Not only was there no fade out or fade in with xmradio, we were able to listen to all of our favorite channels including music as well as talk shows. The only thing we were missing is a TV to watch some of the talk shows. For example, CNN is one of the channels you can listen to, with exactly the same content that you would listen to and watch if you were watching at home on your television. We listened to Elvis radio which gives you 24/7 music of all of the songs that were ever recorded by Elvis. There was also commentary from the DJ, as well as comments from time to time from people who were visiting Graceland. If you like Elvis this is the channel for you.

News & Talk Shows

For the Oprah fans there is a channel dedicated to Oprah and all of her supporting shows. These include Dr Oz and the Gayle King show. Some are live while others are replays, however it means that you never have to miss one of the Oprah shows while you are traveling in the car, your RV or camping.  There are XMRadio devices available that are standalone units that you can carry with you while you travel, install them in your cottage or RV while you are camping. ( More on these later).

Rosie O’Donnell started a new radio show just for satellite distribution.  My wife wanted to listen to this channel and I reluctantly agreed. I am not a huge fan of Rosie, but that is just me. Well after listening for a few minutes, I found myself laughing at her jokes and enjoying the banter between Rosie and her supporting cast. During our trip we listened to Rosie almost every day while we were in the car.

We are talk show fans and there are lots of talk shows available to listen to. Some of the names we have already mentioned, but also shows such as Ron & Fez, The Open Road for truckers, Family talk, Laugh USA, Laugh Canada, Me & Vinnie, Doctor Radio, Kids Place, the Catholic Channel and more. Regardless of what you like to listen to, there is probably something for everyone.

XMRadio Program Guide and Categories

There are currently 130 channels available for customers to choose from and they also stream 80 channels over the internet as well for users to listen to at home or wherever they can access the net. The 130 channels are split among the following categories – Music, Sports, News, Talk & Entertainment with something for everyone, we think that everyone will be satisfied with their service and content. We certainly are.

If you are into music instead of talk shows like us, choose from pop, rock,dance,hip-hop, country,christian, jazz, blues, classical or Latin. With so many choices for music, there will  be something to help you pass the long hours driving or even if you are just going around the block.

Service Plans

We purchased the annual plan after our initial 3 month plan completed. The initial 3 month plan came with the new car and was free to us for that period. Initially we were uncertain about whether we would renew on an annual plan and it turned out to be a good thing that we waited to sign up for XMRadio. Turns out the closer you get to completing your free service, the better the deal that XMRadio will offer you.

We received 3 offers after we picked up our car. The first offer was a full price offer and did not appeal to us. In addition we were just learning about XMRadio and the channels they offered. The second offer came about a month later and knocked off several percentage points off the full price. Better, however we thought we may as well wait until the end of our service and then renew. Turns out that this also was a good decision. The last offer arrived in the 3rd month and dropped the annual fee by over 30% so we quickly signed up.

The amount of money saved by taking this offer is not huge. The service is not that expensive to start with, however we always love to get a deal and better that the money is in our account and not someone Else’s.

XM on Your Iphone!

You may not be planning to buy a new car and want to have XMRadio available. Or you enjoy your RV as you travel around the US or Canada. There are satellite radios  available now that are stand alone, that you can carry with you in your car, RV or your home. They come with mounting hardware and are easily moved around so that  you can enjoy them regardless of were you car. You will need to purchase the radio as well as a monthly or annual plan to enjoy XMRadio.

Consumers who own their own ipod or iphone can also sign up for XMRadio online and listen to their favorite radio station regardless of were you are. These same accounts can also be listened to over the internet on your home computer. Once area to be aware of is that you will need a data plan for your ipod or iphone and downloading music to these devices will consume some or all of the allowable bandwidth that you may subscribe to . If you have an unlimited data plan then there are no worries.

Customers can listen to XMRadio on their computer, their iphone, ipod or in the cars and RV’s by purchasing a standalone XMRadio. We hope you enjoy yours as much as we enjoy ours.

No more! Once we started using our new Garmin GPS Nuvi 750, we just plug in the address we want to go to or search for a gas station etc etc and follow the directions! For many people who have used a GPS device, this is old hat, however when you are driving 5000 miles across the United States or Canada, the true value of the GPS system really makes itself known.

We also really like the restaurant chain,  Texas Roadhouses, and downloaded information we found on the internet into our Garmin Nuvi 750 GPS system. Whenever we are near a roadhouse we get an alert to tell us that our favorite steakhouse is nearby.

We also downloaded a database that someone put together of favorite spots that the police like to set up speed traps. The first time we encountered a speed trap location, ( the police were not set up, thank goodness) our Garmin GPS device rang an alarm and flashed an alert on the screen to alert us that we were approaching a speed trap area. That was pretty cool!

Map Updates

Consumers can check out the Garmin web site for updates to current maps that are installed in their GPS device. There is a fee for this service unless you are within the warranty window, however if you want to have the latest upgrade and plan on traveling a great deal then it may well be worth it to upgrade your GPS system.

Garmin offered two choices for our Nuvi 750 system.  For $69 US we could download a one time update or for $119 US we could download updates 4 times a year for as long as we owned the device. Both deals are pretty good, however for our traveling requirements, we opted for the lifetime package and updates 4 times a year. They will also send you an email notification when a new update is available!

It is also important to note that the one time map update does not include map updates for Canada. The lifetime update map package coverage includes detailed maps for the United States and Canada, including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Mexico coverage is not included. Maps for Mexico, and Europe can be purchased separately.

The process of connecting the Garmin Nuvi 750 GPS system to the internet was relatively straight forward, however we did have to update the browser interface from the last time we had used it.  That meant another download and installation, which took a matter of 5 minutes. We also had to restart our browser as well. Everything installed easily and we now have the latest maps!

Once you decide that you want to upgrade your maps , go to www.garmin.com/mapupdates and follow the instructions for downloading the map update package you select and if needed, the interface package which is free.

Interface with the Garmin Nuvo 750 While Driving

We have become avid users of this GPS system while driving, however we have to emphasize that drivers should not be programming your next destination or searching for addresses on the Garmin while driving. When the Garmin system turns on, there is a warning and of course their web site also emphasizes this point.

We have to agree with Garmin. Fortunately there have been no accidents or even close calls, but it is difficult to drive safely and program your Garmin at the same time. We strongly recommend against trying any kind of programming other than reading or following the maps on the screen while driving.

Drivers have the choice between following directions by following commands on the screen or listening to voice instructions from the GPS internal speaker. Consumers can also tune their radios to a specific frequency to listen to voice commands through their cars radio system. We found that the GPS internal radio is fine and we programed our GPS to use an Australian female accent.

Other Features We Like

There are a few other features that we like as well. For example, converting  from kilometers / hour to miles per hour when you travel from Canada to the United States. This also includes your current speed and speed limits are also shown on the map display.

