Five winning stories will be selected by a panel of judges, and the winning entrants will each receive an Amazon Kindle 2 as well as Dragon NaturallySpeaking upgrades for three years.
As a wee little baby, at only 20 months old, I was struck by a car and pinned between the car and the cement curb. I spent several months in a body cast and it seemed initially there would be no long-term problems. As I grew older, I always had pain in my hips and legs. By the time I reached college, I was unable to sit without extreme burning and throbbing pain in my back, hips and legs. To attend college classes I had to stand in the back of the classroom. To do my college class homework, I would lay down and read my college textbooks from the floor.
When I attended graduate school, IBM came out with their first high-tech laptop, the IBM convertible. The problem was, to work on the computer I usually had to try and sit. I rigged up a harness from the ceiling with springs to prevent weight from going on my hips and back but that failed. Due to the health problems I had, I dropped out of graduate school. It was a hard decision because I love to study, I love education, and I love the academic atmosphere. But all in all, trying to learn and do homework was just too difficult.
As computers improved, along came probably the single greatest piece of software, Dragon Natural Speaking. It literally changed my life. I got interested in online education courses but I still faced the problem of excruciating pain while sitting. The solution, Dragon Natural Speaking. I could do my online courses whether I was standing, laying down or sitting, either way, I was able to take course notes quickly and effectively. I could walk around as I took notes on my computer, I could sit in an antigravity chair and talk to my computer and take notes with extreme accuracy. When I learned the Dragon Natural Speaking commands for Microsoft Word and Excel, I could literally do all my work if I chose from a reclining chair. Suddenly I could do all my work in a fraction of the time it took me to do the old-fashioned way, sit in a chair and take notes with a pencil and paper notepad.
With the freedom that Dragon Natural Speaking brought to me, I have been able to take unlimited courses in numerous subjects that I had interest. If I didn't have my headset, my computer and Dragon Natural Speaking, my educational pursuits would have come to an end. That would have meant no education in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Dreamweaver, Google SketchUp, Adobe Lightroom….. which means I probably would've been unable to work as a graphic designer. In my opinion, the top five most useful computer programs to date are: