Using voice dictation

[watervole]

This is an experiment to see whether I can use Dragon naturally speaking on Livejournal. It's still getting used to my voice at present, but it seems to be getting the basic idea. It's making a good guess at what I want to say, and it appears to get it correct most of the time. I'm using the auto punctuation feature which allows it to insert the commas and full stops for me. It appears to be a reasonably accurate at this, although I were writing a book I would do the punctuation myself.

Julia is now looking over my shoulder, and she is looking to see if the auto punctuation feature works correctly. I think it is. All these full stops and commas in this paragraph have been correctly inserted.

It appears to have got confused with the select feature although I'm not quite sure why. It appears to have missed the comma in the previous sentenceas there clearly should be a comma after the word feature.

This is going to take a little bit of getting used to. I am having to correct a few sentences manually, as I haven't yet got the hang of making corrections.

Over all, I believe it could be extremely useful. It's certainly easier than typing. Even when I have to make corrections. I need to consider how long I pause during speaking when I'm using the auto punctuation feature as it appears to want to start a new sentence, if I pause too long. However, it makes educated guesses regarding where, is ought to be, for instance it correctly placed one after, however, in the previous sentence. On the other hand, it failed to guess that I wanted a new sentence, beginning with 'for instance'.

This version of Dragon is significantly better than the version I had previously. It is much faster, it has a better vocabulary, and it seems a lot better at recognizing my voice. Not only that, but when it makes mistakes, it is much better at correcting them. Especially when I'm doing something reasonably conversational, such as chatting on LiveJournal, I suspect I will be able to use this without over-straining my voice.

Let me put it this way, if you have any kind of problems with typing, then I would seriously recommend looking at Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I've only been using this for half an hour, and I'm in love with it already. Wait and see what I can do when I've actually read all the instructions!

Comments

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Hooray!

(and as your fangirl I must ask whether better dictation software means we might eventually get the third story in your Sunshine series...?)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

it's hard to say at this point. Bear in mind that my voice frequently goes, so it may be difficult to me to dictate large blocks of text. However, it does improve the odds.

The most likely thing to get me writing the third novel is getting more feedback from readers. I don't think many people have actually read the novels.

[kerravonsen]

I wounder if you would find dasher useful. I stumbled across this site the other day. While it is mainly oriented towards (a) disabled people with limited motion and (b) users of palm-tops, perhaps it might still be useful in reducing the number of keystrokes you need to use.

But anyway, I'm glad that Dragon is working for you!

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen that programme mentioned before. However, given the speed that I can now work at with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I think this is massively the better option.

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

It's good to hear that the Dragon software is improving. I worked with a much older version (about fifteen years older) but thought it had potential at the time.

Just be careful with your voice - although I'm sure that speech and language therapists can fix it if you strain it (they could twelve years ago when I worked with one and she told be about the problem) you have a Redemption to sing to the in the near future... :)

[ia-robertson.livejournal.com]

It's worth noting that voice recognition is built in to MS Office 2003 - if you are using that version, it may be more effective than the Dragon software - although it still needs "training" to your voice - and is integrated with most MS stuff...

Alastair