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I do all my standard maintenance religiously at least monthly. sm

Posted By: penny on 2009-03-01
In Reply to: How many of you that use computers know how to do updates, repairs, clean up viruses, etc? - Not so inclined

Thinks like Diskclean and Defrag.  Keeping all those temporary Intervet files off your computer makes a huge difference in performance.  I have McAfee because it comes with my Comcast service.  Used to have Norton -- hated it because it made my computer do all sorts of weird things, and then had a he!! of a time trying to uninstall it.  I have an MQ computer that I have had for over 3 years and a couple of months ago it started running really slow, no matter what I did to it.  So I called tech,support thinking maybe I needed a new one, and they suggested a free antispyware called Superantispyware, so I downloaded it and run it regularly and it has made a marked improvement.


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I do my computer maintenance religiously......
Once you have a virus, your hard drive crashes, or any of the 100's of thing that can go wrong and do, you become a fanatic about upkeep and maintenance.

I update my AVG weekly, I do a complete system scan every night (my tech guy set that up for me), and it checks for all the bad guys including root kits. I make sure that every MS update and patch is in place. I defrag once a week and do a disc clean up weekly. I am rabid about my husband doing the same thing.

If you have any questions about computer stuff, the websites of MS, AVG, Norton, etc. have helpful hints. And if you ever question anything "free" from the internet or want to download something free, go to Kim Komando's web site. She is the BEST.

Nothing beats vigilence in keeping your source of income running smoothly.

guess she is alive and kicking, quite hard at that! how is it we follow her books so religiously??
she designs MT pretty much as it is today, then blows it off as not cost-effective etc etc?
Was on doing maintenance (SM)

stuff, i.e. system scan, etc.  I don't plan to get on.  It is just irritating to me.  I would rather have time with my family than 1.5 pay. 


Now which one of you is high maintenance?
LOL
Are you on maintenance or just starting?
Actually my husband and I went on it a couple of years ago, lost weight and felt great...... for a few months.  The problem was maintenance.  
If all the downtime was due to maintenance, (sm)
could you please arrange that it's done during non-peak hours, for as you can see, many MTs have posted how much they rely on this site while working. It only makes sense to do upgrades, etc. during off-peaks. Most of the IT people I deal with have no problem working graveyard shift -- it goes hand-in-hand with the business.
Maintenance chores...sm

Computer users can do the main maintenance chores without taking a class because Windows provides simple point-and-click interfaces to things like disk cleanup, disk defragmenting and backup.  The other important things are running antivirus and antispyware software and keeping them up to date, but most of these configure themselves to update automatically.


One thing that can be tricky is installing and configuring a firewall, depending on your particular situation and version of Windows.  However, firewalls have also become much more user-friendly in recent years.. 


Eliminating a virus once you have one is another matter, some being so nasty that they resist removal.  For these,  "a class" in computers won't give you the expertise to exterminate them anyway.


If you Google "regular Windows maintenance" (including the quotes so it's treated as a single search phrase), you'll find lots of reasonably nontechnical advice online that will tell you everything you need to know to keep your Windows system in good running order and as reasonably well-protected as possible.


 


 


more experience, less maintenance, better production

Since you have less than 2 years experience, it is possible the owner just does not have accounts that fit your qualifications to send you.  Just bevause they have work, does not mean you are qualified to receive it. They most likely are sending it to someone that is less maintenance than you on specific specialities.  


Still Life With Woodpecker, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, A Moveable Feast
The list goes on....I am a big reader.  I also like some true crime stuff by Ann Rule.
Monthly fee
Is there a monthly fee when you use it through your phone?  I can use my phone but I have to set up internet service and its $60 a month.  I work at the inlaws cottage but they have high speed internet.
monthly earnings
I'm new to this board, just found it today, and have been *so* depressed with what I've been reading in regards to line counts and rates you all are being paid. I've been an IC for 15 plus years, transcribing for about 23 years now. I charge by gross lines, 12 cents a line, max 70 characters possible on a line. I make okay money, averaging between $3000 and $4000 a month, with three good dictators, and I live on the West Coast. I could easily make more if I turned off the TV when transcribing and didn't take time off to be at the kids' sporting events. Before I got married, I easily made $55-60K a year, before expenses, but taxes killed me  so I backed off a bit. (This was before the elaborate Expander programs.) Ladies, the money is out there. You just have to find the right accounts!!
Monthly fees
May I ask which carrier this is through?  I have ATT and to use my laptop I can hook it up through my phone with a USB cable but in order to get on the internet I would have to buy the data package for $59.99 a month. Thanks, we do a lot of traveling in the summer.
I make 7.5 CPL and earn over $4K monthly
Maybe to you that's not a decent wage, or maybe you're not as fast. I don't know. But this IS production-based work. So type more and earn more. I think I clear about 14,000 lines in a 40-hour work week and I bring TAKE HOME about $4K a month. To ME that's good money. Maybe I'm stupid. I know people that earn much more (are much faster than I) at 7.5 CPL. Call me dumb, but I think that's good take home.
Jennifer, recognized your name from MT Monthly
I enjoyed the publication and have referred several MTs your way for ROS through the years. Hope all is well with you.
Try the FDA website. Updated monthly.
FDA.gov
submit invoice monthly, get ck
x
I used to call it Monthly Martha or
Nasty Nancy. Anyway, I can't help you on that. I had a hysterectomy and plenty of those awful hot flashes. I would just be sitting there and whoosh, I felt like I was in a sauna and had to go outside no matter where I was. I would just seem to get severely claustrophobic and have to leave for 10 minutes, then I was fine. It does get better.
Monthly Prescribing Reference SM
http://www.prescribingreference.com/
Monthly audits = QA score. sm
Usually companies audit your work monthly. They will pull 5 or 10 reports you have transcribed and do a random QA check on them. If you have critical errors, they will deduct whole points, noncritical errors usually a half point.

