Dragon NaturallySpeaking

[Bryan Crow]

Amilian:

Brother, you know your computers, you know your Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and you've taken a lot of trouble to help. Thank you very much.

As soon as I read your confirmation, I went to Newegg and entered my order but stopped short, and now I'm dithering. Newegg collects Tennessee sales tax—9.25%, $63 and change. And take a look at this:

http://www.discountechnology.com/pro...P-for_sale.htm

$169.95! I found Discountechnology by googling for the Fujitsu hard drive. Funny thing: if you go to the Discountechnology web site first and then look for the same drive, it's $10 more. Epinons knows about this store but hasn't rated it yet and asks for reviews. The same goes for other shopping comparison sites, but then I found forums similar to ours with members who've bought stuff from Discountechnology. The customers were well pleased.

Discountechnology has the Adaptec controller card too. $249.95. Trouble is, they sell it only in bulk, not in the manufacturer's carton, and it doesn't even come with harnesses. They're worth the extra $27. I came close to ordering the card from Newegg and the drives from Discountechnology. But so far, I haven't done anything, because even though the web page says these are brand new drives (which I'm inclined to believe), the warranty is good for only 60 days. And I bet that's Discountechnology's warranty, not Fujitsu's.

I think I'd better go with Newegg, but I'd like to hear what you think.

I bought a 20-inch CRT monitor from a guy, and it was still in the box. I'm sure the man hadn't opened it. When I took it out, it wouldn't come on. It took some fancy searching to find the phone number for the Taiwanese manufacturer, and when I called and spoke with an English speaker, he told me to take the monitor to a TV repair place and have it fixed. He told me his company would pay for it. The repairman found something hadn't been connected and charged me about 50 bucks for connecting it. I e-mailed the manufacturer and told them about it. They didn't even ask for a receipt. They sent me a check right away—on an American bank.

I've bought a lot of stereo stuff from outfits like Discountechnology. All of it still works, and so does that monitor. My wife loves it for its size. My philosophy about most electronic equipment is, "If its gonna break, the odds are 20:1 it's gonna break within a month." And these Fujitsu hard drives are virtually bulletproof, right? On the other hand, it would be nice to have Fujitsu's five-year guarantee.

Thoughts?

Yes, I'm with you on RAID 0.

I run the Acoustica Optimizer almost every day, and I run five maintenance applications every day too. I don't usually run Norton Ghost more than a few times a month, but it wouldn't be hard to get used to doing it every night.

I meant to say I'll have enough RAM to use RAMDisk, not SuperSpeed, for DNS. The DNS program folder comprises only 202 MB, but how about those DNS files under Documents and Settings? Do they also need to be held in RAM? Anyway, I agree that RamDisk sounds like the hot-smoking setup for NaturallySpeaking. Coupled with those huge I/O transfers, as you say, the Dragon ought to be in hog heaven.

By the way, there are some DNS files that I just can't find. I've heard, for example, that you can access the material you read to train the Dragon. I'd love to add some of my own writing. I'd also like to have a straight answer about whether the speech engine can benefit from raw user files or only profits from them after they've been rendered by the Acoustic Optimizer.

I'm just going to have to learn about SuperSpeed software. I think they've changed everything. The release notes are informative and fairly ample, but they're not written in a user-friendly way. It's easy enough to change the settings, but how are you supposed to know what will work best? Trial and error?

Good idea, reading the Adaptec FAQs ahead of time.

Am I going to have to press F6 every time I boot or just the first time?

Let me know what you think about Discountechnology. I'm betting you'd stick to Newegg, but there's a $140 "penalty" for doing business with the more familiar outlet.

Bryan

[onewecallgod]

Originally Posted by davidhammock200

I have never put the OS on a RAID array and rarely the application software,

usually just the data/page/swap & temp files.

Is there something special about DNS?

instead of writing to page file, it probably writes to its own temp folder

and plus, these are SCSI drives, they wont fail

EDIT, i just thought of an idea if youre a bit worried about your data: you could get an external USB 80gb drive and every night, ghost your whole RAID 0 partition onto the USB drive

[amilian]

You're welcome Bryan.

