smaller, more anonymous traders, all you do is make the payment through paypal and this avoids all the dangers having to give all your sensitive data out again and again. It is another example of how using credit cards online are becoming safer and more convenient.
Domain Names
Domain Names
by: Clare Lawrence
Domain names are relatively straightforward! Or at least that’s the theory!!
The domain name is also, but technically not quiet correct, known as the website address.
Using an ISP’s domain name can look amateurish in an e-mail addresses, it is much more so with websites, giving the impression of hanging on another’s coat tails. The only exception being when a firm wants to re-inforce a local or professional affiliation by appearing as part of an existing site dedicated to a region or association. Even in such cases autonomy and continuity are better assured by having one’s own domain and merely using a page on the third party’s site to point users toward it.
Domains are classified according to their endings or “suffixes”. As a commercial organisation a company will almost certainly want a domain ending in .com or .co.uk. Other endings such as .biz and .ltd.uk are at least to date, insufficiently familiar to users, meaning the name can be too readily misremembered. Of the two desirable suffixes, .com is preferable for business with international activities, and arguably gives the impression of a bigger organisation, whilst .co.uk helps reassure users on the largely American-dominated web that they are indeed dealing with a UK firm.
The part of the domain name before the suffix will usually by the firms trading name, provided of course that the domain name has not already been registered, (which is increasingly likely these days). If the name is very long an abbreviation may be considered. Domain names are not case sensitive.
The actual registration of a domain name is a straightforward process that can be done online, either through your ISP or better still through a dedicated registration service company such as Discount Domains Ltd (http://www.discountdomainsuk.com). Renewal fees must be paid, typically every two years.
Checking if a domain name is freely available is very straightforward as most domain registration services provide a WHOIS service, as the name suggest, this checks the ownership details of a domain, note however that such services normally run 48 hours behind actual registrations.
Moving ISP’s can save money, however it may take time and incur extra charges. Pricing in the domain name registration industry have fallen considerably over recent years and a domain name typically now costs from $15 for two years registration.
Once your domain name is registered, you can either leave the domain name “parked” awaiting future use, or point it at a website, this is usually achieved by changing the Domain Name Server, or DNS settings on the domain to point at hosting company where your website is located. Almost all registration services offer a free user control panel to change these settings.
Web hosting is the provision of space on a web server to publish a web site. There are numerous hosting companies in the market, and most domain registration services also offer a hosting solution. Prices vary but $100 per annum should be sufficient for most business needs.
By Clare Lawrence 11th May 2004
by: Clare Lawrence
Domain names are relatively straightforward! Or at least that’s the theory!!
The domain name is also, but technically not quiet correct, known as the website address.
Using an ISP’s domain name can look amateurish in an e-mail addresses, it is much more so with websites, giving the impression of hanging on another’s coat tails. The only exception being when a firm wants to re-inforce a local or professional affiliation by appearing as part of an existing site dedicated to a region or association. Even in such cases autonomy and continuity are better assured by having one’s own domain and merely using a page on the third party’s site to point users toward it.
Domains are classified according to their endings or “suffixes”. As a commercial organisation a company will almost certainly want a domain ending in .com or .co.uk. Other endings such as .biz and .ltd.uk are at least to date, insufficiently familiar to users, meaning the name can be too readily misremembered. Of the two desirable suffixes, .com is preferable for business with international activities, and arguably gives the impression of a bigger organisation, whilst .co.uk helps reassure users on the largely American-dominated web that they are indeed dealing with a UK firm.
The part of the domain name before the suffix will usually by the firms trading name, provided of course that the domain name has not already been registered, (which is increasingly likely these days). If the name is very long an abbreviation may be considered. Domain names are not case sensitive.
The actual registration of a domain name is a straightforward process that can be done online, either through your ISP or better still through a dedicated registration service company such as Discount Domains Ltd (http://www.discountdomainsuk.com). Renewal fees must be paid, typically every two years.
Checking if a domain name is freely available is very straightforward as most domain registration services provide a WHOIS service, as the name suggest, this checks the ownership details of a domain, note however that such services normally run 48 hours behind actual registrations.
Moving ISP’s can save money, however it may take time and incur extra charges. Pricing in the domain name registration industry have fallen considerably over recent years and a domain name typically now costs from $15 for two years registration.
