Voice recognition software

[Eric S. Johansson]

'Forum Post wrote:
> I have looked into some keyboards like those:
> http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/contoured.htm Have you heard anything about
> them?
> 

for some people they work great.  Maltron is another one.  Unfortunately 
for me most of them don't work and actually increase hand pain.  If you 
are going to get one, tried to get it from a vendor with a no questions 
asked return policy.  They are way too expensive to just try on a lark.

> This is what I have done to now:
> 
> 
> 
> * switched to SVORAK (Swedish DVORAK). It's still a bit hard to type
> but I'm starting to get used to it with the help off this:
> http://freshmeat.net/projects/dvorak7mintutor/ program. I'll finaly
> learn to type "correct"!

neat program.  But for me I would probably need keycaps because my hand 
positioning accuracy has deteriorated so much that I can't always hit 
the right keys unless I am looking at the keyboard.  hence my dependency 
on speech recognition.

> * installed http://workrave.com/ which reminds me about breaks

good choice.  there is already a timeout monitor inside of ubuntu.  I 
forget right now how to access it but it's something I use on my laptop 
with a break for 60 seconds out of every three minutes.

> * bought a Microsoft Natural keyboard. It's not perfect, but I could
> afford it now

I was never impressed by that.  I had one of those keyboards many years 
ago but I found that the keys were so stiff after a few months use that 
it was useless and actually increasing pain level.  I think the 
lubricant or out or was pushed aside because plastic does not slide well 
over plastic unless it's something like Teflon or Delren(sp??)

http://www.dansdata.com/ibmkeyboard.htm

http://www.pckeyboard.com/  <-- manufacturer.

What I think is absolute amazing is that this is a keyboard maker that 
actually has *a repair service*.  Today, with keyboards completely 
disposable every three months, having a keyboard which actually deserves 
to be repaired is amazing.

> * swapped ctrl & caps buttons & started to replace shortcuts so they
> are as easy as possible to reach (ctrl + shift + F1 is no good!)

as is most Emacs keystrokes.  :-)

> * and most important - increased my awareness!

this is probably the most important thing.  Getting out of your chair on 
a regular basis, paying attention to stress load and keeping your 
quality of life as high as possible are all really important.  Here in 
the states, with the "you must work a minimum of 60 hours otherwise 
you're not a team player" mindset, leads to injuries and reinforces the 
disposal employee perspective.

> I still have one major problem though. We are using laptops several
> hours in school (Software Engineering & Management, bachelor). 

first, switch to a pen based input device (i.e. Wacom)
second, take a keyboard with you.  It's a royal pain but if you have a 
keyboard which works well for your hands, take it.

Third, raise the laptop so that the screen is approximately at eye 
level.  this will reduce the stress on your neck because you will not be 
looking down to the screen.  And raising the screen is another good 
reason to bring a new pointing device and keyboard

on the other hand, my experience is that laptop keyboards tend to be 
easier on the hands than regular desktop keyboards I have no idea why 
but the keyboard on my Dell inspiron 5000 is so much easier to work with 
than any of the desktop keyboards I have purchased over the years.


> Do You have any more ideas?

move away from software development?  If I had to do over again, I would 
probably have not gone into computer science.  I would've gone into 
political science, program management, human computer interaction's or 
some other field where the use of computers is as a tool rather than a 
lifestyle.

--- eric