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Gathering Information on Technology, Software and Processes that makes life Easier and Better. Extensive coverage and tutorials of MindManager from Mindjet and Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 from Nuance a great voice recognition software program.

Archive for April, 2008

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Fired Up to Get Out - Laughlin River Run 2008

28.04.2008 by admin Category Fire

This is not my normal type of article. This week I attended the Laughlin River Run in Laughlin, Nevada. While covering the events for an unrelated site and working with a consulting client, I happened to stumble into a large fire that erupted at the close of the 4+ day event. Below is the article drafted by Joe Klein and edited by myself.
Laughlin River Run Video on Revver

Laughlin River Run Fire on ireport.com (CNN)

Just as the Laughlin River Run was winding down yesterday afternoon, an unexpected brush fire quickly flared up directly across the Colorado River from Don Laughlin’s Riverside Resort.
At approximately 2:30 PM Sunday, smoke and flames were observed near the river adjacent to the Riverside’s Arizona parking lots and camping area. Within minutes several acres had been consumed.
Patrol boats quickly converged on the blaze, as Bullhead City Police Officers detained and handcuffed a male near the scene of the fire.
Within minutes, units from the Bullhead City Fire Department arrived, and began an intensive effort to contain the blaze.
Fire containment took fire units nearly an hour, which consumed several acres of brush, and threatened dozens of vehicles near the river.
Officers removed the detainee from the area, and an investigation into the cause of the fire is now underway.
In 2008 was the 26th annual Laughlin River Run event bringing bikers, vendors and rock groups together for a four day festival. In 2002 more than 100 bikers were involved in a riot and brawl with guns and knives on the casino floor in Harrah’s. Three people died in 2002 and more than 35 were charged.

After I get the video uploaded, I’ll get back to my normal articles for this site. Especially, as I prepare to cover some new uses of MindManager as it relates to web design and SEO marketing. Sorry for the break in normal articles, I’ll get back to the normal stuff and not delay you with off the wall tangents, news stories and stuff for things like acne treatment or things that do not relate to mindmanager or dragon naturally speaking.

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Verizon Can’t Hear Me Now-Phoneless in Nevada

26.04.2008 by BrettBum Category gadgets, podcasting


My Verizon Wireless Treo 700p has died and I am now phoneless in Nevada.
I’m in Laughlin, Nevada and VZ has no stores at any of the malls or places here, so I can’t get a replacement to see me home.
I do have Verizon Wireless insurance on the phone. This is the third phone in about 7 months from Verizon that has died.
This one started dying when it continuously started to try and switch from tower to tower and roaming to non-roaming even it had good signal on a Verizon Tower.

……
serenity now

So in the meantime, I’m trying to wing it by using my laptop as a cell phone. I have an air card and I have skype and I have some very large headphones with a microphone. So that’s my cell phone now. Its kind of like using a furnace filter for air cleaners as a sun glasses UV filter. Just not the same.
Mobile post sent by brettbum using Utterz.  Replies.

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Transcribing Sony IC -Dragon Naturally Speaking

21.04.2008 by BrettBum Category Dragon Naturally Speaking, Voice Recognition, gadgets, podcasting







Here’s my first attempt trying to transcribe a voice file recorded on a Sony IC voice recorder ICD-UX70 with Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Preferred.

DNS actually makes a mobile edition, but I just have the Preferred edition. So I’m trying to do this basically using non-standard equipment.

That said, I found this to be relatively easy. I need to make a few minor adjustments to my technique, but all in all it worked pretty good.

The level of accuracy at the beginning of the transcription (first couple sentences) was not as high as DNS normally is when recording straight through a microphone on the computer. But towards the end of the recording, it seemed to rapidly improve.

Plus, after the transcription session, I went through the entire document and made corrections within the Dragon system so that it could learn from the mistakes made with the Sony recorder. I’m going to repeat that a few more times to see if I can continue to get better results.
The audio that goes along with this post is the audio from the recording session.

Below you will find the transribed text (Post Correction):

This is a test for Dragon Naturally Speaking a digital recorder and I’m going to be importing the voice file into my computer after I connect my digital voice recorder to my computer through its USB slot. I then have to run import function with my computer and Dragon NaturallySpeaking pulling in the voice file into Dragon NaturallySpeaking in MP3 format. In the past I’ve tried pulling in MP3 files and converting them into wave files. This time I’m going to be trying to pull it in using an MP3 file and see if Dragon NaturallySpeaking can turn transcribe it better than it can as a WAV format. This Sony recorder comes with a user’s manual that recommends the MP3 format as opposed to the wave file.

So now I will see if this version works better. I’ve tried the WAV format once and it didn’t work so great however at the time I was using the recorder with the mic sensitivity set at an incorrect setting which brought in a great deal of exterior noise.

This time I had the microphone settings correct and I am hoping that the MP3 format as prescribed by Sony will help transcription more correctly.

The other thing that I have to work on is learning how to train Dragon naturally speaking for my voice recorder. I’ve never trained Dragon NaturallySpeaking for a voice recorder before, and so this will be a new experiment for me. Currently, I am driving down the street in my car making this recording. Driving a stick shift, and it makes a voice transcription little bit tricky.

Mobile post sent by brettbum using Utterz.  Replies.  mp3

Well that’s the end of this proof of concept. I now know that I can take a simple little pocket recorder, keep a voice record, write an email, or even a book, almost anywhere from a plane to an airport to an Outer Banks rentals cottage on the beach and even on my kayak.

This is just one more way to un-tether me from the wires of my computer when I need a little more space or flexibility. :)

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Testing New Sony Recorder

21.04.2008 by BrettBum Category podcasting


I’m testing out a new Sony voice recorder. The voice box is my first recording straight out of the box. The sound is in stereo recording mode.

This is a $99 recorder and I want to figure out if I can use it with Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred as opposed to the mobile version.
http://www.softduit.com/…ing_9.html

I purchased the Preferred version when I was first trying the software out and skipped the mobile version. I thought at the time that I didn’t want to spend the extra $50 when I didn’t know if the software would even work. Now, I know it works and want to find the best way to back my way into mobile transcription (without a laptop). I’ve done this before with my Treo 700 and 600 before that. But I wanted something that could also generate a good sound quality for podcast reasons.

I just did a fast test with this same voice file and I was able to have it transcribed, but I need to identify the best recording format to identify the highest transcription accuracy. (typically mono wav files as opposed to stereo)

I’ll have more information on that once I run some more tests!
Mobile post sent by brettbum using Utterz.  Replies.  mp3

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Mindjet (MindManager) Connect Beta - How to Get Invitation to Work

18.04.2008 by BrettBum Category MindManager, Mindjet, mindmapping

I just got my call back from the nice representative at Mindjet.  Apparently the email invitations and the account creation system that they trigger do not work with the Firefox browser.

So if you receive the email, you have to open the ‘Get Started’ Button

image

from the hyperlink behind the button.

To do that, right click on the button in your email, select copy, then open up Microsoft Word, hit paste.

Then select the button, right click and hit edit hyperlink.

Now you can select and copy the actual hyperlink and paste it into that browser that people used to use back in the 90’s called Internet Explorer.

;)

Just kidding, I understand Mindjet is a Microsoft partner and all and I (unlike many others) love Microsoft, I’m jut not to crazy about IE(x).

Mindjet (MindManager) Connect Beta First Unlook ;) | Maven Mapper’s Information

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