Once your domain name is registered, you can either leave the domain name “parked” awaiting future use, or point it at a website, this is usually achieved by changing the Domain Name Server, or DNS settings on the domain to point at hosting company where your website is located. Almost all registration services offer a free user control panel to change these settings.
Web hosting is the provision of space on a web server to publish a web site. There are numerous hosting companies in the market, and most domain registration services also offer a hosting solution. Prices vary but $100 per annum should be sufficient for most business needs.
By Clare Lawrence 11th May 2004
Search Engines on the Grapevine
Search Engines on the Grapevine
by: Jeffrey Solochek
It used to be whenever you needed to find something on the web you just opened IE to Yahoo and just enter in what you were looking for. Then you would scroll through the millions of matches and hope to find exactly what you wanted or needed. There were some smaller engines besides Yahoo but the majority of searches were either done on Yahoo or maybe AOL depending on who your supplier of the internet was.
Along came Google and with all the money that Google spent on marketing they were now the most used search engine. Their index was by far not the largest but they definitely spent the most money on the marketing because everybody knew who Google was. AllTheWeb had an index at least twice as large but they spent virtually no money on marketing and not many people even knew that they were out there.
Now with social networking and social bookmarking plus the technology of Web 2.0 there are a lot of new kids on the block. It used to be that no matter what somebody was looking for they would use just one search engine for all of their searches. Not anymore, there are now search engines for every niche and every genre. If you have something that you need and you can't find a search engine just close your eyes because it will probably be there tomorrow.
If I wanted a pizza delivered to my house I used to just go to Yahoo and in quotes enter "pizza delivery" and then add +31520 as my area code and then on the results page I would see a list of pizza delivery businesses and how far each one was from that zip code. I could even enter in my exact address and get the exact distance from my house plus driving directions. Now, you just go to local.com and you can find businesses, entertainment, and activities =for any city worldwide. This site will be great for anybody that has to do a lot of travel.
For marketing in order for me to analyze the page rank and traffic for a site I would need to have the Google toolbar installed and then go to the site Alexa.com. After Alexa I would then check incoming and outgoing links for the site plus look at who visits the site and where these visitors go before and after this site. I could do a lot of this just with Alexa but this gave me a biased look at the site. Now I have found a great search engine that will return so much detail that I no longer have to have all these toolbars installed and I only have to visit just this one site. Visit Golexa.com and let me know what you think of this great site.
To assist me with this one site I could even look at PRSearch.biz. This site would be a great compliment or even a replacement for Golexa and it beats having to download and install toolbars which are known to be Spyware or Adware. I have grown so tired of having to remove Spyware and Adware from my computer 2 or 3 times a week. If I don't remove these things then I will get a lot of annoying popups plus my system will get severely bogged down and eventually I will have to shut down and restart my system just to free up memory. This can be a pain in the ass if you are like me and have all these different app's open at the same time.
Do you have children? would you like to allow them to perform searches on the web without having to constantly look over their should at what will come up as results? Now you can let them to go to this site and not have to worry http://kids.quintura.com/ . Keep them off of sites like MySpace because of the ads you see on the site lately. I am a big believer in the sites like MySpace but you ought to see some of the ads and comments you can get with a profile on MySpace. I've seen hookers, escorts and strippers placing comments on peoples profiles.
Social networking and social bookmarking are a growing trend these days though. They need to come up with a one word acronym to reference these sites like the grapevine or something like it. There are now search engines that specialize in these social searches. Check out Omgili, Sproose, or Url dot com. After you have visited these sites make sure you look at Diigg, Del.icio.us, Shadows, or even Yahoo's MyWeb .Web 2.0 is definitely making a difference with shared bookmarks, Collaborative directories and Taggregators. Do a search on one of these terms and check them out yourself, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
If all you want to do is find the best deals and bargains then you need to look at the following engines; gnod.net, like.com, slifter.com, and thefind.com. For music and video go to blabline.com, blinks.com, findsounds.com, and Gruuve.com. There are even engines in other languages like Gennio for Hispanic people. This social Spanish engine will even allow you to search for a business in Madrid and once you find the business you are looking for it will let you call that place for free through the internet. Answerbus.com allows you to ask your question in English, French, Spanish, German or even Italian.
