Those of us who use speech recognition are giving our computers a pretty good workout — the speech engine takes a lot of compute power. As long as you have a fairly powerful computer and do a couple minutes of maintenance every few weeks you’ll be all set.

Unless, like last week, it’s very hot, and you try to use your computer in a room that’s not air-conditioned.

Computers naturally get warmer when you use them. On a cool day the heat dissipates pretty well by itself. Last week was a different story, however. When a computer gets too hot, the computer fan kicks on to cool it down. If it’s still too hot the chip will automatically slow down. This all presents problems for the speech user. First, the excess noise of the fan can make it harder for the microphone to process your speech, and can make the signal that ultimately passes to the computer chip less clean so the computer has to work harder to decipher it. These can both increase the lag between you saying a command and the computer recognizing it. And if the chip slows down, processing slows down further.

The moral of the story is if you find yourself trying to use speech on a hot day and you think the computer is slowing down, it probably is. Turn it off for little while and it will do better when you turn a back on. Find air-conditioning or wait till the air temperature is cooler and it will do even better. And make it a habit to turn off your computer when you’re not using it so it can cool down completely.

FYI Here’s advice on the ideal setup for speech-recognition and a two-step maintenance program for speech-recognition.

It’s obvious that Google+ is a powerful tool for personal and business use, and that we’ll see much more of it as time goes on. Circles are a brilliant way to organize contacts and share information, and hangouts makes video conferencing easy. What’s not to like?

Well, have you ever been in a situation where you’re looking at food that looks great and smells great and you’re hungry and would very much like to have some, but there’s some reason you can’t?

I have to give Google+ very mixed reviews on accessibility.

The more important a tool like Google+ turns out to be, the more important that everyone have access to it — including a couple of large communities who find it difficult or impossible to use a mouse: folks who have repetitive strain injuries and folks who are blind.

The good news is it’s relatively simple to make a program accessible to everyone: include keyboard controls. Better yet, provide a way to reconfigure keyboard shortcuts and share configurations. Enable the keyboard, and alternative controls like speech recognition can translate keyboard shortcuts to give users whatever type of access they need.

So how accessible is Google+ on this basic — keyboard shortcuts?

I couldn’t easily find shortcuts documentation.

So I tried some things out.

It failed on one basic requirement — you can’t use the arrow keys to move up and down conversations and drop-down menu items.

There’s a little good news, however.
- You can use the the “j” and “k” keys to move between conversations, just like in Gmail.
- The Enter key sets you up to write a comment.
- And a combination of the right number of Tabs and Enter lets you post, delete or cancel from the comment field.

So if you use Dragon plus Utter Command speech software to control the computer you can say “Letter j” or “Letter k” to move back or forward through entries. You can also skip forward or back in a single utterance, e.g. “k Times 3”. And you can open a comment field by saying “Enter”, and, once the comment is in, say, “Tab Enter” to post it, or “2 Tab Enter” to cancel it.

But that’s about it for useful direct keyboard control.

If you use the Firefox Mouseless browsing extension, you can go directly to most elements for a small penalty — numbers taking up space on your screen.

And if you use Dragon’s speak links ability you can click links and buttons that contain words, but this breaks down with less pronounceable names like +1’s and unpronounceable things like the home, pictures, profile and circles icons. Dragon’s speak links ability is also a little fragile — it’s all too easy to accidentally say a word that clicks a link.

And both solutions require you to identify something by sight before you take action, which can make things slower or a showstopper depending on your abilities. This is where keyboard shortcuts should be filling in the blanks.

Given the mixed situation, the easiest way for Dragon plus Utter Command users to access commonly clicked items like the search field, unpronounceable icons like profile, and unpronounceable symbols like the little drop-down list on the top right corner of each entry might be to use the UC Touch List to set up named mouse clicks. It takes a little set up, but will get you to the meal in the end.

Google+ clearly needs more keyboard shortcuts.

