Posted by Darrell Hyatt on February 1, 2010
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Hello and welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast. A few days ago I was talking with Glenda the left thumb blogger about how things had to changed in the world of computing and in particular how there were so many more tools available for individuals and small business to do things that weren’t possible in a short time ago.
So I thought I would look at some of my favorite application and pass along some of them to you and see if maybe they would be helpful for you. I would also be very interested in your comments about some of the software tools and so on that you find very useful for you or your company’s.
The first program that I find indispensable at this point now is Skype which is a communication program that you can use for communicating with individuals all around the world as long as they have Skype. And Skype is a very nice free application you can download it at www.skype.com I often use this to communicate with my clienta help them with their tech support questions.
Now another application that works very well in conjunction with Skype is called Mikogo and that can be found www.mikogo.com Mikogo is an application that will allow me to see the other person’s computer screen. This is very helpful when doing tech support or application training because being of those see their screen I can advise them what to do next in real time and I’m certain of what’s going on it’s not a case of them having to try and describe what they’re looking at I can actually see it at the same time that they are seeing it.
Another program that I use a great deal is called Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I’ve done several podcasts on the software earlier, because it allows me to speak into the computer and it types for me I’m able to be much more productive because I only type at five or 10 words a minute and yet I can dictate at probably 30 to 40 words a minute and once you train this particular software on the sound of your voice it works extremely well I get approximately 85 to 90% recognition of the text that I dictate.
It also has other features such as playback so that I can listen to the text that I’ve typed which works well for editing and spelling mistakes and just allowing me to make sure that I get the message across that I really want to.
Dragon Naturally Speaking also allows me to transcribe other audio files that I’ve done into a text format you can find out more about Dragon Naturally Speaking at www.nuance.com So those are a few of my favorite applications that I love to use that I use very frequently and I hope you find those particular programs useful to you.
if you have any questions comments or concerns please feel free to e-mail me at darrellh@enablingabilities.com you can also visit my website which is www.enablingabilities.com. Thank you very much
Posted by Darrell Hyatt on January 11, 2010
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Welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast. Another year has come to an end
ended and a new one has started. I would like to say happy new year to everyone, I hope that your holiday season was everything you expected and more.
I look forward to 2010 for many reasons, first of all I’m very anxious to get started on some of my projects for the new year. The most important one is connecting with more individuals and helping more people reach their goals
I have many things that I’m going to try and implement this year, the first of which is doing more podcasts on more topics of interest to you the end user. I also want to start producing many short videos on a wide variety of computer topics to be put up on YouTube to enable me to reach more users and thereby help more individuals with their computer needs and questions.
Early this year I would also like to implement my own office hours. This would be a chance for individuals to connect directly with me in real time through one of my meeting rooms. The idea being if you have a question or concern relating to a computer topic, a adaptive technology question or anything else will have the opportunity to ask that question and receive answers and comments directly from me at that particular moment in time
Having said all this there’s one thing that this is going to require besides time on my part, it’s help from you the people who are listening to my podcast I would very much appreciate hearing from you with your questions, concerns, comments or topics that you would like to see covered even a podcast, a video, or in my office hours.
I would also like to let you know that you can now subscribe to my podcast by e-mail visit www.enablingabilities.com to sign up. Thank you very much.
Posted by Darrell Hyatt on December 5, 2009
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Welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast.. 2009 is almost over and the holiday season will be here shortly. This year has gone by very quickly for me, I had so many plans and so many ideas of things I wanted to do, some of which I was able to do others I was not.
My business is currently undergoing some changes in a variety of ways including how I want to better service my clients both all and new. I am changing my website adding new features and new ways for people to communicate and interact with me. I will be doing a series of webinars in the New Year on how to create transcripts for your podcasts.
I look forward to 2010 I want to make it my best year yet, I look forward to working with new people, take on new challenges and projects and overall help more people to reach their goals in full potential.
