I finally broke down and got an iPad, a Johnny come lately. I prefer to be just behind the cutting edge, particularly when the item costs over $500. It was CloudForce New York that finally pushed me, or rather my partner, over the edge. For now, I am loading up on apps. My iPhone is filled with games which, for now, are banished from the iPad.
And so, I will add to the plethora of posts. This is not fan-mail, but rather a thoughtful inquiry into the use of this device.
Another day, another hack. One of our computers got hit by the PC Security malware. Kaspersky to the rescue. The latest bug got Sunbelt VIPRE Enterprise and disabled it, wiped out the Restore Points and disabled safe mode.
For the past 2 years I have used a Logitech DiNovo Edge wireless keyboard and mouse (Click here for info)It came with a charge stand, was super slim and light. Moreover, with I combined it with Multiplicity software, I could easily control multiple PC’s, just moving the keyboard to the PC. Yesterday, the battery died and I cried. No time on the charger would resuscitate it. There was no place to replace the battery (it was sealed) While I will be filing a complaint; I needed a new keyboard immediately And so my adventures in keyboard land began.
I don’t normally post installer bugs, but this is one that crops up from time to time and is difficult to swat down. And so, for my purposes and anyone who works with Time Matters or LNTPA, here is the solution. This bug happens because the Time Matters installer as well as the update utility makes registry changes that require a reboot.
Our new Legal Technology portal is live. To try it out, please bookmark http://legaltechnology.bashasys.net/. If you have a “RSS feed” or a “twitter” that relates to “Case Management Software”, “Document Assembly Software” that you want included, please go to the website and suggest a link.
There is a wealth of information coming from Vendors in these areas. Rather than “surfing”, use our website to do your research or to keep up on developments. You will find my “Time Matters Tips” blog there. At the moment, there is no feed from LexisNexis on Time Matters, PCLaw or Billing Matters, but that should change with time.
Honesty by Computer. There is one aspect of Dragon NaturallySpeaking that might end up being quite beloved by executive management types. Having to speak out loud into a computer tends to cut down on non-work Internet surfing! There are few employees who would have the guts to say out loud “Seach web for beach houses available in June 2010”.
This might be just one of the vaunted productivity gains touted by Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
Non-standard windows, such as Time Matters, seem to work best with a combination of spoken commands and mouse positioning. I noticed that Dragon NaturallySpeaking tends to favor commands that are actual word commands. By this, I don’t mean Microsoft word commands per se, but commands such as “File, save and close”. It does less well with picture icons or long, nonstandard, picklists. This may be a matter of training-my training Dragon, I mean. I was quite excited, however, when I successfully created a step-by-step command that allowed me to create a bill slip from an event record in Time Mattters. Still, it required that I highlight the actual event to to create the bill slip.
I’ve found so far that the Step-by-Step keystroke commands work the best in Time Matters. I’ve managed to create some useful new record commands and saving commands. The “Give Me Help” command is a G_dsend – the index is very easy to work with.
Note From Seth: Dragon is like the Tour de France. There are some days where you race ahead of the pack and feel as if you are on top of the world. There are other days where it is a long slog as you climb mountain after mountain to get to a goal that seems just out of reach. As with the Tour de France, practice makes better so don’t let the minor hills keep you from your course.
Working with Dragon NaturallySpeaking reminds me very much of one of those old movies in which you see an executive dictating to a secretary. I am now gaining a good deal respect for both executive and secretary.
The dictating executive had to be clear and concise and the secretary had to be able to understand him (face it, it usually was a him), even when he was not. Without a doubt, the program that Dragon NaturallySpeaking seems to work with most easily is Microsoft Word. This makes perfect sense as it is a dictation program. You do, however, come to realize, that you must slow down your speech and speak to the program as clearly as you would to a recalcitrant 4 year old. Like the 4-year-old, Dragon learns a little more every time you speak to it as long as you speak to it in an measured and even tone.
