Can you hear me now?

This is my first attempt at blogging completely by voice. I took the plunge and bought MacSpeech Dictate this afternoon. I'm hoping to blog this entire entry using just my voice.

Nifty, eh? :-)

It's taking a little getting used to just speak instead of just typing. However, as I'm not really a developer any more and as I'm writing more reports than anything else, perhaps dictating this the right way to go. I'm not sure if this is any faster than typing. It is interesting to just keep talking and have it type everything for me. I needed to train it quite a bit. It's been a mixed experience. Sometimes it transcribes flawlessly but other times it really messes things up.

I do getting get used to this. It certainly saves me having to look at the screen all the time, which means I have less eyestrain. I'm at the point where reducing eyestrain is a major deal for me. It started with the Kindle actually. Up until then I've been using computer screens or some other backlit screen for years. It wasn't until I started reading on the Kindle that I realised how tired I got from reading off backlit screens. The Kindle is a joy to read on; I can read off that thing for days on end. As my eyestrain reduced, I found my stress levels dropping a little. It wasn't much but every bit counts.

It takes a little bit more care when I'm dictating but I think that in the end, once I've got this completely trained, that it will be worth it. It seems to do far better on longer sentences than short ones. I've done it to the point where it is reasonably accurate. I've had to restrain myself from picking at it, what with me being a details person and all. I'm not sure that I'm at the point where I will trust it completely with a business report but the results seem promising so far.

Blogging via speech is indeed slower than typing, mostly because I had to go back and correct its mistakes. They are getting fewer and fewer now though; yay for training! I had to go through the voice training bit several times before it got used to me. it's slowly adjusting though. I'm not sure how much it's really learning or if it's really training me to be accepting of its flaws. I suspect a little of both is happening right now, which is fine by me.

It doesn't seem to like the blogging window very much because when I do AutoCorrect, the cursor goes back one space too far. It doesn't matter I guess as I intend to be using this with Microsoft Word anyway.

I wish I had the eyesight to not have to dictate but life is what it is; I wish it were different. I wish all things were different.