I’ve always been fascinated by stories about all the crazy things reporters do. I’ve been researching case studies in situations where court reporters have been reprimanded, fined, made the news, lost their job entirely or had their license suspended.

I won’t mention names, as I’m not out to embarrass anybody, but I think we can all learn a few lessons about ethics and rules from these real life catastrophes. I promise this will be the most fun you ever had getting your ethics points!

Classes coming soon in Houston, Dallas, Austin and on a cruise out of Galveston to Jamaica/Cozumel/Cayman Islands. Hope you’ll join me!

Do you need a technology intervention? After this class, you could probably get a job at Radio Shack if the whole Q&A thing doesn’t work out! It’s chic to be a geek!

We won’t just TELL you, we’ll SHOW you:

Attorneys waiting, and you need to reboot? How to be back up and running in about ten seconds flat.

See ya later, serial ports … get the skinny on all the techniques for wireless realtime.

We’ll reveal a brand spanking new hot-off-the-press program that is every freelance reporter’s dream come true … it’ll will pretty much guarantee you’ll never, ever miss a big job tomorrow just because you couldn’t answer the phone today to say you could cover it.

Got a secret you need to keep?
Learn a super stealth technique for browsing the internet that’s completely untraceable.

Need to do a little detective work?
Learn how to trace, track and record every instant message, email, website visit, chat and password entered on any computer. (Oh, yes, you CAN do that!)

Get the scoop on a tiny device you can hide in a car and find out the exact location of the vehicle at any moment in time. Find out where it’s been, for how long, where it’s headed and even at what speed. (Oh, yes, i DID do that!)

Got a sneaky little teenager or spouse? How would you like to be able to read all of their deleted text messages while they’re sleeping? (Uh-oh!)

How to use biometric devices to protect your car and your computer

Ever get lazy about backups? Discover an awesome program that backs up your files for you online, automatically

A great trick you can use onsite at most movie theaters and rental car agencies to completely avoid waiting in line. Why don’t those other people know this?

Get a look at Bridge, the free realtime viewing software program for judges and attorneys that refreshes with your corrections.

Know anyone who sits all day? Find out which one of those ab doohickeys actually works, giving you a flatter belly and new muscles to support your spine and lower back.

Find out about an online pharmacy where you can legally order health and beauty products for about 10 bucks that would normally cost hundreds of dollars.

Get the lowdown on the latest steno machines, as well as some options for giving your old faithful one a much-needed technology makeover.

How to tell your ^#*(**#@^^ computer to stop disconnecting from your writer while you’re right in the middle of a job.

Identify a way to send snippets of your audio file to your scopist so she can get cranking on your daily copy.

Become versed in the big difference in ebay and craigslist, and what to watch out for so you don’t end up scammed, ripped off or dead.

Discover the exact technique I used to score two truckloads of designer home furnishings on ebay for $1700.

Uncover a totally free program and what specific setting to use to turn your frightening photos into glamour shots.

Learn the ropes on simple settings and divine doodads for audio sync that doesn’t stink.

Options for recording backup when you really don’t want a big honking microphone to announce that you are in fact recording.

Exactly how and why you should start thinking of your computer as you would a rental car, and less like a precious and irreplaceable possession.

We’ll reveal a confidential source for booking last-minute airfare for about $325 roundtrip anywhere in the country.

We’ll talk about the phrase “Honk if you love Jesus. Send a text if you want to meet him,” and how we can do our part to prevent tragedy.

How to undelete and un-oopsie files that you thought were gone like yesterday but the attorneys really need by first thing tomorrow.

How to turn that box full of old home movies and sappy wedding videos that are disintegrating a bit each year into DVDs that you can pop in and enjoy at any time.

Discover how to save about 75 percent on unique local shops and services that you may not have even heard of before.

See for yourself what it’s really like to proofread on the go with the Amazon Kindle.

Learn how to blow away your big shot attorneys with realtime on the iPad.

Latch onto my very favorite online service that converts voicemail to text.

Find out every forum and hot spot to network with other court reporters online.

Get a taste test of the most delicious 18-calorie, zero-fat organic salad dressing that will have you actually excited about eating veggies. You can only find it online, and after one bite, you’ll understand why I order this special sauce by the case!

