Initial Review of MacSpeech Dictate Medical version 1.5.5 with OS X 10.6 (serious bug)
Mark Conrad
> Yesterday Tuesday October 6, 2009 the Snow Leopard
> version of MacSpeech version 1.5.5 arrived, which I
> just slapped into my two-year old MacBook Pro.
>
> So far it seems to be running okay, but I will post a full
> review, warts and all, about a week from now.
Ten days later, today Friday October 16, 2009.
Still no "full review", because the newest version 1.5.5
of the medical version of MacSpeech ($600) - is buggy.
Trying to find more information about the bug has scuttled
my planned full review of "MacSpeech Dictate 1.5.5"
I consider the bug in the high priced medical version as
very serious.
When a user (me) dictates the word "foxtrot", MacSpeech
opens the OS X "Grab" utility !!!
That should not happen; MacSpeech should merely print
the word "foxtrot" into my TextEdit document.
It happens about four out of five times, occasionally it
does the correct thing and prints the word "foxtrot".
Dictating "Open Grab" should be the only way to open
the Grab utility.
The bright side -
----------
Fortunately, the regular $200 version 1.5.5 of MacSpeech
is not afflicted with this serious bug.
Almost all Mac users will buy the regular $200 version.
Very few people, like me and medical professionals will
buy the expensive and buggy version 1.5.5 for medical usage.
After I turn in a formal bug report, I will get back to writing
a full review of the $200 regular version 1.5.5 of MacSpeech.
My initial poking around shows that it is working okay with
Snow Leopard 10.6 - - - but to be on the safe side it might
be wise to wait for my full review.
Mark-
Mark Conrad
<mco...@earthlink.invalid> wrote:
> Still no "full review", because the newest version 1.5.5
> of the medical version of MacSpeech ($600) - is buggy.
>
> I consider the bug in the high priced medical version as
> very serious.
>
> When a user (me) dictates the word "foxtrot", MacSpeech
> opens the OS X "Grab" utility !!!
>
> That should not happen; MacSpeech should merely print
> the word "foxtrot" into my TextEdit document.
No Bug. Error on my part.
Still, this "Bug" was _very_ hard to get rid of, and it
might happen to other users, so here is how I fixed it.
All present versions of MacSpeech Dictate (version 1.5.5)
have a _different_ persistant bug; users can "correct"
words by training those words in the "vocabulary editor".
This works very well during the _present_ session of
MacSpeech, just as long as MacSpeech is _not_ shut down.
For example, a user can "correct" all the following words
of the NATO phonetic alphabet so they all print correctly:
alpha golf Mike Sierra
bravo hotel November tango
Charlie India Oscar uniform
delta Juliet papa Victor
echo kilo Quebec whiskey
foxtrot Lima Romeo x-ray
Zulu
We can quibble about capitalization, but the above words
are how I prefer them to print, whenever I use those
words inside ordinary sentences, or all by themselves,
for that matter.
Those above words come out correct time after time,
whether the words are used in sentences, or all by
themselves.
Now the persistent bug in MacSpeech will not allow those
correct words to "stick", MacSpeech forgets the user
corrections every time it is shut down, very frustrating.
This is how those same words appear _after_ a shutdown
and restart of MacSpeech:
help a golf Mike s
bravo h November tangle
Charlie India o u
d j pop up Victor
echo kilo Quebec whiskey
f Lima Romeo x-ray
z
Worse yet, the above mess varies, sometimes the actual
words are printed, sometimes just one letter,
sometimes a completely wrong word as in "tangle" above.
I will not bore everyone here with the intricate workaround
to prevent MacSpeech from forgetting user corrections.
Anyone interested can ask how in the Mac Usenet newsgroup
at comp.sys.mac.system and I will be happy to explain.
Anyhow, thanks to that workaround to prevent MacSpeech
from forgetting, the so-called "foxtrot bug" never occurs.
Mark-