Chapter 24

Ten Mistakes to Avoid

In This Chapter

Running a lot of other programs simultaneously with NaturallySpeaking

Telling NaturallySpeaking to shut down the computer

Correcting what you ought to edit

Editing what you ought to correct

Cutting corners on any training

Forgetting to rerun Audio Setup when the environment changes

Signing on with somebody else’s username

Speaking into the backside of the microphone

Creating dictation shortcuts or macro commands that sound like single common words

Failing to proofread

Everybody makes mistakes, and some people make really big and entertaining mistakes. I made a ton of mistakes with NaturallySpeaking, and probably you’ll make some, too, from time to time. Here’s all I ask: Don’t make these ten obvious mistakes that I guessed ahead of time. Be original. Be creative. Go out there and make brand-new mistakes that no one else has ever thought of before.

Running a Lot of Other Programs and NaturallySpeaking Simultaneously

NaturallySpeaking assistants are greedy beasts and, true to type, they grab lots of memory. They grab even more when Natural Languages applications run. Your word processor has its own memory greed, too. The same thing happens when you browse the web: It takes up a certain amount of memory, and Internet Explorer wants its own hoard of RAM. If there’s not enough RAM for everybody, everything slows down.

So shut down programs that you aren’t using. Plan your activities so that you don’t have to run NaturallySpeaking and Word and Internet Explorer all at the same time. Don’t leave a big spreadsheet or a giant graphics program running in the background if you don’t need it.

Telling NaturallySpeaking to Shut Down the Computer

Certainly you can imagine an operating system that gracefully handles a shutdown request from one of its applications. Get real, people. This is Windows. It isn’t always smooth sailing. You don’t want to have to find some techno-gypsy to hold a cyber-séance to contact the files you were working on. Don’t ask NaturallySpeaking to shut down your computer.

Correcting What You Ought to Edit

Use the Correction process described in Chapter 5 only when your NaturallySpeaking assistant has made a mistake that you don’t want it to make again. If you just said the wrong thing, edit it. Although the program will take the final edit and learn from that, you don’t need to blame your assistant for your mistakes.

Suppose, for example, that you’re writing an e-mail to tell a friend about the bonus that your colleague just got. But your Freudian subconscious gets the better of you, and you say bogus instead of bonus. If you then say, “Correct bogus,” you are in effect blaming NaturallySpeaking for your error.

NaturallySpeaking is a diligent little assistant, and will strive mightily to not make the same “error” again. And so it may start typing bonus when you really do mean to dictate bogus. It may even change its settings to reflect the possibility that sometimes your n’s sound like g’s. And then it starts turning go into no, and making other similarly mysterious mistakes.

Editing What You Ought to Correct

NaturallySpeaking’s performance will never improve if you don’t tell it when it has made a mistake. Sometimes it seems easier just to say, “Scratch That” and repeat the phrase again, but in the long run, it costs you time because you’ll see that same mistake in the future. See Chapter 5 for detailed instructions about correcting NaturallySpeaking’s mistakes.

Cutting Corners on Training

You can, if you’re so inclined, skip any training and never fix mistakes. If you do this, NaturallySpeaking will never be more than a toy. If you give training a little bit of time on a continual basis, you will reap great rewards. See Chapter 17 and make a commitment to regular training.

There is only one corner I recommend cutting: If you’re using NaturallySpeaking on a new machine and you already have user files on another machine, move the files over rather than retraining. See Chapter 19.

Forgetting to Run Microphone Check Again When the Environment Changes

So you get a great new microphone that you expect to improve NaturallySpeaking’s accuracy, and instead it gets worse. What happened?

Maybe you forgot to tell NaturallySpeaking that anything had changed. Maybe your NaturallySpeaking assistant is sitting there saying, “That isn’t my master’s voice! Where are the pops and clicks? Where is the background roar?”

The way to tell NaturallySpeaking that something has changed is to run a microphone check. (See Chapter 2 for details.) You should also run it again if your voice volume changes (maybe you’re tired) or if you move your computer to a new location. Anything that would make you sound different is an occasion to run the microphone check again.

Using Somebody Else’s Username

You might think, “We sound alike. Why should I bother to train my own user? It won’t make any difference.” Trust me; it will make a difference. The performance will be poor, and if NaturallySpeaking starts adjusting to your voice, it will start performing badly for the user whose identity you are borrowing.

Speaking into the Backside of the Microphone

The microphone that comes with NaturallySpeaking is a noise-canceling directional microphone. That means that it has a front and a back. It tries to pay attention to what comes in the front, and tries to cancel out what comes in the back. The front has a little mark indicating that it’s the front. Make sure you don’t twist the microphone so that you’re speaking into the backside.

Creating Shortcuts or Macros That Sound Like Single Common Words

One of the dumbest things a person could do with NaturallySpeaking would be to create a macro command called “The” that deletes the entire current document. No one would be able to dictate for more than a sentence or two without accidentally invoking “The” and deleting her document. (I know you’d never do that. It’s that “other” reader I’m talking to.)

But, dictation shortcuts can get you into trouble, too. What if you defined “two” to be a dictation shortcut for the numeral 1? Great confusion would follow.

Instead, make sure that any command or shorthand that you define consists of at least two words. “Trash the Document” would still be a dangerous macro to have lying around, but the danger would derive from rash decisions rather than accidental usage.

Forgetting to Proofread

NaturallySpeaking doesn’t make spelling mistakes, so spell-checking is useless. But that doesn’t mean that your documents are perfect. They just have correctly spelled mistakes in them.

In some ways, that is worse. When you mistype a word, you usually wind up with nonsense. Your readers can deduce that a mistake has been made, and they can probably even figure out what you meant to say. But when your document has correct words that only sound like what you meant to say, your readers may think you are trying to be clever. When Mr. Jiro sees his name written “Mr. Zero,” he may think you mean something by it. Don’t forget to proofread your documents carefully so that you can avoid these types of mistakes.