User: The word computer professionals use when they mean diot.
The First Warning Sign…
It all started about 11 days ago.
On Friday evening, having finished one of my usual 12-14 hour stints at the keyboard, I noticed a strange tingling in the my left hand. The effect alternated between pins and needles and a burning sensation and seemed to be centred on a 1 inch square area on my wrist, just below the outer edge of the palm. The slightest pressure on this area set off the equivalent of fireworks in my hand.
The next day, it became obvious that this wasn’t going to disappear by itself. During the course of Saturday morning, I went from acknowledging that I had a bit of a problem (maybe a trapped nerve?) to realising that I definitely did have a problem and that I needed medical advice sooner rather than later as I had no idea how to treat a trapped nerve. I emerged from a clinic on Saturday afternoon with my wrist in a splint, a diagnosis of something that began with “tend”, ended in “itis” and had two or three other syllables in the middle and instructions to visit my doctor if the problem hadn’t reduced significantly in the next four or five days.
It didn’t, so I did.
The diagnosis didn’t change. But this time, the phrase “RSI” was used and I was told to expect a healing time of six to eight weeks – which came as something of a shock. As a self-employed Web designer, not working isn’t an option so I needed to find a solution quickly and, preferably, one that I could use long-term as this was unlikely to be a one-off occurrence. Voice recognition software seemed to be the obvious choice.
Fortunately, I already knew one or two people who had been using VR software for some time, so I had access to expert advice as to which package to go for. Originally, there were two main packages – ViaVoice and Dragon. However, since ScanSoft took over both packages, ViaVoice has seen little development and all of the development focus appears to be centred on Dragon. For that reason, it was suggested that I purchase a copy of Dragon.
A week later, I was the proud owner of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7.3 Preferred.