alborg:Hirschr:I had DNS8 Medical but due to issues associated with its confiscatory "product activation" I can't seem to use it now that my HD crashed. Sure, one day when I have time I'll call them and get it resolved but...
Al, since you are a VBA programmer I am surprised that you aren't using the Medical version. You can do some really great things with the VBA advanced scripting.
DSteiNeuro: Simply adding a large list of words from a medical dictionary won't help and in fact could make accuracy worse because the words were not added to the language model in context.
I'd love proof of this. I've never been able to find it, actually I have heard the contrary. I should rig up a test to prove/disprove it.
DrMurd,, och: DSteiNeuro: Simply adding a large list of words from a medical dictionary won't help and in fact could make accuracy worse because the words were not added to the language model in context. I'd love proof of this. I've never been able to find it, actually I have heard the contrary. I should rig up a test to prove/disprove it.
I said could make accuracy worse. It is dependent on the the situation. A complete explanation requires a good understanding how DNS works.
The active dictionary has a fixed number of words based on the statistical probability that the particular word will be used. When a new word is added to the active dictionary, the word with the lowest probability is pushed back to the backup dictionary.
If you add a large list of words e.g. a complete medical dictionary, am equal number of words will be pushed back to the backup dictionary. Since it is unlikely that you are going to use most of the words in the medical dictionary, overall accuracy may decline.
An additional factor is that accuracy is always going to be lowest for a single word, better for a phrase and best for a phrase in context. This is simply how the statistical model works. The aftermarket medical word list are based on a "language model' rather than simply a long list of words.
There is some benefit to adding word lists, for example common medications not already in the vocabulary.
One trick that I like to use is to add a medication in the format Trade name (generic name) with the spoken form "Trade name long name". This way if I dictate "Dilantin long name" DNS transcribes "Dilantin (phenytoin)". This is really helpful to avoid medication errors. This also improves recognition accuracy since I dictate a phrase rather than a single drug name.
I also added a list of common muscles tested in EMG studies, which would be useful to a neurologist.
>>> Since Nuance allows 10 activations per DNS product, it is easy to make 10 working forged copies of a single DNS product.
Actually, that's not true- Nuance specifically states in its EULA that you can only have one copy active at a time, and actually enforces this by forcing you to deactivate your program through their website prior to reinstalling/reactivating the product on a different computer. So it's impossible for 10 people to activate the product at the same time onto 10 different computers.
But I do agree that anything can be broken. This seems legit, and unless Nuance shows otherwise, I'm not going to pass on such a great deal!
Al Borges, M.D.
● Oncologist in a Small Group Practice in Virginia
● My website URL: http://msofficeemrproject.com/
I thought I'd provide an update. I bought a grey market copy of Preferred from ebay. It was two disks with a typed label with an activation code. There was a headset with some foreign writing on the package- clearly not a sennheiser . I tried installing it and it did not install properly, apparently not installing a crucial file. So I bought a real copy (from CompUSA- going out of buisness sale $159- actually bought two). That one installed fine. I then went to another computer, used the real disks but used the activation code from the ebay version and it worked fine- allowed me to activate and even went online and downloaded the SP1 from nuance.com.
So I suspect that the ebay version may be someone buying volume licensing, copying the disks, then attaching activation codes and throwing in cheap headsets. Unfortunately the disks do not copy well (at least from this seller.)
As to multiple computers, my interpretation of the booket is that you license a user, and therefore can install on multiple computers, but of course one user can only be on one computer at a time. And if two users share a computer, there needs to be two licenses.
you could always purchase a language model for the Dragon Preferred version from out company www.trigramtech.com
We have language models for Dragon Professional, Medical and Preferred. We also offer language models for IBM Via Voice.
Our products are not simply a word list. We compile a language model that combines context, phonetics and vocabulary.
feel free to contact us with questions or for references.
Joe Buckle, Trigram Technology