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Voice recognition software is ready for prime time

This is absolutely amazing! Regular readers will know that I do not say that very often. The fact is, I patiently reserve it for things just like this.

I'm writing this blog entry without touching my computer. I'm sitting back in my chair listening to music and speaking into a microphone. And so far, the computer hasn't made a single mistake. Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software was amazing when I used it briefly a few years ago and, as one might expect, it has improved dramatically since then. I've trained it for only 20 or 30 minutes after installing it this morning and it is already at least 95% accurate. The accuracy will continue to improve every time I use it. It will continue learning my vocabulary, accent and speech habits.

Perhaps the most important addition to my setup, however, is the microphone I'm using. I've written about it before. TheBoom microphone has revolutionized my mobility during my work day. I call it my magic microphone. Using it, I can sit in a coffee shop full of people talking, music blaring, and conduct important conference calls without anyone on the other end of the line having any idea that I'm not sitting in my office. The microphone picks up everything I say, even if I'm whispering, but doesn't pick up any of the background noise.

With the Dragon voice recognition software and my magic microphone, I can sit in my office with music blaring or a noisy coffee shop and dictate documents, e-mail, IM -- whatever.

If you do a lot of typing every day, Dragon could save you both time and pain. I started feeling pain in my hands and lower arms a couple years ago and knew that I had to do something. I have improved my posture, increased the frequency of my breaks from the computer, and added a Wacom tablet to the mix. But none of these have made nearly the difference that voice recognition software has already. At this very moment I am leaning back in my chair with my hands behind my head stretching as I dictate. I can literally do healing hand exercises as I write!

There are new technologies coming out every day and, while many of them are very neat, few of them truly amaze me anymore. It's refreshing and exciting to discover new technologies and new applications of existing technologies that have such a massive, positive impact on my every day life.

Designer Heaven: Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection

Santa Claus came today. He was dressed in a DHL uniform.

Good things really do come in small packages. The package (click the image for a larger view) in my photo here is smaller than a typical software box, but it is loaded with goodies. The Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection comes with the full / extended versions of:

• InDesign
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Acrobat
• Flash
• Dreamweaver
• Fireworks
• Contribute
• After Effects
• Premiere
• Soundbooth
• Encore

along with a bunch of other utilities and a 13-hour training DVD.

If you're planning to buy any Adobe applications in the near future, be sure to check out the various suites they offer. In addition to the Master Collection, they have more specialized suites that include a subset of these applications for Web designers, print, etc. They can really save you some money -- or at least give you some additional applications for the same price you'd have paid for the ones you were going to buy a la carte.

Portland being left in the... smoke

Another city has accomplished what Portland can't seem to do: ban smoking. This week it's Baltimore.

As both advocates and opponents looked on in a packed gallery, the Baltimore City Council voted to ban smoking in public places Monday by a vote of 9-2, with four council members abstaining.

Council Vice President Robert Curran, the bill’s sponsor, called the vote historic. "You can all take credit for saving thousands of lives."

According to a recent story in the Eugene Register-Guard, "Sixteen states have extended smoking bans to bars and taverns, including Oregon's neighbors, California and Washington."

What are we waiting for, people?

A study released last November determined that "Oregon ranks in the top 10 of states having highway laws that promote safety and injury prevention."

The scorecard rankings were based on Chicago-based Emergency Nurses Association criteria derived from five policy areas that come under the jurisdiction of the states, four of which focused on the presence of highway safety laws including primary seat belt laws, child passenger safety laws, graduated driver's licensing and universal motorcycle helmet laws...

We clearly care about the safety of our residents and visitors. The ironic thing is that many of these laws, such as the seat belt and helmet laws, are meant to protect the individual. Smoking laws, on the other hand, protect not only the individual (unless they want to take their pursuit of cancer outside), but tens or hundreds of others in the vicinity who are spared the harmful effects—not to mention the cloying stench—of one person's complete disregard for and reckless endangerment of the health of everyone around them.

Let's stop making excuses and allowing ourselves to be suckered by the tobacco industry, their lawyers and those addicted to their products. We're smarter than that. Let's ban smoking now.

