

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 Student Edition [Old Version]
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Jody
Greater than one weekThis is the worst, It doesnt recognize anything I say to it. It was a waste of money and time!
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Micki Johnson
Greater than one weekI have read all reviews for both this premium student version and the home premium version and decided to go ahead and purchase. I initially gave it a 5-star, but will keep everyone informed of ease of getting student version activated....now for the star-trek finish.... star date: Saturday, Dec. 11 @ 7pm CST....product ordered. UPDATE: 12/11/10 @ 20:44(from my .edu account)I pre-emailed my purchase info to the svp monitoring these reviews (Peter) to which he immediately responded (12/11/10 @ 20:49): Verification is very simple with an edu email address. You will get instructutions to sign into a website when you get your software. A serial number can be immediately sent to your edu email address. Most people who [have] had issues did not have an edu email address. UPDATE: 12/14/10 @ 14:25 (CST) received product; instructions to activate are simple; sent in the required information at 14:00. Will post when product key code is received.
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Jim
> 3 dayI have tried on multiple occasions over the last few years to buy Dragon Naturally Speaking but each time could not get past the idiots at Nuance customer service. Im a grad student and most recently my question was: What is the difference between the $99 (list price) Premium Student/Teacher edition and the $169 Premium with Academic pricing? Seems like a reasonable question - both called Premium, one labeled Student/Teacher, one not labeled Student/Teacher but with academic pricing. So whats the difference? Believe it or not I could not get this question answered after calling three times and talking to three different customer service persons. No one actually knew the answer to the question but no one was willing to say I dont know. But each one pretended to answer without actually giving any information. It was like talking to someone from outer space. On two of the occasions when I asked What does that mean? or Can you explain that another way so I can understand it they would start talking and hang up in mid-sentence to make it appear that the connection dropped accidentally. In previous years I have had similar problems - all ready to buy, cash in hand - and just couldnt allow myself to go through with the purchase after pitiful interactions with Nuance. I honestly have no idea how these guys stay in business. My advice? If you absolutely need this product, go ahead but understand that you are completely, absolutely, 100% on your own. DO NOT believe anything that Nuance customer service or techincal support tells you. They pretend; they lie; they will do anything they can to get you off the phone and get on to the next call (must be something to do with the way they are paid). There is no second tier or third tier support. They will NEVER transfer you to a supervisor no matter how nicely you ask. And they will drop your call if you seem to be a bother. This is the most negative Amazon review I have ever written and Im sorry to even have to do it. But it needed to be said. UPDATE: Just after writing this review I got a phone call from Margo in Marketing at Nuance. It seems she was responding to an email that I had sent a week before asking the question mentioned above. She was great, appologized for the previous less-than-satisfactory problems that I had experienced, listened to everything I said, went over it all several times to insure that she understood the question, and then promised that she would dig into it and get back to me that afternoon. Its three days later and I still havent heard from back from Margo. Are you aware that Windows XP, Vista, and 7 all have native speech recognition capability? Thats how I intend to handle my application.
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CF
> 3 dayWhen you buy this product you have to send in different kinds of information in order to obtain a serial number which will enable you to install. If they dont, I guess, like your info they will not send the serial number, which means you bought this without being able to use it & out of the money you paid. No phone number on the box or info sheet inside. Online there is a number but they dont deal with the company that wants the info for the serial number. No help at all so far. Very upset at the company, before you purchase this product you should be told ahead of time that this info will be needed & may result in a serial number or it may not. Which means you are on your own.
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Jeanne Ritterson
> 3 dayHave a computer that was new 5 years ago. I loaded Dragon, provided documents, did training and worked through the tutorial. The first document I tired to create was a test document. It hung up so I closed Dragon and opened it again -- I started creating a document again and got a BLUE SCREEN. The recommendation from Microsoft was that I remove the software. So I did. But I am not that disappointed - though I am out my experimental investment. Dragon was so slow in recording that I could say a complete paragraph before it could finish the first sentence. I cant write that way -- as a fiction writer I need to be fluid and I can wait for the computer to catch up with me. The advertisement said Dragon would be 3 times faster - that would be very true if you cannot type. I was hoping for a different mechanism for typing -- I am on the computer all day at work. This was not the answer for me. I also purchased a better headset -- it did not function at all with Dragon.
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Michelle
> 3 dayI was hesitant to purchase due to some reviews but I had no issues registering my product! In fact, the entire process only took about ten minutes! I have started to use the program and totally LOVE it! I have a disability that affects my hands and I have very little use of my hands and this program is heaven to me. THANK YOU!!
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Danielle
> 3 dayAs other reviewers have said, it is impossible to verify the software for the student edition. Had to return it to amazon after many failed emails and calls to try get it verified. Worthless if I cant use it!