I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season whatever that may be for you, I also wish you the best in 2010. Please feel free to e-mail me at darrellh@enablingabilities.com. or visit my website www.enablingabilities.com. thank you very much.
Posted by Darrell Hyatt on November 16, 2009
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Here is my latest post, it sounds different because I used a new recording method. Enjoy!
Welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast Windows 7 has now been out for several weeks and I thought it would be a good time to discuss that important question whether or not to upgrade to the latest version of Windows?
The first things to consider when thinking of upgrading is does my existing computer handle my computing needs, both now and in the immediate future. If the answer to that question is yes then there may not be a need for you to upgrade, if however your existing machine does not meet your current needs and your future need or if your computer is not working at all than now may be a very good time to not only purchase a new computer but upgrade to Windows 7 is well.
When looking at whether to upgrade or not one of the first things to think about is what are the minimum requirements to run Windows 7 efficiently and effectively with the other software that you use.
When I looked at the minimum system requirements from the Microsoft website it included a minimum of a 1 GHz processor or faster 32-bit or 64-bit CPU, they recommended for the 32-bit version of Windows 7 you needed a minimum of 16 GB of hard drive space for the 32 bit version. The 64-bit version required at 20 GB of hard drive space.
Another concern is the amount of RAM that you have on your computer for the 32-bit version of Windows Microsoft recommends 1 GB of RAM, for the 64-bit version they suggest 2 GB of RAM. This number does not include having extra RAM to run other programs that you would normally run within the Windows operating system.
I would strongly suggest having a minimum of 4 GB of RAM no matter which version of Windows 7 you are going to be running, I also suggest a much faster processor than the 1 GHz which is suggested on the Microsoft website.
If you’re anything like me you tend to run multiple applications at once, for example most days I have my E-mail running I have Skype for communications and I usually have a least one web browser open at any given time. I have 3 1/2 GB of RAM on my Windows XP system and everything runs quite smoothly if you’re going to be upgrading you definitely want the system to run smoothly and the more RAM you have along with the speed of your processor will make this an effective computer for you. My best suggestion if you’re going to do an upgrade of both your hardware and your operating system purchase the best system that you can afford that will meet your current and future needs.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns please e-mail me at darrellh@enablingabilities.com you can also visit my website which is www.enablingabilities.com. Thank you very much.
Posted by Darrell Hyatt on October 28, 2009
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Welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast, last week I returned from Las Vegas and the BlogWorld and Social Media Expo. This was the third year that my wife and I have attended the conference and as usual it was very good.
I learned a great deal about what other people were doing with their podcasts as well as learned several new techniques involving video which is one of the other areas that I enjoy working in. I had the opportunity to meet several new people as well as connect with friends whom we had seen at previous BlogWorld Expo’s overall it was a wonderful experience and I look forward to next year’s blog world already.
We also had the opportunity to take a vacation while we were in Las Vegas he weather was very warm and very nice which I always enjoy.
This year I was in for some very interesting surprises, as many of you may know I am a NASCAR fan and have been watching it for years. One of the things that I happened to mention to my wife some time ago was I would love to ride in the NASCAR and experience the thrill and speed of being in a NASCAR.
Well to my great surprise she and several of our friends Damien and Jennifer were able to arrange just that, the only thing is I knew nothing of it. So on Tuesday we left early in the morning and I had no idea where we were going, we arrived at the Las Vegas Speedway and at that point I still have no idea what was going to happen.
A short while later several people loaded me in to a NASCAR and I was able to go around the track for several laps at 165 miles an hour, which was a great thrill for me something I never thought that I would experience and something I will never forget. So I would like to thank all the people involved in making that experience come true.
