WOW! Windows speech recognition is fantastic!

[Tremulous Tetra]

I have Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop with Windows Vista premium 64 bit on it.  That is not a particularly fast machine.  I do think the premium 64 bit is streets ahead of the home basic.

What I want to rave about, is a the speech recognition.  It is much better than dragon.  There was a little lack of documentation, and of some of the frills in dragon, but if you subscribe to this group ms-speech@yahoogroups.com, you will get all the help you need.

Enjoy

[Andy]

thanks TT, One of the writers in my pc mag was raving about just how good that is too,

[Tremulous Tetra]

I really hope other people try this as well, especially when you incorporate Windows Speech Recognition Macros utility.  When you use this you can create macros that will when you speak any phrase you pick, insert text, run a program, emulate recognition (the text of the macro will be sent to windows speech recognition as if you spoke the command yourself), or send keystrokes.

Windows speech recognition itself is good.  It seems much more natural, it seems obvious what you should ask for, never having to remember hundereds and hundereds of commands. 

I was recently in bed, with the laptop completely out of reach, and managed to use the computer quite successfully for a couple of hours each time just using voice control.

Tremulous Tetra

PS.  It may be because Windows Vista that now has service patch 1, but I have no problems with Windows Vista, and don't understand why so many people complain about it.  It seems to make a lot better of use of your graphics hardware potential, and the visual design is better.  Haven't noticed any significant reductions in speed.  (would recommend at least 2 GB of RAM.)

[Tremulous Tetra]

People can have a look here if they want a little demonstration.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RBEHgtvq3Sk

[Tremulous Tetra]

Some other information.

I have moved on to using the speech recognition built into Windows Vista, and it is brilliant.

And absolutely essential add on to windows built-in speech recognition, is http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fad62198-220c-4717-b044-829ae4f7c125&displaylang=en windows speech recognition macros.

http://www.msspeech-forum.com/default.asp?C=1&title=bwindows8482-speech-recognition-forums-for-new-and-disabled-users-help-files-and-faqs-b
http://www.emicrophones.com/microphones/prod_details.asp?prodID=228&name=WSRToolkit

I got one of these;

Products   Part No   Vat   Price (each)   Total
1 x   Plantronics .Audio 645 USB Computer Headset    PLANT-AUD-64   15.00%   £17.01   £17.01
Products Subtotal:   £17.01
Shipping & Handling:   £4.50
(Plus VAT at 15.0%)   £3.23
Total:   £24.74

From here http://www.pmctelecom.co.uk/ 

[Tremulous Tetra]

Started using windows seven.  Absolutely excellent programme.  And the speech recognition, is great again.