Laptop Stolen/Need Help Translating From Paper Notes

[Wendy Stratton]

My laptops were stolen from my home office, among other things, of course. Luckily I was caught up on transcripts to an all-day job Thurs., which I had worked on Thurs. evening and Fri. morning. I'd even backed my work up to flash drive. Both gone! I do have my paper notes and would really like not to retype them into my RAM 2 if I can avoid it - 260 pages. Anyone know of a machine that reads paper notes? Other suggestions?

[Wendy Stratton]

No, I only heard about Carbonite very recently.

[Wendy Stratton]

I think I will get LoJack with a new laptop, though!

[Reid Bryce Robbins]

Watch Craigslist. That is probably where your laptop will end up being sold, if not to a pawnshop. You may get it back. Xscribe used to have a note reading service, but I don't know what happened after they were taken over by stenograph. I have had my laptop stolen with jobs on it before. Not fun. Sorry to hear about that.

[Wendy Stratton]

Thanks for the Craigslist suggestion. There is a firm here that used to have an optical note reader, but it broke and they chose not to repair it. Stenograph was never very good at supporting Xscribe, even soon after the takeover.

[Wendy Stratton]

No, I will not have an audio anymore either, darn it.

[Diana Sasseen]

So sorry for your situation. In the future, Carbonite! $54.95 a year - unlimited storage. I load my jobs onto my laptop, then save steno files to a folder on my desktop, copy the audio onto my desktop. Those automatically get downloaded/uploaded to Carbonite. Then I feel safe - well, as safe as any of us ever feel about the possibility of losing a transcript.

Again, I know it's too late now. And again, sorry for your situation.

Diana

[Wendy Stratton]

Thank you for the Carbonite referral, too. I do backup final transcripts to CD's, too, and I have an external backup drive. I just hadn't saved anything to those as recent as Thursday.

[Julie Samford]

Oh, Wendy, that is so awful! I'm sorry that happened to you.

I know it's a little late for you this time, but it might make you feel better to safeguard yourself against thieves in the future. I just found out this weekend about a service that protects against laptop theft. It's at www.mylaptopGPS.com. There's a big sticker that you put on your laptop that looks like a sheriff's badge, and then if someone does steal it, it uses GPS tracking to locate it for you. But the best part, like I'm sure you wish you could do right now, is that you can download files from your stolen computer. It's $10 a month for two computers.

I'm not affiliated with the company and only know what I read on the website, but it sounds like a good idea for reporters. I sure hope they catch the person who stole your stuff. Be sure to give the police the serial numbers, because I understand that sometimes they find stolen goods but don't know who to return them to.

Good luck!

[Wendy Stratton]

Thank you, Julie. I've recently heard an ad, again, for LoJack and will look into that, too.

I did give the police the serial numbers. For one, I had to call the laptop company; it wasn't on the invoice. They told me they will put the info into the system and refuse service to anyone who inquires on the unit. The StenoCat rep said the same about the hardware key. That's pretty awesome! I will check it out with the other company as well.

In the meantime, I have begun rewriting. Looking on the bright side, at least I get to add some more punctuation!

[Diana Sasseen]

I'm glad you managed to find a "bright side." Sometimes it's harder than others, but you did it!

[Julie Samford]

What a great attitude you have! I hope your next laptop and software are so awesome that you end up being glad this happened. I've definitely seen that before. Have a blessed day!

[Wendy Stratton]

A great thought, thank you! "All things for a reason," we have to believe.