[MV] Several questions on ViaVoice for OS X

[David Hertzberg]

I've been a member of this list for about 5 years, but have never 
posted until now.  The reason is that I personally don't use voice 
recognition (my carpal tunnels seem to be fine--knock on wood); my 
now-ex-wife _does_.  Obviously we live apart, but I'm still her 
computer support person.  However, because she started intensive 
graduate study as soon as we separated, rule #1 is that I'm not 
allowed to change _anything_ on her Mac--except to fix a critical 
problem--while school is in session.  This means that I only hear 
about her less-than-critical problems a couple of times a year.

She took me to dinner for my birthday tonight and, as the result of a 
discussion about what present she wants for _her_ upcoming birthday, 
I found out she has several speech recognition problems.  I couldn't 
answer them definitively, so here they are:

(1) Can I get her a present of a new microphone to replace the Andrea 
USB 7100 headset that came with her copy of ViaVoice for Mac OS X? 
Obviously I can (and price is unlikely to be an issue, based on a 
glance at www.emicrophones.com), but she has some particular 
requirements that I'd like your suggestions on.  To begin with, she 
wants a headset (single-ear, I think) rather than a boom mike.  Next, 
it has to work with ViaVoice now on her Aluminum PowerBook G4, but it 
also needs to be compatible with iListen in case she decides to 
switch this summer or later.  Finally, automatic noise cancellation 
would be nice but doesn't seem to be an absolute necessity, since she 
dictates at home in a very quiet (except when her 20-year-old 
dishwasher is running) apartment.

(2) Can I do something to prevent her new headset going the way of 
her old headset, which she thinks is deteriorating because it has 
been "knocked off its hook a few thousand times too many".  The hook 
was designed to fit into the pegboard side of her faithful Sony 
Trinitron CRT (she wanted a 15-inch one, so I got her the last model 
made in that size; the hook came with it), but it really isn't 
protective enough.  We're both in our mid-sixties, and she has some 
vision problems, so we don't think there's a flat-panel monitor made 
yet that would be good enough at 640 X 480.  I think a boom mike 
would be the answer, but she doesn't.  Other suggestions would be 
welcome.

(3) When she dictates directly into MS Word X under OS X 10.3.8, is 
there some way to stop Via Voice from going into "read mode" when she 
includes the _word_ "read" in her dictation?  I have just downloaded 
the (ever so helpful) User's Guide, and it seems that Activating the 
Attention Word might do the trick for her.  Are there drawbacks to 
this?  Is the Attention Word _really_ not required for dictating 
punctuation?  If Activating the Attention Word isn't what she wants, 
will her saying "Stop Reading" at least get her out of the "read 
mode" in Word X?

() Has it been determined whether ViaVoice works with OS X 10.4.4 or later?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

David Hertzberg