[lbo-talk] vision complaints

[John Thornton]

Chuck Grimes wrote:
> Just a note for list members who have complained about their vision
> problems. On list and off. Try installing and using speech software.
>
> I have no idea whether such software works better or is more
> convienent to use. The only time I set-up a computer with speech
> software was back in the Fred Flintstone era of the early 90s. It was
> awkward and difficult.
>
> The essential problem back then was that speech is a linear or serial
> format and GUIs are random access. The friend I was working for was
> completely blind and therefore had very few ways to know where the
> stupid cursor was. He had to make extensive use of keyboard commands
> to move the cursor from window to window and within each window. 
>
> So if you have low vision and make the cursor big, you can avoid those
> problems. 
>
> It would be interesting to hear the yays and nays about this
> suggestion.
>
> CG

I have a brother with dyslexia who uses Speech Recognition software.
He recommended Dragon - NaturallySpeaking.
http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/
He also said getting a good USB microphone is very important, don't rely 
on the crappy one built into your monitor.
A high-quality headset and Bluetooth wireless headset versions are 
available.
Dragon is a program for converting speech to text, a dictation program 
in essence.
He also uses ClaroRead which accesses MS Office for spelling and writing 
support.
ClaroRead does a slightly better job of reading back text than the text 
to speech synthesis provided by Dragon which excels at speech to text.
Not being a software designer I have no idea why these two functions are 
notably different in their programming, nor do I really care.
He also said ViaVoice sucks.

John Thornton