I found one site that even lets you create your own search bot which is called searchbots.net and another one called Mojeek.com. You can search using Web 2.0 with web20searchengine.com and their are sites for science related searches, and pretty much almost anything you can think of. I am a webmaster myself in addition to everything else I do so I will be using Zippy.co.uk. My wife will be using Zabasearch because she does a lot of work for a nonprofit and with this site she can look up people and public information.
If you are like me and want to do research and try to discover the latest trends in search engines then do a search for "search engines",+directory or "social search engine",+directory and you will find some great new sites. My son, Jake, is real big with these web communities so I will be telling him to look at Zenome.com.
by: Jeffrey Solochek
It used to be whenever you needed to find something on the web you just opened IE to Yahoo and just enter in what you were looking for. Then you would scroll through the millions of matches and hope to find exactly what you wanted or needed. There were some smaller engines besides Yahoo but the majority of searches were either done on Yahoo or maybe AOL depending on who your supplier of the internet was.
Along came Google and with all the money that Google spent on marketing they were now the most used search engine. Their index was by far not the largest but they definitely spent the most money on the marketing because everybody knew who Google was. AllTheWeb had an index at least twice as large but they spent virtually no money on marketing and not many people even knew that they were out there.
Now with social networking and social bookmarking plus the technology of Web 2.0 there are a lot of new kids on the block. It used to be that no matter what somebody was looking for they would use just one search engine for all of their searches. Not anymore, there are now search engines for every niche and every genre. If you have something that you need and you can't find a search engine just close your eyes because it will probably be there tomorrow.
If I wanted a pizza delivered to my house I used to just go to Yahoo and in quotes enter "pizza delivery" and then add +31520 as my area code and then on the results page I would see a list of pizza delivery businesses and how far each one was from that zip code. I could even enter in my exact address and get the exact distance from my house plus driving directions. Now, you just go to local.com and you can find businesses, entertainment, and activities =for any city worldwide. This site will be great for anybody that has to do a lot of travel.
For marketing in order for me to analyze the page rank and traffic for a site I would need to have the Google toolbar installed and then go to the site Alexa.com. After Alexa I would then check incoming and outgoing links for the site plus look at who visits the site and where these visitors go before and after this site. I could do a lot of this just with Alexa but this gave me a biased look at the site. Now I have found a great search engine that will return so much detail that I no longer have to have all these toolbars installed and I only have to visit just this one site. Visit Golexa.com and let me know what you think of this great site.
To assist me with this one site I could even look at PRSearch.biz. This site would be a great compliment or even a replacement for Golexa and it beats having to download and install toolbars which are known to be Spyware or Adware. I have grown so tired of having to remove Spyware and Adware from my computer 2 or 3 times a week. If I don't remove these things then I will get a lot of annoying popups plus my system will get severely bogged down and eventually I will have to shut down and restart my system just to free up memory. This can be a pain in the ass if you are like me and have all these different app's open at the same time.
Do you have children? would you like to allow them to perform searches on the web without having to constantly look over their should at what will come up as results? Now you can let them to go to this site and not have to worry http://kids.quintura.com/ . Keep them off of sites like MySpace because of the ads you see on the site lately. I am a big believer in the sites like MySpace but you ought to see some of the ads and comments you can get with a profile on MySpace. I've seen hookers, escorts and strippers placing comments on peoples profiles.
Social networking and social bookmarking are a growing trend these days though. They need to come up with a one word acronym to reference these sites like the grapevine or something like it. There are now search engines that specialize in these social searches. Check out Omgili, Sproose, or Url dot com. After you have visited these sites make sure you look at Diigg, Del.icio.us, Shadows, or even Yahoo's MyWeb .Web 2.0 is definitely making a difference with shared bookmarks, Collaborative directories and Taggregators. Do a search on one of these terms and check them out yourself, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
If all you want to do is find the best deals and bargains then you need to look at the following engines; gnod.net, like.com, slifter.com, and thefind.com. For music and video go to blabline.com, blinks.com, findsounds.com, and Gruuve.com. There are even engines in other languages like Gennio for Hispanic people. This social Spanish engine will even allow you to search for a business in Madrid and once you find the business you are looking for it will let you call that place for free through the internet. Answerbus.com allows you to ask your question in English, French, Spanish, German or even Italian.
I found one site that even lets you create your own search bot which is called searchbots.net and another one called Mojeek.com. You can search using Web 2.0 with web20searchengine.com and their are sites for science related searches, and pretty much almost anything you can think of. I am a webmaster myself in addition to everything else I do so I will be using Zippy.co.uk. My wife will be using Zabasearch because she does a lot of work for a nonprofit and with this site she can look up people and public information.
