The blog of Steve Root

  • blogging without using a keyboard (using windows built in speech recognition)

    307-speechrecognitionmicrophone.pngI’ve been looking at buying dragon naturally speaking from an IT supplier for typing on to the computer. It is software I heard of many years ago that converts speech into type as you speak. I had an mail offering it for only 30.00 which is less than I remember. However I like to test things before I buy them especially when it comes to software. I searched the Internet but couldn’t find a trial version to download. Just as I was about to give up I discovered a webpage that mentioned windows built in speech recognition.

    So I’m sitting at home to blog for the first time ever without typing a word. I’ve been through the tutorial and so far I’m finding it very accurate. In the first paragraph I Can Count Three mistakes, I’m sure that as I continue to use it accuracy will improve over time.

    It isn’t quite plain sailing, I’m having a little trouble remembering all the commands but that’s no different to when I first learned to use a computer. (quick note, I was brought up with a local dialect where I use the word learnt, but the computer heard learned. I’m sure there’s a blog Post about observations of my local dialect somewhere here). One thing I am glad of is that my headset microphone has a microphone mute button. The software does it by saying stop listening to stop listening, but sometimes while I’ve been thinking of what to say and start speaking it thinks it misheard my silence as a word and asks me to repeat.

    As a beginner with speech recognition the other problem I’ve been having is getting the cursor mixed up with an action. For example, a moment ago I managed to select a whole section of text inadvertently and then change the format by telling the computer to use a button on the webpage.

    I think I’m a long way off using this is a regular way of inputting text. I just tested my typing speed on the website and got a result of 72 words per minute. I think my current speaking speed is actually slower than 72 words per minute as I’m waiting for the computer to display each sentence as I’ve spoken. Those of my friends who have seen one of my presentations may know that one of my biggest floors (and there are many I know) is speaking too fast. Maybe I should record all of my presentation through speech recognition as a way of slowing myself down!

    Now to see if I can publish this blog post without touching the keyboard …

  • Memories of Nan Root

    Taking Nicola to swimming club tonight we were talking about memories of her Nan and that reminded me of my Nan. Two things immediately sprung to mind, the first was going to Nan’s for lunch.

    She’d always lay on a huge spread of food, filling a table that to a 6 year old as as big as I was (so, I imagine, about 1.5m diameter?). It had fresh bloomer bread thick cut and spread with real butter (at home we had margarine so it was always a treat). New potatoes that always tasted unique (I later discovered, it was the salt. Nan always added lots of salt whereas mum didn’t, which is why it always tasted so different at Nan’s). Fine bone china bowls with pastel colour flower patterns spring to mind, though not in any detail. Runner beans and peas, fresh from Granddad’s flower bed. Happy days of childhood.

    305-marsmilkbottle (Custom).jpgI then remembered the ‘Mars Milk’. I guess I was staying at Nan and Granddad’s for a weekend. We’d gone shopping and I asked if we could buy the ‘Mars Milk’. I didn’t understand what Nan was trying to tell me at the time, that the Mars chocolate bar was an advert for Mars and the milk was normal milk. I liked it enough to ask for it again though. Several years later, and Mars flavoured milk appeared on the supermarket shelves.

    I don’t claim that any of the above is of interest to anyone but me, but the memories are wonderfully tasty in my mind.

  • ruby on rails sql_type – A reminder for me

    I treated myself to a rails training course last weekend (with Well House Consultants, rather good, I’ll write about it if I get around to it). Immediately I start to create my first ruby app and I forget all the sqltypes I can use in my Model and where to look them up. As I think I’ll be looking them up quite a lot, I’ve put them here on my blog for my later reference

    :primary_key,
    :string,
    :text,
    :integer,
    :float,
    :decimal,
    :datetime,
    :timestamp
    :time,
    :date,
    :binary,
    :boolean.

    Options that I can use in my migration
    I must remember to specify the decimal precision I need!
    :precision [1..63], :scale [0..30]. Otherwise Mysql Default is (10,0).

    * :limit – Requests a maximum column length. This is number of characters for :string and :text columns and number of bytes for :binary and :integer columns.
    * :default – The column’s default value. Use nil for NULL.
    * :null – Allows or disallows NULL values in the column. This option could have been named :null_allowed.
    * :precision – Specifies the precision for a :decimal column.
    * :scale – Specifies the scale for a :decimal column.

    These came from: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/ConnectionAdapters/TableDefinition.html

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