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Voice Assistant

3 writing tips when using Google Apps

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Google apps have hundreds of features (some from Google, some from third parties) most users don't know about. In this short article, I want to share four tips that will make your life writing in Google apps easier (useful for students and professionals alike). 

Voice Typing

Over the years, I have spent hundreds of dollars on voice typing apps for Mac and Windows (most going to the Dragon Naturally speaking product line from Nuance software). 
For 85% of users, these expensive & complicated products are overkill, and Google makes it's excellent voice recognition engine available for free to all Google Docs users. 
Just click on tools and select Voice Typing.

  • You can check out the Google Support doc explaining this feature here but it is so simple, you should be able to turn it on and start using it immediately. Remember that you can also dictate punctuation:
  • Period
  • Comma
  • Exclamation point
  • Question mark
  • New line
  • New paragraph

Write well with Grammarly

Grammarly is a free (has a paid upgrade) service that helps improve the quality of your writing by :

  • Checking your grammar
  • checking contextually aware spelling
  • recommending vocabulary enhancements

In its simplest (free) form, Grammarly is a Chrome plug-in that works seamlessly with most web services (including Google Docs), and their correction engine is much more robust than simple word misspelling detection. 
You can upgrade to their premium service which costs ($11.66 a month when paid annually). In addition to all the features included in the free version, the premium service adds:

  • advanced check for punctuation, grammar, context and sentence structure
  • vocabulary enhanced suggestions
  • genre-specific writing style checks
  • Plagiarism detector that references more than 8B webpages

Most users will be perfectly fine with the free version so check it out.

Grade readability

The free Hemingway App allows you to paste content into its online editor and assigns a readability score. It uses colour highlighting to identify hard to read sentences. It provides tips on how to simplify the text, use of passive voice, etc. 

There is a $19.99 premium version that operates as a standalone app (Windows and Mac only) but the web version works fine and is accessible anywhere you have a web browser.

Use a Chromebook

Those that have been following me for a while know I love Chromebooks. Chromebooks aren't perfect and won't meet everyone's requirements. Chromebooks do provide a stable, safe and reliable platform when using web-based services. 


Everything mentioned in this article is based on the web or is a chrome extension. These tips will work flawlessly on Chromebooks (whether a $200 Lenovo or a $999 Pixelbook). 

Google Home Superbowl ad

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Google has started taking hardware seriously in recent years with its Chromecast and Pixels. Then Google launched the Google Home a voice controlled speaker system that competes directly against the Amazon Echo.

In addition to basic voice control, it brought the Google Assistant (until then reserved for the Pixel line of smartphones) to the masses. You can ask Google Home any question and watch it miraculously respond leveraging the massive Google knowledge graph. 

It can play music from Google Play or Spotify, It an give you weather, news and sport scores. It can do math, spell words and provide definitions. It can even add items to a shopping list. 

Continuing its massive advertising spend, Google will showcase Google Home during the Superbowl with a commercial showing some of its capabilities.  Because they show examples of commands, if you own a Google Home or Pixel smartphone, just know they will go off a couple of times,

Hey Siri Cheat Sheet

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

All digital assistants are complicated creatures that force you to learn a new query language. Siri is no exception. It can do a mind numbing number of activities. How do you remember everything it can accomplish? 

A new site called Hey-Siri.io currently lists over 480 different commands with all of the different variations and permutations available neatly bundled in 35 categories. You can filter results with IOS or MAC and English or German.

So far it looks like the site author will maintain the site as Apple adds new abilities to Siri.