Windows Vista's built-in speech recognition tools are seriously powerful and convenient, as Adam demonstrated by controlling his PC with his voice, but, as he noted, the process for adding seriously helpful macros to the "technical preview" macro tool isn't quite apparent. Luckily, Rob Chambers of Microsoft's speech division has posted a guide to editing, saving, and enabling speech macros in Vista. Good thing, too, because his own blog has lots of geekily awesome macros available for free copying: a Windows Media Player controller that lets you say something as casual as "Play something by Led Zeppelin"; a simple "Send email to ..." Outlook macro; and many more. Got some of your own favourite macros? Post 'em up in the comments. Thanks, Al!

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If you've started controlling your PC with your voice but were looking for more ways you can take advantage of speech recognition to make your computer do things, blogger and Microsoft employee Rob Chambers publishes a handful of free macros you can add to your Speech Macros folder to execute any time. For example, Rob's Next Slide macro advances a PowerPoint presentation when you say "Next slide" and goes back when you say "Previous slide."

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Taking a tip from Adam's recent look at Controlling your Vista PC with Speech Recognition Macros, the Productivity Portfolio blog takes an in-depth look at the speech recognition features built into nearly every Microsoft Office release since 2002. With a decent microphone and a little training, you'll be able to dictate, issue commands, and hear your content read back to you. For those with arm and hand injuries or anyone looking to get comfortable with voice commands, it's a helpful post.

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You've been talking to (or screaming at) your Windows PC for years, but unless you were willing to shell out hundreds of dollars on pricey software, chances are it wasn't listening to a word you were saying. With Microsoft's new freeware tool, Windows Speech Recognition Macros, the days of you talking into your computer's unsympathetic ear are over. Not only is it listening, but it's up to the task of doing whatever you want it to.

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Windows Vista only: Microsoft has released a free "Technical Preview" of new macro features for Vista's Speech Recognition features, offering the kind of text substitution and macro-keystroke-firing provided by Texter and similar apps to voice commands. The interface is extremely simple, as explained by Lifehacker reader Abdul—simply choose the type of macro you want to enable, give it the text or commands to fire, and turn on Vista's speech recognition. It worked pretty well with my cheap USB headset on a test run, and the software is pretty refined for a "preview." Windows Speech Recognition Macros is a free download for Windows Vista systems; downloading requires running a Windows Genuine validation tool.

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Speech recognition software can be a great solution for people with keyboard-related RSI, or those who like to capture their thoughts with a voice recorder. As Lifehack.org points out, commercial software (like Dragon Natually Speaking) can be expensive. But he offers a free solution -  Windows Vista has in-built speech recognition software.

This post runs you through how to set up Vista's SR program and train it to accurately transcribe your voice into text. He also includes some general tips for using speech recognition.

How to Use Windows Vista Speech Recognition [Lifehack.org]