This is a guest post provided by Brett Bumeter of Sofduit.com. The following video shows a fellow PayPerPost “Postie” and my friend, Drew of TheBenSpark, demonstrating how Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software lets you create blog posts and other documents faster than you ever thought possible! Please watch it and read Brett’s post below. I think you’ll find the information very interesting. At the end of the post, you’ll find information on how to Save 25% on Dragon Naturally Speaking with Coupon Code DNSMSBG.

Hello my name is Brett Bumeter and I write about Dragon Naturally Speaking at Softduit.com (Tip if you are looking for the details on the coupon codes scroll to the bottom of this article). I wanted to share this video with you showing a fellow blogger named Drew who is using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 for the first time. There are some interesting things that you will see in this video that I wanted to point out to help you get a sense of how Dragon NaturallySpeaking works and how it could potentially work for you.

I think it’s important to see Dragon NaturallySpeaking, when people are using it and videos definitely help show you how well the software works these days. It’s extremely fast and can help you to type at 150 words per minute. You can see this in the demonstration that Drew has created as he is basically talking at a relatively normal speed. You will notice that he tends to look with his eyes to the right and up just a little bit.

I mention this not because Drew is looking in some strange direction, but instead because Dragon NaturallySpeaking does use your brain in a slightly different way than what you may be used to. You have to think of the words you will say in your head and then speak it out loud. That’s a little different than when you think of a composition and type it out with your fingers or even more different than when you attempt to write with your hands using a pen and paper. All three activities use different sections of our brains.

There used to be a time a decade ago when using Dragon NaturallySpeaking was more difficult because it would take a significant amounts of time to train the software. These days, the software can be trained in as little as seven minutes. The out-of- the-box experience with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 is flat-out amazing. That said, it will take you a little bit of time to train your brain or compose messages or articles or e-mails by speaking them out loud.

You can type 150 words a minute using Dragon NaturallySpeaking and that’s typically 2 to 3 times faster than your average person can type. 2 to 3 times faster can save you a great deal of time and a great deal of money. This can enable you to spend more time with your family or be more productive at work and get more done and possibly a promotion or raise. Possibly the biggest benefit that you can experience is just staying on top of your workload with less effort.

If you consider also that Drew is looking off to the right a little bit as he’s composing, I will share with you a hidden benefit of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. When you use Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you are not locked into a position physically, where you have to stare at your computer monitor all of the time. When you don’t have the light on your computer screen glaring in your face all the time, you experience a great deal less eye strain. The muscles in your eyes can relax more, as you look around the room and change your focal point. You would be amazed at how much extra energy this will give you as your eyes, and the muscles in your eyes don’t get worn out as fast as they would if you sit at a computer and type all day long.

We often associate sore hands and fingers and wrists with typing, but typing also creates very sore eyes and can even lead to migraine headaches. Plus, it basically just makes you tired sitting in front of your computer. Using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you can save a great deal of time and effort and keep your energy level high, because you’re not wearing out your eyes. With a wireless microphone headset like the one I’m using, you can even pace around your desk or exercise on a treadmill or bike machine while you write your emails!

Best regards,
Brett Bumeter
www.softduit.com

PS I wrote this article with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 preferred. It took me about five minutes to write the words above, which are proximally 670 in length. That’s about 130 words per minute typing, and it only took me another minute or two to edit, which is still approximately 95 words per minute with editing included! Nuance is allowing us to offer our readers a 25% Discount Coupon CODE Exclusive for Dragon Naturally Speaking, but you must click the image below and use this code (DNSMSBG) Together. Code will not work from other sources.

Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Discount Coupon Code Details. Use this coupon code to get 25% off Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred, or 25% off Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Standard–DNSMSBG
The code only works when you click on one of the links in this article or the clickable image in this article! The discount enables you to save $25 - $50 off the price.

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We all love the handiest new gadget for keeping up with email, the Peek! TIME.com put out their list of the Best Inventions of 2008, and they have the Peek listed alongside such products as the Wii Fit and the iPod Touch.

