Our Guest Blogger this week is Daniel Gold - productivity author, consultant and presenter. Daniel works with individuals and corporations to leverage new technology to be more efficient. 

The following post was handwritten by Daniel into a Moleskine notebook (see image below), and then added to Evernote, where it was emailed to iDictate to be transcribed. Users of the Moleskine notebook have included Ernest Hemmingway, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh.

Daniel is the author of the best selling Evernote & Springpad GTD e-books.  iDictate users interested in any of Daniel's productivity books receive a 25% discount by entering promo code "iDictate" in the DEG Consulting Bookstore.

Reinventing Paper in Evernote and Springpad

Posted by degconsulting on Mar 14, 2013 in Blog, Evernote, Productivity | 0 Comments and 0 Reactions

You may recall, I recently wrote a piece on the 5-Day Analog Challenge, where I challenged myself and all of you to appreciate paper once more to enhance our productivity. Well, here’s another reason to appreciate paper.

I travel a lot on airplanes, and there’s generally about 20 minutes or longer that you need to turn off all electronics until you hit 10,000 feet. In that 20 minute timeframe, my mind ignites with thoughts about projects, commitments and tasks. I can’t help it! It’s like the moment they say turn off your electronics, my brain turns on! But, when you really think about it, it’s actually of no surprise. When we finally allow ourselves to go offline, the magic of our brain goes “online”. We become more focused because there’s no ringing, dinging, pinging, buzzing, tweeting, et cetera. You can’t distract yourself with status updates or e-mails. We become focused. So, during this time that I can’t open Evernote or Springpad or Drafts to get these thoughts onto something bigger than a 4×4 US Airways cocktail napkin, I pull out my journal.

I see the convergence of both analog and digital tools such as the Evernote Moleskine, Whitelines LINK, and the Livescribe pen as ways to reinvent how we use paper and our digital devices. Our thoughts can now live in both the analog & digital world, allowing us to capture and collect our thoughts to process, organize, review and act on at a later date. Fellow productivity guru, Mike Vardy, has posted before about why paper just works (and here, here, and here!).

If you use Evernote and have neat enough handwriting, you can leverage the OCR technology to search your handwriting.

As an added bonus, you can email your hand-written notes directly from your Moleskine, Evernote, Penultimate, or any other application directly to mynotes@idictate.com and your notes will be transcribed by a live person at iDictate for just a couple cents a word! And as an added bonus, when you create your iDictate account, enter “GOLD” as the promo code and your account will be credited $5.00.

In fact, not only was this entire post written in that 20 minute timeframe from runway to 10,000 feet in my Evernote Moleskine, but iDictate turned it into a text document for me!

Using the Quicktate RESTful API to Add Accurate Transcription to Your Applications

Using the Quicktate RESTful API

Quicktate recently released a new RESTful API to help make integrating with the service a breeze. That said, while our new RESTful API documentation uses Swagger to generate our service documentation, many of the common RESTful semantics we rely on are completely missing from that documentation. Until we figure out an easier way to convey that information via Swagger, here’s some basic information on how to get around the API.

If you are a developer, you should contact Support to request free transcription while you develop and test your application. After creating an account you can log in and retrieve your API Key in Profile. 

Authentication

All requests currently are performed using HTTP Basic authentication. While we are still developing our OAuth provider and intend to use that as our primary mechanism for authenticating users, we currently are accepting your username and password via a standard HTTP Basic Authorization request.  As a raw HTTP header, you are looking at the following for authenticating as demo@quicktate.com with password Test1234%:

1	Authorization: Basic ZGVtb0BxdWlja3RhdGUuY29tOlRlc3QxMjM0JQ==

As a cUrl request, you’ll be looking at using the -u demo@quicktate.com:Test1234%argument to the command.

Transcription Requests

The basis of Quicktate is transcriptions. However, while there is a /transcriptionresource for our API, you don’t actually create transcriptions - that’s the job of our typists. Instead, you submit a /transcriptionrequest to Quicktate and operate on that request until a typist has completed transcribing and turns it into a /transcription.

So, we expect very little in the HTTP headers for this type of request. Because you’re creating a new Transcription request, the method will be POST. What’s most important is the body of the request. Most developers are used to submitting the request as a form request, to where in a PHP application, the variables will come across in $_POST. In this case, however, we expect the body of the message to be either XML or JSON (as indicated in the Content-Type header).

What should be in the body of the message? The transcription request. When creating a transcription request for the first time, you’ll need to supply us with the following information:

Field Name	Required?	Description
callbackDestination	No	The URL or e-mail address where a callback should occur upon completion of the transcription.
“callbackMethod“	No *	The way the callbackDestination should be invoked. This is mandatory if callbackDestination is specified. Valid values include: “HTTPPOST“, “RESTPOST“, “XMLRPC“, “EMAIL“.
“metadata“	No	Your custom metadata for this transcription request. This is sent back to you in the callback so that you have data you can trace back to some internal identifier or record.
“language“	Yes	Pretty self-explainatory. Valid values are: 1 = English, 2 = Spanish. Others on the way!
“audiourl“	Yes	The URL of the audio file you wish to be downloaded and transcribed. Must be accessible from the internet. This is required if no “audiodata“ is present.
“audiodata“	Yes	A Base 64 encoded block of the audio file to be transcribed. This is required if no “audiourl“ is present.

