Typing was a big deal back in the day when only typewriters existed. Those ancient mechanical devices with an ink ribbon were definitely clumsy machines by today’s standards. In those days secretaries were hired based upon how fast they could type, what their words per minute rate was. If I remember correctly the minimum was like 60 or 80 words per minute to be considered a satisfactory typist. In fact typing was actually a class that was offered in many schools as part of their curriculum as an elective. Typing definitely still has its place in our life because we sit in front of computers with a keyboard so many hours a day. I wish that I could type a lot faster than I do. I never did take one of those typing classes and I kind of regret it at this point.
But hold the horses, things have changed! With the latest modern technology and software, speech to text capabilities have gotten extremely accurate. So it may not be necessary for a person to type like they did in days past as our only option for inputting information either on paper or into a computer. Just visit any app store, for instance the Google Chrome store. Type in “speech to text” or “voice recognition” and you will get a lot of different pieces of software or applications that will convert speech into text. As a matter of fact this is very article is being written using that technology on an app called voice note II. I believe it’s a Google app and it works really well. I can have a word document open and this app open side by side and I as I speak it types the words into the app. If I notice a mistake I can either edit it right there on the screen or I can wait till I cut and paste it into the word document and fix it there. For me and my workflow it seems to work better to edit it as I do it. That way I don’t have to go in and reread the whole article. I can do it as I finish each little section or paragraph or a few sentences. That seems to work better for me.
So what used to take an hour to be done in 10 minutes for me at least. And it’s done with far less effort and fatigue at the end of the day. All I have to do is compose my thoughts, speak clearly and the words appear as if by magic on the screen ready to be put into the word document and then into a website. How cool is that!
Information is so easily accessed by us with our use of smartphones tablets and personal computers. There is no information it seems now that is beyond our query. From the simplest thing like finding a gas station to more complex issues like only your imagination can fathom the days of change drastically. For instance so many of the different sites that are available for us to research have so much function built into them it’s hard to imagine. There is help which has an abundance of reviews for different types of businesses which is a plethora of information for anybody seeking a restaurant or anything. It’s actually a little bit scary when you think about it the amount of information that these guys control. It can be a little bit difficult for a business owner also to deal with these agencies. It seems that they want the business owner to pay to play which can color things in my opinion.
Remember the days of carrying maps around in your car to find your way about? Now many cars come with very sophisticated GPS systems and really nice in-dash screens for easy navigation. Gone are the days of carrying around maps for most people because it is so much easier to just type in your address and have your directions given to you as you drive. The problem with it the least in my case is sometimes the maps are up to date or the navigation isn’t the hundred percent accurate. I’ve had a lot of weird times where I’ve had to make U-turns in strange places where I could have just turned into the destination place because the navigation was a completely accurate. But all in all I’ll trade these little boxes for the overall ease of use any day of the week.