That sure is a nice saving there. I do like newegg for their reliability and great service. I'd be torn like you are, but worried about the short warranty.

The DNS files in Docs and Settings - I can't recall if it's possible to move them or not. I would bet you could move them either via reference to them in the .ini file in the main program or through the registry. If the scsi's don't do a good enough job with them then I'd be tempted to move them to ramdisk. Try and see.

On the superspeed software I guess it is trial and error, although you would think that the superspeed staff would know by now relative to DNS.

With F6, you only need to do it the once during the blue install screen of windows. It will tell you to press F6 to install scsi drivers. From there it's business as usual and you don't need to do it again unless you run the windows recovery console to repair corrupt windows files or fix a boot problem. So don't lose that disk with the drivers!

[Bryan Crow]

Amilian:

One more time, thanks.I ordered the Adaptec controller card from Newegg today. Am I willing to fork over $140 for five-year warranties? After you figure in the exorbitant Tennessee sales tax the can, it would cost 50% more to buy from Newegg.

Are you saying .ini files can invoke RAM to pick up DNS files from Local Users and from Identities? RamDisk wouldn't help much if it only contained the 202 MB from the program file proper. DNS recruits files from all over the drive and leaves long strings of fragmented files spread everywhere.

I moved the speed/accuracy slider from dead center slightly to the right, and I'm still getting prompt displays and accuracy on a par, I think, with what I was getting before I moved the slider. I need a methodical routine that will let me pin down how much newfound speed is coming from adjusting the slider and how much is coming from SuperCache.

I'll order the drives from one of the two sources tonight or first thing tomorrow morning.

Naturally, I'll be reporting results as I get them.
Good news about F6. I'm glad boots will still be automatic. You have to have time to fix your coffee.

[amilian]

Originally Posted by Bryan Crow

Amilian:

One more time, thanks.I ordered the Adaptec controller card from Newegg today. Am I willing to fork over $140 for five-year warranties? After you figure in the exorbitant Tennessee sales tax the can, it would cost 50% more to buy from Newegg.

Are you saying .ini files can invoke RAM to pick up DNS files from Local Users and from Identities? RamDisk wouldn't help much if it only contained the 202 MB from the program file proper. DNS recruits files from all over the drive and leaves long strings of fragmented files spread everywhere.

I moved the speed/accuracy slider from dead center slightly to the right, and I'm still getting prompt displays and accuracy on a par, I think, with what I was getting before I moved the slider. I need a methodical routine that will let me pin down how much newfound speed is coming from adjusting the slider and how much is coming from SuperCache.

I'll order the drives from one of the two sources tonight or first thing tomorrow morning.

Naturally, I'll be reporting results as I get them.
Good news about F6. I'm glad boots will still be automatic. You have to have time to fix your coffee.

Ya, $140 for 5 year warranties seems high. SCSIs have a great rep for not failing so I'd probably go for the cheaper price.

On the .ini files, I took a stab in the dark there. I've modified one of the .ini files before and added "ComputeSpeed=10" (read that somewhere on the net but don't recall where now) and noticed it works well to speed things up. So for that reason I took a guess that maybe an .ini file controls where the user files are stored. But the more I think about it, the more it is likely to be in the registry.

For example, in the dragon log there are references to some dlls that Dragon loads from Windows\system32\ and by copying those files to a ramdisk and changing the registry keys to the new location of the files you get the benefit of the ramdisk for those dlls.

I'm just assumed you might be able to do the same thing with the user files, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to change the registry, and whether in your case with SCSI raid0 it will even be worth doing. Those are quick drives

Here's the list of dlls are loaded when you start DNS (as shown in the dragon.log text file)
C:\WINDOWS\System32\comctl32.dll
C:\WINDOWS\System32\riched20.dll
C:\WINDOWS\System32\riched32.dll
C:\WINDOWS\System32\msvcrt.dll
C:\WINDOWS\System32\msvcp60.dll
C:\WINDOWS\System32\comdlg32.dll
C:\WINDOWS\System32\user32.dll
C:\WINDOWS\System32\oleacc.dll
C:\WINDOWS\speech\speech.dll
C:\WINDOWS\speech\vcmd.exe
C:\WINDOWS\speech\vcmshl.dll

EDIT: Correction made to the reference to registry dlls that dragon loads. It now reads correctly.

