Earlier today, I was testing out some video creation concepts for developing Dragon Naturally Speaking Tutorials and Demos.

I created a video and uploaded it to several video serving sites and was most impressed with the video quality of HowCast.com a video sharing service that specializes in How to videos.

For a couple years now I have been using the free service at Revver, and contemplating paying for bandwidth on Screencast.com, but today when I saw the quality of the video at Howcast, I was definitely impressed and may switch from Revver to Howcast when I’m working on free hosting.

HowCast Version

Revver Version

This video is a little unfocused, as I had some difficulty getting my basic camera to focus well on both myself and the flat panel screen in less than ideal lighting conditions that would at least keep a teen on Differin happy.

TEXT FROM THE VIDEO - - I can type relatively quickly compared to many People. But I can speak much much faster than I can type.
I can type just as fast as I can speak when I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I do have to insert punctuation at times, and that doesn’t make for good conversation, but it does make for exceptionally fast typing on my computer.

Currently I’m using the old version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 9 preferred. But today it’s August 7, 2008 and nuance the makers of Dragon NaturallySpeaking have released Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 10 preferred. The new version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking will not only enable me to type faster than I could type in Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 9, which you are witnessing as I created this video, but it will also display the words faster on the screen so by financial he began to compose my writing while a speak and so just transcribing the words that I have spoken. This will give me immediate feedback as to what I just said in enable me to prepare to compose speak and write my next words.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the new version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking so I can begin to compose with my voice as opposed to transcribing with my voice.

Regardless of which version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking I’m using, I can type exceptionally fast. I’ve even clocked myself typing at speeds up to 150 words a minute using Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 9 and that was a huge timesaver I can’t wait to see what I can do with version 10.

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Here to for, I’ve generally built videos and tutorials with the unorganized approach of recording some video while I do something and then going back and editing it into something useful.

Today, I was working on a viral video for a client and actually built a story board of the video before I put it together attempting to plan out how I would present the video.

This actually worked pretty well for me, even though the story board turned out to be very rough.

Here’s a quick video showing the MindManager map I used for this situation.

Plus, here is the resulting viral video that I created from the story board draft.

Note. there’s a technical sound glitch in the final product that is the result of a problem with Camtasia’s ability to render 2 tracks of sound and a slow motion video clip at the same time.  I’m hoping to resolve this by reworking the clips in Pinacle.  If that succeeds I’ll add a third movie with the corrected result. For now, there are a couple sections where the volume level is a little buggy.

So now, I have to crack open this new software, get it installed and start learning some advanced techniques.  Coming soon, I will have my office on the fishing dock converted into a green room studio, you won’t even be able to see the patio furniture when I’m done, but I’m not sure what I’ll do when the occasional duck flies through my office.

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Journey to Create Video Tutorial for Internet Research with MindManager Pro 7

I do not work in the worlds of Macro writing or testing or even in the world of browser plugins and add on’s, but I would really like to see someone that is versed in this area tackle this issue with a tool that makes it easier to gather information from the web and map it out faster in a mindmap (MindManager being my preference, but if someone else figures it out with a different tool, I will definitely use it even if I have to run the thing from the command prompt.)

I often times have to do a deep dive investigating a topic of information with web research.  Once I have a large number of links for further review, I like to start pushing them into a MindMap.  MindManager has a useful tool for doing this one page at a time from Internet Explorer.  However, MindManager falls short in the following areas:

• Doesn’t work with Firefox, Opera, or Safari
• Doesn’t have the ability to send multiple tabs, bookmarks or favorites into a Mindmap all at once.
• No longer has the ability to send highlighted text on a web page into the mindmap with the topic name and link
• I’d like to see the highlighted text of a web page either become a sub topic or at a minimum get pushed into the notes section of MindManager.

Plus, Internet Explorer is just plain tedious for doing this work as compared to other browsers. 

That said if you have to use Internet Explorer then you have to so I put together this video tutorial to show you how to use it.  Its a manual process but can get the job done.

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You can use almost any voice recorder that is capable of recording a wave file to transcribe your words into text using Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Preferred or a higher version.  Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Mobile actually comes with a voice recorder with the software and will yield some of the best results in regards to accuracy.

I am using my Treo which has a voice recorder program (MVoice - cost $15 - download - $25 for newer Treos).  I record short notes, comments and emails into my Treo and then have the Transcribe tool in Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Preferred convert my voice to text.

Accuracy of DNS9 Preferred is typically about 98-99% (advertised 99%).  Using a tested mobile recorder, Dragon says you will see about 95-96% accuracy.  I’d guess that I see somewhere between 93-95% accuracy using a cheap recorder and my treo.

I don’t have a noise cancellation microphone on my treo and that is one of the largest reasons for the reduction in quality I suspect.

Here’s the video I put together to show you the process.

Here’s the final note that I transcribed and then edited.

That I am going to play through Dragon Naturally Speaking software which will transcribe my words into text.  I’m going to use punctuation like I just did on occasion so the program will know to insert that punctuation.

I’m speaking into my Palm Treo 600 it will record the information on any SD memory card which I will then put into my computer and pull that wave file that’s generated from program onto my computer where it will be transcribed.  Then I will show you the transcription process.

Technical Specifications

I’m running a laptop with 1 gb of memory.  (I will probably upgrade my memory to 2-3GB soon maybe through Dell Memory, mostly due to the videos that I create and to the leaky memory issues with Firefox.  I’m hopeful that this might also improve my performance with DNS9.  My Treo is a 1960’s finned cadillac of treos with the model number of 600.  The damned thing won’t stop working and T-mobile doesn’t carry any upgrade Treos yet.  My computer is running Windows XP with a Centrino Duo processor.

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Recently I have been experimenting at building video tutorials.  I have worked to build these for MindManager and Dragon Naturally Speaking and several other tools.

There seems to be a large market for this type of service for professionals looking for quick solutions, but there is an even bigger market for it for schools hosting distance learning degree programs.  Capella University recently put out a release about one of their professors books that highlights the need for positive feedback in learning environments.

That is a key element but the first element of that is feedback.  A student or person seeking knowledge can get a great deal of information from text but they can get even more from audio and far far more from video tutorials.  The more points of stimulation a person can receive the more they are likely to absorb, understand and retain that information.

Ideally, the information they absorb, retain and understand will be able to be synthesized into their ability to use that knowledge and information to increase their productivity.  This puts a premium on the ability to put out video tutorial or teach by example services online.

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