September 2009 Newsletter

 
  

Product News: Using Dragon on a Netbook

Netbooks are ideal for users who require a less powerful and more portable computer. These devices range in size from about 7 to 11 inches, typically weigh 2 to 3 pounds, and are often significantly less expensive than traditional laptops. Dragon can install and run on a netbook, although the user experience may be slightly different than running Dragon on a standard PC.

About 90 percent of netbooks run the Windows XP operating system, but customized Linux distributions do ship on some netbooks. At this time, Dragon NaturallySpeaking does not install and run on the Linux operating system.

To provide the best user experience of Dragon installed on a netbook, Nuance provides the following recommendations:

• Select a netbook with the largest screen size: Because some netbooks are designed with extremely small screen sizes, dialog boxes within Dragon may not be sized appropriately to fit on the screen. Dragon customers that select netbooks with small screens may need to move or re-size the dialog box in some instances.
• Select a netbook with the largest memory and CPU possible: Netbooks generally offer limited CPU, so the machine runs slower. When Dragon is installed on a low-power machine, it turns off Natural Language Commands (i.e., the ability to say “insert page break” rather than navigate the Windows menu items by voice) and defaults to a smaller-sized vocabulary. (With a more powerful CPU and additional memory, Dragon customers are able to use more intuitive voice commands and are provided with a larger vocabulary that helps to optimize accuracy.) Recognition speed will be noticeably slower with limited CPU.
• Select a netbook with a DVD drive: Some netbooks may not include disk drives, but a DVD-ROM drive (built-in or attached) is required for Dragon installation.
• Select a USB Digital Microphone: The built-in array microphones are generally poor performing in most machines, including netbooks. Although this type of microphone may work fine for applications such as webcam conversations, the poor quality of the microphone will make it difficult for Dragon to differentiate words within your dictation. Using an external analog headset is an option, but a better choice is to select a USB digital microphone since this takes the audio circuitry of the netbook out of the equation and will deliver the best accuracy. See our hardware compatibility list for microphone options.

Improving Accuracy: Are You Encouraging Dragon to Make Recognition Errors?

When Dragon occasionally misrecognizes a word, it's tempting to simply use the keyboard to delete the text and type in the correct word or phrase. Similarly, the “Scratch that” command makes it fast and easy to delete the transcription of the previous utterance, or string of dictated text. However, overuse of this command may keep you from achieving even higher levels of accuracy with Dragon. This is because simply deleting the text doesn’t allow Dragon to “learn” from the misrecognition.

Instead of saying "scratch that" when you dictate text that is incorrectly transcribed by Dragon, a better choice is to select the misrecognized text (manually or by voice) and perform the correction (again, either manually or by voice) so that Dragon can learn from the error. Dragon will be less likely to misrecognize that word or phrase the next time around if you take the time to correct it. A direct command option to correct misrecognitions is “Correct XYZ,” where XYZ is the word or phrase you want to correct. Learn more about the various correction techniques by reviewing the Correction sections of our User Workbook.

Tips and Tricks: Working with Short Words

Have you ever tried to dictate supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Try it. You may not be able to spell it, but Dragon can transcribe the word effortlessly. Instead it’s the frustratingly simple words like “a” and “the” that can be troublesome for Dragon. This is because recognizing long, polysyllabic words is easier than recognizing very short words with similar vowel sounds. If you are experiencing problems working with short words within Dragon, keep these tips in mind:

• When you want to correct a small word like “in,” it’s usually easier to select and correct the surrounding words at the same time, even if the surrounding words have been transcribed correctly. The Spell command also helps to effectively correct shot words that may be misrecognized.
• When short words inadvertently appear within your dictation (e.g., if extra words such as “in,” “and” or “the” appear in your document when you pause), Dragon may be interpreting your breath as dictation. Try moving the microphone slightly farther from your mouth and to the side.

Tips and Tricks: Commands

In addition to straight dictation, Dragon enables users to completely command and control their computers by voice. The most popular commands are included on our convenient command list on the Dragon web site, but Dragon responds to countless additional commands that will make it easier than ever to perform basic PC tasks. Here are some additional commands for you to try:

• “Delete line” — to delete a line of text
• “Scratch that five times” — to delete the previous number of utterances
• “Move down two lines” — to advance the cursor a specific number of lines within your document
• “Insert before XYZ” or “Insert after XYZ” — to move the cursor to a specific area of text within your document, where XYZ equals a specific word or phrase

Take a look at our new video about Using Dragon with Email for examples of e-mail-specific commands.

Customer Stories: Repetitive Stress Injuries

Research suggests that the average person types about 40 words per minute. This means the average typist presses up to 12,000 keys per hour or 96,000 keys per eight-hour day! It’s this extensive keyboarding, as well as countless clicks and maneuvering of a computer mouse, that can strain and damage muscles and tendons in the fingers, hands, wrists and arms, resulting in repetitive stress injuries (RSI) such as carpal tunnel syndrome or tendonitis. In fact, according to one survey, nearly 60 percent of computer office workers nationwide suffer from wrist pain while at the computer. Dragon has helped countless customers suffering from RSI symptoms to re-connect with their PCs because it dramatically reduces a computer user’s reliance on the mouse and keyboard. One such customer recently submitted a video about her use of Dragon NaturallySpeaking to our annual I Speak Dragon contest. In her video, tendonitis is presented as a shark that relentlessly attacked her wrists. See her video, and learn how she tamed the tendonitis shark, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIVpQEpB4LY.

You Asked, We'll Answer:

I’m having trouble dictating into my Hotmail account. I thought Dragon worked with web-based e-mail applications.

A: When using Dragon within Internet Explorer, various hyperlinks or areas (such as the "to", "subject" or "body" fields) of a web-based e-mail application may not respond to dictation or commands. These web-based e-mail application can include Windows Live Mail (Hotmail), Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Comcast Email, or Outlook Webmail. Although it’s possible to dictate in most fields within these web-based e-mail applications, occasional loss of functionality may occur. But you can still use Dragon! A Dragon feature called the “Dictation Box” will allow you to dictate and edit text in these types of applications.

To use the Dictation Box:

• Place the cursor in the location where you want your text to appear.
• Start the Dictation Box (say "Show Dictation Box," or select "Tools > Dictation Box" from the DragonBar, or use the assigned keyboard hotkey)
• When the Dictation Box is displayed, dictate and edit text inside the Dictation Box using all of Dragon's commands.
• When your text is ready, place the cursor in the application at the desired location for the text to appear and say or click “Transfer.” The text dictated in the Dictation Box is then transferred to the application and the Dictation Box closes.

For more details about using the Dictation Box, please refer to the January 2009 issue of the Dragon Flash newsletter.