Sprenzy Shopping Blog

Did you know that Emancipation Day is Monday, April 16th and also a holiday in Washington D.C.? Therefore, this year’s tax deadline is Tuesday, April 17th. Just because we have an extra two days to file our taxes doesn’t mean we should procrastinate even more. To help you get the tax ball rolling, Toptenreviews.com reviewed 10 online tax software programs. The top rated products are…

1. TurboTax Deluxe - “The service is easy to use and can quickly advise you on your future investments and tax strategies. For those that are eyeing the next tax year, TurboTax can put you on the path to optimizing your 2007 return and retirement options. TurboTax improves every year and once again is the best do-it-yourself tax preparation product on the market.”

2. TaxCut Premium - “Overall, TaxCut is an excellent tax product at a low price; TaxCut Premium + State is just $39.95.  The user interface is very simple and easy to understand and the help menu is very useful in finding the answers to all tax questions.”

3. TaxACT - “The TaxACT 2006 Ultimate Bundle is an exceptional tax service deal. Although we did not review their other products, they also offer other reasonably priced online services; TaxACT is definitely worth looking into.”

Toptenreviews.com has an excellent comparison chart of the ten reviewed tax programs. It’s definitely worth checking out if you need help determining which tax software to use.

TurboTax has always been my choice and is very easy and intuitive to use. Since I only have experience using TurboTax, I have no basis for comparison with the other tax software. Regardless of which tax software you choose, file your taxes early and enjoy Emancipation Day if you’re fortunate enough to have the day off.

I’m writing this article using speech recognition software, Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.  I have always been fascinated with voice recognition software, and finally took the plunge after reading reviews of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 (Preferred Edition).  The software is easy to install, and it took only 30 minutes to train and adapt to my writing style.  NaturallySpeaking 9 Preferred Edition appears to work with all of my software programs such as Outlook, Word, Excel and even Windows Live Writer, which I’m using now to create this post.

The voice recognition seems to be very accurate, but I have to make sure that I enunciate all of my words.  You don’t have to talk slowly like a robot and can speak naturally, which is critical (first voice recognition mistake) very cool.  I’ve been playing around with the software for less than an hour and I’m pretty pleased with it so far.  Right now it’s a low (second mistake) little slower than actually typing, because I have to filter my thoughts and speak only what I want to write.

It’s going to take me some time to learn all the commands vertically (third mistake) particularly the editing commands.  But I plan on dictating future blog entries using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.  I’ll post a longer and more detailed review after a coastal (fourth mistake) I get more familiar and comfortable with the software.

As far as the microphone, I’m not using the one supplied by Nuance.  I purchased the Plantronics DSP-400 after checking Nuance’s hardware compatibility list. The DSP 400 is a foldable USB headset that is very comfortable to wear. The only thing I don’t like about the headset is the big digital signal processing unit attached to the USB cord.

Note: I used Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 to dictate and edit this blog entry, but inserted the picture and hyperlinks manually.