Upcoming iPad CLE Seminar in New Orleans

/

Lawyers are buying iPads in droves, but after the initial euphoria sometimes feeling like they aren't taking full advantage of its power. Now's your chance to find out how you can get more out of your iPad, and how you can keep it safe and avoid inadvertent disclosures of sensitive information.

In this 1 hour CLE you'll see me, and and a legal technology trainer named Adriana Linares, demostrate apps and tips straight from our iPads, so you can follow along on yours. Among the things we'll demonstrate are:

  • Setting up your iPad for maximum security & mobility
  • Document management: getting them on the iPad and synching them
  • The power of speech on an iPad: Siri & the Google Search app
  • Best apps for lawyers for calendaring, e-filing and trial display

The seminar will take place on Friday, March 29th at noon, and is accredited in Louisiana for 1 hour of CLE credit, including 'Law Practice Management'. For more information, and to sign up for the seminar (early bird pricing is in effect for a limited time!), CLICK HERE.

And use the the promocode 'ernieattorney' to get 10% off the early bird pricing. But act swiftly because the venue has very limited seating, and this is always a popular session.

iPad webinar with David Sparks

/

In the past year I’ve done a few seminars on how lawyers can get more out of their iPads. They’re always well received, and I like doing live events. But increasingly, I’ve felt that the best way to get folks oriented on their iPads is with an online webinar, where the audience can see my iPad projected onto their computer screen. That way they can follow along on their own iPad as the presentation happens.

My buddy David Sparks (a California lawyer and major Mac guru) believes the same thing, and so we’ve set up a site called Nerdy Professionals to tackle this challenge. More importantly, we’re going to do an online webinar on Friday, March 1st entitled ‘iPad Basics.’ The webinar is for all professionals who want to optimize their iPads for maximum security and mobility.

For more information, and to register for the webinar, click here, and use the promo code ‘ernieblog’ to get 10% off the attendance fee.

Let your computer or phone type for you: it's like having superpowers!

/
If you hate typing with a computer keyboard, I feel your pain. Even if you can type pretty well it’s frustrating to have to key in your thoughts. Why can’t you just speak to your device and have it type for you?
 
Well, odds are you now have a phone that can. Your computer can definitely do it, but you may need to buy some software. Either way, the key point here is this: you have this ability lurking around you; the barrier to using it is your failure to take advantage of speech recognition software.
 
Let me help you over the hump. I have experience with this hump, and I know it’s not so much of a tech-barrier as it is a human-nature thing.
 
Most of us think that, since speech-recognition is so magical, it should be really easy to adopt. It’s not, because you still have to learn to issue forth the proper commands. So it’s still a little like learning to use a keyboard. The trick is to persist until you get comfortable enough not to have to think too much about how you dictate.
 
If you have one of the recent edition iPhones then you can start by using the free Dragon Dictation app, or the Google Search app (click here for a 50 second demo video) Apple’s Siri is promising but still too unreliable, and nowhere near the Google app. Other smartphones, such as Android phones, have had speech recognition for even longer. Start using your phone to practice using dictation. You’ll only be allowed to say basic things, like a phrase, followed by some punctuation: “period, comma, new line, new paragraph.”
 
After you master those commands, work up to using commands that invoke capitalization (e.g. “all caps” or “Cap that”). If you can find a master list of the acceptable commands print it out, and resolve to learn a few new commands each week.
 
You’ll also have to develop a way of handling mistakes, but that’s part of the learning curve too. If you can get past the common problems you’ll soon find yourself dictating easily and often. At that point you’re probably ready to start using a full-fledged speech recognition program on your computer. The best one to get is the basic one called Dragon Naturally Speaking, by Nuance. They have a Mac version called Dragon Dictate. The Mac version is $129, and the PC version is about $60 and is much more evolved.
 
You don’t need the fancy “legal version,” just the basic one. What you most need after that is some practice. If you stick with it you’ll soon find yourself blasting out text like a super-human. Believe me, it’s a good feeling. Just make sure you use your superpowers for good, and not evil.
 

If you appreciate these kinds of tips consider signing up for this monthly email newsletter: it’s free, and delivered automatically.

The week in review - October 1st

/

Here are the highlights from my Twitter posts for the last week (Sept 24–28), with some additional commentary.

