Vista is often criticized for being a slower than a stoned snail, and more security conscious than my middle aged mother – and for a time I was completely anti-vista and to a point I still am. However with my recent addition my computing family. (Samsung R710) – I wanted to make it work. Main reason Windows annoys me is that there has hardly been an innovation in 10 years which makes your life easier, and increases productivity.
By accident, I found one…
Voice Commands & Dictation!
It sounds like something out of Star Trek (yes I’m a Geek!), and you might hesitate and think that this is more gimmicky than useful, after-all voice recognition as a whole isn’t ground breaking. It was even about in Windows XP, however, all voice recognition can be easily stereotyped as being rubbish!
How to Find it: Start (orb) > Control Panel > Speech Recognition Options
Vista is more clever about this highly underrated tool, as it is more willing to learn from its mistakes, and less likely to make the same mistakes again. You can also add new words to it’s vocabulary too! What’s ground breaking though is you can actually use it in your every day life.
Example Usage of Speech Recognition
1. Open Applications
Excellent, now at my desktop. You can do this:
"Start Listening" - "Start Application Adobe Photoshop".
Up it comes! Now you can start using it, no mouse or keyboard intervention. It’s never got it wrong for me yet either!.
I then know I’m doing design for a bit, so I can say:
"Stop Listening" - this means it will wait for the command "start listening" before it does anything.
So I’ve done my work, and I’m finished, I’ve saved. If I want to, I can do this:
"Start Listening" - "Close Application"
2. Open Any Application
By using:
"Start Listening" - "Open Application NAME.HERE" - "Stop Listening"
You can open any application that you have installed. If any have a similar named applications, then you will get a menu come up. You can then simply choose the number you want, here is an example of usage:
"1" - "ok"
3. Install an Application whilst Drinking Your Caffeine Fix
I’ve done this one several times already, because brilliantly the voice recognition can read the button text when installing through the motions. To press the next button for example, simply say:
"Next"
Whatever the button text is, just say it. If there are several buttons with the same text or similar, you will get all options highlighted with numbers. It will fade in and out so you can read them. So just wait for it to fade, read the number and say:
"2" "ok"
If you want to do something else, like tab t o another application you can simply use:
"Switch Application NAME.OF.APPLICATION"
If you don’t know the application name, simply say the command below, and choose a number:
"Switch Application" "3" "ok"
4. Show Numbers & MouseGrid
If you really don’t want to use a mouse at all, you can use the show numbers and mouse grid to get around.
With show numbers, when you have a application or window open, or web browser, it will highlight all the options by number, here is an example.
"Show Numbers" - "34" - "ok"
With mousegrid, it will show you a grid of the whole screen, you choose a area, then it gets smaller, and you say a number again, it narrows down and down until you are at your desired location, to be honest its hard work, but it is the only way to move the mouse, you can then make a click with a command, here is an example.
"Mouse Grid" - "3" - "9" - "4" - "ok"
To click use:
"Double Click" OR "Click" OR "Right Click"
5. Dictation
Ok i wont say its perfect, but it is learning my voice after a few hours of playing. The more you use it, the more it will learn and will be less likely to make the same mistakes, it makes it as easy as it could be to correct them and add words to the vocabulary – but it isn’t my main usage, I like commanding Windows with it.
