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Dragon Dictate for Mac
THE essential
software for Web marketing?
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Aside from website creation,
writing has to be the backbone of Internet marketing. The Internet is
called the "information superhighway" for a reason. People want
information! Website creation, blogging, twittering, social networking,
all of these are forms of dissemination of information. What are people
looking for when they go online? In most cases, it's for information.
As information Internet marketers, we need to share information in the
most efficient way possible. This is largely done through articles. The
whole information industry revolves around how to add the most useful
content to one's website in the quickest time possible.
Keyboard
Hobbled
Most article writing
is done through the keyboard. Yes, that contraption that was first
invented back in the 19th century! Did you know that the keyboard was
deliberately designed to slow you down? It's true! The first
typewriters jammed too easily, so the Inventor of the first
commercially successful typewriter in 1873, Christopher Latham Sholes,
rearranged the keyboard to make typing less efficient! Problem solved!
Did you know we are using the very same keyboard layout today -- the
one that was designed to slow us down? And also make more errors.
 Someone
once questioned this when I mentioned this fact in casual conversation.
"The keys seem to be arranged in a pretty logical fashion to me," he
said.
Duh! Look at the home row, the row where your fingers
normally rest and where they return in between each letter that is
typed -- the row that is labeled A, S, D, F, G, H, J, K, L. How many
vowels are found there? Exactly one, the letter "A!" Vowels are the
most frequently used letters in the English language and every word
contains at least one. Yet four out of five
vowels require reaching away from the home row.
Now here we are in the computer age, and more importantly in the
information age, and yet we are hamstrung by a keyboard that is still
in place by sheer force of inertia. Even the most skilled, accurate and
fastest typists type more slowly than they would otherwise because of
the now standard keyboard arrangement! Because people have to spend
more time at the keyboard than they would otherwise need to, society
doubtless suffers from thousands of extra cases of carpal tunnel
syndrome and repetitive stress injury every year.
Fortunately, while the computer (and our reliance on it) magnifies the
problem, it also provides assistance. This is in the form of voice
dictation software. On the Mac, the only currently updated option is Dragon Dictate for Mac. Fortunately it's a good option.
A
Brief History
This writer is a
veteran of voice dictation on the Macintosh. I started out with IBM
ViaVoice when it first came out for the Mac, back in the System 7 days.
I have continued using it when it was updated for MacOS X, then moved
on to iListen for more modern Macs, and finally on to MacSpeech Dictate
(the precursor to Dragon Dictate for Mac) for Intel machines. I have seen a steady progression in voice dictation
technology since then, albeit with a few steps backwards from time to
time.
The biggest drawback of the old speech dictation technology was the
time it took to train it! Unlike most software, which
requires a learning curve on the part of the user, voice dictation
software requires a learning curve on the part of the computer! The
software must learn how you speak, so that it can transcribe your voice
accurately. This requires reading training stories into the microphone
while the software is running.
 In
the "olden days," there were usually 10-20 training sessions involved,
each one taking from 20 minutes to a half-hour. Add all this up, and
you can see that it took several hours of your time before you could
even start becoming productive with the software.
The time it took you to train the software also meant that you were
terrified of losing the voice profile you had so carefully created, say
due to a hard drive crash or corruption, or due to incorrectly
reinstalling the software. Invariably, when the software went through a
major update, such as the transition from OS 9 to OS X, or when moving
to dictation software made by different companies, you had to retrain
the software all over again.
Even after running through all the training stories, you still had to
constantly correct recognition errors made by the software using a
special correction mode in which you found the correct word choice
among several possibilities on a palette, and instructed the software
to replace the incorrectly transcribed word with the correct choice.
Each time you did this, the software learned a bit better how you
speak, but the process took a long time!
Dragon Dictate for Mac
Enter Dragon Dictate for Mac. Based on
the legendary Dragon NaturallySpeaking technology, Dragon Dictate for Mac
requires less than five minutes of initial training and renders better
accuracy than the old programs did even after hours of training!
This is a major improvement. Rather than trying to "reinvent the
wheel" and come up with its own speech-recognition
technology, MacSpeech simply licensed the technology of the
acknowledged leader, Nuance Communications.
Actually, this is not entirely true. For years, MacSpeech did create
its own recognition engine called iListen. Unfortunately, the software
provided very poor recognition performance and was buggy; in fact, the
performance seemed to decline over weeks and months of
continued use, as if the engine was becoming overburdened by
the sheer weight of its expanding profile database.
Unfortunately, MacOS
X seem to provide speech dictation software with a new set of
challenges. Even IBM had trouble making the transition from OS 9 to OS
X, as its acclaimed ViaVoice program became sluggish and unreliable
after making the transition to the new OS. MacSpeech had a similar
problem with iListen. Perhaps the additional burden imposed on the
software and having to keep up with the increased demands of the new OS
is what impaired the performance. In fact, it was not until Apple made
the transition to Intel processors that speech recognition on MacOS X
became truly viable once again. Intel provided the speed boost required
for efficient voice dictation.