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Jason B
> 3 dayI lost the use of my right arm/hand half way thru a collage semester. I purchased DNS to dictate and control my computer so that I would not have to drop my courses and continue school. Activating the Academic version is quick and easy with a valid approved institution e-mail address. The software is a bit taxing on computer resources. I recommend installing on a new Windows 7 PC with 4 gig or Ram to benefit from all the features. Although, It preforms well on one of my XP computers with only 1.5 gig of RAM. DNS adapts quickly to your voice and constantly learns to improve accuracy, the hardest part is learning how to talk what you want to type.
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Ibid
> 3 dayI ordered this Student/Teacher version because Im a college instructor. Obtaining the serial number was not a problem. However, the DVD I received is warped, emits a loud clicking noise in my computers DVD drive (the same noise is audible on two other systems so the problem is clearly a defective disk), and it is unable to read the disk to install the program. Thats when I had the misfortune of contacting Benjamin in customer service. He is semi-literate in English and apparently located somewhere in India. He asked for all my order data from Amazon (order number, etc.). He even listened to the loud clicking of the disk in the drive, and agreed it sounded like there was clearly something wrong with the disk. Then some additional hoops to jump through: 1. E-mail him screenshots of the Windows Explorer interface to prove that my computer cant fully read all the files on the warped disk. 2. E-mail him digital photographs of the disk itself (top and edge) to prove that I have an authentic disk and prove that it is warped. Okay, this was a strange request, but using my digital camera not too much of a problem if it would have satisfied Nuance and gotten me on the road to receiving a new disk. Were these thoughts ever naive. 3. Ben replies. He now wants the POP proof of purchased of the Dragon 12 that came from Amazon. Huh? What exactly does POP proof of purchased mean, and why wasnt it requested during the original phone call? I send him a screen shot of my order record from my Amazon account and the scanned barcode label from the box. (Maybe the latter is what he meant by proof of purchased [sic]?) 4. Ben replies again. This time he wants the email from amazon indicated the the payment you made from them if there is please attached it with this email as you reply. LOL. This reads like work from one of my grade-F students. Again, if this is what was required, why wasnt it clearly requested in the original phone call? I forwarded him the original invoice e-mail. I made a little wager with myself that this would magically prove insufficient as well. Sure enough, it did. 5. Sorry its me again, as i can see in your screenshot [sic] of the email you got from amazon one last favor, can you please take a screenshot also of that the same email but open the VIEW INVOICE option. Take a screenshot of an e-mail he already has right in front of him and at the same time click some link. Boy, that sure makes sense. Sorry, but Im now done with this: from the bizarre request for photographs of the defective disk, to one illiterate and cryptic request after the other. Anyway, Ben made clear on the original call (after we had spent about 5 minutes entering my Amazon order information into his system) that the system screenshots showing the disk as unreadable along with the disk photos would be sufficient. Now theres another new and nebulous obstacle course to run every day. I am a very busy college instructor who doesnt have time for this. If I dont receive a response from this review within a week from a literate adult at Nuance, I will immediately initiate a chargeback on my credit card and look at other options, particularly Windows Speech Recognition. Not only is it free, but its been reported to be a decent program with even more improvements expected on the forthcoming Windows 8. Ive been a solid Dragon customer since version 9, but after this experience Im done with Nuance.
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hal
> 3 dayThe verification process is a bit of a pain. Basically, you have to select your school from a list of choices. You have to fill in your name, and as faculty I had to select which department Im in. It then asked me to send a PDF file of my school ID with the current date. Other options would be (as faculty, I cant speak for students) a recent pay stub or a letter from HR verifying my employment. I didnt have any of these readily available, so I submitted the online form without them. I was careful to use my EDU e-mail address. I then received a message to this EDU address stating that I needed to submit the above information before I would receive the necessary serial number. From reading other reviews, I decided simply to wait. Sure enough, the next day I received the serial number without having taken any further action. With the serial number I installed the product without any hassles. In other words, the only information I ended up submitting was the name of my school, my name, and my EDU e-mail address. Nothing more. The process took 24 hours. Ive used version 10 for a couple of years and I think it was version 8 that I used before that. Im happy with version 11 so far. It navigates both Explorer and Firefox better than version 10 and I like the text entry for Gmail. Accuracy is roughly the same or better, but overall speed is faster than before. Some commands are still cumbersome but overall this product is an improvement. I use a high-quality microphone which is important, as well as learning the software, by which I mean speaking clearly. Check out Emicrophones.com for great mic and soundcard information. I use the Sennheiser ME3 which is really expensive. The cheapie provided will work also, but serious users will need an upgrade eventually, and the mic lasts forever. And make sure you have the recommended specifications for your computer. Goodluck!