Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

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CHAPTER 4 SYSTEM PREFERENCES
The Installed Updates tab of the Software Update preference pane lists all of your past software
updates.
Speech
The Speech preference pane contains two tabs: Speech Recognition, which contains options for
responding to speech; and Text to Speech, which contains settings controlling how the computer
speaks back to you.
The Speech Recognition tab (Figure 4-54) contains settings that control how to set the computer
up to receive and respond to speakable items. To enable this feature, you first must set the
Speakable Items option to On. Once the Speakable Items option is switched on, a small,
roundish floating window with a microphone in it will appear. This will provide visual feedback
for your speakable items. By default, to speak a command, first hold down the Esc key and then
speak your command clearly into the microphone. If the computer accepts your command, it
will carry out the command requested and provide you with acknowledgment as set up under the
Upon Recognition setting. The Commands sub-tab provides a list of active command categories.
Any time speech recognition is active, you click the small inverted triangle at the bottom of the
small, round, hovering speech window, and select Open Speech Commands Window to view a
list of available speech commands as well as a log of previous spoken actions.
Figure 4-54. The Speech Recognition tab contains settings that allow your computer to respond to
spoken commands.
NOTE Apple speech recognition technology has been around for years, and has progressively
gotten better; however, my results have always been mixed. While I find this fun to play around
with sometimes (the Chess game included in Leopard responds to spoken commands), I don’t
find it particularly useful. Maybe I just have a terrible voice. As they say, “Your mileage may
vary.”