  • New Orleans attorneys who wish they could manage their email better (using automation and tools that increase efficiency and lower stress) should attend this CLE program on October 19th.
  • If, like me, you’re not getting an iPhone 5 but want something that will dramatically improve your old iPhone’s performance how about a Mophie Juice Pack Air case? It doubles your battery life and wraps your iPhone in protective case. Yes it makes it slightly larger and heavier, but extra battery life doesn’t grow on trees you know.
  • If you did get a new iPhone, or upgraded (like me) to iOS 6 then stop worrying about Apple’s new maps. There is a much better free GPS navigation application called Waze, which has been growing steadily. I have been using it for almost a year, but I notice that many of my tech-savvy friends are discovering it too. It’s probably the best GPS app for the iPhone and it’s free. That’s a powerful combination.
  • If you have a Mac and want to run Windows you can, but you need the right software. What’s the right software? Almost certainly it’s Parallels. The Wall St. Journal’s tech columnist Walt Mossberg reviewed Parallels and favored it over VMware. I’ve switched to Parallels and so far I’m impressed.
  • I’ve been trying out the new Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac and I’m not ready to pronounce this program a game-changer, but it’s much better than the prior version. If you struggle with typing, or if you just want to turbo-charge your text input, then you should investigate Dragon Dictate. Windows users should definitely get the PC version, which has been more fully developed and is feature-rich and quite reliable.

To get these news tidbits as they come out follow me on Twitter. For tweets about technology follow me at the PaperlessChase Twitter page, and if you’re a Louisiana lawyer interested in technology come to one of our live CLE programs.

To go paperless with a Mac or iPad get this book

/

If you use a Mac you probably have an iPad. And probably, like many people with iPads, you’re thinking it’d be nice to be paperless. If so, then you need to order a copy of David Sparks new book (Paperless: The MacSparky Field Guide) right now. It’s available in the iBook Store for $9.99.

The book is a deep dive on paperless workflows for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. The book includes screenshots, interactive images, and short movies. Not only does this book tell you how to go paperless, it also shows you. Trust me, you can do a lot with this book. I can’t believe it only costs $10.

(Oh, and it’s a large file so don’t panic if it takes a little longer than usual to download).

Heading off to TechShow - Hope to see you there!

/

I'm headed off to Chicago today to speak at the ABA TechShow, which is always exciting. I'll meet old friends, and make a bunch of new ones. Most of all, I'll relish hanging with lawyers who appreciate technology, and crave new information about how to make practical use of it in their law practice.

This year is special because both of my co-speakers are people that I've long admired, but never had the chance to present with: David Sparks and Antigone Peyton. On Thursday, Antigone and I will cover "Social Media for Litigators," which is a hot topic and ever-changing. On Friday, David and I will talk about how to be paperless using Mac computers. Both of these talks are going to be really special.

TechShow is an amazing event, and frankly it's impossible to convey how useful, entertaining and enjoyable it is. If you are a lawyer who owns a smartphone and a computer connected to the Internet then you should be here. If you own an iPad then for sure you should be here. The fastest way to learn how to use technology in your law practice is to come to TechShow. And it's the most fun too.

Useful information for new iPad owners

/

The new iPad is coming out today, and no doubt a lot of lawyers will be getting one. For some of those lawyers this will be their first iPad. For those lawyers I recommend two books that they should purchase immediately.

  1. Tom Mighell's iPad for Lawyers in One Hour for Lawyers (available: Apple iBook store). This is great for novice iPad users because it literally walks you through the basics in about one hour.
  2. David Sparks' iPad at Work (available Apple iBook store). Not written specifically for lawyers, per se. But David Sparks is a lawyer and he used the iPad in his work, so all of his recommendations apply to lawyers. This is a must have book for anyone who owns an iPad.

For updated information on what legal apps to get (and other iPad and iPhone related news) you should subscribe to the email version of Jeff Richardson's iPhoneJD blog. Jeff practices commercial litigation in a large firm, and started his blog to discuss iPhone stuff, but everything he says (for the most part) is applicable to iPads. This is how you learn about what legal-specific apps are useful.