Catch up on the coolest tiny video camera that connects via USB so you can instantly enjoy your movies.

Have you noticed as you get older and larger, text seems to get smaller and smaller? Turn your computer screen into instant bifocals with this unknown keyboard command that the young whippersnappers don’t know about!

How to set up shop with 25 GB of free storage space.

Discover a super simple option for creating and opening Word and Excel files without spending a dime on Microsoft Office

Find out about a program that enables reporters and firms to electronically sign and deliver full -size transcripts, including condensed, word index and word-searchable exhibits, bundled into a PDF portfolio that requires nothing but Acrobat Reader to open and view

A semi-nasty-tasting green drink that will give you all the nutrition you need when they don’t stop for a lunch break and you stayed up all night working on a rush. plus it gives you energy, makes you feel good and possibly even keeps you from getting old and wrinkly.

The fastest possible way to build a shiny new dictionary from scratch or to transition your classic court dictionary to captioning-capable.

What I consider to be the best electronic wine opener ever invented, as well as how to uncork a wine bottle without an opener (in case of emergency).

Eyeball the most amazing audio amplifiying apparatus you’ve ever imagined.

The perfect find for frazzled freelancers who don’t want to fret over their calendar, production, accounting and collections … finally!

How you can get an iphone to work on networks other than AT&T.

What’s with wifi and bluetooth.

A little robot to clean your house? Yes! It really works!

An online database to check your name for unclaimed cashola.

How to get a logo, domain name, business card design and letterhead, website hosting for a year and yourname@yoursite.com email for under $50.

*** There’s much, much more … but my brain hurts! That’s enough for now!

Classes coming soon to New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, Austin and aboard a cruise to Jamaica/Cozumel/Cayman Islands. Check under the Seminars tab for dates!

I Love Eclipse Training University
September 9-12
New Orleans

Earn up to 3.0 CEUs!

Here’s the breakdown in a nutshell:

Thursday: A full day of automatic indexing and formatting … hooray! Get your index done with all the secret codes needed to instantly pull in your exhibits, exams and anything else you want tossed in the Table of Contents. Unlock the mystery surrounding automatic indexing and save yourself a bunch of time typing all that text in. Take home your completely customized automatic index as an awesome New Orleans souvenir!

Friday and Saturday – Beginners: Julie Samford has a kind and gentle way with beginners. She’ll hold your hand and guide you through the all the settings and teach you how to edit with Hyperkeys like a champ. She’ll take you from overwhelmed and confused to confident and poised to produce pages, all the while sharing with you snippets of her hilarious Tale of Two Husbands. Get ready to laugh and learn Eclipse from an experienced court reporter who’s passionate about helping you and having fun!

Friday and Saturday – Advanced: Become a super efficient and elite Eclipse power ninja, busting out transcripts in record time with your new macros, programming tweaks and stealth editing moves. Knock out your numbers. Decode dictionary and even metadictionary secrets. Sought-after specialists Johnna Barron and Jodi Simcox will kick any beginners who try to sneak in to the curb… this class is for those ready for adventure and cranking up the heat in their realtime translations.

Friday night – Optional: All about realtime hookups; settings, troubleshooting, going wireless and using Bridge. Everything you need to know about providing realtime for your judge or attorneys. Never again miss out on a job because yes, YOU CAN do realtime!

Sunday – Option 1: Technology Show ‘N Tell with Julie. A laid-back day in the Big Easy learning about all the latest gadgets and tons of programs you won’t even believe you can get for free. We’ll talk about writers, computers, online backup options, crazy cheap deals you can take advantage of and much, much more! Followed by an optional hands-on Eclipse lab to get all of your burning questions answered and quirky bugs eliminated.

Sunday – Option 2: Advanced editing from the writer with Johnna and Jodi. Learn to master that machine like never before, making corrections, globals, absolutely everything you can do with your computer using only your writer. Bring it on, attorneys. We’re all over that realtime. Followed by an optional hands-on Eclipse lab to get all of your burning questions answered and quirky bugs eliminated.

Just click here to see what all we have in
store for you beginning September 9!