We also really like the trip tracking statistics. Average speed, moving and stopped along with total. This last statistic is interesting. Whenever I use mapquest to plan our trips we never know if they include stops or not and what average speed they use to calculate the time to get to your destination. Our Garmin GPS Nuvi 750 takes into account stopped time and recalculates arrival time. So with rest stops, stop lights and traffic there is never any guess work as to when you will arrive at your destination.

Saving favorites is another excellent feature. You might ask why do you need to save a favorite if you already know how to get there. We found that it is sometimes nice to know how long it will take to get somewhere, or perhaps a better route. We found for one location that there was actually a better route than the one we had been taking for years!

Consumers can program their GPS for the shortest distance, the faster time or off road. One couple we know had their GPS programmed for the shortest route which ended up taking them along country roads that were not much more than logging roads. Never again! Even if the fastest route is a bit longer in terms of distance traveled, staying on well traveled paved roads is definitely the way to go.

Actually the electric jack hammer I rented was a Bosch 11304 Brute which has a great feature called shock mounted handles. In other words the handles move in relation to the jack hammer and so most of the vibration from the jack hammer is absorbed by the handles and not by the operator. This is absolutely a great feature and reduces the wear and tear on your body significantly.

The Bosch 11304 Brute electric jack hammer features 15.0 amp draw, an impact energy of 43 pounds, weighs 64 pounds and a 1-1/8 inch Hex shank size. The guys at the rental store gave a 5 minute instruction on how to use the electric jack hammer and sent me on my way with a heavy duty extension chord as well. The unit fits easily in the trunk of your car. Be careful when placing the electric jack hammer into your trunk and lifting it out. The unit is heavy and you are lifting from an awkward position. If you can, I would advise getting someone to assist in lifting the electric jack hammer into and out of the car.

Man handling an electric jack hammer that weighs 64 pound with out the drill bit which weighs another 18 pounds for over 2 hours provides a workout that you will never get at the gym. I am no slouch, however I was totally exhausted after 2 hours work, but my slab of concrete was all broken up! I now have a great deal of respect for men who do this on construction sites for many hours every day.

My slab of concrete was the apron around our pool. The electric jack hammer dealt with this easily, however some concrete chips went into the pool. You have to be very careful removing these chips to avoid damaging the vinyl liner. In this particular case as well, one needs to be very careful to maintain your balance. The Bosch 1134 Brute electric jack hammer is top heavy and if you are not careful, you and the electric jack hammer can topple over, in my situation, into the pool. Fortunately this did not happen!

This is an electric jack hammer and draws up to 15 amps which most household outlets will handle. However you do need to use a heavy duty extension chord when using these machines. If not the voltage drop on the extension chord will be too much and  the electric jack hammer will not develop the power needed. I also understand that the motor could overheat as well.

Operation of the Electric Jack Hammer

Operation of the electric jack hammer is relatively straight forward, however the simple trick about using these machines is like many machines. Let the electric jack hammer do the work and you just point it in the right direction. I would place the bit in the location I wanted and pressed the button to start it and watched it drill into the concrete slab I was trying to brake up. No problem except that the first time I let the bit get too deep in the concrete to the point it was almost buried. Of course lifting a 64 pound electric jack hammer up when the bit is buried in concrete is not the easiest thing to do. Eventually I was able to get it out and started another location.

Next thing I learned is that you drill a series of holes along a line and eventually a chunk will break off of the main slab. You may have to break up this chunk into a smaller size so you can carry the pieces of concrete. Once I got the hang of it , jack hammering this concrete slab went fairly smoothly. I was breaking up a concrete slab that was approximately 3 inches to 5 inches thick. The Bosch 11304 Brute electric jack hammer handled this with ease. Just get into a routine of drill into the concrete about 2 inches, lift and move along a line about 3 inches and eventually a slab will break off .

Safety

The rental agency did not discuss any safety related issues with me when I rented the Bosch 11304 Brute electric jack hammer. They made sure I knew how to operate it and that I had a heavy duty extension chord, but that was about it.

I would strongly recommend that you wear a pair of safety boots with a steel shank and a steel toe. You might drop a piece of concrete on your foot, step on re-enforcing wire or let the electric jack hammer fall on your foot. Wearing proper safety gear on your feet will protect you from this type of accident.

Operators should also wear gloves. Handling the electric jack hammer handles will also be tough on your hands so a pair of leather construction gloves is strongly recommended. In addition you will be moving some of the broken concrete to either get them out of the way or for disposal. The leather gloves will protect your hands from cuts and scratches.

Lastly I would suggest a pair of safety goggles. Sometimes the concrete chips from the pressure of the electric jack hammer  fly everywhere. Goggles can be warn over glasses and will protect your eyes and the sides of your face as well.

In summary the electric jack hammer did the job with ease, it is an excellent machine for use around households or construction sites with electrical power near by and it is easily transported. Most equipment rental stores will rent these machines with a small specialized cart made for transporting these electric jack hammers.

Today there are many different types of inserts or gas fireplaces available on the market. The basic gas fireplaces will have a switch on the wall or maybe even on the unit itself to turn them on. The fancier gas fireplaces come with remote controls which operate much in the same way your TV remote operates. Turn the power on remotely, set the desired temperature, even set the time that you want the fireplace to turn on or turn off. All of these fireplaces enhance your home and the room that they are in. There is something special about sitting around a fire on a cold winter night even if it is a gas fireplace.

Wood Fireplace Conversions

Most new homes today are being built with gas fireplaces already installed. You can order a wood fireplace as well , however once you have had a gas fireplace, you will never go back to wood. No fuss, no mess, no back drafts with soot all over etc.

Older homes however will generally have a wood fireplace installed. These are easily converted to gas. Consumers will have to make arrangements with a fireplace store to come out and measure the existing opening in your fireplace to confirm which gas fireplace insert can be installed. They are manufactured in various widths, heights and depth to fit just about all existing wood fireplaces. Aside from physically fitting the existing opening, you need to spend some time on what your fireplace will look like and how it will blend into the room. More on that later.

Once you have settled on a gas fireplace model, you or the store you are dealing with will need to make arrangements for shipment and installation. The main activities that need to be completed for your installation include:

Extending the gas piping in your home over to the location were the fireplace insert will be located. If you have an unfinished basement this is generally a pretty straightforward job. As the difficulty increases so does the cost.

Electrical wiring must also be extended from the main fuse panel to your fireplace. Electricity is required to power the fan that usually comes with your fireplace. The fan will force the air through and around the fireplace and into the room your fireplace is in to heat it faster. Your gas fireplace will even operate with out electrical power, however the forced air fan will not work.

Your chimney has been designed for a wood fireplace. The chimney flue will have to be changed to meet the requirements of the fireplace you are installing. This includes fresh air intake as well exhaust. Many installations will call for a smaller flue to be installed inside the existing chimney flue.

