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 management
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