I have been working on a computer for over 10 years now. And at times I have used the computer for many different functions, from chatting online and sharing pictures and communicating with friends and family to actually working online and running my own business I have done almost everything you can do with the PC.
Today I spend 6 to 8 hours of everyday using the computer and Internet in some capacity. I have become an online writer or blogger, as we are commonly referred to these days and I write or should I say type for a living now. I have five primary sites that I write for on a weekly basis and at least 10 others that I write for on occasion. All of these web sites are my own so I have the flexibility to writing my own pace but this can be a hindrance as I often find it difficult to maintain a proper writing schedule.
I have typed so many words over the last five years that I am beginning to develop carpal tunnel syndrome in both my left and right hands. After two or 3 hours of typing each day I develop a tingling sensation in my wrists that has me worried. My ability to write is the key to my job function and if something were to happen to my hands I and my family would be in great trouble. I decided just yesterday that I would look for software solution to my problem. I’m happy to report that I have found the perfect solution in Microsoft Windows Vista and the built in speech recognition software.
After less than 1 hour of setup and customization I have been able to control almost every function on my computer using voice commands and no typing at all. Using just voice commands I can now check my E mail, surf the web and create new documents without ever moving my hands. With some more training and practice using the many built in commands available I should be able to increase the productivity and the amount of work I do. As an example I created this blog post from an empty desktop to Internet Explorer and this website in under 10 minutes and I’m still in the training process.
The hardest part seems to be in creating hyperlinks and using some of the navigation functions in WordPress. I dont it will take me very long at all to train myself to use this tool just as fast or even faster as I would a keyboard. I’m very excited about the possibilities that speech recognition software offer to me and my business. With a little more training I should be able to take care of my daily workload in at least half the time I did in the past. The only other difficulty I seem to have is controlling the background noise in my house which seems to affect my writing. This certainly works better in a quiet environment but I have had the television on and my wife and kids walking in another room all day and very rarely does it make a mistake translating the text I speak.
I’m actually very impressed with the accuracy and speed with which the software translates my speech to text. I’m also surprised at the wide and diverse vocabulary that the software application contains. I was surprised to find carpal tunnel syndrome and dyslexia as integrated terms. My first experience with speech recognition software was at least three years ago when I use a product called dragon naturally speaking which seems so much more difficult to configure and was unable to pick up all of my words. This software recognizes new terms such as webmaster and blogger without me having to spell and introduce new terms. So far the only word that I have had to add was the proper spelling for WordPress. I must admit that I have been taking it easy in the training process in making sure that the Software Works well by speaking clearly pronouncing each word properly. This new software could actually help a person speak better by forcing proper pronunciation and grammar.
You may notice some grammatical errors in this blog post because I’ve chosen not to go back and correct them but instead to allow you to see just how powerful this speech recognition software is. The text written in this blog post comes from me simply sitting here in speaking into the microphone. I have not used the mouse or keyboard to format any of this text or to insert the hyperlink above his. Everything you see here was done by voice command and if things continue to go smoothly as they have been there is no doubt off future blog posts will be from speech recognition software.
Any other blogger out there using speech recognition software to handle the writing tasks? If
Tags: Affordable Web, blogger, Speech recognition software
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