Hartgen Consultancy is now closed for the Christmas holiday. Thank you for purchasing products and services during the year which is very much appreciated. Technical Support queries will be handled during the holiday period but at a slower pace than usual. There are plans for next year, including a new web site which will need to be built. But for now, a very merry Christmas and we look forward to working with you in 2025! Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

This announcement has not been posted to this list as yet. There are some discounts on various products that we have, including J-Say upgrades if anyone would like to take advantage of them. The details are on this page. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

For several days now, every time I boot up my computer Dragon has me build a new user profile. The process isn’t difficult, just annoying that I have to do it every time I reboot my computer. One thing I’ve noticed is that once Dragon is up, running and taking dictation, when I check the profile menu, there are no profiles at all. The only options are new, manage or open. Both the manage in the open option indicate there are no profiles listed, and the only thing I can actually do is hit the button to create a new one. I don’t know what’s happening with the active profile that I am currently using, but it never appears in the list box. What am I missing in establishing a new profile and getting it to stick? I’m pretty sure my software set up is as follows: Dragon 19. J-Sa 22 Jaws 2024 thanks for any help, or help resources you can point me towards. Keith Heltsley

J-Say 23 has been updated. Corrected a problem where with latest builds of Windows11, it was not possible to create shortcuts to files and folders. If you do not create such shortcuts, there is no need to update. The link is exactly the same as it was before. If you have purchased J-Say 23, you should have that. You can just install over the top of the existing version. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

A problem has been identified today in relation to creating J-Say shortcuts pointing to files and folders. These allow for frequently used files and folders to be launched directly by voice. They are no longer functioning in recent builds of Windows11. Existing shortcuts will function but creating new ones is not possible. This will be fixed by 21 November for users of J-Say version 23. This will mean that those people using J-Say 22 will not be able to create new shortcuts. An update to J-Say 23 will be made available by 21 November. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

Reminder: Hartgen Consultancy closing dates are as follows: Monday 11 November through to Monday 18 November. That is next week. Friday 20 December 2024 through to Monday 6 January 2025. During these dates, urgent technical support queries, together with sales orders, will be processed by Email only. This is exactly the same procedure as previous years. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

Today, JAWS version 2025 has been released. All our products are compatible with JAWS 2025, even J-Say, the update for which has just been released. So targets have been met and in some cases exceeded. Within the next few days, we will be contacting people who have a J-Say SMA and providing them with their upgrades. However, the vast majority of people who have J-Say have acquired it through a Distributor. So in most cases, it is the Distributor who would let you know that the upgrade is available. If you think you do have a current SMA, your best course of action is to send to us your JAWS serial number so it can be checked. We may then be able to provide it to you faster. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

Some people have been asking about using J-Say with AI tools, so let's bring you up-to-date with that. With J-Say version 23, to be released in November, you will be able to: Use the new FSCompanion. It won't help you in terms of learning how to do tasks by voice. There will have to come a time when we have an AI tool for J-Say purposes. But it will teach you concepts and keyboard commands. You can start it by voice and navigate it. You can access it by voice even if JAWS 2025 is not installed. Access Chat GPT directly with a voice command and easily navigate it. Access CoPilot directly with a voice command and easily navigate it. Access CoPilot in Office applications. Because of the way Dragon handles working within the context of CoPilot and Office, this has been far more difficult to handle. JAWS was talking far too much. However, that problem is solved. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