So, a sample HTTP request might look like the following:

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POST /v1/api/transcriptionrequest HTTP/1.1 Authorization: Basic ZGVtb0BxdWlja3RhdGUuY29tOlRlc3QxMjM0JQ== User-Agent: curl/7.24.0 (x86_64-apple-darwin12.0) libcurl/7.24.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8r zlib/1.2.5 Host: api.quicktate.com Accept: application/json Content-Type: application/json Content-Length: 208 { "callbackDestination": "https://private.host.callback.com/callback-url.php", "callbackMethod": "HTTPPOST", "metadata": "My custom metadata", "language": 1, "audiourl": "http://www.quicktate.com/audio.wav" }

or from cUrl it would look like the following:

1

curl -u demo@quicktate.com:Test1234% -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{ "callbackDestination": "https://private.host.callback.com/callback-url.php", "callbackMethod": "HTTPPOST", "metadata": "My custom metadata", "language": 1, "audiourl": "http://www.quicktate.com/audio.wav" }' -v https://api.quicktate.com/v1/api/transcriptionrequest

The response I’m likely to receive back will look like the following:

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HTTP/1.1 201 Created Server: nginx Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 06:14:43 GMT Content-Type: application/json Transfer-Encoding: chunked Connection: keep-alive X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.17-1~dotdeb.0 Vary: Accept Access-Control-Max-Age: 86400 Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization, X-Authorization, Origin, Accept, Content-Type, X-Requested-With, X-HTTP-Method-Override Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS Location: /v1/api/transcriptionrequest/14967237

What’s important to realize is that you will only have a successful request submitted when the status code returned is a 201. If you get a 400-level error message, check which one. If it’s a 401 or a 403, then you are not sending the proper credentials. If it’s just a 400 error, then you need to look at how you’re sending your data to the API, because the API doesn’t recognize the payload.

Once you’ve gotten past that, you may be wondering, how do I access the transcription request now? There is no body to this whatsoever. This is one of those REST semantics at play. If you look in the return headers, there is a Location header which specifies exactly where you can access your transcriptionRequest. Simply submit a GET request to that URL and you’ll find the status of your transcriptionRequest. The response will look something similar to the following:

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HTTP/1.1 200 Success Server: nginx Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 06:14:43 GMT Content-Type: application/json Transfer-Encoding: chunked Connection: keep-alive X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.17-1~dotdeb.0 Vary: Accept Access-Control-Max-Age: 86400 Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization, X-Authorization, Origin, Accept, Content-Type, X-Requested-With, X-HTTP-Method-Override Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS { "id": 14967237, "callbackDestination": "https://private.host.callback.com/callback-url.php", "callbackMethod": "", "status": 0, "metadata": "Represents an unprocessed audio file. ", "datePosted": "2012-12-01T01:23:45-0600", "language": 99, "audiodata": null, "audiourl": null },

Completed Transcriptions

That is, until your transcription is complete. Once your transcription is complete, the resource URL will permanently move. As a result, you’ll see the status code for the previous URL change from 200 to 302, indicating that it’s been permanently moved. Fortunately, we point you in the direction of where you need to go again, through the Location header:

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HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Server: nginx Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 06:14:43 GMT Content-Type: application/json Transfer-Encoding: chunked Connection: keep-alive X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.17-1~dotdeb.0 Vary: Accept Access-Control-Max-Age: 86400 Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization, X-Authorization, Origin, Accept, Content-Type, X-Requested-With, X-HTTP-Method-Override Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS Location: /v1/api/transcription/14967237

When you submit a GET request to the Location URL listed above, your payload will look like the following:

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HTTP/1.1 200 Success Server: nginx Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 06:14:43 GMT Content-Type: application/json Transfer-Encoding: chunked Connection: keep-alive X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.17-1~dotdeb.0 Vary: Accept Access-Control-Max-Age: 86400 Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization, X-Authorization, Origin, Accept, Content-Type, X-Requested-With, X-HTTP-Method-Override Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS { "id": 14967243, "metadata": "Represents a processed audio file. ", "datePosted": "2012-12-01T01:23:45-0600", "dateCompleted": "2012-12-01T01:25:30-0600", "wordcount": null, "language": 99, "transcription": "This is a completed transcription request." }

Trunk Spotlight: Quicktate for Transcribing Your Audio Notes and Making Them Searchable in Evernote

| Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey in Friends and Partners

 

App: Quicktate Platform: Any Price: Monthly and Pay As You Go Plans available Type: Transcription

For those of you who use Evernote’s audio feature to record notes, you’ll find today’s Trunk Spotlight to be very exciting. Quicktate can actually turn lengthy voice notes into text that you can easily search for and access anywhere you have Evernote installed.

