Mac OS 10.8 - Mountain Lion

Okay, so this is more of a test blog than anything.

A couple of weeks ago my mom asked me to update her iPad so that she could update some of her apps. So I plugged her iPad into the ol' Mac and found out that my iTunes needed to be updated in order to update the iPad in order to update her apps. I had trouble updating the iTunes far enough and it turned out I had to update my entire operating system (from Leopard to Snow Leopard, at least) in order to update iTunes in order to update the iPad in order to update the apps. Luckily, I have this awesome friend who was able to lend me her Snow Leopard disc which then allowed me to do all of the updating I had to do.

Unfortunately, the upgrade left one of my more prized applications (MacSpeech Dictate) in the dust. After doing some "search engining" I was able to find a very simple fix -- or some may call it a "hack." I followed these simple instructions and was able to open the program but for some reason my microphone was no longer being recognized by the program. So I did a quick audio recording in QuickTime that was successful so I knew my computer was recognizing the microphone and that the program must have been the problem. I use MacSpeech Dictate quite often so it appeared I was going to have to spring for the $150 newest version of the program.

After some quick research I found out that the newest version of the program needed an even newer operating system than the one I just upgraded to! Monetarily, not a big deal. Just $20. The big deal was another program I was afraid of losing, Final Cut Express. I did more researching and found out that I should be okay to upgrade my operating system even further -- to Mountain Lion. If Final Cut Express didn't work with Mountain Lion, and if I still wanted a good video editing program, I would have to shell out $300 or Final Cut Pro X! Anyway, it seemed like I would be safe for another upgrade and so I upgraded...

It seems like Final Cut Express is working fine. Then on a whim I thought, "What if I try that same fix for MacSpeech Dictate again, this time making the upper limit 10.9?" I gave it a try. It opened up with one difference; this time the microphone was working!! So here I am "typing" a blog with my old MacSpeech Dictate program on my fully updated Mac operating system. I do have one minor complaint, so far, and that is my mouse isn't fully functional. I have a trackball style mouse with four buttons. One of them was my "click and hold" button. Basically, just click the button once and it acted as if it were clicking and holding; quite useful for quadriplegic. Anyway, that button isn't working. I suppose I can live with that for a little while but I smell a mouse update in my near future.


Just Joe