Hi to all We are at the time of year when a new JAWS version is almost upon us. I would say it is about two weeks away at this point. For anyone thinking of upgrading to the new JAWS 2025, I would please like you to read what I have to say very carefully. This will help you plan your access to it via J-Say moving forward. We are on target to release a version of J-Say for JAWS 2025 at the start of November. Please do not try to use your existing J-Say 22 with JAWS 2025, tempting though it may be. It will not work. Due to various productivity concerns I have had about JAWS 2025, I have not been able to give it the extreme care and attention I would have done in the past. Of course it has been tested particularly with J-Say, but it hasn't been as rigorously tested as in previous years. We are I think over that point now and I will continue to work on it up until release time. If you are eligible to receive a J-Say upgrade, you will receive it at the start of November, just after the official release of JAWS 2025. But, particularly if you are completely reliant upon using J-Say, I would not be inclined at this point to rush straight into upgrading. I really wouldn't. Of course everything will be ready for you if you do want it, but, be cautious. Particularly for people who need help installing the products, I think we should just take this one a little slower this time. I am on holiday from 11 to 18 November, and in many cases, I am the one who would need to do that install if it was required, so that is something to bare in mind. But in all honesty, my advice is to let things settle awhile before proceeding. Further, while there are undoubtedly some bug fixes in this new JAWS release, I cannot say there is anything compelling to upgrade for. Picture Smart was one of the most innovative JAWS features in years. But you already have access to that. In summary, you will want to upgrade JAWS and J-Say at some point in the near future. But if you are reliant upon this software because you have no other means of working with the computer, I would say perhaps now is not the time to do it. I apologise for the length of this message but I think you need to be very aware of how things are working out. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

Hi everyone. I ask this question every time and the answer is no, but I’m asking again because I can’t remember if there’s been a change since the last time I did an install which was quite some time ago, and I keep thinking that there might have been a change. Do I still have to install J-Say into a separate JAWS version if I’m running Leasey? I’ve been looking for an updated answer all afternoon but the closest I’ve come is in the J-Say installation guide where it states: Under most circumstances, it is not necessary to remove any JAWS script files you may have previously installed. However, before installing J-Say, we advise that you check with us to determine whether or not there are likely to be any conflicts with existing scripts. I hate asking again, but hope someone can give me the latest info before I install. Thanks in advance! Caroline

I was looking through the command summaries and didn’t see a command to invoke the insert+F10 list of running programs. Is there a command for this feature? Encouraging and thought-provoking reading https://bahaiteachings.org

This is a free update for existing users of J-Say 22. See below for updating instructions. If you cannot update the product yourself, remote assistance is available. Changes: The primary purpose of the update is to facilitate access to Microsoft Teams version 2. Dragon itself is not equipped to handle Teams version 2, however a full set of J-Say voice and keyboard commands not only allow you to be more efficient with using Teams, but in addition they reduce unnecessary speech output in the application in the same way as offered by our JAWS scripts for Teams. Additional Changes: 1. If people have received J-Say training in the past, hopefully they will know of the existence of the Dictation Box. This is used to dictate into applications not officially supported by Dragon. J-Say now has its own equivalent of the Dictation Box which provides more condensed speech output for its prompt and works more efficiently in Microsoft Teams. Say, Dictation Box, to deploy this. 2. The command, Start Backup, should be correctly backing up a Dragon 16 Voice Profile. 3. When Google search results are deployed, activating one of the items should now deploy the correct page. 4. The commands, Keyboard Help On and Keyboard Help Off, have been added by customer request. 5. It is now easily possible to scan through items within the JAWS Speech History without focus moving away from the existing application. Individual Speech History segments can be copied or viewed. A full set of voice and keyboard commands exist for managing Speech History items. Refer to Chapter 46 of the Learning Module. Updating. Please use this link in order to download the J-Say software update. Please under no circumstances use this link unless J-Say is already installed. To repeat, if you think it would be difficult for you to update the software, please send a message to brian@... so as to arrange an appointment to have the update installed for you. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

Does anyone know of any Dragon commands or even jaws navigation tips for navigating the chrome settings screens? In a similar vein, does anyone know any Dragon commands for working with the Gmail web interface? Dean Encouraging and thought-provoking reading https://bahaiteachings.org

