Initial Impression: Dragon Dictate for Mac

I just spent the day working with Dragon Dictate for Mac, the successor to MacSpeech Dictate. My initial impressions are all positive.

  • Implementation of the Dragon engine version 11 is fantastic. This thing is fast, really fast.
  • The commands are much more intuitive. They are also are consistent with Dragon Dictate on the PC.
  • You can now use multiple microphones on the same profile. While this isn’t a big deal for everyone, it is for me.

Dragon Dictate for Mac still trails behind the PC version but the gap is narrowing. It makes no sense anymore to load a Windows virtual machine to run Dragon Dictate for Windows. If you need to dictate to a Mac, just get Dragon Dictate for Mac. I’ll do an in depth review later but for now, if you already use MacSpeech Dictate, the $50 upgrade is a no brainer.

ScanSnap + Hazel

I’ve been thinking about a workflow to automatically file documents with Hazel using highlighted terms since Fujitsu first added the ability to selectively apply optical character recognition. Brooks Duncan pulls it all together. As an aside, my not so scientific experimentation using the ScanSnap OCR features say green highlighters work best.

BusyCal 1.5 Beta

The new BusyCal public beta allows you to sync with the new MobileMe calendar beta and other CalDAV servers. It also includes the ability to sync over your local area network and Google calendar. I’ve been running it since last week with no troubles. I think, in the end, the transition to CalDAV is going to benefit everyone.

Objective C for Absolute Beginners, Review and Discount

Everyone who worked with computers back in the 8 bit days thinks of himself as a programmer. I’m no different. I remember the days …

 10 Print “Hello World”
 20 Goto 10

I even tried my hand at assembly code at which, in hindsight, I was terrible.

So fast forwarding 20 (or 30) years I still like the idea of pushing pixels around the screen and want to pick it up again. I’m not looking for a new career. I just think as a hobbyist (and Mac nerd), it would be fun to understand Xcode more. I’ve bought a few books for this purpose over the years. The problem is, I never seem to finish them.
I am probably not the only one who buys a programming book with the greatest intentions and never makes it to the end. The reason for this is that the landscape of programming has changed so much since I was “in the game” that I can’t keep up with a book that takes anything for granted. I need the basics. That is what led me to read Objective-C for Absolute Beginners by Gary Bennett, Mitch Fisher, and Brad Lees.

If you are looking to get started with Xcode, this is the book. The point of an objective based programming language is working with, well … objects. The trouble is, applying (and learning) the basic concepts of Objective-C objects requires a lot more knowledge of Objective-C than just the basics. As a result, a lot of new programmers get stuck at the gate.
The authors have a solution. They use the open source Alice Project to teach basic objective programming concepts and then move back to Xcode to use those principals with Objective-C.

The title gets it right. This book is for absolute beginners. You can pick it up without a lick of programming knowledge and (with a little patience) work your way through the book. If you are looking to get a working knowledge of Objective-C, this one is for you.

Discount Code

The publisher has a 25% discount for MacSparky readers. If you are interested buy it here and enter the discount code “MACSPARKYDFT”.