If you are like me and want to do research and try to discover the latest trends in search engines then do a search for "search engines",+directory or "social search engine",+directory and you will find some great new sites. My son, Jake, is real big with these web communities so I will be telling him to look at Zenome.com.
Why Get a Microsoft MCSE Certification?
Why Get a Microsoft MCSE Certification?
by: John Gall
Why Get a Microsoft MCSE Certification?
In the years of the dot com boom and bust, the Microsoft MCSE Certification has gotten its eye blackened over an over. Paper Microsoft MCSE's who were excellent at finding brain dumps and passing exams gave the Microsoft MCSE Certification a bad name. What used to be a guarantee of a nice salary is now ridiculed in some ignorant circles. After working in the Information Technology field for twelve years I still believe the Microsoft MCSE Certification is worth every dollar you spend and every hour spent in study and practice. I'll share my history with the Microsoft MCSE Certification and why I still believe it’s a valuable certification credential.
My History: Pre Microsoft MCSE
When I started out as a PC LAN Analyst I wanted to someday run my own shop. The best way I felt to get there was to study for the much sought after Novell CNE and Microsoft MCSE Certification. Because I worked in a Novell environment and had no opportunity to work with Windows NT I started on my Novell CNE Certification. I went book by book purchasing them on eBay and reading while I worked a second job. The CNE was also an easier certification to get as the answers to the exam came direct from the books. Microsoft's MCSE Certification exams tend to generalize on the concepts from the books rather than the text verbatim. Once complete with the CNE I had a full understanding of Novell's File Server and their weak attempt at a firewall/web server. I understood archaic technologies like IPX and Token Ring as well as networking technologies used today such as Ethernet, and TCP/IP I at least had enough knowledge to perform well at my job and work as an IT Consultant where I formed my own business Gall Consulting which runs today as a successful income.
After getting my CNE Certification I finally got a job running my own show. I had one Novell 3.12 server which ran the entire company. Within a year we began to work with Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 was just on the scene. I began the lengthy study of the seven Microsoft MCSE exams. When I had completed the Microsoft MCSE certification a year later I was like Yoda around the job. I had a complete set of knowledge about Windows Networking and Windows Applications. Because I completed the entire set of Microsoft MCSE exams and coursework I knew the technology and the theory behind the technology. This led to high performance as a Senior LAN Administrator. Rather than a swiss cheese education I had a thorough understanding of Microsoft Windows technology and could adapt to new situations easily.
NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 MCSE
When Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory was released we faced a problem. My small Novell to small Microsoft NT Domain, had grown to a world wide enterprise with five domains including various trusts going everywhere. DNS was handled by our UNIX group and we had to find a way to learn a new technology, create a single corporate Active Directory Domain and use Dynamic DNS on our Windows Active Directory domain controllers yet co-exist with our UNIX administrators who were none to happy to have to share DNS. Faced with this challenge I returned to what worked in the past. I studied for the Windows 2000 MCSE Certification
As I did before I started at the beginning and worked my way through each course and exam until I had completed my Windows 2000 MCSE Certification. By now I had a great career as an IT Operations Manager and no one was going to hire or pay me extra just for getting my Microsoft MCSE Certification. This is the true value of the certification. It started as my drive to obtain career credentials and became a vehicle to ensure I had an entire breadth of knowledge that would let me take on monumental tasks. Needless to say, today we have a single corporate Active Directory domain with a few sub domains necessary for DMZ areas. Our DNS works so well the UNIX group asked us to take over and we're able to build on Active Directory as a source of valuable corporate data. My point in this article is to look at the Microsoft MCSE Certification as a way to ensure you have all the knowledge rather than just what's necessary in the short term. Knowing why something works is much more powerful than knowing just enough to build it in the first place the coursework involved in the Microsoft MCSE Certification provides this. I can say without fail, EVERY Information Technology professional I've worked with that had a Microsoft MCSE Certification performed at a MUCH higher level than those who only had on the job experience or had only studied what they needed to complete their daily tasks.
by: John Gall
Why Get a Microsoft MCSE Certification?