And, in the current edition of “O” magazine, Oprah has the Peek on her “O List” of Great Gifts Under $100. What makes the Peek worthy of the attention of TIME and O magazines?  The Peek does one thing, and one thing only, and that’s email. It’s not a phone, or a video camera, or a music player, it’s just email.  And for me, who gets hundreds of emails a day, having an easy-to-carry device that lets me take advantage of downtime to open, read, and save or delete emails, plus be able to send new ones, the Peek is exactly what I have been needing!

I was extremely fortunate to get an email a few weeks ago from the Peek team asking if I would like to take a look at this hot new gadget. I took a look at the status of my email inboxes and immediately replied ‘oh YES PLEASE’. I received a snazzy red one that looks like the one in this image:

It took just a minute to get it set up to access my Gmail account, and now I just keep it on all the time and every time a new message comes in, a blue envelope icon flashes in the corner of the Peek. I can open, read, save, or delete, plus send new messages.

The Peek costs $99.95, but you can get it at Target right now for just $79.95. Service is a very reasonable $19.95 a month. This would make a GREAT GIFT for someone you know who likes simple gadgets and gets a lot of email. Like me!

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My first book signing wasn’t until noon on Saturday, so I didn’t set an alarm. Dana actually got up and went to yoga! I stayed snuggled into that Heavenly Bed until about 8:30 I guess. Lori called to see what we were doing, so the three of us decided to go get some real breakfast (Friday’s breakfast for me had been a cold bagel). We found a restaurant on Geary called Lefty O’Doul’s that advertised breakfast until 11. We had to wait a few minutes, but soon I was tucking into scrambled eggs, huge slices of crispy bacon, and sourdough pancakes-YUM. Oh and Starbucks coffee, woke me up!

By the time we were done there wasn’t that much time left before my first book signing, so we headed back to the hotel. Oh, but first I popped outside to the designated smoking area (I know, I know) and chatted with Karl, but did I get a photo of me and Karl? Dammit! I did get a photo with Corinna and then who should come up to join us but Robyn Tippins! I met her last year through her work with MyBlogLog, and we made an instant connection. Now she’s a Yahoo! Community Manager. I also snapped a photo with the lovely Corinna, she put a smile on my face every time I ran into her the whole time.

My first book signing was with two ladies who are not only terrific writers, but also fabulous people! I couldn’t believe they were happy to be meeting ME! And the blogs these two have-sheesh. I’m talking about Stephanie Klein, author of “Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp” and “Straight Up and Dirty”, and Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, author of “Sippy Cups are not for Chardonnay” and “Naptime Is The New Happy Hour”. They were both so enthusiastic about signing books and had the biggest smiles, it really made my morning!

In between signings someone came rushing up to me calling my name, it was Velma! She was so sweet and we posed for a quick photo together. And then Maggie and Evany arrived, EARLY even, and I went a little fangirl on Maggie, I can’t help it! She’s got so many amazing blogs and she’s so pretty, last year I probably would have been terrified to even look at her. But this year, keeping with my personal theme of fearlessness, I said Hi Maggie! I’m Elizabeth, and she hugged me! See? Fangirl. She introduced me to Evany, who has a Flickr photoset of her wearing the most amazing outfits. Maggie’s book is “No One Cares What You Had For Lunch” and Evany’s is “The Secret Language of Sleep: A Couple’s Guide”, which is a really clever look at different sleeping positions that couples get into. It was great to meet both of them!

That was a big day for me as far as blogger meetups, I posed for photos with Sizzle, Liz from Mom-101, Cathy from Mayberry Mom (whose daughter had a burst appendix and I didn’t even know about it, I’m so sorry, Cathy!), Rhi (who is adorably scrumptious!), and Christine from From Dates to Diapers.

I had a break after the second set of book signings, and Elisa had insisted I go to a session, so I went with Lori to, um, something about Monetization without Advertising? By the time we got there the room was packed, so we had to sit way in the back. I sat down, and when my body realized it was going to get to stop moving for a minute, I was immediately overcome with exhaustion. Good thing I was in the back, because I said goodbye to Lori, went up to my room, set the alarm for an hour later, crawled into the Heavenly Bed and fell instantly asleep. Best. Nap. EVER.

