New Online Backup
Programs
Using
Online Storage for Backup is Now (July 2008) Quite
Easy
by Edward Zuckerman, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist, Licensed
in Pennsylvania
Proprietor, Three Wishes Press
www.ThreeWishesPress.com
Introduction
Professional ethics,
self-interest, and HIPAA all require health care
providers to maintain their Electronic Protected
Health Information (EPHI) so that it is accessible
and secure under all circumstances. Off-site backups
using the internet are now an efficient and
economical option to meet these demands but choosing
one is a requires care. I have written this article
to support deciding and taking action.
About 400 companies
are in this business and in July 2008 I selected
those below as suitable for a small mental health
practice, with the most valuable features, and
reasonably priced. All prices listed are calculated
per month for 10 GB of storage because that seems
typical but all of these companies will sell you
more storage space.
Full Review .
Using Online Storage for Backup
| Also by Dr Zuckerman:
HIPAA Help |
More HIPAA Help |
The Paper Office
New Dragon NaturallySpeaking
10.0 Preferred
Dragon NaturallySpeaking is now owned
by Nuance Communications, and claims significant improvements
in speed and accuracy. My experience is that the improvements
have been incremental, because of the greater system
requirements that accompany each successive release.
Nevertheless, I use DNS every day in my practice, after
having used a transcriptionist for many years, and have
found the accuracy to be comparable and the cost and
convenience unbeatable
--WEB.
Below is a product information summary
from Nuance...
Up to 99%
Accurate and Three Times Faster than
Typing
Most people speak over 120 words per
minute, but type less than 40 words
a minute. That means you can create
documents and emails about three
times faster with Dragon
NaturallySpeaking. Dragon never
makes a spelling mistake, and it
actually gets smarter the more you
use it!
Easy to Use
Dragon NaturallySpeaking installs
quickly and requires no special
script reading. New on-screen help
and tutorials will make you an
expert user in no time.
Use with
Many Windows Programs
Use your voice to dictate, edit and
control applications such as
Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook
Express, Microsoft Internet
Explorer, and AOL.
New
Search the Web and Your Computer
with Dragon Voice Shortcuts
Use Dragon Voice Shortcuts to
quickly search for information on
the Web or on your own computer.
Need to find some information on the
Web? Just say “Search the Web for
global warming articles,” “Search
Wikipedia for George Washington
Carver,” or “Search eBay for Batman
comic books.” Searching the Web or
your computer has never been faster
— or easier.
Bluetooth
Support
Use Dragon NaturallySpeaking with
Nuance-approved Bluetooth headsets.
Be
Productive on the Go
Dictate into any Nuance-certified
handheld device for automatic
transcription when you synch with
your PC.
|
Minimum
Specifications
- CPU: Intel®
Pentium4® or later or AMD Athlon 64
1 GHz or later. (SSE2 instruction
set required).
- Memory: 512 MB
RAM (1 GB RAM for Windows Vista™)
- Free hard disk
space: 1 GB (2 GB for localized
non-English versions)
- L2 Cache: 512 KB
- Supported
Operating Systems:
- Windows
Server 2000
- Windows
Server 2003
- Windows XP
SP2 or higher, 32-bit
- Windows 2000
SP4 or higher
- Windows
Vista™ or Windows Vista™ SP1,
32-bit
- 64-bit OS not
currently supported
- DVD-ROM drive
(required for installation)
- Microsoft®
Internet Explorer 6 or higher (free
download available at
www.microsoft.com)
- Nuance-approved
noise-canceling headset microphone
(included), Creative® Labs Sound
Blaster® 16 or equivalent sound card
supporting 16-bit recording,
speakers (required for playback of
recorded speech and text to speech
features)
- For
Bluetooth wireless microphone
support, please visit
support.nuance.com/compatibility/
- A Web connection
is required for activation
During the install
process the software checks to make sure
your system meets these minimum
requirements. If you do not meet the
requirements, the software will not be
installed.
* This edition of
Dragon does not support dictation
directly into Electronic Medical Record
(EMR) Systems. For EMR support, please
use Dragon Medical Edition.
Recommended
Specifications
- CPU: Intel®
Pentium4® / 2.4 GHz (1.6 GHz dual
core) or equivalent AMD processor.
(SSE2 instruction set required).
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- L2 Cache: 1 MB
Product
Comparison Matrix:
Compare Medical - Legal - Professional -
Preferred - Standard
Buy through Amazon.com:
Dragon NaturallySpeaking
10
William E. Benet, Ph.D.,
Psy.D.
