Unleashing my Dragon (Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred 5.0)

Member Name: Suedeapple

Product:	Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred 5.0
Date:	23/01/02 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: works, faster than most voice recognition programmes to get off the ground, it discerns against background noise

Disadvantages: extra ram required

I havebeen using computers for many years, in work and at play. I worked hard and played hard. Eventually it all became too much for me and my body said no. Except I didnt realise that was what it was saying.
I just thought I was a good hard worker. Then one morning my hands wouldnt work.

They still (1.5 years later ) dont work properly, but I can now at least communicate with people on my computer again, and given the opportunity, I am sure I could work again.

I was lucky, I had an online friend who managed an electrical retailer store. He offered to send me a voice recognition software programme of my own choosing. Before this I had looked around but found them either to be very cheap, and not with very good reviews, or very expensive and I never wished to waste any of my slowly disappearing finances.

So on to the point, I asked for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Voice preferred 5, and I got it within 4 days!! And thats when my life changed. It works really fast, it learns from things you have already typed before in the past. ne word of warning though, its well recommended to make sure these documents are spellchecked and grammer checked, because the programme does learn what you say, how you say it, and it picked up on all my draft errors, and faithfully completes them even today. This is my own fault, I was just too damm lazy to edit them out of my dictionary.

Some things I would recommend though:-

Check your computers sound card is capable of utilising such equipment, may be a good idea to visit their home site.
Make sure you have plenty of ram available, I have 128, and I need more, much more.
Even though you can effectively install it do a 10 minute set up of your voice the more you use it the better it will become, and therefore the greater benefit to you the user.
Never ever save your speach files when you have a bad cold or something equally changing to your voice, make up another user instead for suc
h times, it will benefit you greatly.

Its given me back a part of my life I thought I had lost. I just love to talk to people and this bit of software works with any programe that runs in windows, and even ones that dont, there seems to be ways round most things.

The headset microphone you get with it has one ear piece and a basic microphone, which suits me, you may however find it worthwhile upgrading to a higher grade microphone, especially if you experience some low voice levels

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