It is also possible that you may need to change your mantle or other decorative elements around the fireplace to accommodate either the gas fireplace  or your room design.

Selecting Your Gas Fireplace

Once you have determined the size of gas insert your existing wood fireplace can accommodate, your local fireplace store can show you various models that will fit into your home.

The fireplace will come with a glass window and fake fireplace logs or in some cases small  stones. In both cases, the gas flame is interspersed among and around the logs and / or stones. There also will be a small metal mantel which will go around your gas fireplace insert and cover any gap that is left after the insert is installed.

In our particular case, this metal mantel covers a significant portion of the existing marble facing. Obviously we are not happy with this situation and have been looking for a fabricator to manufacture a smaller mantel for us.

As we mentioned previously you can select fireplaces with remote controls. Add the remote control to your collection of TV , DVD etc remote controls. From your command center on the couch or easy chair you can control all of your comfort without have to move a leg!

Building Code

All building construction must follow a building code regardless of  what country you live in. The building code is designed to ensure that all building construction is completed in a safe manner and that the installation will not cause any structural, water or flammable damage to the building.

Your gas fireplace insert must also follow this code. The gas line installation, the electrical power installation , the gas insert and the chimney installation all must meet the code requirements of your local government. Some people may see this as an intrusion, however it is really to protect you and your family as well as your investment. If you are not sure of the code requirements or are concerned that the installer may not be following code, you can make arrangements for an inspector to inspect your gas fireplace installation.

Fireplace Installations in the Basement

The basement is typically the coldest area of any home. Adding a free standing gas fireplace can not only warm the room up, but add a beautiful ambiance to your basement family room.  There are many types of fireplaces that can be added. Free standing units, column fireplaces with 3 sides, fireplaces with front and back sides visible are just a few of those that are available. Each have their own particular installation requirements however your local fireplace store can help you with your decision.

The investment in a gas fireplace insert is well worth the money and most consumers will receive years of enjoyment from them.

This particular post is going to focus on using a patio stone tub saw.  For more information about actually designing and building your patio, there are many web sites that will discuss the design and preparation of a backyard patio along with the construction and building of your patio. As long as you are not afraid of a little hard work, any home owner can build their own patio and save thousands of dollars in the process. As a rule of thumb, add to the cost of materials, the materials multiplied by 1.5 or 2 times to get an estimate of the cost of hiring a contractor to do the entire job. Back to using a patio stone tub saw.

Patio stone tub saws are actually quite easy to use as long as you practice safe working conditions and follow the instructions provided by your local rental company. We will discuss whether you should rent or purchase one of these machines a little later in this post.

The first thing you should know about patio stone tub saws is that they will cut through patio stones as much as 2.5 inches thick as if they were made of butter. Just push them through at a steady speed, listen to the sound of the motor and if it begins to slow down, then let up the pressure. You will quickly determine what the best speed of cutting is with these saws.

Set up is straight forward. Pick a location that is close to your work area, with access to power and a water hose. Another important consideration is that these machines will generate a lot of wet particulate which when it drys will coat everything with a fine white dust.  I installed a wood barrier around mine to limit the amount of spray and particulate from the stone cutter. This also makes cleanup much easier. Once you have hooked up the power and the water hose to the machine, complete several test cuts just to get a feel for the process of cutting patio stones. Always make sure the water is running to keep the blade wet and cool.

Safety Considerations

As with all home renovation projects and this includes patio stone tub saws, safety is paramount. These machines are pretty easy to use and safe as well, but there are a few things you should consider. First of all always connect the power chord with a heavy duty extension chord. If you do not have one, most equipment rental companies can provide one of these. Second the electrical outlet you use should have a ground fault breaker. You are wet, you will be standing in water sometimes and you want to make sure that there is little chance of receiving a shock.

Third, as we mentioned never operate the saw without water. The patio stone tub saw comes with a small water pump which pumps water out of the tub ( that’s why it is called a tub saw) through tubes to spray the water onto the saw blade. If it runs dry, you will generate lots of dust and the blade could over heat.

Eye protection is an absolute must. Wear goggles even if you wear glasses. The goggles will protect your glasses and more importantly will prevent particles from the tub saw getting into your eyes. Also wear sound protection for your ears. These tub saws are loud and the sound is quite ear piercing. If you do not wear ear protection at the very least you will not be able to hear properly for several days and the worst is that you could damage your ears permanently.

The last safety concern is always wear leather gloves. Water and the particulate from the stones you are cutting combine to form a paste which will rub your fingers raw. It can get quite painful if you are doing a lot of stone cutting. The gloves will get wet and it will be messy, but at least your hands will not be sore. Some people will also wear a rubber apron around them to protect their clothes and avoid getting soaked from the water spray. This is a great idea, makes the job a lot more comfortable, especially if it is cool. No one wants to be wet in cold weather.

Rent or Purchase a Patio Stone Tub Saw

Now back to renting or purchasing a patio stone tub saw.  I have rented one of these machines several times for a 24 hour period and found this to be the most economical for my purposes. I planned my rental around spending a day of stone cutting, so I had all of my stones placed and marked for cutting prior to picking up the saw, which made the process quite efficient. The cost in Canadian dollars was around $45 for the day, which is quite reasonable.

The rental company also rented a 1.5 horsepower patio stone tub saw to me.  This is quite important since a 1.5 horse power motor will draw just less than 15 amps so you won’t be tripping your circuit breaker very often. Three horse power tub saws can cut faster, however unless you have a 20 amp or 30 amp outlet, you will be tripping your circuit breaker all of the time. This is an important consideration if you plan to purchase a patio stone sub saw.

One last point, get to know the folks at the equipment rental company you use. They have lots of experience and will take the time to show you how to use these tub saws, some of the tricks and safety issues and will often throw in the heavy gauge extension chord you will probably need as well for free.

Sure, we have all been raised with the desire to have more, and it is difficult to see a future where that is not a reality. In the future we would hope that the endless consumption and accumulation of “stuff” would be over, and we would be happy just enjoying the holidays without the commercialization of it. But knowing the human mind and human ego a little bit better in my older age, I kind of have to doubt it.

For instance, I am typing today as I sit in a vehicle (product) talking into a microphone (product) which is attached to a digital voice recorder (product) and I am dictating this as I sit in front of a particular store called the Urban Barn. My wife is doing some shopping for Christmas, and she is very excited just like the other shoppers inside who are admiring the Christmas displays and all of the holiday decor and ornaments. The sign in front of me says, “By One and Get Two Free”. What a deal!

What a deal it is! Buy one product and get two free. How exciting this is (sarcasm intended). As I speak, my wife just ran out of the front door of the Urban Barn, and said, “I am going over to Ashley’s Furniture, so I will be back in a moment”.

She seems very excited about the prospects of finding a good deal on some kind of item at the next store. I see people scurrying around the snow-covered parking lot looking for Christmas deals and I can’t help but notice they seem to be in a panic.

