I just wanted to share it with you, I recently broken my left elbow which meant I had great difficulty typing with only one hand. So I decided to try it on speech recognition software, the Windows speech recognition built into Vista and Windows 7 ( which I’m currently using) would not work properly.
So, I wanted to find a solution which worked and also enabled me not to have a wire trailing from my ear. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 comes in a variety of packages, one of these includes a Bluetooth microphone headset. I’ve been using this now for about two weeks and exceptionally good. The main benefit is the sheer speed that it renders voice to text. It really helps me get through all those e-mail replies which is seen to take so much time to reply to.
I have picked up a lot of tips and tricks in my time as a geek, building my first PC in 1998 and my first website later that year. I was always told it is nice to share as I was growing up, so I am.
One tool which truly is a benefit to the performance of any Windows based PC is CCleaner, CCleaner has one main goal, to remove junk and clutter from your PC. It’s main targets are internet temporary files and old system tempary files. Which, can add up to GB of wasted space on your poor old computers hard drive.
CCleaner is free, so I recommend that you check out their website http://www.ccleaner.com and give them a try.
I’ve just written the below guide as a favour to a customer and I thought I would share it with you.
1, Put the office CD in your main computer, open ‘ computer’ and right click on the icon representing the CD drive, click ‘explore’.
2, Highlight the entire contents, right click ‘copy’
3, Paste the contents into your USB thumb drive, I recommend a drive with nothing on it and at least 1GB free.
4, Put the USB drive into the netbook, open ‘computer’ (or ‘my computer’ if Windows XP), open the USB thumb drive and double-click ’setup.exe’ and the Office 2007 installation Wizard will start.
Tweetdeck, a beautifully designed program based upon adobe air has been available for about a year for desktop users of PC and Mac etc… It is a very clever a way of managing and filtering your twitter account. It also is integrated within it many features such as URL shortening, picture upload and groups creation.
iPhone users are very happy today as they are waking up to find out that the iPhone can now have Tweetdeck. it is available from the app store and unlike other twitter clients it is completely free. Initial impressions are that it is very good. I also helps launch a new tweetdeck feature. The sharing fu settings nction whereby you can login into any tweakdeck client and synchronise your settings with that client. (Another reason for me to buy an iPhone in addition to my Blackberry bold .)
Tweetdeck have also updated the desktop version which now includes multiple twitter account support and the aforementioned synchronisation which will mean you can login to any Tweetdeck on any computer and have the same display in front of you you are used to.
Other features are;
easy access to recent hash tags
simple switching between accounts
TweetDeck recommends, list of recommended friends
Displaying the number of followers your followers have..
Windows 7 is being hailed by reviewers and users alike as more than a ‘Vista’ two. Being being a web designer and Geek I’ve been toying with the idea of installing Windows 7 for sometime. So a few days ago I decided to take the plunge.
My advice to anyone considering this is to back up everything!
The second thing to do is to go to the Windows 7 website and download the Windows 7 installation file. I went for the 64 bit version and also got a product key, free and valid until next year. I burnt the file to a DVD with ImgBurn 2.4.4.0 . I also prepared a partition on one of the hard drives of my computer as I intend on using Windows 7 is the main operating system of my computer but also have Vista as a backup just in case.
the install went well, I had to track down several beta drivers for Windows seven and of course set up my programs again. But one tip I can give you is to use the upgrade wizard on the windows 7 DVD to save your office and browser settings (it even supports Firefox). This can then be loaded onto the new installation of Windows 7.
I got the system up and running okay and started to look around various Windows 7 forums. It turns out that later builds of Windows 7 are being released. So I downloaded the most recent release build 7229 and installed it via an upgrade last night.
As with all upgrades they tend to have some unexpected problems. But I couldn’t commit the time to set up a fresh at the moment — although I may do in a few weeks.
The main problem with this upgrade is drivers. Windows 7 is set to install drivers it recommends. Although they are not always the best ones. So far I’ve had to reinstall virtually all of the drivers. Two lingering problem is that my Firefox icon had lost association with webpage icons also my sound driver is playing up with distortion when I play music– a driver issue. I shall update you here on the progress.
I shall probably reinstall this latest build as a clean install to fix these issues. Not for a few days at least. But there is nothing major to report that would deter me from recommending to anyone to try Windows 7 – just make sure you back up and have a backup operating system available.
I shall continue to post tips I’ve found and experiences.
Wordpress 2.8 is now available. See official excert from the wordpress blog below.
The first thing you’ll notice is that visually 2.8 feels a lot like 2.7, just with some minor tweaks here and there. However once you’ll dig in you’ll begin to appreciate the changes.
Major New Improvements
First and foremost, 2.8 is way faster to use. We’ve changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.
The core and plugin updaters in previous versions of WordPress have been such a success we decided to bring the same to themes. You can now browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.
If you make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard, you’ll appreciate the new CodePress editor which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor. Also there is now contextual documentation for the functions in the file you’re editing linked right below the editor.
If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. We’ve completely redesigned the widgets interface (which we didn’t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings. Developers now have access to a much cleaner and robust API for creating widgets as well.
Finally you should explore the new Screen Options on every page. It’s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.
And Even More
You can read the full list of over 180 new features, changes, upgrades, and improvements on the Codex. The list is exhausting!
The Future
We’re already thinking hard about the next versions, 2.9 and 3.0. Keep an eye out for improved media handling, better dependency checking, versioning of templates and themes, and of course the fabled merging of WordPress and MU announced at WordCamp San Francisco two weeks ago.
My twitter account has been suspended by the Twitter bot I assume and I have sent a support ticket, posted a forum request and even emailed them.
I shall update this blog as and when I get news.
Andy
04/06/2009 update
semi result.. just got a message from a support,
they said that
’sending multiple requests pushes the request to the bottom.’
also my account was suspended due to ‘aggressive following and follower churn’ and my account will be suspended for a week.I admit i got carried away trying to get followers as i enjoyed the connections i made. then i can request it is re-opened by re-opening the support ticket.
Fair enough I feel and i am happy that they have gotten back to me. I guess a week is from the email date.. to be on the safe side.
so, becareful not to email etc too much as they are busy and may not like it.
i only wish i could write back and thank them for taking the time to reply – but that will make things worse.
i shall be reopening my ticket in a one weeks time.
@andysmailes
UPDATE 08/06/2009
7 days into twitter account suspension and I have updated my support ticket and reopened it.
It took me several hours of searching the net to find this driver for the 2045 Broadcom Bluetooth usb dongle and thought I would save someone the troubloe in the future by posting it here.
This enables bluetooth headsets to be recognised by SIP software such as ‘X-lite’ on Vista.
.)
