Tim and all,
I've been using this method of doing things with my voice on the Mac
for quite some time. A danger I run into is that the little round
window which signifies that the speech recognition engine is active
can cause some issues with other activities. Still, ask it to tell
you a joke.
--
Jonnie Apple Seed
With his:
Hands-On Technolog(eye)s
On Jan 2, 2006, at 2:49 AM, Tim Kilburn wrote:
Hi all,
there is another very unique way to have your Mac speak the time and
such. Using the Speakable Items. Go to your system Preferences,
choose Speech and then select the Speech Recognition tab. Turn on
the On radio button. If you leave the other options as is by default
you can do the following:
1. Hold down your ESC key for about one second before speaking your
phrase like "What time is it?" or "What day is it? Make sure to
speak towards your computer's microphone.".
2. Release your ESC key after saying the phrase, the computer will
make a "wit" noise to acknowledge that it understood your request and
will respond in a second or two.
This should not slow down your computer at all if you leave the
settings as is as the OS does not look to recognize anything until
the ESC key has been pressed and released. There are numerous other
commands and some modifications to the recognition settings that can
be made if you care to play. In fact, this is quite a neat little
built-in accessory to the MacOS.
Later...
Tim Kilburn
& Carter the Canine
Fort McMurray, AB Canada
