| When you develop a website you must transfer | | | | of the translation. |
| a considerable amount of information from the | | | | |
| mental form to the written form. Wouldn't it | | | | On Windosws XP, when you click the Tools |
| be nice if you could speak to your computer, | | | | option on the VR Toolbar, Training is one of |
| and it would type your words into your word | | | | the options. When you click on Training, you |
| processor for you? | | | | will be given a list of 8 selections from |
| | | | which to read. These include Aesop's Fables, |
| Well, if you are using Windows XP, voice | | | | Bill Gates The Road Ahead, excerpts from The |
| recognition software (VR) is included in the | | | | War of the Worlds, The Wizard of Oz, The Fall |
| operating system. If you are not using XP, | | | | of the House of Usher, among others. The text |
| there are several software packages that will | | | | is displayed and as you read and the software |
| do the job. From the reviews, it appears that | | | | understands what you read, the background |
| Dragon Naturally Speaking is a front runner. | | | | behind the text read turns blue so you know |
| | | | where you are. Allow 10 minutes per training |
| The accuracy of the voice recognition | | | | session. |
| software is very dependent on the microphone | | | | |
| and the sound card so consider this before | | | | After reading several training sessions, go |
| you attempt to use voice recognition. An | | | | back and read the first one that you read and |
| earphone/boom microphone combo works well and | | | | see how much the accuracy of your |
| one of good quality can be purchased for | | | | transcription has improved. VR is not 100% |
| approximately $60 - $80 plus shipping. | | | | accurate and you will have to make your |
| | | | decision if it is faster to enter the data |
| When you first start, the system requires | | | | using voice and edit the document, or to |
| that you read from text that it displays so | | | | enter the data using the keyboard. |
| that you train the system to understand your | | | | |
| voice. This takes approximately 10 minutes. | | | | The good news is that if you are using |
| | | | Windows XP, the software is free and you can |
| To make the VR software perform to its best | | | | experiment with it for the price of a quality |
| efficiency, you must spend time training it | | | | microphone. |
| to understand your voice. The more time that | | | | |
| you spend doing this, the better the accuracy | | | | Copyright 2006 John Howe, Inc. |