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I used Abacus at the advice of who I work for once--sm

Posted By: kps on 2006-08-05
In Reply to: I use Abacus; however, it is an older version. Don't know if it has been upgraded. It is free. - Small MTSO

and yes, it is free, but it consistently counted less lines than I get with other line counter software. It would not count the headers, either. Depending upon the file it was counting, I found it to count from 1 to 6 lines different from others. To me, that is too many variables. JMO


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Lack of work advice.............

Hi all


I wanted to see if I can get some opinions on my situation. 


I started with this company in September and the workload was good for a while.  I promised to do 30 minutes per day.  I do this part-time after 4p EST every day as I have a full-time job out of the house.  Since the holidays, the workload has dropped off and by the time I get home after 4p, many times there is next to nothing for me to do and some days absolutely nothing.


I was thinking of asking the supervisor if there is some other fairer way to divide up the work that does come in so that I can have some too when I get home.  Would this be a reasonable thing to do, or would it be asking too much of her? 


Thanks for your opinions.  In the meantime, I am looking for something else too.


Thank you for the work at home advice

I changed my phone number! I also signed up for a www.grandcentral.com #. I can give it out and change to voicemail when I am working.


Honestly we have had the best few days! :) We have had more time to homeschool and go out to play. I am getting my shifts in with less prep time.


  


Thank you for the encouragement and advice.


Best advice - work in-house a couple of years
You really do need hands-on experience in order to be able to do this at home. You will run into terms that you will have no idea how to look up - like "booj aw boo" would you know to look under bougie au boule? Or "terry onal craniotomy" would you know it is "pterional" or would you spends loads of time looking for "T" words? If you work face to face with experienced MTs, they can help you when you run into similar situations. I'm not being snooty, I am only pointing out real situations that you will be faced with and the reasons MTSOs insist that before an MT can work independently at home they have at least 2 years experience. I believe that most of us have worked in-house in the beginning to get to the point where we can do this efficiently at home. Once you do get that experience, though, stand back, the MTSOs will be beating down your door with job offers. Good luck and hang in there! Remember we all had to start somewhere. Best of luck to you!
try Abacus
It's also free.
abacus
works well and also does daily counts, invoicing too!
I believe Abacus?

abacus
Thanks.  Does it count "differently" than Word?  What is the web site, abacus.com?  I will try it.
Can anyone help me with Abacus? SM
I'm trying to use it for the first time.  I opened the program and see the drives listed at the upper left.  However, I need to get into My Documents and go from there, and it's not listed there.  I have A, C, D, and E drives.  Even if I click on C, I don't get a choice of My Documents.  Has this ever happened to anyone else?  What am I missing here? 
Try Abacus..
It gives you a free trial version, so you can see if you like it.. Not sure of the website, just search abacus line counter.
abacus

thank you...I really like the program and did not want to change it.


 


dc


I use Abacus. sm

Abacus comes with a free trial and costs around $20. It is customizable, counts in batches and I have found it to be a great tool. I consider a line to be 65 characters with spaces, including tabs, returns and header/footers. I do not count formatting or caps. Hope this helps.


Abacus
Anyone know if there is a free trial period on this software?  Thanks.
I also use Abacus (about $20).
In PA I am required to charge sales tax and I can't add that in Abacus, but I do use it to create the line counts that I then transfer to Quicken for invoicing.
Abacus.
.
Try Abacus

The Abacus.
x
Advice to YOU..1st learn to spell before insulting poster and trying to give advice...sm

Does MedPen or Abacus do this, anyone? nm
s
abacus website
here is the website where you can download this for free: www.theabacus.biz
MP Count or Abacus....nm
xx
Is Abacus still free? nm
x
I use Abacus and love it. Free too! nm
x
I have Abacus SE, brand new with disk. s/m
I paid $40 for it about two months ago. It is very user friendly and prints out invoices. I'll sell it for half price plus shipping if you are interested.
Abacus and Word 2003

Has anyone used Abacus with Word 2003 and does it work?  If not, any other nice line count programs out there that creat patient lists/invoices?


 


thanx


I use Abacus. It's $20 or $30. (see link inside)
``
Abacus, about $20. Link inside.
65-character line with spaces.
I like Abacus. Link inside.
http://www.theabacus.biz/theAbacus.htm
Does anyone use abacus with Word 2007? sm

I've used abacus 2.1 for years. Now I have Vista with Word '07 and I was told that 2.1 and 3.0 would work, but either would be hard to configure. I'm not sure what that really means and would like to hear from anyone who is using it about problems or advice.


Abacus line counting

I have downloaded the Abacus SE program and cannot figure out how this program works.  If anyone is willing to walk me through the steps of this process I would appreciate it.  Information would be 9 cpl at 65 character line.


Thank you, JNGI


Abacus line counting

Thanks!  Emailed you.


I use a program called The Abacus.
x
You can download abacus free. You just have
to delete this line that says: Buy me so you can get rid of this annoying line (or something like that). It counts your lines for you and then creates an invoice. Looks professional. Hope this helps.
I downloaded Abacus. doggone if sm
I can figure out how to use it! That is what happens when you work for a one company forever and ever. Don't keep up on the other stuff. I did see the counter on Word so I guess I will have to wait and see how they do things.

Some companies don't explain things very well.
Abacus has a line counting program and you
can download a free trial version of it. Don't have the website, but I think a Google search would help you find it.
Use Abacus. You can download for free. Very accurate. nm
x
Not familiar with your software, but Abacus has many of these options...
You might just ask them what software they use, too, for future reference. Good luck!
Abacus Line Counting Program
I've been using this for about a year.  It used to count subdirectories.  I thought all I had to do was check "add subdirectory files to listbox."  Now it's not working.  Am I forgetting something? 
Abacus Line Counting Software sm

has a free trial and only $38 to buy -- much less than other line counting programs!


