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Health & Fitness

Free Speech ... Speech Recognition Software, That Is

Read this before you invest in a speech-recognition program like Dragon. The solution you seek may be closer than you think.

Word processing was invented for me. I remember back in the early 1980s, taking my first word processing class. It was a two-and-a-half day course that included instruction in every function available on the Wang Word Processing System. 

Think about that for a moment. 

Can you imagine going to a class that covers every single function of Microsoft Word? Yes, Wang word processing was a primitive program. But back then, it was state of the art. Remember, this was in the years before mice, and WYSIWYG. The only thing staring back from the monitor at that time was a black screen with green characters. 

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Despite its shortcomings and limitations, I loved it. Word processing was a gift from the gods. No more wasted hours spent at the IBM Selectric typewriter, typing, whiting out, erasing, and re-typing innumerable typos on innumerable documents, often with multiple carbon copies.

Corrections could be made before ink met paper. And if you caught a typo after printing, you simply corrected it on the screen, and printed it out again, perfect.

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It was a modern marvel. I was so enamored with this new tool that I even purchased a Wang word processor for my home. And that was all it did. The only function it performed was word processing.

As personal computers replaced the word processors of the day, the Wang system was made obsolete by the more powerful Word Perfect. And after that, Microsoft Word. The more functions I learned, the more I wanted to learn. I became obsessed with all the possible applications for word processing – greeting cards, invitations, brochures. 

I started creating a holiday newsletter each year to send along with Christmas cards, that included festive clip art, and photographs of family vacations and events, complete with captions. I even volunteered to produce newsletters for the Forest Home Farms volunteers, The San Ramon Historic Foundation, and a writers group I joined, because I so enjoyed assembling the articles, photos and graphics. Word processing had become my playground. 

When I retired, I started writing for pleasure. I wrote short fiction, and began working on stories about my childhood to pass down to future generations. I also had the opportunity to write a recurring column for the Danville Times, a local news magazine, before I started contributing to Patch.com.

But nearly 40 years of keyboarding had taken its toll on the tendons in my lower arms, and in 2010, I began suffering from painful repetitive stress disorder. My doctor prescribed ibuprofen and ice packs. These provided some relief, but I still suffered with intermittent pain. The only real remedy was to stay away from the keyboard.

I resigned from my volunteer newspaper editing positions, and contemplated giving up writing all together. But I couldn't imagine my life without it. And even if I did, I still needed keyboarding to do research, use e-mail, and access my latest pastime, Facebook. I couldn't imagine my life devoid of all keyboarding. Can you?

I started surfing the net for a voice recognition program. This was before Dragon started running ads for its software. I came upon an article about speech recognition software available in Windows. But what was most remarkable was that this application was bundled with Windows, not an additional purchase.

I located the application in the Control Panel, plugged in my headset microphone and started the tutorial. As the program walked me through the various functions and capabilities of this incredible program, I became increasingly amazed. I couldn't believe how powerful it was.  And it was all free.

Now, as long as I can speak, I can write.

Of course, this latest modern marvel is not perfect. It doesn't always understand me accurately, sometimes to my amusement, more often to my dismay. And I still have to do a little keyboarding from time to time. It doesn't play nice with my e-mail provider. But once I get to the message field, it becomes more cooperative.

And even though the article shows a desktop microphone, I recommend using a headset. I didn't have good luck with the desktop model I tried.

I'm having fun testing the limits of this new playground. I wrote this entire story using my new gift from the gods. And despite its shortcomings, I can say with confidence that speech recognition software was invented for me.

So before you spend money on Dragon, or a similar program, look first in your own back yard, uh, I mean, Control Panel.

The solution you seek might be right at your fingertips.

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