Not to be confused with ultra-modern speech-recognition programs, where the computer transcribes speech into texts – this Voice Command only allows you to perform basic tasks such as launching programs on your PDA, making contacts to phone numbers, searching addresses and such other simple tasks.   These tasks look simple only when both of your hands are free to touch the interface, select menus, click options etc. But when you are driving with both hands in use, you will find them to be very cumbersome.

You can get started with this software easily – the CD containing the software can be loaded and installed on your PC and get synchronized with the PDA. The Voice Command Utility appears in the Settings Menu; turn on the feature and choose which functions you want voice-enabled – calendar, contacts, media or Start Menu; for better speech recognition you can turn off the automatic gain control – system >Audio or Microphone; or assign it to the i-task button as a short-cut key.

For using the program, you press the Voice Command key and a small microphone icon will appear onscreen along with a sound alert, asking you to speak. Suppose you want to call up a name in the address book, if you say “show first name, last name” generally, the info will show up on the screen. But you have to be specific with the full names – no shrinking like “Johny” will do for a complete “John Anderson”. Similarly if you have Pocket PC Phone Edition you can give any of several commands recognized by it like “Call John Anderson”, or “Call 666-1515” or “Dial 422”.

Scheduled and recorded appointments can be revived by asking “what is my next meeting?” or “ what are my appointments tomorrow?” and you get the info flashed on screen with full details. Voice Command can help you in many ways by starting applications like Pocket Word, getting help-lines, playing music (you can ask for the current song’s name, go to the next track, play in shuffle mode etc. in Windows Media) without your using hands for the same.

For those who are usually on the move by vehicles and field staff, Microsoft Voice Command will be very useful for hands-free operation of their PDA.

Not to be confused with ultra-modern speech-recognition programs, where the computer transcribes speech into texts – this Voice Command only allows you to perform basic tasks such as launching programs on your PDA, making contacts to phone numbers, searching addresses and such other simple tasks.   These tasks look simple only when both of your hands are free to touch the interface, select menus, click options etc. But when you are driving with both hands in use, you will find them to be very cumbersome.

You can get started with this software easily – the CD containing the software can be loaded and installed on your PC and get synchronized with the PDA. The Voice Command Utility appears in the Settings Menu; turn on the feature and choose which functions you want voice-enabled – calendar, contacts, media or Start Menu; for better speech recognition you can turn off the automatic gain control – system >Audio or Microphone; or assign it to the i-task button as a short-cut key.

For using the program, you press the Voice Command key and a small microphone icon will appear onscreen along with a sound alert, asking you to speak. Suppose you want to call up a name in the address book, if you say “show first name, last name” generally, the info will show up on the screen. But you have to be specific with the full names – no shrinking like “Johny” will do for a complete “John Anderson”. Similarly if you have Pocket PC Phone Edition you can give any of several commands recognized by it like “Call John Anderson”, or “Call 666-1515” or “Dial 422”.

Scheduled and recorded appointments can be revived by asking “what is my next meeting?” or “ what are my appointments tomorrow?” and you get the info flashed on screen with full details. Voice Command can help you in many ways by starting applications like Pocket Word, getting help-lines, playing music (you can ask for the current song’s name, go to the next track, play in shuffle mode etc. in Windows Media) without your using hands for the same.

For those who are usually on the move by vehicles and field staff, Microsoft Voice Command will be very useful for hands-free operation of their PDA.