Better yet, how about a tool to allow us to easily configure keyboard shortcuts in Google+? Or even better, how about a tool to allow us to easily configure keyboard shortcuts across Google products? This would allow more people into the circle. It also has a lot of potential to improve the experience for folks who are already in.

I get a lot of inquiries about how I carry out particular computer tasks by speech.

Here are the gory details on what I do to write a blog item and post it to WordPress:

Getting ready to write

When I think of an idea for a Patch on Speech blog post I say
- “Blog Pending Site” to bring up the Google document I write the blog in. Then I say
- “Find Mark 1″, then “Another Graph” to position the cursor. I have “MARK 1″ written at the top of my working section. The first command selects “MARK 1”, and the second one positions the cursor two lines below it at the top of the section. Then I say
- “Today Short Enter” to add the current date and move the cursor to the next line

Writing

I either jot down an idea, or write a whole post.

When I’m writing I make heavy use of “1-20 Befores” to select the last few words I said and change them. A key point about this technique is I don’t count how many words I want to select back. I just make sure to select more words than I need to change, then look to see what is selected and resay what I need to.

I also make use of the Dragon inline commands, which allow you to say punctuation like “Open Quote” and “New Paragraph” without pausing. I use  “Another Graph” to start a new paragraph when I’m not at the very end of a line. I occasionally find myself speaking keyboard to fix something, for instance “Left Backspace Right” to correct “two” to “to”.

We’ve just been testing a series of commands that lets you use a mouse without clicking, and I’ve been experimenting with commands like “Touch Word” and “Touch 3 Words” to select text.

Posting

After I’ve written and edited a piece, I say
- “Find Mark 1”, then “2 Down Home” to put the cursor at the beginning of the headline
Then I use several “1-100  Up\Downs” commands combined with a copy command to select the story, e.g. “50 Downs”, “20 Downs”, “5 Ups Copy”

Then I open the page where I post by saying
- “WordPress Site”
If I’m not already logged on it prompts me for my username. I have my username in the UC Enter list so I can say it and hit the Enter key in one utterance. Since my password is stored I can login in a single utterance:
“<username> Enter”
Once I’m in I say
- “31 Go” to click the “New Post” link
- “Tab Paste” to tab to the body field and paste the text
- “Go Top” to move the cursor to the top of the file
- “Line Cut” to cut the headline
- “2 Delete” to remove the extra lines
- “49 Go” to move to the headline field
- “This Paste” to paste the headline

Categories and Publish

I add categories using the Go numbers, one or two at a time , e.g. “31 Go” to add one category and “38 Go 41 Go” to add two categories in a single utterance, and use a Go number to hit the “Preview” button.

Then I look over the post, say “Doc Close” to close the preview, and use a Go number to hit “Publish”.

Avoid having to remember commands

I think the key to enabling a program for efficient speech control is to take the time to look at what you want to do in detail and plot it out — take the time to write out the steps. Make a game of figuring out just how efficient you can be. Then take the steps and put them in one of the UC Custom Guides, so you can call it up instantly, e.g. “Custom 3 Guide”, and read the set of commands to carry out the task.

This way you don’t have to remember commands. Eventually, after using the guide a bunch of times, you’ll have the sequence memorized without having to consciously memorize it.

If you have a way of carrying out a task by speech that you’re particularly proud of — or if there’s something you’re struggling with — drop me a line at kim @ this web address.

It looks like a new point release of Dragon NaturallySpeaking – 11.5 – will be available for free download for Dragon 11 customers within a few weeks.

Articles about the point release tout its new-found ability to use the iPhone as a wireless microphone for Dragon over wifi. The point release also has some new commands for a couple of very popular websites: Twitter and Facebook.

There have been some more subtle changes as well, including bug fixes aimed at making things run smoother. We weren’t recommending that our customers jump to 11, partly because version 10 was still a little faster, but 11.5 is probably worth the change.

