Saturday, March 29, 2008

A little help from my friends


This week I was talking to an author friend, Sarah McCarty, marveling at how she accomplished so much writing in what seems like so little time. Good friend that she is, she told me her secret. She uses the latest thing in voice recognition, enabling her to dictate instead of type. Obviously, talking is faster than typing.


So went to the Internet to research voice recognition. I was disappointed to learn that the program Sarah uses does not have a Windows Vista version. Luckily I read down to the next paragraph of that review and discovered Vista has voice recognition built in. The ability to chat with my computer had been mine for almost a year and I didn’t know it.


Wally World supplied a headset and yesterday my computer and I started getting acquainted. It’s a new skill, I still talk really slow but it’s faster than typeing. For me, the really cool thing about it is, the computer knows how to spell way better than I do. The program on Vista does not have punctuation suggestions, I have to put in my own, but who cares? I’m talking and the words appear on the screen, I love it.


I’m hoping to develop the skill Sarah has mastered and be able to dictate more easily than typing. It will certainly go faster which would increase production. Well, we’ll see what happens. I’m having a lot of fun learning.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

So this means you'll crank out...mmm...8 books a year? Cool!

:-)

Gail said...

Ha! Lets not confuse me with Sarah. I'll be happy for half what she does.

Anonymous said...

I couldn't resist teasing you.

Anonymous said...

I agree Joan. 8 books a year would definitely do it. LOL.

Zhan

Gail said...

I can hardly wait for Monday. Spring break is over and I can play with the voices in my head!!

Linda said...

ROFLMAO You've had the capability for a year. Oh, bless your heart Gail. Well, better late than never. Have fun.

Gail said...

Dah! I was mad this computer came with Vista. LOL It was a good deal, I snapped it up, but well, didn't investigate.