Wednesday, 25 July 2012

The Girl with the Dragon Software


For school assignments and essays, I use a speech to text program called Dragon Naturally Speaking.  Normally, it works quite well, and when I know what I'm going to say I can fit 500 words in under an hour.  The only time it doesn't work, is when I am sick or under stress.  This is because it changes the consistency of your vocal cords.  Sometimes, I make three or more different voice files to deal with the consistency changes.  Another issue unique to summer, is the extra noise created by air conditioners and fans.  I find it unbelievably inconvenient, because on a sweltering hot day, if I wish to write I have to turn my air conditioner off.  I experienced a problem the other day, where matter what I did, the microphone would not pick up my sound.  It was quite annoying as I was trying to finish an assignment that was merely 500 words.  Instead of taking me under an hour, it took me three hours to finish, as I only manually type 6 words per minute.  I won't attribute all the problems I face with Dragon to the program alone; sometimes it is my fault because I run over the headphone cords when I go to take a break from work.  I've lost so many pairs of headphones that way that I probably can't even count on one hand.  Other times I struggle because I'm laughing hysterically at something the computer thought I said.  For example, I can say something like: "I need to go to the washroom", and it will register that I said something like: "I had tea with George Washington".  Despite its flaws, Dragon is my a lifesaver, and I would actually recommend it to anyone that was looking to save some time in the essay writing department.


Karli


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