I woke up feeling much better, freshened up, and headed downstairs for the last book signings, with the lovely Devra and Aviva, authors of “Mommy Guilt: Learn to Worry Less, Focus on What Matters Most, and Raise Happier Kids”, and Jennette Fulda, author of “Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir”. It seemed like their signing went by really fast! I snuck into the Closing Keynote, Elisa was interviewing Stephanie Klein and Heather Armstrong about what it’s like to live as if you are in the Truman Show with people watching and commenting on your every move. It makes me so sad that there are HATE SITES devoted to these two women, who did nothing to deserve any hatred from anyone. What is wrong with people?

You may have heard there was a moment of drama in the Keynote, I’m not going to address it here. I’ve learned my lesson about posting anything about blog drama, so please don’t ask. After that I went back to my room to change my clothes for the reception at Macy’s. It was crazy, they had sections of Macy’s closed just for us, we started out in the HANDBAG department which just about killed me, so close to all those Coach purses and not able to buy one. There was champagne (wine?) and a totebag from Ooops! with an 11% off coupon good just for that day in Macy’s-wouldn’t have helped me afford anything. From there we went up a floor to shoes, where there were little chinese food containers with cold noodles, some kind of little nacho-like thing, and shots of the new Vivanno drinks at Starbucks-banana chocolate, yum!

After that was the LINGERIE department, I’m sure all the guy bloggers really appreciated that. There were these little glasses with this white drink in it, someone handed me one and said I was supposed to drink it in one shot, so I did. It was CHIPOTLE PEPPER VODKA and White Chocolate Liqueur! Damn, it burned all the way down. Thanks a LOT, whoever that was. LOL There were also these trays of cookies, soft and spongy on the outside with fillings, one was purple and I think it was lavender flavored, the other was white and I think vanilla. Kind of weird tasting. That floor was sponsored by KY, who handed out little tubes of KY Intrigue lube, which was definitely the most adult party favor I got that whole weekend.

Our final stop was the furniture department, where there was a DJ and a table with the new book “Sleep Is For The Weak” on sale, and all the bloggers who contributed to it were there signing books. At $10 each it was very affordable. I can’t find my copy at the moment since it’s buried in a pile of stuff I still have to put away, but I know I got it signed by Rita, Alice, Eden, Liz, Kristen, Amy, Tracey, and Susan.

Whew! Now, I’m headed to Cincinnati tomorrow until late Tuesday night, so I might not be able to finish my BlogHer recap until next week. But thanks for reading!

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I can’t believe what a hard time I’m having writing about BlogHer! It’s like, I don’t want to say too little, but I don’t know how much to say, so I’m just sort of stuck! I arrived last Thursday just in time to hop on a shuttle bus to the Kirtsy/Alltop party, and while waiting for the bus, I had a chance to hug Julie and Kristen from Parent Bloggers Network, Liz from Cool Mom Picks (Kristen is CMP too), and Krisco from Crib Ceiling. I ran into Gwendomama in the lobby, she’s a PBN blogger, and my roommates were Anne and Dana who reviews at Dana Reviews. When I got to the room, I found Lori waiting for us, she has a bunch of great blogs including Cowgirl Critiques. She is so cute and she just jumped right in to all the BlogHer craziness! I was so glad she came!

On the shuttle bus, I chatted with Dana, Lori, Jennster (she just gets hotter every year), Kristie from SlackerMommy, and Corinna from A Celebration of Curves, who has cleavage like you wouldn’t believe! And then, I start chatting with the blogger sitting across from me, and she goes “Elizabeth! It’s MICHELLE LAMAR!” Michelle blogs at White Trash Mom and was one of “my” authors in the BlogHer Bookstore! I just wanted to pack her in my suitcase and bring her home, she was so sweet and fun.