And when Christmas is over and all of the decorations, ornaments, registries, wreaths, and plastic blowup Santa Clauses have been swept away from the department store shelves and the front lawns in the suburban neighborhoods, we will be in the same place we were last year on January 2nd. We will all be that much further in debt, and our bank accounts will be depleted, as we stress ourselves out in the new year trying to pay off what we spent in December.

I know that this is important to the economy, and one of the engines that keeps the whole cycle going, but it seems to me there is a problem when it comes to shopping for the sake of shopping.

I often look at the other religions that don’t celebrate Christmas, and I envy them for not being caught up in this vicious, but yet enjoyable tradition. Seasons greetings! It says on the side of the building as I sit in front of Ashley’s furniture. Little elves are painted on the windows of their store, along with snowflakes, and balls of holly. Just another way for this furniture store to show you they are celebrating the Christmas season. Most of the stores are doing the same thing.

The Christmas cycle of abuse has been going on for hundreds of years now, and like I said, I highly doubt that it’s going to be over soon. It would be nice, to maybe just disappear for the Christmas season and boycott it altogether. I have never done that, but someday maybe I will talk my wife into it.

I myself, actually don’t like shopping very much. This is ironic since I have a shopping site that I maintain. I know that I am just as addicted to the accumulation of products as anybody (maybe more). I am a product of my environment, and I sure as hell bet you are too. I remember when I didn’t use to make very much money in a month, and I was raising small children, and Christmas was a great deal of stress for me. It would take about three months for me to pay off Christmas, and sometimes it never did pay it off until some other asset was sold to pay the debt down. In my case, I ended up declaring personal bankruptcy, so all of that debt was wiped out under the table in the process.

I am not saying that Christmas is the reason I went bankrupt, because that would be ridiculous, but I can tell you that I believe the ongoing desire to accumulate somewhat useless products resulted in that bankruptcy. Both me and my ex-wife spent more money than we made, and we spent that money on products and services we certainly didn’t have to have. After all, we only really need food in our stomach and a roof over our heads. All of the other stuff is just for fun and pleasure.

There was a time when our ancestors had no extra money for pleasure, and as a matter of fact, there wasn’t even a way to buy most of the junk we buy now, because no one manufactured at. There were no television sets, radios, movie theaters, jet airplanes, travel resorts, department stores, shopping malls, expensive luxury items, and overall post industrial revolution economies. There was a time when the only entertainment a person had was going for a walk in the country, sex, playing a sport, or reading a book.

I am not saying that I wish to live in simpler times such as those, but I am saying that things are much too complicated now. I am saying that my generation, and the generations coming forward, are basically ruined in so many ways. We have this insatiable desire to accumulate items because we have been raised to want.

Billboard, radio, television, and Internet advertising is constantly bombarding us with the idea that we need to have more, and we need to have more every day. We need a newer car, newer wardrobe, and a newer life. We need to have better tires on our vehicles, better vacations, better eyeglasses, and certainly better DVD players. We need to have the latest computer with the fastest bus speed, and the most gigabytes of hard drive we can possibly get. We need the latest software from the latest software developers, and most important of all, we need it right now – today!

The Fever of Buying

I myself, every once in a while, get this big desire to go shopping for new items. Whether I can afford it or not, I usually end up doing exactly that. It is like some sort of fever that comes over me, and it only breaks only after I have spent enough. In my case, I am usually shopping and purchasing items for my business, but nonetheless, many of these items and services I don’t really need. Many of these items and services I purchase only because I can, and it makes me feel better to have my desires met, and my credit card lust quenched.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly products of today breakdown and become useless. So often we by a new product these days and you have to get the extra warranty on the item because you know they are going to disintegrate within a year. The manufacturers and the corporations long ago discovered that creating throwaway garbage is the best way to keep their profits up. I go through a computer once a year and if I am lucky, the computer will last two years. Electronic items have become so cheap that they are certainly throwaway. If you are lucky and extremely careful, you may be able to make your electronic items last longer. In our case, we have been fairly lucky with Sony products, but even that brand is not guaranteed to have longevity.

I sit here today in a vehicle that I bought two months ago, with a brand-new digital voice recorder, with a brand-new computer at home, filled with brand-new pieces of software. I would say that my fever is broken and I am satisfied right now. I have no desire to spend anymore money on anything, and I sure hope that this lasts. But alas! It is my wife’s turn to have the fever. It is Christmas time and she is feverishly shopping for more products for people who may not even like them.

Yes, they can take them back with their receipt, but how many times does that really happen. So many times the Christmas gifts that get purchased and up in junk drawers, junk heaps in garages, and garbage cans waiting for their ride to the landfill. It’s just this endless flow of junk from the manufacturer, to the department store shelf, to your car or vehicle, and into your home – next stop, the dump.

This endless cycle of accumulation and discarding is happening all over the earth as billions of people in developing countries create this minutia of junk. I don’t believe we will see the end of this destructive cycle in my lifetime. I do believe that all of the manufacturing and consumption is going to affect the globe on an even more drastic level. Global warming is coming at us faster than we ever thought it would. I believe that if I am still alive 40 years from now (86) this world is going to look much, much different.

Who knows, maybe there won’t be much left of human beings at all by them. I thought that my generation was spoiled and addicted to consumption, but it is plain to see that the next generation has drank even bigger glasses of the poisonous Kool-Aid.

Well this has been quite the dark conversation, but I have enjoyed it. My wife just opened the car door, and said, “HO HO HO” as she tosses in some products that she purchased at Ashley’s Furniture. Wall Hangings!!  Weee!!! Green and brown – and they’re going to go above our bed!

Well that covers it for today, and I will see you next time here at Zazbot.com

After I repaired all of these clubs, over a period of three years, it became clear to me that I was spending just as much money as if I had bought a brand-new set of Big Bertha clubs. “If I had known then what I know now”, as the saying goes.

So after I realized how futile it was buying and using replica golf clubs, I got smart and went and bought a real set of Callaway clubs. Of course, the shafts have not broken and I have not had any problems. If I didn’t have any problems however, I would have my warranty kick in and my clubs would be replaced. The whole experience has been funny say the least. So this goes out as a warning to anybody who thinks purchasing replica golf clubs (or should I say counterfeit) is a worthwhile endeavor. It simply isn’t! I highly urge you to go ahead and spend the dollars on a real set of clubs and have the warranty that comes with them. There are more reasons than I have just listed for my opinion, which I will get into now.

