Yesterday I discovered that Microsoft Word has a Dictaphone tool. I have known for a while there is a Read Aloud function and while not perfect it is good enough to operate as an editing tool.

In recent times I have been diagnosed with arthritis in my lower back hips and neck and a month or so ago I started experiencing extreme discomfort and pain in one of my finger joints. To be honest I’ve only looked up what it might be on “Doctor Google.” However, without using any of the keywords to load the search and just sticking to symptoms the main suggestion seems to be that it is the same arthritis that is afflicting me elsewhere.

A couple of days ago I was working with a client add I noticed for the first time that it was adversely affecting my ability to type. I deliver sessions online, especially during this Covid time. I use the chat interface to share links and other materials across a variety of platforms including Skype, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom.

I then remembered back many years ago, possibly way back in the days of Windows 98, I got some free voice recognition software with the computer I purchased. I never really got it to work, but it set me to thinking that maybe such software is now vastly improved and readily available on the market. A quick Google search revealed that Office 2019 has it has standard. So yesterday I started experimenting with it to work on some of my writing projects and I found that while it is less than perfect it is certainly more than adequate.

I’m not actually writing this post today. I am dictating it. And I’ve noticed that it has a few mistakes probably about 10 so far. I’m very tempted to leave it complete with the mistakes so that you can see the kind of frequency I’m talking about. However this would be against my personal value which demands excellence at all times. So what I’m going to do, in the next paragraph is I’m going to tell you something about myself and my crypto journey and not make any corrections.

So my crypto journey started in June 20 20. My family had read in the media about people making money through crypto investments. I was initially very sceptical and I urged caution and I warned them that I’d only invest money that they’d be prepared to lose. They readily agreed and so here we are almost two years later. In that time I’ve learned a lot, I’ve made mistakes on the way, I totally misjudged the first dip I experienced, I learned from it add mitigated the worst of the next dip and I’m currently sitting quite comfortably in overall profit despite the most recent dip. On my journey I have joined a few communities and would like to think that my opinion is well regarded. Quite early on I joined publish oh eggs and initially I posted a lot of stuff about investment strategies because I am financially trained. Later on I joined noise cache, in fact it is almost the one year anniversary since doing so, and try to engage as much as possible with as many people in the community as I can. I love the communities because we’re all respectful and desire the best for each other. I’ve yet to meet a malicious person, which is incredible when compared to other social media. Over last ten months I’ve been much less visible and this is mainly down to the birth of my son who takes a lot of my time and energy. I’m an older father I’m keeping up with him is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but at the same time is the best thing and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

So there you go. That’s me, that’s my experience with the Dictaphone – if that’s what you can say about this Word tool. It’s just about worth using and I believe it will only get better. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, stay well stay safe and now I have discovered this tool don’t be surprised if you see more posts from me again.