[amilian]

And thinking about it, the new design and location of saving user files with version 8.0 and perhaps other hidden DNS files on c drive, it makes sense to use supercache to cache the whole c: and benefit from only slightly slower transfers, but ensuring that you're getting all the DNS files supercached.

[davidhammock200]

The 5yr warranty comes from Fujitsu, not the retailer.

1,200,000 mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) rating supported by five-year Limited Warrant
http://www.fcpa.fujitsu.com/products...s/mas-15k-rpm/

If they were trying to charge you for it, then they are liars & thieves! i wouls avoid them.

Dave

[Bryan Crow]

Good morning, amilian. Thanks for getting back to me again. You wrote: "$140 for 5 year warranties seems high. SCSIs have a great rep for not failing so I'd probably go for the cheaper price."

Glad to hear that, because after sleeping on it, I woke up this morning with the same inclination.

And thank you for your comments too, David. No, Discountechnology doesn't charge for a warranty, they just say the warranty is for 60 days. I suspect it has something to do with how they acquired the drives cheaply enough to sell each one $30 cheaper than anybody else. (The Tennessee sales tax Newegg charges brings the total difference up to $140.) If you've looked at their web site, you've seen that they show the drive shrink wrapped, and they say it's brand new from the OEM. Is somebody at Discountechnology a cousin of one of Fujitsu's executive managers? If these were items that failed quality control and then corrected, it would be illegal to sell them in the United States (and directly to anybody in the United States, I believe) without saying so. Who's warranting these drives, Discountechnology or Fujitsu? How can the usual five-year warranty be invalidated just for the drives sold through this outlet? Are drives with certain serial numbers exempt? What would happen if somebody had a problem and sent one to a stateside repair depot?

While these questions nag at me, they're not worrisome enough to stop me from ordering from Discountechnology. $140 is a steep surcharge to be sure of getting the manufacturer's warranty. And so here goes.

Amilian: I've gone into those .ini files myself, but I'm way too ignorant to risk fooling with them. I've been known to fool with registry keys, but only by following strict recipes. I bet you're right. I bet the .ini files control where user files are stored. But Dragon NaturallySpeaking user files, as we well know, are stored in lots of different places, including the registry and \system 32\. RamDisk still might be up to handling them all once you designated them, but I wouldn't know enough to be sure of designating all of them for that purpose.

I'm leaning toward your later conclusion, that SuperCaching the C: drive (and letting the Fujitsu SCSI disks handle anything it doesn't keep ready) would be safer and perform about as well.

I wish the speech-recognition forum member who said it was possible and useful to create your own training material (in some .bin file, I think) had explained how to find those files. If you know how to get to them and add to them, would you please tell me? First, do you think it would be worth it to add documents of your own to serve as training material? As I understand it, that would go a lot farther than simply having the Dragon go through your documents to pick up on your vocabulary and writing style.

Whether it's because I reset the accuracy/speed slider as you recommended, amilian, or because I installed SuperCache II, I've already closed in a good way toward the short latencies I enjoyed with Version 7. And, like you, I'm finding the Dragon's accuracy to be as good as ever.

Nobody responded to my post to the KnowBrainer Forum, so I just e-mailed Wizwill, even though—now that I have your unqualified blessing and David's too—I'm confident the combination you suggest is a sweet solution (Fujitsus in RAID 0 configuration, the extra gigabyte of RAM, and SuperCache II). I'm stoked. I'll let you know how it comes out.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Bryan

[Bryan Crow]

I just ordered the Fujitsu drives from DiscounTechnology and I e-mailed a question of about the 60-day warranty. I wanted to know why the standard Fujitsu warranty doesn't apply. I got the following reply:

OEM means that the warranty is the responsibility of the reseller. We provide the warranty of 60 days.

If the drive fails within the warranty period, we would replace the drive once received using UPS Ground. You can pay for extra expedited delivery. Alternatively you can order an advance replacement, by buying from our website. We then refund once the defective unit is received.

I can live with that, and I suspect it's a common practice among Asian suppliers.

