Trouble hooking up to atty

[Marla Sharp]

I've been having trouble hooking up to this attorney in this arb I'm in through LiveNote. Eclipse tech support says all my connections are right. I also tried using Bridge, but it never worked.

The problem may have been the attorney's USB-to-serial adapter. I should've had him use mine and installed the driver for it on his laptop, but we ran out of time. He's now since given up on hooking up, so I don't want to force it.

But I've had trouble several times before. So I thought if I talked out my troubleshooting list here, someone might suggest something I've missed.

Hooking up to LiveNote with Eclipse:
My computer:
User Settings, Realtime tab
alt A to Add output format
Output is Summation/CaseView (same as atty)
Comm device is set to "COM port"
Settings button - COM is set to correct port, baud rate is 2400 (same as atty)

Attorney computer:
Started LiveNote
Options, Realtime options
CaseView, 2400 baud rate

I have the CoolGear USBGear serial adapters which have the indicator lights on them so you can tell when they're working. I've switched them out from being the sending adapter to the receiver. Whichever is the sender shows lights like it's working but not the receiver.

I have a spare laptop; but there's no more free demo version of LiveNote, so I can't test my connection unless I'm at a job. I have tried hooking my laptop up to my spare laptop via Bluetooth dongles I bought from ProCAT, but I can't get the two computers to connect. ProCAT won't support the dongles outside of hooking up directly to their Stylus steno machine.

Does ActiveSync interfere with it? Do you have to disable both Windows firewall and McAfee or Norton firewalls?

I hooked up to a friend a couple of months ago without any problem whatsoever. I'm at a loss, looking for suggestions. Thanks!

[Christy A. Cannariato]

Did anybody mention switching to Stenocast wireless yet? I SWEAR by it. Since I began using it, I have never had trouble hooking up, when I did have trouble with cables about 1 in 5 times.

I provide a loaner laptop, which has the receiver driver already loaded. It takes only about 2 minutes tops to hook up an atty that way because you never have to worry about settings again, and it looks so much neater without all those dang cables. They love that, and only about 1 in 10 times now does an atty want the hookup on their own laptop because of the usual hookup problems they encounter. They almost always sigh with relief when I offer to hook them up to my loaner laptop. Even if they say they want the hookup on theirs, I just give them a gentle but confident pitch for why using the loaner is a much better idea. If that still doesn't work, then I just pop the CD in their drive, load the stenocast driver, and we're up and running in about 5 minutes.

Love, love, love it.

[Kyung]

What do you do when the attorney doesn't have a CD drive on their laptop anymore?

[Marla Sharp]

After finally getting a good real-time connection through Bridge to this atty in this arb I've been on, I go to a depo and do LiveNote for both counsel and had all sorts of problems. Three computer crashes later, I decided to try a different USB-serial adapter and, sure enough, that solved the problem. Boy, you just never know when these babies are going to go out on you.

Weird thing is I got an email from the agency owner saying opposing counsel (not the agency's client) complained about the trouble hooking up with LiveNote. Granted, I had to go off the record two or three times, but both counsel got a feed all day except for about 20 or 30 pages out of 388. And day 2 went off without a hitch.

The agency owner asked me if it was okay if she offered both sides a discount (the complaining counsel as well as her client), basically paying me for only the roughs and not the LiveNote hookups for that day. I'm not sure what the difference in pay will be and am waiting to hear back about that, but I'm curious what others think about this.

I'm also curious if most reporters are getting paid for a rough after they do LiveNote. Or do most people just get paid for LiveNote and send a cleaned-up rough later just as a courtesy? I'm a pretty clean writer, and I usually spend a couple hours working on a rough from an all-day depo, the same as I would if I hadn't done LiveNote.

[Kyung]

If I'm requested to do a realtime job, I usually don't send a rough after. They're going home with the rough on their laptop.

However, if they want a rough draft on top of what they've already gotten, and I clean it up for them, there is usually a further charge. I charge them a rough draft rate.

[Janet]

I think it depends on the local practices as to whether you can charge for both realtime and a rough. I work in Boston, and we don't charge for the rough after realtime. It's done as a courtesy. I've worked for out-of-state agencies and have been paid for both.

Janet