One of the most boring things when you are writing a blog is typing. The sounds, the wrist cramps and the dullness of the whole experience makes writing a blog tedious. So I decided to try out some voice recognition software to make the whole process and little bit more enjoyable and a little bit more natural. The process is definitely faster than typing and I must admit, I do like the idea of while I’m speaking the words instantly appearing on the screen.

Because of the process sometimes your grammar can be slightly off, but on the whole it is very satisfying. I first tried Microsoft’s own voice recognition software that I found that to be pretty inaccurate so I tried Dragons NaturallySpeaking which are found to be pretty amazing. The more I dictate to the system the more it seems to pick up on the way I speak. Watching sentences spring out of thin air when you’re speaking is fantastic, particularly if you are reading at quite a pace. I must admit I’m completely sold on the idea mainly because I love technology but also because if it makes life easier it’s good. The only problem means that sometimes you can get quite carried away and if you’re not careful you can miss mistakes made by the voice recognition software.

These mistakes could quite easily make your writing very surreal so it’s good to doublecheck over what you have dictated.You can also control your Windows system and other commands using the voice recognition system. But things certainly could get very difficult if you’re in a roomful of people or you have noisy background sounds. As I am an aspiring author at this moment in time, this system is a godsend. It still makes the odd mistake but the more you train the system the more accurate it becomes. Apparently it has a 99% success rate once it is used to your voice. Although saying this I did have to dictate the last sentence three times to get it correct.

So have I saved time dictating for this blog, well maybe. But I must say it’s a far more enjoyable experience than tapping away and creating a claw out of both of my hands. At least I know when I get RSI, which is inevitable, that there will be a way for me to still interact with the computer.