Macs Live Here

Since the first Macintosh in 1984 until the present, the principals of American Dictation have used Macs in their business. While PC's may still dominate desktops across the USA, we have more and more professionals who call us for help in identifying digital solutions that are Macintosh compatible. (Pssst! We even run XP and Vista on our Macs, but don't tell anyone!)

State of the Software

For digital dictation authors, Olympus is the only brand that provides Mac compatible software with their recorders. Unfortunately, their Mac version is not a feature-rich as their PC version.

While the DSS Player for Mac compares very well with the Olympus DSS Player for PC, against the Olympus DSS Player Pro, the differences are more noticeable.

In the spirit of full disclosure, the following are the more noticeable features not found in the Mac version (Version 7) as compared to the DSS Player Pro Release 5 software:

• Instruction comments. You cannot playback instruction comments as part of a recorded DSS Pro file.
• E-mail/FTP Sending. There are no built-in tools for sending or receiving files by e-mail or FTP.
• Linked Documents. No linking of documents to voice files.
• DirectRec Configuration. While you can use a DirectRec as an input device, you cannot configure its buttons and settings.
• Device Configurations. For other devices, such as the DS-5000, the software offers limited configuration options.

There are others, but these are the most noticed.

That said, we still feel the DSS Player for Mac is a robust, quality application. In time, Olympus - and perhaps other vendors - will do more to accommodate the growing number of professionals using Apple Macintosh computers.

Device Listing

The following is a list of devices which are Mac-compatible, whether as a result of their included software, or simply as attached devices:

Handheld Voice Recorders

Olympus DS-5000

Olympus DS-3400

Olympus DS-2400

Desktop Recorders

Olympus DR-2000 EK

Olympus DR-1000 EK

Olympus DR-1000

Voice & Music Recorders

Olympus LS-10

Olympus DS-71

Olympus DS-61

Olympus DS-50

Olympus DS-40

Personal Recorders

Olympus WS-331M†

Olympus WS-321M†

Philips 880 Voice Tracer†

Philips 860 Voice Tracer†

Philips 660 Voice Tracer†

Transcription Kits

Olympus AS-5000

Olympus AS-2400

Speech Recognition

MacSpeech Dictate

PC on a Mac?

With the latest Intel-based Mac computers, you can run versions of Windows. We do it all the time so we can enjoy the benefits of the PC-based dictation solutions we sell, including Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

All Intel Macs running Leopard (Mac OSX 10.5) include Boot Camp, a tool for re-booting your Mac in Windows mode.

For more convenience, we use Parallels which allows us to run Vista, XP or any other flavor of Windows simultaneously with the Mac OSX. Of course running two or more operating systems can be taxing on your computer. Our advice? Get as much RAM as you can, and you can easily cruise between Mac and Windows.

Mac Resources

The following are some of our favorites on-line resources for the Macintosh. If you have others you feel should be included, please let us know.

• MacUpdate. Find new software and updates.
• Macintouch. Long-time favorite of Mac-heads for latest technical information.
• Apple Computer. Need we explain?
• Omnigroup. Makers of some very helpful programs we use.
• Parallels. Virtual machine software to allow you to use Windows software on a Mac.
• LassoSoft. Amazing programming language for Web-enabling databases and creating dynamic Web sites.
• Adobe. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash and more.

* Actual price may vary. Contact American Dictation for details, or visit our On-line Store.

† Requires the installation of software capable of playing .WMA files, such as Flip4Mac for QuickTime (available from www.mactopia.com).