(picture has nothing to do with counterfeit golf clubs, but I figure you would appreciate it)

It Takes Time to Get Used to a Set of Golf Clubs

Any time you buy a new set of golf clubs it will take time before you get used to how they feel in your hand and how they make impact with the ball. That is just a fact. In my case, it takes me about two full seasons (two years) before I have any confidence in the new golf clubs I have purchased. Maybe for others it doesn’t take that long, but I only play about once or twice a week in the summer seasons. Those two years that I used the counterfeit clubs were a complete waste of time because I ended up having to get rid of them and throw them in the garbage anyway. If I had bought a real set of clubs in the first place, I would have been used to them and my game would be much better. I still have not got used to my brand-new real set of Callaway’s, because I had gotten so used to the counterfeits I had. So why waste your time learning how to use a set of golf clubs you know are going to just break and disintegrate. I mean disintegrate literally!

I was recently in Palm Springs playing golf with some friends down there, and we were on a long par three. I took my counterfeit clubs with me to Palm Springs because I didn’t want to risk having my new (and real) golf clubs stolen on the plane, or anywhere else for that matter. I pulled out my 7 iron to use off the tee box because this was a par three, at around 165-170 yards long. I took a big full swing and the seven iron literally exploded! The club head disappeared into the water, and more dramatically, the shaft of the club (which was graphite) completely disintegrated before our eyes.

Once again, this was a source of great amusement for my group, and I have to say myself. We all laughed when we looked at this graphite shaft which was split all the way up to the grip in about six or seven places. Like I said, it completely disintegrated and there was nothing left to the shaft. Over time, these counterfeit clubs start to wear out and the shoddy manufacturing begins to show itself in the most dramatic way.

So if you are considering the purchase of a counterfeit set of golf clubs I highly recommend you steer clear of the whole idea. Save yourself the time, the hassle, and embarrassment of even owning counterfeit clubs. It is against the law anyway, so why even bother walking on the dark side.

I never thought of reading something on the Internet about counterfeit golf clubs before I purchased these. I was just in a market in Shanghai and my eyes popped out of my head when I saw how cheap these clubs were. Of course, in brand-new condition these clubs almost looked as good as the real McCoy. The bag is immaculate and clean, and the irons shined in the light. The head covers were brand-new and the stitching suggested that they are worthy of my dollar.

Of course, they’re not. The bag fell apart within the first year and the lining pretty well disintegrated entirely. When you open a zipper up on this particular counterfeit Callaway golf bag, there is nothing there to hold your golf balls and your golf paraphernalia. It’s hilarious actually. The head covers also came apart within the first two years of owning them. The stitching began to go on the driver head cover almost immediately. In every aspect, my experience with counterfeit golf clubs is comical to say the least.

When I was over in China shopping in the markets, I saw dozens of men with their eyeballs popping out of their heads just like mine were. We were all giddy with the great fortune that was being beset upon us. We were all grinning and chuckling like a bunch of pubescent children. We were even more excited when we thought we were haggling with these Chinese merchants and getting another $20 carved off their asking price. Not only were we getting a heck of a deal on the clubs, we were getting a deal on top of a deal! The comedy of this still makes me grin as I am typing today.

You have to admit, it is quite ingenious what the Chinese have managed to do with selling their counterfeit goods. They managed to convince us Westerners to pull out good money from our pockets and pay for garbage products – and feel really good about it. When I came back from Shanghai I had purchased 13 different counterfeit watches, which all (all!) fell apart, or stopped working over the first year after being home in Canada.

I would suggest to anybody that goes to China, to keep their hard-earned money in their pocket, and learn something about the country and the amazing people that live in it. I think the Chinese people are beautiful, and extremely warm. Before I went to China, I didn’t understand their culture and I didn’t understand their way of thinking. I used to think the Chinese people seemed to be a little bit cold and cut off from others. How wrong I was. How incredibly wrong I was.

It seems to me now after being in China that the Chinese people are more connected to this universe than us Anglo-Saxons. They don’t waste much time with insincere niceties, but when they do speak to you – you get a sense they are being genuine – even when they are pulling your hat down around your ears .  They seem to mean what they say when they say it.

Anyways I’m getting off topic, and it is time to go. Steer clear of the the counterfeit clubs my fellow golfers.

Driving a Prius in the snow is like any other front wheel drive car – you have to be careful you don’t drive into a snow drift, or any snow that has accumulated in grooves and ruts that have been developed over time during the cold winter months. Because the Prius is a front wheel drive car it handles itself quite well under slippery conditions like black ice. But the Prius has a couple of major advantages in winter driving that I want to talk about here today.

How The Prius Is For Heating (and keeping its heat)

The Prius has been simply amazing when it comes to keeping its heat in the interior where there is -26°C (-14°F) conditions. One thing that we both noticed when we were driving in cold weather was the lack of noisy fans blowing warm air into our faces, drying out our eyes, and making it uncomfortable during the drive. We don’t know why this is with the Prius, except that we really appreciate this comfort aspect. We do know from reading on the Internet, and reading the manual for the Prius, that the hybrid batteries are always putting off heat even when the car is turned off. Since the passengers are always basically sitting on a big battery, they can’t help but be affected by this, and we can tell that this is attributing to our comfort level in cold temperatures.

I was very concerned that the Prius would not be a good car for winter driving or any winter climate period. I noticed that the doors of the Prius were very thin (obviously for weight reasons) and I couldn’t imagine extreme temperatures in the minuses would be a good thing for the car, or for the passengers and the driver.

We are not engineers but we can only speculate, as I have above, why this car is so comfortable in cold weather. When we leave the car when it is -25°C, or even as low as -35°C, when we return after a couple of hours, it’s just not as cold as your traditional vehicle is. We can see in the backseat of the Prius, on the right-hand side, there is a small vent which they warn you in the service manual not to cover up. I don’t know what this vent is for but something is going on here. How can a car with thin doors hold its heat so well? I don’t know, but it does. This has been an extremely pleasant surprise as we live in Canada in the prairies, and we are deep in snow sometimes, and the temperatures fall well below 30°C periodically through the winter months.

Another thing we notice is that the car heats up quickly after we begin driving. Because the vehicle has not been completely cold soaked due to the big onboard batteries, the recovery time is less than any other vehicle we’ve ever owned in Canada. This is another plus that you get with the Prius. Sometimes we do have the fans on full blast, but then we set the climate control panel so that the fans are not blowing in our face, and instead blowing into our feet and into the windshield.

How The Prius Is For Cold Weather Starting

Because the Prius has a four-cylinder engine, and expertly designed by Toyota engineers, it is an easy engine to start in a cold soak condition. But, the Prius starts better than any other four-cylinder car I have ever been in during frigid winter temperatures. We chalk this up to modern engineering and the obvious advancements in engine design. Another factor with cold weather starting is the “thermos effect” that the Prius has. When you turn off a Prius, you will hear a strange sound under the hood for about 10 seconds or so, and that is hot water (radiater fluid) transferring from the engine into the thermos which is designed to keep the batteries warm. There is a heat exchanger affect between the fluid in the thermos and the batteries, and when the engine is asked to start again, all of this hot thermos fluid transfers back into the engine making a cold weather start easier.

