craigmcn

I’m writing this post using only the voice recognition software that I just installed. I’m using Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 11 and giving this a bit of a test drive. I’m hoping that by being able to just speak some of my thoughts that I might be able to write a little bit more and a little bit faster. I think this will take me a little bit of getting used to. I have to talk much more slowly and clearly than I’m accustomed to, and I have to think about punctuation at the same time.

It’s funny, I thought that by being able to speak and not have to type that it would be faster but now I find I have to have all of my thoughts ready to be spoken before actually “writing.”

But all in all there is very little that this has gotten wrong. I have had to capitalize a little bit and punctuate a little bit, but it got most of the words right. And I can even use commands like “select all” to select all the text. I could even select backwards two words and bold. That didn’t work out quite so well, but pretty close.

I will try to use this software for the next little while and do most of my writing just by voice. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Update (2011-12-11 11:25): Yes, the next day. I’m in the process of uninstalling and reinstalling the software. It came up with some kind of “process is locked” error that came with no help and no Google solutions worked. I’ll keep you posted.

Update (2011-12-13 19:23): A couple days later. I’ve reinstalled the software and tried it now three or four times after restarting the computer and everything seems to be fine. I’m going to stick with this voice recognition software that I’m in fact using to write this update.