The ICI Experience:

Hello to all of my regular blog readers (all six of you ;-), and my apologies for not having posted in over a month!!! Too much travel over the holidays and another problem tooth (my dentist: "I used three different pain shots, across three different spectrums, with one directly into the nerve and it STILL wasn't deadened.") have been too much for me. Now I've wrenched my neck (cervical degenerative disc disease, ankolosying spondilitis, bulging discs) and am having a lot of problems with that. Doc wants to do another MRI before saying much about it. Soooo, I just wanted to check in and say I'm going to try to get back to regular posting. I can use my Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software when my neck/shoulder/arm/hand hurt too much to type. But I have to tell you that I've discovered Dragon has a major flaw: If you do a Windows System Restore to a previous point in time, you WILL LOSE ALL OF THE DATA IN YOUR DRAGON USER FILES! I did a Sys...

We're having a Live Earth Concert Viewing Party on the 7th and you should too! Back on topic, this post is a continuation of my pre-purchase research of voice recognition software posts from 6/14/07 and 6/25/07. Jenni, The ChronicBabe herself, has just started using DNS Preferred 9. I was asking her about the headset microphone. I said: Hi Jenni, Thanks for responding to my email and blog on VR software. I posted another on this subject today. Obviously, I'm at the very beginning of educating myself on the subject. Baby steps. While I'm not able to work and I'm waiting for my disability application to be approved I can't afford to waste a single penny so I've got to get this down before I purchase. Not that I ever could or will be able to afford to waste a single penny. ;-) I'm just starting to research the headset microphone part of it. So the one that comes with the software, that they say is Nuance-approved and noise canceling, is not as good...

The box with the lady on it is the standard version. The site from Nuance is way better than the one I used in the 6/14/post, for viewing info about the software. Ahhh... Nuance is the official OFFICIAL site of DNS 9. No, this stuff's not confusing, it's me. Not. NY Times review of the software that comes bundled with Windows Vista: As far as I'm concerned,the Windows Vista software is for people who are getting new computers. I still have a knot in my stomach from that time I tried to upgrade from Windows 95 to 98 on the computer I purchased with Win95 from the factory. MicroSoft is going to have to do something I can't even imagine to convince me that it's possible to upgrade the operating system on the same computer. Back to the point, I just got a new computer and it's not even paid for yet so I'm sure not getting another one any time soon. So the VR software that comes bundled with Windows Vista is not an option for me. And check out the video o...

So. I've been kind of dancing around the point of this blog, which is the invisible chronic illness experience. I think the main reason for this is the difficulty I'm having typing. The neck/shoulder arthritis pain I'm having just won't let up, and I'm trying to avoid doing things to aggravate it while I'm waiting to find out exactly what the problem is (MRI scheduled for next week) so I can start doing what needs to be done to alleviate it. I'm going to get some voice recognition software. That should help. Dragon seems to be the preferred choice. I have some links below to ratings and reviews kind of stuff. I think the microphone is very important. It needs to be a good one with noise reduction. This is probably what I'll go with: OOOOOOUUUUU! They have a link at amazon to a rebate from Dragon for $50.00. Those people at amazon are really helpful! At the bottom of this amazon.com page, 85 real people have reviewed the V. 8 product, and it ...