I was wondering....... for you computer geeks out there.

Corgatha Taldorthar · February 06, 2009, 11:41:53 AM

A few introductory facts need to be added for this to make sense.

1. I am really lazy

2. I like to write.

3. Typing is nice, but sometimes a pain.

For whatever reason (Feel free to psychoanalyze) I'd be up to dictating a work, but not to typing it. I realize that I'd probably have to fine comb anything I dictated, since I tend to talk more freely and less exactly than I like to write. Still, recently, I've been thinking about those little dictation programs. A speakwrite, if I want to borrow the Orwellian term.

Now, I am so technically incompetent that I don't even know what the correct jargon is, so please bear with me. What I want to know is, given a semi-old, reasonably bad laptop with no current dictation program, would I be able to either download or buy an appropriate program, and how much would it cost?

Can anyone help me out here?

llearch n'n'daCorna · February 06, 2009, 12:28:43 PM

Depends on what you mean by "semi-old, reasonably bad"...

Corgatha Taldorthar · February 06, 2009, 02:45:27 PM

My CD drive is busted, and the wireless connection is iffy. 48 gig hard drive, with about half of it used. Not sure where I put down the memory specifications, but how much memory would a dictation program use? (Note, I'm not even sure which piece of data are relevant and which are not, so I'm probably giving useless information.) The laptop itself I've had for a bit over three years, and it's a Compaq, and judging from the price at the the technolng that wasn't supposed to be ahead of the technology curve.
'

Tezkat · February 06, 2009, 04:27:40 PM

If your PC is buff enough to run Vista, Windows now ships with fairly competent voice recognition software built in. The current king of commercial voice recognition software is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It's pretty CPU intensive, but even a 3-year-old machine should handle it fine. The entry level version is about $100. You can probably find older versions in a discount bin somewhere if you shop around. I used it as far back as version 1. (They're up to 10 now...) I had to get my hands off the keyboard due to RSI, and it was serviceable even then.

Lack of a CD/DVD drive will make it kinda difficult to install new software, though...

Tapewolf · February 06, 2009, 04:30:06 PM

Quote from: Tezkat on February 06, 2009, 04:27:40 PM
It's pretty CPU intensive, but even a 3-year-old machine should handle it fine.

If it's labelled 'Compaq' and not 'HP', isn't it going to be more like 7 years old?

Tezkat · February 06, 2009, 04:33:57 PM

Quote from: Tapewolf on February 06, 2009, 04:30:06 PM
Quote from: Tezkat on February 06, 2009, 04:27:40 PM
It's pretty CPU intensive, but even a 3-year-old machine should handle it fine.

If it's labelled 'Compaq' and not 'HP', isn't it going to be more like 7 years old?

No. HP has preserved the Compaq brand. (My laptop is a Compaq... and it's nowhere near that old.)

Tapewolf · February 06, 2009, 04:35:03 PM

Quote from: Tezkat on February 06, 2009, 04:33:57 PM
No. HP has preserved the Compaq brand. (My laptop is a Compaq... and it's nowhere near that old.)

Apparently not for their PDAs, though. They switched over around 2002, so I assumed the laptops did as well.

llearch n'n'daCorna · February 06, 2009, 05:15:15 PM

Nah. They're _still_ selling the things with Compaq written on them instead of HP.

Not many, and they prefer to sell the HP versions, but you know how people are...