Menace,

First, DNS has always had a problem with numbers as far back as DNS 4.0.  The numbers that are most problematic are those that have reasonably similar pronunciations, such as "ten", "tend", "tent", etc.  Regardless, this is an Acoustic Model problem.  It occurs more often probably because of the length of time that you have DNS open and active (i.e., two weeks).

Second, in DNS 9 and 10, Nuance introduced what's called SilentAdapt.  SilentAdapt constantly monitors your dictation on-the-fly and updates your Acoustic Model accordingly.  Anytime that your dictation style, your microphone/soundcard, or a number of other factors result in these types of misrecognitions, they become adapted to your Acoustic Model and require that you train the entire utterance, whether or not it's recognized as a command.  For example, in your case, simply training the phrase "mouse up 10" or any other command phrase that contains the number 10 will eventually return recognition of that number to it's correct recognition status.

In addition, sometimes the way that you say something is misinterpreted because the sounds of that DNS is analyzing are clearly understood because the volume is too low, or there's a problem with your enunciation, and a number of other things.  You can't blame this on profile corruption because technically it's not.

Further, I can appreciate the fact that this is irritating and frustrating for you and I have no question as to whether or not it occurs.  However, I've been using DNS since version 3.52, and I even tested earlier versions but didn't care for them because they were discreet speech versions of vs. continuous speech and very unproductive.  Regardless, while I've seen this particular problem rear its ugly head from time to time, I've always been able to overcome them through correction and training.  That being said, I've never had a corrupted user profile except in one case where I did something stupid.  Regardless, the software never corrupted my user profile.  In fact, I use the same user profile in DNS 10 all the way up through 10.1 without ever having a problem that couldn't be resolved by using the software the way it was designed to be used.  That is, I never had a corrupted user profile.  Does that mean it doesn't happen, no.  But the reason that happens is more often user error and microphone/soundcard issues that it is software.

By the same token, although you haven't come across it because you generally don't use the other numbers that are problematic, but it's very obvious that DNS often substitutes "for" for "four", "to too and two".  On the purely number side, numbers like 23, 31 through 33, and on up the number scale at periodic intervals all the way up to 100.  So, this is basically a known issue (bug) and not profile corruption.

Third,, true profile corruption is far more insidious than what you're experiencing.  What you're talking about is simply that DNS has learned to misrecognize "10".  This can be corrected by listening to your dictation style (i.e., playing back what you said), viewing the recognition history to see exactly how DNS is recognized what you said and what specifically it substituting in place of "10".  If it's not recognizing 10 correctly and what is displayed in the recognition history shows a clear substitution of something else, you can go into the Vocabulary Editor and train that word (the misrecognized word) in this sometimes fixes that problem.  However, if it's a number issue as noted above, it's very difficult to fix, but it is possible by always training the misrecognized phrase (utterance) so that DNS learns the context in which you use the number 10.

Lastly, it isn't saving your user profile that causes this problem.  It's saving your user profile after it has occurred and you have noted it.  You don't have to avoid saving your user profile, just avoid saving it when you have noted that the problem is occurring.  Otherwise:

1.  You never retain any words that you added to the Vocabulary Editor.  These are lost and gone forever with no way to recover them.

2.  You don't retain any corrections that you have made, even if you run the Acoustic and Language Model Optimizer but don't save your user profile when
 prompted, you lose any improvements based on corrections.  Now I know some people have said that the Acoustic and Language Model Optimizer tends to corrupt user profiles.  This is a myth.  That problem has occurred since DNS 8.  Anyone who argues to the contrary is spouting pontifica out of their navel.  It just isn't true.

3.  While it's true that your user profile is preserved in its originally created state, it never improves.  Now, if that's what you want, then that's fine.  But the bottom line is your user profile never improves by virtue of not saving it.  So, any misrecognitions that you had when using that user profile when you created it, will continue to result in the same.  Even though the SilentAdapt feature can improve your accuracy during any current dictation session, or as long as you have your DNS and your user profile open and active, the moment that you don't save your user profile any of those silent adaptations are gone and you're back to square one.  So, the next time you load Dragon NaturallySpeaking and your user profile, your back to the same set of misrecognitions that you at all along.

All of this being said, there are a couple of additional points.

1.  It's not a good idea to leave DNS active for two weeks.  This, in and of itself, tends to produce the kinds of problems that you're experiencing.  DNS should be closed and restarted at least every eight hours minimum.  Otherwise, it starts to use more and more memory and more and more system resources causing it to become bloated and increasing the probability that it will stop functioning properly.

