Slowing Things Down

My apologies that today's post did not get put up at the usual time and as expected. It is a work in progress and I'm happy that the reason it is not up is not due to illness or other problems but due to the fact that I was making a photo. The photo was an experiment that failed. Well, I suppose no experiment that teaches you something is a failure, but the results were not what I expected. Mainly it was due to the fact that garden flowers do not have the luminescence under UV light that I expected and that the moonrise calculator I used online was off by an hour because Saskatchewan and Mexico City are the only smart places in North America who do not participate in daylight savings time.

Summer is a great time for making photos, not as great for processing and writing posts because the winter will come too soon and too harsh to waste any opportunity to be outside enjoying the weather and photographing. The second reason that posting may slow down in this space is because I'm running very low on material ready to share. That doesn't mean I don't have ideas and photos brewing in the back of my mind but the images that are ready to go are growing fewer by the week. The third, and most significant, reason is that we are growing closer to the arrival of our baby which involves preparations and will involve a pleasant shifting of priorities in the next while.

I still welcome your visits, contributions and sharing my work with those you feel would benefit from, or appreciate, it. There may simply be occasional gaps in upcoming posts. By no means is this work complete or forgotten about. I may simply be even more aware and prudent about making the most of every opportunity available to me to create a new photo.

I expect to share this week's post with in the next two days and will try to have more work prepared ahead of time in case we have an early arrival of our family's addition.

Voice to Text

Continuing our productivity series, which began with my writing splint, will look at touch screens and styluses, and conclude with trackballs, we will look at voice-to-text technology.

Since 1998 I have been using voice-to-text software. It was very much in it's infancy. Version 2 of Dragon Dictate by Nuance Software was my preferred program at that time, their other being Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is what I'm using now. Dragon Dictate was a bit less capable at the writing aspect, but had greater control over cursor movement and other command functions. It no longer exists, but Naturally Speaking has integrated much of Dictate's functions.

At the time, NaturallySpeaking was designed to interpret full sentences, as it is now, but it was not terribly accurate. I even had a voice profile trained to dictate exam answers to a personal voice recorder that could later be plugged in to the computer, played and spit out my recording as text. I never trusted it because, even if the teacher or instructor could listen to the audio file, one inaccurately typed negative would have completely changed my answer. Now, one misspoken word or missed error can make for an undecipherable statement or wonderful laughing fit, as my best friend will confirm. This is especially true when chatting quickly and inaccurately, possibly after the intake of beverages that may result in reduced annunciation.

At that time, for the computer to accurately recognize what I was saying, it took at least four hours of training to start to show any semblance of accuracy and consistency. The best microphones available at the time, the one pictured above, were quite expensive and paled in sound quality to the $17 USB connected headset I'm using right now. The computers of the time were slow and it was a measly 266 MHz Intel processor with a 6 GB hard drive and probably 256 MB of RAM that first powered the software I used. The laptop I had the software installed on had a 200 MHz processor, 2 GB hard drive and likely 128 MB of RAM. To say that dictation was smooth and effortless would be a lie. After a completed phrase or sentence a pause was required to allow the auto correct box to appear with the 10 options given to choose from, hopefully one of which was what you actually said if the program got it wrong on the first try. It was tedious at times.

Now, except for pausing when I want to see what it interpreted the last thing I said was, I can speak multiple sentences without pausing and get near-perfect accuracy. In fact, the more I say and the larger the words I use, the more accurate it is. More letters means there are fewer words with those sounds and syllables so the likelihood of it being accurate increases. It really does encourage sophisticated writing which is not a problem for me.

A sluggish computer with growing software was only marginally faster than standard typing. As with so many computer-related things the data is always pushing the boundaries of the hardware. Video files keep getting bigger with the unbelievable 4K resolution that is now emerging, video games keep requiring better video cards and sound cards, additional hard drive space and other hardware requirements. Digital cameras continue to produce higher megapixel files (the megapixel race is over, please do not any longer be fooled into thinking that more megapixels means a better camera, but I digress) which requires more hard drive space. What once seemed like far more computer than you would ever need becomes laughable as inadequate within five years for most current applications.

There was a long period of time that I ceased using the software which came at the time I decided to upgrade my computer. You see, the hundreds of hours I had spent refining and updating my voice file caused it to increase in size to 8 MB. This is still in the time of 56.6 K modems and floppy disk drives. No available media could store that one voice file to be transferred to the new computer. Only 100 MB zip drives, which were outside my budget. As a result of not wanting to start from scratch, I stopped using the software for some time until I was encouraged to explore it, again.