If you have listened to my previous podcast done just prior to me going to Las Vegas you will remember that I mentioned I had a surprise that I was going to launch when I returned, I am doing a webinar on how to create transcripts and show notes for your podcasts so for those of you who are podcasters and would like to learn how to do transcripts and show notes using a piece of software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking and some basic editing techniques involved in creating your transcription show notes please look for information which will be posted on my website very shortly, the website is www.enablingabilities.com
If you have any questions comments or concerns please feel free to e-mail me at darrellh@enablingabilities.com Thank you very much
Posted by Darrell Hyatt on October 12, 2009
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Welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast. I am so excited, on Monday my wife and I leave for Las Vegas we are going to the BlogWorld conference for bloggers and others who use social media.
This will be our third year attending this particular conference and I look forward to it every year. It gives me a chance to meet other people who are creating podcasts and doing similar work to myself, it gives me an opportunity to meet new people and learn new skills.
This year I have something very special that I’m going to announce at BlogWorld to the people there I hope to help pod casters be better at what they do. I will be enjoying the somewhat warmer weather of Las Vegas than what we have here.
If you’d like to know more about what my special announcement is please come and see me if you’re at BlogWorld and for the rest of you who may be listening I will be announcing it when I return from BlogWorld, along with a full report of the interesting information that I find while I’m at BlogWorld.
Please watch my website which is www.enablingabilities.com for further details and enjoy the next few weeks I know I certainly will. Thank you very much
Posted by Darrell Hyatt on September 20, 2009
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Welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to do a podcast because I have been in the hospital for several weeks recovering from pneumonia.
During this period of time we’ve had a variety of individuals in and out of the house and last week one of the people that had been in our home to assist me was a gentleman who had said that his daughter had just gone to university and he was feeling a bit stressed about that and trying to figure ways to stay in touch with his daughter.
He talked about the fact that he had a inexpensive phone plan that would allow him to phone his daughter for an hour for $.99, but he had to pay a five dollars monthly fee for the phone line. I asked if his daughter had a computer and if he had one? he said yes to both questions and I said well I have a cheaper method the may work better for you that being the computer application Skype when I described what Skype would allow him to do he was very intrigued.
The next time I saw him he had installed Skype on his computer and sent an e-mail to his daughter suggesting that she download Skype, and then there they could find a convenient time to connect and hopefully this method will not only be less expensive but will allow both of them to stay in contact and keep the communication channels open.
Based on this I thought why don’t I talk about not only that but some of the other tools that are available for communication so that parents can stay in touch with children and generally family members can communicate with grandparents and other people important to them, not only is there Skype as I mentioned but if you’re more of a text based person you can use things like twitter which is www. twitter.com.
There’s also Facebook which allows pictures and text and all sorts of interesting things all these applications that I mentioned are free and they require you to create an account with a username and password and then you can share that information with other people that you want to communicate with and stay in touch.
So I’m sure this is only beginning of what is possible in terms of programs and so on, but these are the main ones that I use and that other people use to stay in touch. It’s also called social media if you are looking to do some research on these programs you can google social media and no doubt all of these and many more will show up in the search. I hope this has given you some ideas that you can use to communicate with the people that are important to you.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to e-mail me at darrellh@enablingabilities.com. Thank you very much.
Posted by Darrell Hyatt on July 15, 2009
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Hello and welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast. Summer has finally arrived I have several projects which I’d like to complete or at least get a very good start on over the summer, the first of which is spend some quality time with my wife doing the things that we very much like to do. Like going out in the sunshine and exploring the various parts of our beautiful city.
I would also like to achieve several business goals which have been on my mind for a while now, the first of which I find myself thinking about is the fact that I’m not very comfortable writing things and I have recently purchased the book called “Can Do Writing“.
Which describes a 10 step process for writing various business documents and so and details the process which should make writing more comfortable, at least that is my hope.
Another goal for me is to become more active in the area of social media and becoming more comfortable with marketing my business as a whole. The more I look at the things that I want to do with my business and the places that I want to take my business the more I see that marketing is, and will continue to be a major factor.
It doesn’t matter how many podcasts I do, how wonderful my website looks , how many products or services I have available if people don’t know that I exist and that I have these products and services to help individuals with their computer training and so on.
