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I began writing children’s and adult’s novels and freelance articles for online magazines in early 2006. Shortly thereafter, I found that I had developed Post Polio Syndrome, a slow recurrence of the dying nerves and muscle-weakness from polio as a child. When I was first introduced to Dragon, three years ago, I used it in conjunction with manual typing. Since then, I have begun editing other authors’ novels and papers, and teaching classes in creative writing, all of which entail...
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I just retired from teaching high school for 39 years. I am also quadriplegic and have used Dragon Naturally Speaking for several years – mostly for personal correspondence and the preparation of lesson plans. I never needed to rely solely on the dictation features and voice commands for mouse movement because I have one hand that I used on the trackball. Recently I have been recovering from surgery and have been confined to bed for almost 8 months! During this time of lying flat, I needed...
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My love affair with My Dragon, began many, many, many years ago. The first program was called Kurzweil Voice, it took a lot of training, but it was really fun being able to finally, tell your computer what to do. The next versions of My Dragon, got better and better, more commands, better recognition, not as much training. I'm a lousy typist, 60wpm was the fastest I was ever able to do in high school typing class, my normal speeds under 30... So when My Dragon got to be about number 7 it went...
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In one of the school districts where I worked, I worked in small groups with individuals who needed to pass the speaking portion of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). This can be a very difficult test for non-native English speakers because it not only requires them to speak English in response to six different prompts, but also is timed and rated. We met in small groups so that I could provide individualized attention. They needed to practice with a native English speaker who could...
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I use Dictate on my iPhone and on my iPad. What is most impressive, is that Dictate lives up to the promise of technology. Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. However, very often people get the latest software and wonder how they will use it. Dictate has been very powerful for me, because it does what I have wanted voice to text software to do, that is, free up the flow of ideas without the filter of writing or typing. I think most Dictate users go through four phases. Phase 1 - Does...
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A Doorway to Making a Difference A vast part of the early years of my life were extremely challenging. My family life as a child was dysfunctional, destructive and difficult. As I began to grow up, much of the way I conducted myself simply made matters worse. The effect that drugs, alcohol, abuse and anger had on my life was tremendous. When life seemed to get to its most critical point, I got help. As I began to turn my life around, the longing to help others do so grew stronger and stronger. As...
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There is a familiarity about them that is unmistakable. Each is unique as the person who wrote them. Family letters crowd my desk waiting their turn to be read. These aren’t recent letters but have postmarks dating back 10, 20, even 60 years ago or longer. All of them have been retrieved from stored boxes and various nooks and crannies in my house as well the houses of my relatives. In the rush of life, the letters were read, set aside, then forgotten as new letters took their place. As family...
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I am a classically trained pianist and an attorney. In 1999, I developed tendinitis in both arms after returning to playing the piano after a gap of many months. This affected my ability to use the computer. At the time, I was a captain in the Air Force and worked in the legal office. I spent many hours on the computer writing memos, e-mails etc. It was impossible to do my job without using the computer. My tendinitis deteriorated to the point that I was reporting to work with my arms bandaged in...
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First, I would like to recognize and thank Ms Jeanie Moran, of the Joy A. Shabazz, Independent Living Center in Greensboro North Carolina. She is a Disability Advocate, who focuses on nursing home transition and is the individual responsible for me being introduced to Dragon Naturally Speaking. I was recovering from a horrific car accident severing my C –5&6 vertebrae and brainstem stroke, which left me with substantial paralysis on my right side, confined to a wheelchair and needing extensive...
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my feance got this for me 2 years ago, i love it. i use it for letters, letters to my lawyer, personal letters to loved ones. my spelling isn't always that good but dragon has helped me lots with that. i find that ,i find that the more i use it ,i up grade it buy teaching it how my reading has changed. every now and then i will have to teach it a word or two, but it always com through for me. thank you and my women for such a wonder full program. sincerely. Mr Lealand Lawrence.
