Folks I am absolutely stunned and thrilled to be able to tell you this story!

I set myself a goal last year, I was going to read 52 wealth, personal development, business etc.. books in 52 weeks between the 1st of Febuary 2008 through to the 1st of February 2009.

Now this isn't what you would expect because I didn't actually complete this goal. I managed to read 23 which i'm still thrilled about as I always say "Shoot for the stars and make it to the moon" and well I did make it to the moon, those 23 books (not including Audio books/seminars i've listened to, so could be closer to 33) have made me a different man today than I was 1 year ago.

I've just discovered today the novelty using Speech Recognition

The last time i used it was back with Dragon Naturally Speaking 5 software so many many years ago and it was awful.

Just got the new toys today so I can start recording some audio blog posts and audio seminars/conferences and while sifting through Windows Vista's settings i discovered the speech recongition stuff, Its pretty good... not perfect though - maybe Windows 7 will be better.

Anyways now i'm all kitted out i'll get started with documenting the progress I make when I start Pimsleur's French volume I

Have a quick listen to my first Audio Blog Post here

Bonjour mesdames et messieurs!

Language has always been an interest of mine, and so I decided it would be an exciting endeavour to try to learn French. I've found a great way to start learning it in the car on my way to the office through the Pimsleur audio program. Today i've just completed my 10th unit (each unit is approx 30mins) and i've found that I can hold a basic conversation (albeit a lot of it seems to be about trying to pick up young french madamemouislles), asking the time, if they speak english, if they would like to have a drink (at my place). The thing that impresses me most about the program though, is how it teaches it to you so naturally and organically. I find often that without having to put in too much effort listening in the car, later on in the afternoon, I can find myself recreating the conversations in my head or throwing the phrases into my conversations with friends and family.

I came across this interesting blog post today where Charles has created a chart (see left) that shows the number of square feet each person has in their respective countries. Here in Australia each person has almost 4 million square feet to play around in (except that most of it is in the center and is desert) check out the full story here http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/30/charts-3.html