An introduction to Quicktate

Unlike some transcription services, Quicktate does not use voice recognition technology but rather, employs its own team of pre-screened professionals that transcribe voice recordings. Because your audio notes are transcribed by a real human being, the accuracy of the transcription is remarkably high, and the turnaround is surprisingly quick.
Quicktate transcribes both long and short voice notes. A 60 minute voice note recorded in Evernote can be transcribed in about 4-6 hours. This means that if you attended a meeting in the morning and recorded it using the audio feature in Evernote, you’d get the transcription before the end of the day. A 30 second voice note can be transcribed in minutes.

How it works

To start using Quicktate, first create an account. As part of setting up your account, you’ll be asked to authorize Quicktate to access your Evernote account. After you’ve linked your accounts, anytime you create an audio recording in Evernote, the recording will be sent to Quicktate for transcription, and the transcribed text will go straight back into the original note in your Evernote account.
You can record an audio note in every version of Evernote. But if you’re on the go, you can also call (888) 222-NOTE and dictate your recording to Quicktate. They’ll transcribe your recording and create a new note in your Evernote account containing the results).

Why would I want to transcribe long-form audio?
There are plenty of reasons why you’d want to record and then transcribe a long audio note. Here are a few ideas:

• To capture and search everything discussed at a business meeting. There’s no better way to know what each person said at a meeting than to record and transcribe the entire meeting.
• To capture speeches and lectures. Whether you’re attending a class, or a conference, you can record a speaker and forget about having to feverishly take notes.
• To write your book. Ok, you might not be an author, but if you are writing a book, blog post, or article, you might want to speak some (or all) parts of it to capture nuanced dialogue and emotion.
• To record an important event. Whether you need to capture the scene of a car accident, or a business deal, dictating the events happening around you might be the easiest way to capture them. Transcribing these notes might be the easiest way to find and remember them later.

Quicktate Creates Special Promotion for Jott Subscribers

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Apr 29, 2011) - With the pending shutdown of Nuance's "Jott" service, Quicktate has announced a special promotion for all Jott subscribers.

Starting today and continuing through June 30, any Jott subscriber that signs up with Quicktate will receive an instant $20 credit to their account.

According to CEO Lee Dorfman, "Quicktate has no monthly charges and all transcription is billed by the word. Regular transcription is billed at just 1 1/4 cents per word and customers may dictate both long and short files."

Quicktate offers three types of transcription: General, Legal, and (HIPAA compliant) Medical. Users dial (888) 222-NOTE to dictate a myriad of documents such as personal notes, reminders, emails, letters, inspection reports and patient notes. Finished transcripts may be retrieved by email or by logging in to the user's account. In addition, users may opt to have their transcripts automatically submitted to Evernote to enable key word searching.

Jott subscribers may take advantage of this offer by signing up at http://quicktate.com, and entering promo code JOTT.

About Quicktate

Quicktate provides high quality speech transcription, which easily integrates into existing services using a flexible API. Current applications include call auditing, transcribing voicemail messages, conference calls, iPhone and BlackBerry voice recordings, and medical and legal dictations.

Popular projects include TweetCall (http://tweetcall.com), a service which allows users to dial (877)Tweet-Call and speak their tweets which are then transcribed and automatically published to Twitter, and CallTroops (http://CallTroops.US) (800) Do-Call-Troops, a free service that delivers transcribed messages to US servicemen and women serving abroad.

Quicktate and its sister company iDictate (http://idictate.com) provide transcription service to customers on 5 continents.

Quicktate and iDictate are based in San Francisco, California.

We are very happy with the service, and highly recommend Idictate.com

For several years we have been working with the same provider to transcribe our depositions, case notes, interviews and field reports. In early 2010, we decided to evaluate our options. After discovering Idictate, we liked what we heard and decided to test their service.

After testing for a few months we polled our attorneys and field investigators, we found that the responses were all extremely positive and more. The turn-around time to get the files back was far more impressive than we had expected and were used to.

Although we normally opt for their "standard" delivery, their "rush" service returns files quite quickly. (Many of our files are rather large). In addition, the accuracy of the transcripts has been perfect.

Based on these internal comments, we made the decision to have Idictate transcribe all of our files across all of our offices.

Lastly, I have found their customer support to be extremely responsive to our needs and requests. And it probably wouldn't hurt to add that the change to Idictate is saving us a lot of money as well.

I could go on and on, but let me close by saying that we are very happy with the service, and highly recommend Idictate.

JM

I now use and recommend iDictate for all my transcription needs.

I recently completed a 30 hour Mobile marketing webinar series for a large marketing association. They had promised their members transcripts of every word I spoke during these live trainings. I assumed this association had a good transcription service at-hand and agreed to proof the transcripts when done. OMG! Upon receiving the files I found myself in proofing-hell; one of every 10 transcribed words was unrecognizable... for crying out loud, if anyone read this transcript, they'd think English was my second or third language; even my name was misspelled.

I quickly convinced this client to switch to iDictate. In short order this massive transcription project was delivered almost flawless... even my Uhms and Ahs were removed. I now use and recommend iDictate for all my transcription needs.

Dan Hollings
Internet & Mobile Marketing Strategist