Now, it is only fair to say that we really don’t know how the Prius starts in extreme cold weather conditions if it has been cold soaked all night long. Then you are dealing with the most extreme example of cold weather starting. While I suppose it’s not completely true, to correct myself – we did stay in Saskatoon one time when it was -25°C overnight. I have to say again though, when we woke up in the morning and got into the car it was frigid cold for sure, but we touched the brake at the same time we touched the start button and there was not even a hiccup when the Prius came back to life. Within five minutes after starting we drove away and within five minutes after driving we were comfortable again. I have driven big Chevrolet Caprice cars, big GMC trucks, and big Ford sedans that took way longer to heat up in idle and in initial driving.

Because of the small four-cylinder engine, the small capacity, along with the new Toyota technology, and the thermos technology in the Prius, it makes for a most impressive cold weather starting vehicle.

How The Prius Is On Fuel Consumption In Cold Weather

We have noticed that the Prius doesn’t do quite as well in the frigid temperatures when it comes to gas mileage. We lose about 7 miles per gallon when the temperature is -20° and below (we are still talking Celsius here) this is to be expected, and there is no way of getting around this aspect. There is no amount of smart engineering that will fix the increased fuel consumption aspect of a combustion engine during cold soak conditions. There is not much more you can say about this, except that because of Toyota’s hybrid technology, the Prius is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper on gas than any other car on the planet (well, at least at the time of this writing).

The Prius In Icy Conditions

The Prius has all-speed traction control, coupled with its ABS (automatic braking system) system which works together very well. I don’t trust any vehicle on wheels in winter conditions, so I will start by saying that. No matter what you are driving you need to be cautious, and this goes the same with the Prius. I tested our Prius out on some open roads and in some parking lots to get a feel for how it responds when it is sliding and slipping on ice/snow. It had a very quick recovery rate – I would have to say better than many vehicles I have driven in the past. The traction control system does have a light that illuminates when it senses a wheel has lost traction, but you see this light a brief second after you have already lost traction, so it’s not really that big of a deal in respect to being alerted of an unsafe condition. You can feel when you’ve lost traction and you simply have to back off. Now I would like to talk about a very special safety feature the Prius has that I’m not sure Toyota engineers realized they incorporated (oh, who am I kidding? – they must’ve known this).

The Prius’ B Gear For Stopping On Slippery Roads

As all Prius owners know, there are four different positions for the small electronic gear shifter which is mounted on the dash, or in the console depending on what year your Prius is. There is the reverse position, drive position, neutral position, and the all-important B position. The idea of the B position on the shifter is fantastic. The Toyota marketing teams point out that this was engineered so that when you are going downhill in your Prius you can shift the shifter into the B position and it will do two things – one, it will begin to slow you down without the use of breaks, and two, it will begin to charge your battery up much faster due to the kinetic energy that is created from the movement of the wheels going downhill. So what we have here is a car that gears down like a standard transmission would, if you were a good enough driver to save your brakes by shifting down all the time when you need to slow down, instead of using your brakes.

The big deal with the Prius is that you never have to use a clutch, and this little shifter is so handy and close to your hand. All you do is gently tap the shifter down into the B position and the car begins to slow down without the use of brakes. In slippery conditions this is FANTASTIC! Saving brakes is one thing, but saving your life or a fender bender is an entirely different thing. When you are driving along and you discover that you are on black ice, or extremely slippery conditions, the last thing you want to do is slam on your brakes, and we all know this from experience – right? This is why drivers who have a lot of experience driving in icy winter conditions in the past have always learned to shift down their transmission to slow the vehicle instead of using their brakes. This is why many Canadians (and other people living in colder climates) often opt to have vehicles with standard transmissions, or least automatic transmissions with a gear down option, to slow their vehicles without the use of brakes.

We have thoroughly enjoyed this feature of the shift mechanism in the Prius to the B position, as I have been very light on our brakes, and it has reduced my nerves in icy conditions. I use it all the time without even thinking about it now when I want to stop fairly soon, or at least slow the vehicle down in a hurry – and it really does slow down the Prius in a hurry when you shift into the “B gear”.

We Recommend The Prius For Winter Conditions

So all in all, we highly recommend the Prius for driving in winter conditions. We bought our 2006 Prius for $20,000 in late 2009 and we can’t really comment on the new Prius’. We do know that the technology of the newer Prius models is as good, or better, when it comes to the sytems I have described in this post.

So when I went to Best Buy to purchase a new PC for the first time in my life I was not excited at all about getting a new computer. The last two I had purchased (Toshiba Netbook and the Acer laptop) were big letdowns and it left a bad taste in my mouth. So I decided that when I bought this PC I would buy a brand that I have never owned before, and the model that was brand-new this year. I went straight to the Sony Vaio that was sitting on the shelf, touch the keys a little bit, and touch the mouse pad and click buttons a little bit. I asked a salesman to wrap up one of these new Sony laptops that had a decent sized screen and told him I had to get to the airport to catch a flight so that he would move fairly quickly and get this transaction over with. I really didn’t have any high hopes about the Sony brand either, but I had to give it a shot.

I don’t know why I didn’t have any great expectations regarding the Sony laptop, because we have two Sony big screens in the house (an old Sony 42 inch projection big-screen, and a 52 inch Sony LCD flatscreen) and they have been very solid. We also have a Sony cupboard mounted CD/radio in the kitchen, which has been very reliable and we had it for quite a while. I remember as a kid when the first small Sony Trinitron televisions came out and my father raved about them, and he bought one. The picture was much better than any of the other brands that were available in the stores in that small town, so the Sony brand had made an impression upon me quite early. But for some reason, even with that I was never really a promoter of Sony equipment. They always have a good reputation for making quality electronic equipment but for some reason I never really bought into it. Now it is different, because we go through a lot of computers and electronic equipment with our business and over the years the Sony equipment has held up the best.

So without believing all of the advertising hype and all of the happy Sony users out there, we came upon the realization that Sony may be the best brand out there from usage and experience, and not from blind faith in a review in a magazine or on a billboard, or on a cable television commercial.

Reviewing The Sony Vaio VGN-NW240D

So back to the Vaio VGN-NW240D notebook from Sony – so far I love this machine. The keyboard is extremely fast and reminds me of a Mac keyboard in color and key shape. I can type very quickly and smoothly and it’s quite enjoyable. The mousepad has a very nice feel to it which is smooth and quick. The click buttons are very responsive and give you the feeling of confidence that they won’t disintegrate with heavy usage.

