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Dragon NaturallySpeaking is my lifeline. After only two months into my freshman year at college I was paralyzed in a car accident in 2001 leaving me with only partial use of my right arm. I was 19. By the time I was 21 I knew I had to find something to do for my future besides watching the Price Is Right and reruns of old sitcoms. Dragon NaturallySpeaking has made that possible. I couldn't imagine my entire future working a job showing people around the grocery store or answering phones at a...
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I wrote my first book in 1999 (we sold over 8,000 copies), and it was a slow process for me, as I don't type very well, a true one finger typist. The biggest challenge was getting down on paper my thoughts and feelings and being limited to my awful typing style. It was so frustrating, time consuming and made the process painful. Here is the great news, using Dragon Speaking my thoughts and feelings flow to the paper (electronic) naturally, powerfully. This allows for later editing and reflection...
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I work for Penn State and we are trying to make all our videos accessible. To this end I have been using MovieCaptioner to create the captions, and the way it works is by playing a loop of the video while you type what you hear. When you hit the Return key, it saves the caption, then it goes on to the next 4 seconds of the video. This makes it easy, but I have recently discovered that by using Dragon Dictate with MovieCaptioner it's even easier still! I'm not the fastest typist in the world...
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Back in November of 2005, I was involved in a serious automobile accident that resulted in my left arm being permanently paralyzed. I work in manufacturing as a Chemical Engineer for a major chemical company. I have been working for the same company since 1981. My job involves activities outside in the manufacturing unit as well as much time spent at a computer. Life following my accident was a series of adjustments required to get through life with the use of one arm. Work on the computer involved...
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I have suffered watching my son struggle through writing, studying, homework. He is a genius but getting F's in most of his classes. The school says that he is being lazy and not living up to his potential. I just cried and cried. I bought Speak Dragon for him, brought it home. Ready to install it on the computer and I found out that it wouldn't work on his MAC. I went back to the store and bought him a new MAC. Hoping that this would help my son live up to his potential. After getting everything...
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I Speak Dragon Contest I've had MS for 40 years. Before my brother installed DragonDictate on my computer in 2002 or 2003, I was managing the computer keyboard with the middle finger of my right hand. It was guided by my left hand over a keyboard template that protected the keys from inadvertent misstrikes. This procedure was made workable for me by a program I learned from the Computer Department at RIO (Rehabilitation Institute of Oregon). For each key stroke it provided a list of predictions...
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My name is Rod Wilce, I am a Safety Consultant with the North Carolina Department of Labor, OSHA Division. My work takes me into all types of workplaces doing Consultative Safety audits. Being in the government it has always been a forgone conclusion that it is paperwork intensive. That paperwork for me used to be long and cryptic handwritten notes used to document workplace hazards and serve as the platform for the writing of comprehensive reports for the system and the employer who is using our...
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Saved by a Dragon By Andy Heimer Dragon NaturallySpeaking saved my job and saved my mind. A strong statement? Maybe it's not strong enough. In December of 2010 I was diagnosed with ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. This degenerative motor neuron disease causes its victims to lose voluntary muscle control in various parts of their body. For me, it first manifested itself in my hands and my upper limbs. It soon became difficult to type with any facility. It was then that I purchased...
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When watching an old science fiction movie or TV show, you'll see people interacting with their computers by microphone with no keyboard in sight. Early programs that allowed speech interface with computers was expensive and unreliable. Since most writing in schools and in business is now done on computers, many schools say that cursive writing is obsolete and they don't plan to have it in their curriculum. With NaturallySpeaking, typing is one step closer to becoming obsolete. I have been...
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As an Academic Affairs administrator at a research-intensive and growing university in Texas, I had grown accustomed to spending the bulk of my day pounding out data analyses, correspondence, forms, and reports at well over 80 wpm. Of course, growing older has a way of forcing one to slow down, and years of dealing with rheumatoid arthritis had already begun to limit my speed. Despite the limitations, I was still able to work at a brisk pace with databases, spreadsheets, stat packages, and even word...
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I learned Dragon in 2002 for a job. I was taught all the navigation commands, but never really used them because I can still use the keyboard. In November 2010, I came down with pneumonia, suffered respiratory failure and ended up with a tracheotomy and a ventilator. I spent six weeks in two hospitals which included the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday. Being that it was a long Christmas weekend, there were no activities at the Rehab Hospital. They had a laptop that has Internet capability and...
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When any group of people is together long enough, they accumulates stories in common. These stories add cohesiveness to the group and help define it. A union is an assortment of people who have come together for one purpose, to make a better living. We end up sharing our lives, both on the job and off. This year, I’ve been part of a project which has interviewed my fellow members about their parts in our history, edited the interviews, and woven the stories into a play. My Union, Local 510...
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During the original installation of Dragon Naturally Speaking, I was asked to choose from an array of dialects, including "Australian English" Pride in my birthplace swelled up in my ***. A professional lifetime spent in New York had not erased the immigrant patriotism of an Australian upbringing. Waltzing Matilda was still my National Anthem. Selecting Australian English was a no-brainer. But the program failed to meet my expectations. It could not grasp the concepts. It made strange,...
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I grew up in a generation before computers. So, I was trying to write my book the old fashioned way. I finally learned how to type on a computer. Progress was being made, but it still was a snail's pace. I have been a pastor for 40 years, and I thought I had some good advice to give young pastors. But as I started to write the book, I kept getting bogged down with my lack of typing and hi-tech skills. And then a friend informed me of a program I could use on my computer that would help. He said...
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Dragon Breeze by Neill D. Hicks The problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished. - George Bernard Shaw One inescapable consequence of our egocentric culture is the waywardness of basic communication skills. After all, when Me‑Me‑Me is our dominant characteristic, who needs to bother with expression? No need to trouble ourselves with contemplation. Forget what message our pals may understand. We deep‑six lovers, family, and obligations with a few quick stabs of the keyboard...
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I Speak Dragon! Mouth to Hand by Neill D. Hicks Runes The mind sails easily through islands of thought with hardly any conscious navigation. But the wordsmith's craft of mapping those thoughts on paper demands brain‑to‑hand dexterity. My career as a professional writer started with pencil and yellow pad. In time, the wandering thoughts fell more easily to hand, and then all too quickly turned into a gullywasher of words that outraced my scribble. Within hours after a surge of creative inspiration...
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When any group of people is together long enough, they accumulates stories in common. These stories add cohesiveness to the group and help define it. A union is an assortment of people who have come together for one purpose, to make a living. We end up sharing our lives, both on the job and off. This year, I’ve been part of a project which has interviewed my fellow members about their parts in our history, edited the interviews, and woven the stories into a play. My Union, Local 510 (Sign,...
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I am a totally dysfunctional typist. This is a real handicap for an aspiring writer. Enter Dragon! Now I can dictate my stories, my e-mails, my shopping lists and handouts for my students. I am 84, but I I think the dysfunctional-typist-die was cast long, long ago, when I took piano lessons as a kid. I would never look at the music – always at the keys and at my stumbling fingers. My major weekly practice occurred during the two hours just before my lesson -- no time to learn! I would just...
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I never met my grandpa since he died before I was born. I have heard lots of war stories about him and got to hear a lot about the incredible things he did. Knowing about the hero he was, I always wished I could have known him. I have tried to find information about him or a journal or anything but had found nothing. After my grandma died 2 years ago we had to go through all of her stuff and one thing we found was that my grandpa while away at war had written her nearly every single day for 2 years...