Playing with speech recognition in Windows Vista

After almost 30 years of playing on the computer my wrists hurt. So I thought it was time to finally turn on the speech recognition stuff in Windows Vista. I've been playing with it for almost 24 hours now and it's pretty neat.

In fact, I'm dictating this blog post right now.

Overall, it's working great. I am working a little slower but I think that's because it takes a different part of the brain to do this. I've learned new set of commands instead of just clicking everywhere. However, the amount of corrections I need to do on my text is pretty small.

The speech recognition works well with windows overall in allowing me to open and close programs, minimizing and restore windows, and move around in general. I've only encountered a few real problems:
1. I can do everything I need to in Eudora except type in the body of an email. My work around is to compose my e-mail in notepad or wordpad and then I can copy and paste into the body of my e-mail all by voice.
2. It doesn't work well with Google chrome at all. My work around is to use Internet explorer which is what am using right now.
3. It doesn't work with all fields in a web page. Most notably, it's not working with my bots (see http://www.wackyrobot.com/)

So even though it's taken me three times as long to work on this blog post, I'm not abusing my wrists anymore than is necessary. And once I'm used to it it'll probably only take the 1 1/2 times normal. :-)

The Next Big Project...

Over the past month people have been asking me:  What's next?

I'm starting to get weened off the satellite we just launched, my store has been closed for months, my 2nd book is done and at the publishers, I'm not going on a big sailing trip in the spring... so what's next?  

I think it's all about the a.i. chat bots now and possibly a new business.  I've been into the whole a.i. thing for a while and I've been missing being the boss at a business.  So this might be the next new big project... 

The A.I. chat bot stuff can be followed at:  www.wackyrobot.com

The business stuff can be followed at:  cutelittlestore.blogspot.com

... and everything else will be right here.  :)

Launch Tomorrow! This is really it!

Well, as of when I left work today, everything is "Green" for launch tomorrow! Including a fabulous weather forecast at Vandenberg, the launch site.

If you're not doing anything else exciting at 2:50pm EDT Saturday afternoon, watch the launch feed live at either:

http://launch.geoeye.com/ or http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bls/missions/335/

I believe they start broadcasting at least 30 minutes before launch time.

If you're watching, one of the neat things you'll see is Dave, my significant other. The live video usually includes shots of the Launch Control Center and that's where Dave will be - in the front row. I'm back at the Satellite Operations Center in our HQ building in Virginia. They don't show us. :)

Assuming everything is nominal, this might be my last blog post for a while since I'll be too busy to get any writing time. I go into work at around 7am and don't pop out till probably 9pm and no matter what, there will be some long days ahead as we check out the satellite. Imaging activities don't occur right away - there's a lot to do to make sure everything is working right before we can turn on the camera.

Here's a great picture of the satellite on top of the rocket. Yes, I know if looks like it's on the floor, but that floor is several stories up in fact. This pic was shot less than two weeks ago.

More neat pics can be found here: http://launch.geoeye.com/LaunchSite/about/gallery.aspx

So it's off to bed for me... wish us luck!

Dear Universe: Stop Laughing & Let Us Launch Our Satellite!

Yes, the universe - she is laughing at us I think.

After yesterday;s blog post, I went to bed last night and we really were 3 days from launch. I woke up this morning to discover that Hurricane Hanna was threatening to add a delay. Could it be? Could a hurricane off the coast of Florida that seemed to be loosing steam have any effect on our launch from Vandenberg, CA?

Here's the PR that came out this afternoon:
GeoEye-1 Satellite Launch Slips Due to Hurricane Hanna Impacting Launch Crew Availability

It's perfectly normal for weather to delay a launch by a day or two or three... but this is the first time I've heard of a launch on one coast being delayed by weather on the other coast.

Professionally - I'm fascinated and this is going to be a launch campaign to remember!

Stay tuned to Weather Underground for the latest hurricane tracking maps! And if you have any sway with Mother Nature and The Universe, tell them it's not funny anymore! :)

GeoEye-1 launch - just under 3 days!

It's been an interesting month! A slight delay from Aug 22nd to Sept 4th, yes, but right now we're just getting ready for the big day - this Thursday - when a Delta II lifts GeoEye-1 into orbit! Yee ha!

I can't tell you how excited I am! For so many reasons:

1. This is the first launch I've worked in 10 years


2. I've been on this project for almost 4 years - it's time!


3. We're going to take some super cool, color pictures!


4. A lot of them will be visible on Google. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washbizblog/2008/08/geoeye_signs_deal_with_google.html
   http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10028842-93.html


5. I'll have more free time to work on my other geeky projects. :)
   

I believe that the picture to the right was taken the day I was there or just before. Since then, the satellite has been put on top and covered in the fairing. Unfortunately, I can't show any pics of that - everyone will see the completed rocket when the tower rolls back for the last time on Thursday.

Remember that you, too, can watch the launch live on Thursday:

http://launch.geoeye.com/LaunchSite/

You won't see me... any of the camera shots into what looks like a control center is the launch control center in California. I'm back at our HQ in Dulles, VA.

Wish us luck!

This is a Twitter test...

I've been trying to make better use of my twitter account.

I just learned this morning about twitterfeed.com that feeds blog posts to twitter.

This is a test - just a test.

PS: Follow me on twitter, too: http://twitter.com/adeena

GeoEye-1 Launch: 21 days, 18 hrs and counting!

It's getting so close - it's hard to describe the excitement and anticipation! While us engineers and operations folks are getting things ready in the control center at our headquarters in Dulles, VA, another side of the company - the part that tasks and operates our existing satellite Ikonos, is busy taking pictures.

Since GeoEye-1 was delivered to Vandenberg, they've been trying to grab a pic of the launch site. The first several attempts were thwarted due to clouds (BTW: let's just dispel that myth right now - optical satellites like Ikonos and GeoEye-1 cannot see through clouds - just in case anyone was wondering).

Anyhoo - they finally got a shot!

This first image shows the whole launch site:

This second image is just the launch pad with our tower. Our rocket is in that tower. Yep, I've seen it! (see the last blog post)

Pretty soon GeoEye-1 goes a-top the rocket and then soon after (in 21 days) it's away we go!