The basic specs on the VGN-NW240D are as follows – (see here for complete specification details on the Sony web site);

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6600 processor (2.20GHz ) with Intel® Dual Core® processor technology with 4GB system memory
• Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium
• 320GB Serial ATA hard drive space with a max speed of 5400rpm
• display (screen) is 15.5″ and bright which I like very much
• DVD writer and Blue-Ray player
• front side bus speed is 800MHz using DDR2 (of course)
• 4GB PC2-6400 (2GBx2) with a max 8GB (as above on line 1)
• Intel® GM45 chipset (express)
• color is silver
• built in video camera
• OS – Window 7 Home Edition

So as usual I have run this machine hard to test it and in the past I have always been able to crash a Windows machine – no problem. Not so easy this time. The VGN-NW240D handled a serious load of applications without so much as hiccuping once. I ran all of these applications and processes at the same time and everything ran smoothly. Some of these programs are extremely taxing on any of the past machines I’ve owned.

• Macromedia Fireworks photo editing software
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software (transcribing from many digital voice recorder)
• Downloading data from the Internet
• Uploading a YouTube video
• Playing music through WinAmp
• Running Macromedia Dreamweaver in the background
• Running various other applications in the background
• Running a defragmentation and utilities

No kidding here – I ran all these programs simultaneously without even a glitch. I have never seen the blue screen of death and I have never had a crash, which is extraordinarily different in my experience with the use of PCs. I’ve been through Toshiba, Acer, Dell, Gateway, Hp, laptops and notebooks (and I know there are more in that list) over the years and I’ve never seen this kind of speed and power in a computer.

Windows 7 Home Edition

All I can say is wow – is it possible that Microsoft has finally got it together? I have been amazed at how well Windows 7 has been performing on this computer. It took a little bit to get used to using Windows 7 because I had always been using XP on every machine I own. It is somewhat like the Mac OS in that they have provided taskbar pinning functions at the bottom of the screen, and the search function is excellent. No more hunting through the control panel for utilities and programs. Just click the start button and type in what you are looking for, and instantly a menu fills up giving you links to the exact item you are looking for. Once you get used to this you’ll never want to go back to an old XP machine again. I was concerned that using the 64-bit operating system the computer would not be able to handle the software loads I put on, and have heard nothing but a nightmare stories about how much RAM Vista takes up when it is operating. I am so pleasantly surprised to see that this computer runs everything with ease and all of the bells and whistles that Windows 7 uses are actually usable!

For Disgruntled Microsoft and PC Users

So if you are one of those disgruntled Microsoft/PC users who was a professional and is sick and tired of the problems associated with the past notebooks and laptops on the market, you may want to consider trying one of these Sony Vaio notebooks before you jump off the ship and purchase your first Mac. Usually PC users who use their notebooks for professional reasons have no choice but to stay in the PC world because of the software they are running, and many of us have gone the route of buying a Mac and using the Mac Leopard boot camp utility to install Windows. I have gone that route, but it really was kind of a pain to use and I think that the Mac side of a hard disk was no longer performing at the capacity it is normally capable of. In the end, it is better to have your MacBook operating the Mac OSx by itself without any intrusion from the Windows installation, and it is better in my opinion to simply have a separate PC notebook to run your Windows operating systems. This has been our experience with our small business anyways.

I think that before us PC users finally throw in the towel and give up on Microsoft we need to hang in there and give it another try with these newer and more powerful machines. One thing for sure, if you have never used a Sony notebook it’s worth trying one out before you make any rash decisions and completely give up on PC machines and jump over to the Mac bandwagon. I think you will find using a new Sony Vaio running Windows 7 you’ll be overjoyed, or at least pleasantly surprised with the experience.

Sony Vaio Movie Story Software

The Vaio VGN-NW240D comes prepackaged with Microsoft’s Movie Story software which is their attempt at competing with the Mac iMovie application that comes for free with every Mac you buy. In my opinion, it doesn’t even come close. We tried using the software to make a quick movie for upload to YouTube, and it was chaotic to say the least. It doesn’t have the functions that iMovie has and isn’t user-friendly. They’ve got a long way to go if they ever want to catch up with Mac in the movie editing market. If I was to be honest about Sony’s Movie Story software would have to say that they were not really trying to compete with iMovie or Microsoft’s Movie Maker application. They could have honestly believed that this little bit of tripe would compete with these powerful programs. I uninstalled it immediately.

Don’t Get Me Wrong Though

Don’t get me wrong, if I could run all the programs I need for business on a Mac I would dump all PCs for good and for ever and say goodbye the Microsoft in a heartbeat, but the reality is that I am a long way from ever being able to do this. What I find frustrating is having to go between a Mac and the PC all the time and having to do some work on one operating system and then doing some other work on the other operating system. It would be nice to be able to do everything in one place it on one machine.

Here is a breakdown of which machines and operating systems I use for the different tasks on a daily basis;

Sony Vaio PC;

• Image editing with Macromedia fireworks
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking dictation
• Macromedia Dreamweaver HTML editing
• Web browsing and research
• eMail
• Spreadsheets and documents using Windows office
• DVD burning
• Blogging

Mac Notebook;

• Image editing with Macromedia fireworks
• eMail
• Web browsing and online research
• Movie and video editing
• All music creation and audo editing
• Watching movies
• Traktor DJ Scratch Pro audio editing
• Garageband recording
• iTunes for all mp3 and music cataloging

I I think that pretty well covers the different tasks I carry out with my Sony Vaio and my Mac(s). My wife works in our business as well and she uses a new Mac notebook too because she doesn’t require any of the software I run on the PC. We finally had to break down and get her a good computer and I thought it was a great opportunity because she doesn’t have any long-lasting prior experience in the PC world, and I thought she may as well start and stay using a Mac going forward. She is getting used to it and I don’t think she will ever leave the Mac world.

How Much Did the Sony Vaio Cost?

The all-important question of cost. After taxes and accessories I spent just over $1000 on the Sony Vaio VGN-NW240D. Not a big deal and I feel that I got a much bigger bang for the buck than when I spent $1400 on my last computer which was a Gateway Notebook. Until I bought the Sony notebook I would have to say that the Gateway had been my best purchase. It lasted two years which is a very long time for me to own a PC because I beat these suckers to a pulp with traveling, extensive usage, and basically dropping them once in a while. I can be a bit of a savage goes to my computers because I see them as nothing more than tools that don’t have much of a butterfly feeling in my stomach when I think about computers and software – they are more like hammers and pickup trucks to me. I need to be solid, rugged, and reliable.

So far the Sony machine has been all of the above and perhaps I have found the right brand for all future PC purchases. Figures crossed.

Today I  and testing some speech recognition software that comes prepackaged in Windows 7. I’ve also played around with programs like Dragon NaturallySpeaking to see if I can improve my speed in which I make my posts. It’s always been difficult and often I would rather just type it and speak it. But technology is getting better.

What you can do with speech recognition is quite amazing once you’ve trained at, but you really must sit down and do some talking into the microphone and whatever you decide to do take time to do the training – lots of training! You do have to wait a moment after you turn on the microphone before you can dictate because it takes a second for this massive amount of software to get around the ones in the zeros involved in the process.

