Recording Interviews

Pursuant to this post, someone asked me how I record interviews.  In just the past year I switched to a Livescribe pen.  It has so far been nothing short of amazing and worth every penny.  Quite literally a magic wand.  Pen and ink, paper and electrons, all talking to each other.  However: when they released the most recent software update they removed the ability to use keystrokes to control the player. When transcribing the recording, I often toggle back and forth between a Word document and the Livescribe Desktop page. Previously, when I would toggle to the Livescribe page I could get the audio to back up and start over just by hitting the Enter key (rather than having to move hand from keyboard position, grab the mouse, move the cursor over the arrow, and click) (sounds like nothing much but when you’re transcribing hours and hours of interviews it quite literally adds up to hours of delay). After updating the Livescribe, I now find I can no longer use keystrokes as shortcuts.

Why do software/equipment makers remove things like this?  It was a fundamentally useful option.  Without the keystroke ability, transcription takes twice as long.  When I contacted customer service, they said:

We are aware of this issue, and hope to have it resolved in a future release but do not have a timeframe for when this will be fixed.

I’m not yelling at anyone, just honestly baffled by any process in which an “upgrade” includes removing a fundamentally useful capability.


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