Alright well here I am walking on a treadmill on a random Wednesday evening and the absolute best part about this walking that I'm currently doing is that I am also talking through my microphone and putting text on the page. So how exactly am I doing this? I'm using the new Dragon naturally speaking 10.0 preferred (64-bit), an amazing talk to type program.
How did I get started with Dragon NaturallySpeaking anyways
Back in 2007 I suffered a wrist injury while performing a military training operation in Georgia. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, except for the fact that I was finishing up my senior year of college. What makes it even worse, was that I was not only enrolled in college but actually enrolled in a college that was 100% online. This means, you guessed it, I had to type absolutely everything to get any type of credit for my assignments. I needed to find an answer. After checking around the web for a little while, I came across Dragon NaturallySpeaking and decided that this was the program for me.
Don't you need a great microphone?
I thought that I would need a fantastic microphone and that there was no way this is going to work with any run-of-the-mill microphone you could purchase at Best Buy. I did note a few things though, I knew that a) I needed to have a microphone headset that had USB input not wired (traditional) audio input and b) I needed to have something that was moderately high quality. I ended up choosing the Microsoft LifeChat 3000 microphone and let me tell you that ended up being one of the best decisions I've ever made. This microphone is not only extremely well built and tremendous at understanding my diction; it also records fantastic snippets of audio and audio for screen casts.
Is Dragon right for you
It takes a moment to get used to how Dragon actually works, and what the workflow is for you.
When I first started I realized it is very difficult just look off into the distance and start talking while keeping my focus on the topic and not letting it take me to places I don't want to take the reader. Furthermore, one thing that's also interesting is that you have to keep in mind you are still putting words on the page so punctuation and things of that sort still matter. However, if you are using this tool for college or some other type of environment where you need to quote books and other text verbatim then this tool is the best. I did not know if it was going to be right for me, but now I know it's definitely right for me.
All I can say is just go out and give Dragon NaturallySpeaking a shot and see if it's something that you find useful. As a person that is about to start law school in a couple months, I couldn't have found a better tool to assist me in studying and maintaining a strong work ethic without trying too hard (and saving my wrists).