Josh Barrett's Tablet Legal is a good site too. As he said in a recent post, most lawyers will want at least the following two apps:

  1. PDF Expert, and
  2. DropBox

I'd add GoodReader as the number one app, and then whatever legal apps are relevant to your law practice (Tom Mighell's book will give you a good running start on those kinds of apps).

Apple's Siri is both great and annoying, so I'm not using it much

/

David Sparks of the excellent MacSparky blog recently wrote a post called The Siri Problem, which makes the point that Apple's Siri service s great yet unreliable. I totally agree.

I love Siri and periodically try to use it. If it works it's magic. But just often enough it fails, and it fails just enough that I am giving up on using it. Before Siri I used the voice command feature to dial people's numbers by simply speaking their name. Siri made the success rate of this feature better, but only if the network that powers Siri is available.

The old system didn't require a network connection. So now when Siri isn't working I can't use the voice command at all. Yes, I can go back to the voice command, which doesn't rely on the network, but then I lose Siri functionality (and Siri forgets all your history if you turn it off).

I don't know what the problem is, but I know that if Apple doesn't fix it soon they'll be losing a lot of momentum. When Apple aficianados like David Sparks and me throw up our hands that's a bad sign. Too bad Steve Jobs isn't still around to go kick some ass. There is no excuse for Siri being this unreliable. And don't remind me that Apple says "it's in beta," because they've hyped it extensively in commercials such as this one.

Book Recommendation: iPad at Work is awesome!!

/

I've been chipping away at David Sparks' most excellent book, iPad at Work, and thoroughly enjoying it. It's so chock full of useful information, about how to use an iPad to get stuff done, that I'm moving slower than with most books.

Sometimes I skip around when I have a problem that needs immediate solving. For instance, just now I was trying to figure out how to get OmniOutliner to work with Dropbox. The iPad version of OmniOutliner doesn't seem to hook into DropBox.

That's strange, I thought to myself. I know David uses OmniOutliner and Dropbox, so he must have figured out a way to make this happen. I searched his book (I have the Apple iBook version) for "omnioutliner" and BINGO! There on page 98 is the explanation I was looking for: use a service called DropDAV (since OmniOutliner on the iPad supports WebDAV servers) which costs $5 per month.

Ordinarily I would be hesitant to pay $5 for a service that I don't really know much about. But David Sparks said "Mixing Dropbox with WebDAV is something like mixing peanut butter with chocolate. Everything just gets better." That simple little passage of text tells me that he vetted this process carefully and found it indispensable. That's all I need to know.

I signed up for the free 14 day trial of DropDAV and I'm sure I'll keep using it. Creating a seamless workflow between my iPad and my regular computers is mission critical. Not having to figure out the optimal workflow (because David has figured it out for me) is priceless.

There are lots of books out there that will tell you about the iPad's features, but there's only one that will help you figure out quickly how to get work done in the most efficient way possible, and at the lowest cost. iPad at Work is for anyone who has an iPad and uses it to do any kind of work, but if you're a lawyer you should know that David Sparks is too. His workflow is pretty intricate, so if he can use the iPad to do his work then you'd be wise to pay attention to his workflow recommendations.

David's book is available at Amazon and other fine booksellers. If you have an iPad and you want to get more out of it get a copy of David's book.

Siri rocks!

/

I’ve been testing Apple’s new service called Siri, which is only available on the new iPhone, for the past week. To sum up my overall review in one word: Wow!

In fact, I’m dictating this entire review using the Siri application on my iPhone. Although I have tested Dragon Dictation’s voice recognition software for the Mac for several years, I find that this Siri service is actually easier to use on my iPhone than the Dragon Dictation software was to use on a computer.

Yes, you read that right, I prefer dictating using my dinky little iPhone than using my more powerful computer. As I dictate this review right now, I’m holding the iPhone in my hand and dictating using the Apple your phones so that I can speak into the headset in the ear headphones while I watch as Siri dictates what I say.

Siri is not perfect. Periodically, I have to stop to make minor adjustments when it misses a word or mis-capitalizes something. Still, it’s far easier to do this on my iPhone tend to use Dragon Dictation on the computer.

You can use Siri to dictate into the iPhone anywhere you would otherwise use a keyboard. So, for example, you can dictate emails very rapidly and easily by using the Siri dictation app instead of pecking out things awkwardly on the tiny virtual keyboard. If Siri mis-transcribes a word you can often select an alternative by tapping on the word, at which point the iPhone will suggest other words that might be appropriate.