Hi to all A few issues have arisen lately in respect of using JAWS with the J-Say software. If a user is experiencing a problem with JAWS, he or she is contacting Vispero Technical Support. They do not know about how J-Say works. The assumption on their part is that J-Say is the problem. They therefore remove all the JAWS settings. They do not attempt to fix the problem first without removing the JAWS settings. The settings are not backed up for later reference or to reinstate them. This not only leaves a user without a computer which can be used, but it means potentially any special scripting which has been done above and beyond that which J-Say provides is potentially lost. It causes immense frustration. The whole point of users having the J-Say software is that they cannot use the keyboard, so if JAWS is returned to its factory settings then they may as well not have it at all. If you are a J-Say user, and you experience problems with JAWS, please contact Hartgen Consultancy first. If the problem cannot be resolved right away the very least that can happen is that a backup of settings will be made so that if JAWS needs to be installed again, there is something to refer back to. The best that can happen is that all of the settings will be worked through systematically to find the cause of whatever the problem is. This does not only occur with J-Say. If any additional scripts are installed, the quick fix apparently is to remove them without investigating the cause. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

A new update to J-Say voice input/output software will be available on 22 July. This will be a free update to existing users of J-Say 22. Changes include the following: The primary purpose of the update is to facilitate access to Microsoft Teams version 2. People are waiting on this. Dragon itself is not equipped to handle Teams version 2, however a full set of voice and keyboard commands not only allow you to be more efficient with using Teams, but in addition they reduce unnecessary speech output in the application in the same way as offered by our JAWS scripts for Teams. In addition, dictating directly into Teams is slow, unresponsive and unreliable. Users are encouraged to use the Dragon Dictation Box in order to do this, however this too does not always produce good results. J-Say now has its own equivalent to the Dictation Box which can be used within any application, not just Teams. Google Search results in J-Say are now working consistently again. The commands, Keyboard Help On and Keyboard Help Off, have been added by customer request. It is now easily possible to scan through items within the JAWS Speech History without focus moving away from the existing application. Individual Speech History segments can be copied or viewed. A full set of voice and keyboard commands exist for managing Speech History items. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

This post is unlikely to affect many people but we do have some customers attempting to be trained with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 16 and Microsoft Teams version 2. At the moment, this combination of software is completely unusable, for two reasons: 1. None of the special voice commands work at all, and that does mean, at all. This is because the commands created by Nuance are not associated with Teams version 2 but with Teams Classic. It is not possible to change the application association because the commands are hidden. 2. More importantly, the method Nuance recommends for dictating text into messages often fails to transfer the message to Teams. Moreover Dragon is so unresponsive in this area it makes working with it impossible. The next J-Say update hopes to overcome the issue with lack of voice commands and particularly the composing of messages. A special interface will have to be built to deal with this latter issue. This post is just to confirm that resolving it at least for J-Say customers is very much on the agenda. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.

I’ve run into a problem I can’t seem to solve. In the middle of a session, the student’s mic stopped responding at all. When I check the system tray, the icon says “no user profile open,” or words to that effect. There’s only one Dragon profile on the system, and it is of course set to load when Dragon does. I opened the profile, then when that didn’t work, restarted the computer. We still had no open user profile. What, short of calling Nuance support, should I do next? Encouraging and thought-provoking reading https://bahaiteachings.org

Hi, Everyone. How do I get Dragon to understand that I want to insert the literal word for a punctuation mark e.g., period instead of "." Instead of "Write period after the symbol." I get "Write . after the symbol." I have to go into Spell Mode and phonetically spell out the word. The document I'm creating has a lot of occurrences of "period", "comma", etc, and I'm not looking forward to having to do phonetic spelling for all of them. Thanks, Dani