I think it only works with Word though.


 


 


Sound advice from a fellow MT if you want advice or support (sm)

I have been an MT for over 10 years.  I also am getting burnt out, tired of my job, day in day.  However, I do love transcription and make excellent money at it, have grossed over $50,000 per year the last 5 years.  I decided to go back to nursing school and am very happy with my choice.  However, over these 10 years of transcription I have had my ups and downs.  My biggest issue with being at home working is lack of socialization, being home day in and day out with just the kids and the animals really gets to a person, sure hubby is home at night and thinks working from home is the easy life, thus the return to school and boy has my overall enjoyment of life changed once I realized I was the problem, not everyone else and I needed to find myself again.


Anyway, my biggest advice to you three-fold:


1.  Get into counseling for yourself, find out who you are and what your needs are, whether or not you think you need to, I sense you are feeling overwhelmed and need someone other than your family to talk to that can be nonjudgmental to your feelings and needs.


2.  If you're only making $100 after you pay preschool you can either keep doing it and be miserable, or quit because you are lucky enough to have a husband who can support the family without your income. (See how fast his mind changes just by losing the income you do have as to whether your job means anything.)  Or look for a different company or office that you like more and are more productive if you really want to do transcription (lots of fish in the sea as far as companies).


3.  Find a local "mom's" group where you can get out and socialize.  MOPS (mother's of preschoolers) is an excellent one that is nationwide, they have a website.  Also Mom2Mom is in a lot of areas.  They provide a once a week time for moms with kids the same age to get together, socialize, (some offer spirtual guidance some don't) and each week a different mom takes a turn watching everyone else's children at the facility that hosts it so the other moms can talk about things they have in common.  Every stay-at-home and work-from-home mom needs to socialize with adults, without their kids, or they will have a nervous breakdown eventually no matter how much they love their kids.


Sorry so long but it does get better but you have to take the first step at making yourself happy.


Love my Abacus too! Awesome free program! nm
x
I've had problems with Abacus' accuracy in the past.
.
Sorcerers Abacus - a search should find link n/m
 
I use Abacus; however, it is an older version. Don't know if it has been upgraded. It is free.
x
I use Abacus and send by email/WinZip encrypted. nm

There is a free download line counter called Abacus and I have used
that program to count my lines, which works real well.  I just always used a program to do it.  It's pretty user friendly and you can try it for free and see if you like it. 
I thought Word counted blank lines using this method. I think the OP is looking for Abacus. nm
xx
Abacus is not free. It is $20 but worth it. You can download a trial version free which does not h
I have used this for years and have compared to Sylvan, Word, and MP Count, etc. When you have it set to count every character, bold, shift, tab, etc. It is great and always higher than the others. Now if you are wanting gross lines like in Word then no it won't be as high because Word counts blanks lines and Abacus counts a line only if there is a character on it. There is also two places to check for it to count the Headers/Footers. If you have the FREE version then it must be the trial or a very old version so you don't have all the features and functions.
I get my work from an FTP site that they load the work to, however I don't have pool work so to
speak, but I tell them how many minutes a day I want.  The work is generally put in my box by 5 pm every day, then I have until 10 am the following day for some priority work, or 3:30 pm for the rest, so TAT is not too bad. I would like to work less at night though, but I working on that. My downside is I do not get the same dictators day to day, there are a few I do on a semi-regular basis though, some generate great lines but take longer to do that other doc's and are not "money-makers", I also do not get paid for spaces so that hurts a bit too.  This is WP5.1 too.....so very antiquated but that is what the hospital uses, so not much choice there. But I understand what you mean about the C-phone. I was just doing another job with C-phone recently...they incidentally did not tell me how to get off of the system, which was very simple.  I'd finish a job, then hit stop and hangup if I wanted to get off or quit working.  That is what you need to do if you want to sleep, eat, etc.  Don't feel guilty, do what you signed up for, believe me they watch the pools and will get others to do the work you don't finish.  If they get on your case remind them that you are only PT and only want 500 lines a day, etc.  It's not worth killing yourself over.  Good Luck.
my advice
would be to get an MT job that pays by the hour until your experience and accuracy come together well.

I believe that MQ will pay by the hour until you reach "production" -- but i am not sure if there is a time limit on that. I believe i've seen where other companies do this also.

I admire your refusal to quit -- i believe that is one of the essential traits of a transcriptionist. Hang in there. Very little worth attaining comes easy, you'll make it.
Need some advice

I know this isn't MT-related, but it has gotten me so upset that I can't work, so maybe it is MT-related after all.  Anyway, if anyone has been in this situation, can you please tell me how you successfully handled it?  My son wanted to go away for the weekend and asked to use my credit card to secure a hotel room.  We went online to Hotels.com and found a nice place.  I put in my credit card number and was given a room confirmation.  I then received an e-mail from the hotel telling me there were no rooms available.  I called the hotel and they told me I would have to address it with Hotels.com since they were the ones with my credit card information.  I called Hotels.com and they told me that my card had been swept for the entire amount of the stay ($276.00!) but since there were no rooms available, the money would be credited back to my account.  I got my credit card statement yesterday and they only credited back $71.00 of my money, causing me to incur and over-the -limit fee of another $29.00.  I don't know where to turn to get this problem resolved.  Do I call Hotels.com and ask them to reimburse my over the limit fee?  Do I call my credit card company and tell them that it was Hotel.com's fault for hitting my account for the whole amount when they said they weren't going to?  If anyone has been through this kind of thing before, I would really appreciate your input.  Needless to say, I will NEVER use Hotels.com ever again!!  Thanks in advance for your help!


 


Well said! I will take that advice.