What's Here
"Index" is the main page of ol' Cheap and Sleazy.
"Search Me!" shows you how to use Google to search ol' Cheap and Sleazy! Even better, the method works on other sites as well ... and best of all, this method means I don't have to devleop my own search engine! How cool is that?!?
"Got Fear" shows the reader a few (cheap and sleazy) tricks on the computer to make their computing lives a little easier.
"Good Stuff" (a.k.a. "Writers and Software and Laptops -- Oh, My!") guides the reader through the process of selecting a writer, a laptop, and CAT software.
"Erin Duncan, Captioner" contains notes I took when captioner Erin Duncan spoke my (now closed) school.
"Jill Driscoll, Captioner" is an article by working captioner Jill Driscoll, on how she reached Bunny Slipper Nirvana by becoming a captioner. Includes a few practice tips for the aspiring captioner (probably works for regular CR students as well)!
"Captioning Down Under" is an article by a self-taught captioner from Australia, and after a few months of begging and pleading, I was able to get her to write an article on how she went from the Phoenix Theory books and tapes and through speedbuilding on her own, to her first job as a captioner.
Did I mention that she's an official in Hong Kong's Colonial High Court now?
"Got CART?"is an article that talks about how to get a start in CART, by long time CART provider, Louise Becker.
"In the Trenches" is an article by New York Academic CART Provider Mirabai Knight, in which Mirabai provides a glimps into what she does on a typical day.
"The Internship Process" is an article that talks about internships: What to ask, how to find a mentor, and what you should know at the end of an internship.
"Technolust" is a piece on all the new writers. It's a bit out of date ... so you might want to read Technolust II!
"Technolust II is an update to the original Technolust article. This one covers the newer writers: The Protege, the Cybra (student version), the LightSpeed, the Stylus II, the Passport, the Gemini Revolution Grand, the Diamante, and (briefly) the StarLight.
"Steno Stuff" teaches the reader how to clean his or her steno machine using about $20 worth of supplies.
"DIY Shim" is an article which shows you how to use some super glue, an old credit card, and a pair of scissors to give your (non-paperless) writer a more shallow stroke, thereby enabling you to (hopefully) write faster! Gotta love that.
"Create Your Own Bluetooth Realtime System shows you how to, as the title suggests, create your own BT realtime system -- including both how to RT to your writer, AND how to RT to an attorney's laptop! Big "THANKS!!&qyot; to Dorothy "Dotchie" Blankenship for allowing me to recreate her tutorial here.
"A Wee Bit About Darwine teaches the adventurous court reporting student that is using an Intel-based Macintosh how to use Darwine ... which allows that enterprising court reporting student (or the even more enterprising court reporter) to run Windows applications on their Macs ... without having to install Windows! Tres cool!
"Homestudy" shows the reader how to do speed building when in a self-study program.
"The Red Dot Secret" teaches the reader a method to not lose focus during a test.
"Ink About It shows you how to re-ink your ribbon cartridges (those of you on Miras, Diamantes, Geminis, Infinity Traditional/Ergonomic and Passports are exempt).
"Digital Flashcards" shows the reader how to use digital flash cards to help them learn and practice steno outlines.
"Little Word Machine" will help the reader practice those little words that sometimes trip the intrepid Student o' Steno up during dictation. This one comes to us from reporter Priscilla Trillo.
"The Art of the Forum" teaches the reader how to behave on forums, with some handy Do's and Don'ts which would be good for all readers of Cheap and Sleazy adhere to!
Note that this manual has been here for quite a while now (see the 09JUL08 update), and frankly, I had forgotten about it -- until I saw a post from Priscilla on Depoman recently ... then I did a search of my In boxes for "Priscilla," and what do ya know, I find that not only did she write this little program, but I wrote the manual that accompanies it -- and I ... well, forgot it was here!
So, I'm fixing that by changing that manual into an article for ol' Cheap and Sleazy.
"Save a Buncha Money" shows the reader how to conserve their steno pads.
"Symbols" shows you how to get symbols like ° and ÷ into your document.
"Gemini" is a hands-on review of the Gemini Writer by one of my classmates, Charity Chainus.
"Gemini Revisited" is a second look at the Gemini -- or rather, the PDA that came with it -- a year later.
"Gemini Redux a Trois" is a final look at the Gemini and its accompanying PDA.
"Gemini Revolution" is a look at the new Gemini Revolution Grand, by writers Veronica Kubat, Mirabai Knight, and Rhoda Collins.
"Young Man With a Gemini is the story of how one determined young man here in the Pacific North Wet has modified his early version of the Gemini to run on batteries ... and it has a surpise ending! :o)
"The Infinity Traditional Writer Q&A is a selection of 25 questions about the Infinity Traditional writer from the gang at Depoman.com.
"The ProCAT Flash" is a review of my ProCAT Flash; it tells you why I bought it, and why it's better than an 8000 or a Protege.
