Category Archives: Redstart Systems

Utter Command Knowledge Base Updated

We’ve updated the Utter Command Knowledge Base with a couple of new pages:
Generally useful software, mostly free
Useful help and effective complaint URLs

“Generally useful software, mostly free” is just what it sounds like. In the coming weeks you’ll see more updates to the Knowledge Base, including strategies on using the software listed on this page.

“Useful help and effective complaint URLs” points you to effective places to complain about problems with common software. Make sure to mentioned that you use speech recognition when you register a bug or complaint about other software you are using. The more obvious it is that speech users are using their software, the more software makers will pay attention to how their software works with speech.

Tip: Finding a command

Here’s a very quick tip.

If you know the name of a command, or even part of it, and want to look it up in the Utter Command documentation, say

   – “UC Index” to bring up the Utter Command Index
   – “Find Open” to put the cursor in the find dialog box
   – type a keyword you want to look for, for instance “Wait”, “Drag” or “Before”
   – “Enter” to find the first instance
   – if necessary, “Enter” again to find subsequent instances

Once you find what you’re looking for, use the reference number to call up the full lesson on the command, e.g. “UC Lesson 4 Point 5”. This is also a good way to see the consistent patterns in the Utter Command speech command set.

Tell me what you think – reply here or let me know at info@ this website address.

Happy new year!

Tip: Taking the named Touch commands to the next level


Once you get used to naming a mouse click, you might want a little more. Take a look at UC Lesson 10.24 and you’ll find you can combine named mouse touches with other keys in a couple of useful ways.

Here’s a good use of combining a named mouse touch with a letter key. When you’re in an e-mail message in Thunderbird*, you can click on the Sender’s address to drop down a menu that includes Copy e-mail Address and Add to Address Book.

To enable copying the sender e-mail address or adding it to the address book in a single speech step, name a mouse Touch to click on the sender address:

1. Position the mouse on the Sender’s address using a command like “20 By 11”

2. say “Add Touch” to bring up the Touch dialog box

3. name the touch something like “Sender”

4. say “Enter” to put the touch on your Touch list

5. say “Window Close · Yes” to close the UC List dialog box and save changes

6. If necessary, say “Restart NatSpeak” to restart the speech engine.

Now try the command and some combinations.

With an open email in Thunderbird you can say “Sender Touch” and it will click the Sender address to drop down the menu.

Better yet, you can say “Sender Touch c” (or “Sender Touch Charlie”) to copy the address to your clipboard, or “Sender Touch b” (or “Sender Touch Bravo”) to bring up the New Card dialog box with the address entered into it.

Have you found a good application for advanced Touch commands? Tell me about them – reply here or let me know at info@ this website address.

*Thunderbird is a free, open-source, full-featured e-mail program from Mozilla. It’s included in the UsefulFreeSoftware list on the UC Exchange Wiki (say “UC Exchange”).

We’re live


After working with Beta testers and presales customers for the past year, today we’ve announced the general release of Utter Command.

 

It’s been a long time coming. It started 15 years ago when I got repetitive strain injuries in my hands. I first used the Kurzweil speech engine, and then, when it came out, the first Windows version of DragonDictate, the precursor to Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

 

After several years of writing macros that were similar to everyone else’s — and that I often forgot — I started thinking about the way the brain works with language and started working on a more consistent system. Sometime after that we decided to make a general product out of it. We were thinking it would take six months. It’s taken five years.

 

One of the reasons it took so long is we’ve produced thorough, cross-referenced documentation. Every command is explained. Many thanks to our beta testers, trainers, and presales customers for using and commenting on the UC command system, applets and documentation as we were developing and refining them. Special thanks to Laurie, our VP of QA, and Bill theTrainer for many reads through the documentation and many trips through the self-guided tours.

 

And special thanks to Wren, a programmer who worked with us in the early days. The bird that appears in our logo is the Painted Redstart (we’d already named the company when Wren, also named for a bird, joined us). 

 

Note to presales customers: you should have received your general release copy of Utter Command. Contact us via the support email or Make a Comment contact form if you haven’t.

We're live


After working with Beta testers and presales customers for the past year, today we’ve announced the general release of Utter Command.

 

It’s been a long time coming. It started 15 years ago when I got repetitive strain injuries in my hands. I first used the Kurzweil speech engine, and then, when it came out, the first Windows version of DragonDictate, the precursor to Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

 

After several years of writing macros that were similar to everyone else’s — and that I often forgot — I started thinking about the way the brain works with language and started working on a more consistent system. Sometime after that we decided to make a general product out of it. We were thinking it would take six months. It’s taken five years.