Although the pure dictation mode is useful, we are Siri really shines is in serving as a virtual assistant.

For example, if I wonder what time it is in London I can say “what time is it in London?” And Siri will return an answer immediately. I can also ask Siri to suggest nearby restaurants simply by saying “are there any restaurants nearby?”

Gee, I wonder what the weather what will be like for the next few days? All I have to do is hold down the button until Siri prompts me with a cute little ping, and then say “what’s the weather going to be like for the next few days?”

If I don’t want to have to navigate to my email program and then fire it up just to send someone an email I don’t have to. I can say “Siri email Dane Ciolino.” Siri will then prompt me and say “okay, what do you want to say to Dane Ciolino?” (By the way, as I dictated that name, Siri had no problem spelling it correctly because Dane’s name is in my address book). After I tell Siri what I want to say to Dane it will ask me if I want to send the email, and, if I confirm, the email will be sent without me ever having touched the keyboard.

This is purely magical.

I have tested Siri and a number of situations. For example, you would expect it to only work effectively while using Wi-Fi. However, it seems to work very well in 3G environments as well. I was in a crowded restaurant the other day and the question came up about how many engineering graduates Stanford put out each year. I queried Siri, not expecting it to understand what I said, but it transcribed my question perfectly. (It wasn’t able to answer the question, but it did offer to perform a web search which returned some promising results on Google, but I wasn’t able to quickly get the answer I wanted).

My conclusion, after having used Siri for about a week, is that Apple is expecting this to be a major feature in all mobile devices going forward. Granted, it’s not necessarily going to become a major feature in the next iteration, or even in the next two years. Getting people acclimated to using voice recognition is a tricky process. But, Apple’s implementation of this feature on a small mobile device, is truly amazing.

I presume that many people will dismiss Siri has a novelty, and some people who find it interesting will get bored with it after awhile. But for those who see the true power of it, and who are willing to learn how to tap into it, Siri will be a major shift in how they interact with their iPhone.

Another great iPad book for lawyers

/

My friend Tom Mighell has a wonderful book for newbie iPad-using-lawyers called iPad in One Hour for Lawyers, which is available from the ABA in print ($35), or from the Apple iBookstore as an e-book ($18). Seems like the e-book is the obvious choice, especially when you factor in the price.Tom walks you through how to set up your iPad to get the basic lawyer stuff done, and it truly will only take you an hour or so. Every lawyer who gets an iPad for the first time should get this book.

My iPhone/Google Voice experiment

/

I've had an iPhone with AT&T since it first came out, and I've had nothing but good things to say about my AT&T experience. Last year, though, I moved to a new house, which unfortunately has poor AT&T coverage. Obviously AT&T can't have perfect coverage everywhere. No carrier can.

But, it's been so unreliable that I knew that I'd switch to Verizon when the new iPhones were released. Today, I got a new iPhone on the Verizon network. I'm paying a small penalty to drop AT&T but it's worth it to get the optimal phone service in my house (I don't have a landline).

However, I didn't port my old cellphone number over to Verizon. I'm getting a new number, which is something I'm looking forward to since my old number was starting to attract a lot of robocalls from salesbots, and some weird text messages.

But I'm not discarding my old number entirely. I decided to port that one to Google Voice (which I've had for a long time as well, but never made much use of). It cost me $20 to port the number, and the switch over takes 24 hours. Supposedly the text messages take up to 3 business days to switch over. We'll see how all that goes.

Hopefully, what I'll end up with is this: I have one number that I can use to simultaneously ring my cellphone and my business phone, and the voicemail messages get transcribed and emailed to me. I can selectively filter calls based on which group the person calling is in. I'm not sure how it will all turn out, but I like the idea of separating my phone number from my carrier. I like the way Google deals with spam in my email, and I expect them to do a good job with my voice spam too.

