in honor of my hacky sack

[mbarker]

the other day I tried using the keyboard for a couple of hours. I seemed to get a lot done that way, but my hands ached when I was done. Actually before I was done, but I really noticed it afterwards.

So I went back to Dragon NaturallySpeaking -- and my hacky sack. See, over 10 years ago now when I first started having trouble with my hands and started using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, one thing I realized was that I really wanted to do something with my hands even while I was dictating. I tried various small gadgets, and ended up picking up a soft leather sack. The first one had Goofy on it. So while I'm dictating, I play with my hacky sack. And fairly often after I'm done, I toss it while walking. Somehow the gross motion of tossing and catching helps relax the aching hands.

The current one is an inexpensive blue and gray one from 100 yen shop here in Japan. It looks a little like a juggling bag, but a bit big and floppy. And various people tell me I should kick it -- but I really like to toss it around.

So here's to the hacky sack.

(no keys were damaged while dictating this -- and my hands thank me, too.)

Comments

[saruby.livejournal.com]

How do you find working with Dragon Naturally Speaking? I have one friend who said she couldn't make it work at all. I didn't have any problems with the learning to use level, but I was speaking pretty slowly. Does it work for Japanese too? Romaji or Kanji? Just curious.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

I like the current incarnation reasonably well. I started with a version where the guide repeatedly reminded me that I didn't have to say each word separately. Also, I had reached the point where I had shooting pains beyond my elbows all the time, was not sleeping well and waking myself up due to pains, and fairly often dropping glasses and bottles that I thought I had in my hand -- the doctors were talking about injections and immobilization, and strongly recommended that I stop typing altogether. In any case, this version (with a fast CPU and lots of memory) seems to do a pretty good job at keeping up with me. I still don't find dictation to be the easiest approach to writing, though. And for editing -- that is just wicked. I also use a trackball rather than putting up with the cursor commands.

I have to admit I've just used the English version. I haven't tried to do Japanese with it -- luckily very few people want me to write lots of Japanese.

I think many people try it thinking that they will be able to type and dictate. If I could still type regularly, I doubt very much if I would put up with it. I end up spending more time thinking on paper, and also putting up with sentences that are probably run ons and not well thought out -- and some friends tell me that I have more odd words than I used to. Bad proofreading.

Oh, the other major kicker -- I can't take notes in a meeting, and dictation in the open space office -- I get edgy when lots of people are around. This year a friend has talked me into trying out a small tablet computer for the other times. Not sure I like it, but I am learning that it's an option. Actually takes scribbles, and for some reason, that doesn't seem to set off the arm pains as bad.

Anyway - I like Dragon. For the things it can do. It doesn't seem to be a replacement for everything -- I pretty much gave up on coding, for example. Possible, but I'd end up spending so much time training it and adding special commands.

Thanks for asking!