Baltimore snuffs out smoking | Examiner.com

Bill would expand ban on smoking | The Register-Guard

Oregon ranks high for highway safety laws | Portland Business Journal

Technorati Tags: Oregon, politics, Portland, smoking ban, Baltimore, tobacco

Look out, Microsoft. The people are organizing.

There is a confluence of events happening that could mean the end of Microsoft's two and a half decade long stranglehold on the computer desktop. Microsoft Windows and Office applications have long been plagued by security holes. This has been, in my mind, largely due to their refusal to improve upon existing products rather than being constantly obsessed with getting the newest, coolest application out the door. When you're a publicly traded corporation in need of daily press releases and new, shiny toys to show investors, it's easy to fall into this trap. Microsoft is a money-making machine first and a customer-focused software company second. Or maybe third or fourth.

In addition to the history of buggy, non-secure software, the company has become increasingly heavy handed in their attempts at monitoring and controlling the use of their products. From forced product activation to digital rights management (DRM) enforcement, Microsoft has been the subject of an increasingly loud outcry from its customers that the company has crossed the line.

Don't get me wrong. My stint working for Microsoft was one of the most rewarding of my career and I have a lot of fond memories from my time there. They've done for personal computing what Starbucks has done for coffee; almost singlehandedly created an entire industry. Microsoft is the sun around which an entire solar system of affiliated companies rotates and generates tens of thousands of jobs. But Microsoft has grown too big and has far too many mouths to feed and investors to placate—at the expense of its paying customers.

One of the events that will eventually unseat Microsoft as the dominant desktop operating system happened on October 20, 2004. It was on this day that the first release of Ubuntu, the most user-friendly version of Linux to date, came out.

Ubuntu is a widely used Linux distribution predominantly targeted at personal computers. Based on Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu concentrates on usability, regular releases, ease of installation, and freedom from legal restrictions.
- Wikipedia

I visited my brother in Seattle recently and he showed me his installation of Ubuntu. I was floored. I'm going to dump Microsoft Windows on every computer I own except my IBM ThinkPad where I'll run my work-related applications that require Windows XP. I could even do a dual boot with Ubuntu on that machine, but probably won't bother for now. Ubuntu is beautiful and it's secure.

The other event (that I'll mention here—there are certainly many more) that will humble Microsoft in short order hit the news today. An article in the New York Times entitled Group Formed to Support Linux as Rival to Windows reports an event that should have happened years ago:

Linux... has gone from an intriguing experiment to a mainstream technology..., helped by the backing of major technology companies like I.B.M., Intel and Hewlett-Packard, which sponsored industry consortiums to promote its adoption.

Those same companies have decided that the time has come to consolidate their collaborative support into a new group, the Linux Foundation, which is being announced today. And the mission of the new organization is help Linux... to compete more effectively against Microsoft, the world’s largest software company.

Microsoft has faced incredible odds many times before and surprised the marketplace by coming out ahead. But unless the companies and organizations that comprise the Linux Foundation completely screw up, Microsoft is in big trouble. And it's about time.

Group Formed to Support Linux as Rival to Windows | New York Times

Ubuntu Linux distribution | Wikipedia

Related post and inevitably long, interesting discussion on Slashdot

Technorati Tags: Linux, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Open Source, Microsoft Office, Ubuntu

Must-hear roast on criminally overpaid CEOs - NPR

NPR aired a brilliant piece today called "Sailing Away on a Golden Parachute."

Day to Day, January 8, 2007 · We offer farewells to departing American CEOs, many of whom make more money by being shown the door than by hunkering down in the board room. Be proud: For every million dollars you leave with, you leave a million mistakes behind.

This piece is hilarious—but the situation isn't. And we shouldn't be satisfied to leave it at something we make fun of and laugh at. These CEOs are criminally overpaid at the expense of their employees, their shareholders, their customers and, by extension, the entire country.

It needs to change. And hopefully the increased awareness generated by things like this will help that happen.

