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Moore’s MailBag - Monday, December 13, 2004
•MooresMailBag •Comments •Tell-a-Friend
ViaVoice Training trouble
Photo to Movie Review
Stuffit and sleep
Re: I hate Apple Mail
Digital Camera software install woes
Winamp For Mac?[/url]
ViaVoice Training trouble
From Victoria Walker
Charles,
I and dictating to you with the Voice 33 and. When trading, there seems to be a problem. When First be giving any pair, the system moves along smooth Lee of of of. As I continue the system doesn't recognize my force. We were looking forward to using the via Voice but without proper training of the has been difficult.
---------
Charles,
Have you heard of problems in training? I have a decent voice but the system seems to have problems even on this iMac 17" flat panel 800 MHz with 512 megs of RAM. When we first got the system, we tried training but after a few sentences it stops responding to our voices and we have to repeat ad naseum until we give up. Today I got through a 1 & 2 set. I did notice that if I did pause and then hit "go back" arrow - then start again, it was fresh for a sentence or two.
We are now running 10.2.8 but we started with an earlier version of 10.2 when we got the system new. I did the VV3 update.
Thanks,
Vicki
Hi Vicki;
ViaVoice can be a cranky beast, but training it is one aspect that I've never personally had any trouble with. In fact, I got such good accuracy after reading a couple of training stories that I never bothered with more than three. And I'm using a 700 MHz G3 iBook on which I've run ViaVoice with both OS 10.2 and 10.3.
Something is obviously not right with the behavior you're getting. I would suggest first uninstallling the program, doing a maintenance sweep of your system with OnyX or sterMachine (both freeware) or another system utility, and then reinstall ViaVoice. Ideally I would reccommend creating a fresh OS X user account and install the program and train it on that (something that was suggested to me by IBM tech support). It will still run from your main user account once it's geared up and good to go.
Make sure to run the mic setup utility. I assume you're using the headset that ships with ViaVoice.
Charles
Re: ViaVoice Training trouble
From Victoria Walker
Charles,
Thank you for the quick response. I am using the headset that shipped with it. I will go ahead and uninstall/maintenance/new user/reinstall/update/retrain and see what happens.
Here is a comment on VersionTracker from Oct 2004 with the same problem I'm having (I've bolded the similar problem):
"Working in Panther after reinstall Michael Dawson Version: 3.0.2, 10/16/2004 11:46PM PST Upgrading to Panther I found ViaVoice would not open. I tried the uninstaller but it failed. Using the find control I located and trashed all files, reinstalled ViaVoice and used the updater (this page). I had to retrain it and found to begin with it would stick on some word and not let me proceed. Quitting the set up assistant and restarting it let me continue with the story I was reading. In time the problem ceased - presumably it got used to my voice."
Take care,
Vicki
Hi again Vicki;
Let me know how you make out. I've found that ViaVoice sometimes "fixes itself" (and also breaks itself), although I'm doubtful that it has anything to do with getting used to an individual user's voice. It's just not the most stable program.
For tractability, MacSpeech's iListen is much better, and in recent versions is approaching ViaVoice's level of speed and accuracy. iListen, in my experience, requires more training than ViaVoice, but once you go through the process, you're done. And in general, it's a lot more stable and less cranky than ViaVoice, although there is still room for improvement. It's very complex technology.
Charles
Photo to Movie Review
From Charles Szasz
I believe your five star rating is not warranted. After using the program for a hour, I find several rough edges in the program. Unlike iMovie, the transitions cannot be viewed before applying them unless you run the movie.
Audio trimming is cumbersome. Unlike iMovie, you cannot select the sections of the audio track using handles and hitting delete. The Help Menu does NOT work.
The number transitions is good but limited. I do like the addition of the cube transition. I did not like the way the Inspector for transitions is hidden away from the user. It took me nearly 20 minutes to get it.
Charles
Hi Charles;
Thanks for sharing your perspective. That's why free downloadable demos are so cool.
I don't flinch from my rating. For me, at least, this program has a big smile factor, and is very slick and easy-to use for movie amateurs (like me).
iMovie is really a video application, and not primarily intended for still photos as Photo To Movie is. iMovie does not support photo rotation, multiple motions per photo, eases, PtM's flicker reduction, widescreen output, unlimited photo size, or curved motion paths.
Charles
Stuffit and sleep
From Jim Boyle
Greetings Charles:
Nice mini-review of Stuffit, but I have one observation: I noticed in the Get Info sceenshots that you were playing around, oh sorry, working at 1:40am. When do you sleep?
blessings
Jim
Hi Jim;
When there's nothing else to do.
Seriously, I am a nighthawk, although in a qualified sense. When there are no external constraints on my time schedule, I find myself turning in between 1:30 and 3:00 AM and arising between 9:00 and 11:00 — ie: averaging about 7-8 hours sleep. Actually, I'm lucky to get six hours in practice.
Living on Canada's east coast has be on Atlantic Time, an hour later than Eastern, so I'm not too badly out of sync with the US Websites.
I've kept "normal" hours for extended periods of time in my life, having to be at work for 8:00 or 9:00 AM, but I never adjusted to it comfortably even after years, and it was always a battle both to get out of bed in the morning and to make myself pack it in around 11:00 PM — a time of the day (night?) when I constitutionally perk up.
I hear it has to do with body temperature cycles that are more or less hardwired. I believe it. I'm not a happy camper if I'm awake between 3:00 AM and 9:00 AM at either end.
Charles
From BearyandBow
I agree with Mail being a pain. I found it so unstable that it would actually lock up and sometimes lock up my computer if it couldn't find the server. I have used Thunderbird as my sole email client since the .7 or .8 version and love it. I am using Jaguar.
Digital Camera software install woes
From BearyandBow
I just bought a digital camera from my local Mac store and it took forever to install and required a restart, but then when I plugged it in and turned it on iPhoto automatically launched and I clicked Import and I could see my camera name.
This camera produces very high quality results but wasn't very easy to install. Most people would have given up before they got it working. It is a Canon 4 megapixel 3x zoom (105 mm) and I have a 256 MB Compact Flash card which holds up to 96 full resolution pictures.
Also the Lacie 8 in 1 USB card reader I bought with it didn't work.
Hi Ben;
Thanks for the report.
Canon makes excellent cameras, but I prefer ones that don't require proprietary software to interface with OS X. Concord and Digital Dream, to name two I have personal experience with, just plug in and play - no software install necessary.
Charles
Winamp For Mac?
From Dolna
Hi Charles,
I'd like to be able to listen to a local radio station http://cfxu.ca/ and it says I need winamp.
I'm having trouble finding a version to download and that works. (I went to download.com and searched under Mac.)
Advice?
Thanks.
-D.
Hi Dolna;
These winamp for mac alphas are from 2001, and will have to be used in Classic Mode on your eMac. I have no idea whether it will work.
Here are some download links to try.
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Audio/WinAmp.shtml
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/5651
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/Winamp_MAC/
http://allmac.scarlet.be/preview/206623.html
http://www.dawnload.net/alternative_platforms/mac_software/winamp_for_mac.cfm
Charles
Re: Winamp For Mac?
From Dolna
Cameron from cfxu wrote:
i am useing a Mac right now. it plays in my iTunes.
Click the 'play in winamp' link and save the feed, somewhere then open it and then it should magically play in iTunes.
==
Hey, thanks!! I did this and it works!!! what I'm going to have to figure out next is how turn it on again after i close it (hoping this will be straightforward or do i have to do what i just did everytime.. i prefer to be able to bookmark it or something)...... this is the first time i've ever even used iTunes....
-D.
***
Charles W. Moore
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