Dragon Naturally Speaking and RAM requirements

The system that I'm testing out right now is running a very stripped-down version of Windows XP coupled with only 368 MB of RAM.

And Dragon NaturallySpeaking works fine with this setup in terms of its ability to capture audio and to transcribe it. There is however some lag time between the time that words are spoken and the time that those words will appear transcribed in Dragonpad.

So, this is basically a proof of concept test that I wanted to run to see if Dragon NaturallySpeaking will run on this kind of setup. Also keep in mind that I am running this test on a virtual box virtual machine. So, although my machine has 368 MB RAM allocated to it, it does have to share the CPU with the host machine. If this was running on a real physical computer where the processor is not shared between two operating systems, I would expect that Dragon NaturallySpeaking would run with better performance.

If you have a spare computer with low RAM you might be able to use it as a dedicated dictation machine for use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. If you're using as low an amount of RAM as I have used in my test, you probably can't count on running any other programs while you're dictating. It might be cool just to try running Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a real computer with as little RAM as I have done, just to see if you can.

Free e-book cover Photoshop Action

I've often wondered how designers create cool looking e-book covers such as the types shown on the sales pages for many Clickbank products. I did a simple search and found a couple of 3-D e-book covers tutorials. They require Adobe Photoshop, and if you've used Photoshop for a while, and even if you're not an advanced user, these e-book covers look like they're easy to make. The E-book cover tutorial I've found is located at http://www.mintyferret.com/photoshop/ecover-ebook-3-d-box-tutorial/

It gives you step-by-step instructions, along with pictures. The finished e-book cover will have a nice fade around the edge to give it the effect of being under special lighting. From the same website as the e-book tutorial, the author gives you a free Photoshop action that will allow you to create e-book covers with one click, starting from a 2-D image of your e-book cover. This Photoshop action seems to be quite popular. It was downloaded over 11,000 times.

The e-book cover Photoshop action is entirely free to download, and the author shows you how to install the action and then how to use it to create your first e-book cover.

You can download the e-book cover Photoshop action and read the tutorial on how to install and use it at the following address http://www.mintyferret.com/photoshop/free-ebook-action-creator/

Dragon NaturallySpeaking runs well on XP in a Virtualized setting

I installed Dragon NaturallySpeaking in a virtualized environment because I commonly use Linux, but Dragon NaturallySpeaking is not supported under Linux.

So, the best and most convenient way I could use Dragon NaturallySpeaking was to create a Windows XP virtual machine using Sun's virtual box software, and then I installed Dragon NaturallySpeaking on the virtualized XP system.

There are some quirks that sometimes need to be sorted out with this setup, especially with the sound quality, but when a system like this is up and running, Dragon NaturallySpeaking runs without any problems.

Virtualbox: Cloning machines with the Import & Export appliance utilities.

What is interesting about virtual box is that you can clone virtual machines that are running on another computer.

Let's say that you have Windows XP running as a virtual machine on your laptop computer. Let's also assume that you have your virtualized XP installation completely configured with all of your favorite software.

Suppose that you want to install Windows XP as a virtual machine on another computer but you don't want to go through the hassle of installing all of the software that you regularly use all over again on a fresh XP install.

Then what you can do, using Sun's VirtualBox software, is export the machine that is currently running Windows XP with all of your installed applications, and then transfer that exported machine to the other computer which you would like to clone the machine to, and then you can import the machine on another computer using the easy to use import utility of virtual box

I just did the above five minutes ago because I have Dragon NaturallySpeaking installed on a Windows XP virtual machine on my laptop and I didn't want to have to reinstall Windows XP on a new virtual machine on my desktop, and then reinstall Dragon NaturallySpeaking and have go through all of the bother with other installed application.

Cloning virtual machine is on virtual box is as easy as going to the "File" menu of VirtualBox, then clicking on "Export Appliance", following the prompts, and then copying the exported machine files over to the computer which you would like to import the machine to.

Importing the machine you have cloned with the Export utility is as easy as clicking on the "File" menu of VirtualBox, then on "Import Appliance", and then following the easy to understand prompts.

The cloned virtualbox machine will work just as the original machine did and will have identical settings. It's a real time saver if you don't want to install Windows XP along with many software packages over and over on multiple machines which you would like to have identical instances of a Windows operating system (or any operating system for that matter) running.

Nice looking site

Nice looking site there

in reference to: Niche Marketing Blogs - we build niche marketing blogs for sale (view on Google Sidewiki)

Some people don't understand the Google Sidewiki

A guy from the warrior forum seems to think that when a person comments about his site using Google's SideWiki, that it means people are actually editing his website.

"My website is my property. I own it. Google has absolutely no right to add anything to it. Especially something that could be so potentially detrimental if taken advantage of by spammers or unethical competitors. " Article thieves BEWARE SideWiki. http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/128049-article-thieves-beware-sidewiki.html (accessed September 26, 2009).

And he's not alone, I was surprised at how many others feel like they are being infringed upon by people who comment about their websites on the SideWiki

These people need to take some basic web mastering courses and not be so afraid.
in reference to: Article thieves BEWARE SideWiki. (view on Google Sidewiki)

Blogging with Microsoft Word

I first started off this blog thinking I would use Microsoft word as a blogging tool. I've learned that Microsoft Word, when used for this purpose, has its quirks.

The procedure I started out with went sort of like this:

I would dictate into Dragon NaturallySpeaking using the DragonPad. When I finished my blog post, I would select everything from DragonPad, and then I would paste it into Microsoft Word and publish it to my blog. This was not with out any problems.

Once a blog post was posted to blogger.com, it appeared that large spaces were inserted in between paragraphs. Apparently, Microsoft Word wraps span tags around all paragraphs.

And after a post has been made to Blogger.com, it seems that Blogger wraps every thing with more paragraph tags.

Microsoft products haven't worked well for me in the past when I've had any task having to do with web publishing. I think I'll stay away from using Microsoft Word as a blogging tool, seeing how it mangles the formatting of my blog posts.