November 13, 2008
|
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7.0 & Accessibility Features
Dragon NaturallySpeaking
7.0 is up to 15% more accurate than the previous version,
according to ScanSoft, allowing one to dictate continuously
and naturally at up to 160 words per minute with accuracy
up to 95%+. It is Fully integrated with Microsoft Word,
Excel, Internet Explorer, and Corel Wordperfect, and
can be used with virtually any Windows-based application.
DNS 7.0 is available
in six Microsoft Windows editions (Professional Solutions,
Legal Solutions, Medical Solutions, Preferred, Standard
and Essentials), ranging in price (7/2004) from $695.99
to $59.99. A side-by-side comparison of each edition's
features is available at
http://www.lhsl.com/naturallyspeaking/matrix
The Preferred and Professional
editions have a number of usability features that would
generally make either of them better choices than the
Standard or Essentials editions as assistive technology
aids for students with disabilities. These additional
features include Web browser voice link support, natural
punctuation, text-to-speech, dictation playback, and
text and graphics dictation shortcuts. However, only
the Professional, Medical and Legal Solutions editions,
which also include a macro recorder not available in
the other editions, meets
Section 508
standards, established by the US government, to make
software accessible for persons with disabilities.
William E. Benet, Ph.D.,
Psy.D.
August 7, 2004
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6.0
ScanSoft
During an online discussion
forum, a colleague wrote:
“I read your
reply on dictation and am fascinated. I’ve been told
that the Dragon software is difficult to use, eats up
a lot of memory, and thus is inefficient. Obviously
this has not been your experience. A brief comment re:
pros and cons and/or a suggested reference would be
most appreciated. Also, is this compatible with Word?”
Another colleague replied
that he was using DNS with a Micron 800 with 512 RAM,
and that recent versions “work beautifully within most
software, e.g., Outlook, Word, WordPerfect, etc.”
I prefer DNS’s native
notepad, since it uses less system resources than Word,
but that is probably unnecessary with today’s I GHz+
computers that come loaded with a minimum of 256 MB
RAM.
There are also four hardware
components which are very important to accurate voice
dictation and transcription that I would rank in the
following order:
-
CPU speed
-
RAM
-
Sound card quality
-
Microphone quality
I didn’t include disk
space since today’s computers invariably have plenty.
DNS 6.0 recommends a
Pentium II/400 MHz CPU and 128 Mb of RAM. For best results,
you will want a CPU that’s twice as fast as that and
has 512 Mb of RAM (256 Mb minimum). Each new version
of DNS has had greater system requirements than its
predecessor, and newer versions may not install on computers
that are too slow. So, get all the speed and RAM you
can so that you will be able to upgrade as well as obtain
maximum performance (i.e., speed and accuracy).
Another important component
for maximum accuracy is voice recognition training.
Ten minutes is enough to get you started, but like CPU
speed and memory, the more the better.
Accuracy is very good
with training, but can vary depending on the other factors
listed above. Don’t expect 100% accuracy; however--90-95%
would be outstanding. That’s comparable to a professional
transcriptionist. As for difficulty, DNS 6.0 has an
intuitive voice command interface that couldn’t be easier
to use. Not too long ago, I installed the latest version
of IBM's
ViaVoice
(the other major program in the field of voice recognition)
for comparison, and found it to be very close to DNS
6.0 in accuracy. But where DNS 6.0 excelled was in ease
of use, and in particular, grammatical and syntactical
awareness, in which ViaVoice’s performance was dismal,
resulting in considerably more time needed to accurately
format and edit text. Both products have received outstanding
reviews, however, but my impression of some of these
reviews is that they were based on very limited use.
After using ViaVoice for 30 days, I went back to DNS.
One other important consideration is product support.
In this regard, DNS 6.0 wins hand down, mainly due to
its very active, informed and helpful online user forum,
something that IBM does not offer.
DNS’s online user forum
is open to all and available at
http://support.lhsl.com/databases/dragon/webdisc.nsf
DNS 6.0 is available
in four basic editions (Professional, Preferred, Standard
and Essentials) which all have the same dictation engine,
but different supplementary usability features that
may or may not be needed depending on your specific
needs. For a side-by-side comparison of each edition's
features, see the Feature Comparison Matrix at
http://www.lhsl.com/viavoice/matrix
William E. Benet, Ph.D.,
Psy.D.
March 5, 2003
IBM ViaVoice
IBM ViaVoice is now distributed
by Nuance Communications, Inc., which distributes
Dragon NaturallySpeaking. For product information, see
http://www.nuance.com/viavoice.
ViaVoice is available in four editions for Windows
(Pro USB, Advanced, Standard, and Personal) and two
editions for Mac (Mac OS X and Simply Dictation Mac OS
X), ranging in price (1/2008) from $189.99 to $29.99.
For a side-by-side comparison of the Windows editions,
see the Feature Comparison Matrix at
http://www.nuance.com/viavoice/matrix
Billing & practice
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