IBM 200 MHz Pentium with MMX
64 MB RAM
2 GB hard disk (partitioned as two 1 GB disks; drive C 500 MB free, Drive D
empty except for swap file)
Sound Blaster 64 AWE sound card (not Gold)
VXI microphone that came with NaturallySpeaking (I do no use the "bias box"
that came with the microphone. That dramatically decreases performance and
gives a much lower rating on the audio setup Wizard)
there is also an ethernet card on my system
Operating system is Windows 95 4.00.0970a
I have Natural Text and Natural Word
I have installed the patch to Microsoft Office
I almost always dictate into NaturalWord, rarely using the Dragon text
editor. I don't believe performance was any better in Dragon than it was in
NaturalWord.
I've been through the basic training and the extended training (multiple
times). I have read most of the training packages, including the longer
ones like 3001, Dogbert and Dave Barry.
I have tried increasing the microphone volume, without much improvement.
I have been building up a collection of files for the topic builder, which I
run every couple of weeks or so. I probably have about 200 KB of files I've
dictated.
I have tried Rose's training program (reading and then correcting a magazine
article) and can't say I noticed the "big improvement" she says I should.
I think I am dictating correctly; speaking swiftly in long phrases and
sentences, speaking clearly, but not over enunciating.
I have not tried the usual suggestions (rounded up the usual gang of
suspects) new microphone, new sound card, more memory. I was hesitant to
shell out even more bucks. And since the Audio Setup Wizard rated my system
as "Average" (which is really quite good) I didn't think it would be the
microphone or the sound card.
In dictating this note I have accounted 27 errors (make that 28). Is this
typical? To my expecting to much? (Make that 29). While I'm still quite
impressed with the technology, it will take a big improvement for me to
agree with Dragon's statement that it's actually faster than typing since I
have to do all of this correcting. With my RSI as bad as it is I'm trying
not to touch the keyboard at all, and this is not helping.
Well, Dragon just gave me an "unexpected exception" and terminated on me.
(I wonder what exceptions are expected?) I am finishing this by hand.
This doesn't happen often to me, that Dragon crashes in the middle of
something, but it OFTEN refuses to exit. The disk thrashes for 15 minutes
or more after exiting the program and I finally have to ctrl-alt-delete and
End Task. Sometimes that doesn't even work and I have to reboot.
Please help. I'm trying to make this work...
Steve Hasselberg
SHasselb@@cldx.com
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