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Voice Recognition for a Techie?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the are-we-there-yet dept.

kaybee asks: "I am a long-time developer, sysadmin, and general computer junkie (for fun and for work) who needs to seriously curb the usage of his hands. I'm curious as to the current voice recognition options, preferably usable on Linux and Windows. I prefer the command-line to a GUI, I prefer Vim to anything else, and I still read my email with Pine. I'd like to hear options for sending email via voice, which I hope is easy, and I'd love to hear of any solutions that allow effective coding via voice, which seems much more difficult."

1 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Save your hands -- while you can by Lars512 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Seriously, if you're suffering hand or arm pain, you should think about the way you're doing things now. Speech recognition is unlikely to replace your current coding practices, although it might help with writing reports.

    Instead, try using the keyboard break feature in gnome. To start with, have it kick you off your computer every 30 mins for a 3 min break, and don't allow yourself to postpone breaks. Get some equivalent software for windows too. Use your 3 min breaks to walk around and stretch. Within a week, you won't be a lot less productive, but your arms will feel a lot better. Then you can maybe up it to 40 mins. In the short term, a course of anti-inflams might help (ask your doctor).

    Also, don't come home in the evening and play games on your computer, or do more work. Your arms probably can't take it. Equivalently, inform your employer of your condition and subsequent inability to work reckless overtime hours.

    These two things should get you started for long-term sustainable maintenance of your arms.