Hot wired: Take a (digital) note, Miss

Olympus' WS-200S model.

Most readers will have visited a lawyer or doctor and seen them record voice notes into a dinky hand-held dictation machine. The digital-ising of dictation machines meant users could instantly group files into computer-type folders, date and time stamp them and allow digital editing. Inserting, appending or part-erasing was not previously possible, not to mention the vastly improved sound clarity and savings from leaving those frustrating little cassettes behind.

Digital also means non-mechanical, and professionals were expected to gladly sacrifice the sliding record switch in favour of push-button convenience. Not so. The doctors and lawyers moaned so much about the loss of the comforting click and slide action that Olympus has been forced to design a mechanical/digital interface version of the record slider to shut them up.

The DS-4000 sits at the top of the professional range of the latest Olympus digital voice recorders and has a slide switch for easy operation.

It comes with a 32Mb xD memory card (giving about five hours' recording time), rechargeable batteries, power adaptor docking cradle, software (PC or Mac) plus a carry case for $900.

Your office will need to invest in at least one $400 typist-transcription kit to make good use of it, but the convenience is enormous. The DS-4000 is customisable and flexible. Voice files can be downloaded and sent to typists via an internal network or directly emailed offsite. Dictation can be made directly to computer hard drives for distribution or you could even swap out the memory card to pass around.

There are small office-specific and digital conference-recording models, and further down the food chain, personal dictation machines.

The $260 Olympus WS-200S is one example, a clever little device that comes with 128MB of built-in flash memory, earphone and neck strap. Voice files are compressed into WMA format.

To download them you simply pull apart the unit from its battery compartment revealing the USB connection.

In LP mode it will record for up to 50 hours and while no file editing can be done on the recorder, you can do so within Windows or on your Mac. As a removable drive it can also store pictures, documents and graphics. What we need now is for voice-recognition software to deliver on its promise.