2.  If you only save your user profile when DNS is functioning properly (i.e., your not having the problem with the number 10 or any other related problem) then your saving your user profile with its functionality intact (i.e., without those problems occurring or reoccurring when you reopen your user profile).  By doing this, you can preserve any custom words that you have that it, any corrections you have added, you can run the Acoustic and Language Model Optimizer with the assurance that you will not be saving your user profile with this problem inherent in it, and you will improve the accuracy.  As I've already said, if you run into this problem, then don't save your user profile during that session.  In addition, I always export my user profile as long as I know that everything is functioning properly.  This gives me a current fully functional user profile, including my backup files.

I hope that you find this information useful, but I also hope that you understand that I'm not trying to tell you that you should absolutely save your user profile.  I'm only trying to point out what happens, why it happens, or why it can happen, and how you can deal with it effectively.  If you don't want to save your user profiles, that's fine with me and perfectly OK with me.  You just need to know what you lose by not doing so and understand that you gain nothing by doing so.  The only other reason that I'm explaining this to you is because up to 2002, I was the DNS SDK Program Manager, part of the development team, and the release engineer for DNS, as well as the Beta test coordinator.  So, I'm just telling you how DNS works FYI period and that's all.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower® Ultimate

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -- Aldous Huxley

this is slightly off topic, but I need to respond to your assertion that user profiles are hard to corrupt. In my 4 to 5 years of using NaturallySpeaking I have found that user profiles do get corrupted and I have stopped saving my user profiles as a matter of habit

I am a quad and I generally use NaturallySpeaking to navigate my computer, browser web and answer e-mails. My habit is to not turn off my computer at all until I need to. Therefore, the computer (and NaturallySpeaking) can be on without being rebooted for a couple of weeks. I can generally tell when my user profile has been corrupted when commands I regularly use stop working. for example I use a lot of number commands, such as Mouse up 10 or up 10 lines . When the profile is corrupted, it stops recognising a particular number, such as 10 but all other numbers still work. When this happens, I need to restart the computer without saving my profile and NaturallySpeaking will start working properly again after the reboot. If I've accidentally saved my profile, the error is still there and I have to restore my profile from a backup. I can also generally tell when this is going to happen, when recognition starts dropping dramatically.

thankfully, since Dragon 10 out of the box recognition is good enough that I don't need any training generally.

I'm not sure if there is a way to avoid this. And I would love to hear any suggestions you might have regarding this.

If it would help the equipment I use is: Windows 764 bit, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.1 professional, iMac 3.06 core2dou, 4 GB RAM, Sennheiser BW 900, Buddy 6G,knowbrainer 2007

Louise

bluerhino,

This occurs because you have enabled the scheduling for either the Data Collection or Accuracy Tuning. Depending upon the time that you have set for scheduling these operations, if DNS is active during that period, they will not run. They will only run when DNS is close. The end result is that when you launch DNS initially, you get this message. Simply ignore it or turn off the scheduling (disable these). Otherwise, the message is harmless and means nothing except that the operations noted in the message cannot be run because DNS is active. It's harmless even if irritating.

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to here.  However, if your system supports BestMatch IV, then DNS is creating dual Acoustic Models and running as a multicore/multithreading operation which makes dual passes on your dictation using two cores.  It isn't the memory allocation because you have 4 GB of RAM, which is more than sufficient to run multiple applications even if DNS eventually ends up taking upwards of 500 to 600 MB (i.e., it's not 200 K, it's 200 MB because DNS would not load in less than with your user profile).

The problem is that you only have two cores and a very small amount of L2 cache (2 MB) which is dedicated cache.  That means that each core has its own 1 MB of L2 cache and the cores cannot share that cash.  They can only use their own 1 MB.

What's happening is that using DNS 11 with BestMatch IV, which would end up being the default given that your system specifications support such, you may be seeing an increase in latency (the amount of time from your dictation to your transcription, or speech to text display).  This can be caused by having the Speed vs. Accuracy slider set all the way to 100%.  On faster systems with more L2 or L3 cache, there is virtually no latency.  However, on systems such as yours you may see a significant delay between the time that you dictate an utterance and the time that the results display on the screen.  Make sure that in your case the Speed vs. Accuracy slider is set to the default 50%.  Also, note that there is no difference between BestMatch III and BestMatch IV except that BestMatch IV employees the multicore/multithreading capabilities of DNS 11.  Otherwise, the algorithms are identical and you benefit equally whether you use BestMatch IV or BestMatch III.  The basic difference is that, in your case, BestMatch IV can slow your system down.  Your system configuration may not benefit significantly from BestMatch IV (multithreading).  However, not knowing exactly what's happening specifically in terms of your description "… waiting continually and indefinitely for DNS to respond", it's hard to pin down exactly what is causing this increase in latency.  Given that your system configuration is on the low side as regards supporting BestMatch IV, you might try creating a new user profile and specifically select BestMatch III.  You have to do that through the Advanced button when selecting your vocabulary, otherwise DNS will default to what it thinks is the optimal settings (i.e., BestMatch IV) for your system.