Despite our shuttle bus driver having NO CLUE how to actually get to the party, we arrived at Guy Kawasaki’s house in Atherton to find all the Kirtsy ladies, plus so many other wonderful bloggers whose sites are listed on Alltop. There was a photo area where you could dress up in costumes and get your photo taken, a huge bowl of paella, fancy wine, and my favorite, plastic cups of mashed potatoes with barbecued chicken on top-yum! I was so happy to see Gabrielle from Kirtsy again, she was at the Disney event I went to in April. I met Laurie from Kirtsy at last year’s BlogHer too.

I ran into BOSSY, big smooches for her, and Stephanie from Adventures in Babywearing and Stephanie from Ladybug and her Blogging Mama, who also went to the Disney event. I talked to Kristen from Mommy Needs a Cocktail but DIDN’T get a photo with her, darn it! I hugged Casey from Moosh in Indy about half a dozen times, plus shook hands a little nervously with Eden from Fussy, Alice from Finslippy, and Melissa from Suburban Bliss. I don’t know what I was so nervous about, they are all quite lovely and friendly.

I gave a big hug to Christina from A Mommy Story, and squealed a bit when I met Wendy from Sparkplugging! After picking up buttons that read “Kirtsy, we bring bitches together” (ha!) and debating over the one that read “I heart Guy K” or the one with Guy’s face on it (I went for the face one), and grabbing a ginormous swag bag (cute red totebag from Scholastic positively STUFFED with swag) and a black tee that reads “I Write For Me”, we boarded the shuttle back to the hotel. Fortunately, that driver knew where he was going, plus rush hour was over.

We got back to the hotel just as the MomCentral “First Drink on Us” party was wrapping up, and after hugging the heck out of the adorable Abbey, I gratefully accepted a Cosmo and a totebag with three new hardback books I can’t wait to read. I also met Kara and Stacy from MomCentral, and let me tell you, they are all the nicest people you could ever want to work with. Then I bumped into Anne-Marie Nichols, who I first met at BlogHer 06 when I knew absolutely no one and asked if I could sit with her at breakfast. And here we are 2 years later!

Okay, so let’s see, where are we? That’s the second party of the night, TWO MORE parties to go! We took a cab over to Rye bar even though it was only down the street and around the corner because we hadn’t been there long enough to get the lay of the land, so to speak, so we didn’t realize just how close to the hotel it was. Rye bar was the site of the party hosted by The Experience Project, where I happily greeted Armen and Julio, who I first met last year. They are still so awesome and so enthusiastic (and rightfully so) about their website. I sipped a Cosmo, picked up a cute gift bag, snapped some photos, and then it was time for the FOURTH party of the night, the People’s Party!

Hosted by a bevy of amazing bloggers, the People’s Party was where I met Loralee from Loralee’s Looney Tunes, Leah Peah, Mr. Lady from Whiskey in my Sippy Cup, and ran into my blog pals Liz from This Full House, Shannon from PHAT Mommy, Kerry from Crunchy Carpets, Amber from Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck, and Shannon from Believer in Balance. I also met Mrs. Flinger (finally!) and found Charlene, formerly of Maya’s Mom, who now runs Shine, the parenting site for Yahoo!. AND, I found James and Zameer from BabySpot, who are like big huggable teddy bears and I am so happy to be writing their weekly newsletter! Thanks for the job, guys!

Oh, and someone, I totally cannot remember WHO, but I know she’s a relatively new blogger and it was her first BlogHerCon, bought me a drink at the party. THANK YOU, whomever you were! Turns out, four Cosmos is my limit, and after that, I needed to go to BED. Unfortunately for my roommates, I fell right asleep while they were still up, and I started TALKING IN MY SLEEP. According to Dana I said something like “no, I already did that”-ha! And then I tried to SPOON Dana, but it’s not my fault, we slept together last year too, and I’m just so darn comfortable with her! LOL Sorry sweetie!

And THAT was Thursday at BlogHer. Turns out a 41 year old out of shape mother of three CAN go to four parties in one night! Just not more than once a year. Tomorrow? I’ll recap Friday!

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