This is the first time since NaturallySpeaking 3.5 that Dragon has done a mid-point release. That one was free as well, only back then Dragon had to send CDs out to everyone.

Here’s where to watch for the free download for Dragon 11 customers:

http://www.nuance.com/dragon/whats-new-upgrade/index.htm

http://www.nuance.com/for-business/by-product/dragon/product-resources/whats-new-version-11/index.htm

Redstart Systems will also have an announcement within a couple of weeks — watch this space.

There are two ways to speed up a computer task: Carry out the same steps you always have, but go faster, or find an easy-to-use tool that requires fewer steps.

If you need to navigate through long documents on the Internet — papers, standards documents, patent documents etc. — the Firefox HeadingsMap extension will save you a lot of time. It lets you navigate using a map of the headings in a document. The headings map also gives you a great overview — a quick mental map of the document. It works especially well with speech. And it shows errors in headings, which is useful when you’re putting together a long document.

HeadingsMap shows up as a small symbol containing an “h” on the Status bar at the bottom left corner of the Firefox window. If your Firefox window is maximized the “h” appears immediately above the “Start” button.

Click the “h” and a narrow window appears on the left containing all the headings and subheadings in a document. Click the “h” again and the window disappears. Right-click on the “h” and you’re presented with configuration options. I usually uncheck the “levels” checkbox, which makes the headings map a little cleaner looking.

In general, there are three different ways to navigate among items on tree views like the headings map:
- the mouse
- the Up/Down arrows
- the letter keys

The most efficient way to implement letter keys navigation is to let the user type more than one key of a selection, say “d o” to select “dove” rather than “dinosaur”. A less efficient way is to treat every letter as a new navigation event and jump to the next instance beginning with that letter.

Fortunately, HeadingsMap has implemented all three methods, including the efficient letter key method.This method works especially well with speech because you simply say the whole word to navigate to it, e.g. “dove”.

You can download the HeadingsMap extension here: addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/headingsmap/

And here are a couple of especially long documents you can try it out on:
A paper on the effects of climate change on birds from the Public Library of Science:
www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000585
The public draft of a World Wide Web Consortium standards document:
www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-UAAG20-20100617/

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about the Dragon NaturallySpeaking “Spell XYZ” command. This command lets you say, for instance “Spell s a”. People are complaining that it sometimes doesn’t work. They’re right.

This command doesn’t work everywhere. It only works in text boxes. This is an unfortunate oversight in the Dragon user interface.

Logically, any speech command should work in all contexts where it could be useful. It’s unnecessarily difficult to make the user remember different commands to carry out the same operations in different contexts. Something as basic as pressing a letter key should work anywhere you might want to use a letter, including menus.

This is what people are complaining about. Those who are complaining have gotten adept enough at speech that something basic like pressing letter keys becomes second nature. They have a habit of saying “Spell” and then a letter, number or symbol name whenever they have to hit separate keys. The definition of habit is you don’t have to think about it. And this is where they get in trouble — the habit kicks in everywhere, including when you are in a drop-down menu that doesn’t respond to full words.

If you’d like to use the “Spell XYZ” command everywhere rather than having to stop and think about where you can and can’t use it, complain to Nuance, the company that makes Dragon (there are couple of ways to do this — details are posted on the Redstart wikki: http://redstartsystems.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=NatSpeakUtilitiesandResources).

Although you can use the Utter Command Folders List utility to directly open any folder on your folders list using a single command, you’re also likely to at least occasionally navigate ad-hoc through the file system. A common way to navigate is to say a folder name to navigate to the folder (e.g. “Financials”), say “Enter” to go into the folder, say the name of a subfolder (e.g. “Budget”), then say “Enter” to go into the subfolder, etc.

Here’s a tip from Jacob Cole, an MIT student I’ve been training on Utter Command.

