[MV] Voice Recognition Issues

[Randy B. Singer]

On Feb 21, 2007, at 8:55 AM, Regina Sadono wrote:

> I have CTS in both hands and need to incorporate voice recognition  
> into my
> computer use.  Several years ago I bought iListen just to  
> experiment with
> voice recognition and I tried for days to train it, even starting over
> several times, and never reached anything even remotely approaching an
> acceptable accuracy rate.

"Starting over several times" is probably the surest path to ensuring  
that you will not reach a high level of accuracy. You have to keep  
training the program to achieve a steady improvement in the  
recognition rate.  Unfortunately this will require some tenacity.   
You can't give up after only a few days.

> Plus I heard that running Windows on my Mac would make
> me vulnerable to all the virulent computer viruses out there.   
> Since there
> are so many experienced people on this list, I would like to find  
> out if
> either of these things are really true.

It's true that running Windows on your Mac opens you up to being  
infected by just about all of the malware that exists for Windows,  
but it is fairly easy to avoid this problem.  There are two main  
vectors for infection under Windows: the Internet and sharing  
software with others.  So, if you refrain from using Windows to  
access the Internet (and this should be easy as OS X can do whatever  
you want to on the Internet) and if you don't share software, you  
should be fine.

There are some very nice, free, effective, anti-virus programs for  
Windows that you can install also.  Let me know if you need a  
recommendation.

Note that there are no known cases (at least that I know of ) of a  
Windows infection on your Windows partition damaging your data on  
your Mac partition.  So if worse comes to worse, you can wipe your  
Windows partition and start over.  This shouldn't be a big deal if  
you are only using Windows for a couple of mission critical  
applications.

> One more thing, while I'm at it.... I have been a writer for all of  
> my life
> and find that it's a very specific process that starts with creating
> words/sounds in the quiet of my mind and then these get recorded  
> through the
> activity of my hands either by writing or typing.  Writing is a very
> specific neurological process and I have not been able to access this
> process orally.  Speaking is a completely different neurological  
> process and
> puts me in a completely different place where I can't "compose." In  
> fact
> speaking seems to interrupt my writing process just like throwing  
> stones
> into a pond disturbs the water.  I'm sure others have gone through  
> this to
> rewire their writing mechanism for voice recognition and I would be  
> very
> interested if someone could write out the steps they went through  
> or point
> me to a place where someone has outlined these steps.

When I got my first office job, they worked by dictating into a  
Dictaphone.  I had never done this before.  Things that normally  
would have taken me very little time to write suddenly were taking as  
much as four times as long.  I really can't make any suggestions for  
how to deal with it.  You just have to keep at it and get used to it.

One big advantage of using VR on a computer over using a Dictaphone  
is that you can do a stream of thought thing and then use your  
computer to edit and copy and paste things around so that it makes  
sense.  Doing that is a lot easier than trying to dictate something  
in a mostly finished form for a secretary to transcribe.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (3rd, 4th, and 5th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________