Accessories

DRAGON NAUANCE WASTELANDS
I USED TO SELL THIS SOFTWARE WHEN I WORKED AS A COMP. SALESMAN. NOW I'VE FOUND OUT WHAT MY CUSTOMERS MENT BY POOR SUPPORT. AFTER INSTALLING DRAGON NAT. SPK. 9.5, THE SOFTWARE REQUIRES YOU TO CONTACT NAUACE FOR REGI. THE SOFTWARE. AT THIS POINT I FOUND I COULD NOT COMPLETE REGISTRATIION NOR GET HELP VIA PHONE OR WEBSITE. BY THE WAY NAUANCE WILL ASK FOR A $10.00 TECH. SUPPORT PER QUESTION. THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT FINISHING MY REGISTRATION COMES UP WITH AN ERROR THAT REQUIRES A SOFTWARE UPGRADE.

dragon speak
I purchased this product to be used with Vista, the box says it is compatible with Vista, but apparently the Microsoft Word voice recognition program overrides dragon speak. We have been unsuccessful it getting it to work. It loads, but cannot be programed to the individual voice. Telephone help had us on hold for over 45 minutes, our phone went dead before a tech picked up. Our older previous version used with XP worked great.

Frustrating.
I tried so hard to make this product work. I bought soundcards and headphones galore. I fiddled with the settings and training for hours. The frustrating thing is that it almost works. Sometimes, it can reasonably do the job. The real problem is that the program is so full of glitches and bugs, that what seems like a pretty good data engine is rendered largely useless. Nuance is of absolutely no help. They are the worst kind of software company. They seemingly spend all of their resources on hawking the product, endlessly hammering you for paid upgrades, and virtually nothing on support. Actually less than nothing, as they make you pay for everything, even for just simply calling them.

The main glitches and bugs, for me anyway, revolved around using the program with even the most basic applications such as Word. It would usually work for a while, and then start having an increasing series of problems integrating with the Word document, finally becoming virtually useless. Any time saved by dictating is spent by proofing, fixing problems, fiddling with the program, etc.

If one exclusively uses the Dragon Dictation Box, and then transfers the dictation into whatever your document is (an inexplicably tedious process) it's better.

My advice is, forget about this program if you are capable of typing faster than 20 words per minute.

Also, I would bet serious money that many of the glowing reviews here are plants.

Not perfect, but amazing
I've been using Dragon Naturallyspeaking (Ver. 9.5)for over a month now to transcribe a type-written memoir with many spelling and grammar errors for possible publication. I started the process by scanning the pages and running them through an Optical Character Recognition program, but this program did not correct the errors (we all know the limitations of Spell-checkers). Then I decided to try Voice Recognition, and while there were errors (even after significant training of the program), they were much more manageable than trying to re-type the entire book. One of the major problems I had was the difference between "in" and "and", which may be my speech, but I still haven't been successful at correcting this so far. On the other side of the coin, I was fequently amazed at how often the program ran into fairly esoteric words (especially odd names) and got them correct! I feel it was certainly worth the money and time spent (I am not a touch-typist), as I was able to correct grammar errors as I spoke, and otherwise edit on the fly (for clarity, as an example). Plus, I've spent a little time having fun with having the program actually run the computer, not just transcribe dictation. When I've finished the current project I intend to develop this further - maybe someday I'll be able to stop using the keyboard and mouse almost entirely!

Shoot yourself now
A complete waste of both disk space and money. If you purchase this product, buy a gun with one bullet and shoot yourself. You'll thank me later!

Repeated efforts to dictate are an agonizing exercise in futility.

Dictating to a monkey on meth would produce better results. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND RUN FAR, VERY FAR, AWAY!