It used to be that in 20 minutes of thinking and timing, I could type about 600-700 words. That’s only 35 words per minute. I just finished writing and article that was 2300 words, and it took me 20 minutes – that’s 115 words a minute! The accuracy was quite good and in that 2300 words I had to make about 10-12 edits for words like “there” / “their”, “too / “to”, etc. Not bad – MUCH faster than I could type coherently with my finger tips. For fast typers I can see why they would like to keep typing, and typing is fun. As a matter of fact, I miss typing if I have not done so in a few days. Just touching the computer is something I would miss.

By the way, I’m not writing this article where you may think I am. I’m sure you imagine some guy sitting at his laptop, or sitting at his desktop, in a bedroom office, or a basement office. You may think this is more mobile and I am using a laptop while I am traveling, and that does happen often. But the truth is I am not in any of those pictures or examples. I am laying in bed watching the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I’m lying in bed getting ready for a small nap after a hard days work of shoveling snow (I live in the north) and working on my websites. I’m using a small dictation tool made by Olympus.

It’s a digital voice recorder and to be exact, the model number is the WS-500M. This little unit cost me $120 and is made to take dictation. I simply speak into a microphone, preferably through a headset style as I am now, or just speaking into the microphone at the top of the unit. To be honest, I’ve tried both ways, and you want to use a headset with a boom style mic if you want any kind of accuracy at all. One of the handy things about a little digital voice recorder is that it comes equipped with a popout USB connector so you can plug your voice recorder into your laptop USB connection and navigate to your dictation files on your computer and let it run. All your audio files can be imported to your speech recognition software transcribed in text.

If for some reason you have to stop speaking and recording dictation into your voice recorder, simply press the record button once and it will pause the recording and allow you to take a small break, and in that case for me it is usually to answer a phone, speak with my wife, answer the door, go to the bathroom, or play with my dogs.

Of course it takes time at first to get your speech recognition software working smoothly. You do have to train thoroughly, and by this I mean do lots of talking. Just keep on talking and talking and talking, and eventually your speech recognition software will learn your voice so well that your accuracy levels will be stunning. One of the handy aspects of using one of these little voice recorders to do your speaking is that you can hear your voice in your earphones and you will have a better idea how clearly you are dictating. Of course it is very handy to be remotely located in a car, on the beach, or walking down the street (of course you look a little silly talking to yourself in a headset while you’re walking down the street), or doing what I am right now, and just relaxing in bed.

Now one of the things that you have to choose is which kind of speech recognition software you want. You might have a Mac computer and for a Mac operating system you need to use Mac dictate software which uses the Dragon NaturallySpeaking engine, which I believe to be the best on the market so far. But there are other speech recognition software packages coming on the market which will be giving Dragon NaturallySpeaking a run for its money. One of these is the speech recognition software that comes packaged with Windows 7 and with Vista, which are Windows-based 64-bit operating systems.

To try and compare Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and the Windows 7 onboard speech software I have used both of them in the post that you are reading right now. Both of them worked well, because I have trained them both extensively, but I will be using Dragon naturally in the future because the way it can handle the import of audio files enabling what I am doing right now by being away from a computer to do my dictation.

With Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred (Version 10) which I am using right now there is the ability to import WMA files, Wav files, and MP3 files. At one time Dragon NaturallySpeaking would only accept mono 16 bit Wav files, and I quickly abandoned their software because of this. Now that I can use any digital voice recorder in concert with Dragon, and along with the fact that DNS is even more accurate than it used to be five years ago, I have returned to their product. When I can more than triple my writing speed I have to take advantage of this technology. This particular website is only one of the many that I write on, and without such speed I would never be able to keep up with my quota of writing assignments each week.

I know that some people have been frustrated with speech recognition software in the past, and if you are one of those I suggest you give it another shot. Software and technology has greatly improved, and the use of 64-bit operating systems is going to make speech recognition software even more viable in the future.

There are certain things you have to get used to when you start dictating by speaking into a microphone if you want any kind of accuracy at all. It helps if you have English as your main language, and it helps when the English you speak isn’t with an accent. What they used to call non-regional diction is what I am talking about. In my case it has been very easy, because my English is very clear and I don’t have a Southern accent, or in Eastern accent, or a New York accent, or any kind of European accent. Some of the speech recognition software is so accurate now that even people who have fairly strong accents can do quite well.

If you are one of those people who has an accent, I would try using DNS, or Mac dictate. One of the things you have to do while speaking is speak clear enough and slowly enough so that the speech recognition software can accurately take down your words. There is no question that when I take my little voice recorder here downstairs and plug it into my computer that there will be edits I have to perform. Especially if you are getting tired or lazy, you will find that you may slur your words together and this creates havoc on speech recognition technology. If you have too many edits to carry out when you see all of your words populating the screen you will be discouraged and go back to typing. But I assure you it is worth it to learn how to speak clearly and concisely for future writings.

The Use of Speech Recognition for the Disabled

I hired a writer one time whose business was creating content for websites. Him and his wife both typed out articles for companies who needed content. His wife was ill and she could no longer type with any kind of comfort anymore. I suggested he try getting her some speech recognition software, and begin practicing dictation by voice. She did, and it dramatically changed her life’s work. She produces more than her husband ever can while he is simply typing the old-fashioned way. One of the advantages that comes with using speech recognition software is “the more you use it the better it gets”. The more you use your software the more accurate it gets and the faster you can speak.

One of the interesting things that I learned from using this software is that what we think we are saying is completely different than what actually comes out of our mouth. After a while speaking into a microphone and hearing your voice back into your headset you are will be surprised at how many words you think you have said clearly, when in fact those weren’t the words that came out of your mouth. I am always amazed at how much of a mumbler I have always been. My friends and family would tell you that I speak very clearly and very concisely, but I know for a fact when I hear my voice I am a mumbler. This has taken a little bit of time to get over as I have trained my speech recognition software to know my voice, but it is the only hurdle I have had.

I can just imagine if I had any thick accent of some sort or if English wasn’t my main language. Of course you can get speech recognition software for different languages. I should have stated that earlier in this article. Even with the right language software you have to be concious of accents. An accent in any language makes it difficult to get along with speech recognition software. If you have a really thick accent you will basically have to learn how to speak all over again. This is unfortunate, and it may force you to either learn to speak again or learn to type. Either way it’s just a decision you will have to make, and depending on what your business is, and what you require in the way of speed, you may not need such tools in your life at all.

If I didn’t have to write for a living, I certainly wouldn’t go to the effort of buying digital voice recorders (because I have had 3 now at and expensive of over $500) and you don’t want to purchase expensive software which can range between $100 and $350 USD, unless you really find it extremely useful.

Well I think that just about covers it, and I am getting a little bit tired, and Clint Eastwood is getting ready for the big gunfight.