The training time had diminished vastly, the accuracy after a mere 30 minutes of training was nearly perfect and, with a few features disabled, the hardware could keep up to the software to make for fluid writing. Now I keep the program running all the time and even flip on the microphone for a quick comment online.

I won't deny that I feel a little bit of jealousy when I think about the effectiveness of Google Voice, and even Siri for people who have never even used it before. Without any training, and only an Internet connection, these services are remarkably effective at accurately converting almost anyone's speech to accurate text. No hundreds of hours of training and refinement, just effective software. However, I have been enjoying the benefit of this technology a lot longer than most people and even those who have had smart phones much longer that I have seen amazed when I effectively use Google Voice.

Where these new technologies fail is in their ability to be customized. Dragon NaturallySpeaking can accurately insert any and all punctuation, navigate throughout a body of text or window, even add phrases specific to your needs. Three of my more common trained phrases are D700 (my camera), Help-Portrait and Jay. Without training you are most likely to get "D 700", "help portrait" and "J". By training them I save myself multiple words on a regular basis. In the case of Help-Portrait, to get those results without training, I would have to say 'cap help no space hyphen no space cap portrait. Until you get your brain wrapped around that it is a little bit confusing.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking can also be told to assume you have an accent when you begin the initial training. This way it can accurately write those words that you may not speak perfectly if English is your second language or you come from somewhere that people tend to have a strong accent. And, as much as I mourn the rapid decline of proper English usage, there is even a profile or two identified as teen-speak which can include and adapt to numerous slang terms and acronyms. There is a glimmer of hope, though, as the auto punctuate function might just assist a few people to learn appropriate places to insert dashes, commas or even a semicolon.

After 16 years of using this software my brain is thoroughly trained to use it. When I was on the verge of making a decision between upgrading my current Dragon NaturallySpeaking or switching to Windows' built-in dictation software I had a very difficult time using the variations of commands in the Windows version. I'm not saying the Windows software is not effective, but after that long of using a certain program it is well ingrained in my brain. My wife will attest, the occasional time she replies to an e-mail or text for me, that I often speak the punctuation as I do using this software when I am telling her what I would like my reply to say. The point is that if you do decide to give the software a try do your research and choose one because once your brain is trained it'll be like learning another language to switch between software. I think I have done a fairly will good job, when I think while using it, between dictating using Dragon NaturallySpeaking or dictating on my phone using Google Voice.

Source: The software can be purchased online or in most stores that sell computers. The microphone I use was purchased from DealExtreme. When searching for a microphone read reviews to see how effective it is at dictation as some are better than others for that purpose.

Writing Splint

Over the next few weeks we will look at the technology available to enhance productivity. A simple microphone combined with voice to text software that allows me to type faster than my thoughts can keep up. Touch screens and styluses that can make using a smart phone or tablet much easier but also be the source of accidental actions when a clumsy finger inadvertently taps the wrong place on the screen. And a trackball that allows easy two-handed navigation of a cursor when even the twitch of an index finger to click a sensitive little button on a mouse is impossible.

Most common when you hear someone speak about a person's ability to write is to think about the topic of literacy. After a bad enough spinal cord injury, in the cervical region of the spine, the ability to write is most often affected by the betrayal of our digits, and not a deficiency in education.

I have my chicken scratch that I am still able to scribble out in a pinch with a writing implement woven under my index finger, over my middle finger and under my ring and middle finger. I find that hardly effective for anything more than a quick signature or jotting down a note. For any serious writing on paper I use the writing splint pictured above.

The plastic coated portion of the splint slides over the hand, behind the knuckles but in front of the thumb. The index finger rests on top of the end of the pen with additional support coming from the C-shaped contour wrapping around a portion of the finger. Writing with this instrument is most definitely better than without it but it does have its drawbacks. Movement of the writing implement is no longer made by the hand or fingers but moves back to the wrist, elbow and shoulder. This makes for reduced dexterity even after a time of practice, increased muscle fatigue, and poor posture which has long-term effects on body pain.

In addition to all of that there is the dependency on a and awkwardly shaped tool for something as important as writing. It's not convenient to carry with me. Thankfully, most of our writing has a technological advancement to it, be that for writing this post and most other medium to large writing tasks, texting or simple note taking. I have already looked at the adaptation I use for standard typing on a keyboard; a simple yellow pencil dipped in an industrial plastic coating.

Source: Occupational therapy product catalogue.