Navigate folders using the Dragon “New Line” in-line command, which was originally conceived as a text command. In-line commands are used within a text phrase. They’re mostly punctuation marks like “comma”. “New Line” is a little different. It literally hits the Enter key to give you a new line. The classic “New Line” example is saying a grocery list without pausing between lines, e.g. “Avocados New Line Eggs New Line Flour”.

Jacob pointed out that you can also use “New Line” to reduce the number of phrases you have to say when navigating through folders. Using the above example, instead of having to say four separate utterances to go two folder layers deep, you can say “Financials New Line” to navigate to the financial folder and go into it, then “Budget New Line” to navigate to the budget folder and go into it. Or even “Financials New Line Budget New Line”.

Happy navigating.

Have any good tips or pet peeve’s about using speech input? Let me know at info@ this website address.

Thunderbird now has tabs for open messages, which is very convenient. You can have three messages open and see where they are from the tabs — this is similar to tabbed browsing in programs like Firefox and Internet Explorer. And you can move among tabs using the same commands you use to move among tabs in your browser: “Tab Back”, “Tab Forward” and “1-20 Tab Back/Forward”.

Unfortunately, however, the keyboard shortcut to close a message tab is different from the standard close document/tab command used in most programs including Firefox, even though Thunderbird is developed by the same organization as Firefox. The usual command “Control Function 4″ logically mirrors the common “Alternate Function 4″ that’s used to close a window.

If the standard keyboard shortcut were enabled like it is in programs like Microsoft Word and Firefox, you could say the shortcut or “Document Close” to close a document or tab. And if you wanted to close more than one you could say “Document Close Times 3″, for instance.

If you dig through the keyboard shortcuts for Thunderbird, you’ll find that there is a nonstandard keyboard shortcut to close a message tab: “Control w”. So you can train yourself to say “Control w” to close a message when you’re in Thunderbird. Also keep in mind you can also say “Control w Times 3″ to close three open messages. But it would be far better to not have to think about which program you are in when closing a tab or document. Feel free to complain to Thunderbird about this oversight at the Thunderbird support forum.

Here’s another Thunderbird tip: If you want to move a message rather than just closing it try “Move Recent”, “1-10 Down Enter”.
There’s more Thunderbird strategy on the Redstart Wiki: http://redstartsystems.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=UCandThunderbird

I get a lot of inquiries from people who are confused about the Dragon speech engine’s many names, and also the name of the company that owns it.

Here’s a brief history:

The Dragon speech engine has changed hands twice, but the name of the company owning it has changed three times.
In the beginning Dragon Systems created the DragonDictate speech engine. Also in the beginning several other companies also created programs that let you speak to a computer: Kurzweil Applied Intelligence, Lernout & Hauspie, IBM and Philips. These early speech engines all required you to pause between words. This was a somewhat frustrating way to dictate and was hard on your voice.

Dragon, Lernout & Hauspie, IBM and Philips eventually improved their speech engines so you could dictate in phrases. When Dragon Systems brought out continuous speech recognition, it changed the name of its product to Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Dragon NaturallySpeaking generally worked better for dictation than DragonDictate.

People who were trying to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking hands-free, however, found that Dragon NaturallySpeaking lacked some of the DragonDictate features. Some of us who needed hands-free speech input used a combination of DragonDictate and Dragon NaturallySpeaking for years. (For me it was until NaturallySpeaking 3.5 came out. There are still a couple of features that were in the old DragonDictate that haven’t made it into Dragon NaturallySpeaking. The one I miss the most is the ability to go straight to a macro script from the recognition dialog box where you could see what Dragon had heard.) So DragonDictate was used and talked about long after development stopped.