In the years of the dot com boom and bust, the Microsoft MCSE Certification has gotten its eye blackened over an over. Paper Microsoft MCSE's who were excellent at finding brain dumps and passing exams gave the Microsoft MCSE Certification a bad name. What used to be a guarantee of a nice salary is now ridiculed in some ignorant circles. After working in the Information Technology field for twelve years I still believe the Microsoft MCSE Certification is worth every dollar you spend and every hour spent in study and practice. I'll share my history with the Microsoft MCSE Certification and why I still believe it’s a valuable certification credential.
My History: Pre Microsoft MCSE
When I started out as a PC LAN Analyst I wanted to someday run my own shop. The best way I felt to get there was to study for the much sought after Novell CNE and Microsoft MCSE Certification. Because I worked in a Novell environment and had no opportunity to work with Windows NT I started on my Novell CNE Certification. I went book by book purchasing them on eBay and reading while I worked a second job. The CNE was also an easier certification to get as the answers to the exam came direct from the books. Microsoft's MCSE Certification exams tend to generalize on the concepts from the books rather than the text verbatim. Once complete with the CNE I had a full understanding of Novell's File Server and their weak attempt at a firewall/web server. I understood archaic technologies like IPX and Token Ring as well as networking technologies used today such as Ethernet, and TCP/IP I at least had enough knowledge to perform well at my job and work as an IT Consultant where I formed my own business Gall Consulting which runs today as a successful income.
After getting my CNE Certification I finally got a job running my own show. I had one Novell 3.12 server which ran the entire company. Within a year we began to work with Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 was just on the scene. I began the lengthy study of the seven Microsoft MCSE exams. When I had completed the Microsoft MCSE certification a year later I was like Yoda around the job. I had a complete set of knowledge about Windows Networking and Windows Applications. Because I completed the entire set of Microsoft MCSE exams and coursework I knew the technology and the theory behind the technology. This led to high performance as a Senior LAN Administrator. Rather than a swiss cheese education I had a thorough understanding of Microsoft Windows technology and could adapt to new situations easily.
NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 MCSE
When Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory was released we faced a problem. My small Novell to small Microsoft NT Domain, had grown to a world wide enterprise with five domains including various trusts going everywhere. DNS was handled by our UNIX group and we had to find a way to learn a new technology, create a single corporate Active Directory Domain and use Dynamic DNS on our Windows Active Directory domain controllers yet co-exist with our UNIX administrators who were none to happy to have to share DNS. Faced with this challenge I returned to what worked in the past. I studied for the Windows 2000 MCSE Certification
As I did before I started at the beginning and worked my way through each course and exam until I had completed my Windows 2000 MCSE Certification. By now I had a great career as an IT Operations Manager and no one was going to hire or pay me extra just for getting my Microsoft MCSE Certification. This is the true value of the certification. It started as my drive to obtain career credentials and became a vehicle to ensure I had an entire breadth of knowledge that would let me take on monumental tasks. Needless to say, today we have a single corporate Active Directory domain with a few sub domains necessary for DMZ areas. Our DNS works so well the UNIX group asked us to take over and we're able to build on Active Directory as a source of valuable corporate data. My point in this article is to look at the Microsoft MCSE Certification as a way to ensure you have all the knowledge rather than just what's necessary in the short term. Knowing why something works is much more powerful than knowing just enough to build it in the first place the coursework involved in the Microsoft MCSE Certification provides this. I can say without fail, EVERY Information Technology professional I've worked with that had a Microsoft MCSE Certification performed at a MUCH higher level than those who only had on the job experience or had only studied what they needed to complete their daily tasks.
Voice Recognition And Medical Transcription
Voice Recognition And Medical Transcription
by: Mila Sidman
You’ve probably heard different opinions and views on this subject. If you’re a medical transcriptionist you may even be concerned about voice recognition taking over your career… and you’re not alone.
Let’s dig a bit deeper into voice recognition.
As you already know, doctors are busy people. This is never more obvious then when they’re dictating their notes. It’s understandable they’re busy, and as their MT, I can surely forgive them but will the latest voice recognition software be as forgiving as me?
Not likely.
As a transcriptionist you will have typed through background noise, patients moaning, doctors eating their lunch, personal conversations (oops they forgot the recorder was on) and other incomprehensible noise. Not to mention, ESL doctors with heavy accents and very tired ER doctors after a long shift!
