Talking to Yourself: Your Voice is Your Assistant

After sharing dinner discussing about blogging yesterday with Jim Calloway, I attend his presentation with Laura Calloway on Voice Recognition.

As he first stated: for anyone who has tried speech recognition before the summer of 2006, you never tried VR! I have to agree that before that I had tried it but had reached unsatisfactory results. Since Dragon Naturally speaking 9 is put on the market, it is a new story! I use it everyday and could not work without it!

It seems Vista has an included VR software. My experience (and Laura's) with XP'S VR was bad: I had to dictate all words apart...

Overview quotes:
It is less tiring than typing.
Even the best typist can't type as fast as he speaks.
A VR software is like a new employee: take the time to teach it how you work.
Aptitude with thechnology is a plus (I would add that it is not required though).

Issues:
Laura started with 512Mb of RAM but was only using Word when dictating.
I think you need at least 1Gb (preferrably 2) of RAM, especially if you use many apps at once. I normally have Hummingbird DM, Outlook, Word, IE, Adobe, PC Client VOIP,etc. opened all at once.

If I may add the best tip you've ever received: backup your profile!! I once spent about 2 months teaching Dragon to perfection and, don't ask me how, I lost my profile with all my customized dictionnary... (It seems that this tip was given by Laura when I left the room for a conference call)

Unfortunately, I missed about 15 minutes of this excellent presentation to take a phone call.