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A year ago I announced to the Shareholders and Upper Management of our Orthopedic Practice that I would be implementing Dragon Medical Voice Recognition Software into our clinics. The current rise in Electronic Health Records was forcing us to take that first BIG step towards the electronic medical records. To say the least, our Physicians were less than enthused and in some cases refused to use the computer all together. Instead, they wanted the out dated form of transcription, Dictaphones. My how...
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Dragon NaturallySpeaking gave me a new life. One December 28, 1996, high blood pressure caused a vessel in in my brainstem to leak, leaving me with several disabilities, among them Cerebellum Ataxia. This condition causes the left side of my body to be clumsy. I no longer have the ability to write with my left hand. When I type, weak hand eye coordination causes my text to be full of typographical errors. In 2004, I purchased a version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking and began to write a journal about...
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Dragon has totally changed my life and I can't imagine where I would be today without it. As a young girl with muscular dystrophy, I always wanted to use the typewriter, like my mom did. I didn't have use of my fingers, so my dad took pencils and taped them to my hands so that I could push the keys on an electric typewriter. It was tedious and slow, but I was typing! I could not have dreamed then that something like Dragon would come into my life nearly 30 years later. I received my MS and...
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On June 13, 2002, I was on the receiving end of a practical joke that went horribly wrong. I was pushed into a swimming pool and hit my head on the stairs and broke my neck in 2 places, at C-1 & C-5. In an instant, my life abruptly changed. The accident made me a prisoner in my own body, and I went from being a 20-year-old college student to a quadriplegic, completely paralyzed from the neck down. But it was not just my mobility that was taken from me, but I was robbed of my independence to the...
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I hate QWERTY. Like a lefty using ergonomically shaped right-handed scissors, the QWERTY layout was not made for me. Before 1985 I was a young hunt and pecker perfectly contented with clacking away on mothers type bar typewriter. But in the eighth grade I was reintroduced to QWERTY by Mr. Novak. A severe looking teachers that made my wrestling coaches seem like well-intentioned guidance counselors. The man had a flat top on a mostly bald head, that looked more like goat horns than a hairdo. I struggled...
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After weighing 1 pound and 10 1/2 ounces I am a miracle. Due to a brain hemorrhage that I had since birth, I have cerebral palsy. The disease results in extremely limited use of my hands and my feet. As a result of the extreme prematurity, I have overcame many medical issues over the years With that, going to college to puruse a broadcasting degree was the farthest thing from my mind. Without the use of Dragon Naturally Speaking, going to college would have been out of the question as my degree requires...
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My name is Patricia Tate and I am the administrator of a skilled nursing residence for medically fragile children in Yakima, Washington, and we provide 24/7 medical care in a nurturing home-like setting . Veronica, one of our children, went skipping to school one day with her sisters, and woke up several days later with no feeling below the neck . She asked what was making all the beeping noises and was told it was her breathing machine-she could no longer breath on her own. She had been struck by...
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How has Dragon changed the career of a student on the path to a professional degree? Well, this is my story; the story of a court reporting student. Long ago accurate transcripts were engraved on stone. As time moved along, so did our creative engineering and invention of tools to inscribe the voice, the testimony of those accused and those trying to defend themselves through the justice system. We went from tablet to paper and from carving to pen. But speed was necessary. So a form of writing was...
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For those with on-going projects, almost any type, you can make your work more productive, creative and FUN using Dragon… Virtually Anywhere… My work consists of consulting projects and book projects with many of these common documents: · e-mails · PowerPoint presentations · Word documents Creation and editing of these documents is commonly accomplished in a wide variety of ways and modes: · Notes jotted down on paper, note pads, or post-it-notes, then typed...
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Dragon Naturally Speaking software works real great, Mate ! At first, I was worried about finding a speech recognition program that would work accurately with my Australian accent which is still hanging in there even though I've been in the US for many years. In my business I can't afford to make mistakes. Then I heard that Nuance had versions of Dragon that work perfectly with English and Australian accents. I decided to give it a go. Before I started using Dragon, my heart would sink each...