Last week was a pretty good week.  My week started off with an email from a New York Times reporter wanted to interview regarding a post I wrote about Amazon’s frustration free packaging.  Once I picked myself up off the floor, I emailed him back and told him it was okay to call.  I had a great conversation with their technology reporter, and I went on my merry way.  Seriously, my  heart was beating about 400 miles an hour while this was going on.  I asked for him to let me know when it gets printed, and I thought that was the end of it.

On Thursday, I was super surprised to get a call from the New York Times again!  This time they wanted to send a photographer to my house to get pictures of me and my kids!  I ended up with 2 hours to get me and the kids ready and clean the house.  It went well, I think, and I hope to find out soon when the article will get printed.

I feel incredibly blessed right now even though my mom is teasing about when Oprah is going to be calling. 

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

I have been writing a lot about Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software lately. I absolutely love how it saves me time writing posts. If you see the post before this one, it is almost 700 words. I used the software and with editing (mainly because I decided to reword things), it took less than 10 minutes. This software is a bloggers dream. Life is so much easier when I can write a 700 word post in the little bit of time I catch here and there during the day. The best thing is that I am not the only one who thinks so:

Drew of the BenSpark has put together a great little video demonstrating Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Drew has been blogging for quite some time and he might just be one of the best mobile bloggers that I know. He is probably more famous for his picture a day work as he is an excellent photographer. But I can’t help be amazed at how much content he creates and the high level of quality in that content.

He’s definitely a blogger that employs best practices when he finds them. And based on this video, it looks like he might see some potential in Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Now I am not trying to put an endorsement in Drew’s mouth. Time will tell, but I do think he is off to an excellent start.

You’ll notice in his video, that the sound quality of his video is excellent. That’s actually an important aspect for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I don’t mean that you need good video quality or sound quality in a video to make Dragon NaturallySpeaking work. However you do need a good microphone, and it should be a noise canceling microphone at that. The better the sound quality, and the better able your microphone is to remove other background noises, the better your system will be able to recognize the words that you say as fast as you say them and transcribe them accurately.

Now Dragon NaturallySpeaking comes with a noise cancellation microphone that works very well when you buy it out of the box. Drew is working with a download version that does not come with a microphone, and so he had to supply his own.

As I write this article, I am using a wireless headset microphone from Logitech. I’ve been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for almost two years now, but I’ve just recently untethered myself from Dragon NaturallySpeaking and started using a wireless headset microphone with noise cancellation capabilities. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 does have the capability of working with Bluetooth wireless microphones, but my particular microphone runs on 2.4 GHz wireless technology. Now if you live in a household or work in an office environment where there are a number of systems or phones or microwaves, you may experience some interference with this particular headset. In that case, you will probably be better served with either a Bluetooth headset or a headset that is capable of being plugged directly into your computer through the microphone plug or through USB. I don’t have that issue, and so I do get excellent quality with little to no interference at all.

So if you take an interest in Dragon NaturallySpeaking and want to try it for yourself, I highly recommend that you get a boxed version of the software which you can order from Nuance online. You can even get a good deal on a Bluetooth wireless headset and a bundled option from Nuance. If you’re looking for entry level pricing, you can start using the software and get a headset microphone for as little as $99.

To put that in context, I’ve taken three typing classes over the years to boost my typing speed and spent essentially three semesters practicing at typing. It wasn’t the only thing that I studied, but I spent a lot of time building up my typing skill. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you can invest $99, invest an hour installing the software (I’m being very conservative with that time estimate) and as little as 10 minutes training the software to recognize your voice before you can be off and running typing at 150 words per minute!

That is pretty amazing, and well worth the value of $99. Not to mention if you spend a little extra and get a wireless headset microphone, you can pace around your room or your office, you can exercise, or do a number of different things other than sit at a computer desk staring at your computer all day long. $99 basically gives you your freedom,and who wouldn’t want to type at 150 WPM for $99?

Best regards,
Brett Bumeter
www.softduit.com

My name is Brett Bumeter, and I wrote the article above and 4 1/2 minutes. The article is about 659 words long, and that translates into 144 words per minute. Add in two minutes for editing, and that’s still 100 words per minute!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

I posted the family picture we had a done a couple of days ago.  I forgot to post the other two pictures that we also bought.  I already have them hanging in the living room.   This was the photographer that came to the house.  Overall, even though they were pretty pricey, I am happy with the work.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Today the photographer people are coming back to show me the pictures. Woo hoo!!! There are 2 that I know I want for sure. There is a family one, and there is one with Madison and Will. The problem is going to be deciding which ones I want of Will. I am hoping after I order them today, they get here shortly. We have one picture of Will up and we have 5 of Madison. We definitely need a few more of Will. They are suppose to be here between 12:30 – 1:30, so I guess I just have to be patient.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

I hate when they tell you it is going to be between 3:30 – 4:30 pm. We are currently sitting here waiting for the photographer to get to our house. I made Bill get home by 3:30 and it is 4 now. If Madison roots her head into the furniture one more time, I think I am going to scream. She has managed to make her hair stand on end. I hope these pictures turn out good, because I am hoping to get a good family picture.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.