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• 3 months ago

  Painted Letters on Medical Alert Bracelet?

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• August 6th, 2009

  $99 BlackBerry Storm Now, or Indefinite Wait for Storm 2 and +$100?

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• August 4th, 2009

  Would you rather buy a Gildan or American Apparel tshirt at a concert?

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Answers

• 3 months ago

  Painted Letters on Medical Alert Bracelet?

  No, no, the text is engraved. The paint is filled into the engraving. The paint wears away, leaving only the steel engraving with no color.
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• 3 months ago

  Does anyone else use Dragon NaturallySpeaking?

  @Quagmire – I use “standard”, and though I’ve tried out several mid-priced headsets for comfort, I haven’t actually found one that works better than the one in the box. I’m sure that one of the more pricey ($100+) headsets would show an improvement, but I must confess that though the included headset seems “basic”, it’s actually quite good. The key, in my opinion, is the close proximity of the mic to the mouth. I tried some with more “cheek”-located mics and they weren’t nearly as good. Accuracy was fine, but there was delay as the software crunched away trying to analyze what I said. In the end it typically got it correct, but only after much thought.
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• August 6th, 2009

  Does anyone else use Dragon NaturallySpeaking?

  @Quagmire while having a dead-silent environment would always help – much as it would when simply talking on the phone or, dare I say it, having a face-to-face conversation – it’s absolutely not necessary, especially given today’s noise canceling microphones. Likewise, you don’t need a BBC voice (or American Midwest Newscaster voice) either. It has indeed evolved well – I’d give it another try! You might just like it now!
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• August 6th, 2009

  Do they have the technology to make Smell-a-vision a reality?

  Smell-o-vision style devices have been around for a long, long time. As long ago as the 1950’s, smell was added not only to movies but was also popular with researchers in the then infant field of augmented reality. The problems with implementing it today are likely the ones mentioned above in previous comments. Largely social and consumer-desire based, not technical.
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• August 6th, 2009

  Does anyone else use Dragon NaturallySpeaking?

  Just purchased version 10 and it’s amazingly accurate. I use it for dictation as well as general navigation of my computer. It’s fast and intuitive. @evelyns_pet_zebra the learning curve is virtually non-existent. There’s a very short and easy 5 minute training session (for the software). It prompts you to read text, you read it, it calibrates itself. There are also tutorials to walk through to learn the basic commands, but most are very obvious and simple natural language commands. For instance… From a bare desktop I can do the following: (all spoken) -Start Firefox (my browser of choice) -Click Fluther (I have it as a bookmark button on my toolbar) -Pagedown (to scroll down the Fluther front page and find this post) -Does anyone else use Dragon NaturallySpeaking (this will click to this post) Viola! I’m looking at this discussion! Easy as can be! And no hands. Dictation is equally easy. Speak what you want. Need to delete something? Simply say “Select the-text-that-I-want” and then say “scratch that…”. Easy and casual. Would I recommend it? Yes. @Quagmire I think that it’s come a long, LONG way in those years. I used to feel the same way you did. I used to spend more time correcting my work than composing my work. That’s no longer the case. TIP: Use a good microphone (headset or otherwise). I’ve tried out several. What seems to work best is a USB input with a microphone that is positioned directly in front of your mouth. The included headsets are often some of the better performing ones, but I’ve swapped them out in order to try out the field. Stick with the one in the box, or go with my recommendation if you look for a new one.
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