Hardware Specifications

Recommended hardware specifications for running speech recognition software with reduced headaches...
PROCESSOR: Intel Core2 Duo 3GHz
HARD DRIVE: 160 GB, with a speed of 10,000 RPS (you usually need to ask about the speed of the hard drive because capacity is the more common attribute). 160 GB works for me because I don't keep much on my computer, all documents, digital images & music are on an external hard drive.
RAM/Memory: 3 GB

Stalled

For a variety of reasons I have not been able to make a lot of progress, nor blog about my lack of progress over the past 10 days.

Things I intend to blog about include:

1) Realistic system requirements to run Dragon

2) Troubleshooting performance problems

3) Strategies to improve recognition

4) Speech & voice & why I need to learn to talk again

5) Why dictating is not like writing at all

Baseline: 50/50 voice/hands

This is hardly a scientific measurement, but from what I can tell I currently use speech recognition software for 50% of my computing, and the (damn) keyboard & mouse for the rest. I guess this is an accomplishment considering 18 months ago I was 20% voice/80% hands.

When I first started using Dragon NaturallySpeaking in 2002 I had completely unrealistic expectations about the product & how long it would take to learn how to use it! I think my first serious efforts towards hands-free computing started in early 2006, so I've been a real/hard-core/serious voice user for just over two years at this point. Rumor has it takes visually impaired users up to three years to be expert level users of programs like JAWS. I just assumed with the cute 100 page mini-manual for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 I should have become an expert user over a weekend, rats.

My goal is to be 90% voice/10% hands by the end of 2008. And the purpose of this blog is to help me focus on this goal and document my progress!