[davidhammock200]

Originally Posted by Bryan Crow

I just ordered the Fujitsu drives from DiscounTechnology and I e-mailed a question of about the 60-day warranty. I wanted to know why the standard Fujitsu warranty doesn't apply. I got the following reply:

OEM means that the warranty is the responsibility of the reseller. We provide the warranty of 60 days.

If the drive fails within the warranty period, we would replace the drive once received using UPS Ground. You can pay for extra expedited delivery. Alternatively you can order an advance replacement, by buying from our website. We then refund once the defective unit is received.

I can live with that, and I suspect it's a common practice among Asian suppliers.

FUJITSU 36.7GB 15,000RPM SCSI HARD DRIVE, Model MAS3367NP, OEM DRIVE ONLY
Model# MAS3367NP Item # N82E16822116140
Specifications:
Capacity: 36.7GB
Average Seek Time: 3.3ms
Buffer: 8MB
Rotational Speed: 15,000RPM
Interface: SCSI Ultra 320 68 Pin
Features: Fujitsu's Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) technology
Manufacturer Warranty: 5 years
Packaging: OEM DRIVE ONLY
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...116-140&depa=1

You still get the factory warranty & they are liars!

[amilian]

Sorry, can't help you with creating training material. Glad to hear you're already getting some better performance with that slider. You just wait until you get those scsi's! That will be real nice.

I'm actually contemplating getting a single Seagate Cheetah ST318452LW 15K rpm 3.6 ms access drive with an older Ultra160 controller. You can get both off ebay for about 100 bucks total which is a real cheap scsi solution, that I can combine with supercache to give the enormous MB/s transfer. I wonder how much slower in real terms it will be to your soon to be rigged box.

I actually read a report from someone that they went from the above cheap scsi setup to a RAID0 with 10K rpm raptors and he says the raptors boots slower than the single Cheetah scsi drive! This tells me that that a cheap $100 solution may still be competitive!

Anyway, when I scrape the cash together I'll set it up and post the results, and meanwhile wait in anticipation for yours.

[Bryan Crow]

Originally Posted by davidhammock200

You still get the factory warranty & they are liars!

Good!

Maybe they they're afraid some customer will ask the manufacturer for warranty coverage. Maybe they're afraid Fujitsu will figure out what truck they fell off of. Wonder why they claim they'll cover the stuff themselves... and that they'll replace any bad ones....

[davidhammock200]

Originally Posted by Bryan Crow

Good!

Maybe they they're afraid some customer will ask the manufacturer for warranty coverage. Maybe they're afraid Fujitsu will figure out what truck they fell off of. Wonder why they claim they'll cover the stuff themselves... and that they'll replace any bad ones....

As long as you are the first to register the product, proving that you are the original purchaser, then you are covered.

If the product warranty registration info is not included then you have been defrauded!

[Bryan Crow]

>>Sorry, can't help you with creating training material.

Nobody else has been able to either, amilian, and it's no big deal.

>>Glad to hear you're already getting some better performance with that slider.

Yeah, who'd a thunk?

>>I'm actually contemplating getting a single Seagate Cheetah ST318452LW 15K rpm 3.6 ms access drive with an older Ultra160 controller. You can get both off ebay for about 100 bucks total which is a real cheap scsi solution, that I can combine with supercache to give the enormous MB/s transfer. I wonder how much slower in real terms it will be to your soon to be rigged box.

A hundred bucks for 3.6 ms access. I doubt mine will be enough faster for anybody to tell.

[davidhammock200]

Originally Posted by Bryan Crow

>>Sorry, can't help you with creating training material.

Nobody else has been able to either, amilian, and it's no big deal.

>>Glad to hear you're already getting some better performance with that slider.

Yeah, who'd a thunk?

>>I'm actually contemplating getting a single Seagate Cheetah ST318452LW 15K rpm 3.6 ms access drive with an older Ultra160 controller. You can get both off ebay for about 100 bucks total which is a real cheap scsi solution, that I can combine with supercache to give the enormous MB/s transfer. I wonder how much slower in real terms it will be to your soon to be rigged box.

A hundred bucks for 3.6 ms access. I doubt mine will be enough faster for anybody to tell.

