Skip to main content

TechIQ Gift Guide # 2: Dragon Dictate (Windows/Mac)



# 2 Dragon Dictate (Windows/Mac)

Use a computer keyboard enough and you are bound to suffer some issues with your fingers, wrists and arms. My wife had been complaining of low-level pain in her wrists for years. She is a writer and also a college professor. In addition to her writing, she teaches many online courses where she must interact with online discussion groups and offer detailed comments on scripts, outlines and research papers.

During the particularly busy semester I decided to buy the latest version of Dragon Dictate, a computer-dictation program that turns your voice into the printed word. My wife was regularly spending several hours at the keyboard and had started to mention her aching hands again.

I am quite impressed. After about 5 minutes of training it easily understands both my wife's and my own speaking voice. While we could probably type more quickly, when faced with hours at the keyboard, the relief that Dragon Dictate can offer is substantial. It inputs directly into whatever program you wish to use. We have used the software to dictate into Microsoft Word and a host of web sites including the Blackboard educational sites.

If you need a bit of relief (or a lot) for your aching hands, Dragon Dictate could be the answer you are looking for.

Available for Windows and Mac OS X.

All Gift Guide Recommendations:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Microsoft release Outlook.com email services to replace Hotmail

Today Microsoft released its new email service Outlook.com to replace its Hotmail brand. This new streamlined Metro interface design looks good and functions well so far. You can use your existing Microsoft account to log in and then choose an email alias (i.e. douglaswelch@outlook.com) for your new email address. Here are several articles that discuss Outlook.com... Goodbye, Hotmail; Hello, Outlook.com [REVIEW]  Outlook Is a Completely New, Feature-Filled Webmail Service from Microsoft Go Get Your @Outlook Email Address Quick Before Someone Else Does I will post links to more articles and reviews as they appear.

Shared calendars are one part of an organized family

by Douglas E. Welch , techiq@welchwrite.com 206-338-5832 Reader/Listener Line As a parent with a school-age child, I often hear other parents bemoaning their disorganized existence. Along with the busy schedules of two working parents you might have art classes, karate classes, Little League, soccer and more. Add in more than one kid and organizing your life can quickly become a nightmare. This is exactly why one of my most important organizing devices is a shared calendar that reflects all the activities and events for everyone in the household...and I do mean everything. If someone -- is required to be somewhere -- at sometime, it goes into the calendar. If we are given a calendar that reflects all the events for a particular activity (say, Little League), all these events immediately go into the calendar, along with notations on whether we are providing the team snack, working in the snack bar, etc. Even events that occur anytime during the day, like family birthdays, and other rem...

Google Docs adds templates

I have started to move away from using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc) in favor of online tools like Google Docs . Even as a computer consultant, I find that I use probably less than 10% of the features in any of these projects. One feature I really like in Google Docs is the easy, online file sharing that also allows you to edit simultaneously with someone else. Today, Google Docs added some templates including business cards, brochures and more. At the moment, it looks like they are rolling out this feature over time, so you might not yet see the templates on your account. When available, you will find the templates under the New... menu item. From Open Loops ... Today, Google quietly rolled out a new feature for their Google Docs Applications: Templates! It's so new that it isn't even listed on the new features page at this time. When one opens their Google Docs account and chooses to start a new document, a new "From Template..." command is pre...