I am writing this blog post not by typing but by talking. I am using Dragon's Dictation software on my iPhone. The accuracy is phenomenal, nearly 100% if I speak clearly and slowly, oh, and a quiet background should help, too. The actual transcribing is done not on the iPhone but transferred over the air, yet you hardly notice it, because the speed is almost instantaneous. So a 3G or a wi-fi connection is required for the app to work. While dictation software costs hundreds of dollars on the PC or Mac, this iPhone app is actually free, supposedly for a limited time. It still has work to do in terms of usability, but for its core function, turning an iPhone into a portable dictation device, it has done an admirable feat. After transcribing, I only needed to do minor manual editing before copying this text over to iBlogger to post to my blog right from the iPhone. Now that's something I wasn't expecting to be able to do in 2010.
kingsley: January 2010 Archives
Upgrading to Movable Type 5 was no trouble, as usual, but afterwards, I tried to switch to a new theme, and now I'm running into all kinds of trouble: inconsistencies, previous leftovers, missing elements, just general weirdness. It's probably caused by the previous theme I used. Yikes! If I can't figure out how to fix it, I might have to pay someone to do it for me.
[Update, 11 January 2010] Choosing the community style theme Tristan Blue (MT 5.0) seems to have solved the incompatibility issues. I'm guessing the upgrade from MT4 to MT5 is major enough that new themes will have to be created to support the added features and changes. I will be searching for other new MT5 themes.
Note: I normally like to use 2-column layouts, but if you want this theme to be readable on the iPhone, choose 3-column instead. The 2-column text is too small even when rotated to landscape in Mobile Safari.
[Update 2, 11 January 2010] Rebuilding the site seems to bring back legacy elements from the previous theme, so I guess the the Tristan Blue (MT 5.0) didn't solve the problem. Now I tried the Community Blog 1.0 theme, and so far it's working. It's a 2-column layout but readable.