A bit of clarification of terms is in order here. Apple has long
provided voice-recognition on Macs in the form of a "command and
control" program, in which applications could be launched and switched
by use of the voice. It did not, however, provide voice dictation, in
which articles and documents could be written by the voice. That has
always depended on third-party companies like MacSpeech.
Voice dictation is a far more challenging task than mere voice command
and control. The range of commands you can give to a computer is
limited, while the range of things you can say in a dictated document
is infinite. Command-and-control can usually be accomplished without
any training whatsoever by a large number of people with their widely
different voice qualities, while voice dictation always requires at
least some training (although not a whole lot in the case of Dragon Dictate for Mac).
Installation
and Learning
Installation of Dragon Dictate for Mac could hardly be easier. The software
comes with two CDs. You merely insert the first CD and drag the Dictate
program to your Applications folder. Then you run the installer on the
second CD which updates the necessary files on your Macintosh. That's
it!
The software requires a headset microphone of a very specific type.
This is included in the full Dragon Dictate for Mac Software package.
Upgraders from previous versions of Dragon Dictate for Mac or iListen can
use the headset provided with those packages. (The headset from the old
IBM ViaVoice will not work.) if you want or need to provide your own
headset, MacSpeech lists the models that will work with the software on
its website.
The headset once provided with the full Dragon Dictate for Mac package (and
still available), the Audio 400 DSP Stereo Headset/Microphone, is made
by
Plantronics, a company that specializes in lightweight
headsets. It looks flimsy with its all-plastic construction,
but has proved to be reasonably durable. I did find myself having to
tape the ratchet mechanism of the adjustable headphones to keep them
set at the correct adjustment. And of course, the wire has a
tendency to get in your way and restrict your freedom of movement.
The currently included Calisto wireless headset is a joy to use. If you
wanted to save money, you could buy Dragon Dictate for Mac sans
microphone and then provide your own headset, as long as it
falls
within the recommended guidelines, or buy one of the less expensive
wired headsets from MacSpeech, but I would definitely recommend
the Calisto
wireless headset for the greatest freedom and convenience.
Learning the basics of the software is not difficult. It's not much
more than a matter of installing the software, connecting the headset
mike, setting system preferences to recognize the correct input source,
and reading a single training story. The software usually interrupts
you before you have even finish reading the first story, informing you
that it is ready to begin normal dictation.
Learning some of the more advanced features of Dragon Dictate for Mac,
however, is a different story. The program can be used both as a voice
dictation application and as a command and control program. This makes
it very useful for physically impaired people or those who have limited
use of their hands. The software can be used for switching
among different applications, launching Mail, surfing to various
websites in Safari and so on. This review, being aimed at Internet
marketers, is concerned more with using the software for article and
ebook dictation, but be aware that it can also be used for a largely
hands-free Macintosh experience.
Dragon Dictate for Mac palettes
Unfortunately, the manual provided with Dragon Dictate for Mac, in the form
of a PDF file on the disk, is less than adequate. The software makers
don't seem to realize that some people simply want to use the software
for dictation exclusively rather than for command and control of their
Mac. The instructions in the chapter on dictation assume that you're
going to make all of your commands and edits by voice; it does not even
tell you how to access the various correction palettes using the mouse,
which is a far more familiar interface for most people. MacSpeech
should have
understood that some people want to work with the program for
dictation only, and not have assumed in the manual that
everybody would have wanted to make all of their corrections by voice.
What's more, the chapter on dictation in the manual, for example the
section on handling misrecognized words, is not written in a
step-by-step fashion, making it difficult to follow.
Furthermore, no quick reference card containing all of the dictation
and punctuation commands is provided with the software. Instead, they
are scattered throughout the manual. No training videos are provided
with the software, but there are some helpful
ones on the MacSpeech website. Fortunately, the software is easy to use
if you simply
make all of your corrections by hand, something I recommend that most
able-bodied Internet marketers do anyway.
Usage
Since Dragon Dictate for Mac is software which can be used to dictate into
virtually any application, there are a few things you need to know
about using the software effectively. First of all, the software only
knows where your cursor is based on the words you last dictated. If you
use your mouse to make corrections or to add words, it will throw the
software off. This is because it cannot see what you have typed in a
third-party program; it only knows what you have dictated.
If you correct a word here, rearrange words there, and add a word or
two somewhere else, as far as the software is concerned, your document
is totally changed. If you tell the software by voice to fly to a
particular word, highlight the word and change it to something else, it
will no longer be able to do so because the word will no longer be in
the place where it was originally. Therefore, when you use Dragon
Dictate for Mac, you must make corrections entirely by voice or
entirely with
the mouse, but not with both.
In fact, the notepad application that comes with Dragon Dictate for Mac will
not even allow you to add or edit text using the mouse or keyboard. It
will allow you to paste text in, however, under the assumption that you
might want to work with text that you have used previously.