At this time there is no voice recognition software which can handle this type of voice recognition. It is impossible for the software to determine actual speech from mistakes in conversation, background noise, heavy accents, etc.
So what does this mean for our future?
Rumors of MTs being out of r a job have been around long before I became an MT. Eight years later, there are still no real advances in this field.
Can voice recognition ever replace transcriptionists?
Sure it can.
If a doctor is willing to sit down and take the sufficient time to train his voice recognition software to recognize his voice and speech patterns (this takes time and is not done automatically), yes it is possible.
If the doctor thereafter dictates very clearly, using proper punctuation in his speech (stopping for periods, pausing for commas) without any background noise or interruptions. Yes, it is possible.
Will the document be 100% accurate?
No.
Remember medical records have to be in compliance with a number of very strict regulations. Most doctors, will not trust voice recognition enough to send these records through without at least a quick glance through.
Even under the best dictating circumstances the report will still need to be proofread and edited. So, yes under the “perfect” circumstances, voice recognition can replace a transcriptionist.
Is it likely? Not unless every physician out there is willing to take the time, energy and ongoing effort to train their voice recognition software and maintain a certain standard of dictation.
I don’t see that happening any time soon. Doctors are busy people, remember? ;)
If anything, us MTs should embrace voice recognition and use it as a tool to help us in our MT careers. If applied properly, it can be a time-saving tool. So why not use it for our purposes?
As with any business to stay ahead of the game you have to adapt to change and technology. Learn how to use it to your advantage instead of being frightened by it. That’s the only way to stay ahead of the competition…. Voice recognition or otherwise.
by: Mila Sidman
You’ve probably heard different opinions and views on this subject. If you’re a medical transcriptionist you may even be concerned about voice recognition taking over your career… and you’re not alone.
Let’s dig a bit deeper into voice recognition.
As you already know, doctors are busy people. This is never more obvious then when they’re dictating their notes. It’s understandable they’re busy, and as their MT, I can surely forgive them but will the latest voice recognition software be as forgiving as me?
Not likely.
As a transcriptionist you will have typed through background noise, patients moaning, doctors eating their lunch, personal conversations (oops they forgot the recorder was on) and other incomprehensible noise. Not to mention, ESL doctors with heavy accents and very tired ER doctors after a long shift!
At this time there is no voice recognition software which can handle this type of voice recognition. It is impossible for the software to determine actual speech from mistakes in conversation, background noise, heavy accents, etc.
So what does this mean for our future?
Rumors of MTs being out of r a job have been around long before I became an MT. Eight years later, there are still no real advances in this field.
Can voice recognition ever replace transcriptionists?
Sure it can.
If a doctor is willing to sit down and take the sufficient time to train his voice recognition software to recognize his voice and speech patterns (this takes time and is not done automatically), yes it is possible.
If the doctor thereafter dictates very clearly, using proper punctuation in his speech (stopping for periods, pausing for commas) without any background noise or interruptions. Yes, it is possible.
Will the document be 100% accurate?
No.
Remember medical records have to be in compliance with a number of very strict regulations. Most doctors, will not trust voice recognition enough to send these records through without at least a quick glance through.
Even under the best dictating circumstances the report will still need to be proofread and edited. So, yes under the “perfect” circumstances, voice recognition can replace a transcriptionist.
Is it likely? Not unless every physician out there is willing to take the time, energy and ongoing effort to train their voice recognition software and maintain a certain standard of dictation.
I don’t see that happening any time soon. Doctors are busy people, remember? ;)
If anything, us MTs should embrace voice recognition and use it as a tool to help us in our MT careers. If applied properly, it can be a time-saving tool. So why not use it for our purposes?
As with any business to stay ahead of the game you have to adapt to change and technology. Learn how to use it to your advantage instead of being frightened by it. That’s the only way to stay ahead of the competition…. Voice recognition or otherwise.
FRx - Microsoft Great Plains Reporting: design, upgrade and migration– overview for consultant
FRx - Microsoft Great Plains Reporting: design, upgrade and migration– overview for consultant
by: Andrew Karasev
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is main ERP application targeted to US mid-size businesses market. Microsoft Great Plains is now moved to Microsoft SQL Server and so exposed to standard Reporting tools, such as Crystal Reports based on internal Crystal links or SQL Server view and stored procedure. Also Great Plains, built on legacy Great Plains Dexterity technology has ReportWriter – which is good, when you are modifying Sales or Purchasing Invoice form. When we are dealing with Financial Reporting – traditional and very powerful tool is FRx. FRx connects to General Ledger and there you can apply account mask to summarize financial data at your will, create reporting tree, or combine Great Plains and Excel data on the same report.