If you total QA score is below 98% three or more times in a row, some companies will do what they can to help you, put you back on QA review for a while so every report will go to QA. Other companies may just fire you or let you go.

Is this the answer your were looking for?

Does anyone have the website for Monthly Prescribing Reference? Thanks. nm
xx
This is cool...ShortHand offers monthly SM

subscriptions.  I have a free trial right now and was worried I wouldn't have the whole $99 after my trial, but I can buy a subscription and save for another month!  That's so cool!  I didn't know they did that.  Didn't know if others knew, so thought I'd share. :)


Chickadee


Were you thinking of MT Monthly.....see link inside
xx
The Monthly Emesis is clever! :) no message
:0
Okay - to make it simple, what's your monthly takehome pay?
Mine is $1600/month. Assuming I worked 5 days a week (which I dont... I work 6 to 6-1/2), and 8 hours a day (I dont - I work 10-12), it would be $10 an hour. Where in this country is that a good wage? Working my average week, and my average hours per day, this further drops to about $6/hour. (Again, we're talking take-home, not gross.) I don't base anything on gross pay because I never see a large chunk of it. Part goes for Social Security which I'm sure I'll never receive. Part goes for healthcare, which is often denied and I end up paying out of pocket anyway. Part goes for state & federal taxes. My state is already issuing IOUs, not refunds, and last year they gypped me out of what should've been a $300 refund. The feds? Forget it. Let's not even go there.

So unless you live in some wonderful Utopian town where gas is 20 cents/gal., Cheerios are 85 cents/box, and rent is about $150/month, then spare me the lecture about how far a crappy 8 cpl will go, or even a crappy 9 or 10 cpl.

Oh, and by the way? I aint no 'newbie'. Try 34 years.
Just making sure--$60/mo + monthly phone bill? sm

Talk about perfect timing!  I told my bro last night about connecting via his cell phone.  (Found that info here by searching the archives.)  Anyway, he also uses AT&T.  So that is $60 plus his regular phone bill, correct?  TIA!


I also like to use online references, which by the way I invest in by paying my monthly fee
for high-speed internet service. Why knock someone's way of doing something just because it isn't your way? I personally find it much quicker to find something online than to finger through a bunch of books, which by the way are outdated quicker than you can get them delivered.
Sounds like where I used to work- PHNS- 5% of our total MONTHLY - sm
work was our limit to QA. You'd get your butt chewed off if you went over that....and this was 80% hard ESL too. Totally unrealistic. They did not penalize you though, but that was a while ago too, now, who knows, wouldn't put it past them.
Oh..it's way possible. I've averaged $7000 monthly for the last 5 months sm
I have four accounts and work probably 60 hours a week, but have most weekends off, sometimes I'll work a few hours on Saturday morning or Sunday evening. It can be done, but it isn't easy.
Isnt there a transcription paper/magazine that comes out monthly??
I remember years ago when I was working at a transcription agency that there was a monthly subscription of a magazine/newspaper-type that came out monthly that I read.  It was always sitting around.  I cant remember the name of it.  Can anyone tell me the name of this??  And do they still publish it monthly?  Thanks!
QA, 2750/monthly, salaried, excellent benefits-no complaints here.
Was a long time coming though.
My cost of living expenses monthly is $2200/month
I'm self employed, so I'm killed in taxes AND I live in NY...but I wouldn't have it any other way

