Re: Microphone/arts and crafts

[Guest guest]

Re art I love an iPhone app called brushes. It is also used by

Hockney, a prominent artist here in England.

Sent from my iPhone

On 28 Apr 2011, at 15:20, kookamunga2008 <karynalaroche@...> wrote:

Hello everyone,

I have two questions of a completely unrelated nature.

Firstly, I am a long time Dragon user. I'm having a lot of difficulty with

my microphone setup and I am wondering if someone might have some useful

suggestions. I use a gooseneck which has started to become quite droopy;

also, people are constantly knocking against it so it needs readjusting. I

have tried the headset microphone but it is too difficult for me to take off

and put on when I need to move away from the computer. Does anyone have any

suggestions as to a possible alternative? Ideally, I have to be able to

remove or move away from the microphone without assistance. Secondly, I used

to be a really artsy kid until I got totally involved with academics. I'd

really like to get back to doing some arts and crafts stuff but I don't want

to have to depend on others for a lot of help. My arms are very weak but is

still have some reasonable hand dexterity. I'm wondering if anyone out there

is " crafty " and could offer some advice? Also, has anyone done any artwork

using a computer?

Thanks for your help. Karyna

[Guest guest]

Re: microphones

You might want to look into Bluetooth headsets. The audio pickup quality can be

just as good as any wired mic (for the purposes of speech rec) and you're free

to move away from the computer. Battery life is the one negative offset.

Unlike wired solutions, you obviously can't use a Bluetooth headset

indefinitely.

I use the BT-200, which you can now get for about $40 (wish it were that

low when I got it!), and totally recommend it. It's towards the higher end of

the spectrum, so you get better audio compression and noise canceling. Battery

isn't too bad, either -- I can usually go ~8 hours of talk time before it starts

beeping at me to recharge it.

Re: art

Have you ever played around with a graphics tablet? If you've never heard of

them, they're basically a virtual pen/brush paired with a surface that lets you

actually draw or paint in a graphics program. Obviously, some of the larger

ones are problematic because they require a lot of gross motor to cover the

whole surface, but a smaller one might work. Something like this:

http://www.wacom.com/en/Products/BambooTablets/BambooPenandTouch.aspx

It has a reasonably small surface that you can use one of their pens on or

directly draw with your finger.

-

>

> Hello everyone,

>

> I have two questions of a completely unrelated nature.

>

> Firstly, I am a long time Dragon user. I'm having a lot of difficulty with my

microphone setup and I am wondering if someone might have some useful

suggestions. I use a gooseneck which has started to become quite droopy; also,

people are constantly knocking against it so it needs readjusting. I have tried

the headset microphone but it is too difficult for me to take off and put on

when I need to move away from the computer. Does anyone have any suggestions as

to a possible alternative? Ideally, I have to be able to remove or move away

from the microphone without assistance. Secondly, I used to be a really artsy

kid until I got totally involved with academics. I'd really like to get back to

doing some arts and crafts stuff but I don't want to have to depend on others

for a lot of help. My arms are very weak but is still have some reasonable hand

dexterity. I'm wondering if anyone out there is " crafty " and could offer some

advice? Also, has anyone done any artwork using a computer?

> Thanks for your help. Karyna

>

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the great suggestions re: microphones/arts and crafts. I

definitely plan on checking them out.

Karyna

[Guest guest]

been there done that- hate dragon for the reasons you describe so I use a small

rollerbal mouse and the onscreen keyboard available free on windows

accessibility features.

For me dragon printed giberish whenever my heat/air conditioner went on, cat

meowed, the washing machine changed cycles, you name it.

As for crafts beading work, and smaller knitting small sized items [socks,

gloves, not huge sweaters] are good for fine dexterity skills without a lot of

arm reach movements.

>

> Hello everyone,

>

> I have two questions of a completely unrelated nature.

>

> Firstly, I am a long time Dragon user. I'm having a lot of difficulty with my

microphone setup and I am wondering if someone might have some useful

suggestions. I use a gooseneck which has started to become quite droopy; also,

people are constantly knocking against it so it needs readjusting. I have tried

the headset microphone but it is too difficult for me to take off and put on

when I need to move away from the computer. Does anyone have any suggestions as

to a possible alternative? Ideally, I have to be able to remove or move away

from the microphone without assistance. Secondly, I used to be a really artsy

kid until I got totally involved with academics. I'd really like to get back to

doing some arts and crafts stuff but I don't want to have to depend on others

for a lot of help. My arms are very weak but is still have some reasonable hand

dexterity. I'm wondering if anyone out there is " crafty " and could offer some

advice? Also, has anyone done any artwork using a computer?

> Thanks for your help. Karyna

>

[Guest guest]

For the past 10 years, I have been using a USB microphone called a " Buddy

Desktop " . I think it works great! Right now I have music playing in the

background, and it is working perfectly. It is the occurrence of random

metallic noises which caused me the most problems. For instance, when dinner is

being cooked, the clang of pots and pans seems to be one of the worst. It also

depend on what version of voice recognition you're using. I switched to version

11 premium. The recognition is far superior, except the " wake up " command is

too sensitive. All slight provocation, the program breaks itself up and starts

typing gibberish. Apparently the programmers are aware of the problem but

haven't released a patch yet. I developed a technique of turning the microphone

off when not directly dictating. This slows me down a little bit, but in

comparison to correcting gibberish, it is quicker.

>

> Hello everyone,

>

> I have two questions of a completely unrelated nature.

>

> Firstly, I am a long time Dragon user. I'm having a lot of difficulty with my

microphone setup and I am wondering if someone might have some useful

suggestions. I use a gooseneck which has started to become quite droopy; also,

people are constantly knocking against it so it needs readjusting. I have tried

the headset microphone but it is too difficult for me to take off and put on

when I need to move away from the computer. Does anyone have any suggestions as

to a possible alternative? Ideally, I have to be able to remove or move away

from the microphone without assistance. Secondly, I used to be a really artsy

kid until I got totally involved with academics. I'd really like to get back to

doing some arts and crafts stuff but I don't want to have to depend on others

for a lot of help. My arms are very weak but is still have some reasonable hand

dexterity. I'm wondering if anyone out there is " crafty " and could offer some

advice? Also, has anyone done any artwork using a computer?

> Thanks for your help. Karyna

>

[Guest guest]

Err, constantly turning it *off* or *on* (i.e. waking it up, since it's

technically already on)?

Fortunately, I haven't had any significant recognition issues for several

versions now (I'm on 10.1 Pro, 64-bit). If you're having the microphone go live

when phrases reasonably close to " wake up " are uttered, well, that just goes

with the territory of Dragon to some extent. But if it's constantly coming on

when it really shouldn't be, then that probably means that its profile of you

saying " wake up " isn't specific enough. Unfortunately, that's not too terribly

uncommon among many SMAers that have difficulty with clearly enunciating.

Running some additional training might yield a slight improvement for you,

though, so it might be worth trying.

I don't remember the syntax off the top of my head, but I'm fairly certain

there's also a way to add a line to your profile's " options.ini " file to modify

a built-in command (e.g. " wake up " , " microphone off " , " close the user " etc.) to

another phrase. It's typically used by Trekkies to change the wake up command to

something like " hello computer! " , but it could also be a possible solution for

this problem by manually defining a phrase that's a bit more phonetically

distinct.

-

>

> I agree, the " wake up " command is way too sensitive so I'm constantly

> turning the microphone off. I've heard of many users having the same problem

> and I am rather stymied that it hasn't yet been corrected.