voice recognition (cont'd) and IBM

[ROBERT SIDMAN <scribe -at- EZONLINE -dot- COM>]

 I have been following the thread on voice recognition systems.  As one who
depends  on a system, I thought I would get my  $.02, maybe more,  in.
Since
my December,  1997 stroke, and more particularly since May, 1998, when I
returned home, I have depended upon the IBM voice recognition software  to
communicate.

My left arm is now is useless.  Typing with only my right hand is a slow,
laborious process. Dictating to my voice recognition software is slightly
faster, but we may be comparing the racing speeds of turtles and snails.   I
hope some IBM types are lurking and will read this note.

I originally was using IBM ViaVoice.  After upgrading my CPU at home to a
Pentium  II chip and going to Win98 and 128 megs of RAM, my (federal)
employer
upgraded me to ViaVoice Gold,   which is also installed on my office
computer.

It may be me, but there are many times when I use the system it sucks, big
time! There are fewer times when it works well.  Apparently I find I must
stop
dictating every 3-4 sentences,  edit and correct the copy, save it, and
continue.

 Even though I have been used the system daily for more than six months, I
am
still amazed at the amount of mistakes it makes from my dictation.  The
learning process, particularly in teaching the computer to recognize my
speech
pattern and vocabulary, will never end.  This is a major shortcoming.

Another major shortcoming is that to write this message, I must first
dictate
to MS Word or Notepad.  When the note is already to be sent, I must copy and
paste  it  to Eudora Pro software.  There is no way I can directly dictate
to
Eudora, or Hot Dog or Arachnophilia. This is very frustrating.  I have also
had
problems trying to dictate using Lotus Notes, another (fine?) IBM product.
If I
was not now extremely folically challenged, I would be for using this
package.

On a 1-10 scale, I'd rate it as a 3-4.  It does not have a good beat, it is
inconsistent in performance, and you definitely cannot dance to it.

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=