Hey. Sort of blah today. Still getting used to the idea of no dog.
I am a spoiled brat and was sort of disappointed with my showing at the photo contest. A third and an honorable mention are not at all bad. I just have high expectations.
For some reason we are back to high Summer. It was over 90 Fahrenheit today, September 25. About the same yesterday. Along with mad dogs and Englishmen I have been out in the midday sun and I am hot! My body was gearing up for fall. Not feeling like fall now!
Then of course, since we are going to be away, my workload just more than doubled. Let’s give Sue another six kids to test. She’s going on vacation!
Oh well, better than never having a dog, six feet of snow and no interesting job. Although sometimes I feel a little too ‘blessed’.
One of the topics in the teachers’ lounge today was bizarre things your voice recognition software tells people you said. One of the milder ones was how “doing beets with Grandma” became “doing beers with Grandma.” Well, some grandmas might throw back a few. Just not my colleague’s.
I know fully sighted people produce text and other written things that make no sense. I send out plenty that is alternating perplexing and/or amusing and/or frustrating. Some of my mistakes I manage to catch. That said, though, the question in my mind became how do truly blind people proofread? After all, I may need the skill one day. [Lin/Linda: I wish I’d kept a list of all the crazy things I’ve gotten from Sue since we started this!]
Back in 2011 Ryan Cordell suggested using text-to-speech to read things back to yourself. He explains how on an Apple OS X device you can have what you wrote read back to you by just making a few changes in the settings. This can be helpful if you are composing reports or letters on your computer.
Stephanie Diamond wrote about using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to proof read. Diamond also suggested text-to-speech for proof reading. Dragon works on PCs and Macs. Since NaturallySpeaking records your voice as well as recognizing it, another option is to listen to what you really did say. Diamond added you can send documents received from elsewhere to your PC and have NaturallySpeaking read those too. [You’ll see this software as Dragon Naturally Speaking, too, with a space between Naturally & Speaking.]
And if you want a human opinion on not only the spelling and verbiage but other aspects of your writing, remember Be My Eyes (BME) is an app that connects blind people with sighted volunteers via live video chat.
According to an April, 2017 Lighthouse Media publication, Be My Eyes now has half a million volunteers! Whom you get when you call is random. You can call unlimited times.
No one is pushy or opinionated unless you ask them to be. Want to know if that shirt goes with those pants? You can ask that and get an opinion. And no one will ask you why you ignored the advice.
According to the article, BME is looking for more users. This could be a match made in Heaven.
So, there are a few ideas for proofreading. But please don’t get too perfect. I find some of the errors amusing!
written September 26th, 2017
Next: I Told You So!
Home