InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by jimspoon on 2017/02/22 20:17

Here is another "moon shot" suggestion or more likely a dream, but hey, who expected pen input into IQ?

I have long wanted an easy way to take notes with my voice recorder and get a transcription into my information manager. To my knowledge no such beast exists.

The key is to be able to take quick voice notes on the fly, without even looking at the mobile device, and this is not really possible with a phone app. Too many steps. So I use a voice recorder. And I end up with MP3 recordings.

Right now I transcribe them using Dragon Naturally Speaking. But my version of DNS doesn't do batch processing (the professional version is outrageously priced). So first I merge them into one big MP3 file, then drag and drop it into DNS. I have to orally dictate the date and time into the voice recordings, which is a pain.

What would be cool is if I could drag and drop the MP3 files into IQ, one IQ item per recording, and have IQ put the time and date stamp, and other MP3 metadata into appropriate fields, and then automatically upload the audio to Google servers for a rough transcription. And then put the text transcription into the Item field or HTML pane.

Comments

[quote=jimspoon]

Here is another "moon shot" suggestion or more likely a dream, but hey, who expected pen input into IQ?

I have long wanted an easy way to take notes with my voice recorder and get a transcription into my information manager. To my knowledge no such beast exists.

The key is to be able to take quick voice notes on the fly, without even looking at the mobile device, and this is not really possible with a phone app. Too many steps.

[/quote]

I don't know what you consider too many steps but here is how I would do it, without having to touch my Android Nexus 6P phone:

1. OK Google (this wakes the phone so it's listening)

2. Send email.

3. (Phone response "what' the message"): Buy milk

4. (Phone responds "who should I send it to) Send to IQ

That would send the transcribed message to the email account that IQ automatically downloads. Now if you want to check the transcription you obviously have to glance at the phone.

Most of my dictations of these type are very short. I don't know if there is a way to do longer dictations, because if I stop talking for an instant, it assumes I'm done and asks me who to send it to.

Hi David,

Yours is a good method ... but as you say Google cuts it off after only a short period of silence.

You could use Google Voice Typing in a text editor app - it won't stop transcribing after a brief silence like OK Google does. When Pierre implements sync with Orgzly (or other app), you could use Google Voice Typing in that app. that could be an easy way to get info into IQ by voice.

I find that the more steps that are involved in making the initial recording, the less likely it is I will make any recording at all. I've found that a dedicated voice recorder involves the fewest steps (but I still don't use it as frequently as I might.) I've been through several voice recorders and recently purchased the Sony ICD-UX533 and am very pleased with it.

I'm working on a workflow to transcribe the recordings as easily as possible.

1. plug recorder into laptop

2. copy the MP3 files (not already copied) to a Dropbox folder using the Microsoft Synctoy utility. I've made a batch file to automate this.

3. rename the files using Bulk Rename Utility - so that they will sort by date and time properly.

4. merge the files into a big MP3 file using MergeMP3.

5. convert the big MP3 into a WAV file using FreAC.

6. drop the merged MP3 into Dragon Naturally Speaking Dragon Pad - the audio is transcribed.

7. save the transcribed text to an RTF file.

Now I've got an text file of my dictated notes in chronological order - punctuated by date and time stamps that I dictated, with line breaks whereever I said the words "new line".

Now the trick is to get it into IQ in the best most usable form.

Interesting!

Have you looked into a solution using IFTTT or Zapier? I have a feeling the process could be totally automated using one of those two services. Make a recording on your phone that would save the recording (or transcription) automatically to a folder on dropbox. That folder would be monitored by IFTTT or Zapier and they would automatically email any new item detected in the folder to the email account that IQ checks. So basically you make the recording and it's all automatic from there with everything time stamped and in IQ, no need to connect anything to your computer or do anything beyond record the memo.

Just an idea.