When I stopped being able to type 10 years ago, it was a dark, dark time. I’d always wanted to be writer, and suddenly, I couldn’t write. And not only was I scared about giving up my dream, I didn’t know how I would keep a normal job, any job, if I couldn’t use a keyboard.
Then I started using voice recognition software, Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It’s a lifesaver, plain and simple. I can write, search the web, etc. purely through voice commands. Don’t know what I’d do without it.
In any case, Nuance, the company that puts out the software, is throwing a contest. In honor of their 10th birthday, they want to hear how you use Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
http://www.nuance.com/dragonstories/
I saw this and thought, cool, I like contests. I like prizes. My life is kind of interesting. Maybe I have a shot. Then I started reading.
After the very first post, I gave up on the contest side of things. Yeah, my life has its difficulties, but I was so impressed and humbled by what I read. There are so many extraordinary life stories posted. I really recommend checking it out.
Here’s my favorite entry from Chuck Z.:
“Project Valour-IT began when I was wounded by an IED while serving as commander of a tank company in Iraq in June 2005. During my deployment I kept a blog, relating insightful stories of my experiences, and sharing self-deprecating humor. After I was wounded, my wife continued the blog, keeping my readers informed of my condition.
As I began to recover, I wanted to return to writing, but serious hand injuries hampered my typing. When a loyal and generous reader bought me a copy of the Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred (7.0) software, other readers began to realize how important such software could be to my fellow wounded soldiers and started to cast about for a way to get it to them.
Patti Patton Bader from SoldiersAngels (www.soldiersangels.org) contacted me and we shared a vision of providing laptops with voice-controlled software to wounded soldiers whose injuries prevented them from operating a standard computer. Soldiers Angels offered to help develop the project, and Project VALOUR-IT was born. (Voice Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops)
For the last three years, I have not only used Dragon NaturallySpeaking to work, (I continue to serve in the Army) play (I continue blogging at tcoverride.blogspot.com) but I also use your software in charity work. So far, we’ve raised the funds to donate over three thousand laptops with this software to our wounded service members who’ve suffered brain, hand, and/or eye trauma and would otherwise be “disconnected” from today’s world. The use of your software to use a computer, to connect, to do something that I was able to do before I was injured made me feel somewhat whole, somewhat normal, for the first time. It has been my distinct pleasure and honor to give that feeling, a feeling of ability, to our wounded. Dragon has not only improved my life, it has changed my life.”