Sometimes, Dragon NaturallySpeaking will mistake words for commands. For instance, when I used the word “tone”, Dragon read this as “Home” and proceeded to fly up to the “Home” key, ready to click. There are a few ways that I have noted that will allow you to avoid this issue. When you dictate a word that is read incorrectly more than once, you can use the “spell that” function to “train” your computer to understand the way you intone a particular word. If you mean to use a command, you can hold down the control (CTRL) key and Dragon NaturallySpeaking will understand that you do not intend to dictate that as a word. I have noticed that speaking in phrases of 3 words together with a pause after each tends to minimize the errors. The best way, although probably not the easiest or fastest way, is to create user commands that will give you different ways of asking for common commands such as end of line or inserting a commonly used address.
Note from Seth: Do not have too many windows open at a time when you are using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Otherwise, you will find extraneous codes and remarks in places you never intended them to appear. You should silence the “Dragon” when you finish your dictation.
Can Dragon Naturally Speaking enable you to throw away your keyboard and control your computer with just your voice? Basha consultant, Rose Rowland, a newly certified Dragon Naturally Speaking reseller, tries a week without her keyboard to see how far the limits of spoken technology can go.
I have been typing for a VERY long time. Just to give you a sense of how long, when I first took typing in high school, we all worked on manual typewriters and only the very best were allowed a shot at the fancy new electric IBM Selectrics. Now you can go play a guessing game about my age (no, not THAT old!).
Therefore, entering the world of computers and keyboards was no great challenge to me. I have never, however, up until this point had the wizard-like option of talking to my computer and having it do what I tell it to do. So, Harry Potter fan that I am, I was eager to try Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
Having passed my exam, I decided to spend a week with the Dragon.
On Monday, I started. First impressions. Much like wizarding skills, working with Dragon is exceptionally cool but mastering it does require a degree of patience. Not because the program is difficult to learn-far from it. It is one of the most easy to master out-of-the-box products I have seen recently, The difficulty stems more from the wizard than the wand. However, if you can stick with it, I am assured that it can speed up your work considerably. I can already tell that my searches, whether on the Web or in my computer are considerably faster using Dragon Soft. Check back tomorrow for my further adventures talking back to my computer.
NOTE from SETH: While working with “text” is easy, navigating the commands of a new program can be challenging. Your friend is the “mouse grid” command. Before you go on long adventures, be sure to keep a hand “command” guide at your ready or say “What can I say?”
We are going to try an experiment. We are going to use Wiki technology – MediaWiki (the same used by Wikipedia) to create an open-source manual for Time Matters. We will start out the core of it with our current knowledge of Time Matters. We will require contributors to “register” in order to make contributions and revisions to the manual. The hope is that this Wiki will fill the void between what is in the “help text” and what constitute “best practices”.
We will be making a general announcement later in the month when the Wiki is ready. All contributions will be subject to a “Creative Commons” license. That means that Basha Systems LLC as host will have license to use and republish any contributions submitted to the Wiki. However, you will also be free to “republish” content and link to it, so long as that content contents source attribution and a hyperlink back to the website source for the article.
The more people contribute, the better the resource will become. This Wiki is designed to “refine” the knowledge out there as to best practices and specific tips, using group-sourcing to improve on the content.
Imagine a world where the “digital world” merged with the “physical world”. Combine a mini-lcd projector, a ccd camera, a cell phone, and a micro-processor in a device the size of an iTouch. And then add software that support “multi-touch gestures”. What you get is the vision of Pranav Mistry (a MIT professor) for what he calls a “sixth sense” device. Check out the video presentation on TED.com (or click on the link below in the article).
The vision of Pranav is mind blowing. Imagine projecting a number pad on your hand and dialing your phone with your fingers. Imagine converting a blank piece of paper into a gaming device. What he has done is expand the vision and role of computers beyond the “devices” into something that is ubiquitous and integrated into the real world.
The implications of his breakthroughs, and whether they are “ready for market” can be debated. But you need to see these videos to regain the “gee wiz” about computers. He gives new meaning to “gestures”. Just as the invention of the mouse and the GUI (graphical user interface) revolutionized computing in the last 3 decades, so to will the gesture technology put into concrete form by Pranav revolutionize computing in the next fee decades. Check it out.