Just before Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 5 came out Dragon Systems was sold to Lernout & Hauspie, makers of rival speech engine VoiceXpress Pro. NaturallySpeaking 6 was a merger of the products, keeping the NaturallySpeaking name and most of the look and feel (with the notable exception of the macro creation facility). When Lernout & Hauspie famously melted down, the Lernout & Hauspie speech assets were sold to ScanSoft, a company that started with optical scanning recognition technology acquired from Xerox, who acquired it by buying Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc., one of several companies started by Ray Kurzweil. (The Lernout & Hauspie speech assets also included the Kurzweil Voice speech engine, which Lernout & Hauspie had acquired by buying Kurzweil Applied Intelligence, another company started by Ray Kurzweil.)

Just before ScanSoft acquired Dragon, they’d signed a 10-year deal with IBM to market IBM’s ViaVoice, which by then included PC and Mac versions. After the ScanSoft acquisition there were no more new ViaVoice products. Over the next few years ScanSoft acquired many more speech-related companies including Nuance. After the Nuance acquisition, ScanSoft switched its name to Nuance. Some people refer to the old Nuance as blue Nuance and the current Nuance as green Nuance. (This was the second name change for ScanSoft. It was founded in 1992 as Visioneer.)

This year, Nuance created an iPhone app named Dragon Dictation — name sound familiar?

Also this year Nuance bought MacSpeech. There’s some name history here too. MacSpeech’s original speech engine for the Mac, iListen, was based on Philips FreeSpeech2000 speech engine. MacSpeech changed its product name to match the company name after signing an initial deal with Nuance in early 2008 to use the Dragon NaturallySpeaking engine. (Later in 2008 Nuance bought Philips Speech Recognition Systems.) After buying MacSpeech Nuance renamed the speech engine product to Dragon Dictate for Mac. Name sound familiar? The old DragonDictate had no space between words. The new Dragon Dictate is two separate words.

OK. Got that all straight? There’s a little more nitty-gritty. The Dragon NaturallySpeaking product line includes a basic version, middle version, professional version, legal version and medical version. The professional, legal and medical versions all originally had the “Dragon NaturallySpeaking” first and middle names, but somewhere along the line the legal and medical versions lost NaturallySpeaking, becoming Dragon Legal, and Dragon Medical.

Meanwhile, the basic version and middle versions have recently changed names. The basic version has in the past gone by “standard” but is currently “home”. The middle version has in the past gone by “preferred” but is currently “premium”. There’s also a sub-basic version not usually sold by resellers that can be found in retail stores usually around Christmastime named Dragon NaturallySpeaking Essentials.

One last thing. I’m not sure where Dragon Speak came from. I’ve heard many people refer to Dragon NaturallySpeaking as Dragon Speak, but that’s never been an official name — so far.

So — I hope that clears everything up.

Utter Command has always been named Utter Command — just saying.

If you use a mouse to scroll, have you noticed how much fine motor control you use to keep the arrow on the scroll bar as you move the page? You’re doing a fair bit of work to do this. It’s akin to keeping on a balance beam.

If you can move your mouse, you can use an Utter Command touch/speech combination that’ll show you just how hard you have to work to use just the mouse to control the scroll bar.

Next time you use the mouse to scroll, place the mouse arrow on the scroll bar, then say “Touch Hold”. This command holds down the left mouse button. Now you can scroll by simply moving the mouse up and down. There’s no need to click, and there’s no need to keep inside the narrow confines of the width of the scroll bar. This command is especially effective when you’re reading and can leave the left mouse button down between moves. It’s also especially effective when you’re skimming quickly through a document — you can concentrate more on what you’re reading because there’s no need to take your eyes off it to make sure the mouse is on the scroll bar. When you’re done using this command make sure to release the mouse button: “Touch Release”.

You can use the same method in a drawing program to draw without having to have the pen touch the tablet.

There are more details on the “Touch Hold/Release” command in UC Lesson 4.5.

Keep in mind that the Touch Hold/Release method is one of several ways to control the scroll bar using Utter Command — if the combination is comfortable for you it’s a good one. If you need to be completely hands-free, see UC Lesson 1.8, which details all the ways you can use speech to navigate documents, and UC Lesson 9.5, which details Web navigation.

Happy navigating.