Dual Intel Laptops & Naturally Speaking

I have used DNS with BootCamp, and it is great. I have heard that it
can be run in Parallels, but have not tried it. You might check out
David Pogue's New York Times column.

On or about 10/26/06 1:14 PM, thus spake "Clyde Kahrl"
<ckahrlclydekahrlesq.com>:

> I think that Via Voice
> would work great on my 1.3mzh AlBook, but they simply won't upgrade it to work
> with the current operating systems.

That is a popular misconception, but it is only a misconception. This
message was dictated using ViaVoice on an iMac G5, running Mac OS X 10.4.8.
You are perfectly correct that on today's machines running at their high
speeds ViaVoice works extremely well. (Nevertheless, I too would like to try
using Naturally Speaking on an Intel machine.) m.

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Clyde Kahrl said:

>Now that we finally have souped up laptops available, should I get a new
>one to run Dragon's Naturally Speaking?

Have you tried iListen from MacSpeech? It has been continually updated
for years, and it runs natively on the MacTel platform.

http://www.macspeech.com

At $99 (assuming that you don't need a new microphone), it is a bargain
compared to the cost of Parallels, a copy of Windows, and Dragon.

There is an e-mail discussion list devoted to the topic of Macintosh
voice recognition software:

http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/MacVoice

I believe that you will find when comparing DNS (on a PC) with iListen
(on a Macintosh) that DNS can be trained more quickly, but that when both
have been trained, assuming that your voice is close to the model used by
the program that you are using, that both programs have about the same
accuracy. (Which is not to say that you are guaranteed to have a positive
experience with either program. Some users have very negative
experiences with one or the other. Others are very happy with one or the
other.)

Voice recognition programs in general have not made the huge advances
expected of them over the years. All the experts thought that with
faster processors VR would become much better, and ubiquitous. That has
not been the case. Voice recognition and transcription still requires a
certain amount of patience and dedication to make it work acceptably
well. And it still can be disappointing to many users who try it...on
either the Mac or the PC.

Randy B. Singer

Co-Author of:
The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html