We usually do not see problems in FRx report design, however consultants are reporting multiple issues with FRx upgrade or remapping FRx when you migrate Great Plains from legacy platform (Pervasive SQL or Ctree) to MS SQL Server. Let us give you typical troubleshooting steps:
SYSDATA. FRx stores its report in one directory, named SYSDATA, so when you move FRx or upgrade it – you upgrade files in this directory. Be sure that FRx points to the proper SYSDATA directory.
Directories Structure problem. When you move FRx to different server or change directories structure on your workstation, typical issue is hardcoded report output path mismatch. You can see it if you look at report output destination tab. The hint – FRx stores output directory in SYSDATA on the server, so if your workstations are not structure-unified – you may have this issue.
Service Pack fixes. FRx is known to be unstable in CD version and you typically apply latest service pack from Microsoft Business Solutions partner source (or Customer Source if you support your Great Plains internally)
Back Arrow problem. This is very typical and funny issue. When you install FRx – you should never hit Back button. If you do – FRx installation will be corrupted. Just for you to know. This was FRx 6.0 very-very known issue
Corrupt Catalogue. Well – this may happen with every application. FRx is not an exception. If you have strange error message – you may try export and reimport. The same is applicable to Great Plains ReportWriter
Drilldown Viewer problem. This happens when you are upgrading. You should check that you are selecting XML Drilldown Viewer – this is newest version. Old report tries to keep old Drilldown Viewer and you get error message when launching it.
You can have such a nice tools as Explorer to imitate Sales or Financial reporting for you and then dump it to Excel with the click of the button as good alternative to FRx, but we would recommend you to stick to FRx for regular financial reporting – this is the tool of the choice for controller.
You can always have us help you, give us a call: 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com
by: Andrew Karasev
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is main ERP application targeted to US mid-size businesses market. Microsoft Great Plains is now moved to Microsoft SQL Server and so exposed to standard Reporting tools, such as Crystal Reports based on internal Crystal links or SQL Server view and stored procedure. Also Great Plains, built on legacy Great Plains Dexterity technology has ReportWriter – which is good, when you are modifying Sales or Purchasing Invoice form. When we are dealing with Financial Reporting – traditional and very powerful tool is FRx. FRx connects to General Ledger and there you can apply account mask to summarize financial data at your will, create reporting tree, or combine Great Plains and Excel data on the same report.
We usually do not see problems in FRx report design, however consultants are reporting multiple issues with FRx upgrade or remapping FRx when you migrate Great Plains from legacy platform (Pervasive SQL or Ctree) to MS SQL Server. Let us give you typical troubleshooting steps:
SYSDATA. FRx stores its report in one directory, named SYSDATA, so when you move FRx or upgrade it – you upgrade files in this directory. Be sure that FRx points to the proper SYSDATA directory.
Directories Structure problem. When you move FRx to different server or change directories structure on your workstation, typical issue is hardcoded report output path mismatch. You can see it if you look at report output destination tab. The hint – FRx stores output directory in SYSDATA on the server, so if your workstations are not structure-unified – you may have this issue.
Service Pack fixes. FRx is known to be unstable in CD version and you typically apply latest service pack from Microsoft Business Solutions partner source (or Customer Source if you support your Great Plains internally)
Back Arrow problem. This is very typical and funny issue. When you install FRx – you should never hit Back button. If you do – FRx installation will be corrupted. Just for you to know. This was FRx 6.0 very-very known issue
Corrupt Catalogue. Well – this may happen with every application. FRx is not an exception. If you have strange error message – you may try export and reimport. The same is applicable to Great Plains ReportWriter
Drilldown Viewer problem. This happens when you are upgrading. You should check that you are selecting XML Drilldown Viewer – this is newest version. Old report tries to keep old Drilldown Viewer and you get error message when launching it.
You can have such a nice tools as Explorer to imitate Sales or Financial reporting for you and then dump it to Excel with the click of the button as good alternative to FRx, but we would recommend you to stick to FRx for regular financial reporting – this is the tool of the choice for controller.
You can always have us help you, give us a call: 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com
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