When I had thumb surgery in 2008, I invested in voice recognition software to try to get work done. I spent most of the time fighting and correcting the Dragon Naturally Speaking. The one good thing that came out of the maddening experience was this funny speech-to-text software post. Despite having little hope in software … Read more
Being your own tech support person speeds up fixing the problem. While you’re not the expert in whatever fails to work the way you expect it, many companies have set up self-help systems anyway or they’ll ask if you did this ‘n that. So trying to solve the problem — or narrow it — can … Read more
Many entrepreneurs and small business owners are natural born sales people whose excitement knows no bounds when it comes to closing deals, building strategies and devising marketing campaigns. But what about … accounting? It may feel like drudgery, but managing the business side of a business is absolutely crucial if that business is going to … Read more
Typed note: This is sad. People said my first speech-to-text software entry was funny and I wasn’t even trying to make jokes 🙂 Seriously, I agree the software does funny translations of my speech. First the script, then the translation. Accurate Speech-to-Text Script Official test number two. I’ve revised the script from the original. I … Read more
This post will show you what I said and what this stuff where code [Line spoken should be, “the software heard”]. I strike out the software’s mistakes and picked [put] the correct version in practice [brackets]. Here we go… For those of you not familiar with beast to pick up where [speech to text software], … Read more
This quirky problem has happened often enough that it warrants a post of its own. The problem doesn’t happen on my desktop running Microsoft Windows XP with Office 2003. It occurs only on the laptop running Microsoft Vista with Office 2007. I can’t tell you if it’s a Vista problem, an Office problem, or both. … Read more
How many times did you complete a form only to push the “Clear” button instead of “Submit”? What about “OK” vs. “Cancel” on a popup window? (Raises both hands — one for each.) Why does this happen? Do we expect one button on the left and the other on the right? Are they too close … Read more
Every new release of an application adds more features, but not always for the better. Get ten tips for getting feature frenzy under control. In writing an article about social network sites, I looked at over two dozen sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Sermo, TravBuddy, MyCreativeCommunity. Wikipedia provides a list of many social networking … Read more
Once I got out of automated mode, I woke up and realized that I often use Paste Special with unformatted text when working in MS Word. It became a habit like CTRL+V, CTRL+X, and CTRL+C. To do Paste Special without formatting, I clicked CTRL+V to paste, selected the Paste Special icon (smart tag) and selected … Read more
Having been in process management in a software organization for over ten years, I’ve seen too many articles and books on the topic that worked better than Valium for putting me to sleep especially since they have no side effects. Joel Spolsky is known as one of the best (if not the best) writers on … Read more