This post comes from my personal blog rather than our company blog. The March update of JAWS contains considerable new enhancements to the Picture Smart functions. In my view this is one of the very best feature enhancements within JAWS for some time. The system uses both Gemini and Chat GPT services so as to provide descriptions of images from web sites, files or perhaps a screen-shot of an application. You don't need a special account to use it. You can just enjoy it. I have been using this for a few weeks now. Here are some practical use cases I frequently work through. 1. I am a very heavy user of X/Twitter as it contains a great deal of content in which I am interested and keeps me up-to-date with events. Many posts on X contain images. I am easily able to focus on the image and get an excellent description in return. It also works very well on social media sites where, for example, a user has scanned in a page from a TV listings magazine of long ago as the text is rendered correctly. Here is a description of an image from X: The image is a collage of four photos of the Swedish pop group ABBA. The first photo shows the group in a recording studio, with Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, and Agnetha Fältskog all standing around a microphone. The second photo shows the group in a more candid moment, with Björn and Agnetha sitting on a couch and Benny and Anni-Frid standing behind them. The third photo shows the group at a press conference, with all four members sitting at a table and answering questions from reporters. The fourth photo shows the group at an awards ceremony, with all four members holding awards. The Chat GPT output gives more descriptions of the outfits they are waring. 2. In order to prepare videos for upload to my wife's YouTube channel, I use a program called Handbreak. When the video is loaded into Handbreak, I can do a quick scan of the window. If it gives me a good description of the video then I know the visual appeal is of a high standard. I can also carry out the same action when the video is uploaded to YouTube and this gives me confidence since I know it has been uploaded correctly and is looking good. Descriptions are like this: The image shows an indoor setting with two individuals. On the left, there is a woman who appears to be smiling and has short, light-colored hair. She is wearing a bright red top and is seated on a dark-colored couch. The woman has her head slightly tilted and is laughing or speaking. She is holding a baby with both hands. The baby, on the right side of the image, is lying on a cushion or support that is partially visible. The baby appears relaxed and is dressed in a white onesie with various animal prints on it. The onesie has full sleeves, and the baby's left hand is resting on the onesie, showing only the fingers. The baby has a pale complexion and eyes partially closed, possibly sleeping or resting comfortably. 3. We have a large library of pictures taken over the years and scanning these and obtaining descriptions brings back memories. In the image, you see a person dressed elegantly in a red outfit with a tiara on their head, indicating a festive or formal occasion. This individual is wearing jewelry like earrings, a necklace, and a bracelet, all showing a glittering appearance. They seem to be biting into a piece of red and white dessert, possibly red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting or a similarly styled cupcake, given the size and how it's held. In the background, you can see a table laid out with drinks, such as wine and champagne, and it seems there is a gathering or celebration taking place. There's another person visible in the background, sitting at the table, looking towards the camera with a glass in front of them. The room has a warm and joyous atmosphere, with a vibrant red wall that adds to the festive ambiance. The setting appears to be a home dining area, indicated by the presence of bookshelves and domestic furnishings. Useful tips: By default, JAWS will just give you a brief description of the image. You need to activate

As we wind down to the end of another year, (we close for business this Friday), I just wanted to wish you all the very best for Christmas and the new year. I can tell you now that I do have a release of J-Say planned for early 2024, certainly within the first quarter. To repeat, we are closed from this Friday through to 3 January. I would like to thank our beta testers for their work in testing the product. While I do not usually single out individuals, I would especially like to thank Leah Campbell, who is a list member, for her hard work in testing various aspects of J-Say this year. I do not wish to embarrase her, but Leah is by far one of the most accomplished J-Say users I have had the pleasure of meeting. She is extremely knowledgeable concerning aspects of J-Say and JAWS, and she has been instrumental this year in ensuring that J-Say is usable on Windows11. There was a particular problem we faced which meant every single J-Say command needed some adaptation to accommodate Windows11, and Leah was very helpful in providing extensive feedback on that and other features besides. Again, seasons greetings to everyone. Brian Hartgen Hartgen Consultancy. Our usual opening Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM UK time, Monday to Friday. Telephone (in the UK) 02921-051325. Telephone (in the United States of America) 239-256-7779.