That is a very good idea, as will noy lose any performance going Ultra 160,

make sure both the drive & controller are 68-pin, they should be.

[Bryan Crow]

>>If the product warranty registration info is not included then you have been defrauded!

Eh, yeah, maybe so, Dave, but it's not like they didn't tell me there's no factory warranty. As long as those Fujitsus keep humming, I'm not going to feel ripped off.

[davidhammock200]

Originally Posted by Bryan Crow

>>If the product warranty registration info is not included then you have been defrauded!

Eh, yeah, maybe so, Dave, but it's not like they didn't tell me there's no factory warranty. As long as those Fujitsus keep humming, I'm not going to feel ripped off.

Let me try this another way. If they bought them for OEM resale, they came with the product warranty registration.

If they are selling them as new OEM, then that registration should still be with them.

If they are in fact used & being sold as new, then the registration would not come with them.

Dave

[amilian]

Originally Posted by davidhammock200

That is a very good idea, as will noy lose any performance going Ultra 160,

make sure both the drive & controller are 68-pin, they should be.

Thanks for the advice Dave!

[amilian]

2 things that come to mind Bryan. Read up on SCSI device termination and controller card bios adjustments so you're prepared. And don't forget to get scsi cables!

[Bryan Crow]

There are folks I've known since 1996 whose friendships I count dear, even though we've never met in person. I've spoken on the phone with some of the people I've met in cyberspace, and to my good fortune, a dozen of us or so have come together in Einsteinian space. Every one of them has proved to be a sterling human being. Even from his two brief e-mail posts last night, it's clear that the gentleman you know from the KnowBrainer Forum is a class act. I winced inwardly when I learned that only a day after his mother had died he was taking time to help a stranger—me.

I assume the two of you count each other as friends, amilian, because you're two of a kind. In the shadow of his loss, I'm ashamed to tug at your sleeve this morning over selfish, mundane concerns. Still, I know you'd want me to report what he said. It's a little worrying:

"It appears as though a single channel SCSI card is what you'll be using. I don't believe that that will support a raid 0 array, but I will give you a researched answer in a couple of days."

Followed by a second post before I found the first one:

"That particular card uses something called "host raid" which is a software-based raid controller and uses many CPU cycles to accomplish its mission which degenerates the actual overall system performance of your computer. A far better solution would be to use an actual hardware-based raid controller, unfortunately a more expensive solution than the single channel raid card which you have considered."

How glad I am that I ordered the card from Newegg! If it turns out I need to send it back, there won't be a problem. In fact, Newegg could get something else to me in a couple of days if I needed it—and credit me a refund shortly after they got back the unopened Adaptec card.

But I don't know that'll be necessary. No doubt WizWill is a wizard, but you and Dave and others here who've been advising me are no slouches yourselves. In your last post, you advised me to bone up about the device myself. I've been too busy trying to understand overclocking! But now I'll certainly delve into RAID controllers. I have no idea what "single channel" means, much less "host RAID"—the difference between software-based and hardware-based controllers.

Meanwhile, you'll remember that one thing that decided me in favor of Newegg over DiscounTechnology was that Newegg ships the card with what this old hot-rodder would call a harness, a pretty fancy cable shown on the web page you gave me the link to. Do you think it requires other attachments?

Will said he'd follow up, but I urged him not to. I'm sure you and others in this forum are quite capable of either reassuring me it's OK to open the package—it got as far as Nashville (40 miles from here) last night—or advising me to send it back to Newegg unopened. Since you're confident of the SCSI controller you're getting for yourself, I won't be surprised if you still think the Adaptec will do a fine job for me.

But don't hesitate to change your mind. I'm already grateful to you and everyone else who has pitched in. I'll continue to be grateful, of course. In fact, I'd be all the more grateful for your candid reappraisal should you decide one’s in order. Back in my school days, I took a lot of courses in the philosophy of science, and I've always been impressed that—for all the insufferable egos who've plied that world-shaking trade—the enterprise itself is studiously modest and revisionist. Science is not for sissies. To play the game, you have to bravely and forever stand ready to be wrong and even to embrace correction—no mean ideal for all of us, huh?