I’m working on my second day of blogging with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

And to give you an example I’m going to write this entire post without performing any edits or corrections.  Overall I’m very impressed with the software.  It is extremely fast and that was the primary reason why look for it or purchased that is.  It is also very accurate.

The company indicates that it should be about 99% accurate.  I haven’t tested the percentages yet, but I suspect it’s a little as the 99%.  That said it is probably better than my typing percentages which are historically around 97 to 98%.  I know my typing percentages because I worked for years in data entry while I was going to college originally and I know I’m not keep track of that and it’s just the something that stuck with me over the years.

All in all I really like the program because I can dictate or compose without having to look at the screen the entire time.  I can touch type just fine in type 7080 words a minute subtitle faster.  I find myself looking at the screen wide type.  That increases my level of weariness throughout the day as I stare at the screen too long and forget to look away and take breaks.  Using Dragon NaturallySpeaking I can compose without looking at the screen in fact as I’m composing this right now I’m working on a second computer with doing some housework.

I’m still in the early days of the learning curve based on the reviews I’ve read online.  From what I understand it typically takes about a week at least before a person gets used to composing my speaking.  Plus I’m still building up the training of Dragon NaturallySpeaking for my user profile.  The mistakes that you see in this blog article I would normally go back and correct so that the program could learn the individual words or combinations of words that made a mistake with.

However on day two I wanted to give you a sense of how accurate the composition was with voice recognition without any edits.  This would not be an apples to oranges comparison with touch typing and composing as if I’d made a mistake while I was typing I would edit and correct that as well but to give you a sense of the types of edits you have to do with voice recognition I’m leaving them in within this document.

All in all the additional speed deadeye a have benefited from what this program and the ability to rest more and multitask makes it well worth the money.  I do believe that as I build up my user profile with more training and as I become more accustomed to composing while speaking that’s this tool will become extremely useful for me.

The Big Negative

the headset and microphone that come with the product, and I have Dragon NaturallySpeaking preferred nine, works exceptionally well and is very high quality.  However it is not very comfortable.  Maybe I have a big head or something, but it tends to pinch a little too much and it doesn’t form to fit my head is what nicely as I would like it to do.  Now that I trust the software to do what it’s supposed to do I suspect I may invest the money in a more comfortable headset microphone combination.

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Note. Many of the mistakes or garbled sentences that you see above resulted in part from either a mistranslation or from my own stuttering speech as I was thinking of something new to say.  The software does allow me to edit my voice as well which I haven’t mentioned previously.  The edit my voice capability does work extremely well at literally do not need to use a mouse or keyboard most of the time when I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  As I said before I left in the errors so that you can see what it looks like on the very first pass of a draft document.  Tomorrow I do a day three review give you an example of what a document looks like post at it with voice commands no mouse or keyboard included.

Special note for WordPress users or Windows live writer I can’t seem to select the categories button so I’m going to hit the categories button with the mouse can use the other commands in the menu functions to actually publish this document up to my website which is a WordPress website but I use Windows live writer published.  So Dragon NaturallySpeaking preferred nine does allow you to dictate straight into Windows live writer in case anybody was happening happen to be curious about that.

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This is a test to see how Dragon naturally speaking works with word.

This is the first document that I am testing using Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred 9 from Nuance one of the funnier things that I noticed while going through the trial and demo is that when I try to say my own name, which is Bumeter, Dragon Naturally Speaking thought that I said ‘pubes are’, and then ‘be a major’ and then ‘viewed me turn.’

I have also noticed that the headphone that comes with the software works very well, but it is very uncomfortable on my head. It’s a little too tight for comfort and squeezes my skull pinching the skin just above my right ear.

In general the program seems to be fairly accurate even as I type this second paragraph. I now need to learn how to compose sentences using Dragon Naturally Speaking. I am very used to typing very quickly with my keyboard leading the thoughts flow out of my head into my fingers and now I have to push those same thoughts through my voice.

Plus I have to specify punctuation with my voice. My fingers know how to do this automatically. My voice is out of shape. However this should help me avoid repetitive stress injuries in the future as I can balance the amount of work I do with my fingers versus the amount of work that I do if my voice.

I’m especially impressed with the speed of the translation that Dragon Naturally Speaking provides. When I type, I’m not really a loss for words. When I speak and dictate I had to pause and think about my next sentence. I suspect this is something that I will learn to do over time.