Sailing Away on a Golden Parachute | The Unger Report | NPR

Overheard: The mysterious missing lyrics

Overheard (minutes apart) from the same girl who had the mysterious dot in her ring (see previous entry):

Girl #1: I solved the mystery!
Girl #2: What mystery?
Girl #1: I haven't been able to figure out why some of the lyrics in the song 'Summertime' are missing when I listen to it at work and not other times.
Girl #2: Huh?
Girl #1: Sometimes when I listen to the song 'Summertime,' some of the lyrics are missing. I figured it out. You know how when I listen to music at work I only have one headphone on so I can hear other stuff around me? That was the problem!
Girl #2: I don't get it.
Girl #1: It's because it's in stereo.
Girl #2: Um... okay. I still don't get what the mystery was.
Girl #1: It's the way the system distributes it.

A couple of gripes about theBoom noise canceling microphone

I posted a couple weeks ago about my amazing new gadget—a noise-canceling microphone called theBoom. Read my excited ramblings about it here.

I've been using it since that post and it has lived up to its hype. I can't imagine going without it now. Which is what scares me.

The first problem I noticed was that it arrived without the adapter to plug it into the sound port on my computer, even though I specifically asked for one when I placed my order. My understanding was that it would come with the adapter for my phone and one for my computer. I can order that, though.

Another problem is the fact that this thing probably weighs about two ounces and feels pretty fragile. The headset part of it seems like it is adequately sturdy, but the in-line mute and volume control is downright scary it feels so cheap and fragile. If I pay for something that costs roughly $1,200/pound, I don't want it to have a critical part on it that feels like it probably cost the manufacturer five cents. If that piece breaks, the whole thing is worthless.

Perhaps the biggest problem of all is that it comes with a fabric, pull-string pouch to carry it in. The pouch is too small to begin with—I would have to pack the wiring into a cramped bunch to shove it all in there—and it's fabric! One drop or direct hit and I'd be throwing down $150 for a new one. For this kind of money they can afford to throw in a hard case—and hopefully one that's actually big enough to hold the thing. I end up carrying it around in my hand like a vile of nitroglycerine, handling it very gingerly. This thing is made for the mobile professional who is on the move and working in noisy environments. Not including a heavy-duty hard case to carry it in is a glaring oversight.

None of these things nor all put together are enough to keep me from recommending it, though. It has revolutionized the way I work, allowing me to work anywhere, no matter how noisy it might be.

I received a magic item via UPS. And another via DHL.

I've been using the Internet since a good friend of mine introduced me to it back in 1992 or so—before there was a World Wide Web. Even before that my friend had been using the precursor to the Internet for some time: dial-up bulletin board systems. We were using Usenet, Gopher, WAIS and other pre-Web Internet services and protocols before (and after) the Web came online. We were using Yahoo when it was a handful of pages sitting in a directory on a server at Stanford University. I built my first website, for my company at the time, in 1995.

When I was in junior high school my little brother and I used to play with our Commodore VIC-20, accessing and saving our programs to the attached cassette tape drive. Our older brother was making his way from slide rule to computer punch cards to the latest Texas Instruments calculator.

[Editor | 2006.09.07: Correction from my older brother: Actually, it was more like slide rule to punch cards to the latest Radio Shack TRS-80 computer, which I was teaching myself to program in 1977. Although I didn't purchase one for myself until 1979.]

At one point a couple years ago I had eleven computers running in my house.

There aren't a lot of things that wow me anymore when it comes to technology. It's sad, but true. There are a lot of things that I think are handy, cool—even amazing. But not a lot that make me feel like a little kid again, that make my jaw drop and make me say, "Wow!" I found a couple this past week.

As those who know me, either personally or through my blog, are well aware, I work from home, but more often from coffee shops. Anywhere with a solid Internet connection. That works great as long as I don't have to talk on the telephone. I've had to take calls from clients, colleagues and my boss with everything from Nine Inch Nails to Cindy Lauper blaring in the background and it's not pretty. I end up going through all kinds of contortions and calisthenics in an attempt to hear and be heard. So I've been on a quest for a noise-canceling microphone that actually works. I'm happy to report that I've found one and that it is, well... Wow! This thing works so well it's almost freaky. It's called theBoom.

Hi. My name is Steve and I'm a workaholic.

I want to post a new entry, but I'm working 10 to 16 hours a day these days.

I know—I need to stop. It sucks.