 

One of the reasons it took so long is we’ve produced thorough, cross-referenced documentation. Every command is explained. Many thanks to our beta testers, trainers, and presales customers for using and commenting on the UC command system, applets and documentation as we were developing and refining them. Special thanks to Laurie, our VP of QA, and Bill theTrainer for many reads through the documentation and many trips through the self-guided tours.

 

And special thanks to Wren, a programmer who worked with us in the early days. The bird that appears in our logo is the Painted Redstart (we’d already named the company when Wren, also named for a bird, joined us). 

 

Note to presales customers: you should have received your general release copy of Utter Command. Contact us via the support email or Make a Comment contact form if you haven’t.

ATIA and training


The Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) 2009 Orlando show starts this week. We’ll be doing a poster session at the show (come see us Thursday, 3:30 to 5:30 in the Front Hall).

 

As part of ATIA we’re offering free Utter Command training sessions to the first 50 people who buy Utter Command during the show, which ends Saturday. UC training includes an assessment, custom lesson plan and remote training session. We use GoToMeeting for the remote training session. GoToMeeting lets you share what’s on your computer screen over the Internet, so we can see your screen and you can see ours.

Redstart Systems and Utter Command: a brief history

Redstart Systems was born of user frustration and disappointment with speech software that seemed to fall far short of its potential.

In 1993 the heavy computer use of a deadline journalist caught up with me in the form of severe repetitive stress injuries in both hands. The good news was desktop speech recognition had just arrived. The bad news was it wasn’t really practical to use. Recognition wasn’t great, commands were difficult to remember and commanding a computer using speech was just plain slow.

More than a decade later recognition has improved dramatically — the NaturallySpeaking speech engine makes dictating to a computer quite accurate. Commands, however, are still difficult to remember and often slower than the keyboard and mouse, making things like bringing up files, editing and formatting, cutting and pasting, setting up email messages, and Web research more than a little tedious.

Utter Command is the product of a decade of frustration and experimentation with a component of speech-recognition that has lagged behind efforts to improve dictation accuracy — the speech user interface, or words you use to control the computer.

Utter Command works the way your brain does and makes controlling your computer using speech commands cognitively easy and blazingly fast. Really. Commands are underpinned by an organized grammar system informed by cutting edge research in cognition, linguistics, networking and human behavior. This makes commands easy to remember and, more importantly, gives you the ability to combine commands, which not only speeds everything up but enables more than is possible using just the keyboard and mouse.

Instead of following in the footsteps of the keyboard and mouse, Utter Command allows you to fly along by carrying out many computer steps at once. Take a look at someone humming along on the keyboard and mouse and notice how many steps everything takes. Most of these steps are only necessary because keys and screen space are limited. If you don’t have to think between steps, there’s no need for separate steps other than to accommodate the computer.

Here’s a quiz for you:

How many steps should you have to go through to

a. Navigate to a folder you already know the name of

b. Navigate to a file you already know the name of

c. Set up an email message to a couple of friends and CC a couple more

d. Search for the definition of “prosody” on a particular Web site

(Our answers are at the bottom of this post.)

It’s high time we stopped accommodating the computer.

We’re getting ready — interface-wise — to cross over to a world where speech commands will untether you from the keyboard and kick your computer use into high gear.

In this world you’ll have choices — for everything you do on the computer you can use speech, the keyboard, or the mouse. And if you need to use speech all the time, Utter Command allows you to do everything by speech that you can using the mouse and keyboard.

a. 1 step b. 1 step c. 1 step d. 1 step

Welcome to the Redstart Systems Blog

Redstart Systems makes speech interface software that speeds computer use. We’ve just launched a pre-release version of Utter Command for NaturallySpeaking Professional.

Utter Command is the culmination of more than a decade of using and thinking about the speech interface. Utter Command is based on Human-Machine Grammar, a system of words and rules that follows the way the brain works. UC commands are concise, consistent and combinable, which makes for powerful, easy-to-use speech software.

There’s lots more to think about, as technological improvements to speech engine software and microphones, faster computers, smaller computers, and new technologies like portable projectors and electronic paper make it more and more practical to use speech to control machines.

In this blog I’ll explore all aspects of using speech to control a computer.