Back in the Saddle Again-Dictation Apps

I have recently received emails asking why I have missed a few articles over the last couple of weeks. Thanks for asking, and I have responded to each of your inquiries.

For those others who may have been wondering, I will talk personally and off tech for a moment. In mid-April, I was in a motorcycle accident. It turned out better than it could have, but still I broke 11 bones on my left side. Hence, I was in UVA Trauma Center for several days and then at Bridgewater Retirement Community for rehabilitation. They are great at Bridgewater from the facilities, food, nurses, CNAs, cleanliness to everything else. Thanks to all the people who helped me! There are many names, but the one I will mention is Felisha, who took great care of me most of my two plus weeks there; from day one. If you ever need rehab as I did or for any other reason needing accommodations like those–consider them. Thanks again, BRC!

Also, I could not type well for a while and this includes emails, so I did a little research and thought that what I discovered may help some of you, too. I use Gmail for most of all of my email. But again, typing was an issue as I could type some, but slowly and with pain.

Over the past years, I have brought this topic up several times before; however, things were not working very well with this type of program. I am talking about basic dictation apps and programs. For me, it was much easier to dictate an email, make a few corrections, then send it off.

I tried out several of them I found in the Google Web Store (chrome.google.com/webstore) and discovered one that really did a good job for me. It is, “Voice In Voice Typing” and the webpage is here, dictanote.co/voicein. Not only does it allow you to dictate into Gmail, but most other web email you may have like Outlook.com, Yahoo mail, and all the others. (As long as they are in your Chrome browser.) At the site, you can get information and video showing how to use it. You can set it up quickly, restart your Chrome browser, and you will be ready to dictate.

Is it accurate? Surprisingly so. Is it easy to use? Yes…after you learn a few of the command words from their site. For instance, “new line,” “new paragraph,” “comma,” and “delete last word,” to name a few. You can most likely figure out what those commands do from their wording. Is it perfect? No. However, at this point, I find it equal to or possibly better than others I have experimented with, including Word’s dictation feature.

Now, do not get too excited as you will have to correct things after you finish your dictation. However, I still found that it was much quicker and much easier than having to type with damaged, painful hands.

I hope that may help others if they need something like this.

Also, for those of you who asked, thanks and my doctors say that by the middle of June I will be walking and back to 100%.