Can’t make it, but you want to know about what we have coming up next?

Please click here to join our mailing list!

At the end of my class, they presented me with a thank-you card that they’d all signed and a Starbucks gift card. I’ve been doing this sort of thing at schools near and far for free for nine years, and that simple token of appreciation really stopped me in my tracks.

It’s so touching and heartwarming to be appreciated. Possibly even life-changing. I’m vowing to do better with expressing my thankfulness, because you just never know what a person is going through and what it took for them to be where they are when they’re there for you.

Thank you, John A. Logan College students and Ms. Marilyn, for teaching ME the lesson yesterday! I appreciate you.

Julie Samford

Then I’m at the airport on my way to the Oklahoma Court Reporters convention, and I’m going through security, and a lady behind me asks me if that’s my thing on the floor. What thing is that? To my horror, I look where she is pointing, and it is my stinkin’ hard drive! Yes, the made-in-China plastic has broken and the heart of my little work machine is lying there on the floor at the airport. I’m so thankful when I get to Oklahoma and figure out what side goes up, get the drive back in position, and the laptop starts up again. Whew, that was close!

Okay. Now that should have been enough to send me to Best Buy for a replacement, but these days I spend so much money on airfare and hotel rooms that I just couldn’t quite bring myself to let go of the cash. And you know how when you pay too much for something, you feel obligated to keep it and make it work, no matter what? I guess that’s what it was.

The last straw was at the Texas convention. I’m up in front of a roomful of about 80 people, and I’m ready to start my class. I’m goofing off and visiting with reporters I haven’t seen since we worked together in the late ’80s, and my laptop was already plugged in up on the podium, so I wasn’t worried about a thing. Then I notice that the little audio/video guy is getting worked up into a lather, so I had to cut short my talk about old times to see what the problem was. Turns out my computer will not turn on at all. He’s got me hooked up to two huge screens, and nothing. No red light, no green light, nothing.

Sure enough, I look down on the floor next to our feet, and there it is. Every file I’ve created, every family picture, every email, business plan, invoice and receipt from the last several years is there in a dying piece of metal scrap the size of half a deck of cards. My laptop came with shock protection in case you drop it, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind.  I just picked it up like nothing happened, popped it in right-side-up and got started on my class just in time.

But that was the end. Computers are kind of like men, you know. You think you’ve got a good one … finally you’ve found a keeper. But after a couple years, they become unreliable. Unresponsive. Slow. Temperamental.  You can hardly even take them out in public anymore.  You want to get a new one really bad, but that old clunker holds part of your history, and you just hate to have to start all over and break a new one in. And don’t you want to keep the old one around sometimes, just for emergencies? You never know, right?!

So I go online and order a new laptop, and I’m no good at math, but it seems it’s about one-fourth of the price of my limp old Lenovo. It’s beautiful. It’s shiny. It’s booger-free. No cereal remnants have fallen beneath the keys.

When I press the “on” button,” I don’t have time to get a workout in before all my desktop icons load. I go online. Click … the pages come up instantly. I vow to take care of this baby. This may be “the one.” I mean it this time. I’m in heaven!

Julie Samford

If you’re a reporter who’s just purchased a new laptop with Vista, save yourself some major headaches by following these simple steps to disable the UAC in Vista.
(From Advantage Software)
1. Click the button formerly know as “The Start Button”.

2. Open the Control Panel

3. Click the “User Accounts” link

4. Click the “Add or Remove User Accounts” link to open the user accounts page.

UAC Nag: If you are nagged by Vista with a window that says “Windows needs your permission to continue”, click the Continue button to proceed to the User accounts page. (This is UAC in all its glory.)

5. Click the “Go to Main User Accounts Page” link at the bottom of the user accounts page. Revisit UAC Nag above…

6. Click the “Turn User Account Control on or off” link.

7. Uncheck the UAC option, then click Ok. (A balloon pop-up warning will appear, from the taskbar, stating that your UAC settings have been modified.)

8. REBOOT! Yes, you have to REBOOT… and you have to party like it’s 1998, when we had to reboot every time we made modifications to our Windows computers.

CLICK HERE to watch the video ….