In this short series on voice-activated typing software, I started by going over my initial thoughts on whether or not I needed it, as well as my hesitation because of the price. I also had serious doubts about voice-recognition typing because “keyboard recognition typing” had worked for me for 20 years, albeit uncomfortably. As someone who does not touch type I had to ask myself if the neck and shoulder stiffness that I feel after half an hour of hunt-and-peck might go away if I simply decided to learn once and for all…

I did go ahead and buy MacSpeech Dictate despite my reservations and I’ve been very, very happy that I did. It was one of those things that, once I spent the money, all the abstract doubts about getting it in the first place faded away. It is just so much easier now to write. I find that banging out 500 or 1000 words is so painless and easy physically that I am able to explore thoughts verbally with ease, undistracted. I don’t know how much money that is worth to me, but I have a feeling that over the course of years it’s going to be a lot more than the $170 or so that I spent on the software. I also cannot say honestly whether or not it’s improved the quality of my writing-in the end I seem to spend as much time as ever editing to make something with which I am happy. Even the editing process though is handled verbally (very well I might add), so that painstaking attention to detail doesn’t mean painful attention to detail in the form of back spaces, deletes and minor edits in a process that always seems to give me a headache after about an hour.

I had a small epiphany when I tried to use the software without the included headset as it was clumsy and a minor inconvenience, in my opinion. To my surprise, the results seem to be exactly the same, at least in the case of a voice-recognition typing software I’m using.

So I have one more thing to add now that I’ve had this dictation software for a few weeks. The method that I have found works best for me is to not look at the screen at all as I speak. I force myself to go for five or 10 minutes at a time just talking. Waiting for the text to catch up with your voice leads to going back and making small corrections and breaking the flow of your thoughts. Not only does this draw out the process, it’s not necessary. My fear initially that mis-typing by the software could leave me with a bunch of gibberish, unable to reconstruct my thoughts. I found that this is not a problem. Speaking whole sentences at a time actually leads to much better voice recognition by the software so that there are fewer corrections, and it also allows your thoughts to flow more naturally. So that’s the point this final little post on voice-recognition typing. In the end, simply trusting the software to follow you instead of making any allowances are all (except speaking reasonably clearly, of course) is both easier for you and helps the software achieve maximum accuracy.

I have been thinking about cleaning up the area around my HDTV for quite a while. Over the weekend I decided to look for a HDMI booster that would allow me to put my high definition cable receiver and DVD player in a nearby closet, and run a longer cable to the monitor.

Naturally I am worried about picture degradation or digital noise like sparkles if I run a cable that is too long between my HDTV monitor and the source devices. Actually that’s probably why I haven’t shopped around for a video booster before.

I see plenty of options online, but if any Digital Media Minute readers have specific recommendations for a video signal booster that will extend an HDMI cable to around 30 feet without giving me a picture that looks like it’s out of the 1970s, I would love to hear them. Ideally I would want one that requires no additional AC adapter.

Take a look at Stripes, a conceptual user interface by Martin Gimpl. Like Chrome OS with its zoomable window management model, but without Chrome’s tabs.

Also here’s a good review of Stripes, by Lukas Mathis over at ignorethecode.net.

From some real smart folks at Cambridge University’s Engineering Department, check out this so-called ‘on-line rapid model acquisition system’, called ProFORMA, that quickly regenerates digital 3-D copies/models of real objects in very near real time, using a video camera as the data collection device.

Mark Pilgrim’s Dive Into HTML5 sets as its task to “elaborate on a hand-picked selection of features from the HTML5 specification”, and it is to be published by O’Reilly. Four chapters out of eleven are available at this link; he’s soliciting feedback and there is plenty here to review. The look is really accessible with oversized fonts and old-timey illustrations, but the writing style makes it a winner: conversational and clear, explaining HTML5 along with its historical context in language your grandmother could understand. Initial take: excellent job.

The technology that will enable heads-up displays, or HUDs, to be embedded in contact lenses is progressing rapidly. That’s not to say that laws that will enable you to wear them are right around the corner.

Still, less than two years after he conducted successful tests on rabbits fitted with contacts powered by radio waves, Dr. Babak Parviz of the University of Washington foresees contact lenses as the basis for viable platforms, ‘like the iPhone is today,’ with LED displays and biosensors to display body chemistry. As many tech challenges as these LED contact lenses seem to have surmounted, I’m wondering just how much info can be assimilated by people who aren’t fighter pilots. On the other hand, your great-grandfather probably wouldn’t have been able to drive and text message at the same time.

Apparently the good doctor is a bit of a poet too:

As far as we’re concerned, the possibilities extend as far as the eye can see, and beyond.

Have you heard about Zen Coding? It’s a new toolbox, created by Sergey Chikuyonok, that developers can use to speed up their HTML and CSS coding. Mainly comprised of an abbreviation expander and an HTML-pair tag matcher (context independent), it uses CSS-like selector syntax to help you create HTML code more quickly. While most existing text expanders work only with a predefined group of snippets, Zen coding will parse your code snippets in real-time. Check the video. Via Smashing Magazine.

Zen Coding v0.5 from Sergey Chikuyonok on Vimeo.

Hers’s an outstanding, very detailed article on where Ruby VM’s are going in 2010 as their development accelerates and makes the language much more broadly available, by Ilya Grigorik at Igvita.com. He calls it a rennaissance. A nice “here’s where we are now” review of eight different Ruby VM’s: MRI, JRuby, MacRuby, MagLev, Ruby Enterprise Edition, IronRuby, Rubinius, and BlueRuby.

Over at United Mindset Jonathan Campos has an excellent write-up on Adobe Flash Catalyst. As a developer he thinks of it as the missing visual editor for Flash Builder, as you can really edit and create within Flash Catalyst, and get the generated code to copy into your Flash Projects. He walks us through creating a new custom button with plenty of screen shots and generated code. Excellent short tutorial.

Vinsol has a nice eleven-item checklist of rails deployment best practices to follow when you are deploying your rails app to a production server.