h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can anyone help me? I love using computers but cannot work on them for long stretches of time because I experience a lot of pain. Therefore I am trying to find the best voice recognition software currently available. I want to be able to do as much of my work without a keyboard + mouse - is this possible?

What software/hardware solutions are out there? Ergonomic keyboards? Let me know if you have any good advice.

I have thing called VoiceXpress Advanced. It works acceptably well. I haven't used it in a long time. It needs correcting some, but it does work.

I'm afraid I don't know much about voice recognition software... but as far as mouses and keyboards go, here's what I'd advise...

Get an optical mouse (you'll need Windows 98 or later) - they're lovely , and smoother to move...

Turn the mouse speed up as high as it will go in start->settings->control panel->mouse. This means you have to move your hand less.

A 'natural' keyboard is great if you can touch type... otherwise I wouldn't bother. They do, however, have good palm rests... while typing, your wrists and palms should be comfortably resting, not suspended in the air... and you should adjust your chair height/monitor height/desk height so that your arms and wrists are angled slightly upwards.

Failing that, voice recognition software is fairly good these days - and you can use it to click on things, start programs, etc, etc. Can't tell you much more than that, though.

Mmmm... sometimes my hands get a bit sore as well. Voice recognition software sounds quite intersting. Does anyone else know anything about this?

I am writing this, using Dragon NaturallySpeaking five.
If you get this program trained up, it's not too bad.
One of the major problems is that you start talking strangely to other people.
The other problem, for me, is that it does not work inside the Internet explorer.
Another problem is when the television is on the backroom.
I will cut and paste this is my response.
Rod
Honest it does train you

I've heard that Dragon is the best.

Are you able to use this voice recognition software in an office environment (ie noisy place) or do you have to be in a quiet room?

My other half uses a small keyboard - its about half the length of a normal one and the function keys are flush with the numbers, this means he can use keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X, Alt-Tab etc) far easier without having to stretch his fingers - he also has a trackball rather than a mouse (optical mice sound great but if it is the wrist movement that bothers you they wont help - a trackball involves zero wrist movement)

Where are you are what do you want the equipment/software for - hubby got his for free through a charity called Work-Ability an offshoot of Leonard Cheshire - they have a website and are very helpful http://www.leonard-cheshire.org/ (follow about us>workability)

Thanks to everyone who's contributing to this thread. Keep it coming so that I can collate a really good entry for the guide once I have enough.
Zeppel

IBM do a piece of software called ViaVoice for Windows, Macs and Linux. It is regarded as one of the best on the market and can be trained in less than 30 minutes. Sometimes when you buy the software you get a digital memo recorder with it.

http://www-3.ibm.com/software/speech/

Don't use the program built into Windows XP (part of the language bar system). It needs to be used in a completely silent office, and still makes mistakes after you have trained it.

B.