Rants -- Technology Archives

January 13, 2008

Transcription Software q's: "Dragon Naturally Speaking"

Although I never met a dragon, and certainly not one which speaks naturally, there is software with a related name. If anyone has thoughts, suggestions, recommendations, advice, offers, counteroffers, estoppel, promises, considerations, puns, etc. on "Dragon Naturally Speaking" or any other software where one can drone on verbally and have it automatically typed out, please share. I mean, is it reasonably time-saving, or is it like state of the art OCR namely, generating gibberish sprinkled with occasional words, but doing so in this case for the vocal chords, rather than printed text?

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 10:41 PM | Comments (5)

December 01, 2007

Need Gadget-Geek Info: Vinyl to Silicon

I am hinting around for a Xmas present: a device that has a turntable, a CD thing, and the necessary software so that one can transfer the contents of the old vinyl record to a CD. I saw this device in a consumer-ish outlet (did not get product name); does anyone know of the worthwhileness/reasonable pricing (USA) of such products or particular models or alternatives.? I imagine there are also legal issues of reproduction, but that's for another day.

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 01:12 PM | Comments (5)

April 01, 2007

Anti-techie rant: whatever happened to the off-switch?

I've probably ranted on this subject before but I will do again, even if so. I am too mad to come up with a pun, which will please entirely too many of you. But it boils down to this: am I so old now that only a few of us remember a time when a switch existed on devices which actually turned the device OFF? Like right away. Without holding it down for a full afternoon. Like turning off a faucet. Look, it's not hard to break a circuit, ok?

Continue reading "Anti-techie rant: whatever happened to the off-switch?"

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 08:06 PM | Comments (4)