"A Look at the ProCAT Stylus" is the story of reporter April Davis' experiences with the new ProCAT Stylus.
"The Passport" is a review of Advantage Software's Passport by veteran reporter Cheri Mays. The review was a long time coming (as was the writer!), but it seems to have been well worth the wait.
"The LightSpeed" is, as you might guess, a review of the LightSpeed writer from Stenovations, written by the author of the review of the ProCAT Stylus.
"Doing it eBay" is a basic piece on the pros and cons of buying steno machines through eBay.
"digitalCAT File Managment" shows my fellow DC using students how to avoid filling up the Transcripts folder with unneeded transcripts (do you really need to save that practice session from three weeks ago?).
"digitalCAT Chat" is a transcript from StenoLife.com with some DC users and DC trainer extrordinaire, Greta Duckett.
"DigitalCAT: By the Numbas" shows digitalCAT users how to make their strokes for dates, money, and Social Security Numbas -- er, Numbers -- come out correctly using the Command Editor.
"Gold" tells you why that odd box of old JCRs reporters sometimes drop off at schools are so valuable, and why you should look through those old JCRs.
"Got Newt?" tells you how you can put a (relatively) cheap Apple PDA (say "personal digital assistant") to use in school and after.
"Cheap and Sleazy Mocha" shows the reader how to use a few commonly available items to make their own mocha (did I mention one of my classmates drank a few of these and, after being stuck in her 80s for a while, passed not one, but *two* of her three 80s tests in one week?). If you're a starving student who still spends too much time at your local Starbucks, you might want to check this one out.
"Life's a Peach!" teaches a rather elaborate method to make iced tea -- or more specifically, the Cheap and Sleazy Peach Iced Tea (as mentioned in the Cheap and Sleazy Mocha article).
"Cheap and Sleazy Chili teaches you how to make chili in your crockpot, for those cold and blustery fall/winter months.
"Dictionaries 'r' Us" is a look at dictionaries: What they are, how to search them, and how to build your own -- specifically for Q&A.
"Different Dictation" tells you how you can use a cheap cable, a radio, and a VCR to record some very interesting dictation.
"Mark Sez ..." is a page wherein Mark Kislinbgury explains how to build speed. Don't miss it!
"Speedbuilding With Accuracy is an article from an early JCRby veteran reporter Donna Kanabay Harvey, in which she describes how she regained her speed after experiencing significant losses when she modified her non-computer-compatible theory to make it work with computers. I read it and asked her if I could share it with my readers, and here it is!
"The Red Dot Focus Secret is a method to maintain your conentration during a test from reporter Krista Burgeson. This one comes to you courtey of a discussion on Facebook.
"On the Cool Side" shows you a Cheap and Sleazy method to keep your laptop cool ... with about $5.00 worth of supplies.
"The Drill Machine" is a page where you can download Steven "Court Reporting Help" Shastay's Drill Machine. I originally put this page up when the Drill Machine disappeared from Steve's page after an update, and people were e-mailing me about it. It was put back, but Steve told me it was okay to keep it here, in case it disappears again (which it seems to have done!).
"Push Back!, by guest writer Mary Ann Payonk, CRR, RDR, gives the reader a more realistic view of the state of court reporting than that given by the schools ... and is well worth your time!
"The Search for the Perfect Bag" is a review of the ultimate steno bag, by Charles "Chuck" Motter. While this bag is not cheap, it does have some good qualities ... and Chuck was nice enough to put his experience with his bag together along with some pictures for your edification and delight.
For those of you who are (cheap and sleazy) archeologists, I have older versions of ol' Cheap and Sleazy on the various archive pages.
What good is a website without any "Links"?
"The Plateau" is a book-in-progress from the guys over at courtreportinghelp.com given the (cheap and sleazy) once over. It's a downloadable zip file, all about that nasty point in every steno student's studies where the student gets stuck at a certain speed -- or, in short, reaches a plateau. I'll update it as soon as new chapters become available.
The Plateau (Older Version) is, as you might guess, an older version of the above ... but there's a significant difference between the two!
The first one weighs in at 6 chapters and about 20 pages ... while the older version weighs in at 19 chapters, and a whopping 77 pages!
"More stenormation for your steno buck," as Stephen Shastay might say.
Well, okay; maybe not ... but he did promise to update this version of "The Plateau" when he gets the chance (and inspiration). That's a good thing, because there is a 20th chapter (not included, but I'll provide it if asked) that kinda ends in the middle.
Some time back, I raided several early versions of courtreportinghelp.com (thanks to the Way Back Machine)and got a bunch of really interesting articles. I also saw a note that courtreportinghelp.com regular contributor Barb DeWitt had a website (now defunct), barbdewitt.com, and (of course) I raided that, too.
What that means for you is that I have taken all those interesting bits of court reporting student goodness, converted them to the universal RTF file format, and put them all into a compressed archive for your reading pleasure. You can get that archive here.