If any of you out there have done this, I'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

Update: The port over took exactly 24 hours. My old phone on AT&T was disabled automatically (which is what I expected and wanted). The text messages are still not coming over to my new phone, but that was supposed to take up to 3 biz days, so we'll see. My voicemail messages are now being transcribed for free by Google, so I can let go of my Phonetag service ($10/month). The only thing that is not optimal is the length of time that it takes Google Voice to pick up voicemail (25 seconds). This time is not adjustable, and many people seem not to like this. In my case, I have a great service (Ruby Receptionist - callruby.com) for my business lines. I don't mind that my cellphone line takes a little longer to answer, although it would be nice if Google would allow this to be adjusted.

Update #2: I found out that if I receive a call on my iPhone and click the top button (the iPhone default for "send to voicemail immediately") it goes right to Google Voice and the voicemail is transcribed and immediately sent to me as a text message. Much faster than PhoneTag, so I'll be saving $10 per month when I get rid of PhoneTag (next week).

iPad books for lawyers

/

If you have an iPad and you want to get the most out of it, buy my friend David Sparks’ book, iPad At Work, and pay close attention to whatever he recommends. I just got my copy and started reading it, and I can say that this is an excellent resource. If you own or plan to buy an iPad I’d go so far as to say it’s indispensable.

David also has a great podcast called Mac Power Users (which he does with Katy Floyd), which I also highly recommend.

A Master Class in persuasiveness

/

Screen shot 2011-06-08 at 2.43.10 PM The day after announcing a slate of cool new developments at Apple's annual WWDC conference, Steve Jobs appeared before the Cupertino City Council. Apparently, Apple's current campus only accommodates about 2,500 workers and the rest of the employees have to work in various office spaces around Cupertino. 

So Apple needs a new campus to accommodate about 12,000 employees (approximately 2,000 of them will be new employees). Hence, Jobs' appearance before the City Council.

If you've ever seen a city council proceeding you'd have to be struck by how masterful, and atypical, Steve Jobs' presentation was (see video below). It's also interesting to compare that presentation to Jobs' typical Keynotes. No matter where he goes, no one has to remind Steve Jobs to always be closing. He's the master of that mantra; it's why he's so extraordinarily persuasive.

What are some of the techniques we can learn from him?  (especially, as he confronts a circle of crass politicos, awkwardly asking for silly concessions if they Apple's stellar plan) Well, here's a short list:

  • Jobs never rushes in making his key points, and often repeats them.
  • He's confident; he knows he's entitled to what he's asking for, but he's patient in explaining the many benefits to Cupertino.
  • He uses well-crafted visuals that are appropriate to the audience & message (no fancy marketing logos in this presentation)
  • His charts are simple (e.g. compares “today” with “tomorrow” as opposed to putting in specific dates)
  • He cleverly weaves in personal stories to show that he's not just a big CEO; he's been around Cupertino since he was a kid.
  • He's eager to answer questions, and then proceeds to do so superbly.
  • He deftly explains the benefits to Cupertino (e.g. tax revenue and attracting lots of well paid smart people)
  • He demurs an “invitation” to provide Cupertino with free WiFi or an Apple Store (e.g “I like things simple: we pay a lot of taxes and you can use the money however you want, including putting up free WiFi if you want.”)
  • He uses humor when asked if it bothers him that there is a Kaiser plant belching toxins close by (“Well they got the land fair and square but if you want to kick them out I wouldn't cry.”)

In short Steve Jobs is great at persuasion for a couple of reasons: (1) he's gotten comfortable speaking in front of large groups of people; (2) he prepares thoroughly and makes his points calmly, with effective repetition, and (3) he uses relevant visuals to support his message. So if you want to learn how to persuade better you'd probably benefit from watching this 20 minute presentation by Steve Jobs.

And, if you're a politician and you want to improve your public image, don't ask any questions (or speak at all) when Steve Jobs appears before you to make a presentation.

 

Read More

Making digital signatures will be easy in Apple's new OS

/

The new Apple OS upgrade (named: Lion), which will be released in July, has an interesting addition for people who've wanted to use digital signatures to sign electronic documents, but couldn't figure out how to scan in their signature. From Apple's info page, comes this tidbit:

Add your signature

Preview makes it easy to add your signature to PDF documents. Hold your signature up to an iSight or FaceTime camera, and Preview uses sophisticated image processing to turn it into a pen-perfect signature annotation. With a click, the signature is added to your document, which can be saved or sent via email. It’s ideal for signing PDF forms and documents.

Nice!