I LOVE NEW YORK!!!!
The Latest Word was a waste. Stedman's might have monthly updates on their site, not sure. nm
s
even ISPs have to do maintenance from time to time--sm
and most do this during the wee hours of the morning when MOST people are sleeping and not using the internet. They need to upgrade their services and virus protection just like the home users. This is probably what occurred.
There is no standard and most of us are not
privy to that information. 
There is no standard.
It will depend on how much experience you have and how well you are doing with the work. My first company kept me on QA for 6 weeks, although they typically kept new MTs on QA for the first 12. My second company kept me on QA for 2 days, and for my current company I sent 3 reports through QA and then was released.
Definitely not the standard. I would not
work anywhere where I had to pay to use their software. Keep looking, there are good jobs out there.
the pay seemed standard
BUT good luck getting on. I was hired, given a start date, and 3 weeks later finally quit because I had 3 different people asking for the exact same paperwork that had been sent. 
Me too. It's always been the standard for a
reason, because it makes it easier to read. It's a crock & I don't plan to quit putting 2 spaces after a period.
Unfortunately, this is the standard.

If 4 cpl is the VR rate, then you are getting paid, but if they had stated a certain number of hours or days for training pay, then you should receive that amount specified as training pay.  If they simply said you're paid for training, that could very well mean that you will be paid your training rate for your 1.5 hours of training.  What company is it?


these tests are standard for this age and despite what sm
poster below said; they are usually done with routine pap smears and sometimes no mention is ever made from doc about what they are doing. fight ins company.
That's kind of standard, isn't it? I mean (SM)
every hospital and every MT company I've ever worked for, to be a full-time employee you had to account for 40 hours a week, either by working it, or taking PTO, unless you were covered under FMLA.

I think sometimes we expect even more flexibility working from home and forget the fact that working from home IS flexibility -- not having to go into the office, being in the comfort of our home (if we want our children or family around us, that is our option--not so in an office), etc.

The 40-hour expectation is very standard, in my experience. You have PTO to use for when you cannot make up your absence. My guess is they will offer more PTO with this new plan coming up.

Try not to panic or be upset. No one knows what the new plan will be. We will each have to decide if the new plan is what we need or not. If it isn't, thank goodness there are other companies to work for out there.

Please try to relax.
Wow. That's quite contrary to the standard.
Usually, 32 hours is part-time and 37 starts full-time.

You've been quite fortunate!

I HAVE to get to work now. I don't wanna. LOL I'd rather stay and play! LOL

I think the standard now is use numbers (6)
...
I only took the standard deductions
and it still happened to me. What I couldn't understand was that I was supposed to be in a less likely audit bracket because that year I was an employee, an IC and an SE. (they were trying to see if I met employee status on my SE account).
Isn't the standard deduction much more than $2K? nm
x
Double standard
So we expect MDs to always have their complete attention on every word out of their mouths, which would be nice, but some of them put in 70 or more hours a week at the office/hospital, and have mountains of dictation to complete each week. But we expect them to never make a misspeak, even though on these boards we have a heart attack if one poster points out another poster's spelling or grammar error. Never mind that we are supposed to be better at English than the MDs, but we don't have to use our skills in writing posts (which is MUCH easier to do well than never making a misspeak), even if the post has to do with getting a job. That's quite a double standard, if you ask me.
What is the industry standard...sm
Tried to post this on Wednesday, will try again...I need to know what is the industry standard conversion for minutes dictated to minutes typed?  Not how much do you do - but what is average for one hour dictation - how many hours typed.  Bosses think we're taking too long but we do not get automatic demographics and need to look on log sheets (if they arrive and if they're correct) for everything from patient name to referring doctors, addresses, patient #'s, etc. So I need to give him an "average" number of hours dictated equal "X" amount of hours typed taking into consideration the lack of information, the searching we must do and the various typing speeds.  I'm not going to "judge" anyone's advice  - just need some input from those that have been there.  Thanks for sharing.
AAMT is only the standard on
That account would be the one I type online.  The other accounts, that are much more profitable than the typing I do online could give a rat's crap whether I'm certified.  They think I'm great, and they pay me for it.  No QA (don't need it), and my TAT is great.  I'm very reliable, accountable, and have a lot of social grace.  Not a machine here....  typing out those lines for the almight online MTSO's.  Just type for one, and thank goodness they are fair, and I don't feel like I'm "doin' time".  I get raises, and they don't hassle me all day through IM or nitpicky QA issues.  Spent 1-3 days in QA when I first started, and now whatever they give me, I type, and do not require QA.  
There is a standard scale!
I know this is an old post, but I just ran across it.  There absolutely is a standard scale.  The AAMT website has it under an article titled Metrics for Measuring Quality in Medical Transcription (2005).  I wish I could give you the exact page, but I only have the .pdf of that article - but it was only downloaded last week, so it'll still be there. 
That's not a standard description, so
you can only be sure by asking the person who used it.
Industry Standard for VR Pay?
What is the industry standard for VR pay? Specifically for someone just starting out.