Technical and Internet

If you are using Microsoft Vista then you have a free "Speech to Text" program and you probably don't even know it. That's right, by just adding a microphone to your computer you can talk to your computer and write letters, send emails and do other things. Well, it's a little bit more complicated then that, but not much. I have been using it for a couple of days and I am very happy.

In the setup process you do some voice training with your computer. This training is a bit of a boring process, but it’s important an..d the program seems to work better after doing it. Speech recognition programs were developed several years ago and they have been a great aid to people who are handicapped. They are also great for people who never learned to type. But, I plan to use it as a quick way put together long paragraphs and web articles. Using this program I can lay out the article, at about 120 words per minute an then manually edit it. I have found that the errors that are left after I speak into the microphone are just about what happens when I type normally. I’m not a 100% accurate typist so no matter how I write any article I still have to edit it.

I’ve included a couple links that I found on the Internet and these links will show you the basic information for setting up the program. Like I said it comes free on every Vista operating system so why not give it a try.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2109975,00.asp

http://www.vista4beginners.com/Windows-Speech-Recognition-Guide

There is one more thing I wanted to add and that is that I wrote this article using the speech recognition program and as you can see it worked.

7-30-09 Update on "Speech to Text"

After fooling around with the Vista program I found a really good deal on a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred 10.  It was only $49 after rebates from TigerDirect so I bought it and it came today.  I installed the program and after a bit of computer voice training I was up and running, and I am impressed.  This program is performing almost flawlessly.  Now,  I have had very god results with both of these programs (Dragon is much better) and I think I know what the secret is.  I have been using a desk top Sony microphone on both programs. This is a very good microphone that I used in the past for podcasts.  I think it's very important that you use a really good microphone if you want your speech to text programs to work well and a good sound card in your computer.

Anyway after installing Dragon program I was up and running in no time at all and I was posting messages on the BBQ Forum.  Now I can you that I'm sold on the Dragon program.  I will be using it for a long time.  I can save a huge amount of time working on things that I do for a living, by using this program.  In the paragraph above I mentioned the fact that I got a really good price for this quality program but that deal is scheduled to end by the end of July, so if your interested in it you better contact them right away. You also get a good deal on this at Amazon.com, right now the price there is also $49 after rebates.

Once again after only about an hour I was using the Dragon program without a hitch and it was spelling better than I can manually.  I don't know what I can do with this program once I learn all the ins and outs of it   Just to be able to get it up and running this quick is really impressive. What I like about this Dragon program is that I can use it on everything that I tried to use it on so far.  I was posting messages to an Internet forum using this program and Firefox browser.  I was using the Firefox browser because it has a built-in spellchecker. This combination was working really fast.  Who knows what will happen, once I learn how to use this program really well.

Have you tried Bing yet?  You get to Bing at http://bing.com and it's a new search engine from Microsoft.  Is it better then Google?  I think Bing looks better then Google.  The real test is it's a better search engine then Google.  I was one of the first big fans of Google when it first started.  I was amazed at how good Google was back then and I told everyone about it.  But Google's search engine has changed a lot since then.  Their results are not as relevant as they have been in the past.  Google keeps fooling around with their formulas, to find and rank web pages and all they do is mess  things up.  I keep finding more and more junk web pages in their search results.

So, give Bing a good try and you will be happy you did.

I don't remember when I first found the Woot web site.  But I have visited it every day since that first visit, to see what the deal is today.  That's right they feature one deal each day on some item.  The price is always good and they don't charge much for shipping.  So why don't I buy from them often?  I think the merchandise they offer is "kinda off the wall." a lot of the time.  Like today the deal is a "recertified" Sling Media Slingbox Solo.  I don't know what that item is so I had to do a Google, Bing, or amazon.com search to figure out what it is.  It turns out that this device allows you to watch HDTV anywhere on your laptop or mobile phone.  I have no need for this item today so I will skip this item.    On this item I used amazon to research the Woot item.  I did find that amazon price was $154 for a new Slingbox and Woots price for the recertified on was $100 plus $5 for shipping.  Not a bad buy but I don't need it. 

Woot has a "forum" that is filled with some of the stupidest comments and I have found that looking at it is almost worthless.  Also Woot has a description of the item of the day but I have found it to be of little value.  This description is written by a person or persons that think they are funny but it always rambles on and I have found it to be worthless, reading it.

I have been watching Woot for a long time and I find it very addictive and interesting.  I have bought one item during that time and it has almost been a quest for them to finally offer something I wanted so I could by this good deal.  They delivered the item on time.  When setting up an account with Woot be sure your shipping information is correct because for some reason they don't (at the time of this writing) send you a confirmation of the shipping address and if you screw up and put the wrong address in someone else will get your stuff.

