Dragon in the office

Working both in the office and at home complicates things. Needing to talk to one’s computer also complicates things. Having both complications at the same time complicates things even more.

It started with the working at home. That lead to RSI. That, in turn, lead to me having to talk to my computer rather than manipulating it with keyboard and mouse. I had the necessary software on my desktop. But then they gave me a laptop because I need to be able to work both at home and in the office, and preferably also on the main campus. That was okay; my software license allows me to install the software on several computers. However; the software for some reason didn't quite work as well on the laptop as it had done on the desktop. So I wanted a desktop again, but only in addition to a laptop; you can't really work in more than one place and lug a desktop along with you. And the desktop came. But by now my software license was so old I couldn't install it on this machine, which rendered it totally useless.

I was a bit disheartened for a while. But that doesn't help. So I contacted my line manager, and asked if I could have an additional license. Not only so I can use this desktop, but also as a contingency measure; I can't install the software onto the network. I have to install it on the hard drive of any computer I work with. That means that basically, my laptop was the only computer on the entire campus I could work with. And it had started sending me messages that I had viruses.

I had taken it to the IT helpdesk and they said the messages where a gross exaggeration, and the laptop was fine, but still. If anything goes wrong with it I can't do any work until somehow I manage to organise another computer with voice recognition software installed on it. That is an accident waiting to happen!

Luckily, my line manager saw that point, and soon afterwards I had my new license. So I took the desktop to my office on campus, plugged it in, installed the software, and suddenly I had a computer there that worked! And that I didn't have to physically bring in every single day! And it is early days, but I haven't experienced the weird shenanigans I had with the laptop. For instance, if I want to correct a word the software misinterpreted, it may occur multiple times in the text I am working on, and the software doesn't know which one it got wrong. The software will then give all of them numbers, and I can choose. On the laptop, the numbers quite often were not on the actual words. You have to just guess which number belonged with which occurrence of the word in question. That is a pain in the bum!

I am quite chuffed with my new set-up! I am ready for the new academic year. At least, I am when is comes to hardware…

Dragon software installing on the desktop