Read More

Better podcast app for iPhone

/

I am a big fan of podcasts, especially educational podcasts. The iPhone is a great tool for listening to podcasts, except for one little problem. While you can subscribe to podcasts in iTunes, to take advantage of the automatic downloading you have to constantly sync your iPhone (or iPod Touch) to iTunes. I'd rather have the latest podcasts pushed directly to my iPhone.

Unfortunately, that's not what happens with iTunes on the iPhone.

Enter a free (as of this post) app called AudioPress. With this application on your iPhone you can now subscribe to podcasts and have them streamed to your iPhone. You can create playlists to group podcasts together. I only have one playlist with all my podcasts, which is perfect. Now all of my podcasts are queued up in one place and when one finishes the next one starts right after it.

Being able to listen to podcasts without having to remember to download the latest one (or without having to sync the iPhone to my computer) is AWESOME.

What are the downsides? Not too many, at least for me.

First, the podcasts are streamed and not stored locally on the iPhone. This is not a problem because the streaming works over 3G. If I were flying on a plane then it'd be a problem. The 3G streaming works great, and the WiFi streaming obviously works well too. I don't want my iPhone's hard drive cluttered with podcasts, especially after I've already heard them. So, this first 'downside' really isn't a downside at all as far as I'm concerned.

Second, there are short commercials (public service announcements so far) that play in between the podcasts. Given the huge benefit of having all my podcasts queued up and ready to go, I don't care about the commercials. I don't even notice them.

What about if you stop halfway through a podcast and do something else? Does it remember where you were? Yes, absolutely. And the iPhone headphone's command button works to pause the podcast, or even advance to the next one if you double click it.

Not all podcasts that are available through iTunes are available for the AudioPress app, but all of the main ones I listen to regularly are available. So check out AudioPress. Did I mention it's free?

Read More

Renting Apple iTunes movies - some small discoveries

/

About a month ago I rented a movie from Apple iTunes, thinking I would watch it on a trip I was taking. I didn't get to watch it until today, and I learned some valuable lessons which I thought I would share. First, let me get some really distressing information out of the way: the movie was The Hulk.

The reason I picked that movie was simple. I was in a hurry, and it was the top choice when I went to pick a rented movie. Perhaps because I was so unenthusiastic, I never watched it, nor remembered even ordering it. So, the first thing I learned was that as you near the end of your 30 day window to watch the movie, Apple reminds you that you are running out of time. Today, I was informed that I had only four hours to watch the movie.

I decided to take drastic action.

While I was doing some other things, I started the movie (which I had transferred to my iPhone). I was hoping that, perhaps if I began watching the movie and then paused it, I would get at least 24 hours beyond my deadline to finish watching it. It seemed like I was managing to skirt the death penalty, but then I apparently paused the movie once too many times. When I fired up my iPhone I was informed that my movie had expired and all traces of it seems to have disappeared from my phone.

I collected my thoughts and assessed the situation to see if there was a 'blogable moment' worth passing along.

So what did I learn? Even though I didn't get to finish watching it, The Hulk wasn't all that bad (it wasn't all that good either). The most interesting thing I found out is that Apple has a good system of reminding you that your video deadline is about to expire. And, I was also interested in how Apple completely scrubs the video from your remote device after the deadline has passed. I think it's safe to say that this is a company that really understands how to implement DRM.
Read More

iPhone apps - some recommendations

/

Several friends of mine have recently gotten an Iphone, and have asked me to recommend some applications that I find useful. Here is my review of a few of the general utilities I have tried:


Weather

No one seems to be able to do anything about the weather, but that doesn't stop people from developing applications related to weather forecasting (and don't even get me started on tip calculators). Apple's basic weather utility works fine, but provides only bare-bones information: current temperature and forecast, along with a five day basic forecast.   

WeatherBug (free) gives more detailed information, such as rainfall amounts wind direction/speed, humidity and dew point. It also provides a color weather radar and some traffic cam videos. And guess what? I never use it.

Recently, The Weather Channel (free) just released an application and so I tried it out. The interface is better than WeatherBug, and they provide just as much information. But, after several weeks of having it on my iPhone, I continue to use the basic Apple weather program.  

Sometimes all you want is the simple thing.