All said and done it only takes a little bit of time to check Woot each day and who knows you might find a great deal on that set of Bobble Head Dolls you have been wanting.

The first time I heard about Twitter I thought it was a stupid idea for stupid people. No matter what I did I kept hearing about Twitter.  It seemed like I couldn't get away from it.  Then I started hearing some good things about this new phenomenon.  Things like "you have to try this thing" and twitting can be good for your business.  When I heard the word business I started paying more attention.

I soon found that Twitter can be a very valuable tool.  But, in the beginning I was very confused as to how I could use it.  I got my Twitter account set up and it was easy.   I set it up using my real name because I did not want someone else to set up an account using my name.  So anyone can see me using twitter by going to http://twitter.com/raybasso and what can be anymore straight forward than that.  Now I'm not the only Ray Basso in the world but there are not very many of us.  You don't have to use your real name as you can use anything that nobody else is using.  Since promoting my business is the reason twitting I chose my real name.

The whole idea of Twitter is the one question "What are you doing?"  You in essence answer that question every time you sent a new tweet and you must do it in less than 140 characters including spaces.  These little short bursts of information allow you to communicate with lot of people very fast.  These messages can be sent by mobile texting, instant message, or the web.  If your tweets are interesting than you will build up a group of people that follow you.  In other words they receive your tweets and can respond to them if they want or they can just see what your up to.  You can follow people that or interest to you and some people us this to get people to follow them.  If your following a lot of people it can get very hectic and so its a good idea to choose the people you follow carefully.

You might want to follow people that have the same interests as you do or you can use it to learn from people that you want to learn how they do things.  To aid you in all of this you need to study Twitter a bit.  The Twitter web site has a lot of information on it and all you need to do is look for it.  Also Twitter has spawned a bunch of tools and web site that will enrich your tweetting experience.  Here are links to a few of them.

• Tweetdeck http://tweetdeck.com/beta/ this is a great tool that you should down load and use
• Twitpic http://twitpic.com/ with this you can link pictures to your tweets
• Twhirl http://twhirl.org/ a desktop client for Twitter
• Twitterfall http://twitterfall.com/ With this you can drive yourself crazy watching tweets falling.
• TweetStats http://www.tweetstats.com/ Look at stats on your tweets
• Tweeterholic http://twitterholic.com/fb_tweeter/ More stats
• Twuffer http://twuffer.com to schedule your posts
• Twitter Feed http://twitterfeed.com Allows you to feed your blog to Twitter
• Twitter Grader http://twitter.grader.com  Allows you to see where you stack up against other Twitter users
• TweetBeep http://tweetbeep.com Manage your online Twitter reputation.
• Twitoria http://twitoria.com lets you clean up your followers that never use tweeter
• Qwitter http://useqwitter.com If you want to know when someone stops following you sign up for this service
• Monitter http://monitter.com You can monitor Twitter for keywords
  

If you need to shorten a URL these links will help you:

1) http://TweetBurner.com - A bare bones tracking service which allows you to shorten any link and then share it instantly with your Twitter followers or Friend feed. Basic stat tracking is available so you can see how many people clicked on your link.

2) http://Cli.gs - A shortening service which includes full analytics. You can create links that include your brand in them. Free to use. It's easy to send your links to Twitter with one click.

3) http://Bit.ly - This is Twitter's default shortening service and used by Tweetdeck.com. It allows you to track performance of your links in real time. Easy to share generated links on Twitter, Facebook, even Gmail. It also offers many extra tools and plug-ins such as a browser bookmarklet and browser sidebar.

4) http://MyTwitterToolbar.com - Free to download and comes complete with a massive list of URL shorteners as well as over 50 Twitter tools. Also includes 100 Twitter tips.

5) http://www.TwitClicks.com - A fairly simple service that allows you to shorten a URL immediately and tweet it. Can also see complete stats. Detailed stats show percentage of browsers used and locations of those who clicked. Check out a short video on how to use it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ScPeCd6X4.

6) http://www.ExpandMyUrl.com - This service takes a shortened link and gives you the true URL that it points to. Perfect for the paranoid individual who wants to know where the shortened link will send them.

7) http://www.TwitPwr.com - A short URL service which also includes analytics and stats. Their home page shows the top 25 users with the most TwitPwr and also a "hot URL" list of those URL's that get the most clicks. Free to use.

8) http://1link.in - A multiple link shortening service. Simply type in a list of links and get one link back for all. If you click on the newly shortened link it goes to a page showing details of what sites that link points to, and asks if you want to open them all. If you answer yes, multiple windows will open for each site.

9) http://Go2.me - A different type of link shortening and discussion service which creates shorter links which also contain a chat window to exchange comments with your readers. It's also easy to share on Twitter, Facebook or email with one click.