I also find that I read this sentence that I just spoke after it types and Dragon Naturally speaking. So I say a sentence and then look back and read the sentence with my eyes. That doesn’t feel too natural right now however this is just the first document that I’ve done.

I’ve already typed 336 words. That doesn’t take much effort at all, and my hands doesn’t notice the work at all either. In fact I am literally sitting here twiddling my thumbs. I’m sitting about 4 feet away from my computer, and I have the zoom function on Microsoft Word cranked up to 150%. I have a wired microphone, the same microphone that is a pain in my head. So I can’t pace or walk around too much, but that’s okay.

I can just sit here and type all night long in the computer keeps up with me. “Now will you look at that it’s another hundred words.”

So now that I think I have a pretty good handle on this transcription process, I’m going to do two things. First, I’m going to write some blog articles. Second, when I get a little tired, I’m going to pull in some voice files that I have and see if I can transcribe the files with this program.

The function that gives me the most trouble is the function and Dragon Naturally speaking allows me to jump to the end of a document. The keywords for that command are “go to bottom.” I find myself repeating that command over and over and over and the cursor does not go to the bottom. I have no trouble going to the top but I can’t seem to race to the bottom to save my life.

So as I conclude this initial tester review of Dragon Naturally speaking, I thought I would try my name one more time.

My name is Brett be a better, my name is Brett view meter, my name is Brett view meter.

My name is Brett Bumeter.( I had to spell that with the voice editor this last time.)

Well, that’s okay most people can understand my last name either so I guess I can’t expect too much from a computer program.

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Here’s a useful site! Its called UrbanFonts and they have thousands of fonts that you can download for free to your computer whether its a Mac or a PC. They have a great selection available to choose from to Download Free Fonts, but the cool thing about their website is the simple solution they have employed to show people their fonts.

A user only needs to hover over their main menu section and a pop up image appears as they hover showing what the font looks like. I found this interface to be extremely easy to use and understand and helps you find exactly what you are looking for quickly.

(in the image above you can see the pop up image next to my hand cursor. The pop up reads OLD FASHIONED as I hover over the link to the Old Fashioned font selection.)

Plus, below this quick selection menu they also display in larger boxes many extra artistic styles and fonts that you do not find in too many other places. I found my self thinking that these fonts if captured as an image would make excellent Logos for websites, blogs and even some product labeling.

Its a great little website with a terrific selection and the interface is what makes it useful. Too often I’ve seen font sites, or discs or downloads, but if they are too difficult to navigate then they are worthless. This site is nice, clean and easy to move around and use it to full effect.

LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.

Technorati tags: Urban Fonts, Free fonts, download free fonts, a damn mess image

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Background

I was looking for a fast and simple tool to perform word counts on text that I write in Windows Live Writer. For no good reason Windows Live Writer does not have a word count capability, so I am forever copying text from Live Writer, opening Word, pasting, hitting tools, yada yada yada.

I need something that performs the count in Windows Live Writer.  I went to download.com and searched on Word Count and came up with ClipCount 2.0 (third in the search results).

Install

I downloaded the 30 day trial, installed it.  I paused at the suggestion that I close all programs before installing.  Ignored that as I looked at my 15 open programs with multiple windows on the web pages open too.

The install went just fine.

The program launched and I picked the evaluate button to try the trial.  This launched a help file and I thought I was in trouble, but I was wrong. 

How It Works

Its so simple its beautiful.  You highlight somewords, hit control+C, and a quick little pop up window displays

1.  your word count
2. characters with spaces
3. characters without spaces
4. Number of lines

And then it dissapears.  It was perfect.  I just hit a hot key and boom I have my answer, no jockeying between windows with words or running through a dozen menu options.

here is the word Count Screen view for this article:

Negative Side

The only negatives that I see with the product are as follows:

You can not right click and select copy with your mouse.  only control c launches the count on the text in the clipboard.

You have to pay money for this. 

Conclusion

I think I am going to get a lot of use out of this in the next thirty days.  It only costs $15, but I am pretty cheap, so we will see.  If it doesn’t get buggy on me, I will probably buy it!

It gets my endorsement out of the Box.  I’ll provide another review in 30 days.

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