Voice search

One problem with the iPhone is that sometimes it's hard to search for information, especially if you're driving, putting on makeup, and programming your GPS (I tried to go light on the makeup, but sometimes circumstances require it). Anyway, having a program that lets you search without having input information by hand can be very useful.

The first program that I can heartily recommend is called Melodis Voice Dialer (free).  it only does one thing, but does it well. If you want to call somebody in your contact list, you open this application holds down the button and speak the person's name.  For example, I just searched for my friend Robert Peyton's name inabout four seconds, which is much faster than trying to scroll through the address book. The results aren't always perfect, but I would say that it delivers about 90% accuracy.

Google's application (free) also has voice search, but it works primarily for seeking information on the Internet. A program called Vlingo (free) does the same thing and seems to work just as well.  Vlingo also lets you search your contacts. 

Travel

Several programs are cropping up that allow you to track the status of flights.  I've used a program called FlightTrack, which seems to work pretty well. In theory, you can monitor the status of a flight in real time. In practice, it's good at letting you know if a flight took off late, but it seems to be a little behind in notifying you when a flight has actually arrived. Still, it's better than having to continually call and wait for a telephone status update.  And it's cool to watch the actual flight path of your loved one on a map.

Location-based information

Programs that make use of the iPhone's GPS function are useful for finding information about services and places that are close to where you currently are. Finding a good place to eat is always an issue when you're traveling. A few months ago when I was in Austin I was taking pictures and a group of people approached and (thinking I was a local) asked me for a good place to eat.  Preferably, one that was within walking distance.  No problem, I said.  And then I took out my phone and used a program called Yelp (free) to find a restaurant that was close by. The group thanked me and went to off in the direction I pointed them towards.  Yelp is an online community so you'll have to sign up and set up an account. The reviews are pretty uneven but it can be a good way of finding a great off the wall restaurant that only locals know about.

A few minutes later I came across a young couple who also asked me if I knew someplace to eat in the neighborhood. I asked them what kind of food they were interested in. They told me they wanted to eat South Western cuisine. This time, I used a program called UrbanSpoon (free), which is set up like a slot machine.  There are three spinners: location, cuisine, and price range.   you can lock down one or all of the spinners depending on what you were interested in, and then you shake it and it gives you a random choice. However, UrbanSpoon also lets you find restaurants based on their proximity to your current location.

For the most part, yelp and urban spoon are enough to help me find interesting places to eat in any city. However, there's one other program that I can highly recommend.  LocalEats (.99 cents) is great because it compiles the 100 best restaurants in various cities, and it will list those choices based on nearness to your location.  One other program that I haven't used much, but can be useful is OpenTable (free).  To use this program you have to sign up at the OpenTable website and then give the application your sign-in information.  Once you do you can search for restaurants based on when reservations are available.  I find it useful to be able to see which nearby restaurants have open reservations and what times are available, without having to call someone on the phone.  The only downside is that not all restaurants participate in the program so you wouldn't be able to see those restaurants in your list.
Read More

Speech recognition for Mac users

/

A few months ago, I decided to try out a new speech recognition program for the Mac. The program is called MacSpeech Dictate. It retails for $199, and comes complete with a USB microphone that works great. (In fact, I am using it to dictate this blog post).

Back when I first decided to try it, I found that worked fine as far as set up and basic dictation went. Unfortunately, I don't think my computer had enough RAM, or the program itself was not quite adept at capturing all of my dictation. Recently, MacSpeech Dictate was upgraded. I can say after trying the upgraded version for just a few hours that I will now be using it regularly. The new version includes spelling and phrase training, which are welcome additions.

One thing that held me back before, is that I type pretty well. So, unless a dictation program can help me output text faster than I can type, it would actually be a hindrance. Part of using a dictation program like MacSpeech, involves getting used to the process of dictating. Obviously, you can't do it in a noisy environment. But, assuming you are working in an office with privacy and minimal noise, dictating is much faster than typing—even if you are a very fast typist.  

On the Windows side, I have heard that Dragon NaturallySpeaking works extremely well (much better than MacSpeech Dictate). David Pogue, the technology columnist for the New York Times, swears by Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I can now swear by MacSpeech Dictate. So, whether you're on the Windows side or the Mac side, if you've been tempted to try dictation software that time has come.  Especially if your typing skills are mediocre. 
Read More