I Spent the Day Talking to my Computer

2000

May 16, 2000
Today, I spent the day talking to my computer.
Really.
I did!
Reading to it actually.
You see, I have a problem.
When I type on the NT - I get sore arms.
Notice that in 15 years on the Mac - I have had no problem. One year on the NT and I am a basket case.
As a content developer, I draw pictures (circuits, waveforms, flowcharts).
So the Ergo police have seen to it that I have Dragon software - Naturally Speaking.
You load it, plug in the earphones and dictate.
Well, not that simple. Not by half.
First, you have to get it to know you are plugged in.
It took three calls to support and one to Dragon.
Seems the "new" laptop I have is compatible - but the duo-doc is not. And the plugs on the duo-dock were where they first plugged me in.
OK. Now it knows that I am alive.
Next, you have to teach the system.
Because it "guesses" at what you are saying.
So, when it does something wrong, you must correct it. So it will learn.
"Correct ....whatever" "this way"
Or "Strike That".
And "Comma" and "Cap" and "Period".
And a lot of patience.
It learns - very slowly. But it does learn.
I have a New England accent - idea, drawer, I say the "r".
It confused the heck out of the software.
I have to stop and "train the word".
Type it and record it for the system so it can add to it's list.
So the more I talk to it, the faster it will tailor itself to me.
Big mistake to do a playback.
I sound like Minney Mouse.
The initial training required about 16 paragraphs of reading out load.
So there I was, mike at my lips, earpiece squishing my hair, reading 16 paragraphs from 2001 - the original text.
While engineers and the like strolled by my office, going about serious business, I am talking to my computer.
Not just talking, reading to it from a science fiction novel!
It must have looked like I had lost my mind.
But as I watched the little slider change from yellow to green and the words shade out as the system recognized them, I just kept reading. Progress.
And I watched the counter say "7 of 16", "9 of 16", "13 of 16", etc. with great joy. The end was near.
And prayed no one really stopped to ask what on Earth I was doing.
After that, I had to give it a file to read - but I only had HTML files, so I had to click over the "illegal words" (the HTML commands) - over and over and over.
That done, (I have fast fingers), I proceeded to make up sentences. And to read others that they had in the Quickstart guide.
When in doubt, go to the manual.
They also have a cheat sheet - a plastic card (about paper size) that summarizes the commands.
So I could learn to do the corrections.
"Strike That" will erase.
"Correct That" builds vocabulary.
I will add some of my stories soon. That should be fun.
At least this time, the computer can read them in directly.
I just have to make sure it reads them in correctly.
Practice, practice, practice.