It doesn’t do me any good at all and I don’t achieve the biggest goal that I want for my business, which is to be able to help individuals with their computer training needs as well as help individuals with disabilities to achieve their full potential.
Over the summer I am going to endeavor to do a better job at using social media and marketing as a whole to make myself more known and to more importantly build relationships with as many people as I can , to allow me to help as many individuals as possible. I would be interested in hearing others’ thoughts on the topic of social media and marketing. Any tips that you may have as well as any key concerns that you’ve got for your business, things that you are working on to do more than you are currently.
If you have any comments questions or concerns please email me at darrellh@enablingabilities.com feel free to visit my website which is www.enablingabilities.com. Thank you very much.
Posted by Darrell Hyatt on July 5, 2009
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Welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast, a few days ago while riding on the sky train I saw a poster for a job fair which was coming up in our local area this cause me to think a great deal about how things had changed in the last five years for me.
Five years ago I was employed in a regular employment situation where someone else controlled the hours that I worked, the days that I worked, and in some ways what I did and how I did it.
The more I thought about the way things are now being self-employed I enjoy much more freedom, much more control. I choose the type of work that I do, who I work with, as well as the hours and the days that I work.
I’m able to take time off when I want to and when I need to. I’m able to spend much more time with friends and family doing the things that I enjoy and I get to work the hours that I want, best of all I don’t have to leave home to do what I do.
Whether is no longer a factor for me and neither is the amount of time that I commute back and forth to work because I can be anywhere in my home within 30 seconds. I also find it very interesting that due to modern technology I can work with anyone anywhere in the world and never leave home.
Being self-employed has given me a great deal of options that I didn’t have before, I’m realizing how fortunate I am to have this opportunity and I am no longer so worried about my future because my future is now in my control.
I can make my future anything that I choose and to me this means a great deal, I’m sure as I grew more and more and develop my business into what I envision in my mind at this point I will become even more comfortable with self employment.
I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions on this topic, please e-mail me at darrellh@enablingabilities.comfeel free to visit my website www.enablingabilities.com Thank you very much.
Posted by Darrell Hyatt on June 15, 2009
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Hello and welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast over the next month or so I’m going to be talking about something that is important to all of us as computer users at one time or another, answering that question of when is it time to upgrade my computer or my software.
This is a question that we all face at some time or another and recently it’s come to my attention because several of my clients have either had issues with their computer hardware or are finding their existing computer hardware is not fast enough or adequate enough for their needs and is becoming more of a problem than a solution.
Once you decide that it may be time to upgrade your hardware there are several key questions that come into play, and I’m going to start with some of the basic ones here. As the series goes on and I will look at other questions and put the whole picture together for you to assist you in not only deciding if now is the right time to upgrade but also what should I be looking at to make sure that the next system I get will meet my current needs as well is my future needs.
When deciding what to do about your computer hardware needs some of the important issues to look at are items such as what type of computer processing do I need for example is a dual core processor enough, or do I need to move to the new quad core meanings four processor chips system rather than my existing system. If you computer is up to three years old you most likely have a dual core processor meaning two processing cores in one.
One of the other issues to look at is how much RAM do I need in my new computer. Ram memory is the working storage for your computer this is where all your running programs are stored while you’re using them. The more memory you have the better, it means you can have multiple programs running at one time with a minimum amount of conflicts here again having a dual core processor or quad processor will also help with the amount of programs a user can have running at one time without noticing any slowdown in performance
A major key question to answer here as well is what size hard drive do I need for storing of my programs as well is my data and information which I create. If you are running a business, or if you do a lot of photography or video work you may want a larger hard drive. Today when you purchase new computers they generally come with hard drives ranging anywhere from 320 GB on up to 750 GB perhaps even 1TB. My recommendation is the larger the hard drive the better.
If you have any comments, concerns or questions please in e-mail me at darrellh@enablingabilities.com. Please feel free to visit my website which is www.enablingabilities.com. Thank you very much