Unfortunately, I find the Dragon Dictate for Mac notepad application to be
buggy and I don't use it. I found the Notepad program in the original
IBM ViaVoice to have been far more useful, which is a good thing, since
in that program you could dictate only in its own notepad, not in any
application as you can with Dragon Dictate for Mac.
Dragon Dictate for Mac Correction Palette
Being able to make all of your
edits by voice is a boon to physically impaired people, but as an
able-bodied person I find it cumbersome and clumsy and far
more
difficult than simply using the mouse and keyboard. The correction
palette, for example, lists entire phrases instead of individual words
that may have been misrecognized. Therefore, even if you see a single
misrecognized word in your dictated text, you must
still search through
entire phrases on the correction palette to
find the right one.
Visually searching through
phrases is much more time-consuming than simply
viewing a list of individual words.
It's kind of like playing a game of "how is this phrase different from
all the others?" Picking the wrong phrase may fix one error but add
another. And sometimes none of the phrases are correct.
Fortunately, you can disregard the correction features and use the
software in a more intuitive manner. Feel free to use dictation for
long passages, and then make all of your edits and corrections with
your mouse and keyboard. Just keep in mind that by doing so, you will
not be training the software to improve its accuracy. Fortunately,
the software
is so accurate that ongoing training is not crucial.
Speech dictation software presents a new set of challenges in editing.
Finding and fixing typos cannot be done using the standard procedures.
The software never makes a spelling mistake. Therefore, using a spell
checker to find typos will be to no avail. Instead, all of the errors
the software makes are homonym errors, that is, using a word
or words that sound like the correct word to the ear but are not. For
example, "check her" instead of "checker," "hour" instead of
"our," "boy's" instead of "voice," "width" instead of "with,"
"max" instead of "Macs," etc.
Therefore, I find that editing and correcting a dictated document
requires an eagle eye and a combination of correction methods. I find
it useful to read the entire document first, and then have the Mac's
built-in text-to-speech voice "Alex" read it to me once again. The
visual inspection finds 90% of the errors, but over time I find that my
eyes start to glaze over and I'm likely to miss some errors. The
text-to-speech reading is less effective, because incorrectly dictated
words often sound almost exactly like the intended words, but
occasionally the text-to-speech proofreading will help me find some
errors that the visual inspection missed.
Troubleshooting
A word or two about the reliability of the software is in order. Just a
few months after getting my Intel iMac and installing Dragon Dictate
for Mac, the software suddenly started crashing Every time I launched
it. I tried every troubleshooting procedure in the book. Starting up my
Mac in safe mode, running TechTool and disk utility on my
Mac, reinstalling the software, even trying to run the program under a
different user. Nothing worked. even reinstalling my system software
didn't solve the problem. It was only after I did a totally clean
reinstall of the system software that the problem was solved.
The likely explanation is that some corruption entered into one of the
system files on my Mac. This can occur on the rare occasions when Mac
OS X crashes, necessitating a hard restart, or during a power outage
when electricity is suddenly shut off to the computer. System file
corruption is extremely insidious because it can happen to any one of
the thousands of files that is part of the system software, and it is
impossible to detect by normal means. A totally clean reinstall of the
system software is not a trivial matter, because it requires that all
the preferences be reset, all system enhancements be reinstalled,
Software Update run, Internet settings be reestablished, and more.
However, Dragon Dictate for Mac is such an important part of my workflow
that I realized it had to be done. After reinstalling the system
software, Dragon Dictate for Mac was up and running once again.
Recommendations
Who should use this software? In a word, everyone. Even if you consider
yourself a superb typist, as an Internet marketer, who by definition
does an enormous amount of writing, you need to keep the health and
well-being of your hands in mind. Too much typing can lead to
repetitive stress injury and other ailments.
While dictating for extended periods of time can certainly strain your
voice, the benefit of Dragon Dictate for Mac is that it allows you to
alternate
between text input methods. You can spend a little time
typing and a little time dictating to greatly extend your writing
output. What's more, dictating allows you to lean back in your chair
and to adopt a more relaxed position while writing, relieving back
strain and other problems. Even if you think you can type as quickly as
you can dictate, remember that varying your work routine is a key to
maintaining your well-being. Remember that you can alternate between
using Dragon Dictate for Mac and typing by hand to give yourself a break.
I am frankly skeptical of those
who think that they can type as quickly as they can dictate. Speaking
as a far more natural action than typing, and it is doubtful that most
people can type as quickly as they can speak. Even
the closed captioning on live television shows, which is done by
experts, sometimes has a hard time keeping up with rapid speakers.
But what about misrecognized words? Doesn't that slow you down? True,
even Dragon Dictate for Mac is not perfect, but you have to factor in the
amount of time it takes you to correct typing errors as well. After
all, hand typing is not an error-free process either.
In short, I recommend Dragon Dictate for Mac for all Internet marketers I
think it will quickly prove itself to be, next to your Mac, the most
valuable tool you possess.
Click the above image to order.
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