Friday 22 June 2012

Dragon Naturally Speaking: Your Computer's Command and Control

By Allan Honrath


Dragon Naturally Speaking is the top-selling voice recognition software package today, and for good reason. With the great functionality that this software provides, it opens up new possibilities for what can be accomplished. It is like a command and control center for your computer. Now not only can your voice be transcribed to printed words, say in Microsoft Word, but it also can perform these other functions:

-Email: Using only your voice, you can tell the software to open your email, put in your addressee, say what you want written in the text body, add an attachment, and then simply send it off.

-Facebook and Twitter: Now there are new commands you can use to post to your favorite social media easier and faster.

-Manage schedules: Whether at work or at home, you can keep current with all your tasks and activities.

-Whatever the assignment, now its easier to complete your assignments and get them in on time.

-Your writing: For many of us, there is always something new we need to be writing, whether it be responding to an email, writing a report on a new product or service, updating articles on your blog, or some copy for a piece you're doing for an ezine. What you can accomplish with this program, using your voice, is only limited by your imagination. Regardless of what profession you are in, Dragon Naturally Speaking can help you translate your thoughts into whatever written form you choose.

-Control of your computer: With Dragon Naturally Speaking's newest features, you can now use your voice to handle most functions you previously did with the mouse and typing in commands. Open up your normal applications by voice command, open and close files, and even get on the net and search for the product or service you want, all just by speaking the command.

By using only voice commands, you can look up maps, search specific websites, or even look up online schedules. And with the use of new Custom Commands, regular phrases you use frequently can be inserted into any document, which speeds up your work flow. With the use of your voice only, you can issue commands to your computer for getting many of the tasks you previously could only do by typing, which is a much slower process.

With the continual improvements they make in the software, it now becomes ever more useful too for those with physical disabilities, whether someone who has carpal tunnel syndrome, is blind, or is missing a limb, say a returning soldier from a combat situation. The voice command functions of this software allows practically anyone to increase their productivity.

Will it improve your productivity?

Most of us, even if we took typing classes before we'd heard of such things as computers, never became speed typists. For those of us who continue to type out our work, if we type out 25 words per minute (wpm) with accuracy we are doing pretty good. The general rule is an average typist can type out 40 wpm. Obviously I don't fit that category! Thankfully with Dragon's software, it can process about 120 wpm, so for just about everybody, your output with this software will significantly improve your productivity.

Is this program perfect?

It is very good, yet there are still some things you need to be aware of in using this software.

Though the headset that comes with the Dragon software is sufficient, if you have just a basic sound card on your computer, you may find that the normal 99% accuracy may not be as likely as if you had a higher quality sound card. With some basic sound cards, the lower quality often picks up more external noise and so the accuracy of what you speak isn't picked up as cleanly by the software. Most times this issue can be remedied by purchasing a slightly better microphone headset combination such as the Andrea Electronics (NC-181VM) USB Headset , which you can find on the Amazon website.

Another issue is computing power and memory. For Dragon version 11, it is recommended that you have 2 GBRAM if you're running Windows XP and Windows Vista, and 4 GB for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2003/2008 64-bit. The recommended CPU is an Intel Pentium (dual 1.8 GHz core processor) or the AMD equivalent. (IMPORTANT: the SSE2 instruction set required).

All things considered, with the improvements made right out of the box, and with the extra training you do with the software to your voice, you will find big improvements in your productivity, allowing you more time to do the things you want. Doesn't get any better than that! Plus, you always have the 30-day money back guarantee for that extra measure of peace of mind. Enjoy!




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