On the other side of the coin, if you converted your previous version user profile to DNS 11 [i.e., <username> (v11)], this is not recommended for everyday use.  The only purpose that the conversion is useful for is to the able to export your custom words and copy the mycmds.dat from your original user profile to a newly created DNS 11 user profile.  The latter preserves your Text and Graphics macros.  Since copying the mycmds.dat from one user profile to another has no impact (negative) on anything in the Command Browser, this is the recommended method for transferring your Text and Graphics macros from DNS 10-10.1 to DNS 11, Preferred to Premium.  Otherwise, one of the reasons why DNS performance may be suffering is that the conversion process tends to bring over issues from DNS 10.1.  Some things are stored in the user profile, and as such, problems and bugs that are stored in the user profile are transferred during the conversion process.  Therefore, it is always recommended that you create a new user profile whenever you're moving from an older version to a newer version.

Regardless of what problems you're having in this regard, more detail as necessary in order to assist you in setting up DNS 11 so that it functions optimally on your system.  Remember that assuming that because DNS 10.1 work fine on that laptop, doesn't mean that the newer version, particularly with the changes that have been made, AND THEY ARE MAJOR, in DNS 11 will necessarily work equally as well under the same conditions.  It's a tuning process and I would suggest that you're probably overtaxing your system because of the way that DNS 11 is set up.  However, don't panic, just help us better understand what you mean by performance problems.  A step-by-step detailed explanation of exactly what happens and how long it takes, as well as what you're set up is in terms of the Dragon Options would go a long way to helping you tweak your system for better performance under DNS 11.

If you click on the speaker icon (right-click) in the systray and select Recording devices, what shows up under recording devices and playback devices.  What should show up is that your default Recording device should be the Andrea PureAudio.  It might shut show up as that specifically, but it should show up as USB.  If you're using a headset that has earphones, and you have plug those into your Andrea PureAudio, then the playback device should also indicate that as being your default Playback device.  If neither of these have the green checkmark (i.e., default indicator), then you should make them so.

By the same token, if you are consistently getting this problem even after verifying that the above settings are correct, you may have a problem with a corrupted install of DNS 11.  The first step in this case would be to go to the Windows Control Panel, Programs and Features, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11, and select either Repair or Change (I can't remember which it is in Windows Vista because Windows Vista and Windows 7 are different and I'm using Windows 7 currently).  When the DNS 11 InstallShield Wizard is displayed, you have the choice to Modify, Repair, or Remove.  Select Repair and let it run.  See if that fixes the problem.

Another problem can occur if you install DNS 11 directly over top of DNS 10.1.  That's a no-no.  Even though no one says you can do it and the installer says that it will take care of it, the entire process is highly unstable and unreliable.  You should always uninstall a previous version and run that previous versions remove utility (Dragon10remover.exe) before installing any new version.  You can always export your user profile to a safe location before running the remove utility, which gets rid of everything related to that version including your user profiles, so that you don't lose your previous version user, but you should nevertheless ensure that you uninstall the older version and reinstall the newer version in that order.  If you install DNS 11 over top of DNS 10.1 without removing it first, you're courting disaster.

I don't think this has anything to do with KnowBrainer.  This is a purely Firefox/DNS 11 issue.  Even so, saying "text link" or "click text link", the latter being the most likely correct command because DNS now defaults on installation to "Click to select hyperlinks in HTML Windows", and this requires that you proceed any selection with "click".  You can turn this off if you want to run the risk of saying something inadvertently opening a link, but I wouldn't recommend it.

On the other hand, there are a couple of caveats with regard to Firefox:

1.  There is no Full Text Control (Select-and-Say) support for Mozilla Firefox.  Text boxes and text Windows in Firefox do not use SAPI supported text edit controls.  There's nothing that Nuance can do about that because this is a prerequisite that can only be managed by the Firefox folks.  SAPI doesn't belong to Nuance, it belongs to Microsoft and Firefox tends to thumb its nose at Microsoft.

2.  Not everything in Firefox is supported by Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA).  Although you can access the main menu bar via voice command, that's about the extent of it.  Most everything else (e.g., selecting "Delete" from the right-click pop-up menu when wanting to delete a bookmark, does not work by voice command).  Again, blame Firefox for this because Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) is Microsoft's accessibility API.

3.  If you need to navigate Firefox my suggestion is to install the add-on for mouseless browsing.  This is very effective and fully accessible by voice command (i.e., the numbers that are displayed next to each item).  Where the numbers are shown, you can simply say the number, wherein no numbers are shown, there is no link.  Other then the Natural Language Commands available for Firefox in the DNS 11 Command Browser, I wouldn't expect too much support for most things in Firefox.  That's why when I'm using Firefox I either open a particular window in Internet Explorer using the IE add-on, or I use the mouseless browsing.  Another option is a Max Roth's ShowNumbers Plus!  This is a very functional very useful utility that works pretty much everywhere, from applications to Internet browsers, yada yada yada.  I highly recommend it.

Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't. - Pete Seeger

The issues:

1) Whether opening Knowbrainer first (which of course opens Dragon) or Dragon alone, I receive the error: One or more of Dragon’s scheduled tasks failed to run.” According to the window, the task in question is the "Periodic Administrative Acoustic Optimization: The task did not start because another instance of the product was running". However, this could not have been the case, as the computer had been restarted and using msconfig, had only Windows system services running. The task manager confirmed this.

2) DNS is using over 200K of my system memory. Add Firefox to the mix and the end result, of course, is it amounts to a choice of using DNS and practically nothing else or… waiting continually and indefinitely for DNS to respond.

3) If I click the mic button on the DNS toolbar to mute or unmute it, it opens a Readme.txt file that not only is not located on my desktop (which would be semi-understandable) but does not pertain to DNS at all. It’s for an XP Codec pack.

4) I was able to successfully open Firefox, navigate to and within Amazon (just to pick the most recent example) but that’s about where my success ended. I had it open the number box to choose from a number of links with the same word(s) in them. This much was fine, but having said “2” (my choice) it selected 1. With Knowbrainer running:

5) Back to amazon using Firefox (which I am assuming to be representative of what I will encounter on any webpage). Three links all with the word “under” in them. According to the Knowbrainer Training guide, I can simply say the full text of a link or a word within a link and do not have to preface it with “click”. I did not find this to work at all. DNS recommends I first open the Dictation box, but this does nothing for me in regards to selecting links. Rather, now, even with saying “click” on the same links, the page simply scrolls to the bottom. Would IE help resolve this? Let us see. Barely. I was still unable to simply say a link or word from a link. Nothing would be selected unless and until I prefaced it with “click”. 
 

 here is a clue from MS Word Help and it seems to work manually

Close a task pane

1. Press F6 to move to the task pane, if necessary.
2. Press CTRL+SPACEBAR.
3. Use the arrow keys to select Close, and then press ENTER

my latest issue is that it will not respond to the command "what can I say knowbrainer". I am using this command in Microsoft outlook and in Microsoft Word, both 2010. The regular "what can I say" that comes from Dragon works fine.

but my biggest issue is that I cannot get knowbrainer to cooperate with setting up an appointment in a calendar. It tabs to all the wrong places in the wrong order and the next thing I know the appointment has been set some time in space. I seem to have no control when I say Tab as to which way it goes. And in setting up an appointment, it needs to tab to the side and then tab down. I don't see any commands that would allow me to do that. Are there?

I also cannot get it to move from pane to paneso that I cannot move from folder to folder. In general, it does not seem to know that it is dealing with Outlook 2010.

perhaps however, if I could get "what can I say knowbrainer" to work, I might be able to make more sense of how to get it to cooperate.

any thoughts as to how to get that command working?

Also, have other people had trouble with Microsoft Office 2010 and revision a of knowbrainer? I have the feeling that it may simply not yet be optimized for the new office programs.

Louise

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it" -- Gandhi

Close Naturally Speaking is the magic command.

It tells me it's closing Knowbrainer, Naturally Speaking, and speech files.  It then asks if I want to save speech files - which is great because sometimes I've been sloppy and I don't want them saved.

 Thanks a lot to everyone who helped me figure out the correct command.

And BTW, I didn't know about autoit and although I don't need it now, I have a feeling I will at some point or other.

Happy holidays.

Louise

Louise

what I have done is to create two script commands in AutoIt and placed shortcuts for each of them on the desktop. One is to open the applications and the other is to close the applications.

Can you use speech recognition to activate Autoit?

Tee

This works in KB2008. I presume that this command is also in KB2010 although I am still waiting for my copy.

However if you are also using voicepower I use AutoIt scripting to open and close all three.

I am running DNS so that it loads partially at bootup so that I don't forget to load it before opening an Office program.

Then, when I'm ready to use dictation, I run KB which loads KB and the rest of DNS.

When I try to shut down the computer and I close DNS, KB stays open and hangs - can't shut down the machine.

When I give the command "close Knowbrainer" first, it seems I also have to close DNS separately as KB does not close itself down and close down DNS.

So to close out, I have to give the "close Knowbrainer" command and then I have to close DNS.

This is tedious.  Is there a better way?

Thanks.

Louise

My first dilemma is "open thesaurus" - the thesaurus opens.

But..when I want to close it, I can't find the command to close it.  I've tried "close thesaurus", "exit thesaurus", close or exit reference, etc. etc. and so forth.

How do I give the command to close it after I've opened it?

Thanks.

